Sat 11/06

I spent my Saturday with Saskia, a dutch girl. She mentioned the night before she was seeing some monkeys, and I asked if I could tag along. We headed up to Arashiyama, seemingly out in the country but in reality not even out of Kyoto. We started by heading to a temple, which I can’t remember the name of. The garden at the temple is a UNESCO world heritage site. It was nice, with a huge koi pond and lots of Japanese style garden arrangements. There was also a big, famous bamboo grove up there, so we headed that way too. After the temple and the garden, we got a slightly expensive (for my budget anyway) lunch of fried pork, egg and rice, which tasted really good. Slight note that has come into my head, I think my mind is deteriorating. The quality of my writing is going down hill, and I seem to be writing in a child like way. This is not good. Also, I keep wanting to write emotes onto my blog, such as J. I guess this one comes from being on the internet too much. I must break that habit!

                Anyway, on with the blog. After lunch we headed to the Arashiyama monkey park. It was a ¥550 entrance fee, so I was really hoping it’d be worth it. There’s nothing worse than paying money just to be disappointed.  The monkey park was on top of Arashiyama or Stormy Mountain literally translatd. Luckily for us it wasn’t stormy at all. It was a pretty hard climb, even though it was less than 200m tall. It was slowly getting hotter as we climbed. At the top of the mountain is the monkey park and viewing platform. There were dozens of monkeys sitting around or playing up there, and the view of Kyoto was absolutely amazing! I honestly did not realise how big Kyoto was until I went up there. It seems so much smaller from the ground, compared to Tokyo at least. We spent a good couple of hours on top of the mountain with the monkeys, despite one trying to swipe at me! I took so many photos and videos, and I’m not looking forward to the mammoth task of uploading them all!

After Arashiyama, things got worse though. When we got back to the hostel, I found I had lost my wallet. I took apart my room looking for it, and could not find it. I then went back up to Arashiyama to see if it had been handed in at the station, as Arashiyama was the last time I definitely had it. There was no sign of it at the station. I went to the nearest koban and asked there. The Japanese police were incredibly helpful and friendly, and despite not having my wallet there, took down my details and essentially filed the incident, so that if it does turn up I will be contacted and the wallet returned to me. As of yet, the wallet has not shown up, and I don’t feel that it will. But being the easy guy that I am, life goes on. I’ll just cancel my card that was inside, and get a new wallet. One that I won’t lose!

After that, I headed back to the hostel and had a drink, and then was invited to an Irish bar in Kyoto with a couple of Americans, the dutch girl, a Singaporean girl and a Japanese girl. Quite a mix, and from the looks of it, we seemed to stand out a bit in the bar. Having no cash (as I lost my wallet), one of the Americans paid for my drink and I would pay back today (Sunday). It was an imported American Ale called Rogue Dead Guy, fruity and pretty strong, and should have been colder. It was incredibly expensive as well, at ¥1000 for a pint (possibly, they don’t use imperial measure here). By the time I got up this morning, the Americans had checked out and left, so I didn’t have the chance to pay him back.

Kyoto Day One - Fri 10/06

My first working day in Kyoto. I met a mother and son at breakfast this morning, and the invited me along with them for their day. I think it was their last day here in Kyoto before heading South. Anyway, we started off by going to the Nijo Castle, which is the first castle I’ve been t in Japan. They say it’s a castle, but it seemed like more of a manor house with walls and a moat. It didn’t have the winding, walled pathways to create deathtraps, or the tall white donjon or keep that is characteristic of Japanese castles. That saying, it was built by the Tokugawa in 1603, so the need for proper castles was much less than decades before. What was cool was that all around the main manor was a nightingale floor, a floor that is nailed just right so that each step you take squeaks, the resulting sound being something like a nightingale’s song. Trying to walk along that without making a sound is impossible! It seems artistic now, but it was created so that people, such as assassins or ninja couldn’t sneak around without being heard. So essentially it was fuelled by paranoia. 

The moat around the Nijo-jo Castle

After that, we moved to the Fushimi Inari taisho, or shrine. There was a festival there today, but unfortunaltey we missed it. It was still an impressive shrine. It just went on and on. It is famous for its huge number of red wooden torii or gates. And there were literally hundreds of them, covering all the pathways. We took a turn somewhere at the back of the shrine and stumbled upon several very old cemeteries, which in Shinto means lots of mini-shrines for the deceased. They were really cool, all old and mossy, and made for a lot of good photos. These cemeteries were way up a mountain, but there was still a little old lady who had walked up there (and it wasn’t an easy walk) to pray at these shrines. From the looks of things, she was moving from one shrine to the next (I saw her at 3 different shrines in a row), so perhaps she was doing a pilgrimage. You could tell that some of the shrines had not been visited for a long time and were slowly falling apart. There were some signs of life up there though: newly placed rice and salt trays, lit incense and candles; that sort of thing. Eventually, after getting a bit lost, we headed back down the mountain, a way we hadn’t come up, and not through the shrine. This way lead us through what looked like tiny farms, strange after the dense forest of the mountain. All of a sudden there was a school, all this way up. The first kids we saw seemed confused to see gaijin up there, but being young as they were, they said “Konnichiwa.” first, and then simply “Hello.” It was a really big school. We got lost somewhere on the way down, after following groups of school kids. Luckily, a friendly fifteen year old; whom I didn’t get the name of; offered to help us (and practice his English).

Red torii gates at the Fushimi-Inari Shrine

Mountain-side cemetery

We managed to get back into town, and on a whim decided to see the Kiyomizudera temple, this one Buddhist rather than Shinto. Again this was on top of a very tall hill, much like the shrine. On the way up, it started raining, which I was happy about, as it would clear the humidity that has been hanging around and cool me as I walked. It was a ¥300 (may have been ¥700) entrance fee, which I wasn’t happy about (I don’t like entrance fees for things as it is, but religious establishments, however large a tourist attraction, should not charge for entrance.  If this was one of the UNESCO world heritage sights as well, it really, really shouldn’t charge. A world heritage price should be something for everyone to behold without paying anything, only contributions (which seemed sizable as it was)). Anyway, once in it was quite spectacular. It is probably one of those places that is always featured in Japanese photo series. The view of Kyoto wasn’t much to speak about (especially not after Tokyo), but the mountain setting was amazing; the tiled temples and the pagoda peaking out of the dense green forests, all built on the side of the mountain. By this point we were all pretty tired, so we made our slow way back down the mountain. On the way I had a ツリプル or triple ice cream: strawberry on top, then dairy, then green tea. The strawberry and the dairy were nice, but I can’t say I’m a fan of green tea ice cream. Or green tea. Or tea at all. But still, try everything once, so I ate that. A wet, rainy walk, a bus ride then a subway 3 stops, and then another walk, and we were back at the hostel, with me in my dorm (currently deserted) and them in their private room, to rest for a while. 

Kiyomizu-dera, overlooking a cloudy Kyoto

My favourite photo. Unfortunately I had to be quick and it didn't come out very well.

Next on my agenda is dinner, but I don’t know if I’m going to bother buying something to cook or get some conbini (Japanistation and contraction of convenience store). I’m avoiding going out for food as much as in Tokyo, though I rarely did for dinner. In fact, most nights in Tokyo I slept from too early to eat, and if I woke up hungry, I’d just tide over until a very early breakfast at around 6am (more conbini food). And that is what I have done today in Kyoto.

Since arriving in Kyoto, I have been bitten by mosquitoes or gnats or some bug at least a dozen times. Though I seem to be the only one that has been bitten! Perhaps I am tasty to bugs… Scary thought I guess.

It appears I have some 3 weeks of back dated blog posts to post.

I have been writing them when I get the chance, and there have been times when I wasn't able to access the internet, hence why I wrote them offline rather than straight to the blog like this one. I promise, I will start to post more. In fact, I think I will do some today before I head out into Osaka. And, like I said in my last post; a photo:

View from the Mori Tower, Roppongi Hills. The urban sea of Tokyo goes on forever. I could not physically see the edge of the city.

I need to signficantly increase the readership of this blog!

I have 30 somthing twitter followers, 14 tumblr followers, several hundered Facebook friends and 6 youtube followers. However, I only have 2 followers on this blog. I need to advertise, tag and do all that sort of thing to raise this blog. I'm talking numbering in the thousands! SO here's my plan:

1. blog more
2. blog well
3. blog conistantly
4. include photographs
5. tag
6. advertise

So here's a photograph:

The Fushimi-Inari Shrine in Kyoto

I visited this shrine with an American mother and son from Minnesota. They invited me along on a whim, which was very nice of them :). Julie & Zeff, all the best to you!

Learning the kana

Something I have tried several times to find, but have always been successful in doing so is this: full articles or stories, or any writing for that fact, written entirely in hiragana or katakana. Now why would I look for this I might ask? One way I found that works for me to learn new "alphabets" is to translate it either one way or the other. In fact, I once taught myself how to write using bopomofo characters. It wasn't Chinese, but I used the characters that corresponded to the roman letters on this keyboard:

Of course that was only something silly, and what I'm doing with Japanese is much more serious. But it is the repetition that forces the characters into my head. If I had a full page of hiragana or katakana written out in front of, I would translate it into romaji, then translate the romaji to English. So I'd learn some new words as well, and grammar. You could argue I could do this starting with kanji, but my main focus at this point is definitely on the kana. If anyone reads this and has a page full of kana, please send me in its direction!!

Back Log Blog!

Obviously I haven’t been posting any of my blog while I’ve been out here, but I have been intermittently writing it. So here’s the writing from Beijing:

Hey everyone. Sorry about my silence since leaving on Friday. Working internet has been difficult in my hostel (I can get on Skype but no websites; God knows why). Anyway; my first day in China was a disaster. The taxi I booked never showed up, so I had to make my way to the hostel myself. I got a bus into central Beijing, which went fine. Then I got a “taxi” to my hostel. NEVER get a taxi in Beijing. He took me somewhere completely wrong and then MASSIVELY over charged me. Thankfully I found my way thanks to some locals and some foreigners; it only took me 5 hours…

Anyway, after that, I was stressed, hungry and tired. So what’s the first thing someone in my position does? DRINK! I went to a foreigners bar only 3 minutes from my hostel, started on my drink (10¥CN for a 66o bottle :D), then a guy I’d asked for directions from saw me and invited me to join. He was with a New Zealander (called himself a Kiwi); a nice guy into good  music and a bit of a pot-head; and an Irishman; a 41 year old that’d been cycling the world for 3 years; so I chatted with the guy who id gotten directions off of. Turns out him and his group of four were from Finland, 2 couples but I haven’t spoken to the others much. After that guy left, I spoke to the Kiwi and the Irishman, then the 3 of us got talking to 2 Swiss girls, then the Kiwi left (he went to Shanxi province today, so early night for him), and the Irishman, the Swiss girls and I got talking to a Scot, a Swede and a American. I hung around drinking until 3AM. That was all last night (Saturday 38^th).

Today was a bit of a write off. A mixture of jet –lag and a hangover meant I stayed in bed until 4PM local time (only around 9AM GMT). Obviously it was a waste of a day, but it couldn’t be helped. I got up around 1PM (maybe) and got two bottles of water (550ml each as I can tell) then went back to bed in my room 130. Eventually I got up and had some breakfast/lunch. The food arrived to me in the bar at around 6PM (maybe), and I ate while watching 50 First Dates, which was nice for a hangover. A few other Europeans watched too, but I think it was more for the bar maid person. She’s a nice girl, doesn’t speak a lot of English but she gets very giggly when she tries. I don’t mindJ.  I had “noodles with chicken” for breakfast, strange for the first thing to eat in a day, but I’m used to it now (I had rice with something for dinner on the plane and noodles with something for breakfast on the plane [check me out going native!]). It was pretty nice. Around 6PM I went for walk (unfortunately in flip-flips which hurt like a bitch; shoes tomorrow!!). I walked along the main street that I’m living on, a kept walking for around 30 minutes. It seems I’m in a very touristy area, just south of Tiananmen Square, but I was surprised at how many Chinese tourists there are around here (I’ll get back to the Chinese later).  I just walked up through a shopping/restaurant district for a while, before having to go home in time for a Skype call with my family. So I went back, had a coke and called my family. After that, I went for a drink where I went last night, a cool foreigner bar called Helen’s (despite seeing no one called Helen). It was early and pretty quiet, so I finished my Tsingtao and when back home.

When I got home, a dumpling party had just started (I know they are gyoza in Japanese, but I don’t know what they are in Chinese). I went upstairs and made one, poorly. The staff; who seem to live/eat/drink here, did most of them. I got talking to an Irishman, an Israeli and an American with a French (?) girlfriend. After a while, a few beers and dozens of Avril Lavigne songs, the staff had prepared loads of dumplings and had cooked them, so I ate a plate full of them. They were a really good snack, but I should have something bigger! The Irishman and I headed off to Helen’s for a few, and once there got talking to the Fin from Saturday night, then a group of Swedes on a group trip (I spoke to four of them out of around 30) , and they were a nice bunch.

Oh, just remembered; as we left my hostel, a storm had started. Lots of rain at first, nd even more thunder and lightning. But by the time we reached Helen’s, it had finished. So we talked and drank with the Swedes for few hours, until I left around 2AM. I tried Swedish snuff, sort of a black lump you suck on, tastes like liquorice or sambuca. It was alright, but after a while made me start hiccupping and then feel really sick. Got over that and now I’m back in my hostel, in bed typing away. So I’ve met people from 12 different countries in less than 72 hours (England, Japan, America, China, Sweden, Norway, Ireland, Finland, Scotland, Switzerland, Israel and New Zealand). This travelling alone thing is pretty cool. Also, I’ve out drunk an Irishman tonight, which I’m pretty proud of.

I tried to help a Japanese woman use a pay phone at Heathrow, turns out the phone was out of order though. This woman decided to sit with me and talk before we boarded anyway. She was a strange looking woman, in her 30-40s, really pale; grey even; make-up, stupidly skinny and with glasses. She’d been to a lecture at Canterbury University and was headed home. Her father was Chinese and her mother Dutch, but both moved to Japan. Her Japanese name was 実花 or Mika in Japanese, but went by Alice by Dutch. She’s given me her phone number (both home and mobile), and said to visit her in Nagoya as she lives alone. I think it’s a bit weird, but people say it’s just being friendly Japanese. Either way, I’m not going to Nagoya.

So that’s what’s happened on my trip so far, definitely too much drinking and sleeping, and I’ll cut down on both tomorrow. 9AM start to go to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City tomorrow.

Day 3 in Beijing. Today I finally got over the jet lag and managed to get up reasonably early. I headed up to Tiananmen Square. The gate itself is impressive, but apart from that it is quite underwhelming. Thousands and thousands of tourists, mostly Chinese, funnelling through thin gateways and over bridges. Once inside, the walls are dilapidated, with huge bits of the paint falling away. Add to that the constant Beijing smell of a hundred cigarettes, and it definitely kills off the glory that you see in the photos. After Tiananmen Square, I carried on heading up into the Forbidden City. The entrance fee is ¥60 Chinese, so around £6. It was a bit more interesting, but again it was full of tourists. At least this time there was no smoke though. I can’t remember looking back now, but I can almost guarantee that I spent another night at Helen’s. I think this was the night that I ended up staying awake drinking until 8am with Hannah, a Canadian girl, and Linus, a Finnish guy. Both really cool, but that long drinking hurts. Some of the staff from the bar were hanging around as well, long after it had closed. We started playing a game of how many Chinese people would respond when we shouted “Nihao!” (hello). I think I won. This part was technically day 4 now. Oh and that night, I met about 20 Canadians, some French-Canadians, the rest normal. Played a weird card game with the French-Canadians, something to do with werewolves and peasants… I don’t know.

Day 4 in Beijing.

This day I was invited by Hannah to hang with her and the Canadians, and a guy from Manchester as well. We went to a much more modern part of Beijing and looked around there, had a few beers. There’s not a lot I can say about that day, I didn’t see anything worth saying, just hung out with some really cool people. That night we went to a Pizza place near a stadium in Beijing, I forget the names of both. But these pizzas were huge, 18 inches I think. I ate so much pizza, and it was so good! And for very little money too. On the way back some Chinese street kid tried to mug us of our leftover food, and he nearly got smacked in the face by a couple of the Canadians. Damn urchins! After that, I think I must have gone to Helen’s again. It was really quiet that night, I have no idea why, so I drank with John, a very loud man from Georgia in the States. Loud and a bit annoying, but a good guy. While there I got chatting to some Mexican girls. Very nice Mexican girls. ¡Muy guapa!

These girls were travelling in China for 3 weeks, an were the only girls I had met so far close to my age (two were 19, and the other 20). And that was my last night in China. I drank with the Canadians some more and got some really good Chinese street food. Until then, I didn’t trust the Chinese street food, in case I got ill. These kebabs were supposedly mutton, but I am a bit sceptical about that! Either way it tasted great and like everything else in China, it was dirt cheap. I probably went home about 4am, despite needing to get up at 5 to leave for the airport. Needless to say I overslept, and had to rush and get a taxi to the airport. But all in all it worked out fine. China is an amazing place once you get into the flow of things. Obviously I had a bad first day, but after that things really got better. I met a huge amount of really amazing people out there, and I am definitely going back someday. 

Sorry... again

Yeah I had more internet problems here in Kyoto. But they are now fixed, and I have been writing offline, so I will start posting those. I also have over 1,000 photos to post, so I have a lot of work to do. Bare with me guys!

Bad internet!

So looks like I can't use my laptop here either. But at least my phone has connected, and they have plenty of computers around. It just means I can't post any pics for you guys.


~GA

China

I want to start this post off with an apology. Anyone following this blog will know that I left for my trip on Friday 27th May. It's now one week later, and I haven't made a single post since leaving. But I do have a good reason. The infamous Great Firewall of China seemed to be stopping me from getting on any websites. So I'm sorry for that.

China was both amazing and horrible at the same time. My first day went incredibly badly after arriving in Beijing. I got a bus into the city center, and got a taxi from there. The driver not only ripped me off big time, he also took my no where near where I wanted to go. Once I got to the right area, I had a pretty hard time finding the hostel, as it was off the main road and the directions were pretty poor. Thankfully I found some foreigners who knew the area.
After that, things got better. I went to a bar I'd passed, which was pretty much only for foreigners (I was told the bar turned away Chinese customers). So I sat with my beer. Someone I had asked directions from saw me and invited me to sit with him. This guy was Mikko, a Finnish man, and he was with a Kiwi and an Irishman, who's names escape me. So I sat and drank and spoke with them most of the night.
The next day was mostly a write off. Hungover and jet-lagged, I stayed in bed most of the day. When I eventually did get up, I didn't feel like sightseeing. I wandered around my area, which was a nice place, a mixture of shopping and tourism. There was a free event in the hostel bar, where you were supposed to make your own, but the staff did most of it. Got talking to a Swede, another Irishman and an Israeli. After that went back to the foreigner bar, Helen's, and drank more. There I got talking with a group of Norwegians on some sort of school trip, and an American called Glory Kong, from San Francisco.

The next day I got over the jet lag and got my arse out of bed and headed off to Tienanmen Square for some sightseeing. Like every other day, it was ridiculously hot, around 32 degrees Celsius all day. I saw Tienanmen Square, the Forbidden City and a park north of the Palace. The nicest bit was actually the park, despite the steep stairs in the roasting mid day sun. Another night was spent at Helen's, and this time I met an American and a huge number of Canadians, one group from Quebec and the other group for Ontario. Played a weird card game with the French-Canadians, but it was fun. Then carried on drinking with the Ontarians for the rest of the night. Didn't get home until 8AM that night...

Final day in Beijing was spent with the Ontarians. We headed to a modern part of the city. Had really good pizza that night, and again stayed out too late, but only until 4 this time. Went home and managed to oversleep, so I had to rush out and grab a taxi to make my flight.

Beijing is a mixed place. When I first got there, I hated it, but once I relaxed it got much better. Despite the dirty streets, horrible smells and rude people, it grows on you. The main thing that made my time in China was the people I met. I don't think I would have nearly so much fun if I had been always on my own, and it's something I haven't found in Tokyo yet.