World Cup Culture Convergence in Mongolia

7/2

Started my tour today in an old non air-conditioned gray Soviet van that we named Igor.  Long drive through basic flatlands.  We did see a few giant hawks, some heron-type things (cranes) and horses, goats, sheep, cows and dogs.  Mongolia has 18 times the number of farm-type animals as it does people.

Igor held eight people; Ekra, the driver, Selonga, the "guide"/cook, and six tourists; Jenny, a Korean girl, Vicky and Craig, British Doctors, Bert and Giselle, an old German couple, and myself.  At around four, we stopped at Baga gazariin chuluu, a temple that was destroyed by the Soviets in the 1930s.  It was decent, with pretty scenery, and blessedly, only one other group of tourists- even smaller than ours, and a Mongolian father and son were there.

While waiting for Selonga to make dinner, I went for a nice walk around the rocks, then went back to our ger.  A ger (known in the West as a yurt) is the traditional Mongolian home.  It's a short, round wooden structure, padded by a thick layer of wool and covered in canvas.  Usually, there is a shrine on the far wall facing you as you enter the door, though you'd trip over the stove, which is kept in the middle of the room so the chimney can exit through the circular hole on top that is generally half-covered.  The beds, or more typically, mattresses, are pressed against the walls as if from centrifugal force.  The toilet is an outhouse outside, though sometimes it's just a hole in the ground, covered with a few wooden slats to stand on while you squat.

7/3

Today was another long day of driving (350 km), though at least my lunch was excellent today (though not markedly different- more meat, vegetables and potatoes all fried together, served with rice).  We saw our first group of camels and drove to Temeen shavar (the Flaming Cliffs), which were very nice, but (and I feel a bit bad saying this), I'm starting to think I could've done an off-road trip from part of California through the Southwest and had essentially the same experience.  Trade gers for a few scattered houses or cabins and temples for churches and that's pretty much it.  Both have blue skies and vast emptiness, people herding animals, and not a whole ton in the way of culture.

I think I can go one more day without a shower before I start to feel really gross.  I'll likely have a babywipes bath tonight.  Apparently much of the area we've been passing through on our way to the desert is known as the Steppes (pronounced steps) and is basically just endless flat, slightly green plains.

After I'd written all this, at about 10:30 p.m., my germates and I noticed a lot of noise coming from our next-door neighbors.  Jenny came by and told us they were watching the world cup inside.  Vicky and I had remarked on the satellite dish upon arriving at this ger camp, which was an odd enough sight in such a remote site, but to actually see a small newish looking but black and white t.v. playing the Germany-Argentina World Cup game inside a ger in the middle of complete nothingness in Mongolia was surreal.  The bright white light illuminated the almost exclusively white faces inside, the Mongolians who actually lived in that ger (save two sitting in the very front), had abdicated their seats for the foreigners and so a Mongolian grandmother, mother, two men and a child sat watching through the door and refused stools when one of the foreigners offered to give up theirs.

It was a bizarre experience, all the more so because I was watching part of the World Cup without beer.  We later agreed that they should have charged admission and had beer available for sale and they would've made more money than they did selling the handmade woolen items (toy gers, camels, hats, purses).  It was also amazing to think that the World Cup actually reached that far and made me feel more inclined to watch it and helped me understand its relevance was real- I'd always assumed that the idea of rural people in poor countries watching the WC and the world feeling united was pure propaganda, but seeing it actually bring together people of different cultures and places was almost...well, let's not go that far- it's still soccer.

7/4

Even though this post won't actually go up until later, I still feel obligated to write a patriotic post in honor of Independence day, especially since I won't get fireworks, sparklers, a beach or a barbeque, though I might get beer.

Things the U.S. Does/Has Better Than Anywhere Else:

Movies/ Movie Theater Experience
Customer Service
Individual Rights
Road Trips
Directness
Medical Care (IF you can afford it)

Better Than Most:

Cheese
Ice Cream
Mexican Food
Quality of Higher Education (ignoring all the many problems with it)

When, that is, if, you think of Mongolia, you probably think, as I did, of vast deserts (meaning the Gobi) and little else.  Today, in the Yol Valley of the South, I saw an Ice river/ glacier.  We'd driven a few hours this morning to get there and arrived at the museum near the entrance around noon.  The museum was just a few smalls rooms, all except one filled with indigenous stuffed animals.  The other room had four  glass cases and a table in it.  Two cases contained small dinosaur bones and remnants.  One contained a partially exposed small dinosaur skeleton, remarkably preserved in a way so that you could see its basic shape still.  The last glass case contained several dinosaur eggs, some almost whole, some broken into a few (though not many) pieces.  Most interesting to me, however, was the table.  On a basic, small rectangular card table, without any covering whatsoever, were dinosaur bones.  The sign didn't say what kind, but there they were, just sitting on the table like sewing machines at a garage sale, waiting for someone to pick up and ask "How much for this one?"  The sign did say not to touch them, but I'm a rebel, so I stroked one giant dirtied-ivory colored bone, thicker than two soda cans. The part I touched was fairly solid, but most parts looked splintered, like wood while it's burning.  I did learn one thing in the museum however: Mongolia has snow leopards, though they're very, very, very rare (according to Vicky who said she watched a documentary on it, it took the BBC team three weeks to spot one and that was using the latest technology with several people, filming 24 hours a day).

Igor has not been happy with us and our poor comrade has overheated often, forcing us to get out, pour water into his engine (which is inside the car in the front seat between the driver and shotgunner, under a leather covered compartment), wait around for a while, and try again.  He made it to the parking lot for the walk out to the glacier and we had lunch Selonga had prepared that morning (over-oiled fried rice with a tiny bit of mutton inside and carrots).  It was only a 2 km walk to the ice and it was a very nice mostly-flat walk by a stream that became a river, through green grass that climbed onto hills that turned into small rocky mountains.  Most of it reminded me of the Seven Sisters near San Luis Obispo.  The ice river was rather random and seemed to just come out of nowhere so that was cool.  I slid along it a bit and watched it melt away, drip by drip.  It'll be gone by the time I put this post up.  It was pretty but mostly just impressive because it was so surprising and random, just there.  A big chunk of ice in the Gobi Desert.

While we were gone our guide Erka had taken part of Igor's engine apart in an attempt to fix it and we had to wait for about an hour and a half after we got back for him to put it back together, and it only seemed to work marginally better.

Since we were so far behind schedule, we decided to stay nearby for the night.  It was a fantastic decision as the place we found was a lovely, tiny village with a population of 50 or so.  It was the sort of country, self-sufficient area Mao probably had wet dreams about.  One interesting thing was that this tiny place had a basketball court and a basic elliptical with some other basic exercise equipment.  In Northern Asia, I've noticed that in general, they seem to pay much more attention to their youth and old.  For the young, there are many more options for things to do at night and on weekends like; video arcades (ubiquitous and larger and more extensive than in the U.S.), jimjillbangs and manga libraries/ internet cafes (again, better than those we have in the West).  For the geriatric set, I've particularly noticed that several of the parks that have areas and exercise equipment specifically set off for Seniors (I know this because they have English signs) to keep them active and encourage physical and mental activity until they die.

Anyway, it was a lovely little area.  After dinner and a walk around, I saw a group of men leaving the largest house (likely a school/ community center) who were dressed in red and blue briefs.  They got into cars and drove off.  Soon afterwards I left too and walked back to our ger camp. 

As I walked over the hill, I could see that the cars had stopped just in front of our group of five gers and that all the tourists were sitting in about a third of a circle and the men in briefs were inside the part of the circle they'd created.

My guide said they were going to do a show for us, and that it was 4,000 per person (about $3) to watch.  It looked interesting, so I said I would and sat down.  They'd already started a bit but when they started a new round, the two men would stand from about fifty feet back, then slapped the front of their thighs twice, then slapped their butts then slowly jogged over to their referee (there were always at least two).  Just before reaching their designated referee, they'd start to do this very slow movement of flapping their arms up and down, in a way that was supposed to represent a hawk.  I imagine it was supposed to seem elegant and smooth, but it just managed to look idiotic.  They'd "swoop" around their referee three times and then the referee would pat them on the shoulder and they'd go to dance circles with the other fighter.  At some point, they'd embrace and be locked in a hug for ages until one finally made some movement that knocked the other off balance.  You lost when your hands, knees or elbows touched the ground.  It wasn't very active and most of the time the wrestlers weren't really moving, which is why they had two or three fights all going on at the same time.  It seemed to be a bit of a psychological game in a way, but it also seemed that the men who looked the worst in their briefs, chubby bellies overhanging them, did the best.  It was really neat to watch, and I got a picture with them afterwards, though not a very good one.  Two of the tourist guys tried a match and one of them, who said he'd had some karate training, did okay.  The other one was flat on his back in about ten seconds.

Lost In the Wild

5/13

Packing up and moving so often (every other day on average, I think), I lose a lot of stuff.  It's usually no big deal because it's an eyemask or a lipgloss or an umbrella or something else inconsequential or easily replaceable but today as I was packing up, I noticed that my camera case was empty and my camera was nowhere to be found.  I asked at the Visitor's Center nearby if anyone had turned one in, and they said no and checked with the police who also said no.  They wanted me to file a report but I told them I was sure I'd lost it, not had it stolen, so I just left my email and a description of the camera.  There was nothing left to do about it so I called my Mom on Skype and told her that I thought I may have subconsciously lost it on purpose, as it was old and pretty crappy and I really did need an excuse for a new one.  If it really is gone though, I'll have lost all my Tokyo and Taiwan pictures which would be a bit sad. 

I sat at the corner by the bus stop, not knowing when it was coming, but aware that there were five daily.  I walked over to the shops area and got a Taiwan sausage, which is basically a coarser pork bratwurst and ended up going back to get another, more because I was hungry and haven't eaten enough meat lately than because they were so fantastic.  While over there, one of the people I'd seen yesterday said 2 and held up two fingers.  Then the man making the sausage did the same.  I told them I only wanted one, though I'd had one before- two total.  The woman said "No.  Hualien?" which is the name of the city I had to catch the bus to before getting the train to Taipei.  I nodded and she told me the bus was coming at 2.  It was just before 12:30 so I was glad to have this information, but sad that I couldn't write the image of myself I'd conjured while waiting: The girl sits on the corner, waiting alone for a bus that may never come.  Oh wait, I did just write it, and no, it's not great, I just liked it- every once in a while I get a bit emo.  Deal.

Knowing I had all this time, I decided to walk up the mountain to the temple nearby.  Since I had no camera I couldn't take regular pictures, but I got a few with my phone, though of course, I don't have a cord so I can't download them anywhere.

I met a girl from Singapore, Julaina, who was there with her Mom and Grandmother.  Her English was perfect and she told me about studying in Toronto and her backpacking trips through Europe.  She also recommended couchsurfing and invited me to stay with her if I found myself back in Singapore.  I know the idea of couchsurfing with strangers seems extremely suspect but this site has been around for quite some time now and they verify identities and I've heard nothing but positive feedback from several solo travelers, including many females so I'm planning on trying it in the near future.

The temple was nothing amazing, though the setting really is spectacular.  The gorge is made of a river running through mountains that rise, often at a 90* angle, up to 3,000 feet.  It's not a chasm, so the river flow is level to the basic ground level and the road is just a few hundred feet above it so the mountains block large swatches of the clouded over sky and holds the mist inside its cleavage. 

The bus ride back down to Hualien showcases the gorge's dramatic scenery.  It's quite amazing, but given the amount of rain pouring down everywhere I go (including here, at the time of descent) and cloud cover, I'm disappointed in the tiny cracks of waterfalls that drip down.  One of the best sights is a temple built so that a waterfall rushes out beneath it, and this one, at least, has a decently strong stream.

Eventually the bus winds its way down to the flat area near the ocean, and on highways to the city where I catch the 4 p.m. train to Taipei with two minutes to spare.

Nature: Not So Bad?

5/12

No internet.  I feel hardcore.  And I'm actually rethinking this nature stuff- it's not really that bad.  I'm currently sitting on part of a giant marble mountain that forms one side of a gorge with light gray waters stippling on the immersed rocks as they rush by me.  I'm at Taroko National Park in Taiwan and I had to climb sideways to get where I'm sitting now.  The only sign of human existence within 360* of where I'm sitting is an old cable the color of the dark mountains behind it, now tied to the branch of a tree which has twirled itself partially around it, resting on it for support.  The temperature is perfect; not humid nor dry, not hot nor cold and I'd say the weather was perfect except that the clouds and surrounding mist are covering any hint of sunshine, making the whole valley look as if only two colors have ever existed: dark-grass green and gray.

It sounds quite depressing when I put it like that but it's kind of nice.  I heard a beeping a while ago and was concerned that someone else was on their way to steal my tranquility (albeit, tranquility with a laptop) but I realized that it was actually just a bird chirping.  Am I that far removed from nature and has it been that long since I've been in it?  Maybe I've just avoided it because I think of it as "NATURE" meaning hardcore wilderness trampling through a humid jungle.  Perhaps I just don't like humidity?  It does make me love my netbook even more.  Now I can have peace, but not too much.  Also, I might spot a leopard in the wild- how cool would that be?

I got here by leaving my hostel, late as usual, at around 6:30 a.m. for a train that left at 6:45.  In my usual dashing way, I made it with two minutes to spare.  Through the tunnels and the city and into the rural countryside, we traveled.  The train trudged uphill, pushing its way as if through sand, through the unexpected rainforest.

I was reading my book by my window seat on the right side on the train, glancing up occasionally to see the verdant mountains in the mist on my side when I looked over to the left, and there was the ocean view I'd been longing for in Japan, at least for a short while.  I hopped over to an empty seat on the left side and watched the small island we passed, and the shoreline, all large, dark boulders.  And I think we just passed a large white mosque.

The roadside temples I've seen so far are particularly different from those in Cambodia, Thailand, Korea and Japan.  The same basic structure is there, but these ones have incredible carvings of dragons with fine details and many spikes.

If you'd asked me what I'd expected of Taiwan, after first admitting that I hadn't particularly considered it, I would have said that I thought it was little more than a city-state island nation, with Taipei and a little bit around it.  But it's surprising me, more and more.  It's much closer to a large Caribbean island, with one main city, but several other cities/large towns and huge jungles, beaches and rural areas.  I'm still not impressed by the people, but little bits of the country are unexpected and interesting.

Mei told me one interesting thing and that was that -keeping in mind that this is just what she said, I'm not stating facts here- about half of the Taiwanese, including herself, wanted reunification with China, which surprised me as I wouldn't have expected it to be that high.  She also said that the reason they couldn't be reunited was because the U.S. wouldn't let it happen because then China and Taiwan together would be too powerful!  I thought that was a pretty preposterous thing to say as I don't particularly think of Taiwan as threatening in any way.  China is, of course, but to suggest that the difference Taiwan would make is that significant strikes me as hugely arrogant, and quite delusional.  To me, it's the equivalent of a Puerto Rican saying that other countries would be threatened by the combination of them and the U.S. because together they'd be too powerful.  It's just insane.

After a three hour train ride, I bought a bus ticket for Tiansiang.  The bus didn't leave for another hour so I went and got a breakfast burger before boarding at 10:50.  The bus ride, half of which was truly exciting scenery along the Taroko gorge, took about an hour and forty-five minutes, so I arrived a bit after 12:30.  I walked up to the hostel and checked in.  The manager wanted to charge me $400 NTD, about $13 but I said that it said $300 online and he said, it's for your own room.  Considering that the sign in sheet had only had two other visitors (two couples) in the entire month of May, I felt fairly certain that the dorm would be my own room anyway so I made him give me that price.

After feeling the beds, which are basically wood covered with very hard, tightly woven hay mats, I'm grateful I didn't pay any more, though now I almost wish I'd skipped it and camped outside, though then I might be eaten by black bears that inhabit this park- they're nocturnal right?

I spoke too soon.  The thing I'd forgotten about Nature was the reason that I didn't like it- I'd just remembered the fact that I didn't like it.  It's boring.  It is boring as all flip-all.  When you're actually doing the hiking or something like that you're usually too miserable to be bored, but at night, especially if you're alone, it's totally uninteresting.  I need stimulation, even for meditation, I need stimulation, and I don't like the idea of forced calm- I want to choose to be calm when it suits me, like in the Tokyo train station, not when the rest of the world wants to force me into it by lulling me to boredom.

Boo, I wanted to learn Mandarin tonight.  Now I can't because there's no internet access (and yes, I'm going with that as the reason I can't learn an incredibly complex language in one night).

I met some of the local people when I went down to buy beer and guess what?  I was right.  They're people, exactly like everyone else anywhere.

Samurai Culture at a Great Sight

4/30

There was absolutely nothing I wanted to see in Sendai and since the cherry blossoms in Kitakami still hadn't bloomed (I'd checked on my way down yesterday), I found a random daytrip in my guidebook.

On my way to the station, I saw these cherry blossom trees, perfectly in bloom, but not a whole orchard of them, the dream I'd pretty much given up on.  They were inside a school yard and the two little girls you can sort of make out were running around trying to catch the petals as they wafted to the ground.  It was really cute, but I didn't want to be creepy so I just took one picture.

Matsushima is another of the "Three Great Sights" in Japan (remember, I visited Miyajima, one of the other two, near Hiroshima?) and it's another place that's extremely popular with Japanese tourists but not really with foreigners (which was why it was so amazing that even though it was the Friday before Golden Week, it wasn't too crowded).  It's basically a town surrounded by tons (about 250) of little islands that dot the ocean like large stepping stones.  One of the islands, Fukuura-jima, has a botanic garden on it while others are renowned for their rock formations. 

From Sendai, it was about 30 minutes on the train to Matsushimakaigan Station (confusingly, that's the stop, not Matsushima Station) and as I walked out there was a Visitor kiosk, manned with people beckoning me over and smiling.  A very helpful woman gave me an English map with descriptions of the different places to visit.

First I went to Godai-do, an old wooden temple that is only opened once every 33 years, last in 2006.  It provided a nice view and I got to walk over a funny bridge that didn't actually pose any threat of falling down, but was very awkward as the slats were too far apart.  Besides that though, it wasn't too exciting.  The botanic garden island was pretty much the same- nice but boring.  The views were lovely, but as with almost anywhere, I think it would have been much more impressive had the sun been shining.

Matsushima really is still a small fishing town and locals were collecting oysters in a very dark, stinky black mud.  I walked on the beach and saw that this island was actually connected by said mud to another of the little islands.  I decided that I really wanted to go to this island, just because.  Very gently, I stepped on the dried or stronger parts of the mud and oyster shells so I didn't fall through the mud and get wet and dirty.

For a while, I did very well, accumulating only a tiny bit of mud.  But then, that's how life is, isn't it?  It's going well, going well, going well, and then you take a wrong step and BAM! you're up to one ankle in muck and you're getting the other foot filthy in an attempt to get the first one out.  One of the shell collectors laughed at me and started talking to me, fairly extensively, in Japanese.  I didn't mind the laughing and laughed back a bit.  I'd known I was taking that risk and it was just kind of fun.  Maybe I was just in a good mood, but I felt happy.

I made it over to the island, only to discover that I could only get about four feet onto the island unless I wanted to swim.  The return to the larger island went much the same way- very good until it wasn't.  It was at about this point, when both shoes were soaked and covered in grime, that I stated to think it hadn't been my best idea ever.  I had to wash my shoes off in the public bathroom sink and then try to wait for them to dry while I played my cell phone game I'd just discovered.  Since it was going to take forever, I knew I had to put them at some point and just deal with the uncomfortableness.  My socks had somehow stayed relatively dry, so I tried to cover them to keep my feet warm.  I covered one with the plastic tissue holder, taking out the tissues, and the other with my sunglasses case which is made of some cloth/ not really but sort of waterproofy stuff.  It wasn't great, but it worked, kind of.

Hoping to buy some indoor slippers, which I'd seen at 100 yen stores (about $1 USD) I went back to the town.  I didn't see a 100 yen store so I tried some tourist shops but all they had was the traditional wooden flip-flops which were too expensive for something I'd only use for a few hours.  Oh well.  I passed by the Zuigan-ji temple but decided to skip it since I wanted to get back sooner rather than later.  The one thing at the temple that sounded interesting was closer so I just looked at these Buddhist rock carvings.  They're tablets or whatever carved directly into the cave walls.  It was okay, but not quite as cool as I'd imagined.

Next I went to the Kanrantei tea house, which means "a place to view ripples on the water" which was beautiful and had a spectacular view of the bay.  In the late 16th century, it was given to Date Masamune, a famous samurai Lord who nearly became the shogunate to control the whole of Japan.  He was known as the One-Eyed Dragon as he was blind in one eye from a childhood bout of smallpox.  Due to his influence, this area seemed to display more samurai culture than any other place I went in Japan.

The walls and sliding doors of the teahouse were decorated with gorgeous gold paintings by Kano Sakyo, a famous painter of the period.

Inside the back part of the teahouse building was a samurai history museum.  The museum was small, but fantastic.  They had a lot of samurai stuff used in daily life, including suits of armor, makeup brushes and a case, clothes, an old painted map of Matsushima and a golden shell game (all shown below in order), which was all really interesting and even better, they had information in English!

I bought a bit of squid on a stick, and some large scallops on a stick from two different food windows on the main street and headed back to Sendai, to pick up my backpack, which I'd left in a locker at the station, and to try gyutan (cow tongue).

My Mother makes tongue sometimes and I love it.  She prepares it by boiling it for a very long time with cabbage, potatoes and carrots and then slicing it.  I usually put butter on top of the slices and eat them like that.  Every once in a very rare while, I'll also enjoy a tongue taco at Papis, my favorite taqueria.  So the idea of cow tongue, far from appalling me, appealed to me and I was looking forward to seeing how they cooked it here. 

It's a specialty in Sendai that was first cooked during one of their many "hard times" and I'd been told there were several good places to get it in the station.  I chose one that had a somewhat decent price (since it's a specialty now, it's fairly expensive, though still, not really, I'm just cheap) and went in.  I sat at the counter and watched them prepare it.  They grabbed raw slices and just threw them on the grill and cut them in half and served them on a bed of rice, with some other accoutrements, including tongue soup, in which the tongue tasted more like I'm used to.  It was very good though.  I had it with a large beer and a bit of sake that a man sitting near me shared.

From there, I caught my last shinkansen to Tokyo, found a hostel and relaxed a bit.  I found two books that looked good on the communal shelf; Lucy In the Sky and The Shadow of the Wind.  Lucy was a chick-lit book that was reasonably well written, though with mostly dislikable characters, and since I didn't feel like thinking, I went with that, though I took The Shadow of the Wind with me as well.  After reading in bed for a while, I fell off to sleep on my granite bed.

On the Rainbow Express

4/29

 This picture does it no justice but was the best I could get.

At around 6 a.m., the train, not nearly as comfortable as the one on the way up, rolled into Aomori.  I took the Express train to Morioka, then got on a shinkansen, sleeping as soon as I got on each train and waking up only as we arrived.

The train stopped at Sendai, and I was aware of it stopping, and woke up for a moment, but I decided that I still wanted to sleep some more so I stayed in my seat as we left the station, Tokyo bound.  I didn't quite sleep all the way to Tokyo, but far enough to make it worth it so by the time I arrived in the busiest train station in the world, I felt pretty good.  I had previously considered taking a long, slow train route from Sendai on my way down to Tokyo that would travel along the ocean but I now decided that I would take it that way back up.  I had the time and my rail pass so it wouldn't cost me anything extra.  I went to Information to make sure it would actually be along the ocean for most of the time, and the tracks indicated that it would be, so I reserved a window seat on the sea side.

On the map, the tracks had looked closer to the water, but it wasn't until just before Hitachi that I could first see the ocean, and even then it was just bits, never a solid ride along the water like I'd hoped/thought it would be when looking at the map.

This train ride has been very disappointing overall, as I could only see the ocean for a very, very short time.  However, the rain stopped and the sun came out and showed the most extraordinary rainbow I've ever seen.  It arched clearly all the way across the sky, solid from one end to the other, and had three layers of the rainbow colors in it (ROYGBIVROYGBIVROYGBIV)!

It also, randomly, made me think of the most beautiful sunset I've ever seen.  Surprisingly, it wasn't over an ocean but on a stopover in Zurich on my way to Prague.  The snow covered mountains were black and white, reflected in the lake and covered by a gorgeous dark pink/orange/red/purple/gold sky. I remember wanting to take a picture at the time but I was in an aisle seat so I would've had to reach over someone to do so.  Now I think I should have done it anyway.

After all that rambling, I made it to Sendai and found a hostel.  I did my laundry, got some take away dinner and just slept.

Sapporo Means Beer

4/28

Amazingly, I had a very good nights sleep on the train- it was a bit older so the seats were wider and soft from years of use, like an old sofa chair, and ugly, of course.  I woke up right before we got to the Sapporo station at around 6 a.m.  It was freezing.  Literally.  Of course, I only had my black hoodie, which I'm sad to report is insufficient for Siberian weather.  Since it was too early to check into my hostel, I left my backpack in a locker there and started to walk around the city. 

The weather really sucked and I wanted a hot chocolate in a warm cafe to keep me hot but it was too freaking early for any of the coffee shops to be open, so instead I walked over to the Nijo Fish Market.  As it started raining I wished I'd brought my umbrella- safely stowed in my backpack in the locker- with me.  The fish market was not fully open, again because it was too early, though by now it was about 6:30, but some of the stalls were and one kind fisherman let me try two different types of crab: Hair Crab, which he told me comes from Hokkaido, and King Crab.  It was really good, but it was, as it should be, cold.  I walked over to see the T.V. Tower, which was less than thrilling.

I was completely miserable; it was cold, wet and windy.  I found an internet cafe, which is expensive, but gets you free soda/tea/coffee and a private half-cubicle booth, and hung out there to dry.

Two hours later, I was ready to face the rain and walked bravely out of Comic Land Sapporo into the slush rain.  I looked dutifully at the Clock Tower, which apparently we're supposed to recognize as the symbol of Sapporo, though it also has the real symbol of Sapporo, the red beer star, on it.  From there I walked along the Odori-koen promenade, where they hold a giant ice sculpture festival during the winter, thought I couldn't ever imagine it getting colder than this.  A LED display showed the temperature as 5*C but I assume that wasn't taking the windchill factor into account because it was really much colder.  I was cursing myself for the lack of umbrella and feeling sorry for myself because it was so gross when it started to snow.  Just barely.  Very light snow that didn't stick, I admit, but those white clumps of frozen water doused my hoodie.  I wanted to kill someone.  I hadn't seen snow since last winter sometime, December of 2008 or January 2009.  I don't necessarily dislike snow, but I wasn't in the mood for it and I like snow to either be pretty, falling gently, or on the slopes.  Otherwise, I don't want be cold.  I wanted my permanent summer back ASAP.

It didn't help that I couldn't find the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art I was looking for.  I finally went into a strange looking building and found a woman to give me directions.  That got me as far as another random art museum and they were able to give me directions from there.  The museum was small, but actually quite good, though that may have been simply because it was warm and I hadn't been to an art museum in a while.  An interesting exhibit was on called On the 750th Memorial for Shinran Shonin: The History and Treasures of Hongwanji.  Most of it wasn't that good, as the majority of it was scripts with descriptions exclusively in Japanese, but near the end, they had lovely gold paintings, exquisite windows and jewelry to die for.  I also quite liked the permanent exhibition which had several woodblock prints by Sadao Abe, an exhibit of Arinori Ichihara's prints which played around with different textures, effectively, in my opinion, which seems to be difficult to do in abstract art, and a Contemporary Glass Art exhibit and I always love glass exhibits.

Though it was still snowing, I braved the cold looking for the subway station which was supposed to be just two blocks away.  A lady at the information desk inside the museum had even given me a copied handrawn map and had told me it was easy.  Ten minutes lost in the snow is equivalent to about an hour lost in the sun so I was again, miserable.  At this point I decided that there was no freaking way I was going to stay in a place where it was snowing, so I would have to take the night train back in the opposite direction.  I finally asked someone else who gave me better (and just verbal) directions and found it tucked away in the side of a building with a small sign indicating the station.  This experience, of someone telling me that getting somewhere is easy and giving me a copied handrawn map with some English writing on it, and me trying to use that map and ending up lost, seems to be becoming a pattern. 

I freely admit that I'm terrible with directions, but that's why I get so excited when someone tells me it's simple.  The problem is that these maps tend to omit certain intersections or street names or alleyway/streets or will show most, but not all, of a certain type of business on the map.  I'm sure most people just assume they're going the right way anyway, but even when I try that, it just doesn't work.  I'm also much better with visual cues for directions than numbers or names.  For example, I can tell you, even now, that to get to the place to go up to the observation deck at the Petronus towers, you exit the subway station, going up an escalator with an advertisement with a northern asian woman who is crying about love in one picture and happy above love in another.  You turn left from her, then pass by several bakeries and a juice stand on the left side, through the mall, and you walk until you see the Shisheido makeup area (with a Dior makeup ad visible on the floor above it) and turn right to go up an escalator, passing Chanel.  Go towards the Prada store, and just past that exit into the main lobby (past the two banks of ATMs on either side) and turn right.  Walk a short while and you'll see an escalator you go down and turn to the right at the bottom.

Now ask me the name of the street my hostel was on, that I left about an hour and a half ago.  I want to say it was Nanjing.  I just looked on the business card.  It was on Changan West.  How many blocks was it from the bus station I walked to directly from there?  Maybe half of one up, then two or three over, then 2?3?4? blocks down.  I know people would normally say 1 block North/East/South/West but I have absolutely no clue which direction was which.  I can't even guess.

So, that was random. 

There's a tiny little underground alleyway of noodle shops in central Sapporo called Ramen Yokocho that's supposed to have incredible, wait for it, ramen.  Ramen styles vary regionally, though they're ubiquitous and I never noticed a huge difference, but Hokkaido style is supposed to be really good, and with the weather as it was, hot soup sounded great.  I got a bowl in one of the shops and spent a while working on it.  It was good, but nothing spectacular in my opinion.  Once I was slightly drier and slightly warmer, I headed out to the subway station to go out to the only thing left to do, and the most important thing, the Sapporo Factory. 

The one I saw was the original factory- they don't make any beer there anymore, just keep it for historical value, tourists and events.  My guidebook had said I could take a 50 minute tour which was followed by 20 minutes of all you can drink beer, without stating the price.  When I got there, after another ten minute walk in the (at that moment) rain, I saw an old wood stove lit by the entryway, inside the vestibule.  I pushed back the guarding grate so I could stand just inches away from the fire and just huddled for about ten minutes, hoping the two Receptionists wouldn't yell at me.  Finally feeling nearly warm, I headed in.  As it turned out, there was no actual tour, just an exhibit that was only in Japanese.  They had a large English packet that they gave me though, which was actually quite complete so I learned a bit.  Even though the exhibit was free, sadly, the beer was not, though it was still cheaper than it would be even to buy it in a convenience store.  I walked through the exhibit, learned a bit that was very interesting at the time, but which I forgot almost immediately and got someone to take a picture of me.

The two things I learned that stuck with me were that: Sapporo Classic beer is actually the original beer they made and is only available in Hokkaido because it's formulated without preservatives and only lasts for two weeks, and Yebisu cans or bottles with two red fish on the label are lucky because only one such label is printed per hundreds produced (most Yebisu labels show the red fish in the front but not the red fishtail sticking out of the basket on the left).

After all that hard learning it was time to drink!  I started with a sampler that included these beers: Black Label, Yebisu "The Black" and Kaitakushi Beer.  Surprisingly they were all very good.  I expected them to be more bitter, especially "The Black" but they really weren't.  I liked them all enough to get another sampler, but I had other beers to try instead.

At this point I went to their other bar inside the factory, passing by this awesome photo opportunity on the way.  It's a terrible picture of me, but it's a fantastic picture (currently my Facebook photo).

Now at the other bar, I tasted the Sapporo Classic, which was also very good, Yebisu, which was pretty good, and their beer of the month, a German inspired/type beer.  Lastly, I bought a Naporin orange soda because it's also only available in Hokkaido (nothing special).

Back in central Sapporo, I stopped at Hall Stairs Espresso Bar which my stupid, useless guidebook described as "unique."  It wasn't.  It was just a normal bar, with black walls.  Quite disappointing.  Still with quite a lot of time to kill and not wanting to drink anymore, I went back to Comic Land Sapporo internet cafe for a couple of hours.

I think I grabbed some dinner in the train station while waiting for the train back, then left that hell that was white; snow white.  (You'll get my undying respect if you can guess what I paraphrased that quote from.  Also, I think Sapporo might be quite a neat city in proper summer, it was just frozen hell when I was there.)

Temples, Rock Gardens and Castles, Oh My!

4/24

As it would be my last in Kyoto, and I'd seen little of the important temples and exciting sights, today was a very busy, hardcore sightseeing day.

I started at about 10 a.m. and got a bus to Kinkaku-ji (Temple), which means Temple of the Golden Pavilion.

*Quick note here: -ji and -jo mean temple and castle, respectively, so saying Kinkaku-ji Temple is redundant and so from this point on, I won't write Temple after the name, but you'll be able to differentiate it from anything else because of the -ji ending.

From there, I walked over to Ryoan-ji, which is known for its famous Zen Rock Garden.  It's supposed to inspire meditation but I just didn't get it.

Part of the gardens nearby however had some lovely cherry blossom trees though is a nice, quiet setting, though the petals were already snowing.  I didn't know it at the time, but this was as close as I would come to my vision of cherry blossoms in Japan.  Had the woman I'd asked at the hostel told me about it a few days earlier, I could've gone when it was perfect.

I left Ryoan-ji, bought an ice cream cone, as it was slightly warmer (maybe in the late-50s?) and caught a bus to the Kyoto Imperial Palace and Park.  You can't go inside the palace itself, but you can walk around the park and see it from there, which is just what I did.

It was about two o'clock by this time and my ice cream had not been a very filling lunch, so on my way walking over to Nijo-jo, I stopped in at another Japanese fast food/diner place for a cheap meal.  I was initially reluctant to go to Nijo-jo because of time constraints and the price but I'm so glad I did.  The best part was inside, where you weren't allowed to take pictures, but many of the rooms had moveable panels of gorgeous, though simple, paintings of nature or animals floating in a gilded sky. 

It also had lovely gardens and a foot thick iron/bronze? gate:

Inside the castle there was a wedding procession that was also interesting to see.

I took a bus to train station, where I took a picture, though I'd been there several times already, from which point I jumped on a train to Fushimi Inari Shrine, which was really impressive and different from anything I'd seen so far, and, after about half an hour, really repetitive. 

I hiked up the mountain the shrine was embedded in and was quite happy to see the Japanese tourists were struggling and more out of shape than I was, even if that seems a bit mean, before coming to a clearing with a nice view of the city that looked terrible when I tried to photograph it. 

I got a bit confused and was unsure if I was basically at the top or not, but decided I'd been going for long enough so headed downhill.  I got lost in a maze of orange wood and pine trees. Apparently there were several different paths of shrines to traverse and I went the wrong way so somehow, I ended up lost in the woods in the middle of a fairly large city.  I kept going down and checked my direction against the sun as I knew I had to go west to get back to the train station, but because of the paths available, I hiked much farther north than I'd intended.  Eventually I found myself on some small residential roads and wandered west from them but still got nowhere.  I saw a temple which I hoped was the base temple area of Fushimi Inari but I was on the wrong side so I just hopped a gate and walked toward the center, passing some monks on the way.  I found the center of the temple, though by that time I'd realized it was not the right one, and walked out through the entrance.  The English signs told me I'd been walking through Tofukuji, another of Kyoto's 200-plus.  This was actually one of the famous ones I'd considered seeing and had now managed to do so without paying the entry fee!  I was too tired to actually explore it, so I just snapped a few pictures and walked by to my hostel, which by this point was close enough, as I'd gone so far North.

I rested there for a long while, but had a bit more energy than expected so I went out to get some dinner, buy some supplies for the train ride the next day and see Toji, yet another temple I'd wanted to see (this one famous because it was the tallest pagoda in Japan).  I couldn't go in the complex of course, as it was closed, but it happened to be quite lovely lit up at night as it was and I was very happy with my decisions for the day and the way it had turned out.