Sorry for the lack of updates. I got busy, then had some internet issues before I left, so I didn’t have time to update the blog and let you know I would be in China. Right now, I am in Beijing. (More on that later.)
I have taken a lot of pictures, so check back for that. I’ll be back in Japan in a couple days.
One of the last vestiges of the British Empire, Hong Kong, was returned to Chinese rule ten years ago today. Funny, I found out that today is the anniversary when I went to look up something on Wikipedia just now, but I was thinking about Hong Kong earlier today. I wonder if I remembered the date subconsciously…? Nah, just a coincidence, I’m sure. At any rate, as you probably recall, I took a trip there last summer. It was a nice place. I’d really like to go again sometime.
I wrote a couple articles about my trip last August:
And I also have a Flickr Photoset:
One year ago today, I was in Beijing, China. I went to attend my friend’s wedding in Harbin, and before that, I stayed a few days in Beijing. I arrived on the evening of the 29th, so the 30th was the beginning of my tour.
I took a bus tour, which included:
I really like this picture of the Co-Edo Bus in Kawagoe. It looks interesting. Last Saturday, when I finally took the time to go one more stop to Kawagoe Station, I wasn’t disappointed. As I mentioned before, Kawagoe has a historical area that I would like to check out. Even the area by the station is pretty cool. (Check out some pictures I took of Kawagoe here!
Golden Week is just beginning. What is Golden Week, you ask? It is a series of holidays in late April/early May that fall together over the course of a week. Unfortunately, they are not consecutive; this year, we have two work days right in the middle of Golden Week, Tuesday and Wednesday. And I have a few private lessons on Saturday and Sunday, so I won’t actually take a day off until Monday. Then I will work Tuesday and Wednesday, and I’ll have a four-day weekend. Of course, I rarely take more than one full day off at a time, so four days will seem like a lot (I hope!)
What will I do? Read on to find out…
I mentioned the other day that I had found pictures from last year that I never uploaded. That includes a bunch of China pictures! So in honor of my readers in China, here is a sample of what is to come.
I took this picture in the Forbidden City, in Beijing, China, on May 1, 2006. I can’t describe how incredible it was to retrace the steps of ancient Emperors and Empresses.
Stay tuned for more pictures. I have over 200 pictures ready to upload, but i want to run through them again and weed out a couple that didn’t turn out well. And I have to tag them and get the up on the site…but I should have them up by the end of the week.
My sister and I went to the Country Club Plaza, in Kansas City, Missouri, on January, 3, 2007. One of Kansas City’s sister cities is Seville, Spain. The Plaza is an outdoor shopping district that is modeled after Seville. The Plaza has a website. This line, from the “Art and History” Page, says it best: “Only Rome has more fountains than Kansas City, and several of the more spectacular ones are found on the Country Club Plaza.”
I only took a few pics, and I missed a lot of great fountains and buildings, but here a few I took. Enjoy. You can see the whole set (and also a few pics from Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport here).
The homepage for the Country Club Plaza is here. You can also take a virtual tour of many fountains and buildings, if you want to see what I missed or learn more about the pictures i took.
October 8, 2006. Angela and I had survived the capsule hotel. It was time to start exploring Hiroshima! The first thing we did was get on the “Hiroden” tram, and head for Miyajima. In Japanese, Miyajima (宮島）means “Shrine Island.” It is a floating Shinto Shrine (or you could say it is a flooded Shrine; it sits on a shallow pool of water.)
I will write more about Miyajima later. For now, I wanted to share this picture of a deer at Miyajima. There are many deer on the island, and they are not shy at all. They eagerly beg for food, and if you don’t have food, they are happy to eat paper or anything else they can. Maps, papers, even clothing is not safe from their greedy mouths! Alas, Angela’s English map fell victim to a hungry deer. We were left with my Japanese map! 
I took this picture of a deer. I thought it was funny, because he just stood at the cart for a minute, looking like he was waiting to buy some food! 
Keep checking back, as I will keep posting more pictures as time permits. I am extremely busy, but I will try to get them up as fast as I can. As always, you can view the pics here on this site, or click on the picture to go to my Flickr site.
“Hey, what’s a deer gotta do to get some service around here?”
From October 7th-10th, Angela and I took a short trip to Hiroshima, Himeiji, and Kyoto. Although the trip was great fun and a success, the first day didn’t look promising. When we got to Tokyo Station, we couldn’t get a shinkansen (bullet train) for several hours. So, we stored our luggage in one of the countless lockers at the station, and went sightseeing. (Note: Japan has its share of inconveniences, but they do so many things right here. One good example is all the coin lockers in/around stations. You can easily store your bags, so you don’t have to carry them around all the time.)
We decided to try to go to the Imperial Palace, since it wasn’t far away. We were also hungry, so we walked around looking for a place to eat. But everything was closed! We ended up having a really pathetic meal at Wendy’s. Angela joked about asking them, “Where’s the beef?” but it would have gone over their heads, and we definitely didn’t have time to try to explain that one to them! 
(In Tokyo Station, there are many restaurants and coffeeshops. We should have eaten there! There was also a vending machine that sells different kinds of bread in a can. I still need to go back and try that!)
Finally, we got on the train and we were on our way. Our next problem came when we got to Hiroshima, and had trouble finding a place to stay. I had lost my cell phone, so I had to get in a phone booth and just start dialing numbers like crazy. The good thing was I learned how to ask for hotel openings in Japanese very well (Yes, I did everything in Japanese, from hotels, to restaurants, to the trains, so I was proud of myself…) A couple of nice older ladies tried to help us, but to no avail. Finally, a couple employees at the train station helped us find a Capsule Hotel.
Capsule Hotels are uniquely Japanese. Basically, you sleep in a little capsule with a TV, an alarm clock, and a radio. The sleeping arrangements are quite spartan, but the facilities are not bad. They had hot/cold/salt baths, internet, lazy boys with private tv screens, etc. I spent some time soaking in the hot and cold baths, then I dropped off into a deep sleep.
The next day, we went to Miyajima Island, and from then on, we stayed in hotels. But that first day, I thought I was going to be a bad luck charm! On the bright side, we had a nice time in Tokyo before we caught our train. Another dumb idea I had was to walk from the Imperial Palace to Tokyo Tower. By the time we got there, we had to turn around and go back to the station to catch our train! I felt so bad. But I did manage to take this shot, as the clouds drifted rapidly to the left…
The rest of the trip went quite smoothly. We found hotels and we saw many interesting and memorable things. But that first day was a bit odd. Still, looking back, even that day was wonderful.
(That is my Forest Gump impersonation of the day….Can you dig it?) 
Last weekend, I took another impromptu trip to Beijing. It was a three-day weekend, and I wanted to see some of my friends. We went to a restaurant that serves food from Xinjiang (新疆), which literally means, “New Frontier.” Xianjiang is a large province on the western edge of China. The food is very delicious and and a bit spicy.
I also went to another World Heritage Site, The Summer Palace (颐和园), in Beijing. I stayed in a hotel that was like an apartment. Everything looked new. It even had a small kitchen and washing machine! It was really nice, comfortable, and inexpensive!
It is always nice to get away and see something new. This has definitely been a year of short trips and varied experiences, both in Japan and in other countries. I have been working hard, but also having fun. Unfortunately, I didn’t take my camera this time! If you want to learn more, check out these Wikipedia pages:
Xinjiang: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang
The Summer Palace: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Palace
Beijing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing
By the way, I took Air China and I was very happy with the service. I left early for my flight, but for various reasons, I was late getting ticketed. One of the attendants ran with me and helped me get on the flight. Then, on the way back, I flew Business Class. (It was like First Class.) It was very comfortable and the service was great.
Halloween came and went before I realized it. I realized around 9pm what day it was. It just isn’t a big deal in Japan at all. It was never much a big deal in my house growing up, so I don’t miss it, at all.
If you haven’t seen this, here is a picture of Kinkakuji (金閣寺), in Kyoto. It is a world heritage site. It was originally built in 1397, was burned down and rebuilt several times (most recently in 1950 by a mentally disturbed monk).
This is supposedly the most popular tourist attraction in Kyoto. It was truly a beautiful place. If you want to learn more about Kinkakuji, check out the Wikipedia article here. (As always, you can click on the photo to see it on my Flick page…)
