The Blog From Another Dimension: Travel Archives

Back Home (The Other Home)

Well, it was a good trip. A short one this time--just two weeks in the U.S., and Sachi was with me for only the last seven days. But we packed a lot into that short time.

Right now, I am sitting at gate 100 at SFO, hearing them page Sachi for the nth time. We had a bit of a mix-up, and thought we'd be going to the same terminal (we have different flights). Sachi went ahead just a few minutes, and we arranged it so that she would wait after getting through all the red tape. Then I find out that my flight leaves from the terminal at the other end. I try to get into her terminal to tell her, but despite the advice to do so from the guy at the information desk, the security wouldn't let me in. I tried paging her, but the paging person keeps screwing up--mispronouncing her name, and then instead of saying "White Courtesy Phone please," she says "Whitcurtsyphnpls" in a fast bunch at the end; I doubt Sachi can understand it, and if she knew what to do after a page, she'd have answered by now. So, as is my nature, I'm worrying that she's wandering the airport trying to find me or something. I'm sure that I'm wrong, but as I said, worrying is my nature with stuff like this.

I just asked the courtesy telephone people to page only one last time, but this time I spoke to a guy. I told him that the female announcer was trying and that there should be just one last page before stopping. So a minute later the guy pages her, loud and clear--and then the woman comes on five seconds later, paging her again with the "Whitcurtsyphnpls" suffix. Poor Sachi, she must think that there's something really serious going on. As usual, I'm making a mess of things. We'll get it straightened out when we meet again in Narita.

Anyway, the first week here by myself (Sachi came later due to work) I went birdwatching (as you have noted if you read this) and did some shopping. After the whole two weeks, I have come away with a new digital video camera (a cheap $230 Panasonic that performs surprisingly well for a cheapie), a similarly cheap 500GB firewire/USB external hard drive ($240, available for $245 at Amazon [price updated]), a new leather jacket for $80 (my old one was getting too worn), several new shirts and a few new jeans, a very nice knit zip-up sweater with a hood, and a new pair of dress shoes (maybe the priciest item for the value, at $200), plus a lot of miscellaneous items. Didn't go so heavy on the DVDs this time--just a few News Radios, a season of Rockford Files, and a few others. I figure it doesn't make sense to get movies on DVD for the next few years until I upgrade to HDTV and Blu-Ray and/or HD-DVD.

Sachi and I together went to San Francisco for a few days, seeing the sights and going shopping. There were family days (such as Christmas Eve, when we did the whole present-opening deal), and alone days (such as Christmas Day, when many in my family fell ill) and Sachi and I could spend time just together. We had a great stay for a couple of reasons: first, a good family friend let Sachi and I stay at her home, where we had lots of room and close proximity to my family without crowding them, and second, my father let us use his Prius (with all the bells and whistles) most of the time, and the GPS mapping feature alone saved us from unfolding maps in the car while parked at the side of the road many times.

But perhaps the biggest thing for me was that I did not suffer from some terrible malady. As you may recall if you've been here for a while, two years ago my Christmas vacation was muted by a serious nosebleed (massive, really) that virtually immobilized me, and last year I was hobbled by a broken foot suffered one week before I left for the U.S. Everyone (including myself) was wondering what would strike me down this year, but nothing did.

So all in all, it went very well.

New Rule: No Bottled Water on Flights

I just got this alert from the U.S. Embassy concerning air travel:

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is implementing a series of security measures, some visible and some not visible, to ensure the security of the traveling public and the nation's transportation system.

NO LIQUIDS OR GELS OF ANY KIND WILL BE PERMITTED IN CARRY-ON BAGGAGE. SUCH ITEMS MUST BE IN CHECKED BAGGAGE.

This includes all beverages, shampoo, suntan lotion, creams, tooth paste, hair gel, and other items of similar consistency.

OK, I understand, it's because of the latest terrorist plot. But it's still inconvenient as hell. And would it slow things up that much to be given the chance to take a swig from each water bottle at the security checkpoint to show it's not an explosive?

They'd damned well better have lots of bottled water ready and waiting on all flights, as much as anybody and everybody can drink. I've been on flights where they ran out--which is why I typically bring along several bottles when I fly, and so do a lot of other people. Hydration is important on long flights, and I can just see them not caring enough about this. Even better, they should carry a new cache of bottled water and be ready to give as much as anyone wants when asked for, in the bottles--easier on the flight attendants than constantly filling those damned little cups. I used to travel longer, with more connecting flights, and I have to say, toothpaste and shampoo were kind of important; sometimes you can be up in the air a pretty long time, and you can get to feel pretty crummy without these things. Are people who want to brush after meals simply out of luck?

Note: as long as this is on the main page, check out the Sesame Street Terror Alert Notice in the sidebar--Elmo is up!

Flying with a Broken Foot

It was two weeks ago that I came back home to California for a vacation with the family, and it wasn't all that easy. I had broken my foot just ten days earlier, and was still in the process of getting used to the crutches that I would be using for the following month or two. I also made the mistake of trying to take the train from home to the airport.

At first, it seemed simple: taxi to the train station, train to Shinjuku, transfer to the Narita Express (NEX), get to the airport, and wheelchairs to the gate. The taxi and first leg of the train trip went without a hitch, and I was confident that all would go well. But not so fast, there bub. At Shinjuku, I had to get from the Keio Line to the JR NEX. Not so easy. First, a station worker sent me off on a wild goose chase that took me an easy 300 meters off course, telling me that an elevator was where it wasn't, routing me way farther off my path than needed. 150 meters away from my destination, 150 meters back. Then another 100 meters or so to the ticket counter at Shinjuku. Those distances may be less than I count, but as I was on crutches all the way and was porting a heavy backpack, you will hopefully excuse the possible misjudgment of distance. Suffice it to say it was a long way on crutches, and by the time I got to the ticket office, I was sweating bullets and my good leg was killing me.

And then there were 20 people in line. All of whom, despite carefully not seeing the disabled guy in obvious serious discomfort, failed to offer me the chance to get ahead in line. There we no chairs, no place to rest. So I had to crutch-wait in line while post-exertion sweat doused me and I tried vainly to balance on crutches alone to give my good foot a break. Then there was the inevitable foul-up in the ticket (the clerk for some reason did not sell me the basic train fare, only charging me for the express surcharge. I found this out only after I had hobbled into the station, and tried to enter a coffee shop for a quick seating respite--bad idea, the place was a smoker's refuge, choked with cigarette smoke.

From there, it got better--I asked for them to reserve a wheelchair for me at Narita. What I got, after a few minute's wait, was two guys who came with a wheelchair right there, escorting me to the tracks. Good thing, too, because the car I was taking was waaay at the other end, and we got there only a few minutes before the NEX got there. After a nice train ride in, three guys were there to meet me at the airport terminal station, right outside the door, to wheel me to the check-in, and then an airline wheelchair to get me to the gate.

Then my luck gave out again: the "bulkhead seat" I had so ardently struggled to get from the airline turned out to be a bad move. Instead of being a spacious seat (one the airline claimed was reserved for injured people), it actually was more cramped than a regular seat. The bulkhead in front of the seat was just as close as a normal seat back in plain economy would be, but instead of having leg room under the seat ahead, the bulkhead just went straight to the floor, leaving perhaps the least foot space of any seat on the plane. And they gave me this seat as a confessed favor, knowing I had a broken foot.

I had to plead with the flight attendant for a regular seat--and got one, thirty-three rows back, farthest away from an exit or lavatory. Swell. Actually, that would be "swelled," which my broken foot most certainly was, after I got through the flight. I had to either tuck my broken foot under the seat in front of me, where it could never extend fully, or on the floor in the narrow aisle, where it was in constant danger of being tromped on. Not pleasant.

I write this as I am flying back, and this time the trip is going much better. First, I was able to call the airline and get a seat in "Economy Plus," which is basically Economy with three or four extra inches (a "special holiday gift," the airline guy called it, though I'm sure O'Reilly would have been outraged by the agent's attack on Christmas). Or, more accurately, "Economy Plus" is what regular Economy class used to be before they jammed the seats together; the "plus" means you get the old kind of seats. But believe me, that makes all the difference. Strangely, the bulkhead seats are in that section, despite the fact that they were even more cramped than Economy Normal.

A small aside--I got the wheelchair treatment at SFO to the gate, but the guy was really weird. He made very bizarre sounds unexpectedly. He'd be wheeling me along to my gate, and then suddenly he'd start making a sound like a sheep baa-ing. Or he'd suddenly blurt out the name of a celebrity for no reason and then shut up. Very surreal.

Anyway, after being wheelchaired in and seated first for today's flight, I could tell that under-the-seat stretching would suffice, at least nominally. I still expected a swollen foot, but I'd be a bit more comfortable on the 10- to 11-hour flight.

But as the boarding continued, it became clear that this would not be a full flight, as it almost always is. In fact, seated on the right aisle seat in the center row, I had two seats free to my left, and a whole window-side row of three seats open to my right. That remained after the doors closed, and so I snagged the three window-side seats. That hasn't happened for a long time.

So the flight has been going smoothly. Though you should know that airline seats are not designed for laying down across them--even with the seat arms up, the seat edges protrude up a bit, making for a bumpy bed. But I won't complain too much about that. At least I can elevate my foot decently, even sitting up in one seat with my leg up on the third seat's arm rest. Hopefully, not so much swelling this time.

Also, for the ride home--if I can catch the last one--I'll be taking the Limousine Bus. Although the last bus headed for my neighborhood leaves about an hour after the scheduled landing time, I found on my trip in that being in a wheelchair means that you not only get wheeled in by staff, but they also wheel you past the security, immigration, and customs checkpoints reserved for flight crews. That's fast. And on the way in, my luggage was tagged as priority, and so my suitcase was brought out in the first wave. Hopefully, I'll get that again, and will have time to takkyubin (express-deliver) my luggage home overnight for $20 a pop, and catch the last Limousine Bus out to my area. From there, a quick taxi ride should bring me to my front door--no train transfers.

I'll tag on an epilogue when I get home.

And here I am. The flight arrived on time, and I got wheeled around everywhere again. As before, the Japanese wheelchair service was better than on the U.S. side; where SFO wheeling was just one person, Narita supplied two people, who took me not only through immigration, baggage claim, and customs, but to the Limousine Bus window, the baggage express delivery service, and even up to the 4th floor to get me a Starbucks Frappuccino--they insisted. Then they got me to my bus stop, and I was off.

Certainly, for a broken foot, the Limousine Bus/taxi combo made a lot of sense; after such a long trip, doing a station transfer at Shinjuku on crutches would have killed me. As it was, I only had to hobble about 30 or 40 meters from where the bus let me off at Seiseki Sakuragaoka to the taxi terminal, then to my doorstep. In terms of cost, it kind of came out even, with the train narrowly beating out the bus (about ¥4500 for the train/train/taxi, and ¥4800 for the bus/taxi), though the bus had better seating than the Narita Express regular. On time, the bus actually beat the train; even with a fast non-injury-delayed train station transfer, the train option would have taken over two hours, while the bus/taxi combo got me home is almost exactly two hours.

So now to get back into the local time zone...

Baggage

OK, so I'm getting ready to go home for the holidays. I've got everything taken care of, especially in light of my broken foot. I'm going to takkyubin my luggage to the airport ("takkyubin" is kind of like Fed-Ex, but a broader service in Japan; one service they provide is hauling your luggage for you from point A to point B). I've got Green Car reservations on the Narita Express, wheelchair reservations for the airport, a bulkhead seat (first row of Economy class, where there are no seats in front of you) on the airplane... everything taken care of.

So last night, at about 2 a.m., I look at my luggage. And I realize that I haven't made arrangements to takkyubin the suitcase. Well, I shouldn't worry, I think--they'll pick it up tomorrow and have it at the airport in time, right? Except when I go to Yamato Takkyubin's web site to check, they say that you should have it picked up two to three days before your flight. Oh, great! Come the morning, my flight would be the next day. Have you ever tried to carry a big suitcase while on crutches? I haven't, and I don't want to try.

So there I am in a panic, figuring that I've completely blown it. Yamato doesn't open till 8:00 am, and they require 2-3 days anyway. But I find another express company, called Sagawa, who seem to take calls all night. So I call them up. No problem, the guy says. We can have your bag at the airport the next day. I make the reservation for the pickup guy to come between 12 and 2 in the afternoon the next day, and relax. It's taken care of. Close one! So I go to sleep.

This morning, I get woken up by a phone call. Some guy at Sagawa, calling me about my arrangement. The problem is, he doesn't speak English, and I can't understand what he's saying. Something about "uketori" (pickup?) at the airport, and somehow maybe I can't get my bag "chokusetsu" (directly). I quiz him, explain that I can't understand, please speak simply, the whole nine yards. I try to get him to explain bit by bit. But no luck--he remains maddeningly vague. He tells me to call the "skyporter" at Narita, and I do so. He also does not speak English, and he is even less helpful and clear than the Sagawa guy. He can't explain, and says I should call Sagawa. I call the Sagawa guy back up, he's no help either. I ask him directly if they can deliver my bag to Narita as promised, and he won't give me a direct answer.

Here's a big cultural tip about Japan: when someone refuses to give a direct answer, and instead switches to high-level language, the answer is "no."

So I begin to panic again. My Japanese coworker at school kindly agrees to call Sagawa for me to cut through the language problem, and confirms my fears: Sagawa doesn't deliver to Narita. (So why did the guy I called last night tell me "no problem"?) Sagawa has just wasted my time when I'm already way late. At least they told me (kind of) that they couldn't deliver my bag before they actually picked it up. But that doesn't help me much.

Hoping against hope that Yamato will do the job despite the late hour, I call them up. Again, no one speaks English. I'm able to communicate my request to the dispatcher, who assures me that they can do this for me, they can get the suitcase there in time for my flight. That would be a relief again, except for the fact that that is exactly what the Sagawa guy said eight hours earlier. But I take a leap of faith and go for it. Trying to make sure I've got things covered, I call the downtown number for Yamato and get an English speaker, who assures me that they can get my bag to Narita by the next day before my flight, no problem. Oh yeah, they also inform me that on the shipping invoice, in the "to" area, I have to put "Narita Airport," my airline, flight number and departure time. Useful info, good thing I called the second time.

Anyway, just as I was writing this, the Yamato guy showed up at my door, again assured me that it would get there on time, and took it away with the $16 fee. I'm still nervous, but at least a bit more hopeful now. At worst, I'll have to buy luggage and clothes when I get to the U.S. Could be worse.

Too late, a friend made a suggestion which would have worked much better: I should have taken a taxi to Seiseki Sakuragaoka, a 5-minute taxi ride, from where I could have taken the Limousine Bus (why is it called a "limousine" bus?) to the airport, no transfers or anything. But it's a bit too late to switch, so I'll stay with what I've got. But it's good information to know for the future.

Double Moon

Apparently the Futago-Tamagawa fireworks show is tonight. I glimpsed the distant display out my window, and happened to note the just-rising moon right above it, from my perspective. Made for a very nice shot, which I thought I'd share. The very small smudge of light just above and to the left of the firework blossom is an airplane coming in for a landing at Haneda, by the way.

Chofu Fireworks

This has been my first chance to get these photos up, from last Saturday's fireworks show on the Chofu banks of the Tama River near where I live. Next weekend I might go out to Tachikawa and see if their festival is worth watching, but I haven't decided yet. In early- or mid-August, Seiseki Sakuragaoka, also near where I live, will have yet another.

And then here are some stand-alone photos, just the small versions--but still some nice images.

By the way, that's a train going through the bridge at the bottom of the photo above.

There might be more coming... I also have a bit of video. But this is all for the moment. I hope you enjoy them!

Home

Ah, may it be ever so smelly upon return. Not because it's a sty or anything, I always clean it up before traveling--but after 2-3 weeks away, it starts to get that moldy empty-apartment smell. I've try desiccators, leaving windows cracked open, closing doors and closing up drains, nothing keeps the smell from accumulating. Actually, the bath and toilet rooms are the only ones that don't have the smell, so go figure. It takes a few days to get rid of, but it's survivable. I just wish I knew what it was and how to keep it from happening.

The trip home went quite well, aside from my forgetting my cold cuts for noshing on the flight. The trip was about as good as one could normally expect from economy class. And, hey, I didn't erupt into nosebleeds over the Pacific, so how much could you ask for? At the airport, the bags came down quickly enough, I got waved through customs, and there was a Narita Express at just the right time to allow me to takkyubin (express deliver) my bigger bag and then sit down for a caramel frappuccino at the airport Starbucks before getting on the train.

Arriving home was a slightly different matter. KDDI pulled a fast one on me. I got home to no Internet. I had ordered their "Hikari Plus" vDSL service a few weeks before I left, but the KDDI rep who came to help me fill out the forms promised me a mid-January start date, and said that the ADSL would continue until I got and set up the vDSL modem and asked them to switch. I left Japan on December 14th, early. And that's when KDDI sent out the modem by takkyubin--a month before they said it would come. Had they warned me that such a thing might even possibly happen, I would have told them to not do it during my traveling. But early they were, and so they started my vDSL service on the 16th, and cut off my ADSL--without any indication I was ready for that--on the 18th. But since I had no idea the vDSL stuff would start so soon--a month before I was told to expect it--I could of course not be there to get the modem or set it up (being 5,000 miles away at the time). And when the ADSL got cut off, my HDD recorder lost its connection to the scheduling service. It still recorded the shows I asked for, but all are mislabeled.

But worse, I was supposed to email my folks and let them know I had gotten home OK. I couldn't stay awake long enough to catch them in the morning in California, and had promised to send them an email saying I was OK. But here was my Internet connection severed, with no way to connect to the new vDSL, the modem being with the takkyubin people. Fortunately, my brother--also living in Tokyo--was able to shoot off the email, so there was no panic at home, but I am somewhat miffed at KDDI for botching that one. And they still say that I have to pay for two and a half weeks of vDSL service despite not receiving any service whatsoever during that time. I'm not paying for being cut off without notice, not if I have anything to say about it.

But the modem got takkyubin'd to me this morning after I called them (it got delivered along with the second suitcase, in fact), and with a little assistance, I got it set up. A speed check claimed I was getting 44 megabits download speed, and 13.5 megabits upload. Not too shabby--more than 100 times what a lot of people in the U.S. get nowadays. Certainly fast enough for whatever I'm doing on the net these days.

Now to get over jet lag, and finish recovering so there's no chance of me bleeding profusely when I start teaching again next week.

Heading Home

Wow. I'm finally heading home. Not that there's anything bad or good about leaving where I am or getting to where I'm going, it just seemed there for some time that I wasn't gonna go anywhere for a while. The nosebleed was just so unpredictable--there was no telling when it would stop or rebleed or why. Probably pretty soon I'll post in gruesome detail about the nosebleed situation, because it helps to record your experiences to help others (we wish we could've found something like that to better understand our situation). But not now. It almost feels too much like jinxing the trip home, and right now, the last thing I need is a jinx.

New Year's Eve

Usually I come back to Japan from my American Christmas vacation in time for New Year's, so I can enjoy the event in Japan at a local shrine where they have fireworks, a traditional Japanese band, shi-shi mai dances, chidren dressed as hyotto-ko, free hot sake, and a nice bonfire. This year I'll be enjoying it at home because of the whole nosebleed situation. The last time I stayed this late was the millennium, but I did not think to ask ahead--my family was planning nothing for the evening, and I would up watching TV at midnight by myself. But this time promises to be better, as everyone who can stay awake is planning to do so, and we'll have a nice, warm little celebration at home.

Happy New Year!

The Nosebleed Seat

Not actually a seat so much as a nosebleed. A major one. Or ones, that is. Bloody. Gruesome. I wouldn't advise it.

They started coming a few days into the trip, after I'd had a throat cold and then an airplane trip. Then a few days after arriving, I got blood in my mouth, and then later that evening, a full-blown nosebleed. I mean it took twenty or thirty minutes to stop, and it was not just a trickle, it was a gusher. I'll spare you the gory details.

Even though Japanese national insurance does not cover treatment in the U.S., and I have no insurance just for the trip (something that will change in the future, I assure you), we figured that we'd get me to a doctor anyway. Well, four days, three doctors, and six or seven nosebleeds later (they would start after almost any activity, finally got three bad ones in one day)--most of them similarly gory messes--I finally got the treatment I needed. I got my nose packed. Both nostrils. It may not sound that bad, but just try having someone stuff WAY too much gauze--or one of those stiff, non-nostril-shaped sponges--down your nostrils, with insufficient anesthetic. It is not fun, trust me.

And yet, if bleeding continues around the packing, we go to stage three: a balloon inserted into the nasal cavity and then inflated. Which they say is extremely painful, so much so that I'd have to be hospitalized for the pain shots. And already, on an outpatient basis, this is costing us hundreds of dollars. Such a stay would be thousands.

Another problem: my flight back. These things don't heal quickly. And a serious nosebleed, of the type from which I suffer, can even be fatal on an over-water international flight. And the tickets are non-refundable, non-changeable. Delaying would cost another thousand dollars.

The only possibility is to have the nose unpacked later this week (assuming no new bleeds take place), and then immediately re-packed; after that, I could take the airplane ride home. A 16-hour ordeal from door to door, arriving home early evening. Then, the next day, to the local hospital in Japan, to have the nose unpacked, and treatment continued.

Not exactly the Christmas season I'd expected. Still, let's hope against hope for the merely miserable.

And now you know why I haven't blogged on the Bush press conference yet. I watched it, took extensive notes, wrote three paragraphs, and then bled a lot. Maybe cause and effect, we'll never know.

Local Shots

So one of the aims in testing the zoom on the new camera is to go outside and try to shoot some wildlife. The lesser catch was another black squirrel, and I just missed a few woodpeckers.

But the real find, a bird not often seen hereabouts, is the Stellar's Jay, a crested Jay that is found more often near water (though there is a creek nearby). But I always have had a liking for crested birds. The shot below is reduced from its original size, by the way.

One would expect that hummingbirds would not winter this far north, but here's one. I do hear them quite a bit, their call is fairly distinctive. And I guess that the Silicon Valley area is quite warm enough this time of year to accommodate the little buzzers. This one was sitting atop a branch over my house, spotted from the backyard; the bird is only a few inches tall, and was about fifty feet away. The image to right is cropped, but not enlarged in any way. Not the clearest image, but considering the size of the subject and the distance involved, it's still a pretty good shot. It's an Anna's Hummingbird, by the way, if I'm not mistaken.

Pre-Flight Jitters

(Actually, this will be posted well after I fly out.) If you are one of those people who can easily shake the feeling that you've forgotten something when going to travel overseas, then you're lucky. I always have some nagging feeling that I've forgotten something. Last trip home, it was whether or not I locked the front door on the way out; I worried the whole way and then had to call the landlord in Japan to go and check for me. This time, it's a general feeling borne of having left in too much of a hurry.

Usually I'm much better about time when I leave on trips, often giving myself hours of extra buffer time. This time I cut it close on leaving the apartment, and rushed around in a slow-motion adrenaline half-panic while trying to throw everything I needed into my backpack and figure out what did I forget this time? Strangely, I think this time I didn't forget anything, unlike my usual experience of have left behind something considerable though not major. On one trip to Wisconsin a few years back, I forgot to pack my shirts, and remembered while on the airplane. And it was a business trip, so I couldn't rely on home support. I had to stop off at a shopping mall on the rental car ride to the hotel and buy a few new shirts on the fly.

But on this trip I think it's all going smoothly. Got to the train station just in time to catch the train (though the taxi driver played hide-and-seek with me at first), got the express OK, got into the airport and just beat out a very long and tedious line at check-in, then went straight to this nice computer lounge. Heck, I even got seats way up from, row 20 on the way home (and row 19 on the way back).

And I even remembered to lock the door this time.

Modern Airports

So, one nice perk about airports nowadays is that they tend to have nice lounges for anyone to use where you can whip out your laptop and plug it in at a desk. So instead of wasting away for an hour or so in a seat near the boarding counter, I can hop downstairs, plug in my computer (don't have to worry about draining the batteries), and sit down in a nice cushioned rolling chair. Then I can work or play away until the flight is called up. Today, it's blogging for a while, then maybe watch the latest Simpsons episode downloaded from BitTorrent. Cool.

It's Never Right

This always happens to me. Back when the yen was down to the 80's per dollar, I had no money to exchange. I always miss the sweet rate. Just a few days ago, it was at 102.1, and had taken forever to get there. Less than a week passes, and now the damn thing's back up to 105.8--more than a yen higher than yesterday, a big jump, like the other big jumps over the past several days. I mean, for crying out loud. Today I wanted to change but had no time, so it'll have to be Monday. And the way the rate works, if it goes favorable for buying dollars, the banks don't change the official rate until the next day; if the rate goes more favorable for them to sell dollars--worse for buyers like me--they change the rate almost immediately. I checked on that once, a bit of a scam there. But it means that even if the rate breaks my way Monday before I buy dollars, I still won't see anything from it--but the rate could get worse and I could get socked by it.

Good thing I don't play the stock market. With my luck in these things, I'd be broke by now.

China Wrap-up, #2

In the Xiang Yang-style flea markets in Shanghai, there are always watch merchants (with their aforementioned stash of fake Rolex watches), and every watch merchant had a particular watch, right up front: the Waving Mao Watch. Tacky and cheap, they were nonetheless tempting: your very own official watch from China with a picture of Mao, his hand waving back and forth with the seconds. Kind of a reverse-Mickey-Mouse watch.

For some reason, Tang is a highly popular drink, with a variety of flavors, and local knock-offs following it.

Here's a photo of the nutcake that I mentioned before, sold by guys with a possible Middle-eastern origin.

This is also something you could see quite often—people sitting out on the street in groups, day and night, talking, socializing, and sometimes just relaxing. Tables, chairs, and sometimes beds are included in the setup.

Another interesting difference was people's attitudes about kids. Ken and I often started talking to neighborhood kids who showed an interest in the foreigners walking around, and no one seemed to worry about it at all. In a place where theft, pick-pocketing, and other crimes are fairly commonplace, apparently assaults on children are not so much of an issue; refreshing, that.

To finish the night, a photo of a building in Pu Dong at night, after Ken and I came down from the tower observation deck.

China Wrap-up, #1

Now that I've been comfortably back for a few days and have been able to get some business taken care of, a wrap-up of the trip is in order. There is a lot of stuff that I couldn't or didn't include in blog entries before--too much for just one entry now, so I'll do it in bunches over the next week or two.

Taxis. I mentioned them before, being cheap and all. They have an initial charge of between one and one and a half dollars, which covers a certain distance, and then the fare increases bit by bit--but they're really cheap in the long run. I took them quite a lot. Note in the photo below that the drive is shielded in a one-seat plexiglas semi-bubble; one can only presume robberies or something similar prompted that. A lot of the official taxis were VW vehicles, for some reason.

There were also "black taxis," possibly so named because their backseat windows and rear windshield have black tinting on them, save for an untinted strip across the back windshield. They are smaller vehicles, unmarked, and you may wonder why they have stopped near you, waiting. The fare is negotiated, but don't be surprised if they renegotiate later, or jack up their prices if you want them to take you to a second location from a place other taxis cannot easily be found.

Ostentatious Signs. I wish I had more photos of these; I mostly spied them when out on the "chicken bus" in the more rural areas, and it was hard to take photos--also because they so often took me by surprise. Sometimes even the most innocuous or humble businesses would have incredibly ornate and imposing signs. You would see a sign twenty feet high, on giant concrete pillars, with gaudy and oversized lettering; reading the English version below, you would see that this magnificent entry sign belonged to something like the "Control Valve Release Mechanism Factory" or some such. It was not just limited to signs, but also the buildings themselves. I even saw one factor whose facade was a full-sized replica of the White House (as in Washington, D.C.). I noticed a building near Ken's apartment that was giant and ornate, like a mausoleum; it turned out to be a bath house (see photo below).

Knock-offs. Pirated and copied stuff is abundant. Of course, you have your $1-pirated-DVD salesmen everywhere, but more substantial stuff is copied as well. Below is a restaurant chain's logo, one I saw several times; note how it is a rather obvious copy of the KFC logo. One time, Ken bought what he thought were Oreo cookies (common in China, with many flavors--I liked mint), but they turned out to be bad-tasting knock-offs. Pringles chips, Starburst candies, etc. I'm sure the copying applied to lots of other kinds of products, but I didn't get the chance to get it all down in the time I was there.

Traffic. I may have mentioned that once or twice. Hectic, not too organized. I saw taxis run red lights not infrequently. They blanch at doing so where cops are stationed, but elsewhere are rather fearless. Pedestrians, bicyclists, moped riders and others mix and mingle in intersections. Drivers manage to squeeze through, missing people by inches. Vehicles ram through intersections, and if you don't watch out, they'll come straight at you as if they're going to run you over.

Honking horns is considered a form of communication. Cars honk at people and at other cars more than bicyclists ring their bells in warning. There is constant honking going on. Taxis are common culprits of this, and perhaps that's the reason why they have to have their horns muffled. Many streets have a no-honking sign (pictured above right).

It all seems a dangerous setup, but somehow they manage.

I did enjoy a common form of traffic, though--the three-wheeled cart-bike. They are used by individual businesspeople, like those who set up portable selling stalls for food or pirated goods, or for people moving things from place to place. I saw (but was unable to photograph) a rig I called the "Alhambra Truck," a three-wheeled bike laden with water cooler jugs. (By the way, don't let the blue spigot fool you, the water is never cooled.)

I often saw these bikes laden with overwhelming cargo, like the mattress pictured below, or on my trip back to the airport, a pile of blankets about 20 feet high. You see these things everywhere.

More later.

Shanghaied in Shanghai

As I type, I am in Shanghai International Airport, sitting in front of a departure gate display, as this is the only available power socket, or so the information guy tells me. The flight leaves in about an hour and a half, and I figured that I'd get in some last-minute blogging.

This morning was a bit of an adventure. Wanting to get to the airport on time for an early departure hour, I decided that I would not hassle with the buses (have to catch the train to some place or another, identify the right bus, puzzle out the schedule, etc.), and instead would take a taxi ride.

So I woke up at 5 am, got everything packed (one camera battery pack unaccounted for, probably somewhere hidden in my luggage), got cleaned up, dressed up, and then headed out with Ken to the street to catch a taxi, by which time it was 6:15 or so.

There I hit the first snag: not many taxis seem to cruise that street in the morning. After waiting several minutes, then walking for a few more, we finally spotted a cab and flagged him down. Ken handled the translation for me, and we seemed to get across to the driver that I wanted to go to Pu Dong Airport, taking the A4, A20 and A1 expressways, and learned from the driver that it would take one hour. Ken had a bit of trouble, though, because the driver spoke with a Shanghai accent so strong that even I could hear it. But we seemed to communicate everything OK. So I got into the cab, said goodbye and thanks to Ken, and the driver sped off.

In the wrong direction.

At first, I figured that he was simply headed for a convenient cross street. After a few minutes, that possibility soon withered away and died. I tried to indicate to the driver that we were, indeed, going in the wrong direction. He seemed undeterred, and when I showed him the map and said, "Pu Dong Airport," he nodded vigorously, and repeated, "Pu Dong!" and kept going in the exact opposite direction as the airport. I gave him a few more minutes, in case he had some miracle maneuver under his hat, but no. He kept on going the wrong way. And I also had just noticed that he had not activated his meter yet.

I insisted then that he was going the wrong way, by eloquently pointing again at the map, pointing behind us, and saying "Pu Dong Airport! That way!" a bit louder (that always works). He again tried to reassure me (I think), but this time added a bit of extra information: he slid his ID placard aside and revealed the placard of a different driver. That worried me, but perhaps explained it--that he was going off-shift, and had to pick up the other driver. The problem was, where was he going to do that? After one minute? After an hour? I got out my watch, and pointed to it, hoping to express the idea that I was on a tight schedule and had no time for detours. He tried to express the idea that it would only take a few minutes. Very upset, and considering whether to stop him, get out, and flag another taxi, I waited as he went further from my destination.

The problem with switching cabs, of course, was that it might be hard to find another, and I don't speak Chinese--so there was a chance that things would just get worse. As I pondered this, the driver turned down a side road, a very deserted-looking country road, a dirt road in fact, and for a few seconds I feared that maybe I was going to get robbed or something. But within a few seconds, I spotted someone who looked suspiciously like another taxi driver walking toward us, and sure enough, the first driver stopped and let him in. He also did not speak English, but at least we were now turned around and headed in the right general direction.

After a mile or so, the first driver stopped, got out, and the new driver got in the driver's seat, and we were off again, sans the first driver. The new driver confirmed via the map I had and sign language that he would take A4, A20, and A1, so I relaxed a bit--until he turned on the meter. Since we were several miles out from where I was picked up, I insisted he turn it off again until we got back to where I had flagged the cab down in the first place. And as we reached that point, there was Ken--20 minutes later, still standing there, now waving the cab down--I got the driver to stop and talked to Ken. He had seen me going off in the wrong direction and had worried, but twenty minutes? At the crack of dawn? With no guarantee that I'd be heading back this way? That's a friend.

So Ken talked to the new (and more clearly-speaking) driver, established that everything was OK, and bade me off again, this time in the right direction. The ride then took about 45 minutes, and I got to the airport on time. But that's as much excitement as I'd like to experience for an international trip. Let's hope it calms down from here.

Note: It did. Got back, despite a really bad landing by the NorthWest pilot--even worse than the one to Shanghai (what, is it training week or something?), my luggage popped out almost right away, had a Frappuchino while waiting for the train (not a long wait), and was back home sooner than could've been hoped. Whew.

Angel in the Tower

I've decided to relatively slack off these last few days, and get more blogging done in the U.S. The Internet connections here are just far too slow to keep up with this pace, and I'll be back very soon in any case.

The other day, Ken and I went to a large tower in Shanghai, the Oriental Something-Or-Other Tower, the usual obligatory high vantage point of any big city you visit.

I will be posting several photos from there soon, of course, but I thought I'd post at least one now that I really like. A small girl, waiting pensively for her family to finish their viewing activities. I caught her in profile, using a zoom in relatively low light, but it came out nicely anyway.

Rave Reviews

One thing visitors quickly learn about in China is the existence of pirated DVDs. For a dollar and under, you can get DVDs of new or old movies; I mentioned this a few days ago.

What I didn't mention is how they seem to slap together the cover art, especially for newer movies. It looks legit, but if you read carefully, sometimes the writing is strange, or even not connected to the DVD's movie at all.

Today I saw one that was hilarious, for a movie called "Laws of Attraction." Obviously they lifted a review of the film and put it on the back of the DVD cover. But they also obviously could not understand what the review said. See for yourself:

Points of Amusement 1

Just as it is in Japan, in China there are occasional misuses of English. Here are a few I've noted in the past week:

This sign becomes more clear when one notes that the sign below it reads "Fire Hyd Rant."

A similar sign--they just don't know how to refer to a fire hose correctly.

The following are not exactly language errors, but do seem a bit useless:

After all, if a person is going to throw themselves in front of a moving train, forbidding it is not exactly going to do much good. As if someone would plan to jump, see the sign, and then decide that they did not want to risk breaking the rules.

Here's what was seen on a package of potato chips:

There are also things not linguistic in nature, but still rather amusing. For example, how Chinese males cool off in the hot and humid weather. In Japan, you rarely see a shirtless man, but here in China, they are fairly common, which makes sense; I don't see how Japanese salarymen survive humid weather in the 90's in full business suits.

Anyway, in China, some men will take off their shirts, but others will do something that can have a comical effect:

The big, protruding stomachs really make the difference.

Hangzhou

For today's adventure, Ken and I went to a place he likes to go on some days off, a lakeside city called Hangzhou ("Hahng-zow"). We made sure to get up early so we could catch the train--it's a two-hour ride from Shanghai (I write this as we are taking the train ride back).

On trains in China (or at least hereabouts), you can get "hard" or "soft" accommodations (seats or sleepers), the "softness" referring to the luxury of the appointments. Not exactly the difference between "first class" and "steerage," but still, there is a difference. We're taking the soft seats, of course.

There's not really too much to say about Hangzhou; it's a nice city, fewer beggars and hard-tactic salespeople, but otherwise much like Shanghai--except you've got the lakefront, which is very nice. I'll let the photos below explain a lot of it. Shopping streets, a long lakefront park, that kind of thing. We walked, boiled in the heat, stopped to drink every so often, ate lunch (KFC--I can't get popcorn chicken in Japan), ate dinner (ramen, Japanese-style). Went back to the station.

Still, another day well-spent. Tomorrow, we take a day off, sleep in, shop locally, watch videos. I have got to give my feet a rest. They're killing me. And that's with good shoes.

They were selling bubble guns, and this lady was kind enough to demonstrate

For some reason, the KFC clerks were dancing outside... don't know if it was a promotion or a hobby...

Ken was able to chat with some very charming young women at the pagoda

A crowd gathered in the park around a man singing to musical accompaniment

A very nice Starbucks here

More photos later...

The Bund and Nanjing Road

One of the sights to see in Shanghai is a double, Nanjing Road and the Bund. Nanjing Road is a shopping street, and the Bund is a riverfront area famous for its view. If you like upscale shopping more than downscale, then Nanjing Road will suit you better; this is not as much a place for bargaining as Xu Jia Hui market, save for some back alleys where you can do some bargaining. But some things don't change, like the endless stream of Rolex salesmen and a good supply of beggars. One of them really hounded us, a woman with a baby, who not only followed us for a few blocks, repeating "Xie xie" ("shay-shay," or "thank you"), but also resorted to grabbing our arms, trying to pull us back to stay and give her some money.

Down an alley way between some of the regular stores we could spy a cheap-market area, like a mini-Xu Jia Hui. We went in to get an electric plug strip, a "brick" with a surge protector. On the way out, we stopped at a DVD shop, which had the usual display of pirate DVDs. This place, however, did not just have the thin cardboard holders with the DVDs, but also had more substantial, thick cardboard holders, like fair approximations of some commercial DVD cases. We asked what the difference was between the two, and were told that the ones in the thin cases were about one dollar apiece, while the thicker ones on the wall were $4 each. Why the difference in price, we asked; the guy in the shop replied, in an eagerly sincere kind of voice, "the more expensive ones are real!" Ken and I both laughed, as it was all too obvious that the "real" ones were just as fake as the others, given that they included titles like Spiderman 2 and Catwoman, movies still out in theaters and not yet released on DVD. In fact, the "real" ones were likely of lesser quality, as new releases are theater-camcorder versions, while the older titles are direct rips from commercial DVDs.

Nanjing Road

Other than that, I don't have much to say about Nanjing Road--for the serious shopper, maybe it has its charms, but I found little to do there. The Bund was more interesting, visually, at least. There was a beautiful view, definitely a nighttime sort of thing rather than a daytime one, for all the lights on display. There were a lot of people there, most for the light show. We enjoyed it for a while, then had some dinner at a small pasta shop on the way back, then took the train as far as it would go and finished the trip with a $5 taxi trip the rest of the way.

Views from the Bund at night

On the way back, Ken and I were finally able to ask someone--as it was, a taxi driver--what the price of gas is in China. We'd seen lots of gas stations, most of them the Sinopec brand, but they never showed a price. After much gesturing and figuring of vocabulary, we got the idea across to the driver, and he told us that the price was Y3.4 per liter, or roughly $1.60 per gallon. But the driver said that prices had gone up this year, as they probably have everywhere, and said the cause was the Bush administration and the action in Iraq. Not angrily, but just matter-of-factly.

Also in the taxi, I noticed some stores that I had not expected to see--including an Ikea store, of all things. There was also a UniQlo store, a popular clothing store chain from Japan, which Ken said is considered kind of pricey here, though in Japan it is more of a discount place. Other than that, I noticed several food store imports, including of course McDonald's and KFC, and then there is Starbucks, Pizza Hut, and the Japanese beef-noodle chain Yoshinoya.

One other thing--when on the train into town in the early afternoon, I noticed something that I hadn't noticed before: a nuclear power plant. Not a big deal, but it was a bit surprising to see the twin towers that in the U.S. have become synonymous with nuclear plants.

Tomorrow: Ken and I visit Hangzhou, a city to the south with some lovely lakeside views.

In a day or two: how Chinese guys cool off on hot days, and some pretty funny "Engrish," Chinese-style.

Downtown Shanghai

Due to a combination of matters of convenience and difficulty, I've decided not to take the side trip to Beijing this time around. Mainly it's due to limited time. Though the span of this trip is ten days, the first day I got here late evening and the last day I'll leave early morning, so it's really eight days. Traveling to an from Beijing would take the better part of a day each way, and so in the end 10 days would get pared down to 6 and change; either I'd spend too little time in Beijing or too little in Shanghai, and the side trip would add several hundred dollars to the trip cost, seeing as how I'd have to pay for plane fares and hotels for two. So it'll just be Shanghai this trip.

In any case, the itinerary for the second day was seeing people, dining, and shopping. First stop: Xujiahui (pronounced Shoe-jaw-hweh), where we went to Starbucks and were able to log on--though the connection was even slower than at the local Internet cafe. Then we met up with two more of Ken's friends, girls going by the English names Kitty and Flavour (Ken tried to talk Flavour into using the name Isabella, but she really prefers Flavour). Then it was off to the Oriental Market at Xiang Yang, a maze of stalls selling stuff at very cheap prices, so long as you negotiate well.

Flavour, Ken and Kitty at Xu Jia Hui market

As you walk through the area, the level of people reaching out to you, following you around, and calling after you rises far above the normal street level of this activity. And if you should happen even to pause to look at some stall, much less show interest in a specific item, the stallkeeper will jump out and start the sales process. First lesson: never agree to the asking price. I bought some cheap-looking plastic add-on to my glasses that would flip down and cover them with dark lenses. When I asked the price, the woman said it was 120 Yuan ($15). Without consulting Ken or his friends, I countered with Y30 (about $4)--which was a mistake. Kitty and Flavour showed surprise, saying it was worth only Y5 or Y10 (I simply hadn't expected the lady to mark up the price that much). I then haggled it down to ten (the ultimate bargaining chip is to start to leave, which is when they almost always cave in), but the lady was pissed, though trying not to show it in her expression. When I paid, she gave me back change so that she kept Y30. When I again insisted on ten, she complained that I'd said thirty, and tried to give me back only another ten so she could keep twenty, but I finally got all the change back from her. A rather inauspicious start to my haggling experience, but instructive.

It was kind of funny how some things worked. A lot of people were selling watches (including a hilarious watch with Mao waving his hand), and the hawkers would show you what was on display; when you showed non-interest in them, the hawker would look around and whisper conspiratorially, "Rolex?" and uncover a box full of Rolex knock-offs, crowing as if this were valuable treasure and as if dozens of other hawkers had not already shown you their stash.

After the market, we went to Yuyuan, am area with again, a lot of shops--but this time in an area of very nice architecture and a park in the center. This area was more expensive, so we did less shopping and more of just looking around, and stopped for a bite to eat as well. The garden area was nice--there is an apparently famous crooked bridge over the pond, but the architecture, a classic style from centuries ago (from what I could pick up, that is), was the show-stealer.

Later, Ken and I met up with another friend of his, Jasmine, who speaks amazingly good English despite never having traveled (apparently it is very hard for ordinary Chinese people to travel abroad), and we bored Ken with a lot of computer talk while we searched for a good restaurant to have dinner at. We were now in Xintiandi (Sheen-tyan-dee, or "New Century"), which is apparently kind of like Roppongi is in Tokyo, a high-priced area where all the foreigners hang out. A lot of nice places, but the prices can be easily ten times higher than local joints--and yet still, a fancy dinner for three came out to about $20 per person, the price of a low-to-midrange meal in Tokyo.

A young girl who agreed to pose quickly for me. She's wearing a popular headdress, a lot of kids and some adults have them. The girl caught my eye by staring at me--a lot of people do because foreigners are still often uncommon--but they always respond happily when waved back to.

After the night's festivities, we headed home-but because the outlying light rail shuts down at about 8 pm, we took the bus from Xujiahui. The bus ride, which should have taken half an hour, instead lasted more than an hour, in part because of the same aggressive salesmanship seen in most other parts of the city. On buses, there is a driver and a fare collector. The fare collector sits behind the back door of the bus, and aside from collecting the twenty-five or forty cents from passengers, he spends most of his time leaning out the window shouting at people out on the street. Apparently buses in China are less of a systematic thing and more like taxis, each bus vying to get more warm bodies through the door.

So every few minutes, we would pull aside to a stop--many times not at a stop--and wait between one and ten minutes while the conductor shouted and wheedled. The driver would help out by pulling out a little each time, as if to leave, prompting the prospective customers to hurry up and get on board--so they could wait another five minutes until we actually pulled out from the stop.

Add to this the fact that the buses seem to have no shocks, the seats are narrow and hard, and for most of the trip the malfunctioning backup beeping signal was going off in our ears, and the bus experience is not nearly as nice as it could be.

Begging is also something that you see a fair amount, often a woman and her child, with the child asking for the money. The most noticeable account was on the train into Xujiahui, when a woman led her boy, perhaps eight years old or so, through the train, the boy calling out for alms. This pair saw a great deal of success, mainly due to the fact that the boy was badly deformed. This was not too different from what I experienced in Spain, minus the kid.

But the trains are otherwise a pleasant alternative. They are cheap (usually about 40 cents), come often when they are running, have comfortable seating, and are clean. The down side is the early shutdown, added to the sparseness of train lines. In a city of millions, perhaps on par with a good part of Tokyo, Shanghai has only a handful of train lines to Tokyo's multitudes. But more are being built; Shanghai is quickly building up and up and up. You can see this especially in the construction of housing. Massive forests of apartment/condo blocks are everywhere, and just as many seem to be under construction.

Between and among these towers ride a large number of two- and three-wheeled bikes, manually or fuel-powered. In many cases, on most large roads, they have an adjacent side road (as big as a medium-sized road in Japan all by themselves) reserved for them. But at intersections, the bikes and cars mix dangerously, each vying for control of their part of the road. Even for someone like me, now well used to traffic in Tokyo, this place seems chaotic and dangerous, taxis sweeping in and out everywhere within inches of bicyclists, pedestrians weaving between slow-moving traffic, hastily getting out of the way of taxis which seem intent to go on through despite human obstacles. Not the perfect traffic environment, but survivable (hopefully) for another six days.

To Qingpu and Back

I got on at Starbucks--from downtown Shanghai today.

Qingpu (pronounced "Ching-pu") is a town near a small historical village on the banks of a river in the northwest area of Shanghai, and where Ken and I went today, guided by Ken's student Fanny and her friend Sally (not their real names, but nicknames assumed for our convenience), who are native to that part of town.

Before going out to the village, we ate lunch at a nice place in town, a good number of medium-sized dishes that we all shared, and didn't quite finish--apparently that's not uncommon, maybe a slight show of prosperity, ordering more than you can eat. There was one dish, a spicy chicken, that was very attractive visually--but not quite so great to eat. Served in a basket, it had as many cooked peppers as chicken, but the chicken itself came in small pieces, and each one contained a small bone. A bit too much trouble.

After lunch, we headed out for the historic site. The village itself, named Zhu Jia Jiao, is supposed to be about 300 years old, and consists of a network of canals (with Venetian-style gondolas and their rowers) and small streets laden with tiny shops where their keepers beckon you endlessly to take a look at their wares. A lot of special region-specific pork dishes and other foods for take-home were available, but there were a wide variety of other shops, many with items for sale at $1~$3, including items that appeared like jade and ivory but obviously had to be fakes. Any number of tourist trinkets were available, but we were able to avoid purchasing--even with hawkers as persistent as those we found.

To give you an idea, as we entered the village, we approached the river and saw a sign that indicated that people would release fish into the river, probably for good luck. And several women approached, trying to sell us baggies filled with small fish, including goldfish. They followed us down a longish street--perhaps more persistent than usual because we were foreigners, a group that usually splurges more. They kept getting in front of us, practically insisting we buy some fish to release into the river. You just have to avoid eye contact and not make any moves to your wallet--these people tend to key in on any move that could indicate a sale.

One place we did indulge ourselves was a small archery room, where primitive bows and ten extremely primitive arrows were available for 5 Yuan. I took five shots, and Ken and Fanny shared the other five. Kind of fun, but the equipment was far from accurate, and most of the shots missed. But it was fun. We also indulged in a gondola ride for half an hour through the canals and under the main bridge on the river, and went into a temple which is supposed to bring good luck to those wishing to have children--not going for that purpose, of course.

On the way back, Ken and I took a "chicken bus," as he's come to call them. They're buses that go along rural routes, which we needed as Qingpu is a few hours away from Ken's place by bus. One time, when Ken took the bus, a passenger next to him had a bag on the floor, which soon began moving around of its own accord. The other passenger soon kicked the bag--and upon doing so, a loud squawk came from it, and Ken realized that there were chickens--plural--inside. Ergo, the "chicken bus."

I didn't see any chickens when we rode it back from Qingpu, but the ride was considerably slow, long and bumpy as hell--not the kind of ride I'd prefer to take every day. In theory, we were supposed to transfer to another bus midway, but neither Ken nor I felt like continuing that ride, and so we got another taxi (this time just 60 Yuan, or $7.50) to go back to Ming Hang, this time to midtown where we ate some McDonald's (I wanted some predictability), and then walked back.

By this time, it was about 8:00 pm. On the way, we not only cruised by a lot of shops, but a ton of street vendors, selling, mainly, pirated DVDs and music CDs (a dollar apiece), jewelry, wallets, small pictures, and--for some reason--remote controls, like for your TV or VCR. A few strange stalls, like one run by a fellow who looked like he came from a Middle Eastern country, governing a huge mountain of nutcake of some sort--a salty mix of pieces of nuts in a gummy matrix, topped by candied walnuts, sweets, and dried fruit. A bizarre-looking concoction, probably popular somewhere in the world, but not quite our cup of tea.

An interesting day for the first full day in China, but not all that happened--a few more observations I'll fill out in future posts, like the scrawling of spray-painted ads all over the place, a wealth of demolished buildings and uncleared rubble in many places, endless housing projects, ostentatious entrance signs, and a preponderance of bicyclists, scooter riders and three-wheeled bike barges on streets where traffic is more of a struggle than a flow.

On a Slow Network to China

I have just successfully logged on to the Internet here in Shanghai. Ken's personal DSL has been switched off for the vacation season, and I got a scare that maybe blogging would be difficult, as you cannot put USB Flash or a CD-ROM into the computers at the Internet cafe--so I'd have to come to a hot, smoky room full of people playing video games, and uploading photos would be impossible.

But fortunately, the people here are incredibly nice--and they allowed me to hook up my Mac (a platform apparently rare in China) directly to their network, with a tech guy typing in the IP addresses and everything. Got on the network no problem--and now I can upload a blog entry typed offline earlier in the day, as well as upload photos and check on my email accounts using Eudora, again for offline consideration if I want.

The lady in charge, a Ms. Ke (pronounced "Kuh") just came over, and in her best English, welcomed me to the cafe and expressed a hope that I'd come every night--a definite possibility, especially if the Starbucks WiFi does not work out (and the closest Starbucks that has WiFi is an hour by train and bus each way, so...).

Still, the network here is slow. Ken tells me that any DSL around here can be relatively glacial (definitely much less than a megabit), and this cafe spreads the connection between a few dozen people. Just getting my email took ten minutes (though that was padded out by more than a hundred spam). That means that photo uploads from here may be pretty slow, so for the time being I can only append a precious few each time. I'll post more when I get back to Tokyo.

Ken and I in Qingpu Village today.

First Night in Shanghai

Got into Pu Dong Airport somewhat late last night, partly because it was a late flight, and partly because the flight was delayed. My friend Ken, who's putting me up in his spare bed and acting as my tour guide for the week, was patiently waiting as I came in at 9:30, and was even more patient as I got in a long line to change money. I had tried changing yen to Yuan in Tachikawa Citibank back in Japan, but they couldn't do it. No problem, I though, I'll change it in Narita, plenty of time. But at Narita, they couldn't change to Yuan either. I'm thinking maybe it's some political thing, some monetary restriction due to friction somewhere, something like that. Either way, it got me worried--if I didn't get Yuan at Pu Dong Airport, I was afraid I'd never get it at all.

But my worries were unfounded--the airport bank clerk said I could change yen to yuan in town, but still, it was good to get local money in my pocket. And I really have to get used to the local currency--8 Yuan to the dollar, roughly. And the biggest denomination is 100 Yuan, or about $12. Makes for a big stack if you're carrying hundreds of dollars.

In addition, many things are dirt cheap here. After getting into town by bus (Y18, $1.50), we had dinner at a small noodle place (beef noodles with a licorice-flavored broth!), and then as it was raining and taking the train/bus/walk would be a hassle, I agreed to spring for the taxi ride--which took more than half an hour. That kind of taxi ride would cost easily ¥5000 in Japan, or about $45, but here it was just 100 Yuan, or about $12, or not too much more than I pay for the 4-minute taxi ride from my apartment to the local train station in Japan.

On the way in, we had the driver stop so I could jump out and get some water, and Ken asked me to get a few "cold ones" for him. I thought he meant beer. He meant water, but I got enough of that too (trying to avoid tap water here as much as I can). But the beers were pretty cheap, 6 Yuan (75 cents?) for a 640 ml bottle which would have cost 4 or 5 times more in Tokyo. I got a few smaller cans which I thought were beer, but wasn't sure--they were in the same section of the cooler, but with a strange English brand name and the rest in Chinese, I could not identify them as beer. Until later, that is, when Ken pointed out that the brand name "REEB" was "beer" backwards. Ah. Okay.

No photos yet, but you can't snap many at night (unless you wanted to see Ken slurping noodles). I'm not able to connect to the Internet just yet, and may not be able to today--it's still tentative--but I've decided that if access is limited, then I'll just blog offline, add the entries when I get a chance, and then backdate them to the right time and day.

In the meantime, I am in the relative lap of luxury in China--Ken's place is in a dormitory for foreign teachers, and they get special amenities that most people here don't, like hot water and air conditioning. Cool. Literally. 'Cause outside it's rather hot and humid.

Ken has made an arrangement with one of his students out in the countryside so that we can get shown around a small village on the outskirts of the city today--probably a big photo op as well as a nice time. The photos may have to wait, though--if I can't eventually get to a Starbucks and make the WiFi connection work, then photos will be harder to upload.

Why Do They Do That?

I just got my passport back from the Chinese Embassy today, and they did something that frustrates and mystifies me: when they put in the tourist visa, they placed it five pages after the last full page--in other words, they skipped over four blank pages in my passport that now will be avoided and unused in the future, as immigration officials usually place stamps after the last used page. Essentially, the Chinese embassy just wasted one quarter of the empty pages in my passport. And this is not the first time--several years ago, in my last passport, a Japanese immigration official did the exact same thing, though for a one-year working visa.

On top of that, a simple tourist visa is now an adhesive label which takes up a whole page--twice the size of a 3-year working visa from Japan--further filling up the passport. A simple 9-day trip to China is taking up 5 of 16 free pages in a brand-new passport, meaning I'm probably going to have to get replacement pages before the passport is even halfway to its expiration date.

Has anyone else had the skip-four-pages thing done to them?

Chofu Fireworks

Every year they have a fireworks display on the Tama River at Chofu; I can see it OK from my building, but as you can see in the first shot, zoom photography is needed from this far away, and the quality suffers. So I made it down to the river for the last part of the show, and saw some very nice hanabi, as they're called in Japan. Here are some of the shots that I took of the show.

From the top of my apartment building

Kind of a palm-tree effect here; people were watching from all over, including the bridge at bottom.

Here you can see people set out on the riverbed. The best seats, closer to the show, are not free--in fact, the best seats, at tables, go for about $50 a pop.

And there's always a big ending, shown here as an AVI file (5.5 MB).

Fireworks

They always hold a fireworks show over the racing track in Fuchu (visible only after going behind the hills in back of my building), and every year I forget to find out when it is, and I miss it. I only find out about it when I hear booming sounds from inside my apartment, and then I go out--and, like tonight, after 10 minutes of walking to get within view, the show ended less than a minute later. Yargh.

At least I was able to get a few shots off from the ending spurt--and now I'm reminded again to look up the local shows. In the U.S., all fireworks are on the same day, July 4, so you can only see the one. In Japan, there are shows all summer long. One of them is visible right out my dining room window; a nice show. This year, it's scheduled for July 25th--August 11 if the weather turns bad. Good thing I heard this other show, I might have missed the big one!

Departure and Arrival

So I departed Tokyo perhaps just in time--the weather had just started to take a rather gloomy twist, dark, cold, and rainy, rather miserable weather. Still, I had a good departure schedule--I got a flight leaving at 7:30 pm, as opposed to one leaving at perhaps 3:00 pm or so, giving me a lot more time to sleep, get ready, and get in to the airport.

At the airport, I was surprised to meet Kate, a teacher at my school, lining up for the same flight; while she was just connecting through San Francisco instead of staying like I am, and had a much better seat way farther up the aisle (despite getting her ticket a month after me and arriving at the airport later--she is, as she pointed out, much cuter than I am), we still were able to chat for some time, a very agreeable way to spend time waiting for the boarding and later the luggage claim.

Unfortunately, the flight could have been better. As is usual with United, the service is very good, but I have a lot of trouble getting to sleep on flights. It also does not help that I always get seated behind someone who, for the entire flight, has their seat reclined all the way back into my face (being disgruntled, I always do a check about the cabin and find that only 20% of people seem to have their seats reclined at any given time--but I always get the 20%), and the lady sitting in the seat next to me was leaning way over the armrest, with her feet put up on top of the seat in front of her. So despite having the aisle seat, I was more than a bit crowded in than is usual even for Economy class.

But I did get here, and that's the whole point of the exercise, so mission accomplished. I napped for three hours in the afternoon, but am still dead tired and ready to fall asleep at 9:30 PST.... I'll post pictures later, but I have a nice "room," so to speak--a kind of mobile-home rig, smallish, that my folks use to travel in. You know, a mini-kitchen, bathroom, not-too-small-bed, all on wheels. This will also serve as a great pre- and post-game vehicle when my father and I go to the 49'ers/Seattle game on the 27th, the last game of the season. But for now, it is a nice little private apartment in the driveway--and I really have to use the bed. More later.

Traveling

I am posting in advance for the day, and may post again before the day is out, depending on how I feel when I arrive. I am going home for my usual two-and-a-half-week vacation, to enjoy Christmas at home with the family, relax and regenerate as much as I can, and do a bit of shopping.

I'll be posting during that time, giving you a look at the San Francisco Bay Area (south bay, really, near Palo Alto), a peek at Christmas festivities at the homestead, and if I'm lucky, photos from the final 49'ers game of the season. If I'm even more lucky, then when I return, I will have all-new DSL with IP Telephony, which I'll report on as soon as it gets going (9 yen per minute to the U.S., free unlimited telephone calls to any KDDi/IP Telephone subscriber in Japan). But it may be as much as a week late after I return, in which case I'll be relegated to dial-up status for that time. One can hope...