Hong Kong, Macau, and China

After Japan we went to Hong Kong, Macau, and China (depending on who you talk to, those might all be called China). Anyway, Hong Kong was first. Famous for its financial success and economic power, HK has always been recognizable among Asian cities for its spectacular office towers and impressive skyline. Recently added to this scene is the “symphony of lights” where every night many buildings participate in a light show put to music. The whole sky comes alive as lights and lasers move to the rhythms on a grand scale.

With a few days to spend in the region we chose to take the ferry to Macau – it just takes an hour to get there, so why not? And what is Macau famous for? Gambling. Big time gambling. Known as the Vegas of the east, Macau now dominates as the world's mega gambling destination. Years ago the gambling dollars passing through the Macau casinos eclipsed the amount spent at Vegas. That doesn't mean the Vegas casinos are watching from the sidelines: if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Any of you been to Vegas before? Recognize these names? Wynn, and MGM Grand...and all the others are here too

That second picture – the Venetian – is an exact copy of the Venetian hotel and casino in Vegas. They just brought the blue prints over and built another one in Macau. And just like the Vegas casinos, there's all sorts of crazy stuff going on inside. We saw this guy trying for a Guinness Book of Records attempt at making the largest “house of cards” ever. A “city of cards” is more like it...

Macau hasn't always been a gambling destination, though. In fact, it began as an outpost for Jesuit missionaries. They built a cathedral here, the first in Asia, but it burned down – all except for its stone edifice which remains standing

Elsewhere on Macau we went to Dr. Seuss Street – at least I think that's what this was called. Seems like a good name anyway.

Eventually we left these “special economic zones” and entered real China. We breezed through Shenzen to arrive in Shanghai – home to some of the world's most impressive architecture...

But Shanghai is also home to.... Claire

A friend from Edmonton, Claire moved to Shanghai a year ago and so we couldn't miss the chance to see her. Amanda and Claire had a good time baking some cookies...

...and I had a good time eating them. A little lower down on my list of food preferences is this item we found on a restaurant menu:

Mmmmm, nothing like a little “nausea pork”. If that's not to your liking, how about this menu item...

Who could resist a meal as delicious looking as that? But seriously, most of the food we had in China was absolutely great. We certainly ate well – even if we did see a few funny things on the menus.

We also saw a little North American and Chinese cultural fusion – in the form of graffiti. Check out these two cool ones:

When traveling you always see things that are a little different from back home. In Shanghai we saw this industrious guy who collects Styrofoam (instead of bottles?). That's quite a load for his little bicycle.

For such a big load it's a good thing Shanghai has such a big road network. I'm sure you have all seen elevated “fly over” style roadways in big cities before, but check this out. It's four levels of elevated roads plus the ground level road. With a billion people, China has to do things on a scale the world has never before seen.

After a few days we escaped from Shanghai, and went to Suzhou for a day, and then on to Nanjing were we met up with some business friends of mine. We were treated very well, and had a good time. Here's me and “Magic” enjoying a dinner and beer.

And by the way – the fish we had that evening was absolutely the best tasting I've ever had in my life. It was soooooo good!

We sort of made Shanghai a base and returned there after Nanjing (and almost missing our train – made it by a hair). We saw Claire again and then headed off to Xi'An to see the terra cotta warriors. But we got distracted first with a visit out of town to see some Panda bears!

They even had some six month old babies, but we weren't allowed to photograph them. They were so funny – they looked just like a bunch of little kids running around in bear costumes. Very cute.

But then it was time for the main event of Xi'An – the terra cotta warriors:

This was an army of some 8,000 clay warriors commissioned by the first emperor of China (Qin Shi Huang) in 210 B.C. to protect him in his afterlife. Each soldier is unique in terms of armor, weapons, facial features, etc. He even had 130 chariots and 150 clay calvary horses in his terra cotta army.

The city of Xi'An had more to offer than the panda bears and warriors, though. It is also home to a large Chinese muslim population, so we walked through the muslim quarter, including a tour through a Chinese mosque. It was neat to see the Chinese and Arabic fusion...

It turns out that our friend Magic happened to be in Xi'An for business while we were there, so we met up with him again for a great dinner.

Still in Xi'An was the Big Goose Pagoda. I was surprised to see how extensive this facility was – including the dominating pagoda in the center. But most of all, I was impressed by the vast amount of white marble that everything was made of. Here's a dragon relief carved into a white marble stair case...

The whole place seemed to have been built with this gorgeous white marble.

We didn't know it at the time, but instead of visiting this pagoda we really should have been at the train station standing in the queue for our train back to Shanghai. We had never departed from the Xi'An train station before, so how were we to know that you need to arrive like 60 hours ahead of time to make your train. So in true Chinese style, we pushed and shoved our way to the front of the queue, presented our tickets and sprinted to our train and with just minutes to spare. Phew!

One curious thing was saw was this sight....

a basket full of kittens and colored baby chickens.

Anyway, we were back in Shanghai for another weekend with Claire (sick of us yet, Claire?) before heading off to Beijing – our final destination in China. And guess what? We made our flight without running this time! And another coincidence – Magic was also in Beijing while we were there so we met up with him for a third time.

In Beijing we went to visit the main site of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, and of course saw those iconic buildings the Bird's Nest stadium, and the Water Cube...

But the real gem of Beijing is the Forbidden City set right in the center of town. It is a huge palace grounds that for centuries housed the ruling elite. Nobody except the nobles were allowed to even enter through its outer gates. Inside were many reception halls, residences, gardens, etc.

As you might expect, there were many ornate details, such as these gold covered lion statues...

Some of you who have been reading my blog since day 1 may remember a picture I took a long time ago of typical third world electrical wiring practices. You know – that tangled spider web of electrical wires spun around a pole. Well, in China I finally saw one of these artisans at work. This is how it's done, apparently:

Although not as famous as the Forbidden City, Beijing also has the “houtongs” which are the small neighborhoods with little alley ways for roads and little ad-hoc brick houses huddled together. We walked through these a little, observing that many of them are now abandoned as they are purchased by property developers, and flattened to make way for more sky scrapers.

Here's a derelict houtong home that's probably worth over a million dollars just for its property value near central Beijing:

As we explored more of Beijing we came across a night market specializing in all sorts of street food. This one stall served the most peculiar items from centipede, to sheep's penis, to water beetles.

Last but not least was an excursion out of Beijing to see the Great Wall of China. We opted to avoid the Badaling section which is nearest the city, and instead ventured a little further to the Jinshanling and Simatai areas. We walked about 10 km (mostly up and down) and were really impressed with the magnitude of this enormous structure. The wall is so wide that the Chinese army could easily have three horses marching abreast, and it is often as much as 10 meters high!

And that was it; our time in China – indeed in Asia – had come to an end. And yes – we did make it to the airport well in time for our flight to New York. But ask us how we did when trying to fly out of New York (we're in Brazil right now).

Japan (finally)

Our flight to Japan landed in Tokyo, so that's where we spent our first few days. We tried to continue with more couch surfing, but believe it or not, in a city of 30 million people we couldn't find someone to take us for the dates we needed, so we booked into a hostel. Tokyo might be big, but it's a small world - what are the odds that on our second night Amanda's friend Luke from the school she studied at while in Germany showed up at our hostel with his friend Nathaniel.



There are 30 million people in Tokyo, and almost a million things to do. For example, walking distance from our hostel is a famous Shinto shrine...




We also visited the very cool Sony building.



This is where they unveil their latest products and we saw some pretty cool things – including their 3D televisions. I even played a 3D PlayStation game on a 3D TV. It was very cool, and if I was 13 years old again it would have been the best thing ever. Understandably, you're not allowed to take photos inside the building.

After all this sight seeing a guy can get hungry, so we opted for some Japanese fast food. This franchise is called Mo's Burger. What makes them unique is the hamburger “bun” is actually made of sticky rice in the shape of bun...



And speaking of fast food and such, how about these...



I don't even know what flavor that's supposed to simulate. What does the Grand Canyon taste like, exactly? I wasn't brave enough to try them. And speaking of brave, who among you would dare to try the intimidating Japanese toilet? Sooner or later you are going to have to use it...



I don't think the toilet on the space shuttle is this sophisticated. Take a look at the toilet control panel



Houston, we have a problem....

Anyway, we also met another friend in Tokyo...



This is Akira, who we met in while in Dahab, Egypt.

We went out for dinner with him a few times, and he showed us some great local spots. Such as a “stand up” restaurant. To pack more people in they don't put out chairs. It's kind of like eating at a stand up bar. He also took us to a restaurant that saves money by having no waitresses. Instead you put money into a vending machine and push buttons for the items you want. For each selection a ticket is produced which you had to the kitchen staff (just as a waitress would do). So here's what a digital waitress looks like:




With so many people, it should be no surprise that Tokyo is also home to the world's busiest intersection. The traffic lights even have a sequence for pedestrians to rule the intersection (no cars for 60 seconds). They call this doing the “Shibuya shuffle”.




One thing I was very much looking forward to in visiting Japan was the food. I love Japanese food – probably more than any other type. And I was not disappointed. Number one on the list is sushi (maki, sashimi, shusi, it's all good). Here's something that some of you may not have seen before – it's a restaurant with a sushi train...



You don't pick items off a menu and make an order. Instead Sushi chefs prepare small plates (usually two pieces) and put them on a moving track that circles around the restaurant. If you see a plate coming by that looks delicious to you, pick it up and it's yours. When you're done a waitress will count how many plates you have and different color plates have a different price code.



This was what our pile looked like after one particularly delicious evening. I'd like to say most of those plates belong to Amanda ;-)

And you probably think sushi is raw fish – but sometimes it is cooked. Here's a chef “cooking” a piece to get just the right taste



Yup – those are two hand held propane bottles he's using. Not exactly haute cuisine, but what do I know?

And who could resist a little sake with that? The sake shops are as plentiful as the selection...



Continuing in Tokyo we went to an eight story toy store. I had some fun playing on the race car track. And this was no kids game – it seemed to be adults only playing the track. And these guys take it seriously, and they're good. I kept spinning out, but they could drive their cars perfectly. Here's me giving it a go...



Later that night we went to see that icon of Japanese film – the statue of Godzilla. It was kind of funny actually, in that it took us quite a while to find it. I had assumed that any statue to a giant fire breathing dinosaur would be gigantic. We must have walked past it four times before I finally spotted this diminutive replica.



We made a visit to Tokyo's famous fashion district where on Sundays the teens like to dress up in their most audacious “fashions” and parade around for the photographers who show up for the spectacle.



Before catching an early morning train south, we went to the very early fish auction in Tokyo. Every day about $15,000,000 USD of fish (the daily catch) is sold auction style. That was pretty fun to watch.







And then we jumped on a plane – no it was a train – a really fast train. Japan's “shinkansen” or bullet train. We took this train south



And once again our world trip took on a more sombre note as we traveled to Nagasaki to see, first hand, one of the cities to be hit by a nuclear weapon. That was at 11:02 am on August 9, 1945, and this is the exact spot where it happened – the hypocenter:



Well, actually, the bomb, named “Fat Man”, was detonated about 600 m above this spot, in order to achieve maximum blast damage. And in that regard it was an absolute success – but I would think of this as one of mankind's greatest failures. This is what it did to Nagasaki on that day...







Following the initial effects of the pressure blast and heat wave, any survivors received a huge dose of radiation and within a week their hair and teeth started to fall out and before long they developed many types of cancer and died slowly and painfully.

Here is what Fat Man looked like (cut away view)



and those were the effects from just 2% of its 16 kg of plutonium going critical. Imagine just 2% of 16 kg - do that math – that's just 320 grams! And this was one of the world's first nuclear weapons. Following this, the H-bomb was developed which is intrinsically about 2,500 times more powerful. In other words, it would have taken just 0.1 grams of H-bomb fuel going critical to cause this same destruction.

At the museum we learned that while only two nuclear weapons have ever been detonated in war, there have been well over 2,000 experimental detonations to improve upon the weapon's technology. How much is enough???

With that darker side of Japan's history seen, we could once again focus on more enjoyable things. So we went a little further to the town of Oita and met up with friends we'd met in Edmonton some years ago – Katsunari, Yumi, and their family (Shinji, and Yume).



After three days enjoying time with the family we went to Osaka. Its most famous site is the Osaka castle – site of a major civil war in 1650.



Japan's cultural center, Kyoto, was our next destination where we saw Japan's ichi ban (number one) tourist attraction, the golden temple



What else is Kyoto famous for? More temples. There were millions of them.




But we were also fortunate enough to be visiting a temple on a Saturday when a very brief (like five minutes) wedding ceremony took place right before our eyes. I got lucky with this great shot of the new couple...




Finding our way around was not problem – sometimes the street names are even written in English, so you can just say the street name to someone when asking directions...




Don't be intimidated – it is pronounced just like it's spelled! So armed with that and the easy to navigate Tokyo metro network, it was no sweat getting around:



Japan has some other interesting traits – some of which arise from the crowded cities where space is valuable. In some cases your space is too small...



Or maybe his car is just too big. Either way, it doesn't quite fit.

Our next flight departed from Tokyo, so we returned there for our final few days. En route we passed Mt. Fuji. That was cool to see.



We tried a sleep in one of the many “capsule” hotels. This is a hotel very much like a vending machine. You put your money (about 30 CAD) into a machine and it prints out a ticket and you get a key with a capsule number. There you will find a room with rows and stacks of things like coffins. One coffin (or capsule) per person. It's definitely long enough and is high enough to sit up in. Each capsule has a TV on the ceiling, some lights and a radio and a clock. The bathrooms are at the end of the hall. Males and females are separated onto different floors of the hotel.



Among the last things we did was visit Tokyo's Imperial Palace, which is situated in a giant park right in the center of Tokyo.




They say that at the height of Japan's real estate bubble (the late 1980's) the value of this park's land would have been more expensive than all of California combined!

And that was it – sadly our time in Japan had come to an end. We even had to sacrifice our plans to visit Korea because Japan just had too much to see.