It's really hot in Shanghai.

This remains my sole impression of Shanghai so far. Just kidding, Shanghai's actually a badass. Everybody likes to talk about it being that bridge between east and west, and I can definitely see that. 

TODAY, I...

Took an overnight train to Shanghai. I was in car 16, which I found out was the last one on the train. I knew that was probably a bad sign. I walked by about 8 cars or so and peered into the windows of Chinese people stretching out on nice beds in private rooms with TVs. Granted, I knew I wasn't getting one of those because I didn't pay for it, but I expected a decent train seat or something, some leg room maybe, a reclining chair, other first world amenities. Yeah, I didn't get that. I was in a window seat with 2 people to my right, so I couldn't get to the aisle way easily. Leg space was okay, but nothing spectacular, aaand they kept the lights on too bright to sleep, not to mention my chair didn't recline. Oh, and Chinese people blabbering. Anyways, I slept 2 really shitty hours. Woke up and wanted to take in the scenes of the Chinese countryside cruising into Shanghai, but the woman in front of me pulled down the screen all the way and was like "fuck you no scene for you." And the woman next to her was playing horrible Chinese music to keep her stupid kid happy for like half an hour. Now that I've let my bitterness out, let's talk about Shanghai. 

Insert checking into the hotel and taking a 3 hour nap in between train and Shanghai. So glorious. 

Anyways, I got up and went out on the town a little before 4 pm. Took the train over to the Bund area, which I will hitherto refer to as DAS BUND. DAS BUND is an area of Shanghai that used to be the financial center (I believe, didn't really read about it), and it's right by the river and has these really cool stone buildings. It's supposed to be a really major scenic attraction, which by the way is true, because there were a bagillion people crowding the street around it. From DAS BUND, you have the cool stone buildings and across the river is the Pudong area, which is like the major huge tall building part of the city. I walked all the way down DAS BUND to find that the food court was pretty much closed since it wasn't dinner time and a really crappy food court, which was disappointing considering I hadn't had a real meal since dinner the night before. I don't really have much more to say about DAS BUND other than it was really cool and I took a lot of pictures. It just made me feel all warm inside being there. No scratch that, 91 feels like 104 made me feel all warm inside. 

Pudong view. 

Afterwards, by some stroke of luck, I walked straight into the Yuyuan Shopping District, which was really cool. It's in the old Shanghai area and is supposed to be a major tourist hit, which is also true as evidenced by the huge crowds of people there. More pictures, because I don't really have words, other than the fact that I had a REALLY SHITTY DINNER there. They had some different meat kabobs, I got one with lamb and one with beef. It wasn't that they were bad as so much as the value. It was 12 yuan EACH, so I spent 48 yuan for shitty meat on a stick. So disappointing. At least the noodles were okay, at best...Meh. 

I at least got my fill, even though it sucked. After that, I walked back towards DAS BUND (yes I mentioned it just so I could use DAS BUND again) and took a ferry across the river (what a steal, 2 yuan...) to the Pudong side, and freaking waited in line for like an hour to go to the top of this huge building, the Jin Mao building, only to find that the line was for tour groups to get in free, which I couldn't do anyways. Soooo instead, I paid 88 yuan to go up an elevator to 88th floor and take pictures. So not worth it. 

It's the one on the left. The guy on the right is the world's largest bottle opener, standing at like 100 floors.

Anyways, that sums up my day. Yay for shitty vague descriptions of what I did today. Maybe I'll go to the Expo tomorrow if I wake up in time. Or not. 

Why I'm American and Stupid

Hi,

I'm actually not going to talk about why I'm American and stupid yet. 

First off, it's my last day at "work." This is exciting because that means I no longer have to get up at 7 am every day, instead can stay up until 3 am (which allows me a little more interaction with America, or probably the same since I'll be sleeping through your evenings). It also means I can stop riding the bus in the morning for like over an hour, and it also means I can stop wearing pants (I'll wear shorts instead duh). 

Speaking of the bus, I witnessed a sweet bus fight yesterday on the good ol' 691. It was basically the "I am a motherfucker" fight all over again, except Chinese edition. To set the scene, there was a younger dude (30?) and an older dude (50+). They started yelling at each other, but I didn't hear what they were yelling about since I was listening to Guster at the time (what else would I be doing?). The older dude's getting off the bus, but the younger douche figures its a good idea to kick the older guy a few times as he's getting off. He uses the leveraging of the rail and actually gets some good kicks in (in Chinese, we call it "chuai" which basically illustrates the way he kicked him, I can't really explain it, but it has it's own sorta meaning a little different from kick...Chinese people back me up here). This obviously pisses the old guy off, so he comes back onto the bus infuriated and starts wailing on the younger guy. He gets him in the face a few times with some strong enough punches, and the blood starts flowing. Then he uses his cane (no idea why he has a cane, because he seems to move just fine), and lashes the other guy a few times. So at this point, the guy's eye is bruised and he looks more squinty, and he's a bloody mess, and he still wants to hit the old guy, who's content and done his damage. Anyhow, that's really it. Everybody gets off the bus, and the poor bus driver has to clean up the blood all over his floor. Really upset I didn't have a camera for this. 

Okay, on to why I'm American and stupid. This mostly concerns my inability to order things. The first week of work, I couldn't read the menu, so I got "niu rou fan" which literally means beef meal every day, until I started learning what other people were getting and eventually mixed up the offerings to include eggplant, tomato and egg (a Chinese specialty), meatballs, and ji ding (which is a chicken dish with some veggies and hot peppers). 

My frustration continued at McDonalds, where I normally would just get things off the dollar menu, but I'm stupid, so I have no idea. I don't know how to say cheese, so I got burgers once, but they weren't cheeseburgers and I was really bummed. SO I was determined and looked up the word cheese (which is ganlao), but when I went back to the menu, I couldn't find the characters for cheese, so I'm not sure if they have a different way of saying it. Anyhow, I got back to pointing at the menu, and I ordered a number 2 and told them to ditch the fries and the drink. I also have no idea how to say McFlurry, so I always say "the oreo thing" and they understand me. 

I also have no idea at bars. I ordered this drink (a mai tai?), and I wanted to ask what kind of liquor it was. 

1) I don't know how to say liquor

2) I don't know how to say any types of liquor in Chinese

So for 1) I asked them what kind of drink, by listing a few things in English, vodka, whiskey in a questioning tone. So then he responded, and I had no idea what he said...so he finally had to muster up "rum" and I was like..."oh, I get it." I went back to my table feeling stupid. 

However, the biggest fuckup was on Wednesday, where I went to a Chinese restaurant craving something spicy and with a lot of meat in it. So I asked the guy to recommend something to me. He pointed at something and said it was spicy and had lamb, so I thought, oh good, this'll be great. I thought it was a little expensive though (38 yuan), but I got it anyways, and it turns out I got my 38 yuan's worth. The bowl they brought it out in was like more than a foot in diameter, this huuuuuuge thing with this hot oil drenched noodles and a bunch of lamb, potatoes, onions, etc. It was delicious, but the bowl of rice I ordered to go with it went untouched obviously. Man never said it had noodles in it! So yeah, I finished like half of it and waddled back to my apartment. 

I think my problem is that my Chinese is good enough to be understood without an accent, so that people mistake me for Chinese at first listen, and so they talk to me like I'd understand, but then I don't. So yeah, the moral of the story is, I can't live in China. 

Next Wednesday night, I'm heading out to Shanghai. Overnight train business, but the hotel still isn't booked. I think I'm going to...go to the expo, check out the big TV tower, hopefully take a boat ride on the river, check out the financial district, go walk around the shopping districts and not buy anything, and check out the club district. My uncle also recommends that I go out to Hangzhou, which is reputed as one of the most naturally beautiful places in China, and it's like an hour and a half outside of Shanghai. So I think I'll check it out. That's the plan anyways. 

Less than 3 weeks until I'm back in America. Can't wait to sleep in for the next 3 weeks. 

That's all I've got, since the last week or so has been rather boring. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I did go clubbin' again. 'Twas a good time, makes me wish I had more friends in China so I could do fun things and spend lots of money on alcohol. 

Also bought a ping pong paddle to make sure I covered my bases and fulfilled all cultural stereotypes. Dude wanted me to give him a 120 yuan, but I got it for 80. I think I still got gipped, but it should play well enough to my abilities, and probably still cheaper than buying them in America, where demand is tiny because nobody plays ping pong. AND ITS SHORT HANDLE. I'm so tired of playing stupid shake-hand American paddles. I can finally return to my glory days of owning people pen-grip style. Hells yeah. 

Bye bye America, see you in a few weeks!

Really short blog post.

Hi,

I just wanted to comment on how FREAKING NICE IT IS.

The last week in Beijing has been:
1) Hot
2) Humid
3) Hell
4) Hopeless
5) Hippopotamus 


BUT, the last two days have been great. It rained, and I think that's the cure for shit, if there was a cure for shit. I took Wednesday off because of a stomach bug, and probably a good thing, because mother sky straight poured for about 4 hours straight. Woke up the next day, and the clouds were absent, the mist gone, the fog removed, and the haze lifted. All that was left was the blue sky beaming down on a billion people (okay, so a lot less, it was probably only Beijing). This makes me think though, since the Chinese government can supposedly control the weather, why don't they stop spending on censoring porn and instead shoot chemicals into the sky and make it nice all the time. Morale would go out, people would be happy, and people in Tibet would stop complaining. Hell, Taiwan might even join the party (okay, let's not get carried away here). It's foolproof really.

Anyhow, my uncle and I have been scheming, and by scheming, I mean randomly interjecting Chinese at each other, me mostly not understanding, about me going to Shanghai for a week or so. I'll probably stop going to "work," because it's useless, and instead hop on a train to Shanghai and see the Expo (see: wait in line a lot). I think it'd be sweet, and daring, seeing as I don't really speak Chinese well nor do I know anything about Shanghai. I'd literally just be grabbing a hotel room, and walking around a ginormous city by myself. Good idea? I'd say so. Suggest things for me to do in Shanghai, because I have no freaking clue.

That's really all I've done for the last few weeks - besides the daily routine of wake up, hate myself, go to work, hate myself, eat lunch, feign 2 pm drowsiness, come home, eat dinner, and sit on my ass.

Oh, pictures.

Bye.

Whatever comes to mind gets written here

Ohai,

It's been a while?

Let's start with the most recent...
POWER WENT OUT LAST NIGHT. What the fuck. Stupid 3rd world country mumble grumble.
When this happens, it means that the air conditioning doesn't work. And when the air conditioning doesn't work, China sucks. Power went out just before 10 pm last night, so I decided...well shit, I guess I should just go to bed. Instead of doing that, I proceeded to lay in half consciousness bathing in my own sweat for about an hour and a half before the power FINALLY CAME BACK ON. At this point, the shower I just took was an effort wasted, and it was past 11:30, which mean that waking up this morning was going to be a lot harder, considering I'd been going to bed around 10 every day. So yeah, go to hell power outages. That's all the complaining I've got.

Hmm what else. Chinese pizza buffet.
The Chinese people do pizza a little differently. In America, we think of pizza as generally any sort of crust you can think of and some toppings. It doesn't really have to be baked, or anything. It just has to have some sorta crust and toppings, and we'd call it a pizza. Like Lou Malnati's chocolate chip pizza, or that kind that you get in Lunchables, which is really just crackers with cheese and sauce. It's simple, but we know what pizza is.

In China, they have an additional criteria: Cheese.
For some reason, every pizza has cheese. This includes dessert pizzas. So the one with cinnamon and bananas...had cheese. The chocolate and strawberry pizza...had cheese. The one with pineapples and peaches...had cheese. I'm not really sure why this happens. Me being daring and willing to eat basically anything, tried all of these. And they were all pretty decent, once you get over the fact that you're mixing tastes a little bit. Either that or I just have low standards. They also like eating things with Ketchup. I'm not sure if this is because Ketchup is seen as an American commodity, and thus revered, or if because they just like the taste. Regardless, I saw a guy at the buffet get a big ass plate of ketchup, and drop his pizza in the pile of ketchup. Gross. That, I won't try. On an odd note, now I know why my grandparents would eat ketchup on their pizza. It makes sense now. We've come full circle.

Hmmm schwat else. I know. I've started to give up in my attempt to do anything at "work," so instead of  meandering on Chinese dictionaries and putting up a futile effort to understand securities in Chinese, I've instead started reading other internet articles to become less of an idiot. I started read Mergers and Inquisitions, which is basically a website/blog on breaking into I-Banking. And basically, it's scaring me shitless for work, but also making me realize that I don't really want to do anything else. So, I guess that's the path I'm going to go down. It's not much of a path less traveled, it's more well traveled really, with lots of dead guys along the path and people who have dark circles under their eyes from not sleeping. Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll get to crawl down that path too.

Also finished Atlas Shrugged. It was long. That's really all I have to say, other than the fact that they're coming out with a movie soon, or in a couple of years. In hindsight, those were three really pointless sentences.

OH, I also went to a Chinese club. Besides the obvious realization that I have no game, it was really pretty sweet. They have thumping loud music, that's mostly American (so I can loudly proclaim to understand Lady Gaga over the Chinese people). It's got that whole neon high class feel that you see in pictures of European rave clubs, and they've got a pretty decent selection of drinks. They also like Americans, so some of them let you in for free. Not a bad scene for consuming drinks and awkward dancing.

Okay, I'm actually tired of listening to myself ramble for once. Back to work, just kidding, back to Facebook, email, AIM, and reading the internet.

Ciao.

PS. Probably going souvenir shopping this weekend, if it's not balls hot. Lemme know if you want anything small that I can pack into my bulging suitcase.

Oh, right, I'm in China, and the internet finally works.

Hello America,

It's Sunday night in China, which means it's Sunday morning in EST. Hope church was fun, for those of you who actually go. I've finally decided to blog again. If I had to point my finger at an excuse or say, eleven, I'd say that it was a combination of my life becoming a lot more boring, the internet being a piece of crap in speed, the Great Firewall temporarily halting me, heat exhaustion, me actually reading books in my free time, laziness, being tired of hearing my own voice, magical fairies, me forgetting English temporarily, and/or Communism.

Judge for yourself which of those are true (me being tired of hearing my own voice, being a narcissist, is not one of them).

Seeing that I last mentioned going to China, I guess I'll recap the last two weeks or so in list form, and try to be succinct.

1) Tokyo Airport: Is so ballin'. My pops and I went to the Delta Sky Lounge, where the elite people get to hang out as they wait for their flight. During this time, I used their free broadband wifi internet (the last time that would happen for quite a while), made myself a mixed drink and had a glass of wine (and nobody cared, as they shouldn't...), and took in the surroundings of the other rich people who hang out in such a classy place.

2) Flight to China: Yaaaaawwn. I watched Dear John, to satisfy my chick flick movie needs and played with my Rubik's cube.

3) First week in China: This was like Japan, except my dad actually knew where he was going, and everything was dirtier. We walked around Beijing for a few days, and had dinner with some of my dad's old friends and some family.

5) 2nd week in China: Work, work, work. And by that, I mean, the connection that my dad has, got me a job at a "boutique" securities firm, where I proceed to sit at a computer for 8 hours a day and use their wifi. I can't complain though, since I get to use nice facilities for 8 hours a day with cooooool AC and broadband-ish internet and not have responsibilities. So far, the guy has given me a book to read. It's also in Chinese, and I can't read Chinese, soooo I've been translating it sentence by sentence really slowly, mostly sitting on my email, recently Facebook (because Caleb is a h4x0r), on Adium, and on ESPN. Brilliant week so far. The guy did say that he would take me on a business trip next week though? To let me see what kind of stuff they do. I'm a little intimidated, and I don't feel super comfortable traveling with a bunch of dudes who speak Chinese really fast and don't know me. Oh welp, seize the carp.

6) This past weekend: My aunt and my cousin Peter showed up in China, so they took me out to see the Great Wall and the Forbidden City again. It's nice to see the sights again, even though I've been to them quite a few times. I have pictures, but the internet here is shoddy so I can't put them up until I get to work (more on internet in a bit). I also bought two more Rubik's cubes, because they're like a DOLLAR USD. And because they come really loose so I can twist them really effortlessly (insert vagina joke here, sorry if this makes you uncomfortable, get over it?).

Observations on Chinese people and China:

-Overpopulation. You see, Japan has this problem too and by numbers, should have it worse. Except, Chinese people have bad manners and are generally rude, so it becomes a problem. Common examples are trying to use public transportation, where I people are pushing just to get onto the last step of the bus before the door closes on them, rather than forming a line. Instead, you have ushers at the bus stops during rush hour literally yelling at people. It's a dog eat dog world (or a human eat dog country, I used this joke in an email to somebody I think, sorry if you hear it again.).

-More on people being rude and/or assholes. At restaurants, the waiters give you lip and have attitude problems. At this one restaurant, our waiters decided to not deliver our food, and then go off and have their lunch break, leaving one waiter to take care of too many people. Another example, we had this waiter, who was giving us attitude, so this lady we were with decided to tell her to go away and ordered another waiter over. Mutual respect, zero. My guess as to why? Either its because they get paid like shit, have no tips as incentive, and therefore have no incentive to work hard, or its because they have inadequate training. My dad calls it a culture problem, but I bet if waiter were trying to get paid more, they'd actually not be rude and suck up to guests to get more tip, but maybe that's just the econ major talking.

-More on people being jerks. At the Great Wall, I bought a rice picker hat, that my aunt haggled for 20 Yuan (that's like 3 bucks). She was able to do this because she's Chinese and the guy was trying to sell us high. What does he do with the foreigner? He offers the same hat to him for 120 Yuan, because the foreigner can't hear the haggling. I heard him try to drop it to 80, which is still unreasonable. Foreigner did a good job of rejecting the seller's ass. Good job foreigner. Ohhh the exploits of price discrimination...

-Notes on food. I've eaten a lot of random Chinese food and I can't really remember most of it actually. I did have turtle soup though, and it had turtle in it. Pretty awesome, and it taste pretty good too. I asked my my aunt's brother (this is my mom's younger brother's wife's younger brother, somebody who's familiar with English family ties tell me how else to describe him?) if I could get dog anywhere hahahaha. I would totally try it (don't give me animal rights bullshit, kay?).

-Notes on Chinese. HOLY SHIT I SUCK AT IT. People talk too fast, and use too much vocabulary. I can't read things, and I can't write things, and it's embarrassing. At lunch every day, we go to a Chinese fast food place, and the first day, I could only read one thing on the menu, so I ordered it a couple days in a row before finally asking a coworker what else they have...Aaaand, because my Chinese speaking skills are actually pretty good for a non-Chinese person, people assume that I'm from Beijing when I talk to them, and then they start saying things, and then I look at them and nod. Everybody at works thinks I'm this really shy American kid, when in reality, I just have no idea what they're ever talking about, because they're usually rambling in finance lingo I don't understand. Result: Every person has asked me where I go to school, and if I"m getting used to China yet. That usually ends my conversations...

-The exchange rate........is GLORIOUS. It's like 6 or 7 Yuan for a USD. Bus rides are .40 yuan, so like 6 cents. Lunch is about $2 USD, and it comes with rice and two Chinese side dishes, soup, and a drink. Souvenirs are cheap as shit. Popsicles are .80 Yuan when you buy in sets of ten, like a bit over a dollar for 10 of them. On this note, if anybody wants a random Chinese souvenir, let me know. One of these days, I'm going to go to a bunch of little street shops and work on my haggling skills and go souvenir shopping.

-The internet. God awful. First setup. Ethernet cord that only one person per household can use. Why? Because there's only one port and we need a login. We tried a router, but it wouldn't let multiple people log in under the same account at the University we're at. Soooooo that went to shit for the first week I was here. Then we got a 3G card. It's slow as balls, but it at least lets me VPN into NU to get on Facebook. I can't upload pictures or anything though. Work internet, still not super fast, but blocks VPN. However, Caleb geniused an SSH setup for me (I don't know anything about SSH), so FINALLY I have reliable internet on the weekdays that lets me bypass the Great Firewall of China. There's no wifi anywhere really (except at work). My uncle was like, huh, broadband wifi router, yeah right...

-Bathrooms: They're gross. This is why I cannot live in China. Public bathrooms (even in the CITY), are usually holes in the ground. The nice bathrooms will have one big roll of toilet paper outside the stalls for people to grab before they poop. The bad ones don't have toilet paper, you've to bring your own. This is why I only poop at my uncle apartment and at work...(too much info? Meh, get over it). THEY DON'T HAVE THE AIR THING, where it makes bathrooms not smell. So all the bathrooms smell like shit, even the one's in A rated restaurants (sanitation rating). Seriously China, invest in a Glade plug-in or something...it's NOT that hard to keep a bathroom clean...especially when you have so many people. I'm sure there are lots of unemployed people here who will do that job. That's the business I"m going to start in China, a bathroom cleaning one, and I'll employ the people on the streets...

-Random: There are more KFC's here than in America. They're everywhere. They also serve Chinese soup, which is hilarious. People in Beijing only drink Yanjing Beer, so it's getting kinda old when it's my only option. Restaurants don't serve ice water before meals, or have any for that matter. If you want water, it comes in boiling, or with a tea bag in it. Chinese Minute Maid orange juice is fucking delicious. It's pulpy goodness and flavor (which is probably just more sugar?) make it SO much better than American orange juices.

Okaaaaay, that's all I can think of now.

PS. Actually I lied. I've been spending most of my free time reading and trying to not be lazy and do some physical activity. So far I've read Northwestern's One Book, Mountains by Mountains, which is actually reallllly good. I read the Invisible Man whilst in Japan. I read Pride and Prejudice (judge me?). And I'm working my way through Atlas Shrugged now. It's so freaking long, and I was going at a blazing pace before work started, so I'm stalled for now. Ohwelp. I've also watched a bunch of movies. KICKASS anyone?! Hilarious. I wish I was in America to see Inception though. Goddamn.

Anyhows, please email me. I like hearing from y'all (fuck, I hate myself for using y'all).

Peeeeeace out from Beijing.

YOU ARE FREER THAN WHETHER TO USE WITH WHAT KIND OF USE?

Best mistranslation ever?

Anyhows, dad and I went around Tokyo more. The usual (Stock Exchange -> Port area -> Hotel). Tokyo Stock exchange did have a new company being added to their listings, which I'm told doesn't happen all that often we're told. Ceremony was pretty grandiose with lots of old Japanese guys chilln' and bowing at each other. Went to the port area and had the biggest naan I've ever seen for lunch.

That's all we really did today, and the details aren't that interesting. You can ask me about them if you want. DID have a ridiculous dinner though, where I had cow tongue, liver, and some random other intestinal stuff. Pops was bold with his ordering today. Kinda weird, tasted okay though, also really freaking expensive? Then we shopped at 100 Yen stores (dollar stores), and walked around the area of town where my dad says the young people hang out, aka where they have the most strip clubs, Pachinko slot places, bars, and arcades. I know where I'm going when I come back to Tokyo.

Now I'm just going to leave pictures of poor translations and spellings that I captured today, along with boobs.

Boobs first.

THIS BINOCULARS ARE TYPES THAT CAN BE USED AT DAYTIME AND NIGHTTIME

AMUSMENT?

A couple more observations, well just one, on the subject of language anyways.

I love how people have no idea what they're wearing, or know that other people have no idea what they're wearing. Either way, I've seen a couple ridiculous shirts I sadly don't have pictures of.

From the epic shirt that said in all caps "FUCK KEN," to the one that said PUSSYFOOT, and just the classic glittered rendition of "PUSSY" on the front of a shirt. A random chick was wearing a shirt about Montana to be all stylish and American and not realizing that Montana is not the place to be in America. Those are just the ones I remember anyways. 

Flying to China tomorrow. 

Peeaaace from the last night in Tokyo!

The Quest for Mount Fuji...

...is unsuccessful.

My dad I and set out for Mount Fuji today, and it was unsuccessful. Thank you fog, clouds, and ill planning (could've probably taken a bus up to a guaranteed spot, but we didn't find the bus, damn). After an hour and a half train ride, another 40 minute train ride, a 20 minute trolley ride, and a 15 minute gondola ride, we couldn't see Mount Fuji, because it was obscured in clouds. I did get a nice 10 minute exposure to volcanic gas, and for people who haven't taken earth science (I did...lol, but you don't need it to know this), volcanic gas is high in sulfur, which incidentally smells like rotten eggs. That was really pleasing. That was the entire day actually. Oh, and we went to the top of the tall building again to look for Mount Fuji off into the distance, but that didn't work for the 3rd time. I can't believe I went to Japan and didn't get to see the snow topped peak :( Ohwelp. Can't say we didn't try, or spend a lot of money trying. So yeah, I took a couple pictures of mountains that aren't Mt. Fuji. The Japanese countryside is very pretty and the mountains make for great scenery, although my pictures probably don't show that whatsoever.

OH, but I did see somebody almost die today! It's not supposed to sound that exciting, so the exclamation point was probably a poor choice of punctuation, but holy crap. The old woman looked like she was sleeping half dead on the chair like 3 feet from me. And when we stopped at the next station, the two people with her tried to support her and get off the train (it was really fucking hot, so no blame on the poor old woman), but she was like a blob of jello and actually couldn't walk, so they laid her down on the floor of the train and monitored her pulse. She looked really close the verge of death though, it was really disturbing. I think her tongue might've gone a little black too, but maybe I was just imagining things. We left her at the train station in the middle of the mountain. I hope she's alright, that'd be a terrible way to die...on an overheated tree on the way to see Mt. Fuji. Not like she would've seen it anyways (do I sound bitter, I'm not actually, but I'm a little bummed).


Anyhow, after we got back, my dad and I got too lazy to go look for quality food, so we stopped by at the local FamilyMart (which is like Seven Eleven), and bought some microwaved Japanese TV dinners, and they were pretty decent actually, and half the price we paid at any restaurant, and I got to eat pineapple and drink milk tea, and got some dessert. Worth it? I think yes.


More Bonus observations:


-Japanese beds are all really firm (I'm 3/3 on this hypothesis, for all 3 hotels we've been in). And I freaking love firm beds. I'm only going to buy firm beds in my life.


-The weather has been pretty nice the last two days, still sorta hot and humid, resulting in sticky, sweaty, and disgusting me, but much better than the first three days. My theory is that the Japanese loss in the World Cup released a lot of that pent up energy westward toward China (since I hear it's going to be hot as balls in China), and instead sent a little cool wave through Japan brought on by national depression from hitting the crossbar in penalty kicks. Either that or something about cold fronts and clouds. On a side note, Japanese announcers are awesome when it comes to soccer commentary, since the only thing I can understand is when they say players names. So to me, it's like "Nagasaki koniciwa mitsubishi arigato KAKA tokyo sushi CHRISTIANO RONALDO." It's really exciting.


That's really it. Sorry Jordan and Kristine, no vlog. I'll do that when I'm in China, hopefully.


Peace.

The Real Tokyo

I'm really upset nobody in Tokyo noticed my 3 Keyboard Cat Moon T-shirt and said anything about it. I expected more out of a such a progressive city. 

I think, note I think, my dad and I have finished our rounds of Tokyo. 

Today, I woke up at a normal hour (9:30ish), and we hit up a few more places. Hard to believe that we never actually went to the Tokyo ward of Tokyo, which is where I think Tokyo started, but what do I know, I don't speak Japanese. The Tokyo rounds were really just a casual walk around the area, as we passed by construction site after construction site. And eventually, we wandered into the Ginza ward, which looked a lot like Times Square to me. Just lots and lots of shopping, and some really classy stores along the side. The usual suspects, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Armani, etc were all there, along with a spattering of foreign stores that I'm sure are really big deals in their native countries. Had a really good lunch though, consisting of some quality Japanese style fried chicken, some Japanese beef with onions, and a big bowl of rice, accompanying the typical bowl of Miso soup, which they literally drink with every meal I think. Also checked out the Apple store, where I played with iPads. 

Afterwards, we hopped back on the train and checked out the Ueno ward, which had this really pretty park area where the zoo is, along with several major museums. I glanced at the national museum, and then we decided to check out the nature and science museum, yawn. Call me a douche, or unappreciative, but I can't get into museums. History, and all that doesn't amuse or entertain me all that much. We wandered around all the floors I think (6 in all, 3 underground), and I basically followed my dad around as he looked at stuff. Took some pictures of dinosaur fossils. Can't speak for much more since I suck at understanding important historical stuff. This took like 2 hours. The only real highlight of this was the movie they showed in this 360 semi-sphere thing that detailed the Earth's history and flashed some other space images in a surround sound, surround movie. It sure looked epic and the guy talking made it sound really epic, but once again, what do I know, I don't speak Japanese.

Lastly, we checked out the Ikebukuro area, which involved walking around looking at shops again and stopping at Burger King for some ice cream and an iced coffee. This place Sunshine city was absofreakinglutely unreal though. There were girls screaming at me in languages I don't speak (really only one language I guess, but for all that I know, it could've been several languages) probably asking me to fuck them sideways. Either that or advertising 40% off sales in really high pitched voices (imagine 8 year old girls). I was unfazed, as my father has taught me to ignore those people over the last few days. Oh, and they had Coldstone there, which I didn't realize had globalized all the way over here. 

Yawn, since this entire blog post has sucked up to this point, I have a couple interesting observations to share. 

Basically, over the last 5 days, I've been to every major center of Tokyo via the Yamanote Line, which is like the loop of the El, except instead of a tiny 4 block area, it covers all the major focal points of Tokyo. 

Conclusion: There's not a ton to do in Tokyo with family except shop and walk around. I imagine the nightlife here is off the wall though. I'll have to come back for that some time.

Okay, this is the part of the blog where I talk about porn (great transition here, I know).

Guys who have watched porn (that means all of you), ever notice the large subcategory of schoolgirl porn that is basically 90% Asian? Well I've finally figured it out. There are a freakton of girls dressed up in these schoolgirl outfits scattered all over the city, since I imagine they get off school and decide to go hangout in the shopping malls. It's like a cultural norm of Japanese girls to be in those uniforms, which is EXACTLY where the porn industry got the idea to capitalize on. Look at me, I just did anthropological analysis (albeit, pretty surface level, I imagine). 

I do have some advice for how to navigate Japan though from a tourist perspective.

Girls - Bring the following items:

-2 days worth clothes (one for the first day of travel, one for the first day of shopping)

-An otherwise empty suitcase

-A bag of money

You can literally walk to anywhere and Tokyo, and find a 10 floor building that is just a big shopping center. Every street. Every corner. Everywhere. 

Guys, well by guys, I mean guys with Asian appetites (I'm looking at you Jordan Schneider and Sam Malin) - Bring the following items:

-Clothes Just kidding, you don't need clothes.

-Condoms

-Your game face

Calvin - Bring the following item:

-Groper gloves

More bonus observations on Tokyo:

-In American cities, small alleys are bad places to be, places where you scream "fire" and buy drugs. In Tokyo, it's the place to be. Little minishops, vending machines, places to eat, electronics, clothes, bars, Pachinko (gambling's illegal here, but they have this sorta slot thing called Pachinko that is literally everywhere), and Japanese people screaming at you. Even titty bars, totally saw one of those. 

-I think it's electoral season here. They've got this mobilizing thing down. They have trucks driving around with loudspeakers and the candidate's face on it yelling at people, probably telling people to vote for the candidate. They also have trucks that drive around and play music, which I presume is for certain artists marketing their latest album. 

-Japanimation is no joke. It's all over signs. It's on advertisements that are renting apartments. Hello Kitty is on buses. Girls are constantly imitating the blond Japanime characters. I don't mind though, I like big pink buses anyways. 

OH, and there was this really cool elevator I went in. It was just boring white, and then we started moving and it told us how fast we were going and started going all Robot Unicorn on me, and freaking me out with colors and majestic animals like dolphins. (It went up to 600 m/s, which WolframAlpha says is just over 22 mph. Pretty quick, and really smooth as usual). 

We did finally go back to the tall building to look at Tokyo on a clear night. Tried to take pictures in night mode, but it was nearly impossible with all the light inside the building, the glass, and the fact that the camera needs to be completely steady for like 5 seconds in night mode to take good pictures. Failed attempt after failed attempt yielded this poor picture (where there was a baseball game going on, so the stadium lights spoiled my picture).

That's all I've really got. Sorry this post sucks.
Good night from Tokyo, play safe. 

When in doubt, go to Chinatown.

I'm going to start this post with a quote from my good friend Calvin (Calvin I hope you're reading this).

For those 3rd floor people, we commonly quoted Calvin in our "Quote of the Calvin" board on 317's whiteboard (it's actually green). Yesterday, Calvin gave me a gem that I will NOT let slip. Without further adieu: 

Calvin Ketchum: did you grope some chicks on the subway? i've heard that's like the national pastime

Thank you for that moment Calvin. I'm going to just leave that there, context is up to your imagination. 

ANYHOW, my dad and I woke up at a normal hour today and went out on the town (probably for the last time, 4 days is quite a lot). Had breakfast at this really cozy fast food joint Yoshinoya. I had my favoriate Japanese, unagi, which is basically eel. So good. My dad ordered me the extra rice with the extra eel, and it was still a very moderate portion, less than the size of an entree at Appleby's, for context. This is why Japanese people don't get fat. Oh, and because fish is much healthier. Afterwards, we went to the district of Tokyo (they're called Wards, I found out), that has the really tall buildings (not that Tokyo doesn't have really tall buildings everywhere). We went up to the 45th floor of their municipal building and took pictures. That's all we really did there, madly exciting I know. I was supposed to see Mt. Fuji, but like the previous 4 days, it's been hot, humid, and foggy. Result: A picture of fog, representing where Mt. Fuji is supposed to be. Here it is...

After we got bored of looking at fog and buildings (pictures start here), my dad decided to take us to the port city of Yokohama, which is supposed to be the 2nd most populous city in Japan. Honestly though, it's just part of the Tokyo Metropolis. Train goes there, and there are tall buildings leading to it all the way from Tokyo. Tokyo is just one big extended city. We got there and had fast food Japanese curry for lunch. Place was cool, you pay for a ticket in a VENDING MACHINE (they love these, see what I mean?), and then went inside the little shop and brought out the dish in about a minute or so. These guys are so efficient! Then we went on a boat ride, which was kinda an excuse to look around the port and sit in an air conditioned boat for about 40 minutes. 

Then surprise surprise, we landed at the dock, and hey look, it's Chinatown. I should've known we'd do this (I've been to the Chinatown of every major city I've been to. You name the big city, and if I've been there, I've been to their Chinatown). We just walked around though, and literally every shop was selling bao-zi (which for non-Chinese people is just a roll with some kind of stuffing on the inside). One of the bao-zi some place was selling was like as big as my head. Overkill? Yeah. We just walked around Chinatown and decided to go, since both pops and I were really tired. 

That's all we did today. Rather uneventful, but I'm ready to rest up. Probably leaving Tokyo tomorrow to check out other parts of Japan, or at least getting to a new hotel. 

Much shorter brog post this time. 

OH, and watched Brazil rape Chile this morning. Hot damn. The Japanese announcers are way better than the ESPN ones. They scream SHUTA every time somebody takes a crack at the goal. And this one obnoxious announcer just mumbles "HMMMM" to himself all game as players make mistakes or something interesting happens. Samurai Blue (Japan) play tonight, hope they can beat Paraguay so the entire city splooges on itself. 

That's all. 

Bai bai. 

Edit: Just watched Japan lose in PK's. Most boring soccer game I've ever watched. Nice scoring, world class soccer players.

This is going to be a long one, maybe I'll use headers.

Hi.

My pops and I were up at about 1 am in the morning because we somehow decided we would sleep through the entire day with no alarm clock to stop us. 

We decided at 3:30 am that we'd go to the Tokyo Tsukiji tuna market.

TSUKIJI TUNA MARKET

Took a cab EARLY in the morning to the market. This place is really tight, and I actually mean that literally. They only let 140 people in per day and people line up at like 4 am, while the doors open 5 am. We got in the first wave of 70 people and got to watch tuna experts inspect these GIGANTIC imported tuna fish. We watched some introductory video about how these tuna bidders show up way early in the morning to inspect tuna, and then participate in auctions to buy these huuuge tuna. The best quality tuna can sell at 14500 Yen per kilogram. That's like $145 USD for you. My dad said some of these huge fish go for $10 grand USD. This market is like the NYSE of fish exchange. The auction we watched was really intense with Japanese guys screaming for about 5 minutes at a time as they auction off these mammoth tuna. In the video, they were talking about a young up and coming tuna buying expert who was gaining a lot of respect in the industry. He's 45. Real young. Afterwards, pops and I had sushi and sashimi (or just raw fish in a bowl of rice, whatever that's called) at some tiny local joint at 6 am. 

EMPEROR'S PALACE

We sat around in a bunch of random park benches for like 20 minutes at a time because nothing was open at 6 am. Then we walked by the Emperor's Palace. And took a picture. That's really it. Anticlimactic, I know. Most of our time was spent walking as I snapped pictures of everything, like Ichiro.

Emperor was probably sleeping...

UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO

The University of Tokyo, according to my dad, is the best university in the Eastern hemisphere. He said there were like 7 Nobel Prize winners in Japan (3 at U of Tokyo, I think). UChicago has 7, taste it Eastern hemisphere. Campus was really cool though, and really kinda antique. Had a nice academic feel to it, but really deserted, since even Japanese people celebrate summer vacation and turn off their brains sometimes.

ELECTRONIC DISTRICT

I think this part of Tokyo is called Akihabara. We just walked into one gigantic store, which took like over an hour to traverse the 9 floors of. And we're not just talking technology. We're talking appliances, refrigerators with like 7 doors, fans that don't have blades, and all the crazy accessories you can dress your iPod with. They even had a golf shop on the 9th floor. And like every other multifloor shopping building in Japan, one of the top floors was dedicated to food. We had curry on the 8th floor with all you can eat Naan the size of your head. I had two. 

THE REAL JAPAN (according to my dad)

This place was called Asakusa. This is where there are ton of tiny shops and Japan doesn't look like it's in the 29th century. Looks more 19th-ish with some improvements and a whole lot of tiny shops scattering the street. As usual, we bought nothing and walked around as Japanese people kept talking to me, and I looked at them and smiled, as my dad told me to ignore them. SO MANY STORES. I can't emphasize that enough. This was also nearby to where Japan is building it's highest building, what they want to be their CN tower, the Tokyo Sky Tree. It looks pretty cool, and tall, also. 

So after that, we finally came back to the hotel after like 12 hours of running around the city.

Quite possibly the craziest thing about Tokyo? The train system. In Chicago, the El seems pretty intimidating. Lots of stations, kinda confusing at first. In Japan they have the El times 4 times 2 (that's times 8 for you, estimated of course). Their one rail system is crazy and not navigable. This is the Tokyo Metro. Then they have another layer that kinda goes over it and under it and around it. This is the JR line (Japan Railway, according to Google, I was hoping for a cool Japanese name). It runs all the way to the airport, which was like an hour and a half away by car. 

Tokyo Metro.

JR Line

Yeah, try reading that and understanding it. Tokyo does public transit right. In Chicago, I could sit at a station and read a novel because the CTA is broke as shit and sends a train every like 30 minutes. I miss a train in Chicago, and I just want to sit and sulk as I watch it pull away. In Tokyo, I like to twiddle my thumbs a couple rotations, and the next one is here. I think 3 minutes was the longest I waited for a train here, and we rode lots of trains today. And it's crowded as shit. Good thing its also...oh, AIR CONDITIONED. Another cool fact about Japan: EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED. I got off the train, and underground connected to the train station is a shopping mall that goes another 9 floors up at least, so you can hop and shop all day. Woman's paradise really, rich women I guess, since everything here is also really expensive. 

Now, more bonus observation about Japan that slipped my mind earlier.

-Upon walking around for the first few minutes in Japan (literally in the airport), I saw a woman with a mask on (the SARS kind), and I was like uh oh, some outbreak in Japan? But my pops told me that Japanese people are so respectful, that if they have a cold, they just get a mask and wear it around so they don't transmit germs and get other people sick. I dunno if I fully believe that but I've seen LOTS of people with masks walking around, so it's gotta have some truth to it. 

-Tones. On the Subways, in shopping malls, on the street, where ever, even ambulances. In the US, it seems like every time people need you notified, they play obnoxious loud noises that undoubtably get your attention. In Japan, they place nice arpeggios and little melodies in the subway stations, and the ambulance alternates a major third interval or something, rather than blaring the friggin horn. And people still get out of the way for you. It's so much more pleasant when the daily sounds of walking through the city are nice arpeggios and chord progressions instead of random bleeping bells that don't make any sense. 

I think that's all. Rots of pictures. Check them out on the Facebooks. (RECURSIVE LINK TO FACEBOOK AFTER FACEBOOK LINKED YOU TO THE BLOG). 

Bai. 

More random observations about Japanese people

1) It's overpopulated. Conclusion: It's overpopulated.
2) On a Sunday morning, there were more people out than on Saturday night. Conclusion: Japanese people don't have time for church.
3) For some reason 97.856% of women aged fifteen to fifty are wearing a gallon of makeup, and it gives them this pasty white complexion. And then about 64% of those have their hair bleached in some off brown color. Conclusion: Meh. Natural selection gave Asian people black hair for a reason.

My pops and I woke up this morning at like 5 am to watch the US lose to Ghana. That's was a bonerkill. Woke up again at like 9:30 am, went outside to explore the city again. 20 feet outside, and I'm sweating. The solution my pops and I found was walking into department stores and riding escalators to the top floor and back down to enjoy some AC for like 15 minutes before going back outside. Oh, and stopping at random vending machines on the street because THEY'RE EVERYWHERE.

This is the coolest thing about Japan I think. They really really value nature. They have plants growing on the tops of buildings, in their tiny apartments, trees lining the streets mingling with skyscrapers. So we're going to some imperial garden place, and it's city city city city city BOOM beautiful park/forest/garden place. It was really pretty, reminded me of the Golden Gate Park in San Fran (which some of you have heard me rave about). Pictures added to the Facebook album.

Afterwards, we went to a random place and had some lunch, and proceeded to ride the train a couple stops to see a Shinto temple place of sorts. Also really pretty, so I'm not going to throw words at it and try to do it justice, but rather let pictures do the talking. Although I'm an idiot with a camera in my hands (and a massive tourist, holy crap I took pictures of a lot of random stuff).

To be continued....(after my afternoon nap)

And by afternoon nap, I mean, my dad and I slept for the next 8 hours. It's now nearly 1 am Japan Standard Time, and I just woke up. Dinner? lol. So much for not being jetlagged. Either that or I was tired as shit from walking. Now I'm going to be up all night, which is all day in Amurican time. Somebody entertain me.

...Continued again

1:45 am - Went out for Micky D's (because it's open 24 hours!) and got myself a Teriyaki burger, which was strangely kind of delicious, in a weird strange Asian sauce meets cheese sorta way. I was pretty impressed. They also have AM/PM here, where my dad got himself some random dish the guy behind the counter so nicely microwaved for him.

I AM IN TOKYO

Heyo,

Just got back from a long day of being in Japan, which is freaking awesome. 

Got up today and lived at the airport for a couple hours. They had a mall type area in the airport, where I proceeded to order some random Carbonara dish from a pseudo Italian place, which was awfully disappointing since I had no idea that the meat would be ham and that it would have mushrooms. Decided to go and get myself a Big Mac, Japan style. I was going to compare it to the American Big Mac, but I realized I probably haven't had a Big Mac in years, so there was really no standard for comparison. All in all, I'd say it was pretty satisfying. And then, I had ice cream (they might've called it gelato, but I have no idea), and these Japanese people, they're crazy. It was served in a nice triangular shaped ice cream cone. I wasn't sure how to eat it. It was kinda confusing. 

So afterwards, I took an hour and a half bus ride to Tokyo from the airport, and proceeded to snap lots of random pictures that don't make any sense. The corresponding nonsensical album is here: Here. I had lots of time on the bus, and I did a lot of...doing a Rubik's cube while listening to Passion Pit. What a joyride. 

Basically, I met my pops in Tokyo, and we proceeded to walk around. Went inside this huge 15 floor mall, Tashikimaya I think it was called. Lots of random expensive stuff. And then we had dinner at this crazy random restaurant that would've been really hard to find on the fifth floor of some random alley way. Our hotel room is tiny, as seen below. 

Random observation #1 about Japan: They really know how to use their space. Since the islands aren't that big, and full of mountains, the very little amount of flat space they have to work with has to be used super efficiently. So obviously, they build UPWARDS, and use that space efficiently. The restaurant at first glance was really cramped, but turned out to be quite comfortable and could be a really intimate date spot. Really cool. My pops and I had an intimate little dinner (I had uncooked horse meat?...) Also shared a drink with my father, got me some nice Mango flavored mixed drink. It was delicious. 

Afterwards, we walked around more, and then decided to ride up to the 45th floor of a random hotel. The most amazing scene ever. I tried to take like 10 pictures, but they all failed miserably. But holy god, it's like Coruscant (Star Wars reference, yesss, +1, also thanks Dan). Buildings as far as the eye can see, and to no end. New York City doesn't stand a chance. 

Random Observation #2: The Japanese pride themselves on their elevators my dad told me. We shot up to the 45th floor in the SMOOTHEST elevator of all time. Didn't even feel it moving, except that my ears were popping because we were going so freaking fast. 

We sat in some lounge and had another drink (I had a mixed chai tea milk thing with Baiiley's, which was also freaking delicious). On a side note, my dad probably thinks I"m a fruit for consuming such beverages. 

Anyhow, random observation #3: Tokyo is the cleanest big city I have ever been in. NYC is straight dirty. And when I went to Chicago, I was like "Oh, this is NYC but cleaner." But the Japanese take the cake. They are straight clean, there is not speck of trash on the ground. Must be a cultural thing, my pops told me. I spent like an hour trying to find a place to spit out my gum because I was afraid to just spit it on the ground it was so clean. 

Okay, just random observations about Japan from here on out.

Rand Ob #4: The Japanese don't wear shorts. It was like 29 degrees and like 90% humidity, (mid 80s? in Fahrenheit), and everybody over the age of 25 is in pants. Really? I feel like I would drown in my own sweat every day. 

Random Ob #5: This is probably the best one. I don't know if anybody remembers the commercials where they had those toilets that shoot water up your butthole. Yea, well those are standard in some Japanese bathrooms (my hotel has them, and one of the ones in the airport had them too). Anyhow, it's really cool and kinda an awkward sensation (yesss gruesome details and TMI). You kinda have to experience it. It's really clean feeling. This transitions into Random Observation #6.

Random Observation #6: More on efficiency. The Japanese really use their resources well. My pops was telling me that to conserve water, the water runs from the faucet and cleans your hands, and then that water is used to fill up the toilet. So the next time you flush the toilet, it's using the water you used to wash your hands. And that's not terribly barbaric or disgusting, because who really gives a shit how clean the water is that's being used to flush your toilet. 

Random Observation #7: I'm taller than most people here. I like that.

Okay, I think I'm out of random observations. I'll leave you witha picture of Tokyo at night, because I think it's freaking sweet. (It's in the Facebook album, while Facebook still works, since it might not in China unless VPN works okay, crossing my fingers). Here. <-Link again. 

PS. Didn't proofread at all. So there are probably a ton of typos.
PPS. No idea why the font is different...
PPPS. For those who've already emailed me, thanks :) But if not, LET ME KNOW HOW YOUR LIFE IS GOING KAY?