Adventures in the far east: February 2011

Take it from someone with a three syllable name, most people's speech will falter after two syllables. Since "Jap" is a highly offensive term, in colloquial terms Japanese has been shortened to "J-people".

I am writing to you from my freezing cold bedroom in Shanghai with a sense of exhaustion, relied, fear and sadness.

Exhausted- because I was just traveling for 3.5 weeks and even though TODAY IS MY BRITHDAY all I want to do is laundry.

Relieved: After 24 hours of travel three train rides, an evil boarding process for the Narita express, two flights and a two hour subway ride I MADE IT HOME!

Fear: Do I REALLY want to travel to Europe for a month this summer? I am going to need to pack wayyyy lighter, be frugal, and maybe bring running shoes.

Sadness: Today I am old.

So the story of my trip to Japan can be told as many small stories

Day 1 Hakata

After I stupidly missed the ferry we took the hydrofoil ferry a day later from Busan to Hakata. Whats in Hakata? I don’t know I just wanted to get to Hiroshima. About ten days into our adventure from shanghai to Harbin to we grabbed a delicious 7-11 lunch and just camped out in the bus terminal.

Day 2 Hiroshima

This was our first real day in Japan and he first time we realized, the country is truly underwhelming. We cruised through the A-Bomb dome, park, and memorial museum in the morning. We were surprised by how objective the museum was and how it didn’t at all give us a sense of anti-Americanism. In fact, there was one caption which admitted that the Japanese had committed some horrific war crimes of their own.

In the afternoon we went to the island of Myajima which has some of the most historic and sacred Japanese temples. The island was really beautiful. Again, John insisted we go hiking and I insisted on hiking and I insisted I did not have the proper footwear (Uggs).

Day 3-4 Osaka

Kate and I decided to stick with the schedule and head to Osaka after an evening of drinking and home cooking enjoyed by everyone at the hostel. However, in his drunken stupor John promised some other traveler that he would go on an 8am hike so we let his snoring ass be and hopped on the train joined by our new travel companion, Joe. Mine and Kate’s classmate Tia had studied abroad in Osaka during college and she met us at the station there. We headed over to Nara, an ancient tourist site filled with…. TEMPLES.

Days 5-6 Kyoto

After some sketchy Japanese guy failing us on Couchsurfing, we decided to stay in a Capsule Hostel in Osaka and use our expensive prepaid Japanese Rail Passes to commute to Kyoto for two days. Highly missed and valuable Sisterfriend Blair said that Kyoto was her favorite city in Japan and Japan was her favorite country she visited on her world tour Semester at Sea. Just to clarify, Japan is NOT my favorite country (maybe that honor goes to Spain? Argentina? THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA? Or maybe I haven’t traveled enough to have one). Anyways Kyoto was aight. Too much walking. Oh my god too much walking. In search for some illusive temple we ended up hiking a steep hill (Ugg boots), only to come to a very steep stair case. When the stair case leveled off, we came to another steep stair case. When that staircase leveled off we came to… a small underwhelming sculpture. WOMP. Day 2 of Kyoto we switched things up and rented bikes. The bikes were AWESOME but between sleeping in, getting lost and the incredible distance between sites, we still only saw two sights that day. Many of the sights felt like I was back in time in Imperial Japan, and other made me feel like I was in white washed Disney World. More impressive, was my reunion with MOS Burger, a Japanese fast food chain I feel destined to bring to the United States. I feel in love with the seafood burger on a rice bun in HK which is pretty much fried sushi. Anyways it is delicious.

Days 7-11 Tokyo

If you go to Tokyo you should:

1Go to Disney Sea! Our reason for rushing to Tokyo was so I could meet up with dear weet Sisterfriend Susan who is teaching in Japan and meet her in Disney!

2. 2. Stay at a nice hotel (preferably in Disney, or maybe the Park Hyatt so you can go to the sky view bar—if you can find it because we couldn’t). I say this because Tokyo is impossibly and annoyingly crowded. Susan thinks I don’t have a right too say that there are too many people in Japan when China’s population is ten times as big. However, China’s landmass is more than ten times as big and there are tons of people living on small farms NOT in the capital city. As the number of farmers in China dwindles, the cities are likely to become as crowded as Japan. However there are 160 cities in China with over a million residents (fact) so they have options not to rush to the capital and ride its crowded metro system everyday.

Days 12-15 Sapporo

After four days of hopelessly bumming around without Susan, I reunited with her in Sapporo. Sapporo was not on my original agenda and was almost cancelled by my desperate attempt to persuade my parents to buy me ticket home L However, fifteen hours of trains did lead me to Sapporo. Perhaps it was the festival atmosphere of Yuki Matsuri (snow festival) but I think Sapporo was my favorite city in Japan.

DAY 16 MY FLIPPIN BIRTHDAY: entirely in transit

Worst. Birthday. Ever.

I blame karma. I always think I get what I deserve. Maybe I had too many good birthdays in life (turned 10 in Disney, 16 in Italy, 21 in Thailand, 22 at Mardi Gras).

If JR (Japanese Rail) was a person we would be at each other throats. I hate inefficiency and SURPRISINGLY Japan harbors it. When Kate and I went to validate our JR passes in Osaka it took the employees waaaaay too long. We were looking around the office wondering what was happening. In China and even USA we do not let employees be so idle when customers are waiting. JR is also extremely cost ineffective because JR does not track where passholders travel. As John says “I was expecting a credit card not a Christmas card”. Our passes were Christmas card-like cardstock paper that we just waved as we walked onto a train. If we knew it were this easy to sneak on we wouldn’t have waited two days to validate them and would have saved a $40 bus ride and some metro tickets. JR really pissed me off because all reserved seat from Sapporo to Aomori (my first of two transfers) were booked. The employees could not offer me any helpful advice on how to get on a train in order to make my flight out of Tokyo the next day. When I was willing to use my last resort and by a bed on a sleeper train they said “No no this is bad train!”. Well mother F-ers after camping out on the open air platform for two hours I got myself a seat next to some old Japanese man whose face was bleeding. Oh and the train was flipping cold. I cannot fall asleep while sitting in an uncomfortable train seat in 18 degree (I ironically sat facing a thermometer). The wave your JR pass on the train process worked until I had to get the Narita Limited Express from Tokyo Station to the airport. When I tried the wave-the-pass technique I was kicked off the train and had to go get a ticket (free because I paid up the butt for a JR pass but still I needed a ticket) and wait 33 minutes for the next train. Oh also Japan, please improve your shopping at your largest international airport. DALIN had better shopping. Unexcuseable.

It seems really odd writing this is retrospect (now three weeks after I arrived in Korea) but, against my preconceptions of technologically advanced Asia, I have had very limited internet access on this trip.

So as I left off, John had missed his flight from Harbin to Seoul and was stuck in God forsaken northern China for another day. This was the first, but certainly not the last time management blunder on our journey. We are used to living in a country which is 3,500 miles east to west but only one time zone so when we came to Korea, Kathryn forgot to change the time on her phone. Therefore, after busting ass to get to the tourism office on time, we arrived very winded only to find we are an hour late for our scheduled tour of the DMZ. Fortunately, the nice Korean lady (because Koreans are the nicest people EVER) let us take the tour the next day. I myself also made an error after a night of drunken debauchery with our hosts in Busan by showing up for our ferry just as it was departing, or two hours early according to my time management.

Nevertheless, I really did enjoy Korea. Some of the highlishts included:

The SUPER NICE Korean people. Our host in Seoul told us to call him but we didn't have phones so he said just ask a Korean and 9 times out of 10 they will offer you their phone. This is absolutely true and they were so happy to assist us.
Koreans form lines! Unlike China where men will push women to get onto a subway car which isn't even crowded, Koreans queue perfectly. One of the most amazing sights I saw was a long single file line to go up an escalator.
Cheap food including cheap western food (Dunkin Donuts!) and bagels abound!
Staring at North Korean soldiers from across the border.
Trying to understand how things like similar architectural styles and freedom of speech enrage the Chinese into hating the Koreans.
K-pop leading the Asian music scene.
Meeting up with Megan McKay my friend from study abroad in Hong Kong who is now teaching in Seoul.
Meeting up with my (ok Mike's) former couchsurfer Sewon
Attempting to hike to temple but getting lost and feeling inadequet because my only footwear was Ugg boots
A 50 degree temperature change from Harbin and 20 degrees warmer than Shanghai!
Watching the Korea v. Japan semifinal match of the Asia Cup in soccer, only to see Japan win in overtime
Watching a freakishly odd Korean movie, Old Boy, with our freakishly odd host in Seoul

Another interesting point of this trip was the people we stayed with. When we arrived in Seoul, Kate and I had to find Isaiah, a man we knew nothing about but got his information from John as our flight was literally taking off. We arrived on January 23 and Isaiah told us we were already his 15, 16 and 17th couch surfers that month! He had just arrived earlier that month (he had lived there for two years before and then went back to the States) and in his first month back in Korea had arranged to host 30 couch surfers! This fact didn't make us feel very special especially paired with his constant stories about the Finnish couple who stayed with him for ten days and he magically meshed with. Isaiah did cook us a glorious buttery breakfast our first morning which we enjoyed with his two other couch surfers, a couple from Israel who was mildly offended by him calling them "the Jews". The ISRAELIS slept in one bedroom, Kate and I got his bed and John slept on the floor in our room, Isaiah took the couch and his cousin slept on the floor in the computer room. Sleeping on the floor in Korea is different than at home; the floors are heated (which can get HOT) and there is usually a mat or mattress on the floor. Kate and I insisted we could sleep on a mat and Isaiah could have his own bed but he refused, except for the one night we came home late (midnight-ish) from watching the Korea-Japan soccer game and he was sleeping in his bed with his girlfriend (they seemed obnoxiously lovey-dovey and we were surprised to find out they just met five days ago--- Asian women are crazzzzzzzy and white guys are desperate). Another odd Isaiah behavior we walked in on was a candle light tea ceremony which also included a Belgium couch surfer. My favorite Isaiah moments include him poking himself in the eye mid-conversation and these lilac spandex shorts which he wore outside to come get Korean food with us. My friend Megan who we met up with for dinner introduced us to the term "LBH" or "Loser Back Home" of which Isaiah totally fit the criteria but he let us crash for free and was truly harmless so we must be thankful.

After the Isaiah show we we left for Busan. As you may know, Korea is quite a small country. We met groups of college students who partake in a walk from south to north. This takes a few weeks but we found is possible to travel from the North Korean border to the southern city of Busan in just a few hours by highspeed train (AMERICA, GET YO SELF SOME BULLET TRAINS!). In Busan we stayed with Dianna and Bryan who come in a close tie with Violet and Paul as the best hosts ever (maybe I have a thing for real, legitimate couples who have been dating for more than five days). Dianna and Bryan are good ol' American southerners who had been teaching in Korea for almost a year. When they finish their contracts next month, they will return home for a month, then get summer jobs in Europe and then travel THE WORLD together. My bets are he proposes in Southeast Asia because if this couple doesn't make it there is no hope for the rest of us. We shared stories, beer, and food and had the Isaiah and his beloved Finns type connection. Kate and I have grand plans to travel to Europe this summer and it would be splendidly dangerous to meet up with Dianna and Bryan.