So I started this morning at a garden that was only so-so, and from there caught a river bus to Asakusa (I was there earlier this week as well). Apparently the main feature of the river is the 50-something bridges which span it. They were fine.
The highlight of my day focused around the (world-famous) Asakusa samba carnival. It was crowded, but the crowd did not feel like they were in the middle of a carnival. Besides quiet talking to each other, they could have been at Symphony hall they were so polite. Not even slight tapping of the feet to very energetic music. I ended up getting packed in between a few other people in a rather uncomfortable manner, and this old man next to me had face spasms. I swear he was about to faint from heat stroke, as it was ridiculously hot. I got bored after a while and went wandering around, eventually parking myself after the end of the parade, so I got to watch the people walk by in costume from a sitting position, and although I didn't get the music, most of the dancing wasn't anything special, so seeing them walk by was great.
Once I got bored of that I then wandered further, and decided that I needed one picture taken of me in Tokyo, to prove that I was actually here rather than downloading photos from the net. So I asked a nearby foreigner if he would do the honors, and got a photo with some of the be-feathered, almost-naked ladies for posterity. We then got to talking, and watched more exhausted parade dancers and musicians walk by. After about an hour we headed over to the Asakusa temple, where I give a big shout out to Amy, the Adams House tutor, who I ran into. Despite neither of us remembering the other's name at the time, it was quite exciting to see a familiar face and so surreal.
So the guy I met (I think his name was John) and I walked around the temple together, took photos, threw some money (literally threw, as in tossed over other's heads) into the collection box, and saw the last act in the parade, which was actually really good. They had actually rehearsed their act a lot and knew what they were doing, which put them pretty far ahead everyone else. But for this I will defnitely have to send you to the photos, which in this case speak much louder than words. You will be able to see the anti-smoking campaign, little unenthusiastic baton twirlers, and rows upon rows of feathers. Captions will, naturally, be included, and I hope you enjoy. Photos from all of Japan will begin to go up when I get home (tomorrow!). Best!
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Friday, August 24, 2007
Day 4 in Tokyo: It's fishy!
Day 4 in Tokyo:
Although it was cloudy today, there was no rain, so up I got at the crack of dawn and headed to Tsukiji. The place was huge (think about twice the size of a large Target or Wal-mart, but twice as crowded and with fish!) and had row upon row upon row of all things that grow in the sea. Probably the coolest thing was the live octopi, the second coolest thing the bivalves that were about the size of dinner plates, and third coolest thing the half-tunas that I saw being butchered (if they come in frozen the butcher uses a jigsaw to cut it apart). Other things I saw, in no particular order: clams the size of my thumbnail, crabs with spikes, sea urchins, red snappers, flounder, eels, live and dead, baby octopi, squid, shrimp the length of my hand, dried shrimp less than a centimeter long, little normal crabs, live scallops, giant oysters, a mountain of Styrofoam, frozen fish large and small, a guy going at the fish with a pickaxe, tuna coffins (the boxes tuna are shipped in), and that’s the highlights of Tsukiji. If you want more info on it, I would recommend Prof. Bestor’s book aptly titled Tsukiji. He’s the world’s foremost academic expert on the place.
After the market I went to grab a sushi breakfast, which was fun. I somehow ended up at another empty place, but ordered the chef’s plate. I was watching the sushi chef prepare my fish when all of a sudden a plate was put in front of me. It was uni, but not the short, brown eel on rice that you get at American places. No no, this was a normal sized piece of sushi rice with an 8-inch fillet placed on top with sauce. It was sooo good. I learned you shouldn’t eat sushi with your hands, no matter what the New York Times suggests (one of the chefs made a face when he saw me starting to eat one piece with my hands) and that I really dislike sea urchin. Raw scallop doesn’t taste like much, I would stick with the cooked scallop, and with fresh sushi you can really tell how each fish tastes different.
So by the time I finished with all this I had been up for about four hours and had a killer headache. I noticed a hospital was nearby and so found a pharmacy and used my guidebook phrase "watashi wa kozu ga arimasu" or, "I have a headache". I then asked for asupurin, and the lady said something which I didn’t understand and asked me to stand there and wait (or something like that, I don’t really know, but the point was I stood and waited). A few minutes later someone else came by who spoke English, and she showed me the choice of medicines. One was acetaminophen, and the other two were mysteries. I picked the one with the name that sounded closest to ibuprofen (I think it was Borufen or something like that) and followed the instructions to take two. Well I really don’t know what was in there, but either I was really happy to be rid of the headache or the meds made me really giddy.
So by the time I got to my next stop, the imperial palace, I was cheerful and energetic again. Of course, per my luck, the east imperial gardens are closed on Fridays, so I needed something else to do. I decided to head to Akihabara, or the electric city, just to check it out as it was the closest thing on the map and I didn’t want to do more subway riding.
However on the way over I got pretty tired, so I stopped in a Starbucks for a java-chip frap and to have a seat and just chill for a little. This was in the middle of the financial district of Tokyo and at lunchtime. What I noticed was in the comfy chairs next to me suit-toting men would have half their drink and then tilt their heads back for a ten or fifteen minute shut-eye. When in Rome, I said, and so after finishing my drink (I didn’t want it to melt) I took myself a good fifteen minute nap. When I came to I was feeling much refreshed, and headed over to Akihabara.
Akihabara is a lot like Zhongguancun in Beijing, just shop after shop after shop filled with all things electronic. The Tsukiji of computer geeks, if I may. I picked up a pair of headphones and a few presents for people (all non-electronic related, actually), and was unabashedly hit on by a salesman. This guy was from Africa and began hitting on me the instant I entered the store. He then stopped me to have a conversation, and twenty minutes later somehow found he during his break for a drink. We sat and made small talk for an hour, he couldn’t believe that in Tokyo I would want to spend a lot of time at museums instead of discos, and gave me his number for me to call tomorrow night if I want to go out. I doubt I will, but thanks anyway.
Other than that I grabbed tempura for dinner and a crepe with custard filling for desert, and came back to the hotel. Somehow that managed to fill up a 12 hour day, but I’m okay with that as I don’t have much left that I really want to do in Tokyo. Tomorrow I hope to go to one more temple and attend the Asakusa Samba festival, because how often are you in Japan the same weekend as an international Samba festival? I figured why not. If that falls through I may try to get out to the Tokyo countryside for the day, but we’ll see. Tomorrow is my last day, however, and then Sunday I spend a whole lot of time getting back to America. That is not going to be a fun trip.
Although it was cloudy today, there was no rain, so up I got at the crack of dawn and headed to Tsukiji. The place was huge (think about twice the size of a large Target or Wal-mart, but twice as crowded and with fish!) and had row upon row upon row of all things that grow in the sea. Probably the coolest thing was the live octopi, the second coolest thing the bivalves that were about the size of dinner plates, and third coolest thing the half-tunas that I saw being butchered (if they come in frozen the butcher uses a jigsaw to cut it apart). Other things I saw, in no particular order: clams the size of my thumbnail, crabs with spikes, sea urchins, red snappers, flounder, eels, live and dead, baby octopi, squid, shrimp the length of my hand, dried shrimp less than a centimeter long, little normal crabs, live scallops, giant oysters, a mountain of Styrofoam, frozen fish large and small, a guy going at the fish with a pickaxe, tuna coffins (the boxes tuna are shipped in), and that’s the highlights of Tsukiji. If you want more info on it, I would recommend Prof. Bestor’s book aptly titled Tsukiji. He’s the world’s foremost academic expert on the place.
After the market I went to grab a sushi breakfast, which was fun. I somehow ended up at another empty place, but ordered the chef’s plate. I was watching the sushi chef prepare my fish when all of a sudden a plate was put in front of me. It was uni, but not the short, brown eel on rice that you get at American places. No no, this was a normal sized piece of sushi rice with an 8-inch fillet placed on top with sauce. It was sooo good. I learned you shouldn’t eat sushi with your hands, no matter what the New York Times suggests (one of the chefs made a face when he saw me starting to eat one piece with my hands) and that I really dislike sea urchin. Raw scallop doesn’t taste like much, I would stick with the cooked scallop, and with fresh sushi you can really tell how each fish tastes different.
So by the time I finished with all this I had been up for about four hours and had a killer headache. I noticed a hospital was nearby and so found a pharmacy and used my guidebook phrase "watashi wa kozu ga arimasu" or, "I have a headache". I then asked for asupurin, and the lady said something which I didn’t understand and asked me to stand there and wait (or something like that, I don’t really know, but the point was I stood and waited). A few minutes later someone else came by who spoke English, and she showed me the choice of medicines. One was acetaminophen, and the other two were mysteries. I picked the one with the name that sounded closest to ibuprofen (I think it was Borufen or something like that) and followed the instructions to take two. Well I really don’t know what was in there, but either I was really happy to be rid of the headache or the meds made me really giddy.
So by the time I got to my next stop, the imperial palace, I was cheerful and energetic again. Of course, per my luck, the east imperial gardens are closed on Fridays, so I needed something else to do. I decided to head to Akihabara, or the electric city, just to check it out as it was the closest thing on the map and I didn’t want to do more subway riding.
However on the way over I got pretty tired, so I stopped in a Starbucks for a java-chip frap and to have a seat and just chill for a little. This was in the middle of the financial district of Tokyo and at lunchtime. What I noticed was in the comfy chairs next to me suit-toting men would have half their drink and then tilt their heads back for a ten or fifteen minute shut-eye. When in Rome, I said, and so after finishing my drink (I didn’t want it to melt) I took myself a good fifteen minute nap. When I came to I was feeling much refreshed, and headed over to Akihabara.
Akihabara is a lot like Zhongguancun in Beijing, just shop after shop after shop filled with all things electronic. The Tsukiji of computer geeks, if I may. I picked up a pair of headphones and a few presents for people (all non-electronic related, actually), and was unabashedly hit on by a salesman. This guy was from Africa and began hitting on me the instant I entered the store. He then stopped me to have a conversation, and twenty minutes later somehow found he during his break for a drink. We sat and made small talk for an hour, he couldn’t believe that in Tokyo I would want to spend a lot of time at museums instead of discos, and gave me his number for me to call tomorrow night if I want to go out. I doubt I will, but thanks anyway.
Other than that I grabbed tempura for dinner and a crepe with custard filling for desert, and came back to the hotel. Somehow that managed to fill up a 12 hour day, but I’m okay with that as I don’t have much left that I really want to do in Tokyo. Tomorrow I hope to go to one more temple and attend the Asakusa Samba festival, because how often are you in Japan the same weekend as an international Samba festival? I figured why not. If that falls through I may try to get out to the Tokyo countryside for the day, but we’ll see. Tomorrow is my last day, however, and then Sunday I spend a whole lot of time getting back to America. That is not going to be a fun trip.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Day 3 in Tokyo: Raw chicken, anyone?
Tokyo day 3:
Did you know that they give out samples of Sake at the grocery stores here? Go figure.
So I woke up at a bright and early 6:30 AM to get ready to go to Tsukigi (pronounced like squeegee but with a k instead of a qu—the u in this case is essentially silent) and see fish and eat sushi, only to discover that it was raining. Deciding that fish would not be half as much fun in the rain, I went back to bed (no tears there). Going back to bed wasn’t torture, however, on account of my figuring out how the air-con works. Hooray!
So I got up, grabbed another onigiri at the 7-11 (salmon this time—mmmm) and headed over to an area called omote-sando. My first stop was a museum that ended up being closed, so I walked down to this little museum which specializes in ukio-e (woodblock prints). It was really cute and had all these woodblock prints of different subjects related to kabuki. From there I headed down Takeshita-dori (dori means street, or at least I think it does), which is where all the teenagers go to get their clothing (or if you’re in need of cheap lingerie or drag costume) and noticed I believe five or six crepe stands. Crepes are a snackfood here, often served with ice cream, fruit, and/or chocolate sauce, but if you’re in the mood for a savory one you can also find wholesome tuna with tomato sauce or sliced ham with mayo. I grabbed lunch at a Yoshinoya (a chain) which was not as good as the hype, and from there wanted to cross the tracks to the park and shrine on the other side. Not being able to see how to do this, I decided that if I walked along the tracks there would have to be a bridge or underpass soon. I guess I picked the wrong direction. A mile later I found an underpass, but by then had walked most of the entire length of the park.
A bonus of this walk was that I passed by a GA Houses bookstore, which was cute and fun. Saw some familiar books in there and flipped through some neat things.
Eventually reaching the top of the park, I was greeted by a giant Shinto-style arch. This thing must have been 20 feet from post to post with the lintel just as high. The wood logs used for the posts would probably take three people to encircle them. Talk about awe-inspiring! The park was the area surrounding the Meiji-Jingu, or shrine to the entombed bodies of the Emperor and Empress Meiji. The shrine itself was pretty, but not that impressive (nobody was allowed anywhere near the entrance. However, one tradition is to write a wish on a plaque and hang it up. Every year in September or so they burn all the plaques from the year. Some of the wishes were pretty funny, and I took pictures. One example, just to get you excited for it, is: "May Dusty be having fun at the cat hotel and may my family be happy and Dylan not too pissed at me and may I have lots of stories to tell at camp if I go there and not to Africa. <3, Caroline (Toronto)". I had fun reading those.
The park itself was amazing, though. It was really a thick woods in the middle of Tokyo. There isn’t much more to say about it, but wow, it was surprising to see such a dense area of forest in the middle of a huge city.
After walking back to the other end, feeling a bit tired by this point, I hopped on the metro to Rippongi to visit the highest museum in the world, or the highest gallery, or something like that. Located on the 53rd floor of the Mori tower, the Mori Art Museum does rotating exhibits, and currently they have a most excellent exhibit dedicated to Le Corbusier. The exhibit had a full-size reproduction of his atelier, a lot of his art from various periods in his life, videos going through his buildings, computer generated videos of how he designed proportions for some of his other buildings, photographs, models, documentaries, a life-size reproduction of one of his apartments, with the actual apartment furnishings on the first floor (the second floor was all plaster), a nice section on the carpenter center at Harvard, which apparently was a great time to talk about how much he hated New York, a replica of his summer vacation home in the South of France (which was very small—only about 4 meters square), and even some of the furniture he designed. The exhibit was well put together, interesting, and fun.
The 52nd floor of the building was occupied by an observatory, from where I could see Tokyo. The city just goes on and on forever in all directions it seems. There really wasn’t an end to the urban part of the city anywhere except the ocean. The Tokyo skyline isn’t anything of particular note, and so though it was nice there isn’t much to comment on. I enjoyed myself and left afterwards feeling ready for dinner.
I found a place for dinner in the nearby area, which turned out to specialize in Yakitori (things on sticks). I had rare chicken with wasabi on a stick (definitely the best one), asparagus wrapped in bacon, okra wrapped in bacon, an egg omelet with green onion and bacon (not on a stick), and eggplant with fresh ginger. Everything was smoky from the grill and delicious, and the cook spoke a little English as he had lived for a year in Australia. He and I talked a little bit as I was the only person in the restaurant, and overall it was a good choice.
After dinner I headed back to the hotel, where you find me now. I’m going to make another attempt at Tsukiji tomorrow, and am going to try and take it easy tonight, as I have a little bit of a headache and tomorrow I need to be up early (again)!
Did you know that they give out samples of Sake at the grocery stores here? Go figure.
So I woke up at a bright and early 6:30 AM to get ready to go to Tsukigi (pronounced like squeegee but with a k instead of a qu—the u in this case is essentially silent) and see fish and eat sushi, only to discover that it was raining. Deciding that fish would not be half as much fun in the rain, I went back to bed (no tears there). Going back to bed wasn’t torture, however, on account of my figuring out how the air-con works. Hooray!
So I got up, grabbed another onigiri at the 7-11 (salmon this time—mmmm) and headed over to an area called omote-sando. My first stop was a museum that ended up being closed, so I walked down to this little museum which specializes in ukio-e (woodblock prints). It was really cute and had all these woodblock prints of different subjects related to kabuki. From there I headed down Takeshita-dori (dori means street, or at least I think it does), which is where all the teenagers go to get their clothing (or if you’re in need of cheap lingerie or drag costume) and noticed I believe five or six crepe stands. Crepes are a snackfood here, often served with ice cream, fruit, and/or chocolate sauce, but if you’re in the mood for a savory one you can also find wholesome tuna with tomato sauce or sliced ham with mayo. I grabbed lunch at a Yoshinoya (a chain) which was not as good as the hype, and from there wanted to cross the tracks to the park and shrine on the other side. Not being able to see how to do this, I decided that if I walked along the tracks there would have to be a bridge or underpass soon. I guess I picked the wrong direction. A mile later I found an underpass, but by then had walked most of the entire length of the park.
A bonus of this walk was that I passed by a GA Houses bookstore, which was cute and fun. Saw some familiar books in there and flipped through some neat things.
Eventually reaching the top of the park, I was greeted by a giant Shinto-style arch. This thing must have been 20 feet from post to post with the lintel just as high. The wood logs used for the posts would probably take three people to encircle them. Talk about awe-inspiring! The park was the area surrounding the Meiji-Jingu, or shrine to the entombed bodies of the Emperor and Empress Meiji. The shrine itself was pretty, but not that impressive (nobody was allowed anywhere near the entrance. However, one tradition is to write a wish on a plaque and hang it up. Every year in September or so they burn all the plaques from the year. Some of the wishes were pretty funny, and I took pictures. One example, just to get you excited for it, is: "May Dusty be having fun at the cat hotel and may my family be happy and Dylan not too pissed at me and may I have lots of stories to tell at camp if I go there and not to Africa. <3, Caroline (Toronto)". I had fun reading those.
The park itself was amazing, though. It was really a thick woods in the middle of Tokyo. There isn’t much more to say about it, but wow, it was surprising to see such a dense area of forest in the middle of a huge city.
After walking back to the other end, feeling a bit tired by this point, I hopped on the metro to Rippongi to visit the highest museum in the world, or the highest gallery, or something like that. Located on the 53rd floor of the Mori tower, the Mori Art Museum does rotating exhibits, and currently they have a most excellent exhibit dedicated to Le Corbusier. The exhibit had a full-size reproduction of his atelier, a lot of his art from various periods in his life, videos going through his buildings, computer generated videos of how he designed proportions for some of his other buildings, photographs, models, documentaries, a life-size reproduction of one of his apartments, with the actual apartment furnishings on the first floor (the second floor was all plaster), a nice section on the carpenter center at Harvard, which apparently was a great time to talk about how much he hated New York, a replica of his summer vacation home in the South of France (which was very small—only about 4 meters square), and even some of the furniture he designed. The exhibit was well put together, interesting, and fun.
The 52nd floor of the building was occupied by an observatory, from where I could see Tokyo. The city just goes on and on forever in all directions it seems. There really wasn’t an end to the urban part of the city anywhere except the ocean. The Tokyo skyline isn’t anything of particular note, and so though it was nice there isn’t much to comment on. I enjoyed myself and left afterwards feeling ready for dinner.
I found a place for dinner in the nearby area, which turned out to specialize in Yakitori (things on sticks). I had rare chicken with wasabi on a stick (definitely the best one), asparagus wrapped in bacon, okra wrapped in bacon, an egg omelet with green onion and bacon (not on a stick), and eggplant with fresh ginger. Everything was smoky from the grill and delicious, and the cook spoke a little English as he had lived for a year in Australia. He and I talked a little bit as I was the only person in the restaurant, and overall it was a good choice.
After dinner I headed back to the hotel, where you find me now. I’m going to make another attempt at Tsukiji tomorrow, and am going to try and take it easy tonight, as I have a little bit of a headache and tomorrow I need to be up early (again)!
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Day 2 in Tokyo
Day 2 in Tokyo:
Today started out horribly. I woke up several times during the morning burning up because my room got super-uncomfortably warm. However I persevered and tried to ignore the heat and am thankful I didn’t die of heat stroke.
So I got up this morning, bought an onigiri (rice and treat wrapped in seaweed, mine was chicken—mmm) at the corner Seven-Eleven and hopped on the subway to Ueno park. Today I believe is supposed to be the warmest/one of the warmest days I’m here, so decided to try and make it more indoorsy. I picked Ueno because it is where most of Tokyo’s good museums are concentrated. It’s a lot like the Mall in DC—a big park with museums (and the zoo as well as a few shrines) scattered around the perimeter. I went to a few shrines first in the morning, which was lovely, and at about noon headed over to the Tokyo National Museum. This is a museum with about four or five buildings, and I went first to the main building, which houses the Japanese art. I emerged from that one building over two hours later, very pleased. I saw some neat ceramics, some beautiful Buddhist statues, thought I saw Dean Kirby, calligraphy, screens, Samurai swords and armor, a toilet which offered to wash and dry my tushie, Kabuki costumes, a famous essay (written partially in Classical Chinese! Woot!) and laquerware, plus some other things which slip my mind. One of my favorites was the Buddhist sculptures which has crystal inlay over lacquer on their lips and eyes—that meant that the eyes looked glassy (there was this one that stared right at me, I’ll be having nightmares about that one) and lips looked like they had a touch of gloss on them. I thought that was really neat. There were good English explanations of a lot of the things (except for the toilet. Hmm…) and I had a really good time there.
The other building I went to was built exclusively for this treasure collection which I failed to appreciate properly. I think it held more significance for the locals. However I did appreciate the really great modern architecture of that building.
I ended up not going to any other museums in the area because they didn’t look as good and I don’t quite have unlimited time. However their western art museum was designed by Le Corbusier, which I appreciated. Tokyo has some really neat architecture, I have to say.
After that I walked over to this street where the center of the black market used to be located, but now it is much more like a little shopping street full of small items and shoes. I bought a hat to shade myself from the last rays of the afternoon sun. And I’ll wear it tomorrow. I think wearing a hat will be easier than dealing with an umbrella, which I did today but found very inconvenient.
From the old black market street I walked over to the street where all the commercial restaurant vendors are. It was AMAZING!! It was like a kilometer of Northwestern Cutlery in Japanese. Japan is the master of the specialty shop. Some of these places sold only knives (those were my favorite—row upon row of gorgeous knives, some from great names like Wusthof and others local Japanese names—but all good quality, full tang, sharp blades, etc. One sold only lacquered wooden dishes, others only sold server and chefs clothing, some were more all-around places, and several were exclusively focused on plastic food. Window displays. Ice cream, sushi, pasta (with fork hanging in midair above the plate), soup, crepes, all foods and all shapes and sizes. Really hilarious stuff, but surprisingly real-looking. Those were hilarious.
One store on this street where I stopped to buy something, after purchasing I was offered a cup of ice cold barley tea. I love barley tea, first of all, and second they were so nice about it and smiled and made me feel special.
From there I walked to Asakusa, which had a few streets selling somewhat touristy-type stuff, which was most definitely fun, and grabbed dinner at a small place where I picked my dinner based on the plastic food choices. The waitress and cooks behind the counter kept trying to ask me questions and I never understood them, but that was okay. One guy had a few words of English and so I could answer his questions pretty well.
One thing I like about Tokyo is that everyone presumes you know Japanese until you look at them funny and say ‘iie nihongo’ (no Japanese) and often times they have no English so you just have to get by, but at least they give you the chance. Although it is hard for me to get by (like I said yesterday) it is still fun, and I feel like they don’t treat me like an idiot here. Although the fact that I don’t speak the language leaves me panicked every now and then, it also means I feel twice as accomplished every time I get something right or do something. And at the least the things I do know how to say I can say well enough that people think I might speak Japanese from them. Though I also think that going five days without having a real conversation might drive me crazy. But so far so good, and tomorrow I have high hopes—I plan on traveling to Tsukiji—the biggest fish market in the world! That means I have to wake up early—I need to get there by about 7:30, but I am going to have sushi as fresh as it gets and see Tuna as big as me (I hope). So now I’m going to go take a soak in the hostel’s public bath (it is open for men 4 hours and women only 1—so unfair!) and head to bed before it gets too late. Until tomorrow!
Today started out horribly. I woke up several times during the morning burning up because my room got super-uncomfortably warm. However I persevered and tried to ignore the heat and am thankful I didn’t die of heat stroke.
So I got up this morning, bought an onigiri (rice and treat wrapped in seaweed, mine was chicken—mmm) at the corner Seven-Eleven and hopped on the subway to Ueno park. Today I believe is supposed to be the warmest/one of the warmest days I’m here, so decided to try and make it more indoorsy. I picked Ueno because it is where most of Tokyo’s good museums are concentrated. It’s a lot like the Mall in DC—a big park with museums (and the zoo as well as a few shrines) scattered around the perimeter. I went to a few shrines first in the morning, which was lovely, and at about noon headed over to the Tokyo National Museum. This is a museum with about four or five buildings, and I went first to the main building, which houses the Japanese art. I emerged from that one building over two hours later, very pleased. I saw some neat ceramics, some beautiful Buddhist statues, thought I saw Dean Kirby, calligraphy, screens, Samurai swords and armor, a toilet which offered to wash and dry my tushie, Kabuki costumes, a famous essay (written partially in Classical Chinese! Woot!) and laquerware, plus some other things which slip my mind. One of my favorites was the Buddhist sculptures which has crystal inlay over lacquer on their lips and eyes—that meant that the eyes looked glassy (there was this one that stared right at me, I’ll be having nightmares about that one) and lips looked like they had a touch of gloss on them. I thought that was really neat. There were good English explanations of a lot of the things (except for the toilet. Hmm…) and I had a really good time there.
The other building I went to was built exclusively for this treasure collection which I failed to appreciate properly. I think it held more significance for the locals. However I did appreciate the really great modern architecture of that building.
I ended up not going to any other museums in the area because they didn’t look as good and I don’t quite have unlimited time. However their western art museum was designed by Le Corbusier, which I appreciated. Tokyo has some really neat architecture, I have to say.
After that I walked over to this street where the center of the black market used to be located, but now it is much more like a little shopping street full of small items and shoes. I bought a hat to shade myself from the last rays of the afternoon sun. And I’ll wear it tomorrow. I think wearing a hat will be easier than dealing with an umbrella, which I did today but found very inconvenient.
From the old black market street I walked over to the street where all the commercial restaurant vendors are. It was AMAZING!! It was like a kilometer of Northwestern Cutlery in Japanese. Japan is the master of the specialty shop. Some of these places sold only knives (those were my favorite—row upon row of gorgeous knives, some from great names like Wusthof and others local Japanese names—but all good quality, full tang, sharp blades, etc. One sold only lacquered wooden dishes, others only sold server and chefs clothing, some were more all-around places, and several were exclusively focused on plastic food. Window displays. Ice cream, sushi, pasta (with fork hanging in midair above the plate), soup, crepes, all foods and all shapes and sizes. Really hilarious stuff, but surprisingly real-looking. Those were hilarious.
One store on this street where I stopped to buy something, after purchasing I was offered a cup of ice cold barley tea. I love barley tea, first of all, and second they were so nice about it and smiled and made me feel special.
From there I walked to Asakusa, which had a few streets selling somewhat touristy-type stuff, which was most definitely fun, and grabbed dinner at a small place where I picked my dinner based on the plastic food choices. The waitress and cooks behind the counter kept trying to ask me questions and I never understood them, but that was okay. One guy had a few words of English and so I could answer his questions pretty well.
One thing I like about Tokyo is that everyone presumes you know Japanese until you look at them funny and say ‘iie nihongo’ (no Japanese) and often times they have no English so you just have to get by, but at least they give you the chance. Although it is hard for me to get by (like I said yesterday) it is still fun, and I feel like they don’t treat me like an idiot here. Although the fact that I don’t speak the language leaves me panicked every now and then, it also means I feel twice as accomplished every time I get something right or do something. And at the least the things I do know how to say I can say well enough that people think I might speak Japanese from them. Though I also think that going five days without having a real conversation might drive me crazy. But so far so good, and tomorrow I have high hopes—I plan on traveling to Tsukiji—the biggest fish market in the world! That means I have to wake up early—I need to get there by about 7:30, but I am going to have sushi as fresh as it gets and see Tuna as big as me (I hope). So now I’m going to go take a soak in the hostel’s public bath (it is open for men 4 hours and women only 1—so unfair!) and head to bed before it gets too late. Until tomorrow!
Day 1 in Tokyo
Day 1 in Tokyo:
I got up at the crack of dawn to drag all my crap down the stairs (with the help of the lovely Tian Jing) found a cab to the bus stop and got the last seat on a bus to the airport. As it would be, the last seat meant squeezing between two older men who were profuse sweaters, a little pudgy, and the one on my right obviously had once been a cat, considering how many times he tried to clear his throat. I wanted to give him the good ol’ elbow in the ribs every time he did that, but I also didn’t want to touch him.
The airport was altogether uneventful, though I danced a merry little dance when my bags weren’t overweight, and the instant I got onto the super-clean Japanese-run plane I pulled a blanket around my head (no pillow again—I’m getting tired of those flights) and crashed. I woke up when the food cart was pulling away, and managed to grab a tray before it was too late. Of course, had I slept through it, the waitresses were considerate enough to leave a post-it on the seat in front of me asking me to call them when I was ready for my meal. The people on the plane were generally quiet, the half hour of spiderman 3 I watched was as bad as everyone had said, and three hours later I landed in Tokyo.
Perhaps the proudest moment of my day was when I asked where an ATM was and the lady at the counter gave me some directions. All I understood was one word—hidali—but I knew that it meant left, and so I walked in the direction she gestured (don’t point, just gesture—I pointed by accident once and the guy I was talking to dodged to avoid the direction of my index finger) and looked on the left and found it.
Trying to figure out how to get to the hotel was difficult. So the advantage of having studied Chinese is that I recognize all the kanji they use here, which is very common in place names, meaning that maps aren’t too difficult for me. The problem is I have no clue how to say anything. So although I may know how to say something and what it looks like, I probably won’t connect the dots. Or, more commonly, I just know one or the other, and that doesn’t get me very far at the end of the day. So I finally get helped by someone really nice who was working there to help us buy tickets, and she tells me how I should go and where to transfer, and I nod and get the right ticket, but only after boarding do I realize that although her directions may have been good, the only map on the subway used kanji (hence the above ramp) so I knew I wanted to go to Minami senju, but I didn’t know that that also meant . Eventually I had the guts to ask the nice-looking girl next to me, and she gave me decent directions, then went on her phone to check and told me in English very good directions. She was great.
So an hour or so later I arrive at the station, and looking at my directions I printed out from the hotel, it’s a seven minute walk. That was as much as I got regarding directions. So I asked a guy at the counter who pulled out a printed little map which I guess the hotel gave him, as marked right on it was my hotel. Blessing my fortune, I dragged my boatloads of crap behind me and headed towards the hotel, huffing and puffing along.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire, as they say. Shanghai was finally beginning to cool down to a reasonable temperature when I left, and I have discovered, to my chagrin, that Tokyo is hot. Unpleasantly hot. Really hot. Still not as bad as Shanghai was at its worst, but still warm enough that being outside is sort of unpleasant. Why me? Why, oh why?
So dripping sweat I make a turn where the map says, and continue walking. I pass one alley, then another, and realize I’ve most definitely walked too far, despite not yet running into the cross street. I review my moves, no mistakes, and then realize that those alleys are streets. Tokyo is designed in little neighborhoods, and each block has a number, so I’m in the neighborhood Kiyokawa in the 2nd area on block 38, building number 3, which is just written 2-38-3 Kiyokawa. Those little alleys are the streets which divide the blocks, and once I worked all this out I turned down the right alley to the hotel, where I got a 4th floor room, and luckily the front desk lady was nice enough to help me drag all my crap up the stairs.
So dripping sweat I opened the door to my room, which is a little 3 mat room (aka 6x10 or so. There’s a TV on a cart in one corner and a pile of blankets for making a bed in the other corner. There are some hooks along the walls and a shelf in the back. The bathroom is down the hallway one floor down, and I think there are only showers on the first floor. We aren’t allowed to wear shoes past the hotel entrance, where we change to slippers, and we aren’t even supposed to wear slippers on the mat.
The staff here are really nice, and although it is a little minimal it works just fine. They are great with directions, suggestions, and all sorts of other things. And you can drink the tap water! That makes me happy (I’m easy to please, what can I say?).
After trying to cool down I decided to go out and explore the neighborhood. I went on a long walk through a few little districts, eventually ending up at this mall nearby. I went into the grocery store there to look at produce and oh my god was it amazing. Ginger still attached to the stems, Daikon radishes the length of my forearm and twice as thick, fresh, unground wasabi, and the fish! They must have had eight different sushi boxes and the same amount of sashimi boxes, not to mention the whole baby octopus, the giant octopus arms, clams, and all sorts of other stuff. I took pictures and they’ll go up soon.
After that I picked a place for dinner. I went in and the waitress said all sorts of things to me, and I smiled and sat down and looked at the pictureless menu. I had picked this place because the plastic food outside looked good, so eventually I picked something that I knew was a set meal. She asked me a question which I think had to maybe do with what I wanted on my rice, but maybe not, and I looked at her funny, and she sort of thought for a second, wrote something down and walked off. I figured that was a good sign. I ended up ordering sobu noodles with little bits of crunchy tempura batter, seaweed, and onion, with picked vegetables and rice. The rice had a raw egg cracked on top plus a dollop of fresh wasabi. The egg white was fluffy from being steamed by the rice, and when you mixed it all together it was this fluffy, sticky, goopy, a little spice mess. I added a little soy sauce which made that part great as well.
After that I walked home, which brings me back to here. Until tomorrow!
I got up at the crack of dawn to drag all my crap down the stairs (with the help of the lovely Tian Jing) found a cab to the bus stop and got the last seat on a bus to the airport. As it would be, the last seat meant squeezing between two older men who were profuse sweaters, a little pudgy, and the one on my right obviously had once been a cat, considering how many times he tried to clear his throat. I wanted to give him the good ol’ elbow in the ribs every time he did that, but I also didn’t want to touch him.
The airport was altogether uneventful, though I danced a merry little dance when my bags weren’t overweight, and the instant I got onto the super-clean Japanese-run plane I pulled a blanket around my head (no pillow again—I’m getting tired of those flights) and crashed. I woke up when the food cart was pulling away, and managed to grab a tray before it was too late. Of course, had I slept through it, the waitresses were considerate enough to leave a post-it on the seat in front of me asking me to call them when I was ready for my meal. The people on the plane were generally quiet, the half hour of spiderman 3 I watched was as bad as everyone had said, and three hours later I landed in Tokyo.
Perhaps the proudest moment of my day was when I asked where an ATM was and the lady at the counter gave me some directions. All I understood was one word—hidali—but I knew that it meant left, and so I walked in the direction she gestured (don’t point, just gesture—I pointed by accident once and the guy I was talking to dodged to avoid the direction of my index finger) and looked on the left and found it.
Trying to figure out how to get to the hotel was difficult. So the advantage of having studied Chinese is that I recognize all the kanji they use here, which is very common in place names, meaning that maps aren’t too difficult for me. The problem is I have no clue how to say anything. So although I may know how to say something and what it looks like, I probably won’t connect the dots. Or, more commonly, I just know one or the other, and that doesn’t get me very far at the end of the day. So I finally get helped by someone really nice who was working there to help us buy tickets, and she tells me how I should go and where to transfer, and I nod and get the right ticket, but only after boarding do I realize that although her directions may have been good, the only map on the subway used kanji (hence the above ramp) so I knew I wanted to go to Minami senju, but I didn’t know that that also meant . Eventually I had the guts to ask the nice-looking girl next to me, and she gave me decent directions, then went on her phone to check and told me in English very good directions. She was great.
So an hour or so later I arrive at the station, and looking at my directions I printed out from the hotel, it’s a seven minute walk. That was as much as I got regarding directions. So I asked a guy at the counter who pulled out a printed little map which I guess the hotel gave him, as marked right on it was my hotel. Blessing my fortune, I dragged my boatloads of crap behind me and headed towards the hotel, huffing and puffing along.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire, as they say. Shanghai was finally beginning to cool down to a reasonable temperature when I left, and I have discovered, to my chagrin, that Tokyo is hot. Unpleasantly hot. Really hot. Still not as bad as Shanghai was at its worst, but still warm enough that being outside is sort of unpleasant. Why me? Why, oh why?
So dripping sweat I make a turn where the map says, and continue walking. I pass one alley, then another, and realize I’ve most definitely walked too far, despite not yet running into the cross street. I review my moves, no mistakes, and then realize that those alleys are streets. Tokyo is designed in little neighborhoods, and each block has a number, so I’m in the neighborhood Kiyokawa in the 2nd area on block 38, building number 3, which is just written 2-38-3 Kiyokawa. Those little alleys are the streets which divide the blocks, and once I worked all this out I turned down the right alley to the hotel, where I got a 4th floor room, and luckily the front desk lady was nice enough to help me drag all my crap up the stairs.
So dripping sweat I opened the door to my room, which is a little 3 mat room (aka 6x10 or so. There’s a TV on a cart in one corner and a pile of blankets for making a bed in the other corner. There are some hooks along the walls and a shelf in the back. The bathroom is down the hallway one floor down, and I think there are only showers on the first floor. We aren’t allowed to wear shoes past the hotel entrance, where we change to slippers, and we aren’t even supposed to wear slippers on the mat.
The staff here are really nice, and although it is a little minimal it works just fine. They are great with directions, suggestions, and all sorts of other things. And you can drink the tap water! That makes me happy (I’m easy to please, what can I say?).
After trying to cool down I decided to go out and explore the neighborhood. I went on a long walk through a few little districts, eventually ending up at this mall nearby. I went into the grocery store there to look at produce and oh my god was it amazing. Ginger still attached to the stems, Daikon radishes the length of my forearm and twice as thick, fresh, unground wasabi, and the fish! They must have had eight different sushi boxes and the same amount of sashimi boxes, not to mention the whole baby octopus, the giant octopus arms, clams, and all sorts of other stuff. I took pictures and they’ll go up soon.
After that I picked a place for dinner. I went in and the waitress said all sorts of things to me, and I smiled and sat down and looked at the pictureless menu. I had picked this place because the plastic food outside looked good, so eventually I picked something that I knew was a set meal. She asked me a question which I think had to maybe do with what I wanted on my rice, but maybe not, and I looked at her funny, and she sort of thought for a second, wrote something down and walked off. I figured that was a good sign. I ended up ordering sobu noodles with little bits of crunchy tempura batter, seaweed, and onion, with picked vegetables and rice. The rice had a raw egg cracked on top plus a dollop of fresh wasabi. The egg white was fluffy from being steamed by the rice, and when you mixed it all together it was this fluffy, sticky, goopy, a little spice mess. I added a little soy sauce which made that part great as well.
After that I walked home, which brings me back to here. Until tomorrow!
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
In Tokyo
I finally made it to Tokyo, where I don't speak the language. I've found that to be a challenge. In other news, my room at the hotel is a three-mat room (ie super small) but it's 'authentic' or something like that. I saw fresh wasabi today and ate a raw egg. Everyone presumes I speak Japanese, and when I don't they act as if I do anyway. It's fun. I'm going to write up blog posts on my computer and transfer them up when I get the chance, so keep your eyes peeled for better tales of adventure and woe!
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Back in Beijing
So last weekend I headed to Beijing on a night train, and the Beijing I found on the other end was disturbingly familar and comfortably different.
Upon arrival in Beijing my host father came to get Tian Jing (host sister, so this is her dad) and me. He drove down to get us instead of making us catch public transit. It took us an hour and a half to drive home, while had we taken the subway it would have been about 35 minutes to a stop 10 minutes away from their house, where they could have come to get us. Its not like either of us had a lot of luggage. Nonetheless, I spent all of Friday morning in a car in traffic. Beijing's traffic has been notoriously bad for a few years, but this is still much worse than even last time I was in Beijing, 2005.
However I did get a lot of time to look out the window (and nap) and really got to see how Beijing is changing. The buildings going up nowadays are no longer crappy-looking plaster-walled apartments that all look identical, but they are beginning to use architecture and modern materials, and things are looking like they're building up well. Buildings are still of poor quality and going up far too quickly, but its still good progress.
My host family and the house seem almost the same as ever. My host mother still worries too much, the keys they gave me still work (though it took me a while to remember how to use them, there's a trick), my host sister is still sleeping in the office because she feels that my room (her old room) is, well, my room. They still have the stuffed Halloween bears that Ning sent me in a care package sitting on a shelf, as well as the black and white sketch of Zhouzhuang that I bought. Hanging on the door is still that wicker tassel thing, and the toiletries I left behind were still sitting on a shelf in the bathroom. I can't remember if those are from '05 or '04, but I find it extremely odd that they hold on to my astringent despite the fact that none of them use it. Other things that haven't changed are their cooking, which is still really disgusting, and the cow-pattern chair covers.
Friday evening I went by Chabad, where I found more changes. They've opened up Beijing's first kosher restaurant and so dinners aren't done in the Chabad house. The family was in South Africa as Dini was delivering a child (congrats again! its a girl!), and there was not one familiar face in the crowd. However that doesn't mean that I didn't thoroughly enjoy the evening, where I met some guys who were traveling to celebrate their completion of the bar exam and had a good conversation.
As for Beijing overall, I would have to call the changes olympic. Everywhere you look there are olympic advertisements, buildings have been ripped down everywhere i look to make room for new development, and everyone is talking constantly about the olympics. The new olympic mascots, the fuwa (or friendlies in English--definitely not as good a name) are adorable, and you can watch the first few minutes of this video to hear the song that was stuck in my head for a week or two after. I almost bought the plastic dolls like on the shelf at the end these guys were so cute, but then discovered the cost the same as three really nice Chinese meals here and decided they aren't quite worth it. Though if I see them in the airport I might break down and buy them anyway, because they really are cute.
The Olympic stadium has been built, but they are keeping it behind a wall with only a few small gaps, so I never really got the time to actually see it well, but it looks pretty neat. Maybe a little less graceful than they had intended, but a cool structure and a neat concept. All the locals call it the 'bird's nest'. There is a lot of heated debate on the architectural merit of the structure.
As for the olympic village, it is only a few blocks from my house, and is huge and going up quickly. They have a sleek modern design for the condos, though I can guarantee you that in 15 years the design is going to be considered soooo dated, but olympic things should be dated. Because they're improving the roads, the detour for buses goes through the village, so I had several opportunities to see what's going on there. They have built really crappy temporary housing for the construction workers that smells like human waste.
But Beijing looks like it is improving quickly, which is exciting. I should go and spend some good time out in Shanghai as I only have three days left here until Tokyo. So psyched. Until next time!
Upon arrival in Beijing my host father came to get Tian Jing (host sister, so this is her dad) and me. He drove down to get us instead of making us catch public transit. It took us an hour and a half to drive home, while had we taken the subway it would have been about 35 minutes to a stop 10 minutes away from their house, where they could have come to get us. Its not like either of us had a lot of luggage. Nonetheless, I spent all of Friday morning in a car in traffic. Beijing's traffic has been notoriously bad for a few years, but this is still much worse than even last time I was in Beijing, 2005.
However I did get a lot of time to look out the window (and nap) and really got to see how Beijing is changing. The buildings going up nowadays are no longer crappy-looking plaster-walled apartments that all look identical, but they are beginning to use architecture and modern materials, and things are looking like they're building up well. Buildings are still of poor quality and going up far too quickly, but its still good progress.
My host family and the house seem almost the same as ever. My host mother still worries too much, the keys they gave me still work (though it took me a while to remember how to use them, there's a trick), my host sister is still sleeping in the office because she feels that my room (her old room) is, well, my room. They still have the stuffed Halloween bears that Ning sent me in a care package sitting on a shelf, as well as the black and white sketch of Zhouzhuang that I bought. Hanging on the door is still that wicker tassel thing, and the toiletries I left behind were still sitting on a shelf in the bathroom. I can't remember if those are from '05 or '04, but I find it extremely odd that they hold on to my astringent despite the fact that none of them use it. Other things that haven't changed are their cooking, which is still really disgusting, and the cow-pattern chair covers.
Friday evening I went by Chabad, where I found more changes. They've opened up Beijing's first kosher restaurant and so dinners aren't done in the Chabad house. The family was in South Africa as Dini was delivering a child (congrats again! its a girl!), and there was not one familiar face in the crowd. However that doesn't mean that I didn't thoroughly enjoy the evening, where I met some guys who were traveling to celebrate their completion of the bar exam and had a good conversation.
As for Beijing overall, I would have to call the changes olympic. Everywhere you look there are olympic advertisements, buildings have been ripped down everywhere i look to make room for new development, and everyone is talking constantly about the olympics. The new olympic mascots, the fuwa (or friendlies in English--definitely not as good a name) are adorable, and you can watch the first few minutes of this video to hear the song that was stuck in my head for a week or two after. I almost bought the plastic dolls like on the shelf at the end these guys were so cute, but then discovered the cost the same as three really nice Chinese meals here and decided they aren't quite worth it. Though if I see them in the airport I might break down and buy them anyway, because they really are cute.
The Olympic stadium has been built, but they are keeping it behind a wall with only a few small gaps, so I never really got the time to actually see it well, but it looks pretty neat. Maybe a little less graceful than they had intended, but a cool structure and a neat concept. All the locals call it the 'bird's nest'. There is a lot of heated debate on the architectural merit of the structure.
As for the olympic village, it is only a few blocks from my house, and is huge and going up quickly. They have a sleek modern design for the condos, though I can guarantee you that in 15 years the design is going to be considered soooo dated, but olympic things should be dated. Because they're improving the roads, the detour for buses goes through the village, so I had several opportunities to see what's going on there. They have built really crappy temporary housing for the construction workers that smells like human waste.
But Beijing looks like it is improving quickly, which is exciting. I should go and spend some good time out in Shanghai as I only have three days left here until Tokyo. So psyched. Until next time!
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Quick Update
Sorry its been a while since I last posted, I've been busy. Anyway, back in Shanghai now, and I will probably post about Beijing later tonight, but just wanted to say that if anyone has any requests for something they'd like from China and/or Japan, please email me soon (aka before the weekend). That's all!
Monday, August 6, 2007
Hangzhou
So on Saturday I took a trip to Hangzhou with my host sister. We won't mention what happened on Friday night, but lets just say I was a little tired when I met her at the train station. This station, might I add, was super cool. For a picture, click here. The space was really open and new, and proved that Chinese railway stations don't have to be gross, dark, and cramped.
So I slept on the two hour ride over there, and we got into Hangzhou just before noon. The main attraction in Hangzhou is the West Lake, which is known for being pretty and nice to walk around. We caught a bus there and began our walk. It was sunny and just enjoying the scenery made me feel at peace. We grabbed lunch, which consisted of a few dumplings (like five) and continued walking. It was somewhat crowded, but surprisingly non-touristy. All these boats were moored along the edges of the lake, a lot of them just little 6-person rowboat type things, and some were big 30-foot wood-paneled enclosed barges. It was all decorated to look like old China. One of the main scenic attractions of Hangzhou are the lotus flowers. Everywhere along the lake are huge bunches of lilly pads, and you can spy out the large, pink flowers within. Both Tian Jing and I took lots of pictures (I'll put links to the pictures up soon).
So since it is a very long walk along the lake, one popular activity is to rent a bicycle for about 5 RMB an hour and bike instead. We were going to do that until up on a hill I spotted a tall, thin tower. I decided that we were going to hike up to that tower instead and see what it was. Tian Jing said that though she had been to Hangzhou several times she had never gone up to that tower because it wasn't very famous. So I decided we had to go, because I wouldn't be me unless I wanted to go to the not famous places more than the famous ones (did that make sense? I'm a little low on sleep...).
We found a map and tracked down the road that led to this tower. We walked up it a bit until we ran into a big gate (ouch!) and a very wide, grand set of stairs. Taking swigs from our waterbottles we began our climb up, and up, and up. By the time we got to the top we weren't exactly energetic enough to look up, so only after resting did we manage to lift our heads and see what we had found. We were on the top of a wooded hill at the base of a five story gray brick tower. The tower was pretty, although we couldn't enter into it, and that alone was worth the hike. To add to it, as we were on top of a large hill, we had a great view of the lake on one side and the downtown city of Hangzhou on the other.
The top of the hill had a path, so we took it and in a minute found ourselves on a narrow path up some rocks between two boulders each the size of a small house. It was chaotic getting through that path, as there was only enough room for one to go by at a time, and you couldn't quite see who was around the corner coming the other way, and by the time it was our turn to go through the little path we had quite a large crowd behind us. But that part was neat too.
Being experimental, on the other side of the narrow path we took a different route down the hill, figuring that if we kept heading in the right direction (aka down) we would eventually return to the lake. Although there were a lot of bugs biting us, we got to see some treats on the way down. We saw a gecko, which was awesome! Tian Jing had never seen one before and was so confused about what it was, and the way it spread its fingers so wide to grip on to things was cool. As if that weren't enough, we began to hear insanely large amounts of buzzing in the air and tried to place it. Eventually it became apparent that there were these large bugs flying through the air with almost two inch wingspans and about an inch long. Some were on a tree, and we noticed that they were almost neon green, and then that they were beetles. They were huge and really beautiful. The last cool wildlife we saw were these little lizards about three or four inches long. They were really thin, thinner than earthworms, and had these dinky little legs. I would never have noticed them except for their iridescent blue tails. So pretty! Why they have bright blue tails I cannot for the life of me figure out, and I also have no clue how they stay alive during the winter. Hangzhou is no tropical paradise, in the winter it snows a fair amount, but in the summer they are allowed their tropical animal life, I suppose. And there was the super cool yellow and black striped centipede. Sorry, forgot about that one.
Near the bottom we saw a large garden and courtyard house that was open to the public, so we went in. We were the only ones there except for a groundskeeper, and it was this beautiful, well-kept house with absolutely no furniture in it and a verdant garden with sculpture, ponds, rocks, and all. It was simple, but really pretty.
The rest of the day we exhausted ourselves walking until our feet bled, eating ice cream, getting nodded at by the foreign man in the ferrari, and listening to a community choir practice opera (aahh! run away!). We got home exhausted, but it was fun to see a new city and it really helped relax me. I hadn't realized how tense I was and how much I missed sunlight until getting to Hangzhou and having all the time in the world and spending it in good company. I got home and felt better about the world, and Danielle came into town the next morning for the week. Hopefully I'll write about her being here next time, and probably something about my trip to Beijing on Friday.
Links to photos:
Hangzhou Photos on Facebook
So I slept on the two hour ride over there, and we got into Hangzhou just before noon. The main attraction in Hangzhou is the West Lake, which is known for being pretty and nice to walk around. We caught a bus there and began our walk. It was sunny and just enjoying the scenery made me feel at peace. We grabbed lunch, which consisted of a few dumplings (like five) and continued walking. It was somewhat crowded, but surprisingly non-touristy. All these boats were moored along the edges of the lake, a lot of them just little 6-person rowboat type things, and some were big 30-foot wood-paneled enclosed barges. It was all decorated to look like old China. One of the main scenic attractions of Hangzhou are the lotus flowers. Everywhere along the lake are huge bunches of lilly pads, and you can spy out the large, pink flowers within. Both Tian Jing and I took lots of pictures (I'll put links to the pictures up soon).
So since it is a very long walk along the lake, one popular activity is to rent a bicycle for about 5 RMB an hour and bike instead. We were going to do that until up on a hill I spotted a tall, thin tower. I decided that we were going to hike up to that tower instead and see what it was. Tian Jing said that though she had been to Hangzhou several times she had never gone up to that tower because it wasn't very famous. So I decided we had to go, because I wouldn't be me unless I wanted to go to the not famous places more than the famous ones (did that make sense? I'm a little low on sleep...).
We found a map and tracked down the road that led to this tower. We walked up it a bit until we ran into a big gate (ouch!) and a very wide, grand set of stairs. Taking swigs from our waterbottles we began our climb up, and up, and up. By the time we got to the top we weren't exactly energetic enough to look up, so only after resting did we manage to lift our heads and see what we had found. We were on the top of a wooded hill at the base of a five story gray brick tower. The tower was pretty, although we couldn't enter into it, and that alone was worth the hike. To add to it, as we were on top of a large hill, we had a great view of the lake on one side and the downtown city of Hangzhou on the other.
The top of the hill had a path, so we took it and in a minute found ourselves on a narrow path up some rocks between two boulders each the size of a small house. It was chaotic getting through that path, as there was only enough room for one to go by at a time, and you couldn't quite see who was around the corner coming the other way, and by the time it was our turn to go through the little path we had quite a large crowd behind us. But that part was neat too.
Being experimental, on the other side of the narrow path we took a different route down the hill, figuring that if we kept heading in the right direction (aka down) we would eventually return to the lake. Although there were a lot of bugs biting us, we got to see some treats on the way down. We saw a gecko, which was awesome! Tian Jing had never seen one before and was so confused about what it was, and the way it spread its fingers so wide to grip on to things was cool. As if that weren't enough, we began to hear insanely large amounts of buzzing in the air and tried to place it. Eventually it became apparent that there were these large bugs flying through the air with almost two inch wingspans and about an inch long. Some were on a tree, and we noticed that they were almost neon green, and then that they were beetles. They were huge and really beautiful. The last cool wildlife we saw were these little lizards about three or four inches long. They were really thin, thinner than earthworms, and had these dinky little legs. I would never have noticed them except for their iridescent blue tails. So pretty! Why they have bright blue tails I cannot for the life of me figure out, and I also have no clue how they stay alive during the winter. Hangzhou is no tropical paradise, in the winter it snows a fair amount, but in the summer they are allowed their tropical animal life, I suppose. And there was the super cool yellow and black striped centipede. Sorry, forgot about that one.
Near the bottom we saw a large garden and courtyard house that was open to the public, so we went in. We were the only ones there except for a groundskeeper, and it was this beautiful, well-kept house with absolutely no furniture in it and a verdant garden with sculpture, ponds, rocks, and all. It was simple, but really pretty.
The rest of the day we exhausted ourselves walking until our feet bled, eating ice cream, getting nodded at by the foreign man in the ferrari, and listening to a community choir practice opera (aahh! run away!). We got home exhausted, but it was fun to see a new city and it really helped relax me. I hadn't realized how tense I was and how much I missed sunlight until getting to Hangzhou and having all the time in the world and spending it in good company. I got home and felt better about the world, and Danielle came into town the next morning for the week. Hopefully I'll write about her being here next time, and probably something about my trip to Beijing on Friday.
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