Well, I know it’s been awhile, but after the past two weeks I feel as though I finally have something worth posting. Two weeks ago we left for a family reunion in Pennsylvania. On Tuesday we returned late, almost on Wednesday, only to leave again on Thursday for a week long rafting trip in Utah through the Desolation and Gray Canyons along the Green River. For photos of this raft trip visit my gallery via the link to the left.
Leaving Kyoto was sad and a little hectic but with the help of three other Americans who were also heading to Tokyo and who had just spent the last two years teaching english in Japan we were able to catch our bus. The bus ride was something that I would never want to do again. First of all four of us were sitting in the very back row which stretched the width of the bus but left barely enough room for us. It was a long night of watching the traffic through heavy eyes while pretending that I could maybe fall asleep. Plus the bus stopped every three hours so even if I could fall asleep it was going to be interrupted by these stops. The bus stopped at some of the biggest truck stops that I’ve ever seen. At one of these stops I got off to get a snack. I ended up getting the spiciest mix I have ever had which made the next hour very uncomfortable for me.
When we finally got to Tokyo it was around 5:30 am and I had maybe slept for 30 minutes but it was very hard to tell. The six of us that had been travelling together then went about figuring out the Tokyo transit system. Without difficulty, surprisingly we soon found ourselves at our hostel for that night. It was now about 7 and we could not drop off our bags until 9 when the office opened. We found an open room and some slept and others went for a McDonald’s breakfast. Finally we were able to go downstairs to the bar area where we could hang out comfortably and with internet. The first day was pretty much a waste because we were so tired and nobody wanted to leave all of our bags under anybody else’s eye before we could get a room.
The next day after a much needed rest we headed off into Tokyo. Our first destination was an amusement park. We didn’t actually ride anything there but there was a pretty awesome looking rollercoaster. We did eat lunch there at a gourmet burger place that was in a western theme, down to the american license plates and old coca-cola ads on the walls. From there we went to the main shopping area called Shibuya. This is where the famous shots are of the intersections with hundreds of people crossing. It is essentially the Times Square of Tokyo. There were a lot of people but it was never staggering. Kaari and I were not able to stay there very long because we had to catch a plane that evening and still had to allow time to pick up our bags and try to figure out the route.
This turned out to be more difficult than we had imagined. We did alright getting to our hostel to get our bags but then we had trouble finding the station that would have our train at it. We relied on some very nice people to help us on our way. We finally got onto our correct train and made it successfully to the airport. After spending as much of my last 1000 yen I boarded my plane and was ready for some warm weather without an agenda.
The plane ride was uneventful and got me into Honolulu at 7:30 am. This was the first time in my entire trip that I would actually feel jet lag. My night of sleep was cut short and I didn’t actually sleep at all on the plane because I’m not very good at it. From the airport I took a bus to downtown Honolulu after first changing out of my clothes into sandals, shorts and a t-shirt. The buses weren’t as smooth as those in Japan, but at least I could ask the driver what bus I needed. I was able to meet a couple of boys travelling from Denmark who were studying at Hawaii for a 3 month course. We were all heading to the school so we tried boarding the same bus but because my backpack was too big I had to take another bus. I was glad that I was able to talk to them during the wait though.
My next bus took me to the campus and when a nice lady told me when to get off I was at my destination. The strange thing is that the woman happened to be on my same bus for the return trip to the airport, only a few seats away. She remembered me, but then again they probably don’t get a lot of people with so much luggage. I called Andrew Hoza, who I would be staying with, and he met me 5 minutes later. We ate together and then while he was at class I caught up on some sleep in his room. During my time in Oahu I spent a good deal of time in Waikiki down by the water. The water was very warm and deadly-free.
On the 2nd I said good-bye to Andrew and flew to Hilo, Hawaii, the big island. Kaari and her cousin Cassidy met me and brought me back to Cassidy’s house for a very welcome mexican meal of tacos and large amounts of salsa, and margaritas. The weather in Hilo is very rainy at this time of year but today we drove to the other side of the island to a beach and managed to get out of the weather. It was nice to see the island outside of the clouds. Most of the landscape consists of igneous rock and is overall not as beautiful as some of the other islands. I’m yet to get a real image of Hilo because of the rain, but hopefully we will have a few days of sunshine. After the beach we drove another little bit to Kona and visited the Kona Brewery for dinner. The food and beer were very good. Tomorrow we are going to a local farmer’s market.
Well, our time here is done and tonight I am leaving for Tokyo on an overnight bus. It seems strange that we no longer have a room here at K’s House Hostel, but it’s even harder to believe that we have already been here for a month. I know that it’s cliche, but it flew by, faster than I knew was possible.
Tomorrow morning we will arrive in Tokyo way too early and I’m sure I will have gotten far too little sleep. I will have tomorrow and most of the next day to explore Tokyo and then I’m off to Hawaii. I’m a little bit sad to leave Kyoto because it is finally starting to feel familiar, but I’m ready to be moving on.
I’m currently trying to load some pictures to my site but I’m having difficulty putting them on so I’ll keep trying. Otherwise I’ll post whenever I can.
Lately we have been hanging around Kyoto looking at temples within the city, which still leaves many options! The city is littered with temples and shrines, many of them in the middle of residential neighborhoods that have grown up around them. It is hard to keep my blog updated with any real detail because many of the places we visit are very similar so I feel as though to explain one is to explain them all. I can’t even remember the names of most of them. That’s not totally my fault though because the language is very different and doesn’t really lend itself to memorization. One stand out in the last week was the Golden Pavilion, which is exactly what it sounds like. The structure is two stories tall with a very ornate roof on top and all of the walls are covered in gold leaf. It is very beautiful, especially with the reflection from the water in front of it. Apparently the original structure was burned down when a monk was so possessive of it that he burned it down. The new version is only built at 2/3 the scale of the original so it was cool to imagine it being even bigger.
Besides seeing temples and shrines there have also been gardens adjacent to many of the buildings at nearly every site. The gardens are either green or rock gardens. The rock gardens are very cool. There are usually around 15 rocks placed throughout the flat rectangular garden. Supposedly from any vantage point a person should never be able to see every rock. The large rocks also sit upon a base of gravel that is meticulously groomed and raked into very cool patterns. It seems impossible to do when you see it finished.
Japan seems to have everything and that was proven last week when four others and I rode bikes to go see monkeys. I had no idea I would get to see monkeys in Japan but it made my day. The bike ride was all the way across town and took nearly an hour. The monkeys were worth it though. They were scattered loosely as we approached along a path up the mountain. Finally we got to the hut where you could feed them and they were all hanging around outside of it. Almost all of them were paired off and one was combing through the other one’s back and head for whatever it is they look for, maybe split ends. Inside the hut we could buy bags of peanuts or apple to feed to the monkeys. It was both fun and a great photo op. When I was done photographing I bought a bag and looked for a monkey to feed. I was inside of a hut with windows covered in chain link fencing and monkeys were hanging on the outside of it, many with their arms outstretched and looks on their faces that said they weren’t asking for food but were expecting it. I was worried as I reached towards them with a peanut in the palm of my hand that they would scratch me as they frantically went for the food. Instead they very carefully plucked the nut from my hands with very deliberate fingers. Everything about them was strangely human.
The rest of the time here in Kyoto has been very cool and I am looking forward to the weekend to sleep in a little bit. I have posted pictures so take a look.
I had some time to explore my website today which means that both my blog and my photo gallery have new looks. I’m excited about the change because now it feels a little bit more like it’s actually mine. The new layout is not my favorite because of some of the placement of items. If you’re looking for the Gamble Gallery, as I’m sure a handful of you are, the link is now on the bottom of the page in the middle.
Otherwise weather has been off and on here and today was a pretty lazy day. After waking up at the crack of 1pm some others and I went to get some lunch and then off to the Garden of Fine Arts, or something like that. It wasn’t the art we were after, because they were all replicas and outdoors, but the building. It was designed by the famous Japanese architect Tadao Ando. I was very pleased with it, first because it was a nice place to spend a nice day, and second because a photograph from just about any placement and at any angle would turn out pretty well. I have posted photos from that and from Ise in the gallery. Tonight has been pretty easygoing and tomorrow is supposed to be good weather which is good because I think we’ll be going to the tallest wooden structure in Japan.
I’ve been in Japan now for about four days. Before I talk about what I’ve done while here in Japan, I want to talk about first getting to Japan, because that was a fun day.
The fun started at 5:00am when I woke to catch my cab to the airport. I think I slept at most four hours that night but somehow the terrifying thought of travelling alone in a foreign country kept me awake. I was travelling solo because I purchased the plane tickets for this leg through a separate company and had the day wrong in my head the whole time. I was glad for the opportunity to feel incredibly uncomfortable and helpless because it is from these moments that I start to feel comfortable and competent. My cab ride was about 45 minutes. I can’t imagine what it would have been if there were more than five other cars on the road. If I were a cab driver in China, I would definately take the graveyard shift because besides not being able to read the street signs, everything else would seem like being in a normal city.
I got checked in at the airport alright after the ticket counter opened. Beijing’s airport is very cool, but it’s one that you have to see from the air to really appreciate. It’s just too big to really understand from the ground. I got to my gate a full hour and a half before my flight so I sat and typed on my computer about my experience in China. I’ve stopped keeping a written journal because it is so slow. I think I like the idea of a journal more than I actually like it. My handwriting is really bad so it is frustrating to write, wondering if even I will be able to read this in five years.
I flew All Nippon Airways, which was a first for me, but I was very satisfied with them. They offered movies on demand which is really all it takes for me. They did have one other thing that impressed me, and kind of scared me as well. Mounted into the nose of the plane was a camera that was broadcasting the plane’s view while we taxied, took off, flew and landed. My first thought was, ‘great, now if we crash I can watch it from the comfort of my seat.’ Fortunately I watched Ocean’s 13 instead.
I got into Tokyo around 1pm and then stood in customs for probably 30 minutes. They let me into the country, big sigh of relief, and then I was off to try to make something of the mess that is Tokyo’s transit system. Luckily I was able to ask for a ticket in english so that first part was easy, but while waiting for my train I went into a tourist office to get some maps. I actually laughed out loud when she handed me the train map. It was clear that it was going to be no help whatsoever.
I boarded my train and departed Narita airport, on time as every train in Japan is, and was on my way to Tokyo’s central station. I think that my day would have gone much smoother if I had known before arrival where I was staying. The plan was to stay with some other kids on the trip who were getting into Tokyo on the same day. They were going to get a room, tell me through facebook where they were staying. My first goal downtown was to find internet. This turned out to be much more difficult than I had imagined. I finally got it free courtesy of the Shangri-La Hotel from a nearby building. I found that they had not contacted me so I decided to just go on to Kyoto where our group would be meeting the next day.
Traveling to Kyoto means taking the bullet train which I had been looking forward to for the entire trip. Unfortunately my train was around 5pm so it was dark for most of the ride. It really just felt like I was on a plane except every time we passed another train the car would sway severely to the side. I would think that it was crazy turbulence, but then I would remember where I was and calm down again. I arrived in Kyoto and through a little struggle found my hostel and was able to get a bed for the night. There were already several people from my group there. My night was not over though because I had to eat. At this point the only food I had that day was on the plane before noon. It was now about 8 pm and I was starving. I was getting very excited because I had accidentally found a McDonald’s near our hostel while I took my roundabout trip. Fast food is a great way to feel better about being in a foreign country. I know that the sign said McDonald’s, but to me it said, “Tiny piece of America brought to Japan just for you Alex.” But below that it also said, “Visa not accepted,” so I would have to wait until I could somehow get cash to have my reunion. Instead I settled on MiniMart. They offered sandwiches, they don’t say which kind, but I just picked a color I liked and went with it. It turned out to be tuna, but I was so hungry it tasted very good.
This is the story of my first day in Japan. Every day since then has been better than the one previous. I hope to tell about them soon, but for now I’m glad to end my blog drought with this.
This entry happened in Nanjing a few days ago but this was the first time I sat down to write about it. It’s a little bit long now that I’ve seen it all down, but here’s the story.
During our second day in Nanjing Sara and I decided to check out getting a hair cut, nothing fancy, just a trim. We found a salon called Chic just down from our hotel. We were hesitant to enter because it was very young and very hip. Also we knew absolutely no chinese so it would be hard to communicate. We entered and the first thing Sara said was, “English?” They stared at us for a little bit and then yelled for someone in the back. A young man came out who was able to speak a little broken english and he ended up translating for us. He said that our hair cuts would be 60 yuan, or about US$8. We agreed and then they started by washing our hair. I’ve never had my hair professionally washed and didn’t think that this service would ever be necessary, but once they started it was amazing. It’s like a head massage with hot water. I didn’t know that my scalp could even feel such things. I think I might get another hair cut just for the shampooing.
After my hair was washed and partially dried I was taken over to my stylist who was waiting for me. It was strange at first and I felt bad for the guy who got stuck with me, the american, because I had no clue what I wanted done. I’m not one to get anything crazy and I’ve always struggled with what to tell a hair stylist about what to do. I don’t know what to call it, just make it shorter. I should have known from looking at each of the worker’s haircuts that I wasn’t getting out of there with just a trim.
The stylist started by combing my hair straight down. He then pushed it all to one side of my face in a sweeping fashion and looked at me as if waiting for my reaction. I shook my head no and then he pushed it to the other side. Same thing. No. He then pulled it all up. By now I was starting to realize that this was not going to be like any haircut I’ve ever had before. I finally gave up with this last offer and I accepted. With a direction to head in he started to cut my hair. To his credit he did the whole thing with scissors. Because of the language barrier I was never really sure what was agreed upon and so each new thing he worked on could have been his last as far as I knew. I just watched him work and hoped that he was going to keep working.
Once the hair was an acceptable length, which was another quasi-secession on my part they took me back to get my hair washed again. This time to get rid of any extra hairs. And there were a lot because he used the thinner quite a bit. I was surprised that after he used it he went through with a comb and the tips of his scissors and meticulously removed the already cut hair. The second hair washing was quite a bit shorter than the first. After they took me back to my chair, for what I didn’t know, and then the stylist tried once again to understand what it was I wanted. If I had known myself I could have told him, but I had no clue. I would have been happy to leave the way I was but that would have been an insult to such a skilled stylist. We somehow ended up on a faux-hawk and so he set about getting that done. He first dried my hair quite a bit with a hair drier, and then with the drier still on used it towards the bottom of my face pointed up to get the hair going up in the front. While he was doing this he was rubbing gel into it to get it to stay. In the end it was very impressive and I got a haircut I was pretty happy with. More importantly I got a story.
I’m pretty sure that my chinese haircut wasn’t just a story for me because afterward, with their camera, they took a photo of me with my stylist. It was only after they did this that I asked them to take one more but with my camera. I will never forget my chinese haircut, but maybe they will never forget their American haircut.
Sorry James and Jill, I thought that I was 23 but as I’m told I’m only 22. So now you are also 22, like me. Happy Birthday anyway.
From Cairns Kar, Sara and I caught a 5:45am flight to Sydney. The flight was pretty uneventful for the most part, which is how I prefer them. There was one moment just after take off when the attendants were just starting to move about where the captain came on the speaker and said, “All flight attendants be seated and buckle in immediately.” He said it sharply as if there wasn’t a spare second so I thought something must be wrong, but it turned out to only be turbulence. Needless to say I spent the rest of the flight listening to the engines and trying to gauge if the plane was level.
We arrived in Sydney with no problems and from there caught our next flight to Shanghai. We flew Qantas which I really recommend for International flights. Each seat has its own television built into the seat back which plays movies, television, music, and radio. On demand. It made the flight almost pleasant. If anything it was a good introduction to being a minority. At least the flight attendants spoke english, they would be just about the last english speakers we would hear in China. For the most part we can just act things out and point to maps and they understand us pretty well.
We arrived in Shanghai around 7 pm and were surprised to find that the Shanghai airport has no Customs. It made getting out of the airport very fast. From there we took a cab into the city which took about an hour to get to our hotel. Taxis are definately the best way to travel here because they are very cheap and they are direct. Our hour cab ride only cost 150 yuan which is about $20. And that is an expensive taxi here. Most of our rides within cities are about 9 yuan which is less than a dollar. After spending a low key evening in the hotel to get some sleep we only had one full day to explore Shanghai. We started by heading to Nanjing Street which is full of shops. Most of them were high class department stores but there were lots of side alleys with cool shops. It was at these that we discovered two things. The first is that people will try anything to get you into their shop. Most people standing in a street are actually working for someone and they’ll try to talk to you and point you to their shop. If you make the mistake of walking too close to a shop the workers will come out and yell hello and then ask, “Watch? Suitcase?” It’s hard to get them to stop but if you shake your head, smile and keep walking they eventually stop and look for the next white person. We are definately targets and people also stare at us. It’s strange to suddenly be the minority. It’s very humbling. The second was that you have to barter for the prices, which I had forgotten about, and you have to barter hard. My strategy has been to counter their first offer with a very low one, then bring it up a little and if they don’t accept just shake my head and start to walk away. They usually hand me the calculator which acts as translator and then I raise my offer just a little more. This is usually accepted. It can be fun bartering. The hard part is figuring out if you barter in certain places. Some have prices that are set but sometimes it’s not clear.
We ended our day in Shanghai by walking along the main river, which I can’t name, but the modern downtown sits along it and it is very beautiful. We were trying to get back to the downtown but there are no bridges to get across it that we could see so we eventually found a tourist tunnel that crosses under the river and takes you to the tv tower. We ended up going up it and it was very cool. The only thing was that it was raining and very foggy so our view was limited. But the fog made the view we did have that much better.
The next morning we hired a taxi to the train station, which one we weren’t sure, but we got lucky on our first guess. From there two men came and grabbed our bags. Apparently we had just hired them because they demanded money 50 feet later. It worked out pretty well though because they bought our tickets for us which was easier than trying to figure that out. Then it was a quick KFC lunch, also an adventure, and then our train ride.
The trains were very clean, efficient and orderly. This last part we didn’t know. As soon as the train came in and they opened the gate to get to the platform people rushed the door so we assumed it was first come first serve. Once on the train we figured out that there were assigned seats. That meant we had to quick dash up to our cabin which was at least 5 cars up. We made it, but just barely. The scenery along the train ride was interesting. I’m not going to use the word beautiful. It was interesting. At times it was sad and depressing, but all the while interesting. First of all, everything was grey. The sky, the buildings, the landscape, even the people seemed to just be different shades of grey. Within this grey landscape very little seemed to be maintained. I’m not sure if it’s the result of demolition or just disrepair but the majority of structures we saw were slowly turning into piles of rubble. A lot of these piles had some scattered people doing random jobs. We couldn’t figure out what they were doing. Two hours after leaving Shanghai we pulled into Nanjing.
I have to go for now, but I want to wish a happy birthday, in China time, to James and Jill. Once again you’ve managed to catch back up to Brad and me. Enjoy it while it lasts. Happy 23.
We have made it to China and have enjoyed Shanghai and Nanjing. Tonight we are off to Beijing on a night train. I had hoped to add some pictures but the connection is pretty slow here so I’ll try again when we get to Beijing.