China Day 8: Rock Climbing At Moon Hill

Someone out there really, really wanted me to climb this mountain. I nearly gave up a few times. But I received much unexpected assistance from a host of unlikely helpers. And I made it. Insert meaningful life lesson here.

After yesterday's incredible mountain biking adventure, all of us thought we were putting the bikes on hiatus. "No way we're going back out there the next day," we said. "Nope." This lasted until about three in the afternoon the next day, when we said, "Maybe we'll just go out for a little spin..."

We biked to Moon Hill, about three and a half miles from Yangshuo. When we got there, we were greeted by a retinue of elderly Chinese women farmers carrying cold drinks on their backs. We paid the admission fee and entered the site, thinking that the old women would stay at the gate.

They didn't.

Instead, they started the CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN WITH US. At first, we started joking. "We have an entourage!" "My posse rolls deep!" We kept climbing, thinking to ourselves that there was no way that these elderly Chinese women could possibly keep up with us.

Cut to twenty minutes later, when we were perched on a stoop about two-thirds of the way up. The women were fanning us. I felt like turning back, there was nothing but an endless series of steps, with no visible end in sight. The old women noticed my reluctance, and shouted at me:

"You can do it!" "Ten more minutes to top!"

Ten minutes? Sounded reasonable. We kept climbing. The elderly women took shortcuts and surprised us, emerging from hidden paths: "Ha ha! Hello!" They kept shouting at us: "Three more minutes to top!"

We reached the bottom of the donut hole. I sat on a bench and rested, glad to have finally made it to the top. Wallace engaged the old women in conversation. It turned out that the women were local farmers, and they took shifts climbing Moon Hill once a week, selling beverages to the tourists.

"So they're like vultures," I said. "Waiting for us to drop."

"More like St. Bernards," Wallace said. "Bringing refreshment as we climb the Alps."

"Wait a minute," I said. "I just realized that these women climb this mountain multiple times a day."

"Yeah," said Wallace. A brief silence. We both confronted our own weaksauce.

The women told Wallace that their rice fields were visible below, several hundred feet below us. I told them that their fields were pretty in Chinese, as "pretty" is one of the few words I remember in Mandarin. They laughed.

Then they told Wallace that we weren't done climbing yet.

"They say you can reach the top of the donut on a ten minute path," said Wallace.

"Ten minutes," the women repeated.

So we got up and started climbing again. This time, the women stayed behind. A very inauspicious omen.

I led the way. We were literally rock climbing, negotiating overgrown paths and sharp rocks. The buzzing of angry insects was in my ears. I heard things rustling in the foliage. Then I hit an incline that was pure ascent: rocks piled on top of rocks, straight up.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," I said.

"Me too," said Jonathan.

"We came all the way out here," said Wallace. "Might as well."

We kept climbing. We ran into an Australian lady. Australians are everywhere in China - they can't get enough of the place.

"How much further?" asked Jonathan.

"Not too much," said the lady. "You're fine," she added soothingly.

Finally, we poked our heads up through the foliage, and saw an endless landscape of karst limestone formations, rice paddies, and rivers. We stayed up there a bit, took some pictures, and then came back down, where the old ladies met us.

Then they tried to sell us Cokes at ten times their market value. We bought them. And then we all climbed back down together.

And took the picture you see below.

China Day 7: Mountain Biking in Yangshuo

When you take a trip, you're always hoping for at least one transcendant moment - that instance in which you realize why you had to go on the journey to begin with.

Today was that moment.

It started innocently enough. We walked over to the local mountain bike rental place to inquire about rates and routes through the local countryside. At first, the idea was that we'd just take the bikes for a spin, get acquainted to biking. Somehow we ended up on a five hour, fourteen mile bike ride through some of the most stunning landscapes I've ever seen.

That's my friend Brian walking his bike because the rest of us were stupid enough to cross that bridge on our bikes. He asked me, "Is this bike ride Hayao Miyazaki enough for you?" If you know who that is, then you know what he's talking about.

Anyway, we rolled through rice paddies, small villages, rocky paths. Past water buffalo, startling flocks of ducks (they'd waddle away and honk at us), trailed by tiny Chinese children yelling at the top of their lungs, "Hello! Hello! Hello!" (they'd run away and laugh every time we pulled out our cameras). Meanwhile, elderly Chinese people smoking cigarettes cycled laps around us, as we struggled to complete the trail along the Dragon river.

We kept crossing paths with one particular gentlemen, who would offer helpful directions, and then bike away, only to cross our paths at another critical junction. He eventually just led us to the bridge over the Dragon river, and finally, showing his hand, attempted to sell us a bamboo raft trip down the river.

I often had to focus on the rocks in my path in order to prevent a fall, but every time I looked up, I saw something stunningly beautiful. Quite possibly the favorite bike ride of my life.

Eggs, Bacon, Toast, Hash Browns, and OJ

Three dollars and change. For real. And the OJ is fresh squeezed.

China Day 6: Cruising Down the Li River

We took a four hour cruise down the Li River, down to Yangshuo. The boat served food cooked on the rear balcony of the boat, and I didn't risk eating it. The landscape on the river itself was beautiful, but it was so hot that you could only spend a few moments on the observation deck before retreating back into the cabin.

The first thing you notice about Yangshuo is how friendly the town is. The touts smile even when you reject them, and the entirety of the city seems to cater to the whims of foreign tourists. There are many Western restaurants, and plenty of nightclubs. It reminds me of Prague in a way: small, touristy, but very charming.

The second thing you notice about Yangshuo is how many backpackers all over the place. There's something that draws them here, and I suppose we'll find out soon enough.

China Day 5: How To Eat Live Animals

Tonight, we found ourselves on the restaurant row on Nanhuan Lu in Guilin, trying to locate a restaurant recommended by Frommer's. On the way there, we overheard a piercing squawk, and turned to see a local restauranteer beheading a chicken on the street, allowing the blood to run down the sidewalk. Wallace took a picture, and then wished he hadn't.

We couldn't locate the restaurant by name, so we entered a place that was our best guess.

"At least this place doesn't have any cages outside," I said.

"Yeah it does," said Wallace. "It even has those small furry things."

"Small furry things," I said. "Mmmm."

The small furry things slept in their cages, unperturbed. We sat down and ordered the local specialty - beer fish; the fish isn't fried in beer batter, but merely cooked with beer. After the waitress left the table, Wallace got up and announced that it was time to pick our fish.

We went outside with the waitress, who gestured at a particular fish. She pulled it out of a tank with a net and plopped it down onto the sidewalk for our inspection.

"How about NOT putting our food on the ground?" I asked, but she was oblivious to my concerns. She and Wallace entered into a involved discussion (in Mandarin) regarding the fish.

"The fish was swimming upside down," said Wallace to me as an aside. "I'm not down with that."

"I'm not down with putting our meal on the concrete," I said.

The waitress tried to upsell Wallace on a monster fish, but Wallace refused. Too much food. He pointed at a catfish, but apparently you can't make beer fish with a catfish, so we were at an impasse.

Then some guy, who may or may not have been affiliated with the eatery, walked up to the restaurant with two fish in a net, and dumped them in the tank. One of them successfully manages to swim upright. Wallace and I gave the waitress the thumbs up. She pulled it out of the the tank.

"Make sure she doesn't let it touch the ground..." I said.

As if she had heard me, the waitress kept the fish well above the sidewalk. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Then, without warning, the waitress raised the fish above her head, and VIOLENTLY SMACKED IT AGAINST THE GROUND. The fish was completely motionless.

WHAT THE HELL PEOPLE.

Wallace told me that the waitress needed to stun the fish so they could weigh it. The fisherman came over with a scale - a simple rod with a weight hanging from it; he picked up the fish and announced the weight.

We went back inside the restaurant, they cooked the fish, we ate it.

And it was very, very good.

Other highlights of the day: Jon and I visited a dim sum cafeteria with a simple ordering system. Point at the dish you want, and then make a gesture indicating how many you want.

Several walks along the pretty path that runs along the length of the lakes in Guilin, both during the day and night. The Chinese care so much about landscaping that it's almost obsessive. Hey China, how about taking some of that love for landscape, and transferring it to say, architecture?

Walking near the rear entrance of a restaurant, and watching the manager lead thirty employees in calisthenics. Calisthenics in this case being dancing really badly to awful Chinese techno music.

Buying shorts and sneakers (it's too hot for jeans) at a Chinese department store, and generally embarrassing the employees with my complete failure to understand how a transaction is completed in China. By the way, I bought two pairs of shorts and a pair of sneakers for less than $30. And no, I will not wear them in the states.

The Importance of Hand Gestures

We have one person who speaks a little Japanese on this trip, another who speaks Mandarin relatively well, and two who speak neither. Despite this, I occasionally find that my hand gestures manage to trump the language skills of the others.

When we were looking for The Lockup in Shibuya, nobody could manage to communicate to a friendly police officer exactly what we were looking for, until I put my wrists together to indicate being handcuffed.

"Oh!" said the officer, "Lockup!" And then he gave us the directions. This was an especially risky maneuver on my part, as the handcuff gesture is generally not one you want to make with a policeman.

Today I was ordering some fries from McDonald's (I was still hungry after dinner, and have found that American fast food places serve as my late night snack source in Asia.). And in order to communicate "to go", I feigned leaving the room like a cartoon character. The server laughed at me, but I got my food in a bag.

China Day 4: Guilin, Caves, Drunk Panda

1) Guilin is extremely pretty. Lot of Crouching Tiger-type scenery on hand here. Oddly-shaped limestone mountains popping up in unexpected locations.

2) Seven Star Park has exquisite landscaping and a large collection of caves. Walked through Seven Star Cave, expecting to walk through a short, narrow tunnel. Um, no. The cave is a series of increasingly enormous chambers, with anthropomorphic stalagtites and stalagmites everywhere. The Chinese have insisted on lighting the caves like the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, which only adds to the creepy atmosphere.

3) While wandering around Seven Star Park, we came across a residential area(!) and a woman washing her puppy in a bucket with a hose. Considering that the temperature was a humid ninety degrees, the dog looked perfectly happy.

4) Afterwards, we found the zoo, which was depressing. Lots of prison-cell cages and poorly maintained facilities. The lone panda was kept in holding cell, as if he had been arrested for DUI and had been thrown in the slammer to sleep it off. The red pandas were perhaps the only animals in the place that looked content; happy to be eating bamboo and drinking milk.

5) Speaking of animals in cages, you often find them outside the restaurants on Nanhuan Lu. Someone asked the purpose of this unusual form of decoration, and I informed them, "It's so you can pick the animal you want the restaurant to kill and prepare." Most of the creatures were seafood, but one restaurant had cages filled with some sort of rabbit/guinea pig combination that to my eye, did not look particularly tasty.

6) We ended up eating at a Sichuan restrauant named Yiyuan Fandian on Nanhuan. Sichuan cuisine is known for being spicy, but I was still floored by the sight of a gigantic bowl of chili pepppers (with bits of chicken buried deep beneath) arriving at our table. Then came the shuizhu niurou (tender beef slices and vegetables in a chili sauce), and the dandan mian (noodles in spicy peanut sauce) - neither was more merciful. Thank goodness for the tangcu cuipi yu (crispy sweet-and-sour fish), which had a delicate texture and perfectly balanced sweetness.

Notes On Shanghai

1) It is so damn hot and humid here. Today's saving grace was the arrival of fog, but still.

2) A young lady in my yoga class told me that buh-yow, which means "I don't want that" is the most important phrase in the Chinese language for an American tourist. Having used it frequently as a child in regards to Chinese food, I told her I was more than familiar with it. She turned out to be right - nothing deflects a tout like that phrase.

3) Driving a taxi in Shanghai seems to be an exercise in Zen. Every driver I've ridden with is extremely aggressive, but seems to take absolutely no offense at the aggressions of other drivers. They simply adjust course accordingly, and move on.

4) Speaking of traffic, the cars have right of way over pedestrians. And there are often no crosswalk signals, the lack of which results in the most terrifying street-crossing experiences of my life. As Brian says, "Get in where you fit in."

5) The city is an exercise in urban planning maximalism. The rule is: build as many skyscrapers as possible, as quickly as possible. The landscape is more reminiscent of Blade Runner than any other city I've visited, which brings me to my next point.

6) There is some strange Chinese preoccupation with colored lighting. There may be some municipal law which states that every building must be clad in animated neon. Some of the gargantuan skyscrapers on the skyline actually function as monitors, displaying pictures of puppies and kittens for no discernible reason.

7) The food is incredibly cheap. The bill for excellent dim sum with my parents at a really nice restaurant came to about $25. For SIX people.

8) Cheap cabs are very convenient. I feel like a rich New Yorker.

China Day 1 & 2: Shanghai

We've been spending some time with parents in Shanghai.. The theme of my dad's place is fake Greek pantheon, with classical statuary amid well-tended gardens. We've had a lot of excellent food, courtesy of my parents, and have been enjoying the amenities of my father's apartment.

We've already stopped at one knockoff mall, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were more in our future.

There's something semi-romantic about Shanghai; walking through certain parts, if you squint, the city vaguely resembles an old European capital. But Paris doesn't have skyscrapers on the skyline that flash pictures of kittens.

We started today walking through the shopping areas of Shanghai, and ended up in the Bund, the old European section of the city. The architecture is beautiful in the context of obscenely rich people from the twenties with bad taste. That being said, stepping into one of the old buildings gives you a sense of Shanghai during the twenties.

We strolled down the promenade along the Huangpu river, which offered more great views of the city, to the Bund Sightseeing tunnel, which is notable in the sense that it is COMPLETELY INSANE. You get into a slow moving tram, and are transported through a tunnel in which you are blasted with flashing neon and strobe lights, while a soothing Chinese female voice says things like, "Welcome to hell. Welcome to magma."

The Pudong area of town is notable in that it didn't exist ten years ago. Now it's skyscraper central for the town, and is home to what may or may not be the tallest skyscraper in the world, depending on whether you count antennas as part of a building's height. We visited the aquarium in Pudong, where we wandered through glass tunnels looking at sawfish, sharks, and seals; I also happened to meet my old friends from South America, the Magellan penguins.

We hit the elegant piano bar on the 53rd floor of the Grand Hyatt at the Jin Mao tower, which is a great view of the city, and an infinitely superior way to view the skyline versus the Pearl TV tower. We had drinks and honey-coated walnuts seasoned with sesame.

Then it was off to find the best xiaolong bao in the city. We walked back through the Bund, and found what might very well be the filthiest restaurant I've ever visited in my life. (And once I found a dead mouse under the tablecloth at a restaurant in Prague.) Some nervous discussion about food poisoning ensued, as well as some speculation regarding the rating the Los Angeles Health Inspector would give the place. But then the food arrived. Xiaolong Bao are dumplings stuffed with pork, and a health amount of broth. And they were quite good - sweeter than I've usually had, which may be the Shanghai style. I had some difficulty with the chopsticks,though; the trick to eating the dumplings is to nibble a little bit off the top, then suck the broth out, then stuff the whole thing in your mouth - all without breaking the dumpling. They were quite good, but we'll see if my stomach agrees with me.

Japan Day 7: Tsukiji Fish Market

Woke up early to go to the Tsukiji fish market.

The one thing I will remember about the tuna is how sleek and glossy their bodies are, like a clear coat finish on a brand new car sitting in the showroom.

As for the market itself, The place is remarkable for several reasons: 1) They actually allow visitors to enter the market and interfere with the hardworking and tolerant fishmongers's work. 2) There is heavy machinery rolling all over the place, and death and injury are an omnipresent threat. 3) Everywhere you look, something interesting is happening.

As I said to Wallace, it's great for taking pictures - all you have to do is keep pressing the shutter button, and a great photo will take itself.

Afterwards, we stepped outside the market and into a nearby sushi place, which presumably had its fish delivered straight from the market next door. We had sushi for breakfast, and the tuna was a delight.

Then we caught an All Nippon Airways flight to Shanghai, which was memorable solely as a reminder of how incredibly lackluster American airlines can be. Not only were we served a meal on this flight, but we were offered movies on demand, complete with dvd controls, as well as video games.

Japan Day 6: Philosopher's Walk & Back to Tokyo

Ok, this one has to be very short because I have to wake up in four hours to see the auction at the Tsukiji fish market.

The short story is that Jonathan and I split off from the others (who were headed to see the Giant Buddha at Nara) in order to walk the Philsopher's Walk in Kyoto, a pleasant stroll along an old canal.

From there we continued walking into the shopping district, had some more Pastel pudding (strawberry this time), and had lunch at an izakaya place. The funny thing is that the proprietor was convinced Jon and I were Japanese, and spoke at us for a full minute or so, until she noticed how unresponsive we were, and then promptly brought out the English menus. This was so amusing to our tablemates at the bar, that they whipped out their phones and snapped pictures of us.

From there we headed back to the hostel, wrote some postcards out, and then headed back out to Tokyo. We were pretty tired at this point, but of course we couldn't stop moving. We headed back out to Shinjuku to do some shopping, visited the observation deck at the Tokyo Metropolitan Building, which boasts a full panoramic view of the city, and then had some dinner.

Now I'm going to take a nap, see some dead fish, and then have some incredible sushi for breakfast.

Japan Day 5: 1,001 Buddhas, Inari Shrine

Brief entry today. I forgot my camera for much of the day, and Wallace's pictures must be retrieved from another account on the laptop. The short story is that we walked around a lot, as Kyoto is such a pleasant place to do so. A few highlights:

Jon and I split off from the rest of the group to visit Sanjusangen-do Temple, notable for its main hall filled with 1,001 Kannon (goddess of mercy) statues. The wooden structure is the longest in the world, and the effect of all those statues, combined with crowds and the incense smoke, is overwhelming. I told Jonathan, "Dude, I feel pretty weird in here." And he replied, "Yeah, I feel like I want to get out of here." There's something hypnotic about the place.

Afterwards, we met up with Wallace and Brian at Kyoto Station, where we ate some tonkatsu. The interesting thing about the meal was we were immediately handed a mortar and pestle, and asked to grind some sesame seeds, to be combined with the tonkatsu sauce.

Then we took the train to the Fushimi Inari Shrine, which appears to be the inspiration for Christo's gates installation in New York's Central Park a couple years back. The shrine is comprised of a path lined by a seemingly infinite number of orange torii gates, which snake up a mountain. We hiked the entire path, greeted by the never-ending procession of stairs, finally reaching the top. The path is shaded by a canopy of trees, and is punctuated by a number of small restaurants and cemeteries.

Japan Day 4: Kyoto & The Nightingale Floor

Kyoto is a great place to get lost. It's a pleasurable experience to simply walk aimlessly around the city, because you're always stumbling across something unexpectedly beautiful. A children's playground at night, inhabited by a gang of friendly cats. Or a shrine with a hundred lit paper lanterns. Or a narrow flagstone-paved street that leads to a love shrine.

The character of the city shifts quickly as you move, from urban to wooded to feudal.

We started the day at Nijo castle, which is famous for it's nightingale floor. The floorboards are constructed in such a manner that they chirp like birds.
the purpose of the floor is to repel attacks by ninja assassins. As the crowds of tourists wander through the palace, the effect is intensified, and one hears an entire flock of demented, drunken birds, chirping dissonantly. It's some of the most distinctive music I've ever heard.



Afterwards, we took the bus (a mistake, as the pace of Kyoto's public transit is turgid) to the Golden Pavilion and Ryoanji Temple. The first, while awfully pretty, was overrun by busloads of Japanese schoolchildren. Jonathan attempted to throw several coins into a bowl in the temple's garden, but failed. Ryaonji has so many picture-perfect areas: a pond filled with lilypads and lotus flowers, an old stone staircase under a canopy of tree cover, a moss covered garden, and most famously, a Zen rock garden. At the rock garden, the tourists sat contentedly on a series of bleachers, as if watching a baseball game. A baseball game with no players and no rules that did not exist to begin with.

We wandered through Gion, which is famous for being home to the geisha. We negotiated tiny streets, visiting an enormous concrete Buddha, and meandering up the path to the Kiyomizu love shrine. At the shrine are two stones placed a distance apart, and it is said that if one wanders from one to the other with one's eyes closed, true love is assured.



Then we ate in one of Kyoto's many European-inspired cafes, which more evokes a Miyazaki vision of the Old World than a Paris bistro. The decor is reminiscent of the living room of a French grandmother who owns twenty cats. The menu is a selection of European foods as imagined by a Japanese person who must rely on movies and books for his knowledge of Europe. Lots of frilly and sugary deserts involving fruit, spaghetti, and inexplicably, curry.

We then wandered the shopping district, where Wallace partook of some grilled mochil, and I had some pudding. Jonathan found an arcade with a complement of competent Street Fighter players, and proceeded to have his ass beat handily. But he persisted, insisting that humiliating defeat was the only way for him to learn.

Japan Day 4: The Story of Some Awesome Pudding

There is a pudding place near the intersection of Kawamarachi-dori and Shoji-dori in Kyoto, named Pastel. Brian and I had walked past it, and mentally filed it away for future reference. When the time came for dessert, Pastel was a few blocks away, and Brian said that there were any number of European-style cafes in Kyoto that served pudding. But I insisted - there was something DIFFERENT about this place. Later he would come to agree.

Pastel is a tiny, glass-enclosed room, in which two smiling female employees stand behind a counter filled with small cups of pudding. I've encountered a number of polite and kindly service people in Japan, but nobody has ever approached the sheer intensity of etiquette found at Pastel.

The employees smile at you non-stop, treating this instance of pudding consumption as if it were the most important thing in this world; as if so very much depended upon your eating a pudding right now.

Every moment in the negotiation of your transaction is an occasion for bowing. The Pastel employees bow as you enter, continue bowing as you order, and bow as they present your order with both hands.

I ordered a vanilla pudding, and was congratulated upon the infinite wisdom of this choice. Then came a serious moment in which the employee displayed a handwritten note, which read: "How long will it take you to get home?" I was unprepared for the seemingly irrelevant but serious nature of this question, but I answered honestly: ten minutes. She beamed (and bowed again), and proceeded to package my order.

She placed the pudding cup within a Tiffany-blue carton with a handle, wrapped the carton within a blue plastic bag, sealed the bag with tape, and then handed it to her associate. The associate then emerged from behind the counter and bowed, handing the package to me with both hands.

I took the package outside, seated myself, and opened it. Inside the carton was my pudding and a small package of refrigerant, which explained the nature of the earlier query about my journey home. Presumably the longer my journey, the more refrigerant is included.

As for the pudding itself: it's wonderful. The vanilla flavor is subtle, and the texture is the most delicate I've encountered in a pudding. And as you reach the bottom of the cup, there is a thin layer of flan caramel which seeps into the pudding, which only heightens the experience.

I'll be back to try new flavors.

Japan Day 3: Harajuku, Sumo, Shinkansen

I'm typing this from the shinkansen - the bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto. This society is so polite that the female food cart vendor bows to the car as she exits it.

Jon and I slept in and skipped out on the trip to Sensoji Temple. Instead, we took our time getting up and packing our bags.

Then it was off to Akihabara, the electronic shop district, where we visited AsoBitCity, a six story shrine to nerdom. An entire floor devoted to video games; another devoted to toy robots; and yet another devoted to anime costumes. You can even purchase panties for your anime character dolls.

Afterwards, Wallace, Jon, and I headed off to Harajuku, our purpose twofold. One, we wanted to observe the niche fashions popular among the teenagers who populate Yoyogi Park on Sunday afternoons, and two, we wanted to visit the Meiji Shrine.

The shrine came first. We walked along an incredibly majestic path, lined by ancient trees, which cast the entire path in shadow. Leaves fell gently from the trees, while an elderly man swept them away with a straw broom. As we entered the shrine, we came across a tree around which prayers, written by visitors. Most of the prayers revolved around prosperity, love, and happiness. Presumably, the priests then offer the prayers up to the appropriate deities.



We entered the shrine, found that several Japanese people were tossing coins into the shrine and making prayers, so we found ourselves doing the same, after careful study of the Japanese prayer technique, which involves multiple bows and claps. Wallace criticized my clapping as too soft.

Multiple weddings were in progress at Meiji Shrine, and we were fortunate to observe two couples in different stages of the process. One couple was preparing for wedding photography, the bride and groom posing formally, preened by attendants. The second couple was leading a procession into the shrine itself, inching slowly and stately up the steps.



We then followed the path out of the shrine and into Yoyogi Park, where we were greeted by a group of men with elaborate pompadours, dancing wildly for the crowd. Then came the young teenagers posing wtih "Free Hugs" signs, of which Jonathan gladly partook. And the middle-aged man dancing and singing histrionically to the Police's "Every Breath You Take". And the rainbow-haired young man who decided to screech and squeal along with a heavy metal song, before a seated crowd of prepubescent girls who swooned at his every movement. Several bands were playing in the park, often separated by a mere ten feet.

Wallace, Jon and I quickly wolfed down a quick meal at a noodle shop, and then headed to , where the sumo arena was situated. The sumo arena is a formal, staid building, perfectly square, with orderly rows of red, velvety seats. Deciphering and decoding the rituals and pageantry of sumo is almost as fun as watching it. Because matches are often resolved in seconds, the wrestlers revel in the false start: the will step into the center of the ring, and then unexpectedly retreat to their corners, in order to drink water, wipe their faces, and throw salt on the ground (salt is a ritual purifier). There is also a procession of banners displaying the sponsors of the match; the number of banners indicates the amount of money at stake. One thing that surprised me about sumo is the ferocity of some wrestlers, who unabashedly slap the faces of their opponents.

Japan Day 2: Studio Ghibli & The Lockup

This is going to be fairly terse because it's 1:30, I'm still a little jetlagged, and my feet are killing me.

Woke up early. Grabbed some rice balls from the convenience store. Got into a brief debate about the propriety of eating them while standing outside the store.

Studio Ghibli museum, out in the suburb of Mitaka. We walked through the town to reach the museum. The landscaping in Mitaka is reminiscent of the greenery in Miyazaki's films: suffused with calm and mystery. The architecture of the museuum is designed to confound adults: doorways force you to stoop, many pathways and staircases are redundant, leading one back to previously visited areas. The building forces you to get lost, and in the process, be adventurous - each new passageway is a opportunity to discover something new, simply for the sake of discovery. The museum screens an sequel of sorts to My Neighbor Totoro, and it was joy to see those characters reunited.



Shinjuku. Okonomiyaki for lunch, split four ways. Found a wonderful desert shop that specialized in traditional sweets. Wallace bought Taiyaki for everyone, warm breads stuffed with red bean paste, shaped like fish. Eating them is supposed to be a good omen.



Walked around Shinjuku, arcades and used cd shops. Stumbled upon the what might be the greatest shill for a 100 yen store in the history of the world. (More on this later.) Jonathan takes on all comers at Street Fighter III, but only scrubs showed up today.



Back to the hostel to meet up with another former coworker who happened to be visiting Japan at the same time. Back out to Shibuya - the noisy, neon Tokyo everyone knows and loves. Ate at a ramen place that uses a vending machine to place orders. The ramen is quite good, with an extremely flavorful broth.

Then to the Lockup. The less said about this iyazaki (Japanese tapas) place, buried in a Shibuya basement, the better, since it would only spoil your visit. But here are a few tempting details: 1) The entryway is filled with false doors, forcing visitors to discover the secret passageway into the restaurant. 2) The Lockup is the only time I will ever see my friend Brian handcuffed by a Japanese lady in a latex miniskirt. 3) While you wait to be seated, you can hear the shrieks and screams of female customers as they discover the truth about this theme restaurant: it takes its theme very, very seriously. You have been warned.

Japan Day 1: Tokyo

It took us two hours to get from Narita airport to our hostel, namely because the Tokyo subway/rail system is a labyrinthine monstrosity. Negotiating even the most quotidian moments, like buying subway tickets, breaking a 10000 Yen note, or withdrawing cash from an ATM, became a harrowing ordeal.

Upon arriving, I managed to make contact with an extremely helpful and friendly sorority sister of my cousin's (now a teacher at an international school), who led on a walking tour of the area. Our hostel is situated near Sensoji Temple, an area that is known for tourists and elderly people. We ate some pretty tasty tempura, and wandered through the streets of the area. The streets are well laid out, well lit, and surprisingly quiet, and it was pleasant to stroll through breezy avenues lit by neon signs and fluorescent lights.

Jon wanted to hit the arcades in search of challengers at Street Fighter III, but we failed to find a machine. Instead, our guide introduced us to the pleasures of Japanese photo booths. There are very few things in the world that can challenge the Japanese photo booth for pure femininity - some places don't even allow males into the photo booths unless accompanied by a female. The machines are festooned with garishly pink banners of girls in various poses and outfits.

The six of us crammed inside one booth, performing the silliest poses we could conjure, while the machine babbled in Japanese at us, pumped J-pop into our ears, and unfurled colored backdrops behind us, and sometimes on top of us, causing a great deal of commotion inside the booth. Then, as soon as the booth had snapped nine photos, we rushed to the other side of the machine to edit the snaps. Jon and I struggled to paint hearts and flowers and rainbows over the photos under the time limit, and then selected our best work. The machine printed out a sheet of stickers, which we dutifully took to the cutting table to cut into stamps, presumably a teen Japanese schoolgirl rite of passage.

My Most Anticipated Part of The Trip

Easy - visiting the homes of my characters from upcoming writing projects. These are places that have, until now, only been visible through the lens of my imagination.

This is easily as exciting to me as the prospect of visiting Tatooine or Hoth would be for a Star Wars fan.

I can tell you now that the goosebumps will emerge in full force the instant I step into Nijo castle, and walk across the nightingale floor, a trap designed to repel the most skillful of ninjas. And to see the landscape of rural China for the first time - is to know how other character felt at the beginning of their grand adventure.

I can't wait.

The Mystery of Pico Iyer - Part 2

The short story is that I heard a voice in my head that told me to read a book, despite never having heard of the book of its author. (Catch up here.) The book was The Lady and the Monk, by Pico Iyer, an account of the author's year-long stay in Kyoto.

I've finished it, and the recurring refrain in Iyer's book is this: you cannot find what you are looking for, if you are looking for it. But if you do not look for it, you will surely find it.

It's an odd book - Iyer is frustratingly self-effacing, nearly redacting himself from the love story in which he participates. The majority of the travelogue is devoted to his unconventional (and often unintentional courtship) of a married Japanese woman with two children. But Iyer leaves much unsaid - the dramatic moments of the story are buried in chaste recusals, shy metaphors. You never quite know exactly what is happening between the two, nor how they feel about it. Which was most likely the view from within Iyer's heart.

Is there resonance between this book and the current circumstances of my life? I would say there are multiple echoes, but I'm still struggling to decipher the meaning of them.

This has been a portentous moment in my life, filled with omens and auguries. I've been having particularly pointed dreams lately, and every little thing seems charged with meaning. I am sitting with all of these signs, attempting to discern their intent, and not entirely succeeding.

I have a strong intuition that something is waiting for me in Asia. I don't know what it is, but it appears, as Iyer suggests, that knowing what to look for would preclude its discovery.

I'm perfectly comfortable enjoying this trip without stumbling across something significant to my life - but the tone of this trip is different than that of my 2003 ten-week jaunt to Europe. That was a lark. This feels a bit like a pilgrimage, despite the fact that I have two close friends and a brother in tow.

We'll see.

Flight to Japan - OH NO HE ISN'T

OH YES HE IS.

Greetings from United 891, somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. Time is moving ever so slowly on this 747. I glance at my watch, let an eternity pass, glance again - and find that only twenty minutes have passed. Already, my quotidian life is dissolving away in the wash of this plane's engines.

(I was struggling with the idea of not bringing this laptop, but then I remembered that my last laptop went to Europe and South America, and this poor thing, which has served me faithfully for three years, hasn't been ANYWHERE.)

I haven't been to Japan in thirteen years, although I have pretty distinct memories of the place, especially Kyoto. I especially remember how clean and quiet the streets were, and the sense of utter peacefulness that suffused the streets. I remember a night saxophonist busking under the light of a full moon on a quiet downtown boulevard.

I also remember being glared at with intense disapproval for eating and walking at the same time. I won't be making that mistake again.

I only know two things about the Japanese languge, excluding all ninja-related nomenclature from the anime series Naruto. One, the word for raccoon is tanuki. Two, the character for trouble is the character for woman repeated twice.

I have a feeling that I'm in for many surprises here.

I Had A Good Feeling!

LEG ONE: JAPAN


Tokyo: May 18 - May 20
Accommodations: K's House Tokyo
20-10, Kuramae 3-chome, Taito-ku, Tokyo, Japan 111-0051
TEL +(81)-3-5833-0555 FAX +(81)-3-5833-0444
email : tokyo@kshouse.jp

Kyoto & Nara: May 20 - May 23
Accommodations: K's House
418 Nayacho, Shichijo-agaru, Dotemachi-dori, Shimogyo-ku, Kyoto city, Japan 600-8142
TEL +(81)-75-342-2444 FAX +(81)-75-342-2440
email ：kyoto@kshouse.jp

Tokyo: May 24
Accommodations: K's House


LEG TWO: SOUTHERN CHINA
Shanghai: May 24 - May 26

Guilin: May 27 - May 28
Accommodations: Ronghu Lake
No.17 North Ronghu Road, Guilin, China, 541001
Phone: 86-773-2893811

Yangshuo: May 28 - June 3
Accommodations: Yangshuo Regency
West Street, Yangshuo, Guilin, Guangxi 541900
Phone: 86-773-8817198

LEG THREE: SHANGHAI


Shanghai: June 4 - June 18th

June 6: Wallace, Brian, and Jonathan depart.
June 8: Special Guest Star arrives.

Graduation Day

Because of my lunch with the hollywood starlet, I missed my daily yoga class, and decided to take, for the first time, a level 2-3 class.

This is the highest difficulty level my yoga studio offers, and I was hesitant about taking it, but I was curious about what, exactly, all of my yoga practice was building towards.

So I waited in the lobby as my regular classmates exited the studio; one of the friendlier ones approached me and said, "You missed class! What happened?" I explained, and then my instructor emerged and the following conversation ensued:

Fav Instructor: Oh my god! Robert! What are you doing?
Me: I missed your class because I had lunch with one my relatives, so I figured --
Fav Instructor: (mock gasp) Wait! Are you taking the 2-3 class?
Me: Yes.
Fav Instructor: (mock squeal of delight) Oh, that's great. I wish I could be there.
Me: What, so you can see me in pain?
Fav Instructor: You're so strong. You'll be fine.
Me: I'm... excited about it.
Fav Instructor: Good.
Me: I'll see you tomorrow.
Fav Instructor: Bye!

What struck me about this conversation, besides the sheer number of exclamation points I have to use in order to convey some sense of my instructor's sheer exuberance, is how genuinely excited and happy she was that I was growing in my yoga competency. There was absolutely no sense on her part of feeling slighted by my brief defection to another instructor's class, even though we both know that I've hardly mastered my current class.

I haven't had a teacher be this proud of me since grade school.

Then the level 2-3 class begins.

There is not necessarily anything new about this class. But there are a handful of very difficult poses that are rarities in my regular class: Handstand. Camel. Virasana. Upward Facing Bow. Each of these poses is something we might attempt every once in a while in my regular class, as a topper to the day's practice.

In this class, WE DO THEM ALL. And no one in the class even bats an eye at the mention of their names. There's no warm-up, no extended instruction - we just go.

I manage to execute all of them, and capably at that - no stumbling or faltering. I acquit myself beautifully.

That's how good my favorite instructor is.

The Hollywood Starlet

I show up for lunch. The first thing she says to me is, "You've lost a lot of weight."

I have to admit, I am a bit taken aback by how quintessentially Hollywood this greeting is.

"Good weight or bad weight?" I ask. She laughs.

I encourage to try the porkwich. She is hesitant, but relents. Then it arrives, and she pronounces it "really good!"

We talk careers, because that's obligatory in Hollywood. The news for both of us is good. She's planning to move to New York for the summer, "just to get away". She mentions some television stars she knows personally, proclaming them "fabulous".

Just to prove the point, our conversation is interrupted by a text message from a well-known actor and celebrity, inviting her out to celebrate the cancellation of their television show.

She invites me to a charity fundraiser she's organizing.

We also talk love lives, because that's obligatory too. Again, good news all around.

Then we talk tarot readers for a bit, as she is the only other person I know who regularly consults one of her own. She asks for Judy's number, and I give it to her.

(Including her, I will have two relatives and a mom who have sat with Judy. I am working my way through my entire family.)

Then the check comes, and she tells me she has an audition. We hug, and I ask her to tell me what Judy says, if it's not too personal.

She says she totally will.

The DIY Tarot Reading

Here's a fun post.

It seemed a bit stingy to post about Judy's return and not provide any insight at all into what she said. So I'll describe something that happened at the very end of the session.

After a rapid hour of intense discussion regarding the course of my life, Judy did something she's never done before: she asked me to draw three cards. There was no question or context for the draw; the intention of this exercise was to yield the floor to any unaddressed points or final thoughts the universe wanted to make to me.

Those of you reading at home can play along and attempt to interpret this simple three-card spread. The beauty of this exercise is that there is no context or question for the spread, which means you are working with the same amount of information that Judy had. I have listed the cards in the order I drew them.

Here's a helpful guide to the deck to get you started. If you get stumped, check the comments for a bit of Judy's reaction to the draw.

1) The Lovers


OMG! This is exactly like Live and Let Die, where Bond seduces Jane Seymour by asking her to draw a tarot card, and she picks The Lovers. Except it turns out that Bond carries a special tarot deck in which every single card is The Lovers, and that's why the playa gets with the medicine woman and you don't.


2) Temperance


Some sort of intense angel-looking type, making magic cocktails. Cheers!


3) Three of Wands


A badass Greek dude looking real serious, about to grab some poles and throw down. IN THE SHADE, if need be.

Ninja Recycling

There's been a disturbing trend in the common vernacular, a propensity accelerated by the Internet, of diluting the meaning of the term "ninja". Ninja is frequently used to merely mean skillful or one who possesses skill ("Dude's a ninja at the copy machine."), which seems a rather disgraceful affront to ninjutsu and its true adherents.

Let me explain the context for this pronouncement. I've always been apathetic about recycling. Part of the problem is that my apartment building pays for private garbage collection, which precludes its residents from participating in the municipal recycling pickup every week. For a while I looked into visiting recycling centers, but none of them accept paper, which is my primary waste product.

But then I realized that all I had to do was ascertain the day of the week upon which the blue bin pickup occurs, and then dump my recyclables in a neighbor's bin on the night before pickup. Most of my neighbors don't even come close to filling their recyclable bins every week, leaving plenty of room for me to deposit my own bottles, papers, and cans. The solution to my recycling dilemma was solved, as I often tend to solve problems, by gaming the system.

So now I gather my recyclables in the dead of night, sneak outside my building, and covertly dump them in a neighbor's bin. This is a mission that literally requires the skills of ninjutsu: stealth, agility, subterfuge. There is no honor conferred nor koku dispensed for completing the task; only the satisfaction of a mission accomplished.

Now that's ninja.

Countdown to Asia

Well, it's been a bit of a lull since we shipped off our little Pillow Crisis off to movie studio summer camp. I only have a week until I fly off to Japan and China, so there's not much in the way of actual work I can accomplish. Here's my to-do list for the week:

• Lunch with my cousin the Hollywood starlet (this is not an ironic term of endearment, but rather a factual description of her profession).


• Practice nighttime photography on Larchmont as a means of familiarizing myself with new camera.


• Reacquaint myself with Lobsters vs. Butterflies. Yay! Here comes my new favorite screenplay!


• Read The Lady and the Monk (discussed previously). Also read Hagakure ("In the Shadow of Leaves"), the treatise of Samurai wisdom adored by white otaku, but considered in its nation of origin to be a document akin to Mein Kampf.


• Wait for Pillow Crisis feedback from the studio. (Twenty bucks says I don't hear from them before I step on the plane.)


• Back up my laptop hard drive in anticipation of the trip.


• Yoga.


• Pick up my brother from the airport.

The Mystery of Pico Iyer - Part I

Yesterday, as I was walking home from yoga class, I passed a neighbor's rose garden, and a thought popped into my head. It consisted of two words:

Pico Iyer.

This was a strange throught to pop into my head, as I had no idea who he was. I thought to myself, "Dude is named after a font - cool." And then - "Is that the graphic designer who named his daughter after Bodoni?" (No, that would be Tibor Kalman.) And finally - "I think he's an academic of some sort - maybe from a foreign country."

I dismissed the thought and went home. An issue of National Geographic Traveler had arrived at my apartment, and I opened it, only to find myself staring at the contributors page, and on it, the name:

Pico Iyer.

Weird. What were the odds? So I immediately turned to the article he penned, and read it. It was about a last minute trip he took to Bhutan. "What does this mean?" I asked myself. "Am I supposed to visit Bhutan? Please God, don't make me visit Bhutan." (Bhutan is one of the most remote nations in the world; only a handful of companies are authorized to bring tourists in, and it's very, very expensive.)

So I looked Mr. Iyer up on Wikipedia, hoping to see something that seemed relevant to my life. It turns out that Iyer is a renowned travel writer, and his books, while intriguing, don't compel me to read them.

The only thing I could find was a book called The Lady and the Monk. It's an account of a year Iyer spent in a Buddhist monastery in Kyoto, which is a city I will visit in two weeks. It's also the story of how he met his wife, and I enjoy a good love story as much as anybody else.

I'll read it, visit Kyoto, and report on any synchronicities.

Taking It Apart To Build It Again

Writing a big budget Hollywood movie can safely be compared to NASCAR racing.

You are building an extremely complicated machine to exacting tolerances, hoping that it has enough speed to win the race. And when the results fail to yield the desired velocity, you take the car apart, make small and subtle alterations, and put the car back together again. You shave weight, you reduce drag. You do this until you know every piece of the machine by heart, until you can map the gears of every system in your mind. And even then, the car may not be fast enough. So then you get really creative. You drill holes in wheel wells to improve air flow, you install extra fuel piping to increase capacity, you raise the spoiler to increase downforce. In short, you cheat.

Last week Huili and I actually submitted the final Pillow Crisis revision. I write "final" with some degree of hope, because our last two revisions were also the final revisions. But in this case, having utterly exhausted our capacity and desire to work on the story any longer, I'm inclined to believe that this is the ultimate revision.

One of the important things we've learned in this process is the value of rapid prototyping. Instead of pouring a lot of resources into a single perfect draft, never knowing if the final product would pass muster with the studios, we instead focused our efforts on outlines.

We began with a fifty point outline, encompassing every moment of the movie, and proceeded to justify the inclusion of each individual point. Did this moment belong in the movie? Did it need changes? Did it need to be placed at a different point in the outline?

On average, we spent about a day on each point, working our way through the outline like a Catholic praying the rosary. The most frustrating moments came during moments when we decided that we needed to throw out large sections of the chronology, which often meant going back to where we were three weeks ago. The movie mutated several times along the way, growing new appendages and shedding old ones. We spent days, weeks cultivating - and then destroying - alternate universe iterations of our movie. Imagine the cloning laboratory from the fourth Alien movie.

But that is the beauty of rapid prototyping - evolutionary errors were discovered early enough in the process so that we did not have to undertake an arduous page one rewrite of the screenplay; we merely needed to reconfigure some bullet points on our outline. We were essentially writing a new version of the movie every couple of weeks, as opposed to months.

The downside of this process is the loss of discovery - the sense of a story growing organically from the hidden recesses of your heart and subconscious. But big-budget Hollywood movies are not organic - they are machines which create the most exquisite illusion of soul. Back to the Future is ultimately a cold, mechanical movie which fools you into thinking it has a heart. See also: the entire oeuvre of Pixar. The illusion is so well-crafted that even awareness of the illusion is not enough to break it.

That is the magic of the machine you're building.

The Return of Judy

"Has it been a year already?" Judy asked.

"It's been more than a year," I said.

So I drove out to Thousand Oaks. As we stepped inside her reading room, she asked,

"What happened? Your body is completely different!"

When I asked what she meant, she said, "The energy in your chest and shoulders is much more open."

I explained that perhaps this woman (#2) might have something to say about that.

So then I spent the next hour talking to my favorite Jewish grandmother who happens to read tarot cards. And, as tarot readers are wont to do, she spoke about the current preoccupations of my life at great length.

I was supposed to bring back lots of MP3s for your enjoyment, but I've decided against posting any of the material from this year's reading. My impression is that posting it would only serve to spoil the telling of events to come. (And besides, if she's wrong (never!), it could be somewhat embarrassing. As always, though, I would be loathe to bet against this woman.)

We'll see.

How To Pack For A Long Trip

A few days or even weeks before your trip, tou take your empty suitcase, and put it somewhere conspicuous. Then, as you remember things you need, you throw them in the suitcase, one by one. By the time your departure date arrives, everything that you might possibly forget - is already in your suitcase.

A Small Recipe for Happiness

Took a month off from blogging, but I find my return necessitated by a number of exciting and forthcoming events.

In order to make up for my absence, here's a small recipe for happiness:

1) Buy a pound of strawberries.

2) Buy some Straus Organic European-Style Vanilla Whole Milk Yogurt. Do not substitute another brand of yogurt, as European yogurt is liquid, not solid.

3) Dip the strawberries in the yogurt and eat.

4) Drink the resulting strawberry-yogurt blend.

This is one of the best things I've learned all year.

Coming up next: Asia! And a brief visit with a very special guest star!