sabbatical2017-blog

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Day 37: Happy birthday Joanna! Last day in China, our trip is coming to an end.

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Day 36: due to my very limited understanding of the Chinese language, I tend to misunderstand things in "creative" ways. Those familiar with the Chinese language will probably laugh at me. 1. I translated 美味 to "American flavor". It actually means "tasty" or "beautiful taste" 2. I misunderstood “自駕” as “自加馬” hahaha...and thought, that kinda makes sense. If you add a horse to yourself you get a vacation.... It's also interesting which words get simplified and how they are simplified. I noticed that the use of simplified Chinese is not consistent... In my short visit here I have noticed that words like 國,學,麵 have appeared as both traditional and simplified in China.

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Day 35: we were forbidden to enter the forbidden City today, because the tickets were sold out. So we climbed up a hill and looked at the forbidden City from above, where the hoards of people near the entrance looked like ants! We decided to walk around a nearby park instead. We also had pizza hut (not so traditional, but Chinese style side dishes) as well as beijing style hot pot! Back in Tianjin. 2 more days left, but 0 days left of free VPN...What to do.

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Day 34: we took the high speed rail early in the morning to travel from Tianjin to Beijing. I watched the high speed rail reach 295km/hr, supposedly, some other lines can run at up to 350km/hr. Cool stuff! We arrived at beijing, and Joanna's cousin and her friend drove us through a great wall of cars to visit the great Wall of China, which was filled with a great wall of people. It was mind blowing to walk up and down the thousands of steps and envision what the scenery was like centuries and centuries ago. I have a great respect for the great Wall. I also have great respect for the drivers of beijing. Driving in Beijing requires using a different set of rules than driving in the US. Lanes are more of a "guideline" and drivers move in a smooth and fluid manner to avoid other drivers, knowing exactly where the extremeties of ones car is. All this happens while the driver had a calm and zen. Lastly, we visited some portions of the Beijing Olympic Park. The architecture of the "bird's nest" and the "acquatic cube" are really cool. I am glad I can penetrate china's great firewall to post about the great Wall.

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Day 33: Tianjin has a cool library. There is a giant wall lined with books, although I think many of them are just wall decorations. The library is next to the science museum, the natural history museum, and of course, a shopping mall. What did I do at the library? We found the Chinese version of car and driver and I studied the Chinese version of hondas that aren't found in the US. It's cool that the 1.5t is used in many places in the Honda lineup here...

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Day 31: I didn't post yesterday, so there are 2 posts today. You can learn a lot about a city from it's architecture. We ate at a restaurant for lunch today where they retrofitted an old British house into a restaurant, retained some of the original style and added Chinese style art. Tianjin has a lot of Western looking buildings. I was told that after world war 1, some of the land of Tianjin had to be sold to Britain, France, Italy, and other countries. They subsequently built many buildings in the western style. Walking next to the river felt like walking along the Seine River in France. Very interesting!

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Day 31:. There are a few cool things about Tianjin. 1. Everything has a QR code. You pay at restaurants using a QR code, even trees have a QR code! What happens when you scan the QR code of a tree? It tells you the species of the tree and the location! 2. There exists electric City buses. Right now, most are still diesel but I think in a few years there will be electric. This is a good use case for electric vehicles. 3. Gas motorcycles and scooters are not allowed in the city. So, almost 100 percent of these small vehicles are electric. The battery is small enough so that you can park the scooter, pick up the battery, and carry it inside your home to charge. You can even buy multiple batteries to extend the range. Again, a good use case for electric. 4. There are city bicycles you can rent from different companies. Scan the QR code, the bike unlocks, you go. When you are finished, you lock the bike and go about your business. Portland has some communal city bikes as well but I think this is more convenient. 5. There exists electric cars..Small City cars that you can rent by the hour. Another good idea! I think these are good ideas US cities can learn from :)

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Day 29:. Arrived in Tianjin, China. I think most international flights do not fly directly to Tianjin, we were pleasantly surprised that the line for customs was so short. I love looking at different cars in different countries. So far, cars in china look more similar to Taiwan and the US than Japan. Quite a few German cars, Japanese cars, US cars. Their odyssey resembles the Japanese Odyssey, not the US Odyssey. Interesting!

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Day 29: Osaka to Tianjin, china. I installed a bunch of vpn services on my phone but not sure they will work. I find it coins and bills of different currencies fascinating. Japanese seem to like using cash. The smallest bill they have is 1000 (equivalent to around 9 US dollars). The 5 and 50 have holes in the middle of them. There are also 3 different color coins. Admittedly, I am confused every time I pay things but the local people are super understanding and even help and check our math for us :) In the US I am not used to carrying coins because the smallest bill is a 1 and anything smaller isn't that valuable.

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Day 28: I hard heard of the freely roaming deer of Nara but I was surprised there were so many! Some have been taught to bow, others will happily pose in front of the camera. It's amazing how calm these deer are...They are semi domesticated so I suppose it wouldn't be different than having your dog or cat do a few tricks for you. Aside from the deer, Nara also has impressive temples and shrines, and lots of cute shops with Joanna liked. Communicating in Japan without understanding Japanese is like playing cherades at times. It's amazing that although we don't understand what they are saying, the body language is helpful (and they really emphasise the body language to communicate with tourists). It helps that I can read a few Chinese characters, and it also helps that many Japanese words sound like English words. Also, math is the universal language. Many people, when they do not speak English, will type the number of what we owe onto the calculator. Math is indeed the universal language. Going to China tomorrow, may or may not be able to update Tumblr and fb.

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Day 27: we took the shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto and spent the day exploring Kyoto. We saw many cats, many tourists, and many students! Kyoto has a lot of beautiful shrines and temples, it is touristy but the buildings along with the many tourists in kimono apparel make for a very interesting atmosphere. Oh yeah, and I saw a Honda s660. Too cool! Things I have noticed about Japan 1. Japanese are very nice to tourists. Regardless of how good they are at speaking English, when you ask them "do you speak English" they always answer "a little", or "no", but then they almost understand my questions in English and some fan reply pretty well. I am very impressed by how welcoming the Japanese are to us! 2. People bike on the sidewalks. I think this is much safer than biking on the road, and allows everybody to be happy. People should do this in the US. 3. Cars are very efficient in japan. They are often small and box shaped so you have a large interior volume. Again, we can learn from this in the US. 4. When taking the bus in Kyoto, you pay at the end. You enter from the side door and exit from the front door. This can be quite awkward when the bus is packed. 5. The high speed rail is extremely convenient. Although not inexpensive it allows us to go from point A to point B quickly! And the train is sooo smooth it puts all other types of transportation to shame. Again, the US can learn from this.

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Day 26: my feet are so soreeee from walking around all day! We visited the Honda design center and I was able to try out the shifter and clutch of a right hand drive Honda Civic type R! They had all the Honda models of Japan pparked out front so I was able to compare and contrast them to US models. Conclusions? Japanese cars are much smaller and simpler, and there are more hybrids. I also got to check out the Japanese Honda Odyssey, which is much smaller than the US Odyssey and has cool features. We actually went to the Honda museum twice, once when it opened and a second time in the afternoon for the ASIMO demonstration. The ASIMO is really agile and dextrous! Ok, there's more to Tokyo than hondas. We visited the tsukiji fish market (didn't see them selling the 5 ft tuna, but we saw lots of seafood. We went to Meiji shrine, and also a famous garden. We went to the 48 story of city tower to get a good panoramic view of Tokyo.

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Day 25: we arrived in Japan! As it was already after sunset, we took a quick walk around the Ginza district? First impressions? The architecture of the Ginza district is amazing! Everything is so clean and organized in japan. There are a lot of taxi cabs that look like they are old Toyotas but are very shiny and black. They try really hard to make it easy for tourists that don't speak Japanese to get around. The bus aanouncements are in 4 languages - Japanese, Chinese, English, and Korean. It looks like most of the people in the touristy areas of Japan speak multiple languages. I think Americans can learn a lot from Japanese culture and society.

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Day 24:. Last day in Taiwan. We had jet lag and thus we woke up early, as soon as we looked out we saw monkeys! Taiwanese monkeys are so cute. We spent the morning exploring Taroko national park, then we spent the afternoon taking the 3200m mountain pass back to taichung. The road was extremely windy and at times it was one lane road where we had to avoid the oncoming traffic. Apparently, my American driving instincts are too conservative and so I often found myself yielding to traffic. I learned that Taiwanese drivers give a quick friendly honk to see "thank you". I wish American drivers would learn that the horn can be used as a courteous gesture as well.

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Day 23:. We traveled from Kaohsiung to Taidong to Hualien to Taroko National Park. I have been to the east side of Taiwan twice before, but every time I go to the east side, I am honestly impressed by the beauty of this tropical island. You haven't experienced Taiwan until you have seen the lucious green rainforests, the towering mountains, the blue Pacific ocean, and the unpolluted air haha. Today, we visited a museum in Taidong that had some relics from the Aboriginal people of Taiwan. It is crazy that they are able to make the jewelry that they could make that many thousands of year ago. As the work was so amazing, we decided that it is evidence that aliens landed on Earth and guided humans on how to make the artwork, jk. We are staying in Taroko national park, and upon checking in, the front desk told us to lock our balcony door. I was perplexed as to why...And they told is that there are monkeys in the national park. Monkeys!!! Half of me wants to leave the door open so I can hug them in the morning! We also watched a performance that showcased Aboriginal culture. I love watching the dances with the bamboo poles and admiring how coordinated they are. Surely, if I were to attempt it, I would trip on a bamboo pole haha.

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Day 22: Taichung to Sinying to Kaohsiung. My aunt has a garden next to her house so we got to see all the cool things she is planting. Joanna is impressed by the size of the looooofas that grow in Taiwan. Oh yea, and the dragon fruit 火龍果 is super duper red.

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Day 21:. We made a day trip to Taipei and back. How tiring! We went to the imperial palace museum and saw a lot of ancient art. What is particularly interesting to me was how the chinese writing has changed over the years. Even with my limited ability to read Chinese i could recognize the evolution of some characters (such as 4). We looked at a lot of pottery and Jade artwork. I was surprised jade came in so many colors. The cabbage piece is particularly famous, which was interesting because I thought there were other pieces that were really cool as well. We had dinner on the 85th floor of Taipei 101. The view from the 85th floor is really cool and I always marvel at the 101 structure. It was nice to see family that I haven't seen in quite a few years and hear embarrassing stories about me. Haha.