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Thats it.

Capsule Hotel Fun

I had to. I just had to. Where else in the world can you sleep in your own plastic tube? My "room" number was 8-16. Floor eight is reserved for women, marked by a sign that reads "keep out, man". Which man is not allowed remains unknown. I forgot to count the number of units were piled bee-comb like into the hall, but I'm sure the owners of the Capsule Hotel Riverside (you can actually see the river) are cleaning up nicely at 300 yen (about $30) a head. I'm estimating you can cram about 160 people into the building, which is super, well, skinny, as you might imagine. It makes sense that in such a packed city that hotels should take up as small amount of land as possible. Luggage is stored in lockers, since there's pretty much just enough room for a reclined person. Laying down, (crouching is almost out of the question), I can touch the ceiling and all the walls with my feet and arms at once, cause I'm tall and all, as some of you may have observed. It looks like the inside of a spaceship, with lots of buttons and practically no seams or blemishes in the gleaming white plastic. Inside, there is a mirror, a television mounted into the ceiling, a small shelf where the light switch, TV and radio controls and an alarm are molded into. The door is a roll-up curtain, and I'm lucky the others didn't snore, but I'm sure it would have been ok since I'm still on "orchard time", 6 am to a truly pathetic 8:30 pm.
I spent the night trying to swing my internal clock to a 20-something backpacker acceptable timetable, so I took on a manga kissa. Manga is Japanime comic books, and kissa is short for kissaten, which is Japanese for cafe. Its basically a floor half filled with cubicles, half with bookshelves holding manga, DVDs and video games. You rent a cubicle for a disgusting 400 yen for 30 minutes, which contains a comfy recliner and a spiffy computer. They're open for 24 hours, and there's a special price if you stay for 8 hours, which is ideal if you miss the last train home after a night out in Roppongi and need a place to crash that's cheaper than a taxi home, or if you're nerd. I checked my email and watched Dark Knight and took advantage of the free drinks, dispensed by an absurd number of vending machines.

Panda Food

After saying goodbye to the rosy cherry blossoms, I began to notice the bamboo forests. From afar, they sit lightly against the distant mountains, like snow on a tree, as if a gentle breeze would easily deroot them and send them floating. They tiny paintbrush-tip leaves don"t flutter, but ripple in lovely waves. Sun shines dully through their hollow trunk, green glowing bars of forests topped with feathery pompoms. They never cease growing, so they bend and creak, only audible in profusely planted yet empty forests. The small stilted temples tucked amongst the panda food wouldn't seem appropriate anywhere else. The narrow pointed laves cover the ground, concealing new sprouts like elegant emerald swipes from a calligraphy paintbrush.

Bowing and Apologizing in Japan

Am I still in Asia? Have I stepped into the Bizarroworld of Asia? Cause I seem to remember a continent where they serve dog as food and children are encouraged by their parents to pee on the sidewalks, like, well, dogs. I guess that I have officially left the continent now. I met up with my mom and Judy, in Tokyo, and promptly bought a Japanese grammar book and dictionary to trudge up distant memories of the three years of Japanese I took in college. Luckily, the majority of Japanese conversations consist of niceties, including whole strings of apologies and thank yous, with almost giddy, contagious bowing. Also, the Japanese actually speak English, which is a relief after struggling through six weeks in China.

The cities are impeccably clean, and the people are more terrified of getting sick than those pill-popping Americans, you know the ones. I had a nasty cough when I arrived into Narita airport a few weeks ago, and it didn`t take me long to notice that people were avoiding me like the plague, and the unlucky few that were stuck sitting next to me on the shuttle bus into town shuddered every time I took a raspy breath and cowered in fear, handkerchiefs clutched to faces, each time I cleared my throat. I refused, refused, however to buy a face mask the doctors, and apparently, the Japanese wear.

Everything here costs your first born male, to boot. We tried to go to the movies. 18 dollars a head. We tried to go to the park. 10 dollars. We did decide, however, to splurge on a Kobe beef dinner. The cows are rumored to get nightly massages and fed beer, which would explain the butter-soft texture. The restaurant, overlooking a stream running with soft cherry blossom petals, offered Kobe beef and Kobe beef exclusively, paired with really good red wine. The beef is grilled simply with garlic and olive oil, is served in small pieces with chopsticks, and you can cut the meat easily with your teeth. It was superb.

The cherry blossoms came, and I suspect, have gone, judging by the rain currently falling outside. They bloom for about two weeks, and we hit the best time here in Kyoto. We found every pretty stroll located around the city, the lanes crawling with tourists cooing over the baby ducks and the light breezes that pull the blossoms off of the trees, showering down into hair and eyelashes. Its all pretty spectacular, especially considering the fleetingness of it all.

More pics on Flickr.com

Got into Japan, am now travelling with Mom and Judy. We got into Kyoto last night, where we will be staying for about three weeks. Weve got a computer now, so write me and let me know whats happening on your sides of the world, wherever side you find yourself on. Kisses to all.

So Long China, catch ya on the flip side.

Considering I see curious similarities between China and India, I'm adopting old habits from five months ago.

Behold, the new golden age of Bizarre Observations in China.
All children have holes in the crotch of their pants, which their parents either cut out, or purchase4 designed in this manner. The parents take the baby, arms tucked under knees and supporting their upper backs, and have their children piss wherever they find themselves. Usually this takes place in the road or on the sidewalk, but today I saw a grandma encourage the child to piss on the floor of a packed local bus, and another young woman encourage her daughter to piss on the floor of the ladies room, while there were dozens of available toilets.
OK, so I wont go into the toilet situation too much, speaking of which, except to say that at some of the less desirable pit-stops, the facilities are in dire condition. There are no stalls, simply a large open-aired trough angled slightly towards a constantly blocked drain that you straddle along side everyone else. I'm under the impression that looking others in the ye is extremely taboo in such conditions, as I imagine is eh the case in men's urinal. I can unfortunately say that Chinese toilets are among the most revolting that I've yet to see, bypassing Turkish toilets by the busload, and just passing Indian.
In accordance to what I've heard other say about Chinese food (except Mark, who loves the stuff), Julie and I have been extremely disappointed. After many bizarre meals (last night, Meat Jam and English Farm was on the menu), Ive accepted the daily fare of noodle soup from the Muslim shops. There is always a small man in a paper hat out front swinging pasta like taffy (for those of you living in the Santa Cruz area), then lacing fingers in the dough and pulling out four or five times to arms-length like they're separating wool. Each strand is two meters long, so you are constantly slurping, trying to avoid flinging spicy sauce in your eye, or Julies eye, or wallowing a strand that still has a meter left to go.
When you meet someone for the first time in China, the standard procedure question, instead of "how are you?", is "have you eaten rice yet?" I love this.
As Ive noted on my facebook page, the piece de resistance, however is the rocket it. My German friend Tobias told me that once he was having a beer with his Chinese friend, who marvelled about how many rockets they must use in a country as foggy and rainy as Germany He explained that during the Olympics and especially dismal weather, Chinese officials shoot a rocket into the sky to clear the clouds or some such ridiculousness. Are you hearing me correctly people? The Chinese are controlling the FRIGGING WEATHER! Consider yourselves forewarned

Last night I dined with 15 Chinese men

Ok, well Julie and three German guys we met were there too, but it was hard to notice their existence over the drunk army of kind but extremely loud men. We were walking back from the beach arouhd midnight in Sanya on the Chinese island of Hainan, when I was called over to have a nice little ganpai (cheers). This is pretty normal, I get this whenever I am out late, being a whitey and all. I decided to endulge in the famous, or rather infamous, Chinese hospitality. When you eat in China, you eat out of a small bowl half full of white rice, and you pull pieces of meat or vegetables out of the big bowls on the table, family style. Hands jut out over the many plates full of tofu, braised bok choy and grilled chicken, agile chopsticks plucking morsels of food. Since we were guests, we paid for nothing, plus our small tea cups full of beer were never empty and our bowls brimming with food. We had nothing to offer them, but nice photo ops for their families back on the mainland, no doubt (Hainan is a vacation spot for Chinese tourists, since its the most southern point in China).The men plopped pieces of food in my bowl to show me that I was welcome at the table, and whenever someoen at the table said 'ganpai', everyone at the table had to stand up, shout something and drain your glass. Keep in mind that this was AFTER we polished off our own beers at the beach. Suddenly, the men all stood up and indicated by their manner of walking that they were drunk, and split. The five of us were left at a table with fifteen half drunk beers and whole un touched plates, the bill taken care of. Gotta love China.