Taiwan

Pretty much this whole trip I have been looking forward to seeing Sven again and meeting his new wife Chen-yu.  It has been almost 10 years since I last saw him.  Well he is now married to a beautiful and now pregnant Taiwanese woman who he met in Germany 8 years ago where they both live.  The two of them make great couple who complement each other well.  Sven is very thorough and takes his sweet time while Chen-yu is definitely a total type A personality who is on the go wanting things to have happened 10 minutes ago.   We have had a lot of fun together so far and I am really looking forward to the celebration that her family has planned for them. 

Sven is vegetarian and Chen-yu not, so the two of us are always eating and she is introducing me to the many new foods here in Taiwan.  For such a little thing, she eats as much or more than me, which is amazing.  We were at this one restaurant yesterday, Chen-yu and I had finished our plates (Sven not, still picking), and Chen-yu leaned back in her seat to give her belly some room, and the waitress’s eye caught her stomach (4 months pregnant), and you could see this puzzled look come over her face as Chen-yu talked about how full she was.  Probably should have been there to see it, but you get the picture. 

Himeji and Nara

I saw some of the best sights that I have seen to date. Himeji nicknamed the white egret, is the oldest and largest castle that remains in Japan. This thing was beautiful, surrounded my a huge moat and incredibly ornate garden, this was for sure one of the best. Today and last night were definately “the Japan” that I was waiting for.

After Himeji, I went to the largest Buddist temple in Nara. Inside of it there are three Buddhas, the largest is about 50ft, 437 tons of bronze and 200 lbs of gold. It is called the cosmic buddha, and is one of the largest statues in the world. It was very impressive!!!

Nikko

I spent the past few days traveling from Nikko to Tokyo, then from Tokyo to Kyoto…….not fun. About 11 hours in trains, and several hours walking from Hostel to Hostel. Thanks to two japanese girls who decided to help me along the way I made it to Kyoto. I was sitting on one of the first trains that I caught out of Tokyo, it had stopped just outside of town, and everyone got off. I thought that I had gotten on the train to Kyoto and all that I needed to do was sit on the same train and wait out the 9 hour trip. So there I sat for a few minutes, knowing that something was not right but not knowing what to do next. So I got up, waked outside the train without my packs, and tried to desipher the train schedule on the poster. That didn’t work so I went back to my pack and sat down when two japanese girls came up to me, one plump and one skinny. When I say plump, I mean healthy, not american plump. There aren’t any fat japanese, not like in the US. I have been here for 9 days now and I have seen maybe 10 fat Japanese. The first ones that I say were in Nikko at this fancy european hotel that served a buffet american style. This girl Julie, a canadian that I kept running into, and myself on a journey to find food, found this place and tried to get in but we couldn’t without staying in the hotel. So ironically, this was my first encounter with a fat japanese family. The whole family!!! I have seen a few sumo wrestling looking young boys but they still aren’t obese, only healthly plump. That’s why the life expectancy here is 85 years old.

Onsen

I decided to leave the busy metropolitis of Tokyo and head for the hills. You see, I heard that I could find hot springs out there in them hills, so I went a look’n………. Well, I didn’t have to look very hard because….., Japan is a volcanious island, duh…. and there are hot spring (onsen) all over the place, the trick was and still is, finding the best ones. In some of the towns, nearly every hotel has a hot spring bath house where you pay x amout of yen, to sit in these man made baths. Some are indoors, some are outdoors, some are really small (two to three persons), some are very large. Some don’t have any smell, others stink to high heaven. Some are heated and some are natural. So the hard part is trying to get around in a land of symbols, that I cannot read at all, and or names that I forget two seconds after I read them. And the farther away from Tokyo, and the farther out of the tourist meccas, the more difficult. I just left a town where I finally just gave up because I ended up taking the wrong train back to where I had just come from, turning back, grabbing yet another wrong train, landing in this small town where I was definetely the only foriegner, communication was impossible, and absolutely nothing on any information sign was understandable. I ended up walking from one side of the town to the other trying to find an english speaker and a place to stay. I never did, but I did however find the best hot springs (onsen) yet, which was great, and took a very long soak.

Japan

I got here yesterday……what a long flight!!!  So far, Japan has shown itself to be very hospitable and easy to get around.  The weather has been great, its sunny and about 65 degrees.  I of course am very jet lagged, woke up this morning at 4, got up and walked to this beautiful temple about a mile from here where I waited for the sun to come up.  It was beautiful and warm, the sun, which I really liked…I was very cold. Things here are very structured and everything has its place.  I am sure that there are very specific social rules that I am not yet aware of.  I am such a people watcher that I find it real hard not to look at everyone I pass.  but I am starting to figure out that this is not acceptable, neither is smiling and saying hello.  Just keep to yourself, which is also nice and simple.  As I wondered about, in and out of the different shrines and temples, standing in the middle of this sandy spot, I noticed this old man angrily waving at me.  It took a few seconds to look around and realize that I was standing in the middle of one of those raked just so sandy patches.  OOOps…  I left perfect Nike tracks in and out of it…  I saw a rake near by and made the raking motion with my hands to the old man and he knodded so I walked over to the rake (which he could not see), picked it up and proceeded over to the spots where I defiled the sand.  Apparantly that was not the best thing to do because I got the same response from him as before but this time he shook his head and started yelling for me to ( which I gathered) stop and put the rake back.  OOps again….. I quickly left that part of the temple grounds.  I found this nice spot down by the river where I did my weird ass stretching for a few hours.  Got some funny looks from the locals.  Its so nice to be anonamous!!!  Who’s the white guy???……..  No one will ever know…