Most people agreed that Vietnam was their favorite country that we've visited. Although personally, I'd still have to go with Japan, Vietnam was awesome as well. First and foremost, Vietnam has very little in the way of provocative architecture, so it felt more like a vacation than school. Second, everything is ridiculously cheap in Vietnam, so we were able to take our traveling college student budgets and stay in nice hotels, eat nice meals, and just generally live like royalty. That's the good part about Vietnam. The bad part is that it has some of the worst heat and humidity I've ever experienced, rivaled only by Cambodia, its next door neighbor. It makes the sweltering heat of Kuala Lumpur feel like an igloo. When we first arrived in Hanoi, the five minute walk between the airport doors and the bus left us pouring with sweat and gasping for water. However, that didn't stop us from having a great time!
The first city we stopped in was Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. In the city, we visited the "Hanoi Hilton," a prison which held hostages during the Vietnam War, including John McCain. We also went to the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh, one of Vietnam's great leaders, and saw his body which has been preserved for over 40 years. We also saw where he lived and worked. One afternoon, we had the opportunity to take rickshaw rides around the city that ended at a water puppet theater where we saw a traditional Vietnamese water puppet show. The rickshaw ride was scary since it involved darting around all sorts of crazy traffic and thousands of motorbikes. [Speaking of which, here's a sidenote about driving in Vietnam: don't. In the U.S., traffic lanes, signs and signals are the law. In China, they were more like guidelines. In Vietnam, they're solely for decoration. The best way to get around in Vietnam is to get a local to do the driving, then close your eyes and hope that you get there.] However, I think we would all agree that the best part of Hanoi was actually the day we left for an excursion to Halong Bay.
Halong Bay is a geological wonder that people come from around the world to experience. It consists of steep rock formations emerging from the water with steep cliffs, but covered with vegetation at the tops. It's such an amazing place to see. Our day started with a 3-hour bus ride from Hanoi before boarding the boat that would take us around for the day. On our way from the mainland to the rock formations, we were served a fancy lunch onboard. Once we got into the bay and cruised around for a while, the boat found a secluded place to anchor and we were able to jump out and go swimming. Swimming was a welcome relief from the heat and humidity, and we actually agreed that the water could have been a bit cooler. Once we were done, there was sunbathing and drinks on the top deck until we reached a series of caves where the boat docked and we were able to walk through them. From there, the boat took us back to the mainland, where no one was ready to leave for the long journey back to Hanoi.
After 3 days in Hanoi and an incredibly sketchy flight on Vietnam Airlines, we arrived in Hoi An, the second stop in Vietnam. Hoi An felt even more like being on vacation than Hanoi. We did see an old house and a historic Japanese bridge, but highlights included a boat ride on the river, cheap, good food and drink, a bike ride to a pristine white beach that felt like we had arrived in paradise, and of course, the tailor. There is a tailor in Hoi An which the students visit every year and most of us suspect that this is the real reason our instructor even brings us to Hoi An at all. This tailor can make you anything you want for a fraction of what it would cost in the states. You can create something yourself or you can bring them something to copy or you can bring a picture. The end result will be something that fits perfectly that you never would have spent the money on back home. And the turnaround time is amazing since they can do in two days what would take two weeks back home. I think all but one or two people ordered stuff from the tailor. I ended up getting a gray suit as well as a dress shirt. Some people went all out, ordering multiple suits, dress shirts, pants, skirts, shorts, ties, bow ties, etc. I think everyone was happy with their purchases when we went to pick them up. We also went to another place that tailors shoes. I custom designed a cool pair of shoes for cheap, but they're already falling apart, so I wouldn't recommend the place.
After yet another sketchy Vietnam Airlines flight, we arrived at out final destination in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City, formerly known as Saigon. Although Hanoi is the capital, Saigon is the largest and most developed city in Vietnam. During this time, the world cub started, so we spent a few nights in a bar by our hotel watching the games. I also had the most delicious burger of the trip at another hotel near ours. For Vietnam, the price of the hamburger was outrageous, but it was what I would have paid back home for a high quality burger, and it was definitely delicious! We also had the opportunity to try real pho, which is a Vietnamese noodle soup that was really good. The stuff in the states just isn't the same.
One of the days in Saigon, we had the opportunity to take a boat around the Mekong River, which is considered to be the lifeblood of Vietnam since the Vietnamese are dependent on it for so many things. We stopped at a floating fish farm where fish are raised and harvested for food. Apparently, theft is an issue and each fish farm usually has dogs to warn of any intruders at night. After the fish farm, we went to an island where coconut candy is made. We got to watch them make it, then taste free samples, which were delicious. It's not like any candy I've had before. From there, we went to another island where we had the opportunity to try a number of Vietnamese fruits. They were all good, except for the disgusting durian. It smells horrible and reminded me of moldy eggs, but it's very popular here. In fact, I hate going to supermarkets here because they all reek of durian. Anyway, the boat dropped us off, and we rode in the back of an atv truck thing to another area of the river where we rode canoes through the mangroves to our lunch spot. After another delicious meal, we boarded the bus and headed back to town.
It's easy to see why Vietnam was a favorite destination for everyone. Between the three cities we visited, we got to experience a lot of the local culture and still have time to relax. With reluctance, we boarded our final sketchy Vietnam Airlines flight and headed for Cambodia.
Vietnam pictures here!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2506246&id=3431093&l=d927128962
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Two days in Hong Kong
After being encouraged to visit by a number of my friends since starting college at USC, I finally got the chance to visit Hong Kong (even if it was only for two days)! Ironically, none of the people who had encouraged me to visit them were there at the time, but luckily, we still had a local in our architecture group who was able to show us around between obligatory family dinners.
We got picked up from the airport in one of the nicest tour buses I've ever seen (cushy black leather seats!) and checked into our hotel, one of the nicest YMCA's I've ever seen. When I think of a YMCA, I think of a hostel with a community gym and swimming pool, but this was a full scale hotel. Our room was on a high floor and had nice views looking across the water from Kowloon (where we were staying) to Hong Kong Central (the financial district). We only had two nights in Hong Kong, so we didn't stay in the hotel long before heading out to explore.
We went out for dinner at a place recommended by the hotel and it was nice to finally be able to speak English with someone outside our group. We were able to order without looking at pictures and pointing to things on the menu or making a Chinese friend do it for us. The language of Hong Kong is Cantonese, but pretty much everyone knows English and Mandarin as well. After dinner, a group of us walked a while to a night market where you can probably find any knock-off imaginable. Some people bought lots of stuff but I didn't see anything I had to have. I think that if it were something I really wanted, I would have already found a way to buy it back at home.
I was about ready to call it a night after we got back to the hotel, but I'm glad I didn't because a group of us ended up going out with the Hong Kong local in our program and she took us to a bar area in Central called Lan Kwai Fong. It was lots of fun and highlights included a Russian vodka bar inside a freezer where everyone donned fur coats (strange with the heat and humidity outside), a bar where you could order flaming towers (a giant tower of glasses that has been lit on fire where you drink from the glass on the bottom through a straw), and a bar where we bought jello shots in syringes. We got back late and went to bed for our city tour the next day.
The morning started with a bus ride to Hong Kong Central and a cable car ride to Victoria Peak where you can see much of the city below you. After a brief photo op and history of the city from our guide, we headed down the back side of the peak to an area called Stanley, which was on the beach and included another market to explore. From there, we headed back to Central to explore some of the buildings such as the Bank of China Tower and HSBC Building, but unfortunately, it was a weekend so everything was closed. Too bad it couldn't have been planned better. We stopped for authentic Hong Kong dim sum for lunch where we ordered all of our food off of trolleys, then walked back to the hotel. After lunch, we took a subway and explores yet another market, returning to the hotel early. We had a ridiculously early departure time for Vietnam the next morning.
Of the three cities we visited in China, Hong Kong is the one I'd most like to go back to. We were there for the shortest amount of time and there were numerous areas we didn't get to explore. Hopefully, I'll go back someday when more of my friends are there to meet up with and take me everywhere I missed.
As usual, Hong Kong pictures can be found here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2506047&id=3431093&l=2d8a58f3f5
We got picked up from the airport in one of the nicest tour buses I've ever seen (cushy black leather seats!) and checked into our hotel, one of the nicest YMCA's I've ever seen. When I think of a YMCA, I think of a hostel with a community gym and swimming pool, but this was a full scale hotel. Our room was on a high floor and had nice views looking across the water from Kowloon (where we were staying) to Hong Kong Central (the financial district). We only had two nights in Hong Kong, so we didn't stay in the hotel long before heading out to explore.
We went out for dinner at a place recommended by the hotel and it was nice to finally be able to speak English with someone outside our group. We were able to order without looking at pictures and pointing to things on the menu or making a Chinese friend do it for us. The language of Hong Kong is Cantonese, but pretty much everyone knows English and Mandarin as well. After dinner, a group of us walked a while to a night market where you can probably find any knock-off imaginable. Some people bought lots of stuff but I didn't see anything I had to have. I think that if it were something I really wanted, I would have already found a way to buy it back at home.
I was about ready to call it a night after we got back to the hotel, but I'm glad I didn't because a group of us ended up going out with the Hong Kong local in our program and she took us to a bar area in Central called Lan Kwai Fong. It was lots of fun and highlights included a Russian vodka bar inside a freezer where everyone donned fur coats (strange with the heat and humidity outside), a bar where you could order flaming towers (a giant tower of glasses that has been lit on fire where you drink from the glass on the bottom through a straw), and a bar where we bought jello shots in syringes. We got back late and went to bed for our city tour the next day.
The morning started with a bus ride to Hong Kong Central and a cable car ride to Victoria Peak where you can see much of the city below you. After a brief photo op and history of the city from our guide, we headed down the back side of the peak to an area called Stanley, which was on the beach and included another market to explore. From there, we headed back to Central to explore some of the buildings such as the Bank of China Tower and HSBC Building, but unfortunately, it was a weekend so everything was closed. Too bad it couldn't have been planned better. We stopped for authentic Hong Kong dim sum for lunch where we ordered all of our food off of trolleys, then walked back to the hotel. After lunch, we took a subway and explores yet another market, returning to the hotel early. We had a ridiculously early departure time for Vietnam the next morning.
Of the three cities we visited in China, Hong Kong is the one I'd most like to go back to. We were there for the shortest amount of time and there were numerous areas we didn't get to explore. Hopefully, I'll go back someday when more of my friends are there to meet up with and take me everywhere I missed.
As usual, Hong Kong pictures can be found here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2506047&id=3431093&l=2d8a58f3f5
Monday, July 12, 2010
A few things about Shanghai
First things first: don't fly Shanghai Airlines. The airline was so sketchy that people cheered upon landing.
Second, there's a delicious pork dumpling place just down the street from where we stayed. We stuffed ourselves and still paid less than a dollar each. I couldn't tell you the name or address of this place, but I could probably show you generally where it is on a map. There's also a really good Chinese restaurant that was recommended by one of our professors who was born and raised in Shanghai. All of us agreed that it was the best Chinese food we'd ever had. This is the only time this entire trip where we've made advance reservations for a restaurant and it was totally worth it.
Third, go to Shanghai and go now! Don't miss the expo! Shanghai is one of the few Chinese cities that has been open to the rest of the world for some time, so it has had a lot of outside influences. This placed it in the perfect position to host the 2010 World Expo. No architect should miss the expo as it consists of pavilions by each country, some of which are very impressive and are designed by fairly big-name architects. The normal tourist usually takes 3-4 days to see the expo but we only had one afternoon, so we were only able to enter a few pavilions. Highlights included the Danish Pavilion by BIG and the UK Pavilion by Heatherwick Studio. We also entered the New Zealand and Belgium pavilions, and ate dinner inside the South Korean Pavilion. The expo wasn't even in our original schedule, but I'm so glad that there was enough student demand to cram it in. It's definitely worth going despite the heat and insane crowds.
Fourth, the rest of Shanghai is cool too! Because the city had different concessions for the different nations that occupied it, each area of Shanghai has its own distinct character. We didn't get to explore all of it, but we did get to walk around the French Concession as well as visit the Bund, a waterfront area that is still much as it was 100 years ago. We took a boat along the river one evening, a great experience to see Shanghai all lit up at night. We also visited the more modern part of Shanghai, which includes icons such as the Shanghai World Financial Center (giant bottle opener), the Jin Mao Tower, and the Oriental Pearl Tower. We went to the observatory of the Oriental Pearl Tower and enjoyed standing on the glass floor. The view was amazing and would have been even better if it had been a sunny day.
Fifth, after we explored Shanghai, we took a day trip by bus to Suzhou and Zhou Zhuang. Suzhou is home to two famous Chinese gardens, the Master of the Nets Garden and The Humble Administrator's Garden. They were both large and beautiful to stroll through, but didn't have the attention to detail of the Japanese gardens. We also visited the Suzhou Museum. The exhibits weren't exciting but the building was designed by I.M. Pei. The thing I found interesting about it was the central courtyard that incorporated many aspects of the traditional Chinese gardens in a modern way. After Suzhou, we visited Zhou Zhuang, a preserved town that is linked by canals, sort of like the Venice of China. We pushed our way through extreme crowds to visit Shen's House, a traditional Chinese noble's household. Since we didn't get to spend much time in Zhou Zhuang, I'd like to go back again on a less crowded day.
To me, Shanghai was a lot better than Beijing. It could be because everything seemed new and shiny thanks to the work they've been doing to prepare for the expo, but I think it's also because of the variety of areas within the city and the fact that it still seems to have a rich history. In becoming a modern city, Shanghai was able to preserve much of its history and character, unlike Beijing. Beijing felt like the government was trying to put a modern face on a city that wasn't really there yet. Anyway, I can't wait to go back to Shanghai because I feel like there's still lots more to explore!
Photos from Shanghai are here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2505617&id=3431093&l=67e8330c91
Second, there's a delicious pork dumpling place just down the street from where we stayed. We stuffed ourselves and still paid less than a dollar each. I couldn't tell you the name or address of this place, but I could probably show you generally where it is on a map. There's also a really good Chinese restaurant that was recommended by one of our professors who was born and raised in Shanghai. All of us agreed that it was the best Chinese food we'd ever had. This is the only time this entire trip where we've made advance reservations for a restaurant and it was totally worth it.
Third, go to Shanghai and go now! Don't miss the expo! Shanghai is one of the few Chinese cities that has been open to the rest of the world for some time, so it has had a lot of outside influences. This placed it in the perfect position to host the 2010 World Expo. No architect should miss the expo as it consists of pavilions by each country, some of which are very impressive and are designed by fairly big-name architects. The normal tourist usually takes 3-4 days to see the expo but we only had one afternoon, so we were only able to enter a few pavilions. Highlights included the Danish Pavilion by BIG and the UK Pavilion by Heatherwick Studio. We also entered the New Zealand and Belgium pavilions, and ate dinner inside the South Korean Pavilion. The expo wasn't even in our original schedule, but I'm so glad that there was enough student demand to cram it in. It's definitely worth going despite the heat and insane crowds.
Fourth, the rest of Shanghai is cool too! Because the city had different concessions for the different nations that occupied it, each area of Shanghai has its own distinct character. We didn't get to explore all of it, but we did get to walk around the French Concession as well as visit the Bund, a waterfront area that is still much as it was 100 years ago. We took a boat along the river one evening, a great experience to see Shanghai all lit up at night. We also visited the more modern part of Shanghai, which includes icons such as the Shanghai World Financial Center (giant bottle opener), the Jin Mao Tower, and the Oriental Pearl Tower. We went to the observatory of the Oriental Pearl Tower and enjoyed standing on the glass floor. The view was amazing and would have been even better if it had been a sunny day.
Fifth, after we explored Shanghai, we took a day trip by bus to Suzhou and Zhou Zhuang. Suzhou is home to two famous Chinese gardens, the Master of the Nets Garden and The Humble Administrator's Garden. They were both large and beautiful to stroll through, but didn't have the attention to detail of the Japanese gardens. We also visited the Suzhou Museum. The exhibits weren't exciting but the building was designed by I.M. Pei. The thing I found interesting about it was the central courtyard that incorporated many aspects of the traditional Chinese gardens in a modern way. After Suzhou, we visited Zhou Zhuang, a preserved town that is linked by canals, sort of like the Venice of China. We pushed our way through extreme crowds to visit Shen's House, a traditional Chinese noble's household. Since we didn't get to spend much time in Zhou Zhuang, I'd like to go back again on a less crowded day.
To me, Shanghai was a lot better than Beijing. It could be because everything seemed new and shiny thanks to the work they've been doing to prepare for the expo, but I think it's also because of the variety of areas within the city and the fact that it still seems to have a rich history. In becoming a modern city, Shanghai was able to preserve much of its history and character, unlike Beijing. Beijing felt like the government was trying to put a modern face on a city that wasn't really there yet. Anyway, I can't wait to go back to Shanghai because I feel like there's still lots more to explore!
Photos from Shanghai are here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2505617&id=3431093&l=67e8330c91
Everything's bigger in Beijing!
After a full day of traveling due to our completely out of the way connection in Hong Kong, we finally made it from Tokyo to Beijing, our first stop in China! After finally getting used to Japan, China was a bit of a culture shock. While the Japanese are quiet and reserved, the Chinese are loud and in-your-face. They'll shove you out of the way to get where they want to go. Their driving is also less than perfect and we almost found ourselves in an accident on the way from the airport to the hotel. Our bus tried to change lanes into a lane where there was a much smaller car. Needless to say, there was a great deal of swerving and honking and cursing from the USC students as we saw what was happening. Anyway, the other negative thing about mainland China is that some of the rudeness definitely made me wish for the forced smiles, bows, and politeness of the Japanese. However, all this being said, I really did enjoy getting to experience Beijing!
The night of our arrival, our flight was delayed due to poor weather in Hong Kong, so there wasn't much time to do anything. After departing Beijing's Airport's spiffy new terminal 3, we arrived at our hotel and checked in, delighted to find that it was a Marriott Courtyard with comfy beds, a large bathroom, sheets, and washcloths, but dismayed to find that internet access was not free. That night, I had plans to meet up with some other friends who also happened to be visiting Beijing at the time, but after both parties failed to coordinate properly, the plans fell through and we didn't end up meeting until the next evening.
The following morning, we were up early to visit Tiananmen Square. The sheer scale of the space is massive and yet it was relatively full with vast numbers of tourists. If a space like that existed in the U.S., I don't think there would ever be enough people to fill it. I know I definitely wouldn't want to stand in the middle of a huge concrete square with the sun beaming down on me on a hot summer day. It's crazy to imagine the square filled with half a million people all gathered to hear the voice of the great Chairman Mao.
After Tiananmen, we walked through the adjacent Forbidden City. Although it was impressive, I couldn't really relate to it because it was so huge. It obviously shows the power and strength of the dynasties that built it. From the Forbidden City, we went to lunch at a place where they tried to get us to buy freshwater pearls, then to the Summer Palace, an elaborate home built by Chinese Empress Dowager Cixi on a manmade lake. We explored the palace, walked along the lake, and took a boat back across to where we started. Like everything else in Beijing, the Summer Palace seemed overly ornate and excessive, and I think I prefer the simplicity of the Japanese temples.
In the evening, I finally got a chance to met up with my other friends who were visiting Beijing. We checked out Wangfujing, the largest shopping street in Beijing. It is also home to the night market where you can find all sorts of interesting things on skewers, like beetles and tarantulas. Since none of us were in the mood for them, we found a dumpling place to eat instead. Afterward, we went to what became my favorite place in Beijing, an area called Houhai with a bar street that is located around a lake. Although the area was geared toward tourists, Andy used his Chinese to get us a better price on beer. We also managed to find Mexican beer for Elder. We went to a few bars before calling it a night and heading back to the hotel.
The next day, we visited the Great Wall Commune before the highlight of Beijing, the Great Wall itself! The highlight of the highlight was running into Andy and Elder at the Great Wall with no prior planning. We visit a lot of places and don't stay anywhere for too much time, and the Great Wall is pretty long, so it was funny to run into them there. Anyway, we had an hour to explore the wall, so we opted for the more difficult but less crowded direction and set off. Walking along the wall was fun and we made it all the way to the point where you weren't allowed to continue. I wish it hadn't been so hazy because the views from the wall were great, but they could have been a lot better.
In the afternoon, we visited the Beijing Olympic Village, but not before a lunch stop so they could pressure us to buy jade. The Olympic Park was impressive, especially the Bird's Nest, and it's sad that it's not currently being used for much. In fact, paint is already peeling and the stadium is very dirty due to the polluted Beijing air. In general, China seems to embark on these large, impressive building projects, but fails to plan and allocate resources for maintenance and cleaning, so many places are less impressive than they could be. However, that being said, we couldn't enter the Water Cube because it was undergoing repair work, so I guess this doesn't apply in all cases.
For our last night in Beijing, we met up again with Andy and Elder and hung out in the lobby bar of our hotel. We were feeling lazy after our long day so we relaxed with an appropriately labeled "Great Wall" bottle of wine and enjoyed it before going to bed early. The next morning, we were off to Shanghai!
Pictures of Beijing can be found here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2500271&id=3431093&l=d8a472407c
The night of our arrival, our flight was delayed due to poor weather in Hong Kong, so there wasn't much time to do anything. After departing Beijing's Airport's spiffy new terminal 3, we arrived at our hotel and checked in, delighted to find that it was a Marriott Courtyard with comfy beds, a large bathroom, sheets, and washcloths, but dismayed to find that internet access was not free. That night, I had plans to meet up with some other friends who also happened to be visiting Beijing at the time, but after both parties failed to coordinate properly, the plans fell through and we didn't end up meeting until the next evening.
The following morning, we were up early to visit Tiananmen Square. The sheer scale of the space is massive and yet it was relatively full with vast numbers of tourists. If a space like that existed in the U.S., I don't think there would ever be enough people to fill it. I know I definitely wouldn't want to stand in the middle of a huge concrete square with the sun beaming down on me on a hot summer day. It's crazy to imagine the square filled with half a million people all gathered to hear the voice of the great Chairman Mao.
After Tiananmen, we walked through the adjacent Forbidden City. Although it was impressive, I couldn't really relate to it because it was so huge. It obviously shows the power and strength of the dynasties that built it. From the Forbidden City, we went to lunch at a place where they tried to get us to buy freshwater pearls, then to the Summer Palace, an elaborate home built by Chinese Empress Dowager Cixi on a manmade lake. We explored the palace, walked along the lake, and took a boat back across to where we started. Like everything else in Beijing, the Summer Palace seemed overly ornate and excessive, and I think I prefer the simplicity of the Japanese temples.
In the evening, I finally got a chance to met up with my other friends who were visiting Beijing. We checked out Wangfujing, the largest shopping street in Beijing. It is also home to the night market where you can find all sorts of interesting things on skewers, like beetles and tarantulas. Since none of us were in the mood for them, we found a dumpling place to eat instead. Afterward, we went to what became my favorite place in Beijing, an area called Houhai with a bar street that is located around a lake. Although the area was geared toward tourists, Andy used his Chinese to get us a better price on beer. We also managed to find Mexican beer for Elder. We went to a few bars before calling it a night and heading back to the hotel.
The next day, we visited the Great Wall Commune before the highlight of Beijing, the Great Wall itself! The highlight of the highlight was running into Andy and Elder at the Great Wall with no prior planning. We visit a lot of places and don't stay anywhere for too much time, and the Great Wall is pretty long, so it was funny to run into them there. Anyway, we had an hour to explore the wall, so we opted for the more difficult but less crowded direction and set off. Walking along the wall was fun and we made it all the way to the point where you weren't allowed to continue. I wish it hadn't been so hazy because the views from the wall were great, but they could have been a lot better.
In the afternoon, we visited the Beijing Olympic Village, but not before a lunch stop so they could pressure us to buy jade. The Olympic Park was impressive, especially the Bird's Nest, and it's sad that it's not currently being used for much. In fact, paint is already peeling and the stadium is very dirty due to the polluted Beijing air. In general, China seems to embark on these large, impressive building projects, but fails to plan and allocate resources for maintenance and cleaning, so many places are less impressive than they could be. However, that being said, we couldn't enter the Water Cube because it was undergoing repair work, so I guess this doesn't apply in all cases.
For our last night in Beijing, we met up again with Andy and Elder and hung out in the lobby bar of our hotel. We were feeling lazy after our long day so we relaxed with an appropriately labeled "Great Wall" bottle of wine and enjoyed it before going to bed early. The next morning, we were off to Shanghai!
Pictures of Beijing can be found here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2500271&id=3431093&l=d8a472407c
Monday, June 28, 2010
Hooray for my lazy eating habits!
Wow, things have been busy! I'm in Kuala Lumpur now in the dorm room where I'll be living for the rest of the summer. Since the last update, we've covered Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Penang, Malaysia. Obviously, I have some catching up to do on this blog! I've been procrastinating on posting until I could catch up but finally decided I'd just post about Malaysia, then I'll try and write some posts on the other places later, so they'll just have to be a little out of order.
We just got back from our site visit to Lake Kenyir in a rural part of Malaysia. Lake Kenyir is around an 8 hour drive from Kuala Lumpur. Our site is a small peninsula on the lake where we'll be designing an eco-resort and information center. We stayed at a resort on the lake for the weekend, which seemed like it was going to be nice, then proceeded to give a third of the class food poisoning. People sometimes make fun of me for being a lazy eater (i.e. not cooking, not eating crab because it isn't worth the effort, avoiding shrimp if it has the shell, not eating watermelon because the seeds are annoying to deal with, etc) but this time my laziness saved me. We think the culprit was some bad seafood that was served by our hotel, but I didn't eat the seafood because it didn't seem worth the effort to take the mussels out of their shells. Most people who ate it were throwing up and ended up at the sketchy clinic with IV's because they got so dehydrated. We ended up cutting the trip slightly short so people could come back, visit the university hospital, and get some rest.
However, despite that site visit, I'm enjoying Malaysia so far. It seems like there's a lot to explore so I'll try and do as much exploring as I can in the next month. We've already explored a number of the malls in Kuala Lumpur, a city of malls. People seem to love malls because they're air conditioned and will go there just to hang out. We have a few that are a cheap cab ride away, so we've been checking them out. Besides the malls, we went on a short half-day tour of Kuala Lumpur, but I definitely need to go back to all the places we saw. The goal is not to get to get sucked into the mentality that since I live here, I don't need to rush to see things. That's how you end up back at home realizing you missed a bunch of stuff and can't figure out where all the time went.
Anyway, I have posts written for Beijing and Shanghai, so I'll try and upload them soon. Since we won't be traveling as much, maybe I'll find more time to update this.
We just got back from our site visit to Lake Kenyir in a rural part of Malaysia. Lake Kenyir is around an 8 hour drive from Kuala Lumpur. Our site is a small peninsula on the lake where we'll be designing an eco-resort and information center. We stayed at a resort on the lake for the weekend, which seemed like it was going to be nice, then proceeded to give a third of the class food poisoning. People sometimes make fun of me for being a lazy eater (i.e. not cooking, not eating crab because it isn't worth the effort, avoiding shrimp if it has the shell, not eating watermelon because the seeds are annoying to deal with, etc) but this time my laziness saved me. We think the culprit was some bad seafood that was served by our hotel, but I didn't eat the seafood because it didn't seem worth the effort to take the mussels out of their shells. Most people who ate it were throwing up and ended up at the sketchy clinic with IV's because they got so dehydrated. We ended up cutting the trip slightly short so people could come back, visit the university hospital, and get some rest.
However, despite that site visit, I'm enjoying Malaysia so far. It seems like there's a lot to explore so I'll try and do as much exploring as I can in the next month. We've already explored a number of the malls in Kuala Lumpur, a city of malls. People seem to love malls because they're air conditioned and will go there just to hang out. We have a few that are a cheap cab ride away, so we've been checking them out. Besides the malls, we went on a short half-day tour of Kuala Lumpur, but I definitely need to go back to all the places we saw. The goal is not to get to get sucked into the mentality that since I live here, I don't need to rush to see things. That's how you end up back at home realizing you missed a bunch of stuff and can't figure out where all the time went.
Anyway, I have posts written for Beijing and Shanghai, so I'll try and upload them soon. Since we won't be traveling as much, maybe I'll find more time to update this.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
I need to go back to Japan...
Sorry for the lack of updates and photos lately. As you might imagine, I've been rather busy and the pace of our travels has only gotten quicker in China and Vietnam as we've been visiting a new city every 2-3 days. But anyway, this post is about the rest of Japan.
After a week, we finally left Tokyo for China, and I can't believe how much we covered in that time. Last time I posted, I wrote the post on the train on the way to Sendai where we went to visit the Sendai Mediatheque. After a two-hour train ride, this was the only thing we were scheduled to see that day before another two-hour train ride back to Tokyo, so we all wondered whether it would be worth the trip since there was so much we wanted to do in Tokyo. After seeing it, I wasn't absolutely blown away, but I think it was definitely worth it to go. Designed by Toyo Ito, this library and media center opened about ten years ago and has been really popular with the people of Sendai. What I liked about it was that it was something I could see myself designing. The outside was a pristine glass box, but the internal structure consisted of large, irregular glass columns which punctured through the floor plates at different angles. Stairs, elevators, and mechanical items were housed in the columns, and the columns also served as light wells to bring light from the roof down into the building. With the exception of the columns, each floor was created by a different designer. While some were better than others, it gave the building an interesting character and the building still felt unified by the columns and exterior glazing. Although I can't figure out exactly why, the building somehow reminded me of the Seattle Public Library by Rem Koolhaas, a building I really liked.
When we got back to Tokyo from Sendai, we made a stop at our hotel, then a group of us took the subway to have dinner and explore the Shinjuku area of Tokyo. Like Shibuya, Shinjuku is another nightlife area, but it is not quite as crazy. It consists of fewer large chain stores and more small restaurants, shops, and bars. Unfortunately, it was a weeknight and it was getting late, so things were starting to close. We walked around until it started raining hard and we realized we needed to catch the last train back. Shinjuku is definitely somewhere I'd like to go back to.
After a day of taking one of the fastest trains in the world to visit a modern library, the next day was spent going back in time. We took a bus outside of Tokyo to visit Nikko Tosho-gu Shrine, a very ornate temple built during the Japanese Baroque Period. The temple was nice, but by this time, we were all templed out and wished we could have had the day to spend exploring Tokyo instead. In the evening, we went to check out Harajuku, an area known for its narrow shopping alleys and its Harajuku Girls. For dinner, we couldn't help but stop at a delicious looking burger place and we weren't disappointed by Japanese hamburgers. Afterwards, we wandered around and checked out a cool looking Audi Building and cool looking furniture store. I was bummed that we weren't able to find any Harajuju Girls before heading back to the hotel.
Luckily, the next morning, after a stop at Kengo Tange's Olympic Stadium, our next destination turned out to be Harajuku for lunch, where we finally saw a Harajuku Girl who was all dolled up. After lunch, we walked down Omotesando, a street known for high end luxury stores. We checked out the Dior Building, which was great from the outside but boring on the inside. Then we went to Tod's, a building whose concrete facade and structure is based on the street trees outside. It seemed really cool but I didn't get a chance to go in. Finally, the legendary Prada Store by Herzog & deMeuron, a building that we know well from seeing it in countless architecture lectures. This was definitely the best of the three because it did a great job integrating interior and exterior. However, all three buildings were soured by the attitudes of the employees. They seemed to have no appreciation for their architecturally significant buildings and there was clearly distaste and mistrust behind their forced smiles since they knew we clearly couldn't afford to buy anything. However, we made the best of it and a few people managed to get some pictures even though they weren't allowed inside. Our next stop was the National Art Center Tokyo, a museum designed by Kisho Kurokawa, which was nice, but kind of blah. Finally, the bus dropped us off in Roppongi, a westernized shopping area. We explored a little before a few of us decided to take a subway to Ginza, another area for shopping that is also known for coming alive at night. The highlight of Ginza was the Swatch Flagship Store, a watch boutique by Shigeru Ban where each watch brand has its own store on a different level of the building. The first floor is open to the street with a glass elevator to each store that displays a preview of its watches. The elevator would take you up or down to the corresponding store.
Tokyo has a legendary club scene, so after returning from Ginza, we began to get ready to go out. Most clubs in Tokyo don't open until 10 or 11 and don't pick up until 12 or 1. We left around 11 for a club called Ageha, which required taking a subway to Shibuya, then a free shuttle from there to the warehouse district of Tokyo where the club was. We chose Ageha because it's the biggest club in Tokyo and would have something for everyone, and we weren't disappointed with its four different dance floors. We ended up back at the hotel around 5:30 AM to get a few hours of sleep before our last day in Tokyo.
The last day consisted of a trip to the Minka-En Museum, which is a collection of preserved Japanese houses from different periods that you can walk through. From there, we visited the Yokohama Port Terminal, by Foreign Office Architects, one of my favorite buildings of the trip so far. After a long and exhausting day, we returned to Tokyo and spent our last evening in Shibuya before heading back to the hotel for bed.
Tokyo was a great city and I can't believe we saw so much in such a short time! However, there's still so much to explore. I've only been to a tiny fraction of the subway stations in Tokyo's vast network, and I'm sure there's interesting stuff around all of them. There's also so much more of Japan that we didn't get to see: other cities, mountain towns, buildings, and islands. And of course, it would be great to climb Mt. Fuji. Japan definitely requires a few more visits!
Tokyo pictures can be found here.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2498770&id=3431093&l=df3ffdbe1f
After a week, we finally left Tokyo for China, and I can't believe how much we covered in that time. Last time I posted, I wrote the post on the train on the way to Sendai where we went to visit the Sendai Mediatheque. After a two-hour train ride, this was the only thing we were scheduled to see that day before another two-hour train ride back to Tokyo, so we all wondered whether it would be worth the trip since there was so much we wanted to do in Tokyo. After seeing it, I wasn't absolutely blown away, but I think it was definitely worth it to go. Designed by Toyo Ito, this library and media center opened about ten years ago and has been really popular with the people of Sendai. What I liked about it was that it was something I could see myself designing. The outside was a pristine glass box, but the internal structure consisted of large, irregular glass columns which punctured through the floor plates at different angles. Stairs, elevators, and mechanical items were housed in the columns, and the columns also served as light wells to bring light from the roof down into the building. With the exception of the columns, each floor was created by a different designer. While some were better than others, it gave the building an interesting character and the building still felt unified by the columns and exterior glazing. Although I can't figure out exactly why, the building somehow reminded me of the Seattle Public Library by Rem Koolhaas, a building I really liked.
When we got back to Tokyo from Sendai, we made a stop at our hotel, then a group of us took the subway to have dinner and explore the Shinjuku area of Tokyo. Like Shibuya, Shinjuku is another nightlife area, but it is not quite as crazy. It consists of fewer large chain stores and more small restaurants, shops, and bars. Unfortunately, it was a weeknight and it was getting late, so things were starting to close. We walked around until it started raining hard and we realized we needed to catch the last train back. Shinjuku is definitely somewhere I'd like to go back to.
After a day of taking one of the fastest trains in the world to visit a modern library, the next day was spent going back in time. We took a bus outside of Tokyo to visit Nikko Tosho-gu Shrine, a very ornate temple built during the Japanese Baroque Period. The temple was nice, but by this time, we were all templed out and wished we could have had the day to spend exploring Tokyo instead. In the evening, we went to check out Harajuku, an area known for its narrow shopping alleys and its Harajuku Girls. For dinner, we couldn't help but stop at a delicious looking burger place and we weren't disappointed by Japanese hamburgers. Afterwards, we wandered around and checked out a cool looking Audi Building and cool looking furniture store. I was bummed that we weren't able to find any Harajuju Girls before heading back to the hotel.
Luckily, the next morning, after a stop at Kengo Tange's Olympic Stadium, our next destination turned out to be Harajuku for lunch, where we finally saw a Harajuku Girl who was all dolled up. After lunch, we walked down Omotesando, a street known for high end luxury stores. We checked out the Dior Building, which was great from the outside but boring on the inside. Then we went to Tod's, a building whose concrete facade and structure is based on the street trees outside. It seemed really cool but I didn't get a chance to go in. Finally, the legendary Prada Store by Herzog & deMeuron, a building that we know well from seeing it in countless architecture lectures. This was definitely the best of the three because it did a great job integrating interior and exterior. However, all three buildings were soured by the attitudes of the employees. They seemed to have no appreciation for their architecturally significant buildings and there was clearly distaste and mistrust behind their forced smiles since they knew we clearly couldn't afford to buy anything. However, we made the best of it and a few people managed to get some pictures even though they weren't allowed inside. Our next stop was the National Art Center Tokyo, a museum designed by Kisho Kurokawa, which was nice, but kind of blah. Finally, the bus dropped us off in Roppongi, a westernized shopping area. We explored a little before a few of us decided to take a subway to Ginza, another area for shopping that is also known for coming alive at night. The highlight of Ginza was the Swatch Flagship Store, a watch boutique by Shigeru Ban where each watch brand has its own store on a different level of the building. The first floor is open to the street with a glass elevator to each store that displays a preview of its watches. The elevator would take you up or down to the corresponding store.
Tokyo has a legendary club scene, so after returning from Ginza, we began to get ready to go out. Most clubs in Tokyo don't open until 10 or 11 and don't pick up until 12 or 1. We left around 11 for a club called Ageha, which required taking a subway to Shibuya, then a free shuttle from there to the warehouse district of Tokyo where the club was. We chose Ageha because it's the biggest club in Tokyo and would have something for everyone, and we weren't disappointed with its four different dance floors. We ended up back at the hotel around 5:30 AM to get a few hours of sleep before our last day in Tokyo.
The last day consisted of a trip to the Minka-En Museum, which is a collection of preserved Japanese houses from different periods that you can walk through. From there, we visited the Yokohama Port Terminal, by Foreign Office Architects, one of my favorite buildings of the trip so far. After a long and exhausting day, we returned to Tokyo and spent our last evening in Shibuya before heading back to the hotel for bed.
Tokyo was a great city and I can't believe we saw so much in such a short time! However, there's still so much to explore. I've only been to a tiny fraction of the subway stations in Tokyo's vast network, and I'm sure there's interesting stuff around all of them. There's also so much more of Japan that we didn't get to see: other cities, mountain towns, buildings, and islands. And of course, it would be great to climb Mt. Fuji. Japan definitely requires a few more visits!
Tokyo pictures can be found here.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2498770&id=3431093&l=df3ffdbe1f
Thursday, May 27, 2010
We're in Tokyo!
Another long ride means another blog post. Today, we're taking a 2-hour ride from Tokyo to Sendai (to see the Sendai Mediatheque) on the Shinkansen. The Shinkansen is the Japanese bullet train that goes up to 180 mph. Looking out the window, it's crazy to see things going by this fast without being on an airplane. We have rail passes for this trip that are good until we leave Japan. Some days, we've been taking tours by bus, but on others, we'll take the Japanese rail system (usually the Shinkansen) to another city and start from there. $450 seemed like a steep price for a rail pass but I just found out that today's roundtrip ticket alone is $100, so I guess the pass was worth it.
The Japanese landscape is really nice. It's incredibly green, but the trade-off for that is that it's been raining for a good deal of the trip. It rained consistently during our last few days in Kyoto, then finally stopped yesterday for our journey from Kyoto to Tokyo, and now it's raining again today. However, our schedule is so tight that the rain isn't preventing us from seeing anything; we just bust out our umbrellas and keep going. Luckily, it isn't a cold rain. In fact, the temperature has been consistent and pleasant for the entire trip so far. It's been slightly humid but not too bad, and we all agree that we'll miss this weather once we move south to China, and further still to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Malaysia.
One other thing about the landscape that surprised me is the amount of development. I was expecting large metropolises like Tokyo and Osaka with large amounts of nature and rice fields in between. However, Japan is very developed and many of its cities spread over large areas. Hence, there are few large undeveloped areas. Even in Tokyo, the skyscrapers are not as tall as I had imagined. While the city is obviously incredibly dense, it still covers a very large area and travel times can be great between different points in the city. However, public transportation is relatively good and cheap, and Tokyo's massive subway network is well utilized.
Last night was our first night in Tokyo and we used our free evening to explore Shibuya, an entertainment and shopping district that reminded me of Times Square in New York. Some of the third years have a friend who lives in Tokyo so he met us at our hotel and helped us navigate the overwhelming subway system to get there. He then took us to an awesome all-you-can-eat shabu shabu place, so I got to compare real Japanese shabu shabu to the stuff I get back home in Little Tokyo. The verdict: comparable. Te food was about the same. However, I liked that it was all-you-can-eat here, but at home, it comes with free rice and is a bit cheaper. Anyway, after we finished eating, we explored Shibuya a bit but found that most of the stores were closed or were closing soon. However, I did get a chance to run into the local H&M to buy a cheap belt since I forgot one and my pants keep trying to fall off.
We finally made it back to our hotel around 11:30 and got a chance to sleep in REAL BEDS. This is our third hotel and the first where we haven't slept on mats on the floor. Our hotel also has a shower curtain in the bathroom. The lack of a shower curtain was a particularly annoying aspect of our hotel in Kyoto since it meant that you either had to shower incredibly awkwardly to keep the water in the tub or that the entire bathroom got wet by the time you were done. However, with the exception of the shower curtain, the bathroom is exactly the same. There must be a Japanese company that makes identical capsule bathrooms.
Before we came to Tokyo, we had the opportunity to stay in an authentic Japanese mountain town called Tsumago. The town has been preserved with no visible satellite dishes or power lines allowed. The place where we stayed provided us with an authentic multi-course Japanese meal. Just when we thought it was over, they'd bring something new. By the end, I had eaten a new type of sashimi, some interesting Japanese vegetables, lots of cold noodles, and two different types of soups, among other things. Oh, and wasp larvae. Yep, wasp larvae. It actually tasted fine but it was weird if you thought too much about what you were eating. The next morning, we got another authentic Japanese meal for breakfast before exploring the town and departing by bus, then Shinkansen, for Tokyo.
The Japanese landscape is really nice. It's incredibly green, but the trade-off for that is that it's been raining for a good deal of the trip. It rained consistently during our last few days in Kyoto, then finally stopped yesterday for our journey from Kyoto to Tokyo, and now it's raining again today. However, our schedule is so tight that the rain isn't preventing us from seeing anything; we just bust out our umbrellas and keep going. Luckily, it isn't a cold rain. In fact, the temperature has been consistent and pleasant for the entire trip so far. It's been slightly humid but not too bad, and we all agree that we'll miss this weather once we move south to China, and further still to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Malaysia.
One other thing about the landscape that surprised me is the amount of development. I was expecting large metropolises like Tokyo and Osaka with large amounts of nature and rice fields in between. However, Japan is very developed and many of its cities spread over large areas. Hence, there are few large undeveloped areas. Even in Tokyo, the skyscrapers are not as tall as I had imagined. While the city is obviously incredibly dense, it still covers a very large area and travel times can be great between different points in the city. However, public transportation is relatively good and cheap, and Tokyo's massive subway network is well utilized.
Last night was our first night in Tokyo and we used our free evening to explore Shibuya, an entertainment and shopping district that reminded me of Times Square in New York. Some of the third years have a friend who lives in Tokyo so he met us at our hotel and helped us navigate the overwhelming subway system to get there. He then took us to an awesome all-you-can-eat shabu shabu place, so I got to compare real Japanese shabu shabu to the stuff I get back home in Little Tokyo. The verdict: comparable. Te food was about the same. However, I liked that it was all-you-can-eat here, but at home, it comes with free rice and is a bit cheaper. Anyway, after we finished eating, we explored Shibuya a bit but found that most of the stores were closed or were closing soon. However, I did get a chance to run into the local H&M to buy a cheap belt since I forgot one and my pants keep trying to fall off.
We finally made it back to our hotel around 11:30 and got a chance to sleep in REAL BEDS. This is our third hotel and the first where we haven't slept on mats on the floor. Our hotel also has a shower curtain in the bathroom. The lack of a shower curtain was a particularly annoying aspect of our hotel in Kyoto since it meant that you either had to shower incredibly awkwardly to keep the water in the tub or that the entire bathroom got wet by the time you were done. However, with the exception of the shower curtain, the bathroom is exactly the same. There must be a Japanese company that makes identical capsule bathrooms.
Before we came to Tokyo, we had the opportunity to stay in an authentic Japanese mountain town called Tsumago. The town has been preserved with no visible satellite dishes or power lines allowed. The place where we stayed provided us with an authentic multi-course Japanese meal. Just when we thought it was over, they'd bring something new. By the end, I had eaten a new type of sashimi, some interesting Japanese vegetables, lots of cold noodles, and two different types of soups, among other things. Oh, and wasp larvae. Yep, wasp larvae. It actually tasted fine but it was weird if you thought too much about what you were eating. The next morning, we got another authentic Japanese meal for breakfast before exploring the town and departing by bus, then Shinkansen, for Tokyo.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Kobe Beef...
...was phenomenal!
Also, the works of Tadao Ando were really great too! Check out my second album of pictures here!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2493612&id=3431093&l=bbc6967da6
Also, the works of Tadao Ando were really great too! Check out my second album of pictures here!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2493612&id=3431093&l=bbc6967da6
Temple Hopping
Once again, I'm writing this blog post during the day while we're out. As we've gotten back to the hotel each evening, I've found that I have very little motivation to sit and type up what I've been up to. Right now, we're on a two-hour bus ride from Kyoto to Kobe so this seemed like a good time to write something.
The last few days have been packed, but we've had lots of fun. We spent the first few days visiting temples in the area. One of my favorites was Fushimi Inari Shrine, which consists of thousands of black and orange gates along a path that leads to the top of a mountain. We didn't have enough time to make it all the way up, but we hiked past a small lake and stopped at a place with a nice view of Kyoto. We've also visited temples such as the iconic Golden Pavilion and a temple with 1001 Buddhas called Sanjusangen-do. Most of these places have also had amazing gardens, and we've had opportunities to sit and relax and sketch. Yesterday was spent in Nara where we visited Todai-ji, the largest wooden structure in the world, and Horyu-ji, one of the oldest. At this point, we've visited so many temples that it's hard to keep them all straight. Although I can appreciate all of them, I'm ready to move onto the modern stuff.
Despite slightly higher food costs, we've been eating well while we've been here. Although I've had a few meals from the local McDonald's and local convenience stores, I've also been enjoying lots of good Japanese cuisine. For lunch yesterday in Nara, we had a Japanese meal that consisted of small portions of a number of things including octopus, tuna sashimi, miso soup, and tempura. We've also discovered a place across the street from our hotel where a grandmotherly Japanese woman makes the best fried noodles with pork. She makes them on the grill in front of you and you serve yourself off the grill. The other nice thing about this place was that it was only 600 yen (about $6.00) for the noodles. That's pretty cheap for Japan. In Kobe today, we'll get to have a lunch with real Kobe beef, so I'm excited about that. I'm fully expecting it to be the best meal so far.
In the evenings, I've been going out with different groups of people and we've been exploring Kyoto. Spending all of our time together has made me feel like I've really gotten to know everyone, even those I hadn't met before this trip. One night, we went out and did karaoke with most of the group to celebrate Danielle's birthday. Another night, we went on an excursion to the bank (Japanese ATMs talk to you!) and also to the Camera Store, which is actually a giant 7-story electronics store. I particularly enjoyed the Japanese toilets and the massage chairs, even though I was too tall for them. Last night, a group of us went to explore the Kyoto Station, which is absolutely massive. It includes 4 or 5 different malls and numerous train platforms on different levels. When we first got to Kyoto and passed through the station, I thought it was huge, but I didn't realize that the part of the station I saw that day was only a tiny corner. Last night, we had dinner at a food court there then went up to the roof to enjoy the views of Kyoto. We walked across a skybridge that crosses the giant atrium of the station, then found our way back down to our hotel.
Today, we'll be checking out some works by Tadao Ando in Kobe and tomorrow we'll be taking the bullet train to Nagoya. After that, another day in Kyoto, then onto Tokyo!
And lastly, some pictures so far. I'm linking to the Facebook album so I don't have to upload to this blog as well. I'm trying to upload as fast as I can, but I'm a little behind. Here's the link...
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2493044&id=3431093&l=f1dcf3acc4
The last few days have been packed, but we've had lots of fun. We spent the first few days visiting temples in the area. One of my favorites was Fushimi Inari Shrine, which consists of thousands of black and orange gates along a path that leads to the top of a mountain. We didn't have enough time to make it all the way up, but we hiked past a small lake and stopped at a place with a nice view of Kyoto. We've also visited temples such as the iconic Golden Pavilion and a temple with 1001 Buddhas called Sanjusangen-do. Most of these places have also had amazing gardens, and we've had opportunities to sit and relax and sketch. Yesterday was spent in Nara where we visited Todai-ji, the largest wooden structure in the world, and Horyu-ji, one of the oldest. At this point, we've visited so many temples that it's hard to keep them all straight. Although I can appreciate all of them, I'm ready to move onto the modern stuff.
Despite slightly higher food costs, we've been eating well while we've been here. Although I've had a few meals from the local McDonald's and local convenience stores, I've also been enjoying lots of good Japanese cuisine. For lunch yesterday in Nara, we had a Japanese meal that consisted of small portions of a number of things including octopus, tuna sashimi, miso soup, and tempura. We've also discovered a place across the street from our hotel where a grandmotherly Japanese woman makes the best fried noodles with pork. She makes them on the grill in front of you and you serve yourself off the grill. The other nice thing about this place was that it was only 600 yen (about $6.00) for the noodles. That's pretty cheap for Japan. In Kobe today, we'll get to have a lunch with real Kobe beef, so I'm excited about that. I'm fully expecting it to be the best meal so far.
In the evenings, I've been going out with different groups of people and we've been exploring Kyoto. Spending all of our time together has made me feel like I've really gotten to know everyone, even those I hadn't met before this trip. One night, we went out and did karaoke with most of the group to celebrate Danielle's birthday. Another night, we went on an excursion to the bank (Japanese ATMs talk to you!) and also to the Camera Store, which is actually a giant 7-story electronics store. I particularly enjoyed the Japanese toilets and the massage chairs, even though I was too tall for them. Last night, a group of us went to explore the Kyoto Station, which is absolutely massive. It includes 4 or 5 different malls and numerous train platforms on different levels. When we first got to Kyoto and passed through the station, I thought it was huge, but I didn't realize that the part of the station I saw that day was only a tiny corner. Last night, we had dinner at a food court there then went up to the roof to enjoy the views of Kyoto. We walked across a skybridge that crosses the giant atrium of the station, then found our way back down to our hotel.
Today, we'll be checking out some works by Tadao Ando in Kobe and tomorrow we'll be taking the bullet train to Nagoya. After that, another day in Kyoto, then onto Tokyo!
And lastly, some pictures so far. I'm linking to the Facebook album so I don't have to upload to this blog as well. I'm trying to upload as fast as I can, but I'm a little behind. Here's the link...
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2493044&id=3431093&l=f1dcf3acc4
Monday, May 17, 2010
What happened to the weekend?
I’m writing this from Kyoto , Japan outside the gates of Katsura Palace Nijo Castle and Ryoanji Temple Katsura Palace , the three of us will be taking public transportation back to the hotel where we’ll meet up with the rest of the class and have the evening free to explore Kyoto
We also had last evening free to explore after we checked into the hotel, so the whole class ended up sticking together and taking the subway to explore Shijo-Dori, a street with lots of lights, shopping, and food. From there, we went down Pontocho-Dori, an alley that’s about 10 feet wide and completely lined with restaurants, bars, and small clubs. At this point, we split up for dinner and five of us ended up finding an awesome place located underground that felt like you were in a cave. Each table was in its own little mini-cave. The food and drinks were good and the waiters screamed at you in Japanese (but in a good way). After dinner, we went back to the hotel and crashed, exhausted after over 24 hours of travel.
Speaking of travel, the flights were long but didn’t really feel too much longer than what I’ve been on before. The 15-hour LAX-Hong Kong flight felt similar to the 10-hour Dallas to Amsterdam Hong Kong but only got through 3 because I actually managed to sleep on the plane, which was a good thing. Hong Kong was a pretty nice airport to transfer through, which is good because I’ll be passing through it 3 more times this summer. After arriving in Osaka at Kansai Airport , which is built on a manmade island in the middle of Osaka Bay , we picked up our Japan Rail passes and took an hour train ride to Kyoto
The hotel room is nice but small. My roommate Emilio and I each sleep on a mat on the floor of our room. Our pillows are more like beanbags than actual fluffy pillows. The bathroom reminded me of a cruise ship bathroom with a small toilet and the sink hanging halfway into the bathtub. Our room is on the 4th floor and the narrow, twisty stairs are just like the narrow, twisty stairs to my 4th floor room in the apartment in LA that I just moved out of. We’ll be staying here for almost a week before checking out and moving onto Tokyo
Thursday, May 13, 2010
T-minus 1 day and counting...
Hello, everyone!
So this here is my first blog post of the first blog I've ever had in my life. The plan is to keep this up to date with everything I'm up to as I travel around Asia this summer. I'll be checking out the architecture in a number of Asian countries for the first month. Then, for the next two months, I'll be based in Kuala Lumpur working with Malaysian architecture students to design a school for a site in rural Malaysia. Anyhow, if I do a good job with this blog, it will be fun to look back on, it will help me remember everything I did, and it will help everyone at home keep track of what I'm up to. No promises about frequent updates though...I've never done this before so we'll see if I actually get into it.
Anyway, it's been a whirlwind getting ready for this trip. I've been so stressed with finals and projects the past few weeks that I've barely had time to stop and realize that I'm leaving so soon. Yesterday, I went home from LA and moved all my stuff out of the apartment. I unpacked, ran lots of last-minute errands, repacked for the trip, and today I'm back in LA again. Tomorrow is commencement and a lot of my friends are graduating, so I can't miss it even though I'll be leaving LAX later that night.
Our first stop on the trip is Osaka, Japan. We'll be leaving from LAX at 1:40 AM and connecting through Hong Kong en route to Japan. It's around 14 hours to Hong Kong and another 5 to Osaka. 14 hours is definitely the longest I'll have ever been on a plane so we'll see how it goes. The plan is to watch lots of movies and maybe sleep a little here and there. Worth noting for a plane nerd like me is that the flight from Hong Kong to Osaka will be my first time on a 747, or anything with 4 engines or 2 decks for that matter! Also worth noting is that we'll be flying on Cathay Pacific, which is supposed to be really nice!
Okay, that's it for now. I'll leave you with the basic itinerary for our program:
May 15 ---> Leave LAX
May 16-May 30 ---> Japan
May 30-June 7 ---> China
June 7-June 13 ---> Vietnam
June 13-June 16 ---> Cambodia
June 16-August 12 ---> Malaysia
August 12 ---> Arrive LAX
Also trying to plan weekend trips to Singapore and Bangkok, both of which are really close to Malaysia, and maybe a trip back to Shanghai to visit the World Expo!
So this here is my first blog post of the first blog I've ever had in my life. The plan is to keep this up to date with everything I'm up to as I travel around Asia this summer. I'll be checking out the architecture in a number of Asian countries for the first month. Then, for the next two months, I'll be based in Kuala Lumpur working with Malaysian architecture students to design a school for a site in rural Malaysia. Anyhow, if I do a good job with this blog, it will be fun to look back on, it will help me remember everything I did, and it will help everyone at home keep track of what I'm up to. No promises about frequent updates though...I've never done this before so we'll see if I actually get into it.
Anyway, it's been a whirlwind getting ready for this trip. I've been so stressed with finals and projects the past few weeks that I've barely had time to stop and realize that I'm leaving so soon. Yesterday, I went home from LA and moved all my stuff out of the apartment. I unpacked, ran lots of last-minute errands, repacked for the trip, and today I'm back in LA again. Tomorrow is commencement and a lot of my friends are graduating, so I can't miss it even though I'll be leaving LAX later that night.
Our first stop on the trip is Osaka, Japan. We'll be leaving from LAX at 1:40 AM and connecting through Hong Kong en route to Japan. It's around 14 hours to Hong Kong and another 5 to Osaka. 14 hours is definitely the longest I'll have ever been on a plane so we'll see how it goes. The plan is to watch lots of movies and maybe sleep a little here and there. Worth noting for a plane nerd like me is that the flight from Hong Kong to Osaka will be my first time on a 747, or anything with 4 engines or 2 decks for that matter! Also worth noting is that we'll be flying on Cathay Pacific, which is supposed to be really nice!
Okay, that's it for now. I'll leave you with the basic itinerary for our program:
May 15 ---> Leave LAX
May 16-May 30 ---> Japan
May 30-June 7 ---> China
June 7-June 13 ---> Vietnam
June 13-June 16 ---> Cambodia
June 16-August 12 ---> Malaysia
August 12 ---> Arrive LAX
Also trying to plan weekend trips to Singapore and Bangkok, both of which are really close to Malaysia, and maybe a trip back to Shanghai to visit the World Expo!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
