On Sunday I went to Amanohashidate (“Bridge to Heaven”). It is considered one of the three best sights in Japan, and since it was only about a three hour drive away I decided I should see it before I leave. On the way there I drove through about the worst storm I have seen in Japan yet, but by the time I got there it was only slightly raining. Although it wasn’t perfect weather, it was still an interesting thing to see. Basically there is just a really long sand bar connecting two sides of a bay, but there is a forest and a few little shrines along the way, as well as a really long beach. Here are some pictures:

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The other day I went to Himeji, and as I was walking down the street a guy (he was Japanese, or at least Asian, by the way) rode up to me on his bike and the following conversation took place:

Him: Hello
Me: …Hi?
Him: Est-ce que vous parlez francais?
Me: Um, no(n)
Him: Quelle langue?
Me: Je parle anglais seulement
Him: Ok, goodbye
Me: Bye…

I hope that guy didn’t seriously need to find someone who could speak French, because chances are I was about his best bet.

Here are a few pictures from Mom and Mel’s visit, as well as some I never put up from when Marla was here:

I haven’t really written anything about my mom and Mel being here, so I will do that now. So far their trip has been pretty good I think. I think it has been especially good for me, because they have cooked me many meals, and cleaned my apartment, but they say they are enjoying themselves as well.

They have so far spent some time walking around my town. The grocery store seems to be the most popular attraction, which may be due to a severe lack of competition. They also went to Himeji (which is impossible for them to ever say correctly, or even close to correctly). We did a day trip (supposed to be two days, but I/the hotel manager made an error with the reservation) to Kyoto and saw Kiyomizu dera, and the Shijo shopping streets. Today we went to Jusco, and then to Joyfull for lunch, which is a pretty good way to experience my life in Japan. Also, this afternoon the Imamura family stopped at my house with a crate of strawberries they picked. We ended up talking with them for awhile, as the oldest daughter was able to translate pretty well (probably due to having a pretty good English teacher in Junior High).

Tomorrow my mom plans to walk up to Takeda Castle and then back while I’m at work. She thinks that if Marla and Andrea can do it than so can she.  Also, the Imamuras seemed to be confident she would make it, so I am not very worried. Sorry I don’t have any pictures yet, but I will get them.

Last weekend Marla and I met Andrea in Kyoto, where we stayed for a night. We went to Kiyamizu Dera, The Inari Torii, and Gion. We found a place that ended up giving us unlimited drinks for 2 hours, as well as several courses of food, many of which were edible. After Kyoto, Marla and I went to Shinsaibashi for the night because her flight was leaving the next morning, and Andrea stayed in a different part of Osaka.

The next day I brought Marla to the airport for her flight, and then waited for a few hours until my mom and Mel arrived. It was a pretty boring wait, because I didn’t have a book, or an iPod, but I did look through every store in the airport. When my mom and Mel showed up we took the long bus/train trip back to my town, which is probably not the most exciting first experience in Japan. Anyway, they are currently relaxing at my house while I work, and hopefully will not get lost trying to find the store for lunch. 

OK, so I decided that since China was such a big trip and I took so many pictures that I would just write one huge post and put the pictures throughout it, as they become relevant. This is much different than how I normally do things, so in my opinion it’s quite a risky blog move, but I have a feeling it will turn out just fine.

Anyway, the flight to Beijing was pretty short and uneventful, and then we got picked up by someone from the hotel we stayed at, so that was really convenient. However, as soon as we got within about 5min of our hotel it was pretty clear Beijing was gonna be not quite like I expected.

I didn’t take any pictures of the actual hotel, but it really didn’t look like it belonged on that street. Aside from the really uncomfortable beds, practice of selling food, and allowing a cat and some birds into the restaurant kitchen, it was pretty nice.

The next day we just sorta wandered around a little bit, and went to Tienanmen Square. It’s a pretty huge place, and it really screams Communism. Like there are stars and Maos (pictures of the famous one, plus probably quite a few lesser known still living versions) all over the place.

Also on this day, we ate a really gross restaurant (pretty much because we got too hungry). The dishes started off oddly covered in water, the cans of Coke were covered in crud, he gave us each a handful of peanuts (from his hand), the rice was cold but burned, in which Marla found a hair.

After that Marla and Andrea tricked me into a pretty boring shopping day. They said we would go to a “market”, however neglected to read that it was entirely for women’s clothing and jewelry. Needless to say, it wasn’t really my idea of a great place, especially when you consider it was absolutely packed with pushy Chinese women, two of which actually pointed at me and laughed while I was waiting for Marla and Andrea to finish buying dresses. After that we went across the street to the Beijing Zoo, which is just a pretty sad place. I wouldn’t say its a waste of money, cause it costs like $2 or something, but it has like a dozen animals that are slowly choking to death on the Beijing smog, or just going crazy from boredom.

The next day was pretty good, although also quite sketchy, cause we took our tour to the Great Wall. This day could be a post on its own, so I will have to condense it somewhat. Anyway, the three of us, two Germans, an American and Australian, and a family that clearly hated each other all piled into the hotel “minibus” (rickety van) and drove 3 hours to the wall. At the wall the driver said something to me in Chinese, and then scratched a mark on the little back of the ticket map with his extra long pinky nail indicated where he would pick us up in 4 hours. Hate each other family had been there before, and were basically running the whole time, so we just followed them. Along the way we passed some people that said some things in Chinese to us, but we ignored them assuming they wanted to sell us crap (one or two people in Beijing want to do that). As it turns out they were telling us we were going the wrong way (for 5km). The most annoying part though is that the hate each other family spoke Chinese and just thought they knew better than the people who spend everyday working on the wall. Anyway, we turned around and went back, and then some other women led us through a shortcut so we could make it back in time. The women wanted to sell us stuff, but we kept ignoring them until they couldn’t follow us any further. It turned out that we were the only ones who could resist them the whole time. At the end we took a zip line across the river (Andrea actually had to be cranked in by hand because she was too light) and then got back on in the van.

The next day we went to the Temple of Heaven, which was pretty nice. It’s possibly the cleanest place in Beijing, although the smog does kinda ruin some of the pictures.

After that we went to a Peking Duck restaurant, and got 1.5 ducks, which was too much. Peking Duck is a lot more flavorless than I expected, and I sorta think Beijing has better food to offer.

Next we went to the Forbidden City, which was packed with people and really as nice as the Temple of Heaven. Also, there was a lot of construction and the most smog of any day, so it wasn’t the best time to go I guess. This was also the day when we probably had the most pictures of us taken by Chinese people. This was a really weird thing. Unlike in Japan, where if someone wants a picture with a tourist (pretty unlikely) they introduce themselves and ask first, in China the normal method seems to be to try to sneak a picture first, and then only if you get caught trying ask. Once this actually resulted in a whole family trying to sneak up beside us, and then follow us until someone else could take the picture. I got them back.

On the last day we went to the Pearl Market and the Dirt Market. The Pearl Market was pretty boring. The Dirt Market was pretty dirty, but the name is still misleading because I wouldn’t say it was noticeably dirtier than the rest of the city.

Oh, and I forget which day this was, but one day we ate at a kinda gross restaurant and ordered something we just assumed with pork or beef (it was all Chinese). Anyway, it came and was cold, gross tasting, and clearly not an animal we had eaten before. We decided it was snake, based on the way it looked. Then later on we went to a Korean restaurant, and in the English menu there was an item that looked suspiciously like what we ate, but was labeled “Fresh Dog Meat”. So, I definitely ate something gross, I just don’t know how gross.

Anyway, China was a pretty interesting place, but in many ways a bit disappointing. For one, the people are possibly the rudest I have ever met. While this obviously doesn’t apply to every Chinese person, I have never seen so many people unwilling to smile or be polite in ways that seem pretty universal. For example, in every country I’ve been to, waiters or waitresses tend to smile and people you pay often say thank you or at least something, and don’t yank the money out of your hand. Also, the spitting is really disgusting. I understand that is a cultural difference, but the constant sound of horking (cause it’s not just normal spitting, they make sure to get as much as possible) is pretty gross. I will be really surprised if this year’s Olympics go smoothly, because it really seems like they’re not ready. Aside from the unwelcoming people, there is just tons of work that needs to be done on buildings everywhere. They seem to have started building walls to hide a lot the mess, but I think that will just turn out more embarrassing than helpful. I can honestly say that the food is much better than in Japan though, so long as you are careful where you go and what you order.
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Last week Marla arrived in Japan for her second visit. Sorry it took so long to write this post, it was a combination of being busy and just forgetting. Anyway, her visit has been good so far. The first day she just stayed at my house and read/used the computer while I went to school, and then on Friday she went to Himeji and saw the Art Museum she had tried to see a few times on her last trip, and a confectionery festival. On Saturday Meghan and I had a BBQ with some of the people who live in our apartment building, as well as one of her teachers and her kids. It sorta rained, but the kids played for like 4 hours so it was good. Then on Sunday Marla and I went to Kobe. Yesterday Marla went to Kinosaki again to visit the onsen while I was at work. Today when I went to work she was still sleeping, but she says she later went to Wadayama and ate lunch at McDonald’s. Even though I drew her a pretty good map of both Wadayama’s streets, she got lost and needed to take a taxi. The fact that taxis even exist in Wadayama is pretty ridiculous. Anyway, she is currently sitting beside me reading Obama’s book. Tomorrow after I get back from work we’ll go pick up Andrea in Himeji, and then we’re headed to China for awhile on Saturday. Anyway, here are some pictures, sorry there aren’t many:

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After a brief visit to my school my dad took the train to Himeji to see the castle and the city while I was at work, and then I met him there after. From Himeji we took the Shinkansen to Hiroshima. In Hiroshima we saw the Peace Park and the Memorial Museum (both of which I still think are really good), the shopping areas, and the Miyajima. Miyajima looked really nice with the cherry blossoms, but the tide was out so the torii wasn’t really that great to look at. Since we saw everything we wanted to see in Hiroshima faster than I expected, we spent the last day in Osaka. We basically just walked around Namba and Shinsaibashi, which are pretty different than anywhere in Canada. Anyway, here are the picture:

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Yesterday my dad came to Japan, so I went to pick him up at the airport. On the way I had to go through Himeji, so I decided to stop and see the cherry blossom festival, because it is really famous at Himeji Castle. Anyway, it was all really nice looking, but just about everyone in Japan was there so it was a little crowded. Then I took the bus to the airport, got my dad, and took the bus back.

Today we went to Takeda Castle, which was really good cause the weather was nice, and then to Kinosaki and Takeno up north. Kinosaki also had tons of cherry blossoms, so it looked really nice. Takeno Beach was also pretty nice, even if it was too cold to do more than just look at it. There’s a highway that runs along the cliffs on the coast though, so that was interesting to drive along. Anyway, here are a few pictures:

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Since last Thursday was a holiday, I took an extra long weekend and went to Korea. It was a pretty interesting place, but a lot more similar to Japan than I expected. The food was better, because there was much less fish. English was also a lot more common there, which kind of made me jealous of all the people that teach in that country, because chances are they are more able to speak with their other teachers, students, neighbours, etc.

Anyway, we spent the first day in Seoul and saw some of the shopping areas, the Seoul Tower, a palace, and a market. I don’t really remember what we ate for each meal, but there was some Korean barbeque, some bibimbap, and some other stuff that was probably mostly kim chi.

On the second day we went on a tour of the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea, which was really interesting and probably my favourite part of the trip. We were able to go right up to the border in the the complex they have there. I was even able to technically stand in North Korea, although it was inside a building run by the South Koreans, and it was only like 2 feet across the border. Photography was pretty restricted in there though, so I couldn’t take pictures of too much. After that we went to a tunnel that the North Koreans had dug under the border. It was pretty huge, because they wanted to use it to invade, and we were able to walk into it.

Anyway, it was a good trip, even if it was only a short stay. Here are the pictures:

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