Osaka, Kyoto, nice weather, some stuff about Fashion

Opening this time’s post… PIZZA!!

 

We ate this in Osaka, in Shinsaibashi, for last weekend’s bachelorette party. This was between 3 people, a giant chicken, onion, pepper, mushroom, sauce pizza. Oh my GOD, it was fantastic.

Oh and the rest of Osaka was good too.

We ate Thai, Mexican, Pizza, danced until 2 am, and then  went to Spa World and soaked it all up.  Is there anything better than relaxing in an onsen? I THINK NOT! Robin and I also forked over the money to have all the dead skin scrubbed off our backs by old ladies. Smooth!

 

Back in Tokushima, I went out to coffee and had this.

It’s an azuki latte!

With some kind of special milk.

At the bottom were boiled azuki beans. Sweet!

By the way, this is day two of being on a diet, and I was already breaking it. HAHA! Some things are just not meant to be.

 

Cell phone charms! I bought the My Neighbor Totoro doll in Osaka. 5 cell phone straps is maybe a bit much, but I like all of them so much… I bought / was given them specifically, so I can’t choose which ones to take off.

Also in Osaka, I found a Totoro pencil board (which you use as a writing surface / to put between pages to stop pencil from transferring) and some finger puppets.

 

Home made pudding by my shamisen teacher. So delicious!

It was HORRIBLY hot that day, so I wore a yukata. Nice and breezy airflow! But… I had to walk to her house, which took ages.

On the way home, I was lured in by the KenTaco truck. 10 takoyaki for 500 yen! Fresh off the grill! I couldn’t believe it, it was so hot and humid, but the guy in the takoyaki truck was just going on over his grill like it was no problem. Tough!

They were real delicious. I went home and gobbled them up!

 

A sunny clear day in Tokushima.

 

A sunny clear day in… KYOTO!

 

Yesterday Cassie and I went to the Ten no ji (temple) market: a big mash of food tents, craft tents, and antique tents on the streets and grounds of Ten no ji. The bus to get there was packed, and so were the grounds.

We were there specifically in search of cheap kimono, which we found in abundance! In some tents they were nicely folded on tables or displayed in racks, but mostly, (in the really good tents) it was just a huge pile on a tarp, with Obaachans (grandmas) kneeling all around, tugging their precious finds away from grasping hands.

We did sharp-elbow battle with the Obaachans, and emerged victorious (and not that much poorer! Each kimono / obi went for about 1000 yen, haha!)

Cassie and her haul.

My haul (and purse. Note the two water bottles. It was hot and horrible and I was sick as a dog… and still am. Cough, hack)

I’m a little shamed by the lack of photos of this day, but really… it was too damn hot. And I felt too damn sick to care.

 

My haul, hanging up to get rid of the funny smell. I got 4 obi and 3 kimono (the extra yellow obi is just hanging up to get the wrinkles to relax)

 

This one is my favorite. Look at that ship! From my position on the tarp, I couldn’t reach it, so I was shouting at Cassie “Get the pink one! No, the other pink. To your left. More left! More left! THAT ONE!!”

It has a few unsavory spots, but I think I can clean them out well. THAT SHIP! It’s such a nice pale pink, too.

 

This was a lucky find at the end. We found kimono that we wanted first at other stalls, then rifled through to find obi that would match. This photo is not so good, in real life it’s much richer. The background is actually a very deep pumpkin color. Also, my skin is not that white.

 

Bought to go with a black komon (small pattern) and another weird purple kimono that I bought. Originally I wasn’t too wild about the kimono because finding an obi was a right pain the butt… the patterns were too small and weird. BUT this one suits, I think. It’s bizarro enough.

When we were picking stuff out, I was trying hard, and these ladies behind me were giving suggestions… and comments. We couldn’t figure out some of the words though. “Oh, that obi is too _____ for that kimono. Ah, but she’s a foreigner, it doesn’t matter”.

I know obi and kimono should match in range of quality (one can’t be fancier than the other, or out of the acceptable range) and complimentary color, and material, and season… but I don’t know all the words for it! So obviously the orange one is SLIGHTLY wrong for the blue kimono, but you know what…. like she said, I’m a foreigner. I wear these because I like them, not because I want to be perfectly Japanese (or Japanese at all… I just want to wear clothes I like!)

 

It’s a funny thing, deciding how to break the rules of a strict fashion.

Obviously, I don’t know all the rules of kimono (and probably never will). So I can’t really say I know the rules ENOUGH to break them. But I’m a foreigner… is breaking small rules acceptable, or ridiculous?

There is also the thing of wearing them outside Japan. I really like to wear them. I like how they feel. But you get that look, “You’re trying too hard. You wish you were Japanese. You’re showing off. You’re being an idiot. You’re appropriating a culture that isn’t yours.”

Sometimes the statement my clothes makes is “I like how this looks and feels. I am happy wearing it, so I wear it.”

 

Also in Osaka, I bought two Lolita skirts (clicky the link if you like… it’s not western lolita, just a name appropriated for a type of fashion). They are knee length, poofy, and very colorful. There is no way that lolita fashion will ever be my fashion (it’s too expensive). Nor do I identify myself as “a lolita”. But damn it, I’ve never worn a skirt that felt so good. And I love the look.

So…

I guess, I love fashion, and wearing a mix of things, but I hate having to think about how it would be analyzed or perceived. I hate having to justify a choice in my mind, rather than just choosing and happily walking out the door.

So probably I’ll have to live in a cabin in the wilderness where nobody cares. HA! Or SF, NY (eh..) or similar.

 

Ok, whining over.

 

Look at those colors! Aren’t they great?? ARGH I love them so much! I also bought a maroon obi, that you can barely see in the first photo, to go with this blue kimono.

Definitely didn’t expect to love this kimono so much, but the more I look at it, the more I want to pair it with different colors and decorations!

It’s Golden Week now, that long period of total nothin’ to do.

I’ll go to Korea on Wednesday, and yesterday I went to Takarazuka! We saw “Nova Bossa Nova”, a silly story about two criminals stealing a necklace from a girl and from eachother, and of course falling in love, during Carnival.

It was followed by an even sillier story about a guy who has to marry some girl to get money, but he isn’t so sure, so he and his manservent swap places, meanwhile the girl swaps with her serving maid, and the other suitors are variously delusional/in the wrong place/in love with someone else, and in the end everyone gets married.

On the bus (it was a tour arranged by a lady my friend works with) we played Jan Ken games (rock paper scissors) to win prizes. The first round, we all got a prize in order of losing (I stayed till the second to last round, and got a nice Takarazuka note pad). The next game was serious business: reverse Jan ken (so the losers stayed in the game instead of the winners) in order to win a pair of tickets to see “How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying”.

I was planning on seeing that show with my JTE, because it’s at a good time (in June) and it’s being performed by my favorite troupe (Star Troupe). But because I’m really good at Jan ken, I won and fell out immediately.

BUT! My friend sitting next to me kept losing. And losing. Finally, she was the last loser, so she won the tickets! She played even though she couldn’t go that weekend, and gave me the tickets. LUCKY IS THAT??? What a nice friend ♥♥♥

Anyway, it’s good that I keep photos on my camera, because I would have forgotten everything I did by now without them.

Hanami happened!

I also got tuned into a good trilogy (currently only 2 books out) by Patrick Rothfuss, the second one shown here. The first one is called “The Name of the Wind”. Go check it out!

Hunting for wee little electric eels started. Photo taken from the bridge over the Yoshinogawa on my way to see a movie.

They built a parking lot next to my apartment, and when the finished, all the builders and owner had a parking lot blessing ceremony.

You can see the offerings of beer, bananas, cabbage, oranges, and what may be seaweed (in the green package, I’m not exactly sure). Awesome!

I went to Kochi with my old supervisor. I guess this is famous bridge in Kochi city? It was in a nice garden patch of the city.

We went in order to see my school’s traditional music club perform with Kochi city kids. A nice concert/day trip.

I ate this cake. It’s from the fancy hotel near the station. Amazing.

It was a nice day last weekend, so I walked up to the Yoshinogawa.

sideways and it stays.

A koi nobori (carp streamer) cookie for Children’s Day (5/5)

My bento from Takarazuka. Delicious! I love the little umeboshi (pickled plum) rice flower.

My favorite part. Sweet mushroom, carrot flower, and seaweed bundle!! SO GOOD. The brown bundle was bean cake with beans and carrot in the middle, it wasn’t so good. But the rest was delicious!

Rose wagashi bought on the way back to the bus. The inside bean paste had a weird flavor and funny little fruit/rose chunks. BLAH. I should have gone for the wisteria one.

We made it from Awaji Island all the way to Naruto, then had to turn around and go back because one of the ladies forgot her purse at the rest stop. When we came BACK along Awaji, across the bridge to Shikoku, we found that a big cloud had parked itself on the sea! It was really incredible. Apparently it caused a lot of airport problems. Even driving on the land bits, we couldn’t see well.

A grove of trees I saw today on a long bike ride.

Battle of the fruit beers.

My favorite snack these days: soft dried squid strips. SO GOOD.

My swag from Takarazuka! I bought 3 photos, two from Nova Bossa Nova, and one from Officer and a Gentleman. These are the official posters for the Star Troupe shows I’ve seen; L to R Romeo & Juliet, Nova Bossa Nova, Officer and a Gentleman.  VIVA!

Matsuyama in Spring

Matsuyama! Dianne and I went for a day trip out to the other coast of Shikoku, in order to soak up the sights and relax a bit.

3 hours on the bus, and we were there!!

 

We walked around a sassy shopping arcade in order to get from the station out to Matsuyama Castle (instead of taking the old fashioned tram). Heigh-ho, awesome coin banks!

 

Hungry, we went to get Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki for lunch. Check out that okonomiyaki! We each got a lunch set, which was butter-fried oyster (Oh my god, YUM), a big okonomiyaki, a beer, and a momiji manju (maple leaf shaped batter cake with sweet bean paste) and scoop of ice cream.

DAMN. It was a TON of food, it took us over an hour to get through everything. We passed the time by chatting and making up really crap haiku.

YUM! Inside was meat, squid, shrimp… noodles, egg, cabbage, onion… sauce… oh man, I want to eat another one, just thinking about it.

Chinchikurin Okonomiyaki shop. GREAT STUFF!!

 

School gate. No pressure, kids!

 

 

We were forced to admit our complete ignorance of Matsuyama’s history and famous personages, but we still posed with their giant wooden cut-outs.

 

 

Riding up to the castle!

 

“I talk to you and my heart smiles”

This was written in a lot of places. Why? I don’t know. But it’s nice.

Hey, it’s cherry blossoms!

I liked this Castle a lot. It was on par with Okayama for outside beauty, and it was much more interesting inside. Probably my favorite castle so far in Japan!

 

 

In case of fire…

 

Old fashioned fancy train! You have to buy a special ticket, it only goes from the Central station out to the famous Dogo Onsen.

 

Yeaaaah shark? Outside a small eatery.

 

Bundled up? It was a warm day, but I like how stuff gets dressed up all the time.

 

Here’s a nice proper picture of the castle. Foolishly I didn’t go into the post office and get an official postcard, but I will someday… Because Matsuyama is nice, and I’d like to go again!

 

Yup, Matsuyama! Good for castles and also onsen!

 

We did Dogo Onsen, we did the second level of fanciness (with one being the basic bath, and four being… the top one, I guess). Second level gets you into the second floor, where you get a yukata to wear after your bath, and also some tea and a snack, and you sit on the floor in a communal tatami room and you can look outside and watch the people walking along.

Very nice value. Very nice bath, but it was much too hot for me. I like onsen where you can go outside the best.

Spring time

It’s spring! ♡

 

Believe me, the worst part about spring is that everything is wonderful, and that makes me really sad about leaving Japan.

 

“I wish I hadn’t said no!”, I cried today. “Do over! Do over!”

 

 

Today, I went up to Naruto to watch my school’s baseball team play. The sun was shining, the birds were tweeting, there was baseball, I had a friend. All was well with the world. Also, I was skiving off of work because it was spring break and I can do stuff like that.

 

Spring makes me forget that the whole year isn’t like this, and it highlights only the good things.♥

 

Ah well.

 

I am sad about leaving already.

 

 

Yesterday I went to Takarazuka to see バラの国の王子, The Prince in the Land of Roses. AKA, Beauty & The Beast.

 

It was ok. Actually, no, I didn’t like it.

 

They hit all the plot points (father, sisters, beast, evil queen, magic mirror, roses, father ill, magic ring, Belle saves the Beast THE END). But it was only a half show, 90 minutes long. None of the characters were particularly engaging or interesting.

When the Beast told Belle he loved her but she was all “I don’t know my own heart, and I have to go home to my sick dad”, and he gives her the magic ring anyway, the entire theater went “BOO HOO HOO!” en masse. So that was good.

But I just couldn’t get into it.

 

So that was a little disappointing.

 

I’ll go back again before I go home though.

BECAUSE I LOVE TAKARAZUKA.

 

 

Hoom, anyway, on my way back to the station I walked along the Flower Road, which is this gorgeous path between the station and the Takarazuka Theater.

Six actresses were set up with donation boxes for the earthquake. The ladies could queue up behind a velvet rope and approach one at a time, then everyone would bow, and people were taking zillions of photos, very exciting indeed.

On the flower road.

There were tons of older people setting up shop and painting the view. This guy was pretty good, but I was rushing for a train, so it’s only a snapshot.

Back in Tokushima, I rode the train out into the west.

For my first proper meal of the day.

 

Ise Shrine

Ise Shrine is a very holy shinto shrine. We set off on a 5-hour bus trip to see it.

It is so holy, that we’re not allowed actually to see it.

It has some nice landscape though.

In the rain

Dianne and Joanna examine a gate in one of the parks.

And the town is nice as well.
Apparently it is famous for lucky waving cats!

Cucumbers!

Some city scenes. It was very old fashioned and nice.

Cuttlefish!!

Takamatsu

I had kind of a bad time recently, feeling blue and restless.

Because tickets are cheap if you buy in advance, I took a day trip down to Takamatsu, in Kagawa prefecture. Takamatsu is one of the bigger (biggest?) metro areas on Shikoku, and the launch point for Honshu by train. It takes about an hour by express train from Tokushima.

I hit town around 10 in the morning, and hopped to it. There are several railways and bus routes, to make travel in the city very easy. You can also rent a bike for 24 hours (including overnight) for 100 yen, but for some reason… I just wasn’t feeling it. It’s stupid, because biking is the easiest, fastest way to go, but I just wasn’t in the mood.

At first, I rode a separate trainline south, then walked about 15 minutes to You Me Town, which is just a big mall. Shopping malls are definitely pretty blah, but this one (wait for it) has the only LUSH shop on Shikoku. It’s so horrible, I know, but I thought it’s be alright to just do whatever I wanted. That’s what solo holidays are for, right?

I got two new massage bars, a sample soap, and a shower scrub. HOORAY!

Unfortunately, this was the first thing I did, so I had to tote my loot around all day and worry about it melting in the heat.

I caught a loop bus (the loop bus is the best because it’s a flat price) to Ritsurin Garden, which is famous for being huge and beautiful and old. I don’t ask for much in my gardens, and this one delivered. Despite being right in the city, once you started walking towards the mountain it got very quiet and peaceful. Unless you happened upon a tour group with a lady shouting into a megaphone while 15 ladies with umbrellas block the footpath. LAME.

Also there were two young men who were walking behind me, and trying to figure out how to ask me to take a picture of them/with them. I CAN HEAR YOU, YOU KNOW. Sheesh. I don’t mind stuff like that, but sometimes you just want a break. I wanted them to just do it already so we could both move on with our lives (Ok, one of them was kind of cute so that was alright… but COME ON)

(it was one of those days. I was frustrated with the world)

Basically… all my photos are from the garden because that was the only vaguely photogenic thing I did! Hooray!

Outside the garden

Garden Scenes

Lovely!

Handy Map

Algae!

Traditional shop selling tradition soft-serve ice cream. No Japanese garden is complete without one:

BANZAI!

Map of greater Takamatsu area:

I stopped under a lovely red umbrella and ate…

Yum!

Posing!

The rest of Takamatsu was alright.

I caught a bus back to the station and walked around a bit, eating a salmon and onion and cream cheese bagle sandwich on a tomato bagle (Takamatsu has the best bagle shop ever). I wandered the pier a little bit (much nicer access to the water than Tokushima)

What, it’s becoming autumn already??

I guess so…

Weekend in Okayama & Hiroshima

Our next adventure took us to Okayama, the birthplace of Momotaro the Peach Boy. Born of a peach to an elderly couple, Momotaro had magical rice balls (kibidango) and magical animal friends (a dog, a pheasant, and… a monkey? I forget) and he fought demons and had adventures. James was here to collect pin badges, and I was here to collect stamps and annoy James.

You get around Okayama via a set of tram lines, which go “ding-ding” and clatter and rattle along and have that great olde-timey trolley feeling (apparently a trolley in Britain is a little cart you use for shopping, so James kept saying “tram” so I had to say “tram” so we could be talking about the same thing. But you know, a “pram” is a little cart you use for small children, so Tram for big people, Pram for small people. But “P” doesn’t sound like a “bigger” letter than “T”, I think… pronouncing them both, the “P” actually sounds more powerful. I think “pram” is short for “perambulator”, a “walking about with your baby machine”… what is “tram” short for?)

Anyway…

Okayama also has a lovely castle a short tram-ride from the main station. My first castle in Japan! Well, my first castle with more than one storey (Tokushima castle is a museum, and only has one storey so it doesn’t count). Inside Okayama castle, it was also a museum, which was a little boring, but you could go all the way to the top and see the lovely view of the famous giant garden and surrounding moat.

From on high we also spotted these swan boats. More on that later…

After stepping from the nice air-conditioned castle into the roasting heat and entered the garden. It was massive. Absolutely gigantic. And the extensive grass you weren’t supposed to walk on was immaculately trimmed. It must have taken a small army to do the upkeep.

We wandered for ages. They had little wooded walks, giant lily pad grotto, lovely lily flower pond, and a sort of out-cropping rocky hill like the fake romantic wild areas that British people used to make on their properties in the 1700s (1800s? What do you call those things anyway? Not hermitages, but something else…). There were lovely places to buy a shaved ice and relax on a shady bench, and lots of small old-fashioned buildings. It was the kind of place where the aristocracy strolled (and currently, wedding photos are taken).

The best part was behind the rocky hill: a foot-bathing stream!

Under an open roof ran a stream, with wooden platforms on either side. Leaving our shoes out on the pavement, we splashed in the shade.

Let’s return to those swan boats.

After getting all nice and relaxed, we went and rented a swan boat. The old man at the boat shack told us not to go in a certain part of the river because the current was strong. Then he drew a chalk map, which was two slightly curved lines which had no relation to the actual river whatsoever. Trusting to fate, we hopped in a boat. James took the wheel and I took the swan butt.

Paddling a swan boat is about a zillion times more work than those stupid swans make it seem like. I recall seeing a video once where they had a camera under the water and you could see a duck’s feet trucking along as fast as could be while above the water, the duck is just sitting there looking serene.

And yes, the current was strong. We paddled and paddled and James steered us around quite perfectly. Oh, and our swan had a little bowtie.

Here is an amusing post box.

We rode the tram out to our hotel, which was quite nice for a business hotel. James will attest that I forced him into some guide-book restaurant. This is true, however, it came after me thumbing through everything in the local eatery guide and him shooting down everything that came up (How can you say no to a Magic Bar? HOW? HOW??) and me getting very hungry and time getting late and both of us getting a bit grouchy. I was forcing us to eat at all.

I’m just kidding. We STARTED the trip being rather grouchy, or at least I did, and I don’t think that made James very happy either but it never (quite) came to shouting.

Anyway, we ate in this Italian (?) fusion-y type place (fused with what, it was hard to tell). I had a pizza and a Kir (because I read about it in my book about French people), and it was a nice restaurant and not far from the hotel and nice walk and exhausted sleep The End.

The End of Okayama, that is…

The next day, we took the shinkansen (my first shinkansen ride!) to Hiroshima. It wasn’t the fastest version, but it was very speedy. We rode the Kodama, and it took an hour.

In Hiroshima, we rode their tram lines (more numerous and modern) to old baseball stadium and the Peace Park. I didn’t take any photos. Adrianne and I pretty much Peace-Parked ourselves out last year. I was still touched – it’s very difficult not to be touched by the Dome – so I just admired with my eyes and my memory.

To be perfectly honest, this is the part of the trip where I complained the most. It was very hot, and my bag was at that awful just-heavy-enough to make you hate carrying it, just-heavy-enough that the extra weight makes you very unhappy, but NOT-heavy-enough that you have any excuse to complain excessively about it. Like I did.

Like I did until James took my bag by force. Possibly to be a gentleman. More likely to make me shut up.

I let him have it up to Hiroshima castle (across the road, a block, another road, and a medium-sized park) and then happily checked it with the castle attendant. Hiroshima castle was also lovely, also a museum, and also air-conditioned. And a good portion of the signs had English versions, so it was interesting as well.

After Hiroshima castle, we rode the tram down to Miyajima port. MISTAKE. Should have taken the train, it would have been at least 4 times faster. Miyajima had our hostel, where we dropped our gear, and a ferry port, where we boarded for Miyajima (Ok, the ISLAND is called Miyajima, and I’m sure the mainland place has an equally nice name, but really… Miyajima port, and Miyajima (island)).

Anyway, we went to Miyajima by ferry, and admired the Tori gate in the water and the lovely back market road. At one of the only non-fish establishments, we got nikuman (steamed pork bun) :

and ate them as best we could… being that there were hungry deer about. I don’t know why deer would want to eat meat, but they sure as heck tried to eat mine.

Like I wrote last time I went to Miyajima, the deer make me horribly sad and I want to give them all lots of food and hugs but that wouldn’t solve the problem.

We bathed our feet in another stream and tried to finish our pork buns unmolested. Ha! Ha! Yeah right!

You can’t see it because I am busy being silly instead of taking proper story-telling photos, but there is a deer lurking around on the other side of the stream.

More Miyajima, at sun set…

That night, we rode the train and tram (and walked a lot, because our directions were not so good) to a movie theater to see Inception. Did you like Inception? I did. I like the bit where gravity goes all wonky in the hotel. Fantastic image.

The next day…

We went back to Miyajima! To climb the mountain. What is it with mountains in Japan? Oh well…

In the sweltering heat, we took a bus then cable car then another cable car up to a nice summit. Then we walked DOWN a few hundred meters, then up a few MORE hundred meters to a higher summit. (the proper summit). It was very nice. Lots of giant rocks and a beautiful view.

Many people climbing; monks, children, old people, girls in wildly inappropriate shoes. There were rumors of monkeys, but no monkeys appeared to steal our stuff.

No snakes either.

Noted.

We took the speediest shinkansen back to Okayama (only 30-odd minutes!!), then a local train to a lovely smaller town with a preserved “old” part of town (1800s?). We could only enjoy it for 15 minutes or so before trucking back to the train station to catch our train to catch our bus to Tokushima. But a glimpse was pleasant enough.

Riding Bikes

I’m watching a show on TV right now that’s focusing on a family that travels around to get water from various places in Japan. The dad is super obsessed with water, and has tons of bottles in his house, and takes his family on long trips to get water from different springs and taps and waterfalls, where he sips the water and pats it into his face. All the while, his wife is in the background, holding a bottle/the children’s shoes/the children, and looking long-suffering. Every time they go to a place, the dad will say something insane, like “Here are more bottles, and we are going to another spring by bus!” and the wife will go “Eeeehhh~, can the car carry that much water?!”

Then they cooked a meal with the water, which took ages, while the kids were in the background shouting that they were hungry (at 9 pm). Then they all ate dinner and the perky TV host went “Uwaaa!!! OISHIII!!!!” which is the reaction they always have whenever they put anything in their mouths. There is not much that I hate on Japanese TV, but food shows always get a frowny face in my book, unless the people tasting the food are super insane. Oh Japan.

Here are some photos from lately!

You know him, maybe. I’ve been hanging out with James a lot. He is often thinking and sleeping these days. I imagine he can do both at once!

James took me to Osaka last weekend. Can you see in the building? There is a poster…

We saw Wicked!!!

Of course, you knew that already.

But let me say again how great it was!!

After school the other day, we met up in the park and went out for soft cream ice cream. Delicious! soft cream is like soft serve. They make it by taking a pack of ice cream and shoving it through a machine that softens it and makes it into a swirly shape. I wasn’t so impressed by this particular shop, but it was a nice day and I’m not complaining.

Today, James finally gave in to my near-constant shouting “Hey hey hey let’s ride bikes!” and we rode our bikes out to the mouth of the Yoshinogawa, and sat with our thoughts, watching the water.

It was a good day to be out in the sun and wind.

Jinshanling & Simatai – The Great Wall

After our amazing night at the acrobatic show, we booked ourselves into going to the Great Wall the next day, despite doom-and-gloom predictions of rain. 4 of us elected to hike the 10 kilometers from Jinshanling to Simatai, while our 5th (who has some upper respiratory difficulty) went to a different portion of the wall, with no hiking involved. We felt a little bad to leave her behind, but our hearts were pretty set on hiking.

I’d like to say right now that my photos do not capture how fantastic the Wall is when you’re standing on it. It’s difficult to describe. But I’ll do my best. It’s hard to know where I should be starting with all this.

Well, here is the beginning of the Wall. We jumped in on the Jinshanling section maybe… hmm, a half, or 2/3 of the way to the Simitai section. This is a restored section, a short hike up the mountain, and was easy rambling over the hills. We trucked along, feeling like we were walking on history, admiring the views, fending off local people trying to sell us various tourist stuff. The local folks were interesting. They were very nice and spoke very good English and would follow you — not always harassing you, but just following — until you got up the gumption to say “stop following me”. Then they would be gone. (I did buy a t-shirt though that said “I climbed the Great Wall”. Sure I could have got one at a market, but why not buy it ON the Wall??)

Climbing along…

Our easy ramble didn’t last very long, because the terrain changed into this:

The unrestored section. I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking at this point, and save my philosophizing for the end. (Pictures do not necessarily go in proper order, because they were taken by many people and are all jumbled up)

James’ title for this was “All Along the Watchtower”. I wanted a video of someone singing that song, but it never happened.

I tried to film things, but it was hard when scrambling over rocks.

In pink is Terrina, the happiest Canadian on God’s Green Earth. She is a tough lady with never a cross word for anyone.

In brown is Natasha, another Canadian.

Sometimes we said To Hell with the proper stairs, I’m going to climb across this crumbling wall if it will save me another vertical climb.

But there were Wall Trolls, so you had to be careful about falling.

Our hiking gang: Terrina, James, Natasha, and me.

At the end, we walked across a suspension bridge. The Wall on the other side of the bridge was horrifying. At least 7 towers worth of wall went straight up a mountain side from the low point in the river valley. Happily, we didn’t have to climb it.

…because we were going to ride a zip line down. Yeah, I don’t know why we’re posing next to the safety sign.

Zip! James and myself.

Afterward we ate a delicious Chinese lunch (I had fried noodles, chicken dish, some kind of potato, just-the-way-I-like-them salted cucumber, and rice. YUM. Then we could ride the bus for 2.5 hours back to Beijing. Hooray!

So… the Great Wall.

As we were walking along the early bit, James said to me, “Hey, I’m on that wall I’ve heard about my entire life”. And that’s kind of how the wall is. We’ve always known about it. It’s as natural a part of China as bamboo is. It’s almost an organic part of the landscape — especially in the area we hiked. I’ve seen photos of where trees and greenery had grown up in the walkways, but here, the landscape was more scrubby, arid. Mongolia to our left, China to our right. Bones of dead soldiers and builders under our feet.

It was a lonely place. We saw very few people, and it was easy to imagine how lonely it would be to patrol on your own. China is a really tough place.

Before I left, I bought a set of China stickers to put in my journal. The stickers were of things like pandas, lotus blossoms, peaches, delicate woodwork… the stuff of “Crouching Tiger”. But they forgot to put in my brown-landscape sticker, and my soviet hat sticker, and my crumbling-stones-of-history sticker. China is green, but it’s also red. I suppose it has to do with where you travel, and where you put your money. My God, did I put mine in the right place.

In the end, the views from the Great Wall were stunning, and worth everything in the world. For 3 hours, we could admire everything, hike, sweat, laugh, goof off, take fantastic photos, contemplate, remember, speculate, imagine. We talked about what it must have been like, and about the other Great Wonders of the World. Running down the path from the end of the line, I yelled “MORE CHALLENGES, WORLD!!” Exhausted, feeling like we could do anything.

So, what’s next, I guess is the real question.

Beijing & Forbidden City

We arrived in Beijing at night, riding the subway to our hostel (Happy Dragon Hostel) which was conveniently located near a subway stop. We walked along cobblestone streets past huge windowless buildings (built to impress) in order to find our hostel, next to a disco. My first impression was that nothing could go wrong with this trip.

You have to understand that the scene at the hostel upon our arrival was thus: We walked into a narrow front room that was lit with red lanterns. The room opened into another common room, where at a round Chinese table, a British man in waistcoat and shirtsleeves was conducting an English lesson with a young Chinese girl. Hello China.

We were then informed that our original plan of sharing a 4-person room and having our 5th person share a different room with strangers was no longer a go, because a 5-person room had just opened up. Lucky us! We took note of the posters for activities on the wall, booked ourselves into seeing an acrobatics show the next day, and retired to unpack and relax.

The wall leading to our room. Happy Dragon is a really relaxed and friendly place — 100% recommended by me!

The next day the fun began.

With a very rough map of the area, we headed towards the Forbidden City. Unfortunately, by the time we made it there, we found we were on the wrong end of it, so we had to walk all the way around. Rickshaw drivers shouted at us, telling us it was “Too far! Too far! Take a rickshaw!” but we pressed on. And pressed on. And pressed on. (The Forbidden City is huge, OK?)

This is how huge it is. Huge! This image is taken from a hill opposite the exit. We walked from this end all the way around.

When we got to the other end, we were a little confused, and walked in the main courtyard through a side door, thus completely missing the famous gate/Tiananmen Square, etc. Whoops. We bought our tickets and guidebooks, and headed in.

Walking in a straight line down the City looks like this:

You go through a gate, into an impressive courtyard with a famous building. Then you admire the building, walk around it, and head into another courtyard. The side bits of the city, however, looked like this:

or this:

(Garden at the very end of the City)

and occasionally this:

It was, to be perfectly honest, a little frustrating and confusing. You would walk and walk and walk, admiring all this architecture, but it had absolutely no context. There were signs telling you that it was the Palace of Heavenly Respite and three days a year there was a ceremony for the gods here, or what have you, but it was very difficult to imagine how life was like when the buildings were in use. What did the courtyards look like when people were going about their business? What did the side palaces and terraces look like? Here is the Emperor’s chamber, yes, but there is nothing in it but glasses cases with treasures. What was it like when the Emperor was there?

To be fair, most of the interior treasures and real objects were bundled off to Taipei, I am to understand. And to be fair, I had done no research on my questions. The fact remains, though, that while there were interesting stories about concubines who got drowned in wells, or Empresses who did this or that, it was very difficult to imagine them as real, or to place them within the walls of the City.

However. It was a lovely day, the buildings were photogenic, and there were enough side places to explore, so we had a very nice day and I do not regret the time spent there in the slightest. Everyone gets something different, which was interesting to see from our 5 sets of photos. One friend took loads of photos of the jewels and carvings on display, where as I took more photos of the buildings and the sky. Something for everyone, there.

We spent much time doing amusing poses next to historical things.

This is a famous 9-dragon screen. We are famous 3-dragon foreigners.

This was a lovely courtyard with lovely blue tables for tea-time.

“Oh… we are so very tired from all this walking around and looking at things”
“Come on, guys, let’s take a photo!!”
“Oh… really?”

It turned out to be one of our more amusing photos.

This is James, who took most of these photos. His camera is better than mine, frankly.

Upon exiting the city, we climbed up an opposite hill to even more temples, rented dress-up gear, and took these photos, to the amusement of the other tourists:

The title of this photo, according to my friend, is “James’ concubines”. Ha! He should be so lucky.

Sure, dressing up is a super touristy thing to do, but let’s face it… it was fun, and why not?

On our way back to the hostel, we looked at street food, but did not buy any. Why, do you ask? Well…

Much as I love cuttlefish…

…and boy!! Those giant grubs and grasshoppers and beetles and scorpions on a stick sure were tempting! But I had to say “No Thanks” to all of the above.

I don’t care how much natural protein is in them.

Our hostel took us to an acrobatics show. This is the only photo Terrina could take before the ushers scolded her. It was really amazing. I’m in awe of people that strong and that flexible! They were like ninjas!

To be continued…