Our last day in Xi'an started simple enough. After getting stuff packed up we decided to look for some food for the 18hr train ride. Unable to find anything that looked like a supermarket we headed for the western style mall we had found on our first day to get some McDonald's. What can I say we wanted a sure thing before our 18 hour ride. While in the mall I realized I have a way with the kids of Xi'an. Aside from the normal stares, one girl stuck her tongue out at me so i did it too and right after that I scared the crap out of a kid coming off the escalator. Seriously the kid was like 12 years old running around his mom, saw me, stopped, and shook like he was having a seizure. With our fill of scaring kids we headed to the top floor of the mall to the mini mart outside the movie theater to try and get dinner for the train ride. It was slim pickings and we ended up with france bread, koola grams, pringels, rice cakes, a snickers, and a bag of m&m's. A feast for kings indeed, sadly it did not come with a bag to carry it in. So there we were walking probably a good mile back down the street to the Hyatt with our pockets stuffed and the rest balanced in our hands. I am sure we looked ridiculous and to top it off we had to walk into the Hyatt to ask for a bag before we left for the train.
At around 4:00pm we headed for the train station. For some reason it is impossible to get a cab from the Hyatt to the train station because the cabs say it is not worth the 2 mile drive. Finally, the door guys convinced one to take us and we were off to Xi'an's main station. We got dropped off about 2 blocks away and started our walk. About 300ft from the door we noticed the pandemonium that awaited us. There were hundreds of people, maybe a thousand and we all had to get through a single door. At this point it was every man for himself and Chris and I proceeded to battle our way through the crowds throwing elbows and knocking over little kids.. actually we spared the kids, but there was plenty of pushing and shoving. I honestly don't know how we would have gotten through if we had kids or someone small with us. We had to traverse two of these choke points to make it inside and when we finally did we were exhausted. Looking around we found the train waiting area and our hearts sunk a little. It was packed and there was no place to put anything. Lucky for us a security guard noticed we were clueless and pointed us in the direction of another waiting area for people with soft sleeper tickets.
Once inside the soft sleeper waiting area, complete with leather chairs and tv's we started to relax....sadly that was short lived. In an attempt to get our own room on the train we both bought two tickets doubling the cost of our train trip. Once in the car we were glad we did. The train room was tiny, literally the width of my shoulders was the gap between the beds and the beds were basically wood with little to no padding. We did our best to settle in, using the top bunks for storage and dug into our bag full of goodies. Dinner for me was 5 france breads and a snickers. Chris had two rice cakes, m&m's and his koala grams. After that I decided to brave the bathroom situation... Yeah it was basically a metal hole (nice stainless steel I must admit) with pee all around it and everything in the place including the handle was wet. I could not figure out where to stand or why everything was so wet, so I just got my business over with quickly and promised myself I would never go back. I ran back to the room in horror kicking my shoes off as soon as I was in and grabbed a hand wipe. Chris found this all very amusing and headed down the hall to take it in despite my warnings. A few minutes later he was back doing the same thing I did kicking his shoes far under the bed and scrubbing his hands with a wipe. It was working out pretty good (other than the "facilities") until the train conductor checked our tickets. We gave her all 4 thinking that would be the end of it, but she continued to come back every hour or so to check our room. After her third visit we were convinced we were getting roommates so Chris got pissed and I started to cry. Chris thought about arguing if it came to it, but I quickly convinced him that it would do no good since no one can understand anything we say and our Mandarin vocabulary included 1 to 2 words. So there we laid for the next 3 or so hours, wide awake, awaiting our pending doom..... by about 12am we were exhausted and gave up to sleeping. We awoke to people yelling in the hall around 7:30am.... no new roommates so we figured we were in the clear. About 6.5 hrs later we finally arrived in Shanghai. Honestly, although we slept for a good chunk of it 20+ hrs on a train sucks. Needless to say we will be assessing other transportation options for our trip out to Guilin, which can take from 22-26hrs.
Once in Shanghai we made our way to the subway, got tickets with little hassle other than the crowds of people pushing through the station, and jumped on the train. Three stops later we got off and headed north like the directions said. The hostel claimed to be 150 meters to the north and then 15 meters from the intersection with Wuling Rd. As we walked the rain intensified and we were getting soaked. The 150 meters turned into a good mile and a half and we may have never found it if we had not run into other backpackers. By the time we found it we were pissed at the directions and soaked. Clearly the directions were not that good and we finally figured out they should have said to go east instead of north. Once there we checked in and got to the room. Overall it is a nice room and the hostel seems pretty nice so far. As for us we are done for the day.... 20 hrs of train travel and a few miles in the rain have done us in. Hopefully tomorrow the rain will stop and we can get out to see a little of Shanghai
Monday, June 30, 2008
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Get your poor off me
Our last day in Beijing was pretty quite. We did make it out to a street market to try some of the more strange local foods, but all we could muster was scorpions and crickets. Honestly they pretty much taste like whatever they are cooked in.. in this case they tasted burnt. From there we headed back to the Red Lantern to grab our luggage and departed for our 9:30pm train at 6pm. Needless to say we were a little early and spent a good two hours in the waiting area, with about a billion other people, until we boarded.
It was our first train in China and not knowing what to expect we splurged on the deluxe. It consisted of a private room with two beds, a private western bathroom, and an extra chair. Overall it was pretty nice and we quickly fell asleep for our 12 hour train ride.
We arrived in Xian around 9:30am and started looking for a taxi to the Hyatt. Unfortunately, the train station was mobbed with hundreds of people standing outside. Xian must be a popular station for local farmers because people were sitting and laying outside all over the place with huge sacks of stuff. Chris was quickly approached by someone offering to drive us to the Hyatt. While it was probably stupid to take the guy up on it it worked out. He was basically trying to sell his services for other tours around the city while we were here and did not charge us for the trip since we told him we might call him..... We didn't call him and just used the Hyatt to reserve a tour. The Hyatt was nice enough to let us check in early and even upgraded us to a junior suite. For what reason I don't know, either they felt sorry for us or that was all that was available. It has a living room, bedroom, and two bathrooms. Not to bad for a free hotel. After the long ride on the train we decided to take it easy and lay around the Hyatt and finish our trip plans for Europe. Of course that didn't happen since it was 2.5RMB a minute to use the internet at the Hyatt, so we spent the better part of the day looking for an internet cafe. We finally found one that had no AC so we checked email quick and headed back to the room.
Back at the Hyatt we decided we would be the classy guys we are and do some laundry by hand in our junior suite at the Hyatt. It was pretty ridiculous the two of us in the bathroom, Chris washing the clothes in the sink and handing them to me (standing in the tub) to rinse them off and ring them out. It took all of about two pairs of socks to turn the water brown forcing us to change it 3 or 4 times before we were done. By the end we had laundry lines stretched back and forth across the bathroom for them to dry. This morning we awoke to a room full of we clothes, absolutely nothing dried, so we decided to move it out to the living room in front of the window. I honestly can't imagine what the maids must of thought today. They walk into a room that probably cost 500 dollars a night and there is underwear and socks strung out in front of the window. That's us, all class.
While the maids were taking in our handy work we were out on a tour of Xian. It included stops at the Big goose Pagoda, the porcelain factory (that makes terracotta replicas), the Terracotta Warriors themselves, an Indian Village, and the wall around the city. The Big Goose Pagoda is the tallest and oldest pagoda in China, at least that's what the tour guide said. The one interesting thing was there were monks chanting for the victims of the earthquake a few weeks ago (Chris got a video that should be on flickr in a few days). From there we went to the terracotta factory and loaded up on warriors. I bought a good size one that will probably cost more to ship than to buy. Not sure if it was a good price, but it was factory direct and they claim to be the cheapest. From there it was to the Terracotta Warrior site itself. There are 3 main pits that have the soldiers in them. Pit 1 was the first and most impressive of the three. It is massive and each warrior is supposedly slightly different. At the back of Pit 1 you can see where archaeologists are still piecing them back together. The other two pits had much of the same, but were not as big or as excavated. Over the course of the tour we learned that there is an estimated 6000 terracotta soldiers buried at the site and that there are 5 main types infantry, captains, archers, horseman, and generals, which all made by hand. After finishing up at the Terracotta Warriors site we headed to what amounted to an indian village. That's all I will really say about it, but for those who know what an indian village is you will know why I don't have to. From there we headed to the Xian city wall. It was cool, but at that point we had spent the better part of 10 hrs in 98 degree heat so we were done.
That will about wrap it up for Xian. We head to the train station tomorrow bound for Shanghai.
It was our first train in China and not knowing what to expect we splurged on the deluxe. It consisted of a private room with two beds, a private western bathroom, and an extra chair. Overall it was pretty nice and we quickly fell asleep for our 12 hour train ride.
We arrived in Xian around 9:30am and started looking for a taxi to the Hyatt. Unfortunately, the train station was mobbed with hundreds of people standing outside. Xian must be a popular station for local farmers because people were sitting and laying outside all over the place with huge sacks of stuff. Chris was quickly approached by someone offering to drive us to the Hyatt. While it was probably stupid to take the guy up on it it worked out. He was basically trying to sell his services for other tours around the city while we were here and did not charge us for the trip since we told him we might call him..... We didn't call him and just used the Hyatt to reserve a tour. The Hyatt was nice enough to let us check in early and even upgraded us to a junior suite. For what reason I don't know, either they felt sorry for us or that was all that was available. It has a living room, bedroom, and two bathrooms. Not to bad for a free hotel. After the long ride on the train we decided to take it easy and lay around the Hyatt and finish our trip plans for Europe. Of course that didn't happen since it was 2.5RMB a minute to use the internet at the Hyatt, so we spent the better part of the day looking for an internet cafe. We finally found one that had no AC so we checked email quick and headed back to the room.
Back at the Hyatt we decided we would be the classy guys we are and do some laundry by hand in our junior suite at the Hyatt. It was pretty ridiculous the two of us in the bathroom, Chris washing the clothes in the sink and handing them to me (standing in the tub) to rinse them off and ring them out. It took all of about two pairs of socks to turn the water brown forcing us to change it 3 or 4 times before we were done. By the end we had laundry lines stretched back and forth across the bathroom for them to dry. This morning we awoke to a room full of we clothes, absolutely nothing dried, so we decided to move it out to the living room in front of the window. I honestly can't imagine what the maids must of thought today. They walk into a room that probably cost 500 dollars a night and there is underwear and socks strung out in front of the window. That's us, all class.
While the maids were taking in our handy work we were out on a tour of Xian. It included stops at the Big goose Pagoda, the porcelain factory (that makes terracotta replicas), the Terracotta Warriors themselves, an Indian Village, and the wall around the city. The Big Goose Pagoda is the tallest and oldest pagoda in China, at least that's what the tour guide said. The one interesting thing was there were monks chanting for the victims of the earthquake a few weeks ago (Chris got a video that should be on flickr in a few days). From there we went to the terracotta factory and loaded up on warriors. I bought a good size one that will probably cost more to ship than to buy. Not sure if it was a good price, but it was factory direct and they claim to be the cheapest. From there it was to the Terracotta Warrior site itself. There are 3 main pits that have the soldiers in them. Pit 1 was the first and most impressive of the three. It is massive and each warrior is supposedly slightly different. At the back of Pit 1 you can see where archaeologists are still piecing them back together. The other two pits had much of the same, but were not as big or as excavated. Over the course of the tour we learned that there is an estimated 6000 terracotta soldiers buried at the site and that there are 5 main types infantry, captains, archers, horseman, and generals, which all made by hand. After finishing up at the Terracotta Warriors site we headed to what amounted to an indian village. That's all I will really say about it, but for those who know what an indian village is you will know why I don't have to. From there we headed to the Xian city wall. It was cool, but at that point we had spent the better part of 10 hrs in 98 degree heat so we were done.
That will about wrap it up for Xian. We head to the train station tomorrow bound for Shanghai.
Monday, June 23, 2008
V.I.P
WARNING: I have not posted in four days do to a computer shortage in our hostel so the following post is likely to be long and boring. I don't expect anyone to read through it all and if you do that means you probably have too much time on your hands. Additionally the title will not make sense until Day 3 at the earliest, so if your curious go ahead and skip to Day 3.
Day 1: Arrival
After a quick 3 hour plane ride, on which we had two rows to ourselves, we arrived in the Beijing Capital International Airport. With a little effort and his skill of reading engrish Chris found our ride standing with a sign that read "CHIRS TOP." We followed him to the car and started the 40 min trip to our hostel. We were riding along comfortably, or as comfortably as you can in Beijing with people, bikes and cars flying all around, when all of a sudden our driver hooked a left down a small hutong street. Just to give you an idea the street was probably 10 ft wide at best, was part dirt part broken concrete, and had locals walking up and down it. About half way down he stops and tells us to get out of the car and points down the street indicating for us to walk that way.... At this point Chris and I are both thinking " what the hell did we get ourselves into and are we getting robbed." At the last second we saw a small sign that said "The Red Lantern" in English so we both started walking. We clearly over reacted a little and we found the hostel just down the street on the left. During check in were told we had to walk to get to our place, which was not so reassuring. Still rattled by our drop off we walked outside and some guy on a bike stops takes our bags and then rides off indicating for us to follow. Lets just say he really wasn't waiting for us and we had to speed walk to keep up or we risked watching our bags disappear down the street. By the time we got to our room and found our rock hard beds we were basically crying like little girls wondering what we had gotten ourselves into. What can we say, going from the Hyatt to the hostel in Beijing was a little bit of an adjustment.
Day 2: Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and the Temple of Heaven
Got up around 9 and decided to go down town. We asked the hostel the best way to get down town and they indicated to take the bus for 1 RMB, which is basically 15 cents. Even though the book said to avoid buses and no one else in the hostel seemed to brave the public transport we decided to give it a shot. It went pretty smoothly and we found our selves on the south side of Tiananmen Square in no time. First impressions... everything in the square is huge. In fact the scale of Beijing in general is gigantic. From the bus stop we walked north across the square toward the Forbidden City. Still a little skeptical of just about everyone and everything we were on edge checking our pockets and watching our stuff most of the day. We got to the Forbidden City without any issues and started walking towards the entrance. On the way in we were harassed a little by some people selling stuff and some young kids even tried to catch us in a selling art scam (thanks to the Beijing book we were pre-warned). Once in the city we took the english audio tour. It was cool, but we were getting hungry so we headed back across Tiananmen Square to get some food. After lunch we decided to walk down to the Temple of Heaven. It took about 15 min to walk through some interesting areas, but we got there pretty easy. The temple was cool, apparently built without any nails and lucky for us provided good shelter from the rain. It is hard to describe the rain here, but when it rains the sky just seems to open up in seconds and dump water for hours. After about an hour it slowed down enough for us to leave. We headed for the east gate and over to the pearl market. The pearl market was pretty much awful, complete with four floors of people yelling at you to come buy there stuff and jewelry that I cant tell if it is real or fake. Having our fill of the pearl market we walked the 15 min back up to our bus stop and rode back to the hostel. We grabbed a late dinner from there and headed to bed.
Day 3: Great Wall
We were up at 6:30am and on the road to the Great Wall at Mutianyu by 7am with a couple and another guy from our hostel. Arrived at the wall around 8:30am and bought the package deal complete with a ski lift ride to the top of the mountain to walk along the wall and a luge ride back down to the bottom (yes I said luge at the historic Great Wall site). The guide said we had 4 hours and once up on the Great Wall we took it all in. The Great Wall lived up to its name stretching as far as we could see and significantly farther and than we could walk. Chris had another Grand Canyon moment about a mile in. I won't lie it was humid as crap and steep, but it is still funny seeing Chris laying on the Great Wall. You should be able to check Chris out taking in the wall from all angles on flickr.... standing, sitting, kneeling, and lying down on his back. After hiking for about 2 hrs up on the wall we decided it was time to try out the luge ride back down. The ride was pretty much awesome and we got yelled at the whole way down to slow down. (Check out the videos on flickr). At the bottom we walked around a little make shift market area and got some t-shirts in our first haggling experience. We probably still got ripped off, but we haggled her down from 25 to 5 bucks. About an hour later everyone met up and we headed back to Beijing grabbing lunch at a small Chinese restaurant along the way. It was pretty good and we got a ton of food served family style. Over the course of the day we got to know the couple on the trip with us and talked about going to an acrobat show when we got back. After some quick showers we grabbed some food and headed out on our double date.... We got to the show late because of traffic and bought the cheapest tickets they had. We were headed upstairs when all of a sudden the usher, after seeing how cool and good looking Chris and I were took us in the lower seating area and sat us in the VIP section. The VIP section had more leg room, good for me, and a table for tea. The kids in the show were amazing ranging from like 5 - 15. I can honestly say I have no idea how they bend like that. Following the show we went back to the hostel, had some beers out in the courtyard. Honestly, though we were skeptical at first the Red Lantern is pretty nice. It is a traditional hutong building with a lot of open courtyards and everyone has been really nice and helpful for the most part.
Day 4: Summer Palace and Duck
Got up a little late today and ate breakfast at the hostel. Headed out for the Summer Palace and grabbed the 111 bus towards the zoo. Tickets for the boat ride to the Summer Palace also included free admission to the zoo so we checked out the pandas while we waited for the boat to leave. They had about 20 pandas in the exhibit and were selling some pandas for the reconstruction effort of the conservation center destroyed by the earthquake. We each bought one, took in a few more sites at the zoo, and then jumped on the boat at one. The boat was pretty boring, but it got us where we were going. Lucky for us someone on the boat spoke english because about half way up we had to change boats to actually get to the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace is centered around a giant man made lake that is part of the canal system we road up. The Summer Palace was pretty cool. On the way in I was asked to pose with some guys girlfriend for a picture (Chris had one earlier with some dudes so it is 1 to 1 so far). We spent some time walking around the Palace and hiked up to the main Buddhist temple there. That was probably the best part of the palace and had a great view of the lake and other structures around the area. On our way out of the area we passed a some kind of high school tour group that seemed to think we were interesting. Not sure what it was, but some said hello, others gasped and stared and some others giggled to their friend.
On the way out we tried to get a taxi to take us all the way back to the hotel, but he would not go down town during rush hour. In the end he agreed to drive us over to the boat dock to catch the boat back to the zoo. We agreed and hopped in thinking he would take us down to where we changed boats, however we went on a drive across the bridge that amounted to about 60 seconds and cost 10 yuan. Lucky for us that is only about a 1.50 usd. It was about 4:30pm by this time and we were convinced we were screwed because the boats were closed, but the lady at the counter sold us two tickets for the boat ride back saying they could not take us to the zoo, but could drop us off at the convention center... Not really having much of an option we decided to go with it and wait for the boat that would arrive in half an hour. The boat finally got there and everyone who was on it pretty much got off. The lady running the boat looked at us funny when we tried to hand her a ticket, but the lady who sold us the ticket said something in Chinese and she went ahead and let us on. By the time we left the Summer Palace area we were on our own private cruise down the canal back towards Beijing. As we went along kids waved and we saw tons of fisherman along the side of the canal. We finally reached the area where we had to change boats earlier and got off the boat thinking that was it. At that point the lady told us to follow her over to the other part of the canal, where there was some random speed boat waiting. She waved to them and they came over. She told us to go ahead and get on, which we did, the guys pushed off and we were on our way. To give you an idea the canal is probably 15 ft wide and the boat probably did about 30 miles an hour down the thing. So there we were in our own private jet boat, flying like VIP's down the imperial canal through Beijing. At one point the canal was even closed and we had to coast over the rope of bouyies lifting the engine out of the water so it would not get snagged. About 10 min later we were on the dock at the convention center saying thanks for the ride. From there the VIP treatment was over and we caught the 111 bus back to our hostel. A quick change at the hostel and we were back out the door to go eat dinner at a duck place. After taking a few wrong turns our 15min walk became 30, but we eventually found the place. We were seated immediately and ordered our duck. I honestly dont have any other duck to compare it too, but this was the best duck I have ever had. We stuffed ourselves full of duck, bread, rice and coke and then attempted to walk home. Lucky for us it started to rain and we were saved from our own stupidity. So we grabbed another bus, the 111 of course and headed back to the hostel.
That's about it for now. I can honestly say I was a little skeptical when we got here, but Beijing has turned out to be a lot of fun. In a matter of days we found ourselves dodging cars with the best of them, grabbing the bus all over and ..
Day 1: Arrival
After a quick 3 hour plane ride, on which we had two rows to ourselves, we arrived in the Beijing Capital International Airport. With a little effort and his skill of reading engrish Chris found our ride standing with a sign that read "CHIRS TOP." We followed him to the car and started the 40 min trip to our hostel. We were riding along comfortably, or as comfortably as you can in Beijing with people, bikes and cars flying all around, when all of a sudden our driver hooked a left down a small hutong street. Just to give you an idea the street was probably 10 ft wide at best, was part dirt part broken concrete, and had locals walking up and down it. About half way down he stops and tells us to get out of the car and points down the street indicating for us to walk that way.... At this point Chris and I are both thinking " what the hell did we get ourselves into and are we getting robbed." At the last second we saw a small sign that said "The Red Lantern" in English so we both started walking. We clearly over reacted a little and we found the hostel just down the street on the left. During check in were told we had to walk to get to our place, which was not so reassuring. Still rattled by our drop off we walked outside and some guy on a bike stops takes our bags and then rides off indicating for us to follow. Lets just say he really wasn't waiting for us and we had to speed walk to keep up or we risked watching our bags disappear down the street. By the time we got to our room and found our rock hard beds we were basically crying like little girls wondering what we had gotten ourselves into. What can we say, going from the Hyatt to the hostel in Beijing was a little bit of an adjustment.
Day 2: Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and the Temple of Heaven
Got up around 9 and decided to go down town. We asked the hostel the best way to get down town and they indicated to take the bus for 1 RMB, which is basically 15 cents. Even though the book said to avoid buses and no one else in the hostel seemed to brave the public transport we decided to give it a shot. It went pretty smoothly and we found our selves on the south side of Tiananmen Square in no time. First impressions... everything in the square is huge. In fact the scale of Beijing in general is gigantic. From the bus stop we walked north across the square toward the Forbidden City. Still a little skeptical of just about everyone and everything we were on edge checking our pockets and watching our stuff most of the day. We got to the Forbidden City without any issues and started walking towards the entrance. On the way in we were harassed a little by some people selling stuff and some young kids even tried to catch us in a selling art scam (thanks to the Beijing book we were pre-warned). Once in the city we took the english audio tour. It was cool, but we were getting hungry so we headed back across Tiananmen Square to get some food. After lunch we decided to walk down to the Temple of Heaven. It took about 15 min to walk through some interesting areas, but we got there pretty easy. The temple was cool, apparently built without any nails and lucky for us provided good shelter from the rain. It is hard to describe the rain here, but when it rains the sky just seems to open up in seconds and dump water for hours. After about an hour it slowed down enough for us to leave. We headed for the east gate and over to the pearl market. The pearl market was pretty much awful, complete with four floors of people yelling at you to come buy there stuff and jewelry that I cant tell if it is real or fake. Having our fill of the pearl market we walked the 15 min back up to our bus stop and rode back to the hostel. We grabbed a late dinner from there and headed to bed.
Day 3: Great Wall
We were up at 6:30am and on the road to the Great Wall at Mutianyu by 7am with a couple and another guy from our hostel. Arrived at the wall around 8:30am and bought the package deal complete with a ski lift ride to the top of the mountain to walk along the wall and a luge ride back down to the bottom (yes I said luge at the historic Great Wall site). The guide said we had 4 hours and once up on the Great Wall we took it all in. The Great Wall lived up to its name stretching as far as we could see and significantly farther and than we could walk. Chris had another Grand Canyon moment about a mile in. I won't lie it was humid as crap and steep, but it is still funny seeing Chris laying on the Great Wall. You should be able to check Chris out taking in the wall from all angles on flickr.... standing, sitting, kneeling, and lying down on his back. After hiking for about 2 hrs up on the wall we decided it was time to try out the luge ride back down. The ride was pretty much awesome and we got yelled at the whole way down to slow down. (Check out the videos on flickr). At the bottom we walked around a little make shift market area and got some t-shirts in our first haggling experience. We probably still got ripped off, but we haggled her down from 25 to 5 bucks. About an hour later everyone met up and we headed back to Beijing grabbing lunch at a small Chinese restaurant along the way. It was pretty good and we got a ton of food served family style. Over the course of the day we got to know the couple on the trip with us and talked about going to an acrobat show when we got back. After some quick showers we grabbed some food and headed out on our double date.... We got to the show late because of traffic and bought the cheapest tickets they had. We were headed upstairs when all of a sudden the usher, after seeing how cool and good looking Chris and I were took us in the lower seating area and sat us in the VIP section. The VIP section had more leg room, good for me, and a table for tea. The kids in the show were amazing ranging from like 5 - 15. I can honestly say I have no idea how they bend like that. Following the show we went back to the hostel, had some beers out in the courtyard. Honestly, though we were skeptical at first the Red Lantern is pretty nice. It is a traditional hutong building with a lot of open courtyards and everyone has been really nice and helpful for the most part.
Day 4: Summer Palace and Duck
Got up a little late today and ate breakfast at the hostel. Headed out for the Summer Palace and grabbed the 111 bus towards the zoo. Tickets for the boat ride to the Summer Palace also included free admission to the zoo so we checked out the pandas while we waited for the boat to leave. They had about 20 pandas in the exhibit and were selling some pandas for the reconstruction effort of the conservation center destroyed by the earthquake. We each bought one, took in a few more sites at the zoo, and then jumped on the boat at one. The boat was pretty boring, but it got us where we were going. Lucky for us someone on the boat spoke english because about half way up we had to change boats to actually get to the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace is centered around a giant man made lake that is part of the canal system we road up. The Summer Palace was pretty cool. On the way in I was asked to pose with some guys girlfriend for a picture (Chris had one earlier with some dudes so it is 1 to 1 so far). We spent some time walking around the Palace and hiked up to the main Buddhist temple there. That was probably the best part of the palace and had a great view of the lake and other structures around the area. On our way out of the area we passed a some kind of high school tour group that seemed to think we were interesting. Not sure what it was, but some said hello, others gasped and stared and some others giggled to their friend.
On the way out we tried to get a taxi to take us all the way back to the hotel, but he would not go down town during rush hour. In the end he agreed to drive us over to the boat dock to catch the boat back to the zoo. We agreed and hopped in thinking he would take us down to where we changed boats, however we went on a drive across the bridge that amounted to about 60 seconds and cost 10 yuan. Lucky for us that is only about a 1.50 usd. It was about 4:30pm by this time and we were convinced we were screwed because the boats were closed, but the lady at the counter sold us two tickets for the boat ride back saying they could not take us to the zoo, but could drop us off at the convention center... Not really having much of an option we decided to go with it and wait for the boat that would arrive in half an hour. The boat finally got there and everyone who was on it pretty much got off. The lady running the boat looked at us funny when we tried to hand her a ticket, but the lady who sold us the ticket said something in Chinese and she went ahead and let us on. By the time we left the Summer Palace area we were on our own private cruise down the canal back towards Beijing. As we went along kids waved and we saw tons of fisherman along the side of the canal. We finally reached the area where we had to change boats earlier and got off the boat thinking that was it. At that point the lady told us to follow her over to the other part of the canal, where there was some random speed boat waiting. She waved to them and they came over. She told us to go ahead and get on, which we did, the guys pushed off and we were on our way. To give you an idea the canal is probably 15 ft wide and the boat probably did about 30 miles an hour down the thing. So there we were in our own private jet boat, flying like VIP's down the imperial canal through Beijing. At one point the canal was even closed and we had to coast over the rope of bouyies lifting the engine out of the water so it would not get snagged. About 10 min later we were on the dock at the convention center saying thanks for the ride. From there the VIP treatment was over and we caught the 111 bus back to our hostel. A quick change at the hostel and we were back out the door to go eat dinner at a duck place. After taking a few wrong turns our 15min walk became 30, but we eventually found the place. We were seated immediately and ordered our duck. I honestly dont have any other duck to compare it too, but this was the best duck I have ever had. We stuffed ourselves full of duck, bread, rice and coke and then attempted to walk home. Lucky for us it started to rain and we were saved from our own stupidity. So we grabbed another bus, the 111 of course and headed back to the hostel.
That's about it for now. I can honestly say I was a little skeptical when we got here, but Beijing has turned out to be a lot of fun. In a matter of days we found ourselves dodging cars with the best of them, grabbing the bus all over and ..
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Sayonara Japan
It is our last day in Japan and nothing much new to report. We arrived at the Hyatt yesterday sweaty and dirty from carrying our packs across 4 or 5 train stations. Needless to say we looked and probably felt a little out of place. So much so I barely knew how to respond when the bell hop came over and took my bag from me while I was checking in... how soon we forget. The Hyatt is really nice, flat screen satellite tv, comfy beds and a toilet seat with a built in heat seat... big surprise since it apparently is one of the most expensive hotels in Osaka.
Not wanting to spend our entire last two days in the hotel sitting around watching the Discovery Channel we headed out last night to grab some dinner and to satisfy Chris's claw game obsession. We grabbed a quick cheap dinner and walked around a little ending up in an arcade. Chris found his game (it was a net that you had to cast over your target to retrieve your prize) and started pumping 100 yen coins into it. About 700 yen in he finally won or at least that is what he considers it. I am not sure how you can consider spending 7 bucks for for a bear with a blue bonnet winning, but I guess we all have different set of conditions for victory.
Inspired by his victory yesterday, Chris and I headed back out today to do a little shopping and continue his quest to play every claw game known to man. After a failed attempt in one part of town we arrived in Namba and found a 2 mile shopping area with all kinds of shops and arcades. It is amazing how much shopping goes on here, I have never seen anything like it. In every city we stop in all we see people in Japan doing is consuming be it games, food, or shopping. I am convinced at this point that no one saves any money and it all goes to some form of entertainment. While taking in the spectacle that it is we continued to jump in and out of arcades, each time looking for new claw games. Three more dollars here, five more there, I swear since we got to Japan Chris has probably spent more in claw machines than food.. well he has at least pumped in 30 bucks with only one victory to his name.. the blue bonneted bear.
Anyway that will probably about wrap it up for Japan. Off to China tomorrow
Not wanting to spend our entire last two days in the hotel sitting around watching the Discovery Channel we headed out last night to grab some dinner and to satisfy Chris's claw game obsession. We grabbed a quick cheap dinner and walked around a little ending up in an arcade. Chris found his game (it was a net that you had to cast over your target to retrieve your prize) and started pumping 100 yen coins into it. About 700 yen in he finally won or at least that is what he considers it. I am not sure how you can consider spending 7 bucks for for a bear with a blue bonnet winning, but I guess we all have different set of conditions for victory.
Inspired by his victory yesterday, Chris and I headed back out today to do a little shopping and continue his quest to play every claw game known to man. After a failed attempt in one part of town we arrived in Namba and found a 2 mile shopping area with all kinds of shops and arcades. It is amazing how much shopping goes on here, I have never seen anything like it. In every city we stop in all we see people in Japan doing is consuming be it games, food, or shopping. I am convinced at this point that no one saves any money and it all goes to some form of entertainment. While taking in the spectacle that it is we continued to jump in and out of arcades, each time looking for new claw games. Three more dollars here, five more there, I swear since we got to Japan Chris has probably spent more in claw machines than food.. well he has at least pumped in 30 bucks with only one victory to his name.. the blue bonneted bear.
Anyway that will probably about wrap it up for Japan. Off to China tomorrow
Thursday, June 19, 2008
DARE..Drug Abuse Resistance Education
Up at 9:00 today slowed by our "binge" drinking last night on the porch (two beers each) and out the door by 10:30. We decided to check out the Iwatayama Monkey Park to see some snow monkeys so we grabbed the subway as far west is it would take us. Based on the map we got from the hostel it looked like a nice short walk from there, nothing more than a mile, so walking and saving some cash seemed like the best option. We set out from the subway station and quickly realized we would need umbrellas so we stopped in a gas station and bought two. Continuing on our walk we made it down to Shijo-dori and hooked a right and kept walking..and walking..and walking. It was basically a death march in the rain, our one mile walk became a 3.5 mile hike. Finally we made it to the entrance to the monkey park, payed out 500 yen, got a pamphlet that said don't stare at the monkeys and then... looked up... we still had a twenty minute hike to the top to see the monkeys. Fearing a repeat of the Grand Canyon we pressed on hiking up the wet gravel in about 200% humidity. As we reached the top there were monkeys everywhere. Honestly, at first it was a little unnerving having monkeys running all around you screaming at each other, but after awhile you get used to it and then it is awesome. The monkeys are pretty much free to go and do as they please and you can even feed them, but have to do it from inside a fenced in hut. The adolescent ones were the most entertaining wrestling with each other and jumping on each other in the water. We probably spent a good 30 minutes watching them and taking pictures. From there we walked back down the hill to find lunch, but struggled to find anything other than snacks and ice cream around all the shrines so we decided head back to our side of town.Figuring we were close to the the Hankyu Arashiyama Line we walked across the bridge and found a train station, bought our tickets and got on the train. Riding along feeling glad to be on a train and not walking we rode all the way to the last stop and got off. Unfortunately when we walked out of the station we realized that we were not where we thought we were and had no clue other than we were back on Shijo dori, which runs east to west. So what did we do, we started walking..and walking, and still more walking.. another 2 miles until we saw familiar store fronts. At that point it was nearly 4pm so we grabbed lunch and headed back to the hostel.
About an hour or so later we headed back out and checked out some more shrines. Nothing really new here other than a Samurai statue that we took a picture in front of doing our best Japanese teenage girl pose.
We decided to do some shopping after that stopping off in the toy store to get something for Marty and then to walk the arcade. As we were going along we noticed a vintage t-shirt thrift shop and had to stop in. For all you people who say Chris and I have know style.. that we don't know fashion... the truth is we are visionaries in Japan. The whole store was covered in t-shirts from our youth. Dare shirts, old gym shirts, faded sports shirts, and the best of all an orange "This is my Costume" t-shirt exactly like the one Chris bought a few years back. We probably spent 30 minutes in there looking through all the old t-shirts ranging in prices from 5-20 bucks laughing about at how fashionable we are in Japan. I stumbled on to a red Dare shirt I had to add to my collection; sadly it is too small and now is on its way to being a gift for Kirk who doesn't really deserve it, but is getting it anyway. We continued shopping, but couldn't really top the t-shirt shop. Chris tried to win an anime costume for Melissa from a claw game and got really close on his first try, which inspired him to put more money in. 600 or so yen later he finally gave up, the thing had not moved since his first try and was just hanging on the edge not going anywhere. At that point we headed here to our favorite internet cafe. It is a little pricey, but they have free ice cream and soda so it is worth it.
It is off to Osaka tomorrow and our first Hyatt is due up...thank god. I must be getting a little soft in my old age; a pillow top mattress and my own shower is already sounding nice.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Shrines, shrines and more shrines
Pretty basic day of touring Kyoto so far today which has shrines and temples all over the city. Got up around 8, showered in the shared showers and then grabbed a train down to the Fushimi Inari Shrine. It supposedly is one of the largest Inari shrines in Japan and is complete with a 2 mile walk through a path of toris to the top of the hill. The climb took a little over an hour, but was no where near as bad as the hike into the Grand Canyon three weeks ago. After that we trained over to Kyoto station to get the JR passes to Osaka and grab some lunch in the mall. From there we headed to the Nijo Castle and paid 6 bucks to get in and walk around a bit on the nightingale floors which squeak as you walk. This is apparently so that the guards could hear if anyone was trying to sneak into the palace. It was pretty cool, but at that point I was pretty beat.
That's pretty much it so far today. We are going to head over to a park with snow monkeys tomorrow and then probably more shrines.
That's pretty much it so far today. We are going to head over to a park with snow monkeys tomorrow and then probably more shrines.
Kyoto
I decided to break up posts today to shorten the last one a bit. Got up today and checked out of the hostel around 11am. I must say I honestly don't understand half the people who stay in the hostel. They come all the way to Japan and spend half their time sitting around the hostel drinking, smoking, and looking at facebook.
Anyway to keep it short the day pretty much went packing, walking, subway, bullet train (with box lunch), walking, and finally Kyoto.
Anyway to keep it short the day pretty much went packing, walking, subway, bullet train (with box lunch), walking, and finally Kyoto.
Tokyo Disneyland!
Following the internet cafe debacle on Monday we decided to take it easy yesterday morning. We headed out around 10:00am to grab an egg McMuffin and then go to the Ueno train station to reserve seats on the JR bullet train for our trip to Kyoto. Surprisingly with Chris's expert Japanese he learned from the internet it went pretty smoothly. On our way out of the train station to walk around Ueno we got trapped with a tiny Japanese man who decided we were European and needed a lesson on the degradation of Japanese culture. After about 15 min of broken engrish and a lot of "you understands" Chris broke in and said we had to go. At that point we ran away like school girls laughing and spent the rest of our time in Ueno on the look for tiny Japanese men trying to talk to us.From there we headed to Ginza to take in the Sony building and grab a little lunch. Lucky for us we found a Wendy's. It was awesome complete with Green Day on the radio, big bacon classics, and Biggie size, well almost Biggie size(sadly biggie size in Japan is the size of the small back home). Stuffed full of Wendy's we headed to an internet cafe to break up the day promising not to leave the building without each other. After that we jumped back on the subway to Ryogoku to check out the Edo Museum and the Sumo stadium. Lucky for us the Edo Museum was closed... so we were forced to go to the Sumo Museum that is about the size of a college dorm room. It was pretty much a total failure until we were on the way out and saw a sumo wrestler. In his best hand signals Chris asked to take picture by pointing at the camera, smiling and saying picture. To which the sumo guy replies with a slight shrug and a "yeah ok". I quickly jump next to him, we snap the shot and next thing we see is a 250 pound man in a sumo robe riding away on his tiny bike.
Unable to top that and tired from two days of non stop walking we headed back to the hostel to take a break. After laying around for about 2 hours I finally convinced Chris there was only one thing left to do in Tokyo that we had not done.... Tokyo Disney. We got out there around 6:30pm and bought the after 6 tickets, which are about half price. As most of you know I know a thing or two about Disney parks and honestly Tokyo Disney is pretty much just like the Magic Kingdom, other than it is in Japan and there are billions of Japanese people all over the place. From main street we decided to do the loop going right and around by way of Tomorrowland, Fantasyland, and then Adventureland. Between the rides I ducked into every store in the place looking for collectors pins for my sister. By about Westernland ( Frontierland in the U.S) I was convinced they did not have any pins in Tokyo Disney. At the very end of the loop on our way to Pirates of the Caribbean I saw a white cast member. Thinking he might speak english I asked him if they had pins. Sadly he spoke french so in my best frengrish I tried again and he got what I was trying to say. He and the girl behind the counter pointed me to the store next to them and we were in business ( If your ever in Tokyo Disney and want collectors pins they are only sold in one spot next to the exit to the Pirates ride). After grabbing the pins we realized we were hungry and looked around a bit. It was almost 9pm and the every place we looked was still packed. On our last legs, limping out of the park we spotted a hot dog joint on Main Street and ducked in for a foot long. For those not following along closely it was a solid day of Japanese dinning, which includeMcDonalds, Wendy's, and giant hot dog. Heading down main street on our way out we walked though the shops. Honestly, I have never seen a Disney store more chaotic. People were clearing the shelves and the people behind them were clearing stuff out of the boxes as the employees tried to restock. It was so ridiculous that the line at the Sugar Bank wove back and forth like the line for Space Mountain. Having our fill of Tokyo disney we headed back to the hostel and crashed for the night, feet still throbbing from our 3 day Tokyo walk athon.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Be sure to wash your hands
Last I left off we were in Roppongi getting ready to go out and get something to eat. We elected to try out a sushi place. It wasn't too bad once we got everything ordered other than the seaweed all over my tuna that would not come off and the fish eye in Chris's miso soup. From there we headed to a bar call Gaspanicwhere we ended up meeting a guy named Charlie from Paris and had just moved here a month ago for his girlfriend.... Honestly I feel bad for the guy, he has been here a month, doesn't speak Japanese, and now works 60 hour weeks instead of 35. He definitly got the short stick on that move. At about 11pm, being the old men that we are we decided to head back to the hotel and call it a night making plans with Charlie to try and meet up with him on Sunday night to go out in Shibuya.
On Sunday we got up with a plan to see the western side of Tokyo which included Shinjuku, Harajuku, and Shibuya. In Shinjuku we took in a small flea market at one of the shrines. Chris bought a pretty cool 100 year old picture of a samurai getting arrested.. at lest that is what the guy selling it said. From there we walked around a little checking out a few more arcades in the quest to find the latest claw like game which lets you control a little robot instead of a claw. We have looked all over the place and still have not found one anywhere. We then headed south toward Harajuku through Yoyogi Park to see the Meiji Shrine which was built to honor Emperor Meiji and his wife for their role in what is known as the Meiji restoration. Continuing out of the park towards Harajuku we saw the best sights off the day, a large crowd of teens dressed like anime characters.
From there we walked through Harajuku down to Shibuya, which pretty much looks like the Tokyo from all the movies with bright lights and giant screens all over the place. Chris has a video of us crossing the street, which should give you an idea how chaotic it is. Amongst all the walking we decided to duck into an internet cafe for a little while. It was an interesting place and we both got private booths that were about 6ft tall and that we could lock... After an hour I went to check on Chris who said he would be a couple more minutes, so I went back to my booth telling him to come get me when he is done. About 20 minutes later I got concerned so I went back to his cube peering over the edge to talk to him... and then I saw a full screen of porn. Not sure what to do I ran back to my cube and sat down for a few minutes. Five minutes or so passed and I decided to go back over and check on him again. Yup, still porn and this time I noticed a white hand.. so I was like what the shit is he doing and went back to my cube. Ten minutes or so passed again and this time I was pissed. So I got up and knocked on the door.. no answer, peering all the way over..white hand check... porn check ... dirty blond hair.. what the F^%k. I am thinking that's not Chris and if that's not Chris where the hell is Chris. A slight panic sets in as I look all over the internet cafe. Not sure what to do at that point I decided to leave figuring the jerk ditched me. I get down to the street and he is sitting there wondering what took me so long. Needless to say if you're ever in an internet cafe with a large cubes and doors that lock... wash your hands when you are done. With little left to do we decided to head home from there grabbing some raman at a 24hr shop and then made it another early night
On Sunday we got up with a plan to see the western side of Tokyo which included Shinjuku, Harajuku, and Shibuya. In Shinjuku we took in a small flea market at one of the shrines. Chris bought a pretty cool 100 year old picture of a samurai getting arrested.. at lest that is what the guy selling it said. From there we walked around a little checking out a few more arcades in the quest to find the latest claw like game which lets you control a little robot instead of a claw. We have looked all over the place and still have not found one anywhere. We then headed south toward Harajuku through Yoyogi Park to see the Meiji Shrine which was built to honor Emperor Meiji and his wife for their role in what is known as the Meiji restoration. Continuing out of the park towards Harajuku we saw the best sights off the day, a large crowd of teens dressed like anime characters.
From there we walked through Harajuku down to Shibuya, which pretty much looks like the Tokyo from all the movies with bright lights and giant screens all over the place. Chris has a video of us crossing the street, which should give you an idea how chaotic it is. Amongst all the walking we decided to duck into an internet cafe for a little while. It was an interesting place and we both got private booths that were about 6ft tall and that we could lock... After an hour I went to check on Chris who said he would be a couple more minutes, so I went back to my booth telling him to come get me when he is done. About 20 minutes later I got concerned so I went back to his cube peering over the edge to talk to him... and then I saw a full screen of porn. Not sure what to do I ran back to my cube and sat down for a few minutes. Five minutes or so passed and I decided to go back over and check on him again. Yup, still porn and this time I noticed a white hand.. so I was like what the shit is he doing and went back to my cube. Ten minutes or so passed again and this time I was pissed. So I got up and knocked on the door.. no answer, peering all the way over..white hand check... porn check ... dirty blond hair.. what the F^%k. I am thinking that's not Chris and if that's not Chris where the hell is Chris. A slight panic sets in as I look all over the internet cafe. Not sure what to do at that point I decided to leave figuring the jerk ditched me. I get down to the street and he is sitting there wondering what took me so long. Needless to say if you're ever in an internet cafe with a large cubes and doors that lock... wash your hands when you are done. With little left to do we decided to head home from there grabbing some raman at a 24hr shop and then made it another early night
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Don't Feed the birds
After going to bed last night around 8:30pm today started early.. 5:30am early. We spent some time sitting around the hostel for awhile and getting cleaned up, but then with nothing really to do we decided to head to Asakusa. Since we weren't really thinking it never dawned on us that everything would be closed at 7:30am. So after walking around the SensÅ-ji shrine for awhile and being careful not to feed the birds (note the warning sign to the left) we began to wonder off a bit. For those interested in whats around the shrine there is plenty to do including a porn theater (with free previews on the signs outside), tiny amusement park, strip clubs, and some random sports complex all on one street. After awhile hunger began to set in and being the world travelers we are we ended up in another McDonalds, our second trip in 24hrs.... What can I say, Chris and I have a nose for fast food. We hung out a little longer waiting for things to gradually open up and then headed off to Akihabara.For those who don't know Akihabara is also known as "Akihabara Electric Town" and pretty much has any electronic you can think of from bare wire for the do it yourselfer to general electronics. By the way, if anyone needs a Wii let me know they are all over the duty free stores that sell the 120v versions. Somehow it is easier for me to find a Wii that works in the U.S here in Japan than in the U.S. Anyway we spent some time walking in and out of all the electronic stores, arcades, and toy stores. It is a pretty impressive thing, guys from 15 - 50 all sitting around playing arcade games and shopping for toys. The place is pretty much made for guys like us.. other than the whole everything is in Japanese. For the most part the toy stores were pretty cool packed full of transformers (some originals for 250 bucks), dragon ball, old american toys and child porn. Yeah that last one was actually pretty disturbing. I am not really sure what the deal is, but for some reason there is porn in the back of some of the stores including young girls in bikinis.. like 4 years old young!
From there we took in our first non fast food meal and actually tried some geniune Japanese cuisine. The meal included rice, miso soup, and what pretty much equates to chicken fingers. It was really good and for the first time since In-N-Out Burger in Phoenix I felt full. Feeling full we decided to take a little break so we headed for the hostel and our soft mats....
After about an hour and a half we headed back down the Hibiya line to the Imperial Palace. A few tourist photo ops there and we were done with the place in about 10 minutes. I am sure it is really cool to see, the down side for tourists is that since it is still in use you can't see much more than a gate. Not really sure what to do at that point we began to follow our ears down the road about 3 blocks. In the nearby Hibiya Park we stumbled on to a rock concert full of teens and adults waiting to get in. Close by there was a group of teenagers rocking out to their friends like they were playing rock band in their living room, which was pretty entertaining. Although we wanted to stick around and check out the concert the price was a little steep, 60 bucks, we had no clue when it started and we were the only white guys around. Its a funny most tourists seem to stick pretty close to the tourist areas so if you walk just a few blocks off you are pretty much the only non Japanese people around.
From there we headed to Roppongi, which is where I currently sit. Off to dinner and to see what the night life has in store. Wish us luck... it is going to take a miracle for us to stay awake past 10pm.
Friday, June 13, 2008
I am huge in Japan
Yeah I know its cliche, but it is true...
So we finally made it to Japan after about 20 hours of flying, sitting, and riding the train. Other than 4 horrible movies and my pen exploding all over Chris when we filled out the customs forms, the flight was not too bad despite being 10 hours long and full of babies. Once we got off the plane we grabbed our bags and some cash and headed for the the hour train ride to Ueno. Once seated on the train we realized we were in priority seating. Not sure what that really meant other than we did not qualify as old, injured, or pregnant or what the rules were we got up and decided to stand for the full hour ride on the train. From there it was a subway ride and a 5 block walk to our hostel.
We finally arrived at Tokyo Hostel around 5pm Japan time (4am est) with visions of food and a soft bed to finally sleep in. Sadly we found a room, with slippers, a floor, two mats and a door that sits about 5 inches below the top of my head, but just out of my sight line so that I can drill myself in the forehead just about every time I walk in and out. After wondering what we had gotten ourselves into we headed out on the town to grab some food and to try to stay awake for a few more hours. On the way back we saw some strange parade that had a bunch of guys in short robes that rested just above or below their butts while they carried some kind of shrine. It was quite a site and even though Chris wanted to stay and stare at all the dudes in short robes, I was tired and had seen enough Japanese dude ass for one night. Once back at the hostel we sent out some emails and then headed for bed bringing an end to Day 1 of 123.
So we finally made it to Japan after about 20 hours of flying, sitting, and riding the train. Other than 4 horrible movies and my pen exploding all over Chris when we filled out the customs forms, the flight was not too bad despite being 10 hours long and full of babies. Once we got off the plane we grabbed our bags and some cash and headed for the the hour train ride to Ueno. Once seated on the train we realized we were in priority seating. Not sure what that really meant other than we did not qualify as old, injured, or pregnant or what the rules were we got up and decided to stand for the full hour ride on the train. From there it was a subway ride and a 5 block walk to our hostel.
We finally arrived at Tokyo Hostel around 5pm Japan time (4am est) with visions of food and a soft bed to finally sleep in. Sadly we found a room, with slippers, a floor, two mats and a door that sits about 5 inches below the top of my head, but just out of my sight line so that I can drill myself in the forehead just about every time I walk in and out. After wondering what we had gotten ourselves into we headed out on the town to grab some food and to try to stay awake for a few more hours. On the way back we saw some strange parade that had a bunch of guys in short robes that rested just above or below their butts while they carried some kind of shrine. It was quite a site and even though Chris wanted to stay and stare at all the dudes in short robes, I was tired and had seen enough Japanese dude ass for one night. Once back at the hostel we sent out some emails and then headed for bed bringing an end to Day 1 of 123.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
US Top 10
So far on the trip I have figured out three things other than I don't miss working ( I won't count not missing work because I knew that before I took my leave of absence). 1) I am horrible at blogging (note zero entries), 2) I camp out of necessity not for enjoyment, and 3) I am addicted to the Internet. Pretty pathetic, but there are still 5 months left so we will see what happens.
Since I failed to blog any of our US adventures here is a top 10 of where we have been so far.
- The
- After an exciting evening with Freddie Mercury look a likes and 3ft miniature ponies (oops..horses) on
- I love Lucy
- Home to
- Driving…… Driving …… Nothing ……
- I’ll admit it the
- If you ever get to
- Stalked by a pair of “Cougars” in Vegas……narrowly escaped with our dignity and pants
- Note to self: Hiking into the
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