Adventures · on · the · Otherside · of · the · World

It has been literal week all week, with an underlying theme of poo. I guess it is just one of those things, you got to be there. The last two days has been pretty much like the days before. Eating, training, eating, drinking, sleeping-repeat. We went to Katori Jingu yesterday morning. It was a great day and we cleaned the grave site of the founder, watched a friend get his shinken blessed. Picked up a few souveniors and headed for home. Last night was a vip meeting in our room. We think it went well, which is very good. While our room was occupied, I played partner pool in the bar. NR and I were partners. It is great to play with her and I was helping her with her aim. She got some pretty good shots. The game ended in a tie because we all suck and everyone was more hungry than interested in watching us move colored balls around. It was a late night, but I feel pretty good this morning which is probably due to the continued jet lag. It will probably hit me this afternoon. Today, I plan to go to Tokyo with NR & PR which ought to be interesting. I am waiting for them now.

We were astounded at our luck. She was obviously the obasan and lived there. We were free to walk around in the very old dojo. It had weapons hangin gon the wall and it was fairly apparent that the dojo was still used. there was a little heater with a tea pot on top. The ceiling was very low and the naginata was pretty short. It was a tiny dojo, but it is from such a different time. That was a real treat!

The jingu had a different feel then Katori. We saw the temple, which was pretty small and unremarkable outside of it being a temple. We checked out the "magical" water and the "magical" forest and the ice berg rock (can only see a small oval that is the very top of a very special rock. The temple grounds were very beautiful with amazing huge trees.

Training was good, continued to be with the spanish group. Not much different than the day before except to say that I just feel off this week. Not sure why. Making mistakes that I haven\t made in a long time. Oh well. It is good to work with people with different timing, etc. We had a lovely dinner at an okinawan restaurant. JT and his lovley wife hooked us up with some amazing dishes as they spent time in Okinawa and knew the local dishes. One was a very bitter green circular veggie that when mixed with eggs was really good. We also had snake sake which was very tasty (cross between plum wine and strength of cognac). We all came back to our room and drank a bit more and chatted. One interesting moment at the end with a discussion about ryu and appropriateness. This discussion I think epitomizes some of the shogyu spirit forging(sp?) that I think we all feel but in different measure at different times. This is an interesting time for k. We can definitely feel this this week.

We had training early this morning. Felt pretty good about it. One spaniard mentioned my mawai was good. Not sure what that means. She is very nice and fun to train with. I always love working with other women. Just such a different feel. This afternoon we hung out in Narita and went shopping after a nice meal at a chinese restaurant. I ate some gyuza (sp-cant spell tonight). Haven[t eaten tha tmuch pork in a very long time, albeit it was only 3 bites or so, gyoza is small. Tonight is again hanging out with my fellow americans.... to again celebrate the Obama success! We were all waiting for the news yesterday and tried to find a tv or internet to check the numbers. It was during lunch yesterday when we heard the final numbers! The coverage and interest in the US here is amazing. They had a one page spread on a newspaper in our hotel announcing the winner. It is clearly a worldly issue. Everyone is releived that Obama won. So, I am off to help in the celebration tonight....:)

p.s. i have no idea which feeling I will pick as I can not read most of the screen as it is all in Japanese. So, pay no attention to the emotion below....

the festivities were quite yummy... we finished of a tasty bottle of sake. after fighting off a headache, the next morning, we headed off to kashima jingu. Just before we got to the big gate, KL took a left, near the hankypooh clock as one of our group pointed out. Down the alley, we came across the dojo that is associated with the shrine. KL wanted to take some photos of the outside. Two little ladies were sitting there and said something and motioned for us to go in.KL and i looked at each other in confused disbelief. After much more proding, one lady got up and took us to the door of the dojo and then opened it and guestured for us to go in. She turned

After having the fun of being locked down in the Seattle airport due to someone going throught the exit causing all flights to be delayed 30 minutes or so, I had an uneventful trip to Narita. Thankfully-especially after last year. I was beginning to think I was cursed with challenges in getting to Japan.

I sat next to a lovely older woman who was making her first trip to Japan with a tour group. She was so excited that she nearly cried when we landed. I did take some time to review some Tomiki articles that brought up tons of questions. After collecting my bags, getting through customs, which was incredibly smoother without having a mogito, I got on the hotel shuttle and arrived at the Mercure. Everyone was waiting in the lobby to head off to dinner. We went to a nice little place around the corner. We squashed into a small booth, all 12 of us, and enjoyed a whole slew of small dishes like an egg omlet with sauces on top (I thought it tasted like a mcd's hamburger - though keep in mind I haven't eaten one in 15 years), fried chicken, and gyoza, and, of course, beeru. We all retired to bed as we had to get up early to go to Tokyo for the culture day to watch the demos in Meiji park.

After a great japamerican buffet breakfast in the hotel, we hopped on the keisie train to Tokyo. I had a great time sitting next to PRss as I asked him about Tomiki. He knew him pretty well and we talked about the time period and what Tomiki was thinking. I wished (and PR wished aloud) that I was recording our conversation.

About Tokyo, I have to say, it was a bit underwelming downtown. I think I was expecting more like Beijing where there were lots of very tall buildings everywhere. I found out later that the area I was expecting is the business district. All the buildings in this area were mostly 3 or 4 stories. Meiji park was very beautiful and huge. The entrance is graced with an enormous wooden arch-quite awesome. There was a lot of people as it was culture day and they have a ceremony in the jingu. I immediately recognized the area for the martial arts demos as I had seen many videos with the same background. I felt it odd to actually be there in person. The demos were already started. The area was divided so that there were two groups going at the same time, which was great because you always had one that drew your interest. It was a smorgasport of japanese martial arts. Daito-ryu, koryu, aikido, shinto muso ryu, katori shinto ryu, manreoioaisdfndjnv ryu... etc. My impression overall was not being overly impressed. I will say that they were doing the demos deliberately slow and with strength as that seems to be the norm for these sorts of demos. I was particularly interested in the smr as there were two groups, one was Tokyo police and the other was kyushu. Both were very harsh and rough. The other demo of interest is the brandx ksr and ksr. I can't believe the brandx was there. I was quite shocked and appauled. It felt really dead. No target. I want to say, hello! what the hell are you doing? The ksr was great. Not much more to say. After the demo, we went to the martial arts store and then to dindin at a lovely noodle shop, after we spent some time in search of the shop. We were on a JG mission as he really wanted to go to this specific shop. Finally we found it, and partook of some great noodles. We had to hurry back as we had to meet everyone at the Ryokan.

So, as I expected week will be interesting. We met up with everyone at the ryokan. They had a two hr meeting with the result that we would split into two groups. We would be with the spaniards. While the vips met, we all chatted with the other groups. It was a nice get together, I wouldn't go so far as to say a party though.

We had the morning session this morning. It went well. I had one person who just really messed me up. I couldn't seem to remember what to do. Different timing, body movements, etc. and it just messed me up. PR said that I didn't have enough of the onion. Maybe. We came back and had lunch. I decided to take a nap, living dangerously as I had a hard time waking up. But, it helps in that everyone is in our room (I am sharing with some friends) partying... so with that, I better get to it. Kampai!

Yes, yet again, I will be trecking across the seas to our hombu. Although, this time, I will be flying direct (yipeee!), and I will be staying with good friends in a local hotel where I hope to be a bit warmer. It will probably also be helpful to be coming from a cooler climate, versus the 100 still degrees that I left last year to travel to Nipon.

I have decided that this trip is about the people, not as much as about practice or getting kata or anything else that I might but probably shouldn't expect. I am looking forward to meeting many new Europeans and seeing a few familiar faces. I also hope to get to Tokyo this time.

My bags are not yet packed, but I have some time still and I pretty much have everything in order, including my 4-legged children. Hi ho, hi ho, and away I gooooo....

Well, I can't believe it has been a week already! i am getting on the plane in about an hour for the long flight back to LA. Hopefully, it will be more direct and not through LV. It has been an amazing. The city of Narita is quiant and easy to get around in. Fukukawa san kindly gave me a ride in his mini-mini van to the Keisei station in order to take the train back to Narita airport. By the way, it costs more than 130yen. i ended up having to pay the clerk at the other side. The "document" only says how to get to the Ryokan and forgets to mention how to get back, like how much fare to get. The machines don't tell you the fare, you have to look it up and put in the right amount. I guessed and well, it was wrong. No worries.

I had many inquisitive security checks for my weapons case. They are serious about their swords leaving the country. Thankfully an iaito is not considered a sword. Key word here is mogito. Very important to remember. Ok, so it is off to my gate now. I have to take a little metro train to the outer terminal. Hi ho hi ho, it's off to LAX I go.

This post curtesy of Narita airports free internet. :)

Wow, what a week. I am tired, but happy. My big toe decided to call it quits 20 minutes before training was over. I felt bad for it. It was cold and abused, so I suppose I deserved the sharp pain and cramping. I am going to miss walking up the hill to catch the bus and the training all day, dinner at the Ryokan, which was fabulous last night. We had tempura and sushi. Yum! After dinner I decided to lay down to get warm (the Ryokan is not very warm) and the next thing I know I was zonked out. It was only about 8pm. I slept until 7am. okay, time is up. off to dinner.

...is a good thing when you are tired :) I slept in a bit, 6am. I went back to the jinku (shrine) to watch the daily ceremony again. I forgot to mention the playboy bunny guy. It is odd to see a person sitting in a holy place with a playboy bunny sweat track suit on. Bizarro.

Nice day today. I had san sin soba, aka veggie noodle soup for lunch. Training was great. Too many things to remember and think about. I also had a long chat with R sensei about life. Many things to ponder.

Dindin will be a fun shindig at the ryokan. Much imbuing of warm luxsure to be had. (can't spell that right.) anyway, off to enjoy the evening.

3:15am is early! I was worried that the cell phone wouldn't work, so I got up and called Budoka. It was no problem. The interview went for 1 hour and went pretty well. My potential future boss advanced me to the next interview phase which will be an in person interview in the office when i get back. So that is good news.

With my early wake up, it made for an especially long day! I just got back at 8:30 from training. Boy am I tired. Today, reaffirms my relief and happiness to have such wonderful teaching and training partners. We are so lucky!

Had lunch and sort of dinner at 7-11. Oh yum. Lots of rice and bananas. It was a great day and I will definitely sleep well....ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

I, and my Ryokan mates, all got up early. We're still all a bit jet lagged. We decided to head to the shrine which is practically next door for the service at 6am. It begins with the monks filling in and two monks outside ringing a big bell and smaller bell to indicate the start of the service. A priest sits at the front in the Shrine area which was huge with all the other monks sitting off to the left. They were very colorful with robes of green, yellow, brown and red. The service was fantastic. The front/head monk played bells often throughout the ceremony. At one point they played a gigantic taiko drum that you could feel through the floor and rattled your innerds. Awesome! Then later they start this pretty decent sized fire in front of the main monk and start to chant. They bring up various items to be blessed by the fire. They play another smaller taiko with great ryhthm and more chanting. Finally, another monk comes and chants towards the audience and the service is nearly over, just some more chanting and ringing of small bells that are in front of the head monk. Afterward, all the monks file out and walk the perimeter of the shrine in all directions. It was an amazing ceremony and a perfect way to start off a day and a week of training.

It was a great day and I am tired. After getting over nerves, I had fun. We had a great lunch at a local place sitting on the floor. Yummy chicken, but it hasn't lasted and now I am starving. So, it is time to head back to the ryokan for some dindin.

I have to get up at 4am for a job interview tomorrow. Ugh!

I made it! Yippee.. finally after all the craziness of travel, I made it to Narita yesterday.

Although it was dissappionting to loose a day, I did have a great time with my aunt. I also ran into my best friend from high schools' parents. I really liked them and learned many things from her dad, including the hook up for my shakuhachi. I also met a guy at Starbucks in the LA airport who had won the German lottery and was traveling the world and heading to Rio de Janiero to buy a house on the beach. Interesting that he would pick Brazil. He said he used to be an attorney general in Germany but really liked Brazil and wanted to lay on the beach a few years. Well, whatever floats your boat.

I went to pick up my luggage when I arrived here with the determination that I would have to file a claim for my lost weapons case and low and behold my weapons case showed up! I was in shock. Before I left, I had called US Airways and they could not find it anywhere and AA also swore they did not have it. Elves must have shipped it- I think.

I am happy that I did not try to bring a shinken as they made me open my case and show the blade which they tested with a magnet to be sure it was not a real sword. One person in our group indicated that he had a sword and when he went through customs, they took him to a seperate room. They are pretty serious about swords here.

I made it to the Ryokan fairly easily. I have my own little room with shoji doors. We all sleep in the same area but with shoji in between. It is not what I would call private as you can here everything in the next room. It is nice though with tatami floors. The bathroom is shared, but has the most fantastic toilet. It has a heated seat! Now, I never thought I would care so much, but I must admit that it is quite nice. It also has some cleaning emenities, which I hear (I haven't tried yet) from other members in my group that it is a nice feature. I will have to try it some time.

I slept in this morning which was good since most people wake up at 2 am because of jet lag and can't sleep. Our little group met to discuss the gifts for various people and then we headed out to Katori Jinku (Katori shrine). It was about a 30 min train ride and then 30 minute walk to the shrine. It is some sort of holiday as there were lots of little kids in traditional dress. They look so adorable. I got a number of cute shots though trying to be as in conspicuous as possible. The shrine was much like other shrines I have been too. We tried to figure out where the demonstrations that are on YouTube were taken. I bought a bunch of religious little things and the plaque for the dojo. We also went into the little museum. They had a number of items that were given to the Katori boat (no idea why there was a k boat) or perhaps the shrine from all over the world. There was also a nice naginata blade, some shirken, a sword blade and a set of armor that was pretty interesting. Then we headed to the founders grave to clean and pay our respects. It was a very nice spot for it and we had a nice time sweeping and talking about the memorials. There were a number of tall pagodas. One was dedicated in the late 1800's while the other was only about 20 years old. That one actually had R Sensei family mentioned. We went back to town, had a nice meal and headed back to Narita.

I really like Narita. It is just like something you would picture for a Japanese town. Small streets with little shops along them. It is very quaint. I realized that this is the sort of thing I was looking for when I was in China, but never really found. I really like Japan-from what I have seen of it.

Off now to go partake in a little coffee. Tomorrow will be the first day of training. I admit that I am a bit nervous.

When I got up this morning, I would never have envisioned what my day turned out to be. You know sometimes when one thing goes wrong, then another and then another and about that point, you just start to laugh.... I hit that point mid morning. So, I get to the airport at 6:30am only to find out that my flight was canceled. rut row. This can't be good, but the travel agent lady said, no problem we will get you there in time to catch your flight. Did you know that if you go through Las Vegas you can get to LA faster?! Yeah, well, don't try it. I get to LV, with a nagging voice in my head saying over and over - what the hell am i doing in Vegas! - only to find out the my flight to LA was delayed. No worries I thought. I made my way to the pay phone and followed up on some job leads. I get to the counter to print out my ticket for the flight and come to find out it was delayed even later. The gal said, oh you aren't going to make your flight. What! rut row!! Now what?? So, I had a choice of either going on to LA and staying there or staying in Vegas. I decided it would be best to be in the city where my flight would leave from then to have to depend on another flight to get me to my flight. With my current luck, this did not seem like a wise plan. I called my aunt who lives in the LA area and she was available for dinner which made it that much more appealing. Then they gave me a voucher, sort of. They said I will still have to change it. Next they had to retrieve my luggage. They could not find my weapons. As I am sitting here now, I still have no idea where they are. I get to LA only to find out that I have to a new voucher as the LV crew did not reserve the hotel. I also did not get my bag tags back. The agent was suppose to bring them to me after I had boarded the LV to LA flight. I did reconfirm the flight for tomorrow, so I hope I am all set. I missed the shuttle for the hotel by about 5 seconds. It took me about 30-40 minutes to figure out how to make a stinking international phone call. All the numbers I had were written as if they were to be dialed in Japan. I did not know what was the city code nor how many digits were in a normal number. It is eight by the way and you drop the 0 between the 011-81 and the city code. Even the international operator did not understand what to do. I eventually figured it out. An important task since there are people who are expecting me to be getting off the 4:40pm flight "today."

Throughout my whole day today, I haven't been really frustrated. It is an odd, yet familiar numb feeling of indifference and que sera sera. This is not all bad and I think a lingering affect from my summer travels. I feel fortunate that I won't be missing any keiko or other really important event, just a little socializing and sight seeing.

I did meet some nice people in my strange adventure. The hong kong gal who lives in LV and who got bumped from her flight to HK. We ended up having lunch together at the hotel. I sat next to a very nice man who is in the wine and spirits industry on the PHX to LV flight. We exchanged biz cards.

Besides deciding that I must have some sort of strange karma today, it was not all bad. My aunt drove up from LB and we had a great time chatting and catching up. I always enjoy our time together and it was a nice and pleasant surprise to get to spend an evening with her.

So, please keep your fingers and toes crossed for me so perhaps that will break my travel challenged spell.

About three weeks ago, I had to make a difficult decision. Some would say it was not difficult; however, for me, it was. I had to decide whether to take a chance and go on my planned trip to Japan. I have been planning to go for over a year now; however, with all the changes in my life, I had waited to purchase the ticket. I talked with my fellow K budoka and they all encouraged me to go because Sensei O is in his 80's and may not be around for too much longer. Furthermore, he may not be able to demonstrate and teach even if he is still apart of this world. With R Sensei only going once every year or so, this may be the chance of a lifetime as I am not allowed to go without R Sensei. It is an honor and privilege to even be able to be apart of K training. If you are not familiar with K, it is a very old and traditional Japanese martial art and as such, has lots of peculiar, yet historic trappings including a bit of secrecy. Therefore, there will be things that I write that will be a bit cryptic. I apologize if I confuse or annoy you in this regard. It is not intentional and perhaps you can think of it as how a foreigner might feel if he or she were to attend an A&M college football game.

I have had a large case of denial in preparing for this trip. Part of it is because I feel like I just finished traveling a whole lot and I didn't want to start to repack again. Part of it is guilt for spending the money to go. Another part is that I still am looking for a position and being somewhat unavailable is not the best when trying to gain employment. In any case, it is now only a few hours before I leave and I just now finished packing. I think I have all the "ascundry" items. Many people have asked if I am excited to be going. Even though I have dreamed of going to Japan since I was about 8yrs old, I don't feel excited. Maybe it will hit me when I actually get there.

I will again be using internet cafes. Supposedly, there is one near the ryokan, where we will be saying. One thing about this trip that I am really looking forward to is that I won't be alone. I will meet many of my fellow K participants at the airport. They will guide me to where was are staying (the ryokan), to and from practice and other attractions. Having had to do that all by myself all summer, having someone who knows what they are doing and that you trust is a real blessing!

Since it is about 2am and I leave in 4 hours, it is probably best I get a little shut eye.

Sometimes it takes one being away from home for 2.5 months to help you appreciate home. The U.S. is not perfect, yet it is home. I missed green salads, fresh veggies, smoothies, ice water, ice tea, ice sodas, and ice everything. There are other small things like a clean bathroom with paper, my own bed and transportation, and being able to blend-in and understand everything around me. I felt reverse culture shock as I continued to keep my purse very close to my body, felt the urge to bring tissue with me to the restroom and still want to say, "du-pu-chi" when I would normally say "excuse me." Since being home, I have enjoyed wearing a much more diverse wardrobe (I was getting rather bored with only 3 sets of clothes - there are only so many combos), watching the 100+ channels of intelligible, but mostly crap TV, going to the dojo, and hanging out with friends and my furry children. Even though each day is not so different from the last, I am happy to be home!

Beijing will hold many memories of the the Great Wall as I spent 2 days out of my 5 there. To the north of Beijing there are lots of pieces of the wall that you can see from various periods and in differing conditions. On my first full day, I went with a small group that I met here at the hostel to an area called Simatai. It was very far outside the city (over 60 miles/100km) and this section appeared to cling to the mountains and separated Beijing Province from inner Mongolia. We decided to take the tram up to reduce our time in getting to the wall as it still quite far away and up the mountain ( 1.5km/1mile). The tram was really relaxing but even though it took us a long way, we still had a lot to climb up. When we reached the wall, we found out how difficult it was to actually walk up as all of the steps were of differing distances and uneven with many portions slanting steeply up or down. Obviously, when you are on the wall you find yourself going up and down mountains since the wall clings to them, which is very tiring. It was beautiful, like all the pictures you see, except that you peered through the haze to try and make out the far reaches of wall snaking its way up the mountains in either direction and overlooking the hazy green valleys below. If only the skies were clear, this would have been absolutely spectacular. We climbed down the other side of the wall and decided to take the pseudo-zip line down which again greatly reduced the time to get down and was lots of fun. The Chinese are always full of various transportation devices. After having some lunch, we all jumped back into the van and the driver took us on what became our 4 hours drive back even though it took 2 hours to get there. When we hit the gridlocked rush hour traffic of Beijing it two extra hours.

The next day my new friends invited me to meet them at the Summer Palace so we agreed to meet at the metro stop across town and then take a bus the rest of the way. Little did we know how big Beijing is and how bad traffic can be, as we decided to meet in the afternoon and it took another full hour in the bus to get to the Palace. I had agreed to meet my Chinese friend at the hostel at 6pm so I only had an hour or so at the Palace since I figured I needed to leave at 4:30. I thought that I would have plenty of time to get back to the Hostel-which turned out not to be the case. It would have taken 2 hours to get back to the hostel on the bus I was on, so I had to jump off and run to the subway station to get back (I had intended to take the bus the whole way back - thinking it would be easier). The Summer Palace was very beautiful and huge. I would need a whole day to fully enjoy it and still not see everything. It is not like many palaces in the western world as the large building that is the highest with the most spectacular view is actually a temple. The living quarters is down below the mountain on the other side of the entrance which follows the laws governing Fung Shui. There is a large lake and many pathways around the mountain and lake with many of them being very steep. I can't recall how many buildings are on the grounds but there are tons. I didn't pay extra to see the inside of the actual palace - China sometimes feels like an old Disney Land system where you had to pay for each thing that you did as many sites in China are like this. Unfortunately due to shortness of time, I didn't go in any buildings except the temples; however, most buildings were closed. There were numerous courtyards since that is an important part of Chinese architecture. Around the courtyards are usually buildings with 3 rooms or rather 1 room with two adjoining rooms on either side. The center room was where the head of the courtyard household sat and then one was a bedroom and the other was another sitting room or sometimes a bedroom. All the palace rooms were decorated sparsely with paintings, pottery and Chinese furniture.

Thankfully, I was only a few minutes late to meet my friends. We headed to a newer area called Hohoart (or something like that) which is a big lake surrounded by bars and restaurants. My friend said she loves this one restaurant and that the food was excellent. Chinese people love food and tend to eat a lot and often. She was right; the food was fantastic and, in fact, it was probably the best meal I have had in Asia. We had fish that was cooked (the whole thing - including head and tails) in tinfoil. It was cooked differently than I have experienced before with lots of spices. The rice was baked and filled with tasty spices as well. We also enjoyed a delicious broth with mushrooms. Chinese often like to have broth with dinner. After stuffing ourselves, we walked around the area which clearly was a new, fancy and popular area. It could have been any new hip area in the States (much like downtown Scottsdale). After walking a bit, one of my companions had to go home because she had to be home before 10pm when they lock the gates to the middle school. She is staying with her friend who works there. Many Chinese people live where they work. I find this odd, but perhaps in a city like Beijing it would be nearly impossible to go home every night because it would take too long.

The next day, I headed to the Forbidden City and was joined by the masses of others wanting to visit this iconic place. It is huge and took me an hour just to get to the gates on foot. When I was standing in line to get my ticket, I met two young Chinese students who asked if I would like to join them which proved to be very helpful. They got to practice their English and I got to hear some interesting facts about each building as they had been there before. After a few hours of walking, we were only able to get through half of the smaller areas before I was just too tired to see the rest. I knew I still had the one hour walk to get back to my hostel; which believe it or not was actually quite close; only a few blocks, albeit really big blocks.

I went to a KungFu show that night which was very entertaining. The performers were in incredibly good shape and I marveled at their speed, agility and concentration. Amazing.

The next day (yesterday) I spent with my friend and she wanted to take me to the wall, so I thought, why not. She took me in her car which turned out to be nearly the same car as mine and we had a great time laughing about this. We talked about many things though English was difficult for her and my Chinese was far worse. The drive was so much nicer being in a car with great company. She took me to part of the wall, Badaling which is considered to be the most famous, but also the most crowded. In hindsight, I liked Simatai better as it was much more authentic as much of the wall in that section was original; while Badaling has had many reparations. The further section of Badaling was more interesting and also the steepest part of the wall I had been on yet. I had to walk backwards just to keep from slipping.

We headed back to the city to do a bit of shopping as I wanted to buy a Harry Potter book for my long flight home and stop to get some clothes in an area my friend was known for good discounts. I bought two nice shirts for 40 Y. We found a Harry Potter book, yet, the English version was 10 times more expensive than the Chinese, but still cheaper than what I would pay at home and I would have something to read on my long flight home. We found ourselves stuck in rush hour traffic, which is less like a rush and more like a crawl. My friend offered to show me the Olympic stadium which was nearby. So 45 minutes later we arrived at the Olympic area which was clearly under construction. The stadium looked really interesting as it appears to be a large silver birds nest in appearance. Since we were very near a good restaurant, we stopped to have a snack where I enjoyed my first taste of a blood broth. I will try just about anything once; however, I decided that blood just wasn't for me. I had had a fantastic day with my new friend and it was so kind of her to spend her time with me. I told her to please come visit me in the U.S. so I could return the favor. It was starting to get late and even though neither of us wanted to say goodbye, it was time to call it a night, so she took me to the nearest subway stop so I could get home as it was too difficult and long of a drive to take me all the way home.

This morning, I am packing up and heading to the airport. It has been an amazing trip and I leave Beijing and China with mixed feelings, but i am certain that I will be back.

I was able to sleep in today which was needed after the traveling and then the trip to the Wall yesterday. I went to pick up my email and received a shocking email. QP decided to recind their offer. Since my whole world for the last 2.5 months has felt a bit like I am in a dream, this too feels as such. I had hoped that perhaps this was a dream and I would wake up. For some reason, I have found it hard to think about estoteric subjects and even my plans for what would have been my next position. Perhaps this is because I live moment by moment or that I am just trying to deal with all the changing world that I am currently in.

I had a great dinner in Datong with the people I met on the tour to the Hanging monastery and the caves. Since we ate family style, I was able to try all sorts of dishes with my favorite being the boc choy and it ended up costing only 25Y (~$3). What a deal! Food is so cheap here. I got up the next morning and got on the train for Beijing. After finding I was in the wrong seat when someone came to claim it, I found myself sitting across from a young couple who were going on vacation with the rest of their family. Mom, Dad and sister sat across from the aisle from us. I was planning on looking out the window for most of the trip; however, I had a wonderful time chatting with them. One of the most interesting things I learned was that the Chinese can only own a home for 70 years from when they buy it. After the 70 years, the property and home returns to the government. Chinese also live with their parents until they marry and must obey their parents. They were quite surprised that I was traveling alone and asked me if my parents approved and I said they weren't happy about it, but accepted it. They said in China, I would not be allowed to go. I suppose this is a similar situation as in the US if you still live under your parents roof; however, I feel that family values are stronger here.

The country side was mostly farming with corn being the dominant crop. As we got nearer to Beijing, it became very mountainous and we started entering the tunnels. At the time that I realized that the tunnels were numbered after already going through quite a few, I noticed that the number was about 25. I think we must have gone through 30 tunnels with some being only a few meters long while others being many miles long. When I wasn't talking with my nice traveling mates, I would find myself falling asleep when we entered the tunnel and then waking up again when we came out. There was also a nice lake that we passed by that was noticeably void of boats. Finally we arrived in Beijing and I made my way out of the gigantic station to get on the bus, which was also an experience. I have never been pushed onto a bus before, but there were so many people trying to get on that I was moved only by the force of people. It was crazy! and the bus attendant was yelling something at everyone, but no one seemed to listen. After my 8 stops, I thankfully extracted myself from the bus and made my way to the Hostel.

After getting settled, I had some dinner and met a nice woman from Australia. She told me her and her friends were going to the Great Wall at Simatai (evidently there are multiple places to go and each is a bit different) so I decided to go with them the next day. She also invited me to go to the night market with them that night. On our way, two young Chinese said hello and started to ask us where we were from and the next thing we know they are walking along with our merry band. They were also tourists and were from northern China. It might seem strange to just have people start to try to befriend you, but I feel like it is very common here. We found part of the night market and ventured down the snack street where one of the people in our group, feeling daring, tried the cooked scorpion. He said it tasted pretty good, but I just could not bring myself to eat it. In the exotic category there were other choices including starfish, grubs, grasshoppers (I have already tried that one :), sea horses and the afore mentioned scorpions. I somehow managed to restrain myself. We ended our night at McDonald's where I had a nice and normal vanilla milkshake.

Haze...I have been trying to figure out why it seems everything is covered in a fogyish haze, even in rural areas. I am not sure if it is truly fog or smog. If this is smog, oh my! I have never ever experienced this before. Since landing in Xi'an, I haven't seen the sun nor had visibility more than a quarter of a mile away and when I asked a foreigner who was on the train with me if it was always that way in Xi'an, he said yes, at least it had for the 2 weeks he was in Xian. I understand this gets much worse in Datong and then even worse in Beijing. I could not imagine living this way. Talk about getting the blues from no sunlight! I will have to ask more about this to see if it is always this way. If the answer is yes, then holy crap - our planet ain't big enough! I now know what if feels like to be in an industrial revolution and one which dwarfs the environmental impact the western world faced previously.

I think I can accurately say that being here in China has been a huge eye opener. I feel overwhelmed, awe struck and at the same time incredibly concerned. I will talk more about this when I get home.

Yesterday evening I went to some of the famous sites around Xi'an, the Small Goose Pagoda and then the large Pagoda. They had built some nice parks around both with historical buildings (not sure if they were actually historical or rebuilt as many things are around here). Thanks to a helpful woman who spoke some English, I managed to get off at the right spot for the small pagoda; however, I unfortunately missed most of the exhibit as I got there very late in the afternoon. I also climbed the 15 floors up to the top only to have it closed about a minute before I got there and no amount of "please" was going to persuade the moderator to open the door to let me see out. I did get to watch a Tai Chi class (sort of class as there were only 2 students and the teacher) that was going on in the center of the park. Even though I couldn't understand what instructions he was giving, I got the gist of what he was saying by watching their body language and movement.

I caught the bus to the big pagoda and it was already closed but you could see it quite clearly. I walked around the area and then headed back to the bus stop to take the bus back to the hostel, but when the bus finally came, the attendant asked me where I was going (in Chinese, but the gestures were pretty clear) and when I indicated on my map, she immediately shooed me off of the bus. So, I was stuck. I found someone to ask by pointing at my map and another nice lady who also did not speak any English gestured that I needed to walk to the other side of the pagoda square, which is about a 20 minute walk. So, off I went in search of a bus stop and when I found one which looked promising, I looked at all the bus numbers and discovered that the bus that I knew did not stop here, which meant that I had to find a new bus. After spotting someone whom I thought might speak English (I am starting to be a better guess at who does and does not-look for the young fashionably dressed), I approached them and indicated in my map with my best please help me expression. He did indeed speak a bit of English and told me a bus number, which he later came over to find me and said that he was wrong and I needed to take a different bus. Thankfully, it was the right bus and I made it back to the Hostel without any challenges. Now, the China bible is very helpful but in this case, they sucked. The Lonely Planet guide only indicated how to get to the site, and neglected instructions about how to get back or at least that the bus that you came on will not likely take you back.

This experienced was followed up by my challenge at the train station to buy tickets for the next few legs of my travels. When I got to the ticket window that was indicated as the window for foreigners, the attendant did not speak any English. I tried to explain what I wanted but she just gave me looks of confused looks. After a few minutes of exasperation, I was clearly holding up the line and I could feel the frustrated stares from the Chinese waiting behind me. Thankfully, a nice young Chinese girl came up and offered to help. She was able to help me to understand why the attendant looked so confused, evidently they could not sell train tickets from other cities to another destination. With that said, for some odd reason, I was able to by a seat on a train from Datong to Beijing. Go figure. I felt pretty bad about the poor people waiting behind me as it took a long time to work everything out. I also probably did my part to contribute to Chinese people's dislike of foreigners. I also vow to be much more forgiving if the situation is ever in reverse and someone is in front of me holding up the line.

The train was not too bad and it was an improvement from the Vietnam train. I was in second class (hard sleeper) and in the middle bunk. The hard sleepers do not have any doors on the compartments, but it makes them much more roomy than perhaps a soft sleeper. I slept okay, but there was a large group of teenagers who were inhabiting most of our car and who probably only slept 2 hours. They talked and laughed and teased each other loudly until 2am and were up around 4am. I was really surprised that the chaperone did not say anything to them about being more respectful to the people who were trying to sleep. Strange. Also, the people around me who were trying to sleep did not seem to care about these very loud teens. I can only guess that perhaps they are used to people being loud and can tune it out or ??? The other thing that bothered me was how they just threw their trash out the window. Ugh! I wanted to tell them to stop and think about what they were doing. Besides, there was a trash can only 10 feet away.

I arrived here in Pingyao and am hoping to get a place to sleep at the Yamen Hostel. It is evidently pretty full and I have to wait until people check out to get a room.