It ain�t the PRC,that�s what! =P
Got back late from the Club last night and promptly went to bed. My flight to SZX was leaving PEK at 0915 the next morning.
That means leaving at 0715 to get to the airport and then another hour for check in.
Soooo….I did wake up at 0600 (if you know me, you know what a stretch THAT was) and I did leave the hotel at, urmmmm, 0730.
Since all the Hyatt has is the big black cabs, it was 120 RMB to PEK. Seems that they dun allow the cool (cheaper) red cabs there. Annoying, ain�t it?
Since I was booked on a domestic flight, I didn�t have to go through passport control. I get to do that at Lo Wu after I pick up my jacket.
Finding the gate was a challenge. At first it was easy enough since it�s printed on the boarding pass. No problemo, right?
WRONG! Last minute gate change. But no english announcement over the PA. I figured it all out when I saw the woman with a bullhorn wearing a placard with my flight number on it.
When I got to the gate, it wasn�t really a gate. Instead, it was a big corral where there was a BIG queue (hence the title of this post), they took my boarding pass and motioned to get on a bus.
A boarding pass to get on a basi? Are we driving to SZX?
Nope. The plane was over near the old airport. But that was far too. It almost seemed like the plane was parked past the sixth ring road.
And guess what, airstairs! Did I mention how bloody cold it is outside? Sorry, no pictures. Unlike Japan, frequent picture taking is frowned upon and remember where I am please!
So I�m on an Air China 777 waaaaaay in the back. At least I�m near the bathroom.
Here�s a picture of what passes for �breakfast� . At least no one is smoking in the bathroom like the last time I flew Air China a few years back.
Now the challenge is to get from SZX to Lo Wu Commerical City without too much grief. Of course, when the red monster is tipping the scales at 21 kilos, that alone is grief…
Not a Tourist?
This is my first trip to BJ where I have not gone “mondo tourist”, trudging around to various tourist sites.
It’s kinda weird to do that when winter is about to set in. The touristy thing I mean.
Phoebe’s great question: “Why are you coming out in NOVEMBER?!?”
Soooo this weekend was about hanging out instead. For example, I slept in and then went to yum cha with Ron, Phoebe and one of her friends. Then we went shopping for DVDs. Then puttered through a couple of grocery stores.
I bought a three pack of BlackBlack gum. Refreshing and caffienated!
Snack time was HK style fruit/tapioca stuff. Mmmmmm. Flipping through tabloids I can’t read but can appreciate (cuz there’s pictures).
It’s almost dinner time now. Sheesh, Phoebe WAS right. All we did was eat all day!
Not that I’m complaining or anything…
Long March
Tomorrow is the beginning of the Long March (heh, pun intended!) home. First I fly to Shenzhen, pick up my jacket and then KCR back to Causeway Bay.
It�s shopping afterwards, mainly for some DVDs and to Bossini for pants. One of my friends asked me to pick up one pair of khakis in each color. And two black.
I think that�s the oddest request for stuff I�ve ever gotten.
The next morning, I fly off to ICN and connect to my flight back to LAX. I�ve got business to do over there for a few hours and then I catch my flight back to SFO.
It�s going to be weird being back but I think the order of my travels worked out fine. First leg was HKG. A cosmopolitian, international city. Then I was all over Japan where harmony, cleanliness and beauty were the norm. Then I was in Beijing where it was chaos, kinda dirty and optimistic.
Sorry, that�s just how the way it is.
Then I�m going to be back in the States, where whining, filth and subdued optimism is the norm. Sometimes you need to ease your way back in the swing of things.
Of course, I�m going to the In & Out just outside the airport. Mmmmmm. Double Double!
Leaving Tokyo
It’s sooooo hard to leave!
As my friend Schulhoff notes in his blog (See links on home page, lah!), leaving Tokyo is like leaving a good friend.
I’ll take it a step further by saying leaving Tokyo is like leaving a very good friend that you used to date once.
Tokyo is expensive and sometimes exasperating. But it is full of good moments and secrets that are aching to be discovered that you tend to forget the annoying aspects. Until something like this happens…
The Keisei line is the cheapest rail option to get to and from Narita. As I blogged earlier, there’s a tokkyu (limited express) and the Skyliner that stops at Narita City before reaching the airport. Tokkyu = many stops and 15 minutes longer than the Skyliner. Skyliner = less stops.
Since they run on the same track, it’s a matter of timing on which train you should get (as I learned).
I was running late (as usual) and was a bit stressed about getting to Narita. So, when I got off the JR and was lugging the 20 kilo (yup!) red monster, I got to the ticket window and muttered “Skyliner”. I made it with about 20 minutes to spare.
So good ending to entry, right? Nope.
When I got to the platform, a tokkyu showed up within 5 minutes. Then I had another 15 minutes to wait for the Skyliner.
There’s only one track, which means that the tokkyu will get to Narita before the Skyliner will. And the 15 minutes I waited on the platform would have equaled the difference in time between the two lines.
So the moral for the story is: When you get to the Ueno/Nippori Keisei ticket office, see which train is leaving first and jump on it.
If you’re good, you’ll get a tokkyu and an extra Y1000 in your pocket for omiyage!
Back in Tokyo
Spent last night in Nagoya. A medium sized city which serves as a transit hub to historic and cool places inland that we didn’t have time to visit this trip.
Like Takeshima and Matsumoto and places like that. Bummer.
But riding back on the Shinkansen meant about an hour into the trip, we got a view of Fuji-San.
Besides building a rail line nearby, there’s all sorts of games out here too.
Ironic
It’s funny.
I’ve been in Japan, one of the most technologically advanced nations on the planet.
It’s clean and safe. Their keitai are the most advanced in the world. The food is great. Transport is safe and reliable. Manners matter.
What you can’t count on is getting online where you are staying. Follow.
I normally stay at ryokans booked through the Welcome Inn group. This is an association of small independent lodgings throughout Japan. The catch is they can’t be over Y10000 a night. There’s a LOT of great places to stay around Y4000 so you’d dun have to worry about breaking the bank.
Anyway, for most of the trip, I’ve been staying at Welcome Inns. Chances are that if I write about sleeping on the floor or if you see a tatami mat with a futon on it, that’s a Welcome Inn lodging I’m in.
However, I stayed at a Hyatt on Saturday and a JR Hotel last night. Guess what? No wireless internet at either place and the Hyatt only had broadband if you brought up a modem kit to the room.
Still, that’s better than the JR Hotel that had none!
Now both hotels allegedly cater to business types. Wonder how they connect their laptops.
Tonight, I’m at a Toyoko Inn in Nagoya. It’s a mid price business hotel. Definitely cheeper and more downmarket than the latter two. Guess what? They have wireless internet in the lobby and free wired access in the rooms. All broadband.
Soooo the lesson is: cheeper places have wi-fi and broadband for free and the more expensive places don’t?
Yup. Go figure.
Sakurajima
Went to Sakurajima today. There�s a smoking volcano there!
See? It�s smoking!
Took a ferry over to the island. It was a 15 minute ride that costs Y150. That�s Y10/minute. What a deal.
We hiked around a bit taking in nature and all that stuff.
Sakurajima is an active volcano, last erupting full scale in 1995. Full scale meaning fire, brimstone, lava and smoke. Basically the worst disaster film you�ve ever seen.
Back in the early 1900s, Sakurajima erupted and lava flow wound up in the ocean, connecting a small island. Fierce!
The best part was being able to relax in the nearby onsen. One of the pools has minerals taken from the lava rocks. It was pretty relaxing.
Note: If you�re visiting an new (to you) onsen, ask about towels BEFORE you go change and wash up. Fortunately, I dry quickly and T-shirts are absorbent.
Now we are on the Tsubame Sooper Express, bound back to Hakata. Ramen Yatai tonight! It�s basically a big area near the river full of ramen stalls. Hakata is (in)famous for eating throughout Japan.
All I had to do is mutter the words �ramen yatai� when we were at the JR ticket office and the guy at the counter let loose a silly grin.
Tsubame
Kyushu has a brand spanking new shinkansen called the Tsubame which started revenue service earlier this year. It has a lot of Kyushu touches such as wood window shades, wood seatbacks and tray tables and rope curtains. Great looking design.
Also very friendly conductors!
They are building the line in stages to replace the current Tsubame which is a tokkyu line or Limited Express. From Hakata, it�s called the Relay Tsubame, covering 150 km in about 90 minutes. Then you switch to the shinkansen about half way down the island. Then you cover 130 km in about 25 minutes. A testimony to speed, eh?
We are heading to Kagoshima , a city that has its own active volcano and on the map, looks like the southernmost city on the Japanese main islands. It�s a neat town, compact and walkable from our Ryokan which took us all of 10 minutes to get to from JR Kagoshima via tram and foot.
The owner of the establishment is also an unofficial cheerleader and tourist bureau chief all in one. He�s proud of his city and its working class roots and it�s place in modern Japanese history.
Since we got in after dark and many of Kagoshima�s sights are best appreciated in the daylight, we puttered around downtown, taking snaps and hunting down ramen shops. We found a good one and ate. They make the speciality tonkotsu broth ramen with pieces of cha siu that is tender and just falls apart when you pick it up with your hashi.
We got back around 2200 so that we could prepare for an early start touring the volcano, Sakurajima tomorrow AM. Also, since doing the wash here is free (but drying is the usual Y100 for 10 minutes), I�m doing laundry.
Late Start
It’s always a late start to the day when there�s high-speed internet in the room.
Also when you ask the hotel concerige to help with arranging lodging in the next town. Or actually the town after the next.
I left two days open (without destination or hotel reservations) in the trip so that if we wanted to be flexible in where we went, we could do so. We decided to head to Nagoya on the way back to Tokyo and I asked the hotel concierge to make some calls to find lodging.
Sold out. Sold out. Soooooold out!
He then brought us some suggestions which were out of our price range. I asked for an internet terminal so I could do a search. No dice. And no business center.
I wound up going to an internet cafe to try to locate a hotel in Nagoya.
Internet cafes here are different. Besides the fat pipe and lots of Pee Cees, there�s a fully stocked library of manga and magazines, free beverages, junk food (cup noodles and chips of all sorts), massage chairs, VIP rooms and they�re open 24/7 pretty much. People who stay out too late at the bars have been known to stay the remainder of the evening at these cafes which is why they have a more expensive rate from 0000 to 0800 on the weekends.
In either case, I had to take about an hour to locate a place to stay. Between that and our helpful concierge who tried to find us a place to stay, we lost two hours. So I call that a late start.
Is it Hakata? Or Fukuoka?
Made it to Fukuoka yesterday about 1900 or so.
That�s Hakata to all of us commoners. It�s the terminus of the Sanyo Shinkansen.
Although Fukuoka is the official name of the city, everyone calls it Hakata because it was once called that. They merged the two cities a while back. JR calls the city Hakata too.
There�s a Hyatt Regency Fukuoka here. I�ve extra Gold Passport points, so this is a pit stop of sorts and a free place to spend the night.
It�s an older hotel (12 years) designed by Michael Graves of Tar-jay fame, prior to his obsession with things egg shaped.
The service was very good. High speed internet (via an ADSL modem they bring to your room) was quick and didn�t have many hiccups.
Since we got in late, we explored close by the hotel. There is a big big Yodobashi Camera store which is actually a deepato for guys. Cameras, computers, A/V equipment, watches and pens, keitai and oh yah, a floor full of restaurants.
Many of Japan�s deepato have food floors. Went to Genki Sushi for dinner.
It’s a Y100 (Y105 with tax) zaiten sushi place (that means the maki comes out on a conveyor belt) and the sushi was pretty good, albeit with a limited selection.
Here’s a question. Which one is the one you do NOT put on food despite it being green colored?
Yup, the stuff in the canister was NOT powdered wasabi. It was green tea powder that you add hot water to. This is what wasabi looks like here as it comes around on the belt in a green bowl.
Heh heh….Good to know for next time…