I've lost my super powers!!
In rural Japan I was like a king. I commanded crowds and instilled fear into the locals simply through my presence. I had no difficulty moving through a crowd of thousands. My minions would simply sweep themselves aside at the sight of me. I was going to Tokyo to declare this country my own, thoroughly assured that I would be offered no opposition, and then the wheels fell off.
As one might expect, Tokyo has a culture and life of its own. One that is completely separate to what have I have encountered in the rest of Japan so far. There are also a lot more foreigners in Tokyo, so I no longer command any attention or surprise. I've been relegated from my comfortable position as a god to simply being a common tourist. But, it was good while it lasted.
While I've been walking around this incredible city I've been tossing around the concept of how to adequately explain it to you. So far, I'm coming up dry. Every aspect of Tokyo is unique to itself. The first thing you would notice when you arrive is the sheer number of people in this place. To put it into contrast allow me to reference it by where you probably are. For those in Brisbane, your sunny city has an area of 5904.8 km² and a population of 1.8 million. Melbourne is quite a bit larger, with an area of 8831 km² and a population of 3.7 million. Tokyo is easily the most populated city in the world. The total area of Tokyo only amounts to 2,187.08 km² but the population occupying that area is a staggering 12.7 million. The "Greater Tokyo Area" (13,500 km²), which includes the area around Tokyo Bay, and the airport, brings the total up to a mind blowing 35.1 million people.
The geography of Tokyo is pretty confusing at first as well. It's split up into a series of cities, over 50 in total, much like the way Melbourne is split up into the different councils. It is however pretty hard to figure out where one city ends and where another one starts. I took a walking tour on my first day here and after 3 hours of nonstop walking, I had only managed to pass from one city (Akasaka) into a small part of another city (Yotsuya, Shinjuku). At any rate, there's simply no way that I could express how incredibly this place is to you. You'll simply have to come and see it for yourself.
So, that's enough education for now. Let me bring you up to speed on what I've been doing.
On my first full day here, as I mentioned, I took a walking tour and just basically jumped on a few trains and got off at random places. My goal was to get a feel for the city and how its laid out, without having to always refer to a map. The first stop was Harujuku, one of the main cities within Tokyo. This place is almost solely reserved for the, I hate to say, crazy teenage crowd, with a particular emphasis on the emo or goth style (I know they're technically different, before anybody arcs up). After walking through a very crowded market area I eventually stumbled upon a subway station and headed off to Asakasa, a medium size city within Tokyo.
It was in Asakasa that I finally realised what all the fuss was about. Japan's most widely known unique aspect is easily the Sakura plant. These magnificant trees will flower for only one or two weeks a year, at the beginning of spring. During the bloom, the whole tree is essentially just one big flower. The Japanese use this occasion to celebrate the coming of spring with a party known as 'hanamisake' which is a composite of three separate words: 'flower', 'see', 'drink'. This is basically what they do. The Japanese gather in parks filled with these trees and sit under them and drink and behave in a very non-Japanese way. For a quiet and reserved people, the hanamisake parties are basically as crazy as they come.
I feel very fortunate as I had some friends who took me out to Ueno Park, one of the main areas for hanamisake, and we sat and drank and watched two nights in a row. Simply incredibly. You may see photos of Sakura, but they simply cannot do justice to the try beauty of this plant when it is in bloom.
After my first night of hanamisake a Japanese friend of mine and I headed out to Shibuya, the one of the more cosmopolitan cities in Tokyo, to go night clubbing. Certainly an interesting experience especially if you happen to be the only foreigner inside a particular night club. There is a type of girl in Japan knowing as the 'gaijin (foreigner) hunter', who will go to clubs just for the sole purpose of meeting foreigners. If you step into a nightclub and you're the only foreigner, you will immediately notice the suggestive looks of the hunters, and the 'try it and die' looks of their repsective partners. To be perfectly honest with you, I avoided them. If you don't understand why, then I really can't explain it. While clubbing was an interesting and expensive experience, even now, 48 hours later, my ears are still ringing.
Day 3 was a write off. I got home at about 6am, slept till 1pm, and laid in bed feeling sorry for myself until about 6pm when I finally headed off to Ueno Park again for more Hanamisake. I had a relatively early night and got home at about 1am and headed straight to bed.
Today I followed my usual pattern of wake up and walk around. I tried to walk as far away from the crowds as possible, hoping to pass into areas that weren't so common and well known to the usual foreigner crowds. I succeeded in finding a traditional residential area that I walked through for about 2 hours until I finally got myself back on the right track and headed off to Akihabara to meet some friends for a bit of window shopping.
Akihabara is the 'electric town' in Tokyo, and is basically a big sprawl of discount electronics shops. It's absolutely amazing that I managed to walk away without buying anything. I did however discover the startling fact that one of my friends from Japanese school, who returns to Melbourne tomorrow, had completely bypassed the hot canned coffee phenomenon. I could have slapped him, and he would have deserved it. I gladly offered him my can, and purchased a replacement. As with me, he was quite impressed. It's still easily the best coffee I've found in Japan. (By the way, if you're voting for the number of cans of coffee I'll drink before I leave, you can completely forget about voting for less than 30 now :)
While in Akihabara we popped along to a cultural delight that could only exist in the nerdiest town in Japan: the maid cafe. Its hard to describe, but it's basically like a normal cafe but all the staff are very attractive Japanese girls who are all wearing maid outfits. What was surprising was that the cafe we went to had more female customers than male customers, and some of the customers would even pay to wear a costume of their own and have their photo taken in it. If that doesn't tell you how crazy this place it, I don't know what will.
Following Akihabara we went to get some make-it-yourself Okonomiyaki, or Japanese pancake, which was delicious. The people next to us were making theirs using Natto, a fermented soy bean speciality that basically smells like feet after a marathon... actually... more like a homeless mans feet after a marathon. The scent alone is enough to make you puke. Our considerate neighbours overheard my surprise at their meal choice and proceeded to offer me a spoon full, which I reluctantly accepted at the behest of my friends. I have to say, for something that smelt and looked like wet dog, it wasn't so bad. But I have to be honest, given the choice, I'd eat the rooster balls again instead.
Tomorrow I'll be heading off to the Tokyo Bay area and then to a science museum, following which I'll probably just do more walking around. Much to my surprise, instead of gaining weight in Japan, so far I've actually lost a couple of kilos :D
Take care everyone!
Mike
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
Tokyo - Day -1
I am in way over my head, and it's all my fault.
Those of you who know me well will surely know that I plan everything. My trip to Japan has of course been meticulously scruitinsed over the past 9 months and nothing was left to change or last-minute guessing. So, as planned today, I headed out from Sapporo on a 9am train, bound for Sendai. Sendai would take two transfers and approximately 8 hours total travel time. This all went off smoothly and I had a very relaxing time in the beginng. For the first few hours I just read a book and gazed lazily out the window at the beautiful country side rolling past me.
It was at one of these points looking out into the country side where my mind started to wonder. And that's easily the point where everything went sideways... I kept thinking about work! It's not such a huge problem for me. I love what I do, and it involves a large amount of planning (so of course I love it), but the problem was that I couldn't stop thinking about it. It dawned on my that I'd had far too much of a relaxing time so far, and I really started to miss my job.
When I arrived in Sendai finally, I was about to walk off to my hotel when I made the rash (and almost regrettable) decision to give myself some much needed excitment. I figured that my inablity to think about anything but work was my brain trying to tell me that it was bored. A plan formed easily inside my head.
I walked back into the station and picked up a new ticket on the next bullet train to Tokyo. I asked a friend to get the number for my hotel for tomorrow night, with the intention of calling them when I arrived to bring my booking forward and extra day. After another 90 minutes on the train, I arrived, and realised one thing that probably occurs to everyone when they step foot inside Tokyo; it is completely unlike the rest of Japan. Especially the cosy little country towns that I'd been getting used to. I was overwhelmed quickly, and thought it best to stop dicking around and call my hotel.
They were full....
I really hadn't expected that. Don't ask me why, I really don't know. I walked aimlessly around central Tokyo looking for the big buildings saying 'Hotel' in Japanese.... there weren't any. It occured to me, again far too late, that I was in the central part of Tokyo and even if I did find a hotel, my Lonely Planet (which is fucking useless, by the way) blessed me with the knowledge that they were going to be $250/night or more. I decided to try Shinjuku, the main night-life area of Tokyo, instead.
Getting to Shinjuku was pretty insane. I didn't have any idea where to go, but after asking a couple of cops and an irritated looking middle-aged man I managed to board the right train. I found a seat, to my chargin, since within two stops the train was full and I was getting an eye full of crotch without any ability to move in order to shield myself. I squeezed my way out when we got to Shinjuku and kinda just took a walk, looking for a Lonely Planet recommended hotel in the process. Major construction works were going on outside the station which hampered my efforts.
I decided to just settle on the first hotel I could find, which was an expensive looking place about 200m from the station. I boarded the lift, which was also packed, and didn't bring my bag straps through the door properly. Soon after the door closed, I heard this loud clunk noise and realised what was going on. It seems that everyone in Japan knows that the word 'shit' means, because after I said it they all kinda chuckled in a nervous laugh, since we were all collectively certain that this little trespass of mine was going to send us all plummeting to our doom. Fortunately, it didn't, but the whole ordeal bought me no closer to refuge since this hotel was full. But they were kind enough to point me in the direction of another hotel across the street. I managed to get in to that hotel, which is actually really nice, for $160 for the night.
After calming my nerves slightly, I went for a walk to see if I could find somewhere welcoming to have a beer, and instead stumbled on this 24-hour internet place. It's not a cafe, or like anything else I've seen before. I've been hearded into a little tiny room, about 1 metre wide and 2 metres long, where I have a computer, TV, PS3, DVD and VCR player, headphones, and a big leather chair. Turns out you can actually spend about $50 and sleep here if you want, or just spend all night watching movies, which you can pick out for free from their library. At first I regretted shelling out so much for a hotel, but since there's bugger all aircon, I'll be glad to be going back to my nice, cool hotel room very soon.
Tokyo really isn't like anything I could have imagined, and even though I knew full well that it has about 35 million residents in the greater metro area, it still strikes me as unbelivably huge. Even this one little area, Shinjuku, has enough skyscrapers and people to rival Melbourne or Sydney, and there's at least 4 other major sections similar to Shinjuku. I'm here for the next two weeks now, but I know I won't even get close to seeing it.
Tomorrow I'll transfer hotels and do some preparatory steps, falling back to my trusted routine of following to goddamn plan. Exchanging travellers cheques and picking up some decent maps (I really hate my Lonely Planet guide). After that, I'll probably just walk until later tomorrow night when I will catch up with a friend and go clubbing. That is certain to be an experience!
Those of you who know me well will surely know that I plan everything. My trip to Japan has of course been meticulously scruitinsed over the past 9 months and nothing was left to change or last-minute guessing. So, as planned today, I headed out from Sapporo on a 9am train, bound for Sendai. Sendai would take two transfers and approximately 8 hours total travel time. This all went off smoothly and I had a very relaxing time in the beginng. For the first few hours I just read a book and gazed lazily out the window at the beautiful country side rolling past me.
It was at one of these points looking out into the country side where my mind started to wonder. And that's easily the point where everything went sideways... I kept thinking about work! It's not such a huge problem for me. I love what I do, and it involves a large amount of planning (so of course I love it), but the problem was that I couldn't stop thinking about it. It dawned on my that I'd had far too much of a relaxing time so far, and I really started to miss my job.
When I arrived in Sendai finally, I was about to walk off to my hotel when I made the rash (and almost regrettable) decision to give myself some much needed excitment. I figured that my inablity to think about anything but work was my brain trying to tell me that it was bored. A plan formed easily inside my head.
I walked back into the station and picked up a new ticket on the next bullet train to Tokyo. I asked a friend to get the number for my hotel for tomorrow night, with the intention of calling them when I arrived to bring my booking forward and extra day. After another 90 minutes on the train, I arrived, and realised one thing that probably occurs to everyone when they step foot inside Tokyo; it is completely unlike the rest of Japan. Especially the cosy little country towns that I'd been getting used to. I was overwhelmed quickly, and thought it best to stop dicking around and call my hotel.
They were full....
I really hadn't expected that. Don't ask me why, I really don't know. I walked aimlessly around central Tokyo looking for the big buildings saying 'Hotel' in Japanese.... there weren't any. It occured to me, again far too late, that I was in the central part of Tokyo and even if I did find a hotel, my Lonely Planet (which is fucking useless, by the way) blessed me with the knowledge that they were going to be $250/night or more. I decided to try Shinjuku, the main night-life area of Tokyo, instead.
Getting to Shinjuku was pretty insane. I didn't have any idea where to go, but after asking a couple of cops and an irritated looking middle-aged man I managed to board the right train. I found a seat, to my chargin, since within two stops the train was full and I was getting an eye full of crotch without any ability to move in order to shield myself. I squeezed my way out when we got to Shinjuku and kinda just took a walk, looking for a Lonely Planet recommended hotel in the process. Major construction works were going on outside the station which hampered my efforts.
I decided to just settle on the first hotel I could find, which was an expensive looking place about 200m from the station. I boarded the lift, which was also packed, and didn't bring my bag straps through the door properly. Soon after the door closed, I heard this loud clunk noise and realised what was going on. It seems that everyone in Japan knows that the word 'shit' means, because after I said it they all kinda chuckled in a nervous laugh, since we were all collectively certain that this little trespass of mine was going to send us all plummeting to our doom. Fortunately, it didn't, but the whole ordeal bought me no closer to refuge since this hotel was full. But they were kind enough to point me in the direction of another hotel across the street. I managed to get in to that hotel, which is actually really nice, for $160 for the night.
After calming my nerves slightly, I went for a walk to see if I could find somewhere welcoming to have a beer, and instead stumbled on this 24-hour internet place. It's not a cafe, or like anything else I've seen before. I've been hearded into a little tiny room, about 1 metre wide and 2 metres long, where I have a computer, TV, PS3, DVD and VCR player, headphones, and a big leather chair. Turns out you can actually spend about $50 and sleep here if you want, or just spend all night watching movies, which you can pick out for free from their library. At first I regretted shelling out so much for a hotel, but since there's bugger all aircon, I'll be glad to be going back to my nice, cool hotel room very soon.
Tokyo really isn't like anything I could have imagined, and even though I knew full well that it has about 35 million residents in the greater metro area, it still strikes me as unbelivably huge. Even this one little area, Shinjuku, has enough skyscrapers and people to rival Melbourne or Sydney, and there's at least 4 other major sections similar to Shinjuku. I'm here for the next two weeks now, but I know I won't even get close to seeing it.
Tomorrow I'll transfer hotels and do some preparatory steps, falling back to my trusted routine of following to goddamn plan. Exchanging travellers cheques and picking up some decent maps (I really hate my Lonely Planet guide). After that, I'll probably just walk until later tomorrow night when I will catch up with a friend and go clubbing. That is certain to be an experience!
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Sapporo
The Japanese people have a tremendous amount to offer the world, and I feel robbed by them that they have yet to export their most precious commodity; hot coffee in a can, dispensed from a vending machine. I'm going to have to write a stern letter about this injustice. I've spent the last few days sampling all the different kinds that are available, and have definitely found my favourite with Suntory's "Boss". I know it sounds like a devastatingly bad idea, but this stuff is incredibly good!
Anyhoo, I arrived in Sapporo late yesterday afternoon and felt ambitious after spending 5 hours on two trains so I started the 3km walk to my hotel carrying my backpack. I needed the street 'eki-mae-dori' (pronounced "ehki-maheh-dori"), but couldn't manage to find it. Lonely Planet maps are pretty useless, I've found. After a 20 minutes of fruitless searching I asked a guy installing a sign if he could help me find Eki-mae-dori. This far north, good luck finding a guy on the street who can speak English, so I asked him in Japanese. He fired off at me for about 20 seconds, mindlessly ignoring my attempts to interrupt him and ask him to speak more slowly. Once I got that in, he repeated himself, just as quickly. I whipped out the guide book and pointed to where I wanted to be, and he pointed to where I was; the wrong side of the station. I thanked him and proceeded back through the station and, once on the right side, found my street easily.
Sapporo is the capital of Hokkaido, Japan's northmost (sufficiently populated) island and has a population of about 1.85 million, similar to good ol' Brisbane. It's also the home to Sapporo beer, admittedly my main reason for coming here :P. Like all Japanese towns I've been to, the main street extending from the station is a hive of activity and the city itself seems to live off of it (Eki-mae-dori translates as 'the street in front of the station'). The walk was easy (Sapporo is thankfully flat) and took me past the two subway stations I'd decided to skip, Odori and Susukino, and almost as far as the third. I checked in and decided I'd talk a breif stroll around before getting an early night before a big day.
This morning I slept in. I must be catching up on a few years of missed sleep, but I was out of my hotel at 10 and had a mission. I needed new headphones (my old ones fell apart on the plane from Taiwan), to organise my train ticket to Sendai tomorrow, and to pick up a new book for said train ride. I spent $10 for a day pass on Sapporo's subway system (not covered by my Rail Pass) and headed to the main terminal, where I picked up my tickets without issue, so I was off to buy a book.
It's at this point I learnt a valuable lesson about buying the latest Lonely Planet. The two book stores I wanted (which were listed as selling English books) had disappeared! Not that I could be sure since, again, maps in the Lonely Planet are shit. I asked a lady who was doing some cleaning outside the building I thought I needed and she told me that they'd moved to the main terminal. She complemented my Japanese before making a comment about how she was at first afraid to be asked a question by a foreigner, but explained that she was relieved. I've seen this a lot in Japan. Either the person you're talking to speaks no English, or their simply too embarrased to try to speak to you. There's a general reservation about foreigners here, which works okay since I have no problems working through on oncoming crowd. Everyone just instinctively moves out of your way. I could get used to it :P
I decided I'd try the other book store, and on my way stumbled upon the Apple store (awesome) and picked up my headphones for a fraction of what I'd paid for the old pair in Melbourne. I asked the guy if he knew where this second book shop was, and he told me it used to be where we were, but had moved. He started giving me directions in English and I said to him, quite bluntly, 'you speak english? then why am I talking Japanese?'. We had a chuckle and I was on my way. Found the book store with no problem, although it only had about 20 books in English (but about a million in Japanese).
After that it was time to get on to the main attraction - Sapporo beer museum. I took the subway again (which I'm pretty sure runs on tyres and the car is attached to a guide rail, but it's pretty fast still) and a breif taxi ride and I was there. The museum is actually where they used to make the beer from about 1880 to 1970, but the new place was about 40km out so I skipped it. Inside a very old brick building of three stories I went, surprised to find pretty much no English. Looking at exhibits and movies in Japanese was fun though, but I can't say I understood very much of it. On the second floor they had a little tasting area, where you could buy 3 pots of very unique (and possibly only available there or in Hokkaido) beer for just $4!! The bar staff took my photo with them and off I went. All three were unique, fresh, delicious, and gone quicker than you can say "how much hot canned coffee can I get through customs"!
With my light beer buzz and camera in hand I then headed out to the main lookout of Sapporo, which I knew nothing about but decided to go to after picking up a brouche in the main terminal before organsing tomorrow's train tickets. This took a fair bit of effort, but I enjoyed the journey immensely. I walked back to the subway station (determined to save the $6.50 taxi fare), caught the subway back into Susukino, and then jumped on the street car (tram) to the Ropeway, or Gondola, which heads up the mountain.
I really had no idea what to expect, and I think that made the experience that much more enjoyable. I walked up to the Gondola (picking up a hot canned coffee on the way), paid me $11, and waited patiently. Not a single westerner could be found. Hokkaido is said to draw a lot of tourism, but it must be just from Japan. The Gondola only went up for about 5 minutes, and after walking off the guide said something in very fast Japanese that I couldn't understand. Everyone seemed to mulling around in this sort of waiting area, so I decided it would be best for me to do the same. After we were all collected, the guide continued to yack away for a couple of minutes, but all I could understand was '55 minutes' being said several times. Jokes were made and everybody laughed... so I laughed so as not to look out of place, which of course made me look really out of place.
I was getting confused at this point. I'd paid my money, gone up the ready-to-wet-my-pants-in-fear-gondola ride, and just when I thought it was all about to happen, we were standing around laughing at something, anything. Finally she said something that must have conveyed a sense of urgency to the rest of the group, and everyone started huddling out a side door. I followed, and felt an immense sense of disappointment. There seemed to be no real viewing area, and trees were obstructing an otherwise impressive view. I then noticed that I was the only person trying to take in this particular view, and the only one with a camera out (I'm in Japan people! That's gotta be weird). I turned around, and saw too mini-buses coming down the snow-covered road with treads on. I must have looked hilarously stupid! We had further to go, and it seems a gondola just wasn't going to do the trick.
I would have welcomed the Gondola's relative safety. This was crazy! Up we went on this slippery little windy road towards the top. For camera loving people, nobody seemed to understand that a flash was kind of a silly idea inside a glass box.
Needless to say my earlier apprehension was not warranted. The view from the actual top of this lookout, at 513.03 meters (there was a sign) and just on the edge of Sapporo, I felt completely overwhelmed. Never have I seen anything quite as magnificent as this. Feeling refreshed and seeing a middle-aged couple taking a photo of themselves one at a time, I interrupted as politely as possible and offered to take a photo of them together. We continued our polite conversation in Japanese, talking about where I was from, and how to get the best shot. I felt totally energized by this exchange, which was quickly deminished when I went to the guy who was taking photos of people against the back drop and asked him to take one of me. He explained his little system in Japanese and made me feel like a total retard. I didn't understand anything. Nevertheless, a photo was taken and $6 later I had a nicely printed photo of me standing before Sapporo for my memory box :P
Sapporo is definitely a recommendation for anybody thinking of visiting Japan, but maybe if you don't plan on snowboarding or skiing, you should come around in May or June. The weather right now is incredibly cold. Snow still lines most of the streets, and the lakes in the parks are still mostly frozen over. I don't mind, of course, having never seen snow before in my life I still marvel at it and deliberately walk on it whenever possible, no matter how crazy I know I look to all the locals. Maybe that's why they avoid me in the streets...
Tomorrow, off to Sendai for the night and then an early morning trip on the bullet train to Tokyo!!! I'm very excited about that as I have about 5 friends there that I'm very anxious to catch up with. After nearly a week travelling alone, a warm conversation over a cold beer is just the thing I need.
Hope everyone is doing great, I miss you all very much!
Mike
Anyhoo, I arrived in Sapporo late yesterday afternoon and felt ambitious after spending 5 hours on two trains so I started the 3km walk to my hotel carrying my backpack. I needed the street 'eki-mae-dori' (pronounced "ehki-maheh-dori"), but couldn't manage to find it. Lonely Planet maps are pretty useless, I've found. After a 20 minutes of fruitless searching I asked a guy installing a sign if he could help me find Eki-mae-dori. This far north, good luck finding a guy on the street who can speak English, so I asked him in Japanese. He fired off at me for about 20 seconds, mindlessly ignoring my attempts to interrupt him and ask him to speak more slowly. Once I got that in, he repeated himself, just as quickly. I whipped out the guide book and pointed to where I wanted to be, and he pointed to where I was; the wrong side of the station. I thanked him and proceeded back through the station and, once on the right side, found my street easily.
Sapporo is the capital of Hokkaido, Japan's northmost (sufficiently populated) island and has a population of about 1.85 million, similar to good ol' Brisbane. It's also the home to Sapporo beer, admittedly my main reason for coming here :P. Like all Japanese towns I've been to, the main street extending from the station is a hive of activity and the city itself seems to live off of it (Eki-mae-dori translates as 'the street in front of the station'). The walk was easy (Sapporo is thankfully flat) and took me past the two subway stations I'd decided to skip, Odori and Susukino, and almost as far as the third. I checked in and decided I'd talk a breif stroll around before getting an early night before a big day.
This morning I slept in. I must be catching up on a few years of missed sleep, but I was out of my hotel at 10 and had a mission. I needed new headphones (my old ones fell apart on the plane from Taiwan), to organise my train ticket to Sendai tomorrow, and to pick up a new book for said train ride. I spent $10 for a day pass on Sapporo's subway system (not covered by my Rail Pass) and headed to the main terminal, where I picked up my tickets without issue, so I was off to buy a book.
It's at this point I learnt a valuable lesson about buying the latest Lonely Planet. The two book stores I wanted (which were listed as selling English books) had disappeared! Not that I could be sure since, again, maps in the Lonely Planet are shit. I asked a lady who was doing some cleaning outside the building I thought I needed and she told me that they'd moved to the main terminal. She complemented my Japanese before making a comment about how she was at first afraid to be asked a question by a foreigner, but explained that she was relieved. I've seen this a lot in Japan. Either the person you're talking to speaks no English, or their simply too embarrased to try to speak to you. There's a general reservation about foreigners here, which works okay since I have no problems working through on oncoming crowd. Everyone just instinctively moves out of your way. I could get used to it :P
I decided I'd try the other book store, and on my way stumbled upon the Apple store (awesome) and picked up my headphones for a fraction of what I'd paid for the old pair in Melbourne. I asked the guy if he knew where this second book shop was, and he told me it used to be where we were, but had moved. He started giving me directions in English and I said to him, quite bluntly, 'you speak english? then why am I talking Japanese?'. We had a chuckle and I was on my way. Found the book store with no problem, although it only had about 20 books in English (but about a million in Japanese).
After that it was time to get on to the main attraction - Sapporo beer museum. I took the subway again (which I'm pretty sure runs on tyres and the car is attached to a guide rail, but it's pretty fast still) and a breif taxi ride and I was there. The museum is actually where they used to make the beer from about 1880 to 1970, but the new place was about 40km out so I skipped it. Inside a very old brick building of three stories I went, surprised to find pretty much no English. Looking at exhibits and movies in Japanese was fun though, but I can't say I understood very much of it. On the second floor they had a little tasting area, where you could buy 3 pots of very unique (and possibly only available there or in Hokkaido) beer for just $4!! The bar staff took my photo with them and off I went. All three were unique, fresh, delicious, and gone quicker than you can say "how much hot canned coffee can I get through customs"!
With my light beer buzz and camera in hand I then headed out to the main lookout of Sapporo, which I knew nothing about but decided to go to after picking up a brouche in the main terminal before organsing tomorrow's train tickets. This took a fair bit of effort, but I enjoyed the journey immensely. I walked back to the subway station (determined to save the $6.50 taxi fare), caught the subway back into Susukino, and then jumped on the street car (tram) to the Ropeway, or Gondola, which heads up the mountain.
I really had no idea what to expect, and I think that made the experience that much more enjoyable. I walked up to the Gondola (picking up a hot canned coffee on the way), paid me $11, and waited patiently. Not a single westerner could be found. Hokkaido is said to draw a lot of tourism, but it must be just from Japan. The Gondola only went up for about 5 minutes, and after walking off the guide said something in very fast Japanese that I couldn't understand. Everyone seemed to mulling around in this sort of waiting area, so I decided it would be best for me to do the same. After we were all collected, the guide continued to yack away for a couple of minutes, but all I could understand was '55 minutes' being said several times. Jokes were made and everybody laughed... so I laughed so as not to look out of place, which of course made me look really out of place.
I was getting confused at this point. I'd paid my money, gone up the ready-to-wet-my-pants-in-fear-gondola ride, and just when I thought it was all about to happen, we were standing around laughing at something, anything. Finally she said something that must have conveyed a sense of urgency to the rest of the group, and everyone started huddling out a side door. I followed, and felt an immense sense of disappointment. There seemed to be no real viewing area, and trees were obstructing an otherwise impressive view. I then noticed that I was the only person trying to take in this particular view, and the only one with a camera out (I'm in Japan people! That's gotta be weird). I turned around, and saw too mini-buses coming down the snow-covered road with treads on. I must have looked hilarously stupid! We had further to go, and it seems a gondola just wasn't going to do the trick.
I would have welcomed the Gondola's relative safety. This was crazy! Up we went on this slippery little windy road towards the top. For camera loving people, nobody seemed to understand that a flash was kind of a silly idea inside a glass box.
Needless to say my earlier apprehension was not warranted. The view from the actual top of this lookout, at 513.03 meters (there was a sign) and just on the edge of Sapporo, I felt completely overwhelmed. Never have I seen anything quite as magnificent as this. Feeling refreshed and seeing a middle-aged couple taking a photo of themselves one at a time, I interrupted as politely as possible and offered to take a photo of them together. We continued our polite conversation in Japanese, talking about where I was from, and how to get the best shot. I felt totally energized by this exchange, which was quickly deminished when I went to the guy who was taking photos of people against the back drop and asked him to take one of me. He explained his little system in Japanese and made me feel like a total retard. I didn't understand anything. Nevertheless, a photo was taken and $6 later I had a nicely printed photo of me standing before Sapporo for my memory box :P
Sapporo is definitely a recommendation for anybody thinking of visiting Japan, but maybe if you don't plan on snowboarding or skiing, you should come around in May or June. The weather right now is incredibly cold. Snow still lines most of the streets, and the lakes in the parks are still mostly frozen over. I don't mind, of course, having never seen snow before in my life I still marvel at it and deliberately walk on it whenever possible, no matter how crazy I know I look to all the locals. Maybe that's why they avoid me in the streets...
Tomorrow, off to Sendai for the night and then an early morning trip on the bullet train to Tokyo!!! I'm very excited about that as I have about 5 friends there that I'm very anxious to catch up with. After nearly a week travelling alone, a warm conversation over a cold beer is just the thing I need.
Hope everyone is doing great, I miss you all very much!
Mike
Monday, March 24, 2008
Niigata
My kingdom for a US keyboard. I'm at Niigata train terminal at the moment, making use of the 30 minutes of free internet access they have here. However, I've blown a good 5 minutes of that time searching for the @ (located where the [ symbol normally is) and the ' (which is shift-7). The space bar is about as wide as the backspace key normally is, and my space thumb is routinely stricking a special 'input type' that changes me from English to Japanese input :S
So this is going to be a short post...
Travelling Japan by train is a wonderful experience. There is an abundance of beautiful country and snow-topped mountains to witness. If one has the patience to spend 2-6 hours on a train, I highly recommend it.
I arrived in Niigata yesterday around lunch time, and proceeded to take a figure-eight walk through the town. I had originally planned for this to just be a square-shaped walk, but my map was quite unhelpful and I ended up walking through pretty much the entire town. Niigata is a beautiful coastal town home to some 500,000 residents, so the walk only took about 4 hours at a leisurely pace. I don't think they get very many tourists around here though. I've seen all of 4 westerners in the time I've been here and English is a hard language to get by on. But that's been really good for me. I can already feel my Japanese skills increasing exponentially, not because I'm learning anything new but just because I am becoming more confident with what I've already learnt.
The lack of tourism in this area however results in me feeling very watched. Without exaggeration, about 70% of the people I walk pass on the street will look at me, and a fair number of those will blatantly stare. However, nobody has made me feel unwelcome. A Japanese friend of mine who lives toward the south thinks it's got a lot to do with height, and I'd believe that. Most places that did not have a western construction (for example, traditional Japanese restaurants, not modern hotels) I will have to duck to walk around in.
When I return to Japan from London I plan to spend 3-6 months simply studying the language, and nothing else. I feel that Niigata would be a wonderful place to focus purely on learning the language before moving somewhere larger to find work.
Today I'll be boarding a (normal) train up the west cost through the even smaller town of Akita and eventually arrive into Aomori 5 hours later, where I'll stay for the night. After that, I'll travel up to Sapporo (mmm... beer) over 6 hours.
I should hopefully be able to update when I get to Sapporo, but I'll be looking for somewhere with a US keyboard :P
So this is going to be a short post...
Travelling Japan by train is a wonderful experience. There is an abundance of beautiful country and snow-topped mountains to witness. If one has the patience to spend 2-6 hours on a train, I highly recommend it.
I arrived in Niigata yesterday around lunch time, and proceeded to take a figure-eight walk through the town. I had originally planned for this to just be a square-shaped walk, but my map was quite unhelpful and I ended up walking through pretty much the entire town. Niigata is a beautiful coastal town home to some 500,000 residents, so the walk only took about 4 hours at a leisurely pace. I don't think they get very many tourists around here though. I've seen all of 4 westerners in the time I've been here and English is a hard language to get by on. But that's been really good for me. I can already feel my Japanese skills increasing exponentially, not because I'm learning anything new but just because I am becoming more confident with what I've already learnt.
The lack of tourism in this area however results in me feeling very watched. Without exaggeration, about 70% of the people I walk pass on the street will look at me, and a fair number of those will blatantly stare. However, nobody has made me feel unwelcome. A Japanese friend of mine who lives toward the south thinks it's got a lot to do with height, and I'd believe that. Most places that did not have a western construction (for example, traditional Japanese restaurants, not modern hotels) I will have to duck to walk around in.
When I return to Japan from London I plan to spend 3-6 months simply studying the language, and nothing else. I feel that Niigata would be a wonderful place to focus purely on learning the language before moving somewhere larger to find work.
Today I'll be boarding a (normal) train up the west cost through the even smaller town of Akita and eventually arrive into Aomori 5 hours later, where I'll stay for the night. After that, I'll travel up to Sapporo (mmm... beer) over 6 hours.
I should hopefully be able to update when I get to Sapporo, but I'll be looking for somewhere with a US keyboard :P
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Hakuba - Day 2
Earlier today I was thinking about what to write in my blog, and I was going to make some quip about how in the last few days I've scaled a 'peak', eaten genitles, and today my butt hurt. Trust me, you would have bee in stitches.
Unfortunately to make a joke about how much my butt hurts kind of takes the attention away from what's really gone on today. But first...
After touching down in Tokyo yesterday (and picking up 200 cigarettes in Taipei for $20) I passed through customs and proceeded on my journey to Hakuba. An old friend of mine whom I went to Japanese school with last year moved to Japan back in December last year and has been working in various jobs at a couple of snow resorts. Hakuba is located pretty much in the centre of the main island, I'm staying at a very nice hotel next to Mount Happo-one, (pronounced Hap-po-oh-neh). The journey from Tokyo to Hakuba was incredibly stressful and I unfortuantely didn't do enough research before I got here.
Basically at 6:17pm I took the express train from Narita airport to Shinjuku terminal, this took an hour and a half, so I arrived at Shinjuku (Tokyo) at 7:43pm. I had to transfer to a bullet train at 8:00pm. English announcements were abundant at the airport and I felt quite relieved, and I didn't struggle too hard to understand the gist of the Japanese announcements. Unfortunately Shinjuku had much less English to go by, and I couldn't find my platform for about 10 minutes. Around 8 o'clock in Japan is still pretty much peak hour, and there were heaps of people aroud. My back pack was a constant annoyance and by the time I found the train, it was about 2 minutes from leaving.
Seats on bullet trains are reserved, and I had was reserved for the very first car, in the very first seat, right behind the very first wall. I had no room to stretch my legs out which was very frustrated. I tried to get comfortable, and settled in for my 2 hour and 43 minute trip to Matsumoto, the last stop for this bullet train, but still not close to my hotel.
When I arrived at Matsumoto there was virtually no English, and my ability to read any of the 3,000 characters in the Japanese 'alphabet' is even worse than my ability to speak (I really should have studied harder). I managed to find my platform, and then boarded the train on that platform. This wasn't a bullet train, it was a regular commuter train and seating was limited. Id had no idea if I actually wanted this train. I was still 2 hours from my destination by regular train, and didn't want to go the wrong way.
Feeling frazzled after 10 hours in transit from Taipei to this little country town called Matsumoto, I proceeded to put on my best Japanese and asked an older man for assistance. When he acknowledged my request, I proceeded to ask him if this was the train to Hakuba. He started at me. It seems I'd done something wrong with a relatively simple request. I pulled out my train ticket which said Hakuba in English, and asked again while pointing to 'Hakuba' on my ticket.
He response was like machine gun fire. I was able to get enough of it to think that this guy said "This train stops at Hakuba before the end of the line", roughly. Unfortunately this is a topic that i always sucked at in my Japanese classes. There's a Japanese word for 'before' and there's a Japanese word for 'after', of course, but I always got these two mixed up. But, I didn't realise at the time and said my thank yous to this kind man.
He stared at me again.
I was thoroughly confused. He walked past me to a map on the wall, and pointed it out to me; "This train stops before it gets to Hakuba".
I paniced. I said thank you and was about to step back out onto the platform where this tenacious fellow was even kinder in telling me that this was the last train for this night. I either went to the last stop, or I got out now and 11pm and tried to find somewhere to sleep in this little country down. I went for the last stop.
He stared at me again but I turned around. I was sure he thought I was a idiot, but I couldn't explain my situation to him fluently enough, so I went with stunned silence.
I arrived at the last stop at 12:30am. I proceeded to a cab and asked the driver, in Japanese, if he spoke English. He gave a resounding 'No'. I told him my Japanese was bad but I would try my best. I asked him how much it would cost to get to Hakuba, and he fired another machine at me. We both tried our best and pretty soon I was on my way to Hakuba, a journey which took 30 minutes and cost me AU$110.
Shortly after arriving I picked up my key and my friend came around and we had some beers. I went to bed at about 3am and woke up at 8am and went off to the slopes.
This was the first time I'd even seen snow, so you can imagie how terrible my attempts to stand up on a snow board were. However, after the first time down, I went back out an hour later and managed to stand straight up. I feel like I picked it up pretty well, and slowly travelled in increments from 10meters to 100meters before falling on my arse.
Unfortuantely that's where my problem started. Most of the time when I'd fall I'd land to my right hand side. Throughout the course of the day I noticed more and more a pain developing in my right shoulder. It was at the end of the day when I was walking back to the hotel that the pain started to get stronger and stronger. Thinking that I'd just strained some muscles (it was my right arm that I used to stand up every time after I fell) I proceeded to have a nice hot bath.
This is when everything went sideways. After the bath I layed down and immediately the pain was 100 times worse than anything I'd ever felt before. I tried to get comfortable and couldn't, but it was time to go to dinner. I went downstairs and ate a very nice five course meal as best I could with only one usable arm. Following that, I went back upstairs and called my friend and cancelled our plans to go to the pub that evening, and went straight to bed.
While lying in bed the pain got worse and worse, and I was convinced something was terribly wrong. The level of pain I was feeling without even moving my arm was enough to bring me to tears. I went downstairs to my (very small) hotel's lobby and asked the lady there (who really only spoke Japanese) if there was a doctor nearby.
Hakuba is _very_ small, and today is a public holiday. There was nothing that could be done and I was about to go upstairs to try and sleep it off with a couple of beers in me (I love self medicating) I was fortunate enough that an Oseteopath (sports injuries doctor) was staying in the hotel. He looked me over and caused me even more pain, but luckily it looks like just inflamation of my back shoulder muscles. If I'm lucky, the pain will subside over the next 48 hours. If I'm unlucky, I've ripped a tendon but I won't know until the pain either subsides or doesn't.
The really sad part is, I'm only in Hakuba for another 2 days, and I've been instruced that I can't snow board at all for at least 48 hours.
....
Unfortunately to make a joke about how much my butt hurts kind of takes the attention away from what's really gone on today. But first...
After touching down in Tokyo yesterday (and picking up 200 cigarettes in Taipei for $20) I passed through customs and proceeded on my journey to Hakuba. An old friend of mine whom I went to Japanese school with last year moved to Japan back in December last year and has been working in various jobs at a couple of snow resorts. Hakuba is located pretty much in the centre of the main island, I'm staying at a very nice hotel next to Mount Happo-one, (pronounced Hap-po-oh-neh). The journey from Tokyo to Hakuba was incredibly stressful and I unfortuantely didn't do enough research before I got here.
Basically at 6:17pm I took the express train from Narita airport to Shinjuku terminal, this took an hour and a half, so I arrived at Shinjuku (Tokyo) at 7:43pm. I had to transfer to a bullet train at 8:00pm. English announcements were abundant at the airport and I felt quite relieved, and I didn't struggle too hard to understand the gist of the Japanese announcements. Unfortunately Shinjuku had much less English to go by, and I couldn't find my platform for about 10 minutes. Around 8 o'clock in Japan is still pretty much peak hour, and there were heaps of people aroud. My back pack was a constant annoyance and by the time I found the train, it was about 2 minutes from leaving.
Seats on bullet trains are reserved, and I had was reserved for the very first car, in the very first seat, right behind the very first wall. I had no room to stretch my legs out which was very frustrated. I tried to get comfortable, and settled in for my 2 hour and 43 minute trip to Matsumoto, the last stop for this bullet train, but still not close to my hotel.
When I arrived at Matsumoto there was virtually no English, and my ability to read any of the 3,000 characters in the Japanese 'alphabet' is even worse than my ability to speak (I really should have studied harder). I managed to find my platform, and then boarded the train on that platform. This wasn't a bullet train, it was a regular commuter train and seating was limited. Id had no idea if I actually wanted this train. I was still 2 hours from my destination by regular train, and didn't want to go the wrong way.
Feeling frazzled after 10 hours in transit from Taipei to this little country town called Matsumoto, I proceeded to put on my best Japanese and asked an older man for assistance. When he acknowledged my request, I proceeded to ask him if this was the train to Hakuba. He started at me. It seems I'd done something wrong with a relatively simple request. I pulled out my train ticket which said Hakuba in English, and asked again while pointing to 'Hakuba' on my ticket.
He response was like machine gun fire. I was able to get enough of it to think that this guy said "This train stops at Hakuba before the end of the line", roughly. Unfortunately this is a topic that i always sucked at in my Japanese classes. There's a Japanese word for 'before' and there's a Japanese word for 'after', of course, but I always got these two mixed up. But, I didn't realise at the time and said my thank yous to this kind man.
He stared at me again.
I was thoroughly confused. He walked past me to a map on the wall, and pointed it out to me; "This train stops before it gets to Hakuba".
I paniced. I said thank you and was about to step back out onto the platform where this tenacious fellow was even kinder in telling me that this was the last train for this night. I either went to the last stop, or I got out now and 11pm and tried to find somewhere to sleep in this little country down. I went for the last stop.
He stared at me again but I turned around. I was sure he thought I was a idiot, but I couldn't explain my situation to him fluently enough, so I went with stunned silence.
I arrived at the last stop at 12:30am. I proceeded to a cab and asked the driver, in Japanese, if he spoke English. He gave a resounding 'No'. I told him my Japanese was bad but I would try my best. I asked him how much it would cost to get to Hakuba, and he fired another machine at me. We both tried our best and pretty soon I was on my way to Hakuba, a journey which took 30 minutes and cost me AU$110.
Shortly after arriving I picked up my key and my friend came around and we had some beers. I went to bed at about 3am and woke up at 8am and went off to the slopes.
This was the first time I'd even seen snow, so you can imagie how terrible my attempts to stand up on a snow board were. However, after the first time down, I went back out an hour later and managed to stand straight up. I feel like I picked it up pretty well, and slowly travelled in increments from 10meters to 100meters before falling on my arse.
Unfortuantely that's where my problem started. Most of the time when I'd fall I'd land to my right hand side. Throughout the course of the day I noticed more and more a pain developing in my right shoulder. It was at the end of the day when I was walking back to the hotel that the pain started to get stronger and stronger. Thinking that I'd just strained some muscles (it was my right arm that I used to stand up every time after I fell) I proceeded to have a nice hot bath.
This is when everything went sideways. After the bath I layed down and immediately the pain was 100 times worse than anything I'd ever felt before. I tried to get comfortable and couldn't, but it was time to go to dinner. I went downstairs and ate a very nice five course meal as best I could with only one usable arm. Following that, I went back upstairs and called my friend and cancelled our plans to go to the pub that evening, and went straight to bed.
While lying in bed the pain got worse and worse, and I was convinced something was terribly wrong. The level of pain I was feeling without even moving my arm was enough to bring me to tears. I went downstairs to my (very small) hotel's lobby and asked the lady there (who really only spoke Japanese) if there was a doctor nearby.
Hakuba is _very_ small, and today is a public holiday. There was nothing that could be done and I was about to go upstairs to try and sleep it off with a couple of beers in me (I love self medicating) I was fortunate enough that an Oseteopath (sports injuries doctor) was staying in the hotel. He looked me over and caused me even more pain, but luckily it looks like just inflamation of my back shoulder muscles. If I'm lucky, the pain will subside over the next 48 hours. If I'm unlucky, I've ripped a tendon but I won't know until the pain either subsides or doesn't.
The really sad part is, I'm only in Hakuba for another 2 days, and I've been instruced that I can't snow board at all for at least 48 hours.
....
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Taipei - Part 2
I ate balls.... but more on that later.
Following my last post I left off at breakfast yesterday. After breakfast the group and I headed out to the Taiwan Story Museum, which is one of those 'what it was like' museums where the streets and buildings look like they did back in a certain period of time. For this particular museum, most of the exhibits focused around 1920-1945, during which time the Japanese occupied Taiwan (then called Formosa). The museum was pretty interesting and I left a message from Australia for all the tourists (although most of the people who go here are themselves Taiwanese) on a white board in a 1930s era class room.
Following this at around lunch time the group split up and Ivy and I headed out to Taipei 101, the tallest (completed) building in the world. Like Hong Kong, the weather was unfortunately a bit hazy so visibility was only good to about 5km or so, but even still this whole place was incredibly impressive.
(I'm rushing this because my plane leaves in 15 minutes, sorry)
Following Taipei 101 we went out to The Modern Toilet, which is a toilet themed restaurant somewhere in Taipei, and there are actually 2 or 3 restaurants in Taipei with this theme. You basically sit on a toilet sit, the table is a wash basin, and your food is served in a miniature toilet bowl. You can even purchase a bedpan to have your drink in, and then you can take the bedpan home. No... I didn't go for that :P
Following this I was pretty exhausted so went back to the hotel for a brief nap. It was at this point the my experience in Taipei took a pretty amazing turn. I never thought I would have this sort of experience and I have to say I'm pretty proud of myself for not backing down after the first time.
So, this is why I ate balls. Ivy and I rejoined the group with her parents and their suppliers family. We all went out to a very unique restaurant near where I was staying. This is a seafood restaurant (actually called Good Boy Seafood Restaurant), and it's about as 'seafood' as you're ever going to get. Ivy's mother ordered about 10 courses for us all to enjoy, and Ivy explained to me that I was only allowed to know what I was eating after I'd eaten it.
The first dish was nice, but a litle bit salty and crunchy. After gulping it down, I was informed that it was fish intestine. This must have been a really big fish, cause I had a pretty big mouthfood of intestine.
The next dish was about the size of a chicken nugget, but it was mostly bone in the middle. Quite honestly, it was tasty, but a bit hard to eat since you had to work around a large amount of bone. After eating this, I was politely informed that I had just eaten frog!
At this point I suspected that perhaps this wasn't a normal meal for Ivy and her family, and I was right. It seems I was being treated very well so I didn't want to refuse their generous offers. So, when the next dish came around, I ate it up. At first I suspected it was some sort of patee (sp?), but it actually turns out that it was liver. Ivy insisted that I only have a little bit, and i'm really glad. It wasn't so bad, but it wasn't so good either.
The next dish, of course, come along much sooner than I wanted. At this point I was drinking Ivy's father's Single Malt Whiskey at an alarming pace. The restaurant didn't have coke or any drink I'd ever heard of before, so I was completely lost for something to wash it down with. Iced tea is not one of my favourite things, and using it to wash the taste of liver out of my mouth didn't help me much. So, I just went for the whiskey :P
The next dish wasn't so crazy, but I did start to feel a little squirmish about this one. This is because it was an actual fish, cooked, and basically unprepared in any other way. It still had it's eyes, and everything else but scales. I proceeded to eat about half the fish before I simply couldn't stomach any more. But, i was happy with the effort.
Then along came a crumbed chicken chips looking thing. I ate it, and immediately suspected that it was octopus tentacles. Boy-o-boy, I was reallllly fucking wrong on this one. After finishing what was an incredibly crunchy and at the same time chewy dish, I was again politely informed that I had just eaten pancreas - again, this has to have been from a massive fish!
Only two exotic dishes were left on my menu. The next one that came along was a soup and one of our guests actually told me what it was before I ate it. I'm glad she did, but jesus, it made it so much harder to try. I didn't want to back down from the challenge though, because I knew that I may only have had this opportunity once in my life. I proceed to eat it, and it was actually okay, despite my knowledge of what it was. I had just eaten chicken balls. :S
Final dish was easily the worst. In fact, all things considered, it's the only thing I consumed last night that I wouldn't eat again if given the opportunity. It was balls, again, but this time from a fish. It tasted absolutely disgusting and it was all I could do not to spit it out across the table. Luckily I had the intensinal fortitude (which I should, since I now had more intensine in my than I did before) and managed to finish the first bite, and left it after that.
Following dinner the first thing i did was get to a 7-Eleven and buy a bottle of Coke Zero (again 95 cents) and drank it as fast as humanly possible.
The remainder of the night was great, but it can't compare to dinner and I'm flat out of time (boarding has already been called!!). After dinner Ivy and I went away from the group again and out to the night markets. This was incredible, and not like the HK markets that I had witnessed on the weekend. I picked up a new (and authentic) Giordanno shirt for $16. I'd see this sort of shirt in Melbourne and expect to pay +$100.
Anyway, I'm going to wrap it up now. Taiwan has been a great experience and I highly recommend it to anybody with the ability to come here. You'll have the time of your life if you're prepared to be a little bit brave and really really stupid :P
Following my last post I left off at breakfast yesterday. After breakfast the group and I headed out to the Taiwan Story Museum, which is one of those 'what it was like' museums where the streets and buildings look like they did back in a certain period of time. For this particular museum, most of the exhibits focused around 1920-1945, during which time the Japanese occupied Taiwan (then called Formosa). The museum was pretty interesting and I left a message from Australia for all the tourists (although most of the people who go here are themselves Taiwanese) on a white board in a 1930s era class room.
Following this at around lunch time the group split up and Ivy and I headed out to Taipei 101, the tallest (completed) building in the world. Like Hong Kong, the weather was unfortunately a bit hazy so visibility was only good to about 5km or so, but even still this whole place was incredibly impressive.
(I'm rushing this because my plane leaves in 15 minutes, sorry)
Following Taipei 101 we went out to The Modern Toilet, which is a toilet themed restaurant somewhere in Taipei, and there are actually 2 or 3 restaurants in Taipei with this theme. You basically sit on a toilet sit, the table is a wash basin, and your food is served in a miniature toilet bowl. You can even purchase a bedpan to have your drink in, and then you can take the bedpan home. No... I didn't go for that :P
Following this I was pretty exhausted so went back to the hotel for a brief nap. It was at this point the my experience in Taipei took a pretty amazing turn. I never thought I would have this sort of experience and I have to say I'm pretty proud of myself for not backing down after the first time.
So, this is why I ate balls. Ivy and I rejoined the group with her parents and their suppliers family. We all went out to a very unique restaurant near where I was staying. This is a seafood restaurant (actually called Good Boy Seafood Restaurant), and it's about as 'seafood' as you're ever going to get. Ivy's mother ordered about 10 courses for us all to enjoy, and Ivy explained to me that I was only allowed to know what I was eating after I'd eaten it.
The first dish was nice, but a litle bit salty and crunchy. After gulping it down, I was informed that it was fish intestine. This must have been a really big fish, cause I had a pretty big mouthfood of intestine.
The next dish was about the size of a chicken nugget, but it was mostly bone in the middle. Quite honestly, it was tasty, but a bit hard to eat since you had to work around a large amount of bone. After eating this, I was politely informed that I had just eaten frog!
At this point I suspected that perhaps this wasn't a normal meal for Ivy and her family, and I was right. It seems I was being treated very well so I didn't want to refuse their generous offers. So, when the next dish came around, I ate it up. At first I suspected it was some sort of patee (sp?), but it actually turns out that it was liver. Ivy insisted that I only have a little bit, and i'm really glad. It wasn't so bad, but it wasn't so good either.
The next dish, of course, come along much sooner than I wanted. At this point I was drinking Ivy's father's Single Malt Whiskey at an alarming pace. The restaurant didn't have coke or any drink I'd ever heard of before, so I was completely lost for something to wash it down with. Iced tea is not one of my favourite things, and using it to wash the taste of liver out of my mouth didn't help me much. So, I just went for the whiskey :P
The next dish wasn't so crazy, but I did start to feel a little squirmish about this one. This is because it was an actual fish, cooked, and basically unprepared in any other way. It still had it's eyes, and everything else but scales. I proceeded to eat about half the fish before I simply couldn't stomach any more. But, i was happy with the effort.
Then along came a crumbed chicken chips looking thing. I ate it, and immediately suspected that it was octopus tentacles. Boy-o-boy, I was reallllly fucking wrong on this one. After finishing what was an incredibly crunchy and at the same time chewy dish, I was again politely informed that I had just eaten pancreas - again, this has to have been from a massive fish!
Only two exotic dishes were left on my menu. The next one that came along was a soup and one of our guests actually told me what it was before I ate it. I'm glad she did, but jesus, it made it so much harder to try. I didn't want to back down from the challenge though, because I knew that I may only have had this opportunity once in my life. I proceed to eat it, and it was actually okay, despite my knowledge of what it was. I had just eaten chicken balls. :S
Final dish was easily the worst. In fact, all things considered, it's the only thing I consumed last night that I wouldn't eat again if given the opportunity. It was balls, again, but this time from a fish. It tasted absolutely disgusting and it was all I could do not to spit it out across the table. Luckily I had the intensinal fortitude (which I should, since I now had more intensine in my than I did before) and managed to finish the first bite, and left it after that.
Following dinner the first thing i did was get to a 7-Eleven and buy a bottle of Coke Zero (again 95 cents) and drank it as fast as humanly possible.
The remainder of the night was great, but it can't compare to dinner and I'm flat out of time (boarding has already been called!!). After dinner Ivy and I went away from the group again and out to the night markets. This was incredible, and not like the HK markets that I had witnessed on the weekend. I picked up a new (and authentic) Giordanno shirt for $16. I'd see this sort of shirt in Melbourne and expect to pay +$100.
Anyway, I'm going to wrap it up now. Taiwan has been a great experience and I highly recommend it to anybody with the ability to come here. You'll have the time of your life if you're prepared to be a little bit brave and really really stupid :P
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Taipei
I'm sitting my friend's office at the moment after getting lost in the rain, so this might be a rather brief post as I need to go back to my hotel (which I just left) and get a change of clothes.
But don't let my little adventure in the rain make you think that I'm having anything but the best time here in Taiwan. In fact, I'm really sad that I'll be flying out to Japan tomorrow. Here's the run down on what I've been up to since I got here on Monday afternoon.
I met with my friend Ivy at the airport and her father was kind enough to pick me up and welcome to me Taiwan in style, an S Class mercedes. Since Ivy has been giving me a fantastic tour in Taipei, I'm not very good with the names of places. The international airport where I arrived is located about 50 minutes drive from Taipei itself. First we drove out to a warehouse owned by Ivy's family, which is only about 20 minutes from the airport, headed towards Taipei. This place was amazing. Attached to the fairly large warehouse is Ivy's family's second house, where they normally entertain suppliers and customers from overseas. To give you an idea of how impressive this house is, here's a brief list of it's main features:
But don't let my little adventure in the rain make you think that I'm having anything but the best time here in Taiwan. In fact, I'm really sad that I'll be flying out to Japan tomorrow. Here's the run down on what I've been up to since I got here on Monday afternoon.
I met with my friend Ivy at the airport and her father was kind enough to pick me up and welcome to me Taiwan in style, an S Class mercedes. Since Ivy has been giving me a fantastic tour in Taipei, I'm not very good with the names of places. The international airport where I arrived is located about 50 minutes drive from Taipei itself. First we drove out to a warehouse owned by Ivy's family, which is only about 20 minutes from the airport, headed towards Taipei. This place was amazing. Attached to the fairly large warehouse is Ivy's family's second house, where they normally entertain suppliers and customers from overseas. To give you an idea of how impressive this house is, here's a brief list of it's main features:
- 5 lane 25 metre pool
- Tennis court
- An avery the size of my apartment
- A disco ball (!!)
After a brief stop here we headed on in to Taipei and checked into my very nice hotel. The best part about travelling to a place like Taiwan is that virtually everything is different. I felt all giddish every time I saw something that you wouldn't expect to see in most places. For example, I acted like a giggling idiot when I saw the traffic signals for pedestrians here. Similar to Australia, when you can't cross there's a red man standing still. But, when you can cross, the man turns into an animated green walking figure. There's a countdown in seconds as to how long before the lights change again, and as you get to the 10 or 20 second mark, the man actually starts running!
I spoke earlier about how crazy traffic was in Hong Kong. Quite frankly, Hong Kong seems quite safe and reasonable by comparison. It took me a few hours before I could get used to it, I had to repress the urge to scream every time a scooter shot past us at a very close speed. I'm surprised that Taipei does not have more drivers in the professional circuit; you wouldn't believe the things their cabbies can do!
After checking into the hotel, Ivy and I went back to her office breifly before taking a short walk around the neighbour hood so I could continue freaking out as cars passed within 1cm of me at 50kmph.
Ivy's company has an important supplier and his family in from Singapore at the moment, so a fair bit of my travelling has been in a 'tour group' with Ivy, so we met up with them
After our arrived I was ushered into a private room, where all 9 of us sat at the table reserved exclusively for us. Ivy's father was pretty excited when I told him I'd love to drink with him, and I lived to regret it. He offered me some 1978 Cognac (60.2% acl/vol!!) and, when Taiwanese people drink, there's a lot of toasting. I polished off about 5 glasses before the end of dinner and felt rather concerned that I would embarass myself momentarily.
The food was fantastic. I was told later in the evening that the restaurant (and that private room) was frequently visited by the current President of Taiwan. I felt like a movie star. The Cognac alone was AU$500/bottle.
Following dinner we headed out to a Karaoke 'bar'. I will definitely put some photos of this TWELVE STORY building up as soon as psosible. Seriously, there are 12 floors filled with Karaoke rooms, but the whole place looks as fancy and expensive as some of the most expensive hotels I've ever seen.
Karaoke was heaps of fun and I wasn't lost for English songs that I could have a shot at. My first (and only half-decent attempt) was My Way, by good ol' Frankie. Allthough Ivy's father cannot speak much English, he knows the words to this song like the back of his hand and we ended up doing a duet together. It was tremendous fun. I switched from Cognac to Taiwan Beer (it's a sort of light draught, very very nice!), and got myself nicely toasted.
This photo on the right is the lobby of the Karoke 'Hotel': 
At about 1am (I think?) we all headed on home and I checked back into my hotel. The hotel has some pretty impressive electronics that I proceeded to muck around with for an hour or so. There are over 100 channels (all free to my room), including a couple of very-illegal-in-Australia adult channels. The bed has speakers placed above it in the roof and there are a couple of music channels (one English, one Chinese) that you can select. All of the lights in the room can be controlled from a panel located next to the bed.
The hotel also featured the first electronic toilet that I've come across in Asia. If you haven't seen these before, it's basically like a regular toilet but it also features a seat warmer and, a uh, how can I say this.... 'squirter'. Before you ask; Yes, I did use it. And Yes, it was invasive and weird, but surprisingly effective.
Enough about that...
This morning after waking up I headed out to meet Ivy and her supplier friends for a traditional Taiwanese/Chinese breakfast. Sold at a street corner vendor this breakfast included a type of rice soup with fresh seafood (including oyster), deep friend tofu, grilled pork, battered fish, and more. It was simply incredible and very satisfying.
I have to wrap this up shortly, but there's one more thing I'd like to point out. Anybody thinking of travelling to Asia to shop - don't go to Hong Kong - go to Taiwan. This place is incredibly cheap for an Australian. A 600ml bottle of coke cost me the equivelent of 95 cents, and a 20 pack of cigarettse costs just $2. Electronics are incredibly cheap and I plan to pick up an iPod Touch duty free on my way out for about $100-$150 less than retail. 750g hard drives are $300 cheaper here than they are back in Australia. I came to Taiwan with the equivelent of AU$300 (about NT$5,000) and have so far spent only about $50, including some souveniers at Taipei 101.
It's time for me to go, but there's so much more to tell you about. Here's a note for myself:
- Taipei 101
- Friendliness
- Getting lost in the rain
- Toilet restaurant (bet you're waiting for that!)
Sunday, March 16, 2008
HK Day 2
For the first time in my life, I understand why they have those big resort holiday places where there's nothing to do but sit around sip on some crazy cocktail. One of those resorts sounds pretty great right about now. I'm exhausted but learning lots of 'obvious' lessons along the way, the main one being to stay hydrated. The second, to learn that it's normal to be a stupid tourist.
My day started at about 9am when I hit the streets and walked over to Victoria Harbour, on the Kowloon side. This area gives you a fantastic view of the entire southern island, stretching east past North point, south at Wan Chi, and east at Central. It's simply the most incredible thing I've seen. Unfortunately, there's no wind in Hong Kong this weekend so the smog is hanging in the air and visibility is quite low. While I took plenty of photos of Wan Chi (more of a commercial area than where I'm at, Tsim Sha Tsui, which is nothig but shops), but I'm not sure if they turned out alright since you can hardly see the other side of the harbour due to the haze.
I walked along the harbour till the south western most point and jumped on the Star Ferry, which cost roughly HK$2.50 but I'm not sure since I just held out a hand of coins and the conductor took what he thought was fair. I made a point after that to learn the coins, having only focused on notes to that point. At any rate, $2.50 in Hong Kong is about 40c back home. Cheapest transport I've ever bought.
On the other side of the harbour I walked from Wan Chi to Central. This was quite an amazing experience for me. When you step off the ferry ino the harbour side of Wan Chi, you're basically standing at the fringe of a mega city. Few buildings would be under the 30 story mark, and it's all business, business, business. Walk four blocks into the island and this mega city transforms instantly to that old china feeling. Tight streets, markets everywhere, and a serious of interesting odors. The further into the island I walked, the less westerners I could see (there really aren't that many. In fact, only 5% of the 'white people' I've seen so far were actually speaking English), so I decided to stick to that path, rather than the more traditional tourists path.
Eventually after two hours of walking I arrived at my morning goal, the Peak Tram station. There was a huge line going around the corner, but it only took about 30 minutes before I was on the tram going up the mountain at a 50 or 60 degree incline. It's actually a bit painful since your back is forced into a wooden chair. 12 minutes later I was once again redefining "the most amazing thing I've ever seen". I've been to 'lookouts' before, many in fact, but this was in a class of its own. It seems the tallest point in HK just wasn't tall enough for the locals, so they proceeded to build a 7 story mall on top of the mountain. You go up escalator after escalator until you finally arrive at an observation post. The view is incredibly, and not really as scary as I thought it would be (this is about 500m up, I'm guessing). No HK building comes within reach of this point, but sure as hell there are many that try.
Should you ever visit HK, do everything you can to make it to The Peak Tower. To miss it would be like missing your own wedding.
I decided to stop for lunch here, and found (not that it was hard) chinese restaurant. This place was fancy, and I expected to be hurting afterwards, but I decided I couldn't miss the experience. While HK residents speak generally good English, this restaurant seemed to have a lack of English speakers. After a few minutes of hand gestures and slowly spoken English, my waiter and I decided we could not understand each other and I blindly pointed to a Dim Sum Platter. It was a bit pricey, I thought, but that's what I expected....
The 3 steamed dumplings were about as wide and tall as a 50c piece so I figured I'd have to pay for that and stop at a hungry jacks or something back down at street level. When I was about to skull my beer and make treds my waiter brought out another course, this time it was some sort of soup. I have no idea what this soup was, but it was incredibly thick and had something in it. I swallowed hard, and ate. It was delicious! I was about to leave when another meal came out. It was a vegetable thing, I ate it, and it too was delicious. But, I started to worry that they were just bringing me food until I stopped, and charge me a fortune for it all. I prompted my waiter and we resumed our conversation through hand gestures. He showed me the menu, and carefully explained that I had ordered a set course menu, and had three courses left. It was at this point I took note of the price for
the set, which was HK$148. I finished the final three equally delicious courses and proceeded to leave. As I waked to the tram stop I did the math (I'm getting really good at dividing by seven). This delicious six course meal, served at the highest restaurant in HK (seriously), cost me all of AU$30, including beer!!!
At first I had no idea how this city could survive itself. There is every opportunity to spend money, and people seemed to keep doing it. Yesterday, I couldn't believe how anybody could afford to stay alive in a place like this. But now I finally realise how cheap it all is. I picked up a knock off CK watch at one of the many markets I passed through today, and it cost me all of HK$25 (AU$3.50). Maybe it's just me, but even for a knock off, that's still really cheap!
After leaving the tram stop I walked down to Central and the harbour again. This is when I learnt fast that I need to keep myself hydrated. Hong Kong isn't hot at this time of year (avg temp is about 23 degrees), but it is humid. I started to see spots at this point, and instantly felt better after downing about a litre of Evian. For the next couple of hours I just kept walking around aimlessly. There was some sort of Filipino Immigrant Workers Union protest going on. I dunno how hard they work, but they certainly protest in the laziest fashion. Basically for about a square kilometre in Central there were a few thousand filipino migrants just sitting on the streets and footpaths, playing cards and cooking food. This was the first point that I stopped feeling transparent, and on a few occasions I saw filipino people pointing me out to their friends. It was really weird, cause nobody had paid me any attention until this point. Maybe white people are interesting to Filipino people, but not Chinese people. Or maybe, I forgot to do my fly up after that litre of Evian worked its way through.
Feel rather exhausted, I arrived back at my hotel at 5pm and laid in bed watching TV for about an hour. I read my guide book, and decided to head out for the 'night life' at a Australian themed bar near my hotel, called Ned Kelly's Last Stand. If I'm ever retired and bored, I'm going to open a real Australian themed bar in Hong Kong. They were playing American Jazz music, had photos of 'Australians' on the wall that I'd never heard of, and their feature beer was Carlsberg. I left after one drink, and came back to my hotel, where I sit now writing this blog.
Tomorrow morning I plan to wake up late and head straight to the airport for my flight to Taiwan. I expect Ivy will be taking me drinking tomorrow night so I figure I should rest up while I have the chance.
In a nutshell, Hong Kong has been an incredible experience and I wish I had more time to get to know the place better. I also wish I'd planned to shop here, as everything is so cheap. I'd almost recommend to my friends that they save up a few thousand, fly up here for a weekend, shop till they drop, and then go back home. Even with the cost of flights, the amount you can save on a new warddrobe is incredible. I think the best bits I've learnt here are:
My day started at about 9am when I hit the streets and walked over to Victoria Harbour, on the Kowloon side. This area gives you a fantastic view of the entire southern island, stretching east past North point, south at Wan Chi, and east at Central. It's simply the most incredible thing I've seen. Unfortunately, there's no wind in Hong Kong this weekend so the smog is hanging in the air and visibility is quite low. While I took plenty of photos of Wan Chi (more of a commercial area than where I'm at, Tsim Sha Tsui, which is nothig but shops), but I'm not sure if they turned out alright since you can hardly see the other side of the harbour due to the haze.
I walked along the harbour till the south western most point and jumped on the Star Ferry, which cost roughly HK$2.50 but I'm not sure since I just held out a hand of coins and the conductor took what he thought was fair. I made a point after that to learn the coins, having only focused on notes to that point. At any rate, $2.50 in Hong Kong is about 40c back home. Cheapest transport I've ever bought.
On the other side of the harbour I walked from Wan Chi to Central. This was quite an amazing experience for me. When you step off the ferry ino the harbour side of Wan Chi, you're basically standing at the fringe of a mega city. Few buildings would be under the 30 story mark, and it's all business, business, business. Walk four blocks into the island and this mega city transforms instantly to that old china feeling. Tight streets, markets everywhere, and a serious of interesting odors. The further into the island I walked, the less westerners I could see (there really aren't that many. In fact, only 5% of the 'white people' I've seen so far were actually speaking English), so I decided to stick to that path, rather than the more traditional tourists path.
Eventually after two hours of walking I arrived at my morning goal, the Peak Tram station. There was a huge line going around the corner, but it only took about 30 minutes before I was on the tram going up the mountain at a 50 or 60 degree incline. It's actually a bit painful since your back is forced into a wooden chair. 12 minutes later I was once again redefining "the most amazing thing I've ever seen". I've been to 'lookouts' before, many in fact, but this was in a class of its own. It seems the tallest point in HK just wasn't tall enough for the locals, so they proceeded to build a 7 story mall on top of the mountain. You go up escalator after escalator until you finally arrive at an observation post. The view is incredibly, and not really as scary as I thought it would be (this is about 500m up, I'm guessing). No HK building comes within reach of this point, but sure as hell there are many that try.
Should you ever visit HK, do everything you can to make it to The Peak Tower. To miss it would be like missing your own wedding.
I decided to stop for lunch here, and found (not that it was hard) chinese restaurant. This place was fancy, and I expected to be hurting afterwards, but I decided I couldn't miss the experience. While HK residents speak generally good English, this restaurant seemed to have a lack of English speakers. After a few minutes of hand gestures and slowly spoken English, my waiter and I decided we could not understand each other and I blindly pointed to a Dim Sum Platter. It was a bit pricey, I thought, but that's what I expected....
The 3 steamed dumplings were about as wide and tall as a 50c piece so I figured I'd have to pay for that and stop at a hungry jacks or something back down at street level. When I was about to skull my beer and make treds my waiter brought out another course, this time it was some sort of soup. I have no idea what this soup was, but it was incredibly thick and had something in it. I swallowed hard, and ate. It was delicious! I was about to leave when another meal came out. It was a vegetable thing, I ate it, and it too was delicious. But, I started to worry that they were just bringing me food until I stopped, and charge me a fortune for it all. I prompted my waiter and we resumed our conversation through hand gestures. He showed me the menu, and carefully explained that I had ordered a set course menu, and had three courses left. It was at this point I took note of the price for
the set, which was HK$148. I finished the final three equally delicious courses and proceeded to leave. As I waked to the tram stop I did the math (I'm getting really good at dividing by seven). This delicious six course meal, served at the highest restaurant in HK (seriously), cost me all of AU$30, including beer!!!At first I had no idea how this city could survive itself. There is every opportunity to spend money, and people seemed to keep doing it. Yesterday, I couldn't believe how anybody could afford to stay alive in a place like this. But now I finally realise how cheap it all is. I picked up a knock off CK watch at one of the many markets I passed through today, and it cost me all of HK$25 (AU$3.50). Maybe it's just me, but even for a knock off, that's still really cheap!
After leaving the tram stop I walked down to Central and the harbour again. This is when I learnt fast that I need to keep myself hydrated. Hong Kong isn't hot at this time of year (avg temp is about 23 degrees), but it is humid. I started to see spots at this point, and instantly felt better after downing about a litre of Evian. For the next couple of hours I just kept walking around aimlessly. There was some sort of Filipino Immigrant Workers Union protest going on. I dunno how hard they work, but they certainly protest in the laziest fashion. Basically for about a square kilometre in Central there were a few thousand filipino migrants just sitting on the streets and footpaths, playing cards and cooking food. This was the first point that I stopped feeling transparent, and on a few occasions I saw filipino people pointing me out to their friends. It was really weird, cause nobody had paid me any attention until this point. Maybe white people are interesting to Filipino people, but not Chinese people. Or maybe, I forgot to do my fly up after that litre of Evian worked its way through.
Feel rather exhausted, I arrived back at my hotel at 5pm and laid in bed watching TV for about an hour. I read my guide book, and decided to head out for the 'night life' at a Australian themed bar near my hotel, called Ned Kelly's Last Stand. If I'm ever retired and bored, I'm going to open a real Australian themed bar in Hong Kong. They were playing American Jazz music, had photos of 'Australians' on the wall that I'd never heard of, and their feature beer was Carlsberg. I left after one drink, and came back to my hotel, where I sit now writing this blog.
Tomorrow morning I plan to wake up late and head straight to the airport for my flight to Taiwan. I expect Ivy will be taking me drinking tomorrow night so I figure I should rest up while I have the chance.
In a nutshell, Hong Kong has been an incredible experience and I wish I had more time to get to know the place better. I also wish I'd planned to shop here, as everything is so cheap. I'd almost recommend to my friends that they save up a few thousand, fly up here for a weekend, shop till they drop, and then go back home. Even with the cost of flights, the amount you can save on a new warddrobe is incredible. I think the best bits I've learnt here are:
- Stay hydrated
- "Shavers Only" in my hotel bathroom is just a recommendation, and I can charge my iPod using my JP travel adaptor
- To completely ignore Indians trying to sell me suits
- That buying new sneakers before I left was a fantastic idea
Take care everyone,
Mike
Saturday, March 15, 2008
First post - HK Day 1
I debated for a long time about whether or not I should start a blog for my holiday. Before I left, I'd basically decided that it would just be a waste of my time, and I should spend my time experiencing, not recording. I've been in HK now for about 4 hours, and already I've experienced so much that I'm certain if I don't write it down, I'll forget so much about this already amazing experience. So I supposed I'll check in once every few days and update this with what I've been doing.
Today started pretty early at about 5am. My housemate was nice enough to bang on my door at 5, becuase I'd actually slept through all 3 alarms :S If not for David, I'd be cashing out for a replacement flight :S. The flight itself was alright, but I'm unaccustomed to sitting still for so long.
After just 4 hours in Hong Kong I'm already feeling very small. After landing I took the express train to Kowloon, and a free bus tranfer to my hotel in Tsim Lin Shui, or at least I think
that's where I am. Hotel is fantastic, 21st floor and an amazing view. Ashamed as I might be about it, I have to tell you that I shed a tear or two when I looked out at it.
I had expected HK to be a bit like Sydney. Since Sydney was the biggest city I'd ever been to up until this point. But HK is _nothing_ like Sydney, or anything else I've ever seen before. The city and its people immediately struck me with an strong sense of purpose and spirit. The airport is nestled in among mountains, and it's hard to believe that a city of this size can actually flourish in such unhospitable terrain (hey, I'm coming from Melbourne). To put it in perspective for those that have never been here, HK is home to the 6th tallest building in the world, which stacks in at about 415m, and it only just manages to outstretch some (but not all) of the mountains around the city. I won't try to explain it, it has to be seen to be believed.
After checking in, I took a walk around the southern part of Kowloon, to the Temple St Market and just took some photos and tried to keep my jaw from falling. There's a remarkable paradox for public safety here; very few crosswalks with signals (you kinda just go with the group), but most streets have barriers to stop cars from running into pedestrians. Maybe it's just me, but that seems a bit strange :P.
Tomorrow I'll head off to the soutern, more commercial island (I'm stuck for names), and the peak tram that overlooks the entire city. After that, I'll head out and see what the night life has to offer. But for now, I'm going to go and find some food and a bar ;)
Mike
Today started pretty early at about 5am. My housemate was nice enough to bang on my door at 5, becuase I'd actually slept through all 3 alarms :S If not for David, I'd be cashing out for a replacement flight :S. The flight itself was alright, but I'm unaccustomed to sitting still for so long.
After just 4 hours in Hong Kong I'm already feeling very small. After landing I took the express train to Kowloon, and a free bus tranfer to my hotel in Tsim Lin Shui, or at least I think
that's where I am. Hotel is fantastic, 21st floor and an amazing view. Ashamed as I might be about it, I have to tell you that I shed a tear or two when I looked out at it.I had expected HK to be a bit like Sydney. Since Sydney was the biggest city I'd ever been to up until this point. But HK is _nothing_ like Sydney, or anything else I've ever seen before. The city and its people immediately struck me with an strong sense of purpose and spirit. The airport is nestled in among mountains, and it's hard to believe that a city of this size can actually flourish in such unhospitable terrain (hey, I'm coming from Melbourne). To put it in perspective for those that have never been here, HK is home to the 6th tallest building in the world, which stacks in at about 415m, and it only just manages to outstretch some (but not all) of the mountains around the city. I won't try to explain it, it has to be seen to be believed.
After checking in, I took a walk around the southern part of Kowloon, to the Temple St Market and just took some photos and tried to keep my jaw from falling. There's a remarkable paradox for public safety here; very few crosswalks with signals (you kinda just go with the group), but most streets have barriers to stop cars from running into pedestrians. Maybe it's just me, but that seems a bit strange :P.
Tomorrow I'll head off to the soutern, more commercial island (I'm stuck for names), and the peak tram that overlooks the entire city. After that, I'll head out and see what the night life has to offer. But for now, I'm going to go and find some food and a bar ;)
Mike
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