The skyscrapers in Hong Kong are most impressive, crammed on top of the many islands to fit the dense population that they have, and their lights reflect beautifully on the bay. Some of these buildings are at least 70 stories high! I remember a few years ago when I came here, I went to my friend Albert’s home and he was on the 44th floor or some crazy number like that! Imagine looking down from that window!
The office in Hong Kong is in Causeway Bay, which isn’t extremely central to all of the tourism area. This really doesn’t matter too much, considering everything is busy with a lot of nightlife in this city. Stores are everywhere, with bright lights, a mixture of English and Cantonese on the signs. The minute you start window shopping, I noticed the salesman would come outside and watch with you, almost like the good angel on your right shoulder telling you to buy it. This type of customer service seems normal here; even in restaurants the waiters wait patiently by your side as you are looking over your receipt. Personally, it makes me uncomfortable because I’m shuffling through my wallet to figure out whether or not the service charge is included and if I should be tipping them, but I think in their minds they feel it is respectful to show that they are ready to serve you immediately.
On the weekend, we decided to go to Macau, which used to be a Portuguese colony, and was reclaimed by China in 1999. We had to bring our passports, as we are basically leaving Hong Kong for China, and took the 1 hour turbojet service to cross the bay. I couldn’t imagine crossing this bay without the hydrofoil because any normal boat would take about 3 hours. We didn’t choose the best weather to visit Macau, as it was hazy all day, and even rained for an hour. As we were not fully prepared, I ended up buying a “Hello Kitty” umbrella once we got to the city…how appropriate!
We concentrated our tourism around the ruins of St. Paul’s church, where one façade lies on the top of a hill, and as you spiral down the hill, you pass all the tourist shops filled with clothing, shoes, Asian clothing and specialties, and replica antiques. It was really interesting to see the fusion of the Portuguese colonial architecture with Chinese buildings and signs bearing both languages. We ate at the Restaurant Platão, which was the absolute best food ever! All of the food in Hong Kong has been spectacular, but this was beyond belief…and it was Western food!!! If you travel in Asia for more than a few weeks, there is a point where you start craving normal bread. I don’t know how else to explain this, but even though you get carbs from noodle soups and rice plates, you don’t ever see bread. I don’t eat that much bread at home, but it almost seems like there is a different satisfaction that you get from having this food staple.
Sunday, January 30, 2005
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Beijing - January 2005
Upon arrival in Beijing International Airport, you go through extensive lines for verifying your visa and passport, as well as a quarantine check line, where they have computers that can recognize if you have a temperature or not as you pass through. Usually in an airport, getting your baggage takes the most time, but in this country, it’s the visa line for foreigners. As you exit the customs area, non-licensed taxi drivers try to get your attention to offer taxi rides into the city. Driving around Beijing is one of the things I enjoy most, as you can see all different kinds of vehicles and people. The bicycle is the clear winner of popular vehicles, with drivers of all ages mounted upon them. I hope one day Amsterdam and Beijing have a competition of whose population uses the most bikes. The city taxis are everywhere too, and for some reason the drivers need extra protection, and there usually is a metal or plastic cage all around them. The first time I went into one of these taxis, I felt uncomfortable, as if I were in the back of a police car. Above all, my favorite vehicle has got to be the motorcycle with the side seat. One of these days I will pay someone to let me ride in the side seat!
Everything in China is difficult without speaking a little Chinese, although the people are eager to help as much as possible in English with the basic words such as: lady, please, good price, and beautiful. That’s good for me because my only basic words in Chinese are: I, you, am, (not) very good, excuse me, sorry, and (no) thank you. Fortunately, when you are introduced to people at work who have learned English in college, they use an English first name as a nickname, which makes it easier to remember everyone’s names. After meeting over 10 people with different Chinese names, it does get difficult. To be fair, I asked them to make me a Chinese name, which is Lin Na. I can even write it in Chinese!
In the evening, we went out for dinner in Ho Hai area. Ho Hai is this area where there’s a man-made lake, and many bars and restaurants around it. It’s beautiful at night. When we went, it was particularly cold, being that it was most likely -6C. As we shivered, walking around the lake with the team, I kept hearing people yelling. I asked my coworker if somebody was yelling because he/she was lost, but she simply replied that they were exercising. Now for the normal American, that does not make any sense. I had to ask her again. Apparently some people believe that yelling is a good exercise for the heart, and they do this as they are doing other physical exercises in the park by the lake. I had read in another magazine that some Chinese believe that taking a dip into very cold water is healthy too. Brrrr! I like to think my warm coat and gloves is just fine. As we got closer to the lake, I noticed it was almost entirely frozen! No wonder we were cold!
We had dinner at a very nice restaurant where they gave us their own private dining room in the back. In order to get to this room, you walk past a beautiful flower garden in an inside patio. Once we arrive to the room, I kindly ask for help to go to the restroom, as I cannot say this myself in Chinese. My coworker escorts my boss and I to the bathroom, not too far away. Once again, we find ourselves in a bathroom incident. My boss goes first and opens up the door to the stall, and immediately backs up and asks me what to do. “What do you mean, what do you do?” I ask. I look at my coworker, who looks at us, confused about why we are confused. So I take a look at the bathroom. Ahhhhhhhh. It’s a squat-system: no toilet, just a hole in the ground. Now we must come to the decision of a lifetime: hold it or go. What the hell, when in Rome…
Conclusion: going to the bathroom in China is practically a callisthenic exercise. For you to understand this, I must explain it to you, step by step, so that you imagine that you are in this situation. First, you go in and close the stall, and quickly start to figure out the logistics of how to squat over this hole without getting your pants wet. There are little indicators on each side of the toilet-hole that are for your feet, which are about shoulder-length apart. Once your pants are down, you have to figure out how far down they need to be, for them to be out of harms way. With a deep squat you are in business, although now you are in a delicate praying mantis balancing act that you never would really wish to have to do, particularly in this situation. God forbid you have to go for a long time, because if you aren’t used to squatting for a long period of time, your legs quickly get tired, and then you reach to each side for your arms to help keep you balanced!
Everything in China is difficult without speaking a little Chinese, although the people are eager to help as much as possible in English with the basic words such as: lady, please, good price, and beautiful. That’s good for me because my only basic words in Chinese are: I, you, am, (not) very good, excuse me, sorry, and (no) thank you. Fortunately, when you are introduced to people at work who have learned English in college, they use an English first name as a nickname, which makes it easier to remember everyone’s names. After meeting over 10 people with different Chinese names, it does get difficult. To be fair, I asked them to make me a Chinese name, which is Lin Na. I can even write it in Chinese!
In the evening, we went out for dinner in Ho Hai area. Ho Hai is this area where there’s a man-made lake, and many bars and restaurants around it. It’s beautiful at night. When we went, it was particularly cold, being that it was most likely -6C. As we shivered, walking around the lake with the team, I kept hearing people yelling. I asked my coworker if somebody was yelling because he/she was lost, but she simply replied that they were exercising. Now for the normal American, that does not make any sense. I had to ask her again. Apparently some people believe that yelling is a good exercise for the heart, and they do this as they are doing other physical exercises in the park by the lake. I had read in another magazine that some Chinese believe that taking a dip into very cold water is healthy too. Brrrr! I like to think my warm coat and gloves is just fine. As we got closer to the lake, I noticed it was almost entirely frozen! No wonder we were cold!
We had dinner at a very nice restaurant where they gave us their own private dining room in the back. In order to get to this room, you walk past a beautiful flower garden in an inside patio. Once we arrive to the room, I kindly ask for help to go to the restroom, as I cannot say this myself in Chinese. My coworker escorts my boss and I to the bathroom, not too far away. Once again, we find ourselves in a bathroom incident. My boss goes first and opens up the door to the stall, and immediately backs up and asks me what to do. “What do you mean, what do you do?” I ask. I look at my coworker, who looks at us, confused about why we are confused. So I take a look at the bathroom. Ahhhhhhhh. It’s a squat-system: no toilet, just a hole in the ground. Now we must come to the decision of a lifetime: hold it or go. What the hell, when in Rome…
Conclusion: going to the bathroom in China is practically a callisthenic exercise. For you to understand this, I must explain it to you, step by step, so that you imagine that you are in this situation. First, you go in and close the stall, and quickly start to figure out the logistics of how to squat over this hole without getting your pants wet. There are little indicators on each side of the toilet-hole that are for your feet, which are about shoulder-length apart. Once your pants are down, you have to figure out how far down they need to be, for them to be out of harms way. With a deep squat you are in business, although now you are in a delicate praying mantis balancing act that you never would really wish to have to do, particularly in this situation. God forbid you have to go for a long time, because if you aren’t used to squatting for a long period of time, your legs quickly get tired, and then you reach to each side for your arms to help keep you balanced!
London, England - Jan 2005
Whenever I arrive to London I get a little nostalgic, as it was my home away from home in 2004. I love the Georgian white stone buildings, “look left” and “look right” signs, the cute taxi cabs, and the tube. It’s not the tube itself that I love, because it’s quite crowded and hotter than hell, even in the winter. It’s the people on it – how they won’t look at one another if at all possible, and how you can always find “The Daily Mail” somewhere on the floor. It’s the advertisements all around, that let you know what big thing is happening in London at the time, and the quirky messaging inside the tube.
I like to walk around St James Park, where you get to pass all the tourists at Buckingham Palace, and then all the ducks and geese that are hanging out by the lake. Our hotel is only a block or two away from the park, and before crossing the street, I saw cameramen, traffic warden, and all these men in coats and their boxers. Somewhat an odd combination, especially for the British. So I asked one of the yellow-vested traffic wardens, “Excuse me sir, but can you tell me why everyone is in their underpants?” in my best neutral accent. I mean, I even said “underpants” so he wouldn’t look weird at me if I said “boxers”. He replied saying that it was an “advert” for Wal-Mart…and I apologized to him for having a Wal-Mart in London.
Whilst in the park, I noticed yet more cameramen. How is this possible that within only a half a mile I see this many cameramen? There was this lady in a full suit, wearing white heels and a purse, walking three small dogs. My boss recognized the dogs, oddly enough, as the Queen’s dogs. Amazing. This woman is famous and on tv about walking some pooches around the park, and she still goes out in heels and a purse, as if she’s going out on a hot date. Now that’s the life. I need to change my career.
On Saturday, we decide to go to Cambridge. The town itself is rather small, and you can get to know the main downtown area within a few hours. Everyone talks about Cambridge University as if it’s just one big college, but apparently there are about 80 different colleges in Cambridge, and they all have this magnificent architecture, and look like mini cathedrals to me. Speaking of cathedrals, one of the biggest is King’s Chapel. When you enter the chapel, the first thing you notice is when you look up: the ceiling reaches higher than any other cathedral I have visited, and has a slightly gothic style to it. All of the symbols in the architecture relate to the monarchy for which it was built. It made me think of how when people get married, they want the style of their house to reflect them. With King’s Chapel, all of the emblems symbolized the monarchies of the bride and groom.
I like to walk around St James Park, where you get to pass all the tourists at Buckingham Palace, and then all the ducks and geese that are hanging out by the lake. Our hotel is only a block or two away from the park, and before crossing the street, I saw cameramen, traffic warden, and all these men in coats and their boxers. Somewhat an odd combination, especially for the British. So I asked one of the yellow-vested traffic wardens, “Excuse me sir, but can you tell me why everyone is in their underpants?” in my best neutral accent. I mean, I even said “underpants” so he wouldn’t look weird at me if I said “boxers”. He replied saying that it was an “advert” for Wal-Mart…and I apologized to him for having a Wal-Mart in London.
Whilst in the park, I noticed yet more cameramen. How is this possible that within only a half a mile I see this many cameramen? There was this lady in a full suit, wearing white heels and a purse, walking three small dogs. My boss recognized the dogs, oddly enough, as the Queen’s dogs. Amazing. This woman is famous and on tv about walking some pooches around the park, and she still goes out in heels and a purse, as if she’s going out on a hot date. Now that’s the life. I need to change my career.
On Saturday, we decide to go to Cambridge. The town itself is rather small, and you can get to know the main downtown area within a few hours. Everyone talks about Cambridge University as if it’s just one big college, but apparently there are about 80 different colleges in Cambridge, and they all have this magnificent architecture, and look like mini cathedrals to me. Speaking of cathedrals, one of the biggest is King’s Chapel. When you enter the chapel, the first thing you notice is when you look up: the ceiling reaches higher than any other cathedral I have visited, and has a slightly gothic style to it. All of the symbols in the architecture relate to the monarchy for which it was built. It made me think of how when people get married, they want the style of their house to reflect them. With King’s Chapel, all of the emblems symbolized the monarchies of the bride and groom.
Friday, January 21, 2005
Milan, Italy – Jan 2005
Milano in January is quite cold, although when you have been on a plane or in a hotel with controlled air, the fresh, cold air feels good. The people in Milano, with their unique fashion statements, are more glamorous than the architecture of the city. Pointy boots, fuzzy scarfs, funky glasses, big jewelry, and the list goes on. In comparison, most of the buildings are grey or yellow, with marble coverings on the bottom half, and understated balconies. It’s not like Barcelona, where the balcony is in itself almost a statement of its owner. Here, the balconies are pretty and simple. It’s unfortunate that buildings in many neighborhoods have been vandalized.
The worst piece about traveling for work is insomnia. In my case, I checked in to my hotel around 11pm, and proceeded to get ready for bed. I noticed right away that there was no alarm clock in the room, hence no visible clock. As my cell phone was about to die, I couldn’t rely on that as a clock, and of course I had forgotten to pack my watch. I couldn’t figure out how to turn on the 16” TV for some background noise, and to figure out the time, and so decided to read my book until I pass out. At 3.30 am, I wake up. Now of course, I had no idea that it was so early, until I had called the receptionist to ask for the time. After 10 minutes of playing with the remote control and the tv, I have mastered how to turn this monster screen on. I find odd tv shows in Italian, Italian MTV, 4 stations in French and German, 3 of porn, and 3 of news in English. My luck was great – it was George Bush’s inauguration. I got to watch 3 hours of the same news over and over again. Like I care how he waves at the crowd, or what his wife is wearing, or the fact that he doesn’t twirl his wife while dancing.
At 5pm I decide to check out if the restaurant is open. Of course not. I find Pringles in the mini bar, and start watching this interview in German that was more interesting than CNN news…even with the little German I could understand! In any case, you can see that I basically operated like this until leaving for the airport at 6am.
The taxi drivers in Italy are the best because they always are willing to talk to you as if you are completely fluent in Italian, where in reality you understand every third word they say. Fortunately speaking Spanish with a few Italian words here and there helps me, but I still can’t talk about politics with the guy, which seems to be the subject du jour. Must be disappointing in his line of work. At the airport I succumb to the need of caffeine and real food, and thank God that I’m in Italy and not in some country where coffee is bad.
On the plane, I’m sitting next to this guy who looks like Guy Pearson, although he’s Italian and probably younger. I’m guessing he doesn’t go on airplanes very often, as he was so interested in staring out the window, and taking out his camera to film the landing and take pictures of the outside view. It was nice to see that, as I’ve been traveling so much for work, that I’ve forgotten what that excitement is like. I know when I travel for vacation that it is exciting, but not in that virgin traveler sort of way. It makes you appreciate how awesome it is that we can go in planes and arrive in a completely different landscape with different people, fashion and culture.
The worst piece about traveling for work is insomnia. In my case, I checked in to my hotel around 11pm, and proceeded to get ready for bed. I noticed right away that there was no alarm clock in the room, hence no visible clock. As my cell phone was about to die, I couldn’t rely on that as a clock, and of course I had forgotten to pack my watch. I couldn’t figure out how to turn on the 16” TV for some background noise, and to figure out the time, and so decided to read my book until I pass out. At 3.30 am, I wake up. Now of course, I had no idea that it was so early, until I had called the receptionist to ask for the time. After 10 minutes of playing with the remote control and the tv, I have mastered how to turn this monster screen on. I find odd tv shows in Italian, Italian MTV, 4 stations in French and German, 3 of porn, and 3 of news in English. My luck was great – it was George Bush’s inauguration. I got to watch 3 hours of the same news over and over again. Like I care how he waves at the crowd, or what his wife is wearing, or the fact that he doesn’t twirl his wife while dancing.
At 5pm I decide to check out if the restaurant is open. Of course not. I find Pringles in the mini bar, and start watching this interview in German that was more interesting than CNN news…even with the little German I could understand! In any case, you can see that I basically operated like this until leaving for the airport at 6am.
The taxi drivers in Italy are the best because they always are willing to talk to you as if you are completely fluent in Italian, where in reality you understand every third word they say. Fortunately speaking Spanish with a few Italian words here and there helps me, but I still can’t talk about politics with the guy, which seems to be the subject du jour. Must be disappointing in his line of work. At the airport I succumb to the need of caffeine and real food, and thank God that I’m in Italy and not in some country where coffee is bad.
On the plane, I’m sitting next to this guy who looks like Guy Pearson, although he’s Italian and probably younger. I’m guessing he doesn’t go on airplanes very often, as he was so interested in staring out the window, and taking out his camera to film the landing and take pictures of the outside view. It was nice to see that, as I’ve been traveling so much for work, that I’ve forgotten what that excitement is like. I know when I travel for vacation that it is exciting, but not in that virgin traveler sort of way. It makes you appreciate how awesome it is that we can go in planes and arrive in a completely different landscape with different people, fashion and culture.
Friday, November 12, 2004
Korea, Taiwan, China - September 2004
Asia Trip – Sept 12 – 22, 2004
We left on a Sunday and 16 hours later with swollen ankles and a hazy understanding of time zone, we arrive in Taipei’s international airport. American airlines, in general, suck. We went on united and had the oldest flight attendants possible, who spilled our drinks on us three times, and still maintained an attitude while doing so. Regardless of the fact that we’re in business class, you’d think that would at least warrant an “I’m sorry”, but apparently not.
In any case, we arrive to our hotel and get settled in around midnight. Even though that bed looks absolutely divine, I have to log on and work on some urgent matters, so my US coworkers get an answer within their time zone. Like I said, you’re in a hazy state, so you just go through the motions and get your work done. In the morning we go to Yahoo! TW office and meet with just about everyone possible.
It’s always fun working for a few days in another country, because you get just enough time to find quirky things that are confusing. For example, in Taiwan office none of us could figure out how to make coffee. There are many buttons with pictures, but you have no idea what does what, and all of a sudden water sounds much better, just because you can figure out how to get that from the cooler.
Food is another thing. For dinner we went to a very nice Teppanyaki restaurant. All looked good on the menu: rib eye steak, filet mignon, shrimp, lobster. Now, I should have realized that this might happen, being this isn’t my first time to Asia, but I didn’t see it coming. Someone ordered steak and lobster, and the Teppanyaki griller brought a lobster cut in half that was still alive. So Mr. Lobster was still moving on the grill, even though only half of him was there. Talk about an appetite buster. I felt bad for the lobster, but I also knew this is considered high quality food because the seafood is so fresh.
Then there’s the bathroom experience. In any country, you have to worry about what kind of bathroom you will be doing your business in. So in the Yahoo! Korea office, my boss comes back from the bathroom and has this look in her eye that says, “You better help me out but don’t say anything.” So I humbly follow her to the bathroom, conjuring up any possible situation that she might be in. Then we get to “The Stall”. She explains that she couldn’t figure out how to use the toilet and therefore never went to the bathroom, and for some odd reason thinks I would know which button is to flush the toilet. Well Korean toilets have about 8 buttons on them. Basically there is a bidet function built into the toilet that is more technically complex than my computer. So I go in, and start testing the same buttons she did, and a bold spray of water comes out of the toilet. She plasters herself to one side of stall and I go to the other, as we try to avoid the deathly spurt of water. You would think this thing would squirt water for only a few seconds, but it kept going and going and going. We finally ran from the stall and closed the door, where a big puddle started to form. These are the times you really wish you had a camcorder.
September 18
We arrive in Beijing around 12 noon. First trip is to the Forbidden City and Tiannenmen Square. If you haven’t been there before, it is a must see, but really there isn’t much to see. You enter the Forbidden City and go through a huge palace with various temples and a garden. There are a few temples where they have urns and furniture inside, like the emperor’s throne, but you are not allowed in and everyone crowds in front of the same entrance to get a peek. That night I went to “hahoi” area, which is a nice place to dine at night. There is a small man-made lake, and restaurants and bars line the sides, lighting up the lake. A lot of foreigners walk around there, and men stand outside the bars and try to convince you to become their patron. One word: “buyiola”. It basically means “no need” in Chinese, and works quite effectively. In fact, the men laugh and are excited to hear you respond to them in their own language.
We finally entered a pub for a drink and the whole time we were there, this older man kept staring at me. Now it’s one thing if he’s naturally facing me and on the other side of the bar, but in this case he was sitting behind me and turning completely around to try to look at my face, as if that wouldn’t bother me. I was thinking of turning around to stare right back at him, but then again I don’t know if that would be even worse. Then halfway through my beer I hear, “Hello…Hi”. Uh oh, he’s trying to communicate. My friend asks me if I feel uncomfortable and want to leave. I told her there’s really no reason to worry since he can’t say anything more than those two words! Ha! For some reason, men in Beijing always stare at me. I think it’s because I have blue eyes – maybe they are fascinated with light colored eyes. Who knows.
Today we went to the Great Wall. Going up the stairs on the Great Wall reminds you just how out of shape you really are. And then you feel pathetic because you see these eighty year olds doing the same trek, and suffering just as much as you are. At the bottom of the wall, you can pay to have your picture taken, dressed up as an empress or a concubine. Awesome. I had to do it. Chinese high heels are fun – basically the shoe sits on a block of wood that is right in the middle of your foot (under your arch). I think I had more fun trying to walk in those shoes than taking the actual picture!
Peking duck dinner: We went to some famous restaurant where every tourist in China seems to convene. Anyway, we were served duck #21,108 of that restaurant. All the appetizers are somehow related to duck. It’s almost like they start serving the inside of the duck first. The appetizers included duck heart, duck liver (tastes like pate), and duck feet (didn’t touch those suckers). Then they serve the actual duck meat, along with duck skin, which is pure fat. Any time you are served Beijing duck/peking duck, the waiter must carve the duck into exactly 108 pieces, as that number is good luck for some reason. Essentially you make a Chinese burrito: you wrap a small rice tortilla around some duck meat, sweet sauce, and white onion. It’s quite yummy and extremely rich. Then as a second entrée they served soup….duck soup, of course. Our duck dinner had to have been more than just one little duck!
We left on a Sunday and 16 hours later with swollen ankles and a hazy understanding of time zone, we arrive in Taipei’s international airport. American airlines, in general, suck. We went on united and had the oldest flight attendants possible, who spilled our drinks on us three times, and still maintained an attitude while doing so. Regardless of the fact that we’re in business class, you’d think that would at least warrant an “I’m sorry”, but apparently not.
In any case, we arrive to our hotel and get settled in around midnight. Even though that bed looks absolutely divine, I have to log on and work on some urgent matters, so my US coworkers get an answer within their time zone. Like I said, you’re in a hazy state, so you just go through the motions and get your work done. In the morning we go to Yahoo! TW office and meet with just about everyone possible.
It’s always fun working for a few days in another country, because you get just enough time to find quirky things that are confusing. For example, in Taiwan office none of us could figure out how to make coffee. There are many buttons with pictures, but you have no idea what does what, and all of a sudden water sounds much better, just because you can figure out how to get that from the cooler.
Food is another thing. For dinner we went to a very nice Teppanyaki restaurant. All looked good on the menu: rib eye steak, filet mignon, shrimp, lobster. Now, I should have realized that this might happen, being this isn’t my first time to Asia, but I didn’t see it coming. Someone ordered steak and lobster, and the Teppanyaki griller brought a lobster cut in half that was still alive. So Mr. Lobster was still moving on the grill, even though only half of him was there. Talk about an appetite buster. I felt bad for the lobster, but I also knew this is considered high quality food because the seafood is so fresh.
Then there’s the bathroom experience. In any country, you have to worry about what kind of bathroom you will be doing your business in. So in the Yahoo! Korea office, my boss comes back from the bathroom and has this look in her eye that says, “You better help me out but don’t say anything.” So I humbly follow her to the bathroom, conjuring up any possible situation that she might be in. Then we get to “The Stall”. She explains that she couldn’t figure out how to use the toilet and therefore never went to the bathroom, and for some odd reason thinks I would know which button is to flush the toilet. Well Korean toilets have about 8 buttons on them. Basically there is a bidet function built into the toilet that is more technically complex than my computer. So I go in, and start testing the same buttons she did, and a bold spray of water comes out of the toilet. She plasters herself to one side of stall and I go to the other, as we try to avoid the deathly spurt of water. You would think this thing would squirt water for only a few seconds, but it kept going and going and going. We finally ran from the stall and closed the door, where a big puddle started to form. These are the times you really wish you had a camcorder.
September 18
We arrive in Beijing around 12 noon. First trip is to the Forbidden City and Tiannenmen Square. If you haven’t been there before, it is a must see, but really there isn’t much to see. You enter the Forbidden City and go through a huge palace with various temples and a garden. There are a few temples where they have urns and furniture inside, like the emperor’s throne, but you are not allowed in and everyone crowds in front of the same entrance to get a peek. That night I went to “hahoi” area, which is a nice place to dine at night. There is a small man-made lake, and restaurants and bars line the sides, lighting up the lake. A lot of foreigners walk around there, and men stand outside the bars and try to convince you to become their patron. One word: “buyiola”. It basically means “no need” in Chinese, and works quite effectively. In fact, the men laugh and are excited to hear you respond to them in their own language.
We finally entered a pub for a drink and the whole time we were there, this older man kept staring at me. Now it’s one thing if he’s naturally facing me and on the other side of the bar, but in this case he was sitting behind me and turning completely around to try to look at my face, as if that wouldn’t bother me. I was thinking of turning around to stare right back at him, but then again I don’t know if that would be even worse. Then halfway through my beer I hear, “Hello…Hi”. Uh oh, he’s trying to communicate. My friend asks me if I feel uncomfortable and want to leave. I told her there’s really no reason to worry since he can’t say anything more than those two words! Ha! For some reason, men in Beijing always stare at me. I think it’s because I have blue eyes – maybe they are fascinated with light colored eyes. Who knows.
Today we went to the Great Wall. Going up the stairs on the Great Wall reminds you just how out of shape you really are. And then you feel pathetic because you see these eighty year olds doing the same trek, and suffering just as much as you are. At the bottom of the wall, you can pay to have your picture taken, dressed up as an empress or a concubine. Awesome. I had to do it. Chinese high heels are fun – basically the shoe sits on a block of wood that is right in the middle of your foot (under your arch). I think I had more fun trying to walk in those shoes than taking the actual picture!
Peking duck dinner: We went to some famous restaurant where every tourist in China seems to convene. Anyway, we were served duck #21,108 of that restaurant. All the appetizers are somehow related to duck. It’s almost like they start serving the inside of the duck first. The appetizers included duck heart, duck liver (tastes like pate), and duck feet (didn’t touch those suckers). Then they serve the actual duck meat, along with duck skin, which is pure fat. Any time you are served Beijing duck/peking duck, the waiter must carve the duck into exactly 108 pieces, as that number is good luck for some reason. Essentially you make a Chinese burrito: you wrap a small rice tortilla around some duck meat, sweet sauce, and white onion. It’s quite yummy and extremely rich. Then as a second entrée they served soup….duck soup, of course. Our duck dinner had to have been more than just one little duck!
London - Jan 2004
London Trip – Jan 18 to who knows when?
Jan 19, Monday:
3 coworkers and I finally arrive to London, after a sleepless 11 hour flight. It’s amazing how uncomfortable sitting in the same cushiony chair can be for that long of a flight. We go grab our bags, and of course I’m the one with two suitcases in hand, since I’m staying for a month or so. Nothing like wheeling around two medium to large suitcases around the airport. Thank God we decided against taking the tube into town, as that would have been horrific to carry my suitcases up and down all the stairs. We take the Heathrow Express (like BART) into Paddington Station, where we cram ourselves and our luggage all into one of those cute English taxis.
Of course, when we arrive to the hotel they only have smoking rooms available, so we decide to go get lunch while waiting for our rooms to become available. C’mon nonsmokers – there aren’t many of us in Europe; help out a fellow nonsmoker and get outta your room sooner!
This is Denise’s first time to London, so we decide to take her through the basic tour: Big Ben, London Eye, Westminster Abby, St James Park and Buckingham Palace. Too bad I’ll probably be doing this all over again when my friend Jen is In town on Saturday. Hopefully on the weekend it’ll be sunny and I can take some artistic photographs while everyone else is doing their touristy 'oohs' and 'ahs'. Yes, tourists 'ooh' and 'ah' just like "Wheel of Fortune".
Jan 29:
Just snowed yesterday evening (10am PST) for about an hour. I watched the snow whip around and fall from my office window, and it was great to watch this guy try to clean off his motorcycle before getting on it to go home. He looked a bit confused as to what to do. Anyway, as you can imagine, London doesn’t normally get snow, so within 2 hours that lovely snow became icy slush. Going to the tube station in heels was "fun".
Feb 03:
Yesterday after work I tried to do the wash. I say this because it really was a confusing project. The way my studio is set up, the washer/dryer machine fits into one of the kitchen cabinets, next to the dishwasher. So you open a wooden door to access the washer/dryer. I put in the detergent, the clothes and pushed some buttons, which seemed right. Here are some facts about washing in the UK.
The machine likes to dance like an engineer in a techno party. The machine was spinning like r2d2, which made the whole apartment shake to no end. I was worried that my neighbors would start knocking on the walls because it was so damn loud. Either that or the washing machine would fall out of the cabinet and onto the kitchen floor.
Don’t open that door until it’s finished the dry cycle. The wash had finished spinning and rinsing, so I thought at least I could open the door to check on my clothes. Plus I wasn’t sure if it dried already. I tried to open the door 5 times to the point I was getting worried I had broken the damn thing. I even jotted down the maintenance phone number in case they had to pry open the door with a crowbar.
So I guess the main lesson here is that you shouldn’t put ALL of your underwear and socks into one wash load when you are washing it for the first time in a foreign country. I broke the cardinal rule…but at least I got all of my clothes out in the end, and nicely dried!!!
Now that I’ve been here for two weeks, I feel it appropriate to discuss the food here. Indian, Thai and Italian food here is excellent. I personally wouldn’t try Mexican food here but I’ve seen a few places proclaiming they know how to cook it properly. English food confuses me.
I have had a few good pub experiences, where they serve actual dishes. For the longest time I thought that pub food meant what it does to an American: grease and beer (please do recognize beer as one of the main staples). Anyway, you can order real meals at the pubs; it’s just the fish and chips everyone talks about when you are a tourist here. So far I am in love with the British French fries, commonly called “chips” here. They are my favorite English food so far.
Now let me explain why English food scares me. I mean, confuses me. Today for example, I ordered a salad from the office “canteen.” I normally put together a mixture of the 4 salads offered by visually rating it, and that way if I don’t like one, I just miss out on 1/4th of my lunch. Today I served up quite a bit of what I thought was a potato salad with green beans and snow peas, along with a broccoli and sweet potato salad, cucumber and tomato salad, and some scary beet salad. Well, that potato salad with green beans was actually huge chunks of bleu cheese!! I took a big bite of this before realizing that I was going to eat a big bite of smelly cheese hidden by some creamy sauce. I swear it looked like a potato.
Feb 04: Another weird salad for lunch. And that’s all I have to say ‘bout that.
Feb 19: A few weeks ago I went to a “footie” game. Translation = soccer) Tottenham Spurs vs. Manchester City. I’ve never been so close to a field before; it was just amazing. Spurs was winning almost the entire game 3-0 and then they got lazy and in overtime were smashed by Manchester City. Such a disgrace really if you’re a Spurs fan, but it truly was an awesome game. I tried eating like the locals do: pie and Bovril. So essentially you have this shepherd’s pie looking thing (kinda like a calzone in your hand) and Bovril is really just beef broth sold five times as expensive and in a drinking cup. But it is super yummy when you are in an open stadium in Northern London where it is extremely cold outside. The most interesting thing I noticed in the football game is that this is the one place were British are completely comfortable with socializing with anyone next to them. For the first time I see people talking to strangers sitting right next to them, and mind you there was even eye contact! I’m used to seeing people in the Tube, where they ensure that they either have music to listen to or have a newspaper or book in front of them so as to avoid any eye contact.
Jan 19, Monday:
3 coworkers and I finally arrive to London, after a sleepless 11 hour flight. It’s amazing how uncomfortable sitting in the same cushiony chair can be for that long of a flight. We go grab our bags, and of course I’m the one with two suitcases in hand, since I’m staying for a month or so. Nothing like wheeling around two medium to large suitcases around the airport. Thank God we decided against taking the tube into town, as that would have been horrific to carry my suitcases up and down all the stairs. We take the Heathrow Express (like BART) into Paddington Station, where we cram ourselves and our luggage all into one of those cute English taxis.
Of course, when we arrive to the hotel they only have smoking rooms available, so we decide to go get lunch while waiting for our rooms to become available. C’mon nonsmokers – there aren’t many of us in Europe; help out a fellow nonsmoker and get outta your room sooner!
This is Denise’s first time to London, so we decide to take her through the basic tour: Big Ben, London Eye, Westminster Abby, St James Park and Buckingham Palace. Too bad I’ll probably be doing this all over again when my friend Jen is In town on Saturday. Hopefully on the weekend it’ll be sunny and I can take some artistic photographs while everyone else is doing their touristy 'oohs' and 'ahs'. Yes, tourists 'ooh' and 'ah' just like "Wheel of Fortune".
Jan 29:
Just snowed yesterday evening (10am PST) for about an hour. I watched the snow whip around and fall from my office window, and it was great to watch this guy try to clean off his motorcycle before getting on it to go home. He looked a bit confused as to what to do. Anyway, as you can imagine, London doesn’t normally get snow, so within 2 hours that lovely snow became icy slush. Going to the tube station in heels was "fun".
Feb 03:
Yesterday after work I tried to do the wash. I say this because it really was a confusing project. The way my studio is set up, the washer/dryer machine fits into one of the kitchen cabinets, next to the dishwasher. So you open a wooden door to access the washer/dryer. I put in the detergent, the clothes and pushed some buttons, which seemed right. Here are some facts about washing in the UK.
The machine likes to dance like an engineer in a techno party. The machine was spinning like r2d2, which made the whole apartment shake to no end. I was worried that my neighbors would start knocking on the walls because it was so damn loud. Either that or the washing machine would fall out of the cabinet and onto the kitchen floor.
Don’t open that door until it’s finished the dry cycle. The wash had finished spinning and rinsing, so I thought at least I could open the door to check on my clothes. Plus I wasn’t sure if it dried already. I tried to open the door 5 times to the point I was getting worried I had broken the damn thing. I even jotted down the maintenance phone number in case they had to pry open the door with a crowbar.
So I guess the main lesson here is that you shouldn’t put ALL of your underwear and socks into one wash load when you are washing it for the first time in a foreign country. I broke the cardinal rule…but at least I got all of my clothes out in the end, and nicely dried!!!
Now that I’ve been here for two weeks, I feel it appropriate to discuss the food here. Indian, Thai and Italian food here is excellent. I personally wouldn’t try Mexican food here but I’ve seen a few places proclaiming they know how to cook it properly. English food confuses me.
I have had a few good pub experiences, where they serve actual dishes. For the longest time I thought that pub food meant what it does to an American: grease and beer (please do recognize beer as one of the main staples). Anyway, you can order real meals at the pubs; it’s just the fish and chips everyone talks about when you are a tourist here. So far I am in love with the British French fries, commonly called “chips” here. They are my favorite English food so far.
Now let me explain why English food scares me. I mean, confuses me. Today for example, I ordered a salad from the office “canteen.” I normally put together a mixture of the 4 salads offered by visually rating it, and that way if I don’t like one, I just miss out on 1/4th of my lunch. Today I served up quite a bit of what I thought was a potato salad with green beans and snow peas, along with a broccoli and sweet potato salad, cucumber and tomato salad, and some scary beet salad. Well, that potato salad with green beans was actually huge chunks of bleu cheese!! I took a big bite of this before realizing that I was going to eat a big bite of smelly cheese hidden by some creamy sauce. I swear it looked like a potato.
Feb 04: Another weird salad for lunch. And that’s all I have to say ‘bout that.
Feb 19: A few weeks ago I went to a “footie” game. Translation = soccer) Tottenham Spurs vs. Manchester City. I’ve never been so close to a field before; it was just amazing. Spurs was winning almost the entire game 3-0 and then they got lazy and in overtime were smashed by Manchester City. Such a disgrace really if you’re a Spurs fan, but it truly was an awesome game. I tried eating like the locals do: pie and Bovril. So essentially you have this shepherd’s pie looking thing (kinda like a calzone in your hand) and Bovril is really just beef broth sold five times as expensive and in a drinking cup. But it is super yummy when you are in an open stadium in Northern London where it is extremely cold outside. The most interesting thing I noticed in the football game is that this is the one place were British are completely comfortable with socializing with anyone next to them. For the first time I see people talking to strangers sitting right next to them, and mind you there was even eye contact! I’m used to seeing people in the Tube, where they ensure that they either have music to listen to or have a newspaper or book in front of them so as to avoid any eye contact.
Japan and China - May 2002
May 17, 2002
Japan:
We arrive at the airport in the evening, and take a one hour train ride to get close to the hotel. From there we had to take subway, which only a magician could figure out how to get through. Fortunately our coworker had been there before, so he guided the way. When we get to the hotel first thing i notice in the room is I get a kimono instead of a huge terrycloth robe. I so wanted to steal that. It was really comfy.
First thing on the agenda is a Customer Care dinner. Now, for those of you who remember my last update, I had to do karaoke on my last night in Taiwan. The one thing I asked these guys in Japan was that we didn't do anymore karaoke. It's not that it isn't fun, it's just that I had already done 3 karaoke nights in less than two weeks. So where do we go after dinner? Anyone ready to guess? KARAOKE. But this one was reallly reallly funny. We went to the gay district, and in this karaoke bar, the owner/bartender is a drag queen. He introduced herself as Rei-chan ("chan" meaning dear, sweet). I have to tell you guys, there 's a point in karaoke where everything is just so surreal. You're loooking around at everyone having a good time, still not believing you are there in this situation, and yet it's fun. Add drinking to it and your night is made. One of the Y! Japan sales guys was singing all love songs in Japanese just for me. Yep, he was drunk; but we got great blackmail pictures!
Next day is all a blur. Yahoo! Japan has 3 different buildings and my coworker Tomoko and i were walking back and forth from each one for meetings and such. I stopped really quickly at a store to buy some touristy stuff, saw a Yahoo! cyber cafe, and that's about it. We then go out for dinner with a group of 20. Yahoo! Japan is it's own company essentially, so the employees don't have as much of a need to speak English fluently. So here you have dinner and much of the conversation is Eng-anese, guessing half the time what each person is trying to say. It was a great dinner and lots of laughs with our coworkers. After that we went to the hotel bar just for one drink and basically called it a night.
The next morning i had to leave for Beijing, China, and I quickly went with my friend Makoto to the top of the govt. building to see all of Tokyo from the top. We took some crazy booth pictures just for the heck of it, and I'm proud to say that I'm the only white girl on the sample pictures hanging on that wall :-)) hehe.
Beijing:
Ummmmmmmm. I think we arrive at nighttime. This was my first time entering Communist world, so I imagined that customs would take forever. On the contrary; it was probably the fastest country customs line so far. Anyway the next day we go to The Great Wall of China!!!! WOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOO. The particular area that we went to was extremely touristic so it was crowded. We decided to walk the wall instead of doing a cable car. MAN is that a workout. The day we were on the great wall was Mother's Day, and I called my mom on a cell phone while walking there just to say Happy Mother's Day. You'd think she'd be excited. But nooo, she just thanks me and wants to know my details, how I am, blah blah. MOM I was ON the great wall, not looking at it. Oh well, I guess it was shock factor and she probably got excited once we were off the phone.
After the great wall we go to the Summer Palace. Really, really cool. I can't explain this in too much depth, so once I upload the pictures, you can see it for yourself. One interesting note: I had noticed that from the moment we arrived in Beijing that I was stared at a lot. Not bad staring, just staring. When we were at the Summer Palace I confirmed my suspicions because a whole family turned around to look at me :-O I'm guessing they were probably from the interior of China and not used to whities like me.
Next day is Monday: work , work , work, dinner dinner dinner. We went to a scezhuan place and at least the menu was in English. But of course no one spoke english. So we ordered by pointing on the menu...avoiding the ox belly, pig brain, etc. But anytime we needed to communicate, it was a bit difficult. I remember we wanted chili sauce, but no one knew any word even remotely close to that, so I motioned a jar shape on the table and then waved my hand in front of my face to show her it's hot. (hope that made sense in email) Anyway, it worked and she understood me!
Tuesday Wednesday work and dinners. Since most of the nights I had been a sour-puss and resting in the hotel, we all decided that this night would be the party night. So we go out to a cajun restaurant in the bar district, which is really an area of bars to attract foreigners. After one bar run, we decide to go to the local bar area. So basically this night we had dinner, went to two bars, and then went to a club!! One of the guys in our group, Indranil, and I decide to go dancing right away, while the more inhibited guys sit down and drink more. I realize that there is a total of 6 foreigners in this club, us (a group of 4) and a couple. For a Tuesday night this club was extremely packed. It seemed like a Friday night to me. Indranil starts talking to the DJ, like we can actually find someone who speaks English, and somehow we end up on the stage where the DJ and the paid dancers are. So here we are, two foreigners in Beijing dancing in front of a huge crowd, throwing out plastic whistles and neon bracelets. So this experience is right at par with driving in Taipei, or better... LOL. So we stay there until 2am and basically close the bar.
Thursday I went to the Forbidden City and Tiannenmen Square all by myself. BRAVE. I had to go on the subway without any Mandarin skills (I know, "hello, thank you, sorry/excuse me, no, dragon, east, west, You're stupid, I'm stupid, room") As you can tell, my vocab might not necessarily help me out for the subway. But I found one guy that spoke english and helped me through it on the way to Tiannenmendong Station. Tiannenmen Square is immense! I never had thought it would be so huge! It's more or less the entrance to the Forbidden City which I like to compare its size to UCLA. Anyway on Tiannenmen Square there's a big picture of Mao that you can see on the other side of the 8 lane avenue! Had to take a pic of that. Again, take a look at my pictures and you will see.
Now, I'm in the airport waiting for my delayed flight and trying to be a good friend by writing this update ;-) (plug-in there) I'm on my way to Copenhagen Denmark, stay there one night, and then I'm off to Germany!
Japan:
We arrive at the airport in the evening, and take a one hour train ride to get close to the hotel. From there we had to take subway, which only a magician could figure out how to get through. Fortunately our coworker had been there before, so he guided the way. When we get to the hotel first thing i notice in the room is I get a kimono instead of a huge terrycloth robe. I so wanted to steal that. It was really comfy.
First thing on the agenda is a Customer Care dinner. Now, for those of you who remember my last update, I had to do karaoke on my last night in Taiwan. The one thing I asked these guys in Japan was that we didn't do anymore karaoke. It's not that it isn't fun, it's just that I had already done 3 karaoke nights in less than two weeks. So where do we go after dinner? Anyone ready to guess? KARAOKE. But this one was reallly reallly funny. We went to the gay district, and in this karaoke bar, the owner/bartender is a drag queen. He introduced herself as Rei-chan ("chan" meaning dear, sweet). I have to tell you guys, there 's a point in karaoke where everything is just so surreal. You're loooking around at everyone having a good time, still not believing you are there in this situation, and yet it's fun. Add drinking to it and your night is made. One of the Y! Japan sales guys was singing all love songs in Japanese just for me. Yep, he was drunk; but we got great blackmail pictures!
Next day is all a blur. Yahoo! Japan has 3 different buildings and my coworker Tomoko and i were walking back and forth from each one for meetings and such. I stopped really quickly at a store to buy some touristy stuff, saw a Yahoo! cyber cafe, and that's about it. We then go out for dinner with a group of 20. Yahoo! Japan is it's own company essentially, so the employees don't have as much of a need to speak English fluently. So here you have dinner and much of the conversation is Eng-anese, guessing half the time what each person is trying to say. It was a great dinner and lots of laughs with our coworkers. After that we went to the hotel bar just for one drink and basically called it a night.
The next morning i had to leave for Beijing, China, and I quickly went with my friend Makoto to the top of the govt. building to see all of Tokyo from the top. We took some crazy booth pictures just for the heck of it, and I'm proud to say that I'm the only white girl on the sample pictures hanging on that wall :-)) hehe.
Beijing:
Ummmmmmmm. I think we arrive at nighttime. This was my first time entering Communist world, so I imagined that customs would take forever. On the contrary; it was probably the fastest country customs line so far. Anyway the next day we go to The Great Wall of China!!!! WOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOO. The particular area that we went to was extremely touristic so it was crowded. We decided to walk the wall instead of doing a cable car. MAN is that a workout. The day we were on the great wall was Mother's Day, and I called my mom on a cell phone while walking there just to say Happy Mother's Day. You'd think she'd be excited. But nooo, she just thanks me and wants to know my details, how I am, blah blah. MOM I was ON the great wall, not looking at it. Oh well, I guess it was shock factor and she probably got excited once we were off the phone.
After the great wall we go to the Summer Palace. Really, really cool. I can't explain this in too much depth, so once I upload the pictures, you can see it for yourself. One interesting note: I had noticed that from the moment we arrived in Beijing that I was stared at a lot. Not bad staring, just staring. When we were at the Summer Palace I confirmed my suspicions because a whole family turned around to look at me :-O I'm guessing they were probably from the interior of China and not used to whities like me.
Next day is Monday: work , work , work, dinner dinner dinner. We went to a scezhuan place and at least the menu was in English. But of course no one spoke english. So we ordered by pointing on the menu...avoiding the ox belly, pig brain, etc. But anytime we needed to communicate, it was a bit difficult. I remember we wanted chili sauce, but no one knew any word even remotely close to that, so I motioned a jar shape on the table and then waved my hand in front of my face to show her it's hot. (hope that made sense in email) Anyway, it worked and she understood me!
Tuesday Wednesday work and dinners. Since most of the nights I had been a sour-puss and resting in the hotel, we all decided that this night would be the party night. So we go out to a cajun restaurant in the bar district, which is really an area of bars to attract foreigners. After one bar run, we decide to go to the local bar area. So basically this night we had dinner, went to two bars, and then went to a club!! One of the guys in our group, Indranil, and I decide to go dancing right away, while the more inhibited guys sit down and drink more. I realize that there is a total of 6 foreigners in this club, us (a group of 4) and a couple. For a Tuesday night this club was extremely packed. It seemed like a Friday night to me. Indranil starts talking to the DJ, like we can actually find someone who speaks English, and somehow we end up on the stage where the DJ and the paid dancers are. So here we are, two foreigners in Beijing dancing in front of a huge crowd, throwing out plastic whistles and neon bracelets. So this experience is right at par with driving in Taipei, or better... LOL. So we stay there until 2am and basically close the bar.
Thursday I went to the Forbidden City and Tiannenmen Square all by myself. BRAVE. I had to go on the subway without any Mandarin skills (I know, "hello, thank you, sorry/excuse me, no, dragon, east, west, You're stupid, I'm stupid, room") As you can tell, my vocab might not necessarily help me out for the subway. But I found one guy that spoke english and helped me through it on the way to Tiannenmendong Station. Tiannenmen Square is immense! I never had thought it would be so huge! It's more or less the entrance to the Forbidden City which I like to compare its size to UCLA. Anyway on Tiannenmen Square there's a big picture of Mao that you can see on the other side of the 8 lane avenue! Had to take a pic of that. Again, take a look at my pictures and you will see.
Now, I'm in the airport waiting for my delayed flight and trying to be a good friend by writing this update ;-) (plug-in there) I'm on my way to Copenhagen Denmark, stay there one night, and then I'm off to Germany!
Taiwan - May 2002
Taiwan - May 8, 2002
I'm now in Taipei, Taiwan..and I can't remember every detail about Korea, so let me pass on some of the photos to you. You can see all photos online, inside the album named "Korea" : http://photos.yahoo.com/sarajunel
Hotel California was my karaoke song. That's all I have to say. HAHAHA! Actually karaoke here is very different. They give you private rooms and you drink (thank God) and eat with only your friends. But the Koreans loooove to sing and they're pretty good at it. So they basically make you drink until you don't even realize the damn microphone is right in front of you. If you look at the pictures, I was sooo drunk and tired that I fell asleep on Dal-ju, my friend's fiance.
May 1st was Korea's Labor Day, so we all got a free day off of work. I went with my friend/coworker from the KR office, Betty, to go pick up her traditional wedding dress on the North side of the Han River in Seoul. That was really cool. She even had me try it on. Basically we went to a seamstress' family house where they had converted their livingroom into this beautiful office. Betty taught me how to tell them "you have a nice house" and I just imitate like a monkey and somehow the Koreans understand me. Apparently they were kind of excited to tell other customers that an American had been there. Betty and I thought that was pretty funny.
From there we went to do the tourist stuff. We went to the Insadong market. We first went to a gallery where a friend was the artist and you could actually take a piece of the exhibition. So I chose this funky little black painting with green and blue fortune cookies on it made out of wax or something. I know probably no one can visualize that....
Then we went with a group of friends to a restaurant that I never again could find if my life depended on it. You go through these small cobblestone streets and it's like a maze. Then some obscure door and you enter and HEY!!! it's a restaurant!!! We had Pa-chaen (like a thin omelette with seafood and green onions inside it) with Su-je-bi, a soup that even Betty had never had before -greatt..make the American eat it! - which is some kind of noodle soup with oysters. Anyway, it was all very good. Pa-chaen is one of my favorite Korean foods. After lunch we shopped our hearts out while eating greentea ice cream.Yum
We decided to have Thai food for dinner for a change. I had had nothing but Korean food for 3 days, and two times I had barbeque, when I knew the next day we would have a "business dinner' with even more barbeque. Betty and her fiance "Dal-ju" took me to a farmer's market that is like a Chinese Costco, and I bought some candy there. You guys wouldn't believe the market. It was immense. One room entirely for rice, one for veggies, one for fruit..you get the picture. Then we go to the fish aisle. WOOOOOOOOOOOW they had stingray, live shark, live octopus, live eel (hundreds of them). Then they have an aisle with hundreds of types of Kimchee - a spicy cabbage side dish. AMAZING.
Next days -May 2-4 : First Asian Production Conference. 9-6 everyday with lunch and dinner included. Some days you fight to stay awake in the meetings because there were no scheduled breaks and you are jetlagged. After dinner one night I met up with my friend and ex-coworker david at a bar, with a whole bunch of other yahoos. Everything is a blur. Karaoke again with CEO's and General Managers...TOO FUNNY. You really could not do this anywhere else in the world.
On to Taipei:
I arrive to Taipei on Sunday night May 5. At least in Korea I was learning the basics of the language. Here in Taiwan I know diddly-squat. I can say "hello, thank you, and you are stupid". Doesn't help much.
The hotel room is awesome. I think it's better than my living situation right now.lol. The first night we go to some night markets. There you can buy tourist stuff and there's lots of vendors on the street with weird looking food that I'm not ready to try yet... We then went to the "Snake Market" where snake is apparently offered on some of the menus. The dead snakes are hanging from their tail, and there are turtles and a boar ..almost looked like a zoo except you know they are going to kill them. Anyway, it was definitely interesting. The one thing that I'm still not accustomed to is how many scooters there are here. Everytime I turn around I see that a scooter is ready to pass me and is waiting for me to move out of his way.
Monday May 6: work , work work. I went out for noodle soup and dimsum with my coworkers. By this time I'm feeling extremely fat from the Korea trip. Oh well. have fun...live it up! After work we go to a fancy shmancy restaurant. I'm feeling like a fool because I got used to the Korean chopsticks: metal and thin, and now I have to try to use the Chinese chopsticks: ceramic and long. Atter dinner three of us dotcommers decide to go to a bar/club named "Juliana". It's a bar where you can always order food, alcohol whatever and dance if you want to. Oh yeah, and it's open til 5am.
So here's the best part of the Taiwan story. Mom, sit down.
We're drinking at this bar, and by this time Bruce our friend from Taiwan joins us. Two long island teas and he's buzzed. We get him a third, which he continues to drink. Now the boy is sloshed. We're all dancing to a mixture of english pop/trance music and then mandarin music. It's 4am and we want to go back to the hotel...Bruce's car is outside the club and he'll get a ticket if he doesn't move it before 8am. So we need a designated driver. MOI. I'm the most sober of the group and I find myself driving stick in Taipei at 4am in the morning. It actually wasnt' that bad but I was scared at first. I don't know their laws, and I have a drunk Chinese dude telling me how to get to the hotel. Considering he was drunk, it took us twice as long to get to the hotel as it should have! He'd point to the right and yell "LEFT LEFT LEFT" and I'd ask him which WAY....he'd finally look at his hand and realie that he meant to say right. WAYYYYYYYY TOO FUNNY!!!! All of us dotcommers were laughing histerically in the car because we just couldnt' believe that I was driving in Taiwan. I lived a YEAR in Argentina and never dared drive there...and I'm here 2 days driving like a natural, waving in and out of scooters. LOL
Mom..please, you can breathe now. We all used seatbelts too, in case you were wondering.
Last night -we went to Jau Fan ( ╓E╔В ) to have "old man's tea". We went to some tea house on the top of a mountain (you also have to walk through these small streets that are like a maze) that overlooks a beautiful bay. Bruce joined us but he was completely sober (recovering I'm sure) that night. I'm really tired of typing, and I don't think I can explain how the host makes the tea in traditional style..so you can make up your own story. But it was very nice. You basically drink tea for 2 hours or more just talking to friends.
Today is my last day in the office, and Customer Care will have a party to welcome some new hires. Of course....we are going to sing again! Any suggestions on songs?? LOL.
Tomorrow we will go to Tokyo. My main objective there is to have some quick meetings during the day and eat sushi whenever I can.
I'm now in Taipei, Taiwan..and I can't remember every detail about Korea, so let me pass on some of the photos to you. You can see all photos online, inside the album named "Korea" : http://photos.yahoo.com/sarajunel
Hotel California was my karaoke song. That's all I have to say. HAHAHA! Actually karaoke here is very different. They give you private rooms and you drink (thank God) and eat with only your friends. But the Koreans loooove to sing and they're pretty good at it. So they basically make you drink until you don't even realize the damn microphone is right in front of you. If you look at the pictures, I was sooo drunk and tired that I fell asleep on Dal-ju, my friend's fiance.
May 1st was Korea's Labor Day, so we all got a free day off of work. I went with my friend/coworker from the KR office, Betty, to go pick up her traditional wedding dress on the North side of the Han River in Seoul. That was really cool. She even had me try it on. Basically we went to a seamstress' family house where they had converted their livingroom into this beautiful office. Betty taught me how to tell them "you have a nice house" and I just imitate like a monkey and somehow the Koreans understand me. Apparently they were kind of excited to tell other customers that an American had been there. Betty and I thought that was pretty funny.
From there we went to do the tourist stuff. We went to the Insadong market. We first went to a gallery where a friend was the artist and you could actually take a piece of the exhibition. So I chose this funky little black painting with green and blue fortune cookies on it made out of wax or something. I know probably no one can visualize that....
Then we went with a group of friends to a restaurant that I never again could find if my life depended on it. You go through these small cobblestone streets and it's like a maze. Then some obscure door and you enter and HEY!!! it's a restaurant!!! We had Pa-chaen (like a thin omelette with seafood and green onions inside it) with Su-je-bi, a soup that even Betty had never had before -greatt..make the American eat it! - which is some kind of noodle soup with oysters. Anyway, it was all very good. Pa-chaen is one of my favorite Korean foods. After lunch we shopped our hearts out while eating greentea ice cream.Yum
We decided to have Thai food for dinner for a change. I had had nothing but Korean food for 3 days, and two times I had barbeque, when I knew the next day we would have a "business dinner' with even more barbeque. Betty and her fiance "Dal-ju" took me to a farmer's market that is like a Chinese Costco, and I bought some candy there. You guys wouldn't believe the market. It was immense. One room entirely for rice, one for veggies, one for fruit..you get the picture. Then we go to the fish aisle. WOOOOOOOOOOOW they had stingray, live shark, live octopus, live eel (hundreds of them). Then they have an aisle with hundreds of types of Kimchee - a spicy cabbage side dish. AMAZING.
Next days -May 2-4 : First Asian Production Conference. 9-6 everyday with lunch and dinner included. Some days you fight to stay awake in the meetings because there were no scheduled breaks and you are jetlagged. After dinner one night I met up with my friend and ex-coworker david at a bar, with a whole bunch of other yahoos. Everything is a blur. Karaoke again with CEO's and General Managers...TOO FUNNY. You really could not do this anywhere else in the world.
On to Taipei:
I arrive to Taipei on Sunday night May 5. At least in Korea I was learning the basics of the language. Here in Taiwan I know diddly-squat. I can say "hello, thank you, and you are stupid". Doesn't help much.
The hotel room is awesome. I think it's better than my living situation right now.lol. The first night we go to some night markets. There you can buy tourist stuff and there's lots of vendors on the street with weird looking food that I'm not ready to try yet... We then went to the "Snake Market" where snake is apparently offered on some of the menus. The dead snakes are hanging from their tail, and there are turtles and a boar ..almost looked like a zoo except you know they are going to kill them. Anyway, it was definitely interesting. The one thing that I'm still not accustomed to is how many scooters there are here. Everytime I turn around I see that a scooter is ready to pass me and is waiting for me to move out of his way.
Monday May 6: work , work work. I went out for noodle soup and dimsum with my coworkers. By this time I'm feeling extremely fat from the Korea trip. Oh well. have fun...live it up! After work we go to a fancy shmancy restaurant. I'm feeling like a fool because I got used to the Korean chopsticks: metal and thin, and now I have to try to use the Chinese chopsticks: ceramic and long. Atter dinner three of us dotcommers decide to go to a bar/club named "Juliana". It's a bar where you can always order food, alcohol whatever and dance if you want to. Oh yeah, and it's open til 5am.
So here's the best part of the Taiwan story. Mom, sit down.
We're drinking at this bar, and by this time Bruce our friend from Taiwan joins us. Two long island teas and he's buzzed. We get him a third, which he continues to drink. Now the boy is sloshed. We're all dancing to a mixture of english pop/trance music and then mandarin music. It's 4am and we want to go back to the hotel...Bruce's car is outside the club and he'll get a ticket if he doesn't move it before 8am. So we need a designated driver. MOI. I'm the most sober of the group and I find myself driving stick in Taipei at 4am in the morning. It actually wasnt' that bad but I was scared at first. I don't know their laws, and I have a drunk Chinese dude telling me how to get to the hotel. Considering he was drunk, it took us twice as long to get to the hotel as it should have! He'd point to the right and yell "LEFT LEFT LEFT" and I'd ask him which WAY....he'd finally look at his hand and realie that he meant to say right. WAYYYYYYYY TOO FUNNY!!!! All of us dotcommers were laughing histerically in the car because we just couldnt' believe that I was driving in Taiwan. I lived a YEAR in Argentina and never dared drive there...and I'm here 2 days driving like a natural, waving in and out of scooters. LOL
Mom..please, you can breathe now. We all used seatbelts too, in case you were wondering.
Last night -we went to Jau Fan ( ╓E╔В ) to have "old man's tea". We went to some tea house on the top of a mountain (you also have to walk through these small streets that are like a maze) that overlooks a beautiful bay. Bruce joined us but he was completely sober (recovering I'm sure) that night. I'm really tired of typing, and I don't think I can explain how the host makes the tea in traditional style..so you can make up your own story. But it was very nice. You basically drink tea for 2 hours or more just talking to friends.
Today is my last day in the office, and Customer Care will have a party to welcome some new hires. Of course....we are going to sing again! Any suggestions on songs?? LOL.
Tomorrow we will go to Tokyo. My main objective there is to have some quick meetings during the day and eat sushi whenever I can.
Korea - April 2002
Korea - April 30,2002
Our flight was with Singapore Airlines. The flight attendants (the girls only) have probably the best outfit of all airlines. The food was great, but I don't care how spoiled you get on a plane...a 12 hour flight is a 12 hour flight. You come out of the plane feeling like a lazy old woman...crinks in your neck, tired and feeling guilty that you haven't done anything but sleep or eat.
We arrive to Incheon airport at nighttime. On the way to the hotel I started learning simple Korean sayings like "thank you" , "excuse me" etc. I think the taxi driver thought I was nuts. But at least he seemed to understand me because every once in a while I saw him smile. He was probably thinking, "American accent so ugly". The next morning I get up at 8am to get ready for work. It took me 5 minutes to figure out how to turn on the shower, until I finally found some obscure knob in the back. Seriously. I see these numbers: 30,40,50 and I'm thinking...is that the angle of the showerhead, the strength of the water stream or good God I hope it's not Celsius! I actually still have no idea what the numbers stand for, but I can at least successfully shower. The hotel towels are harder than sandpaper, with a huge lion face on it (the hotel's logo).
So off to work i go. I meet my coworkers downstairs and we walk about 15mins to the office in rain. What happened to the weather? Last night it was beautiful. Oh well. I go to work and meet some coworkers of mine that I've never even seen face to face, and had lots of meetings, blah blah blah. Not interesting to you.
So let me get back to the interesting stuff: Drinking. Haha! So after work a bunch of Yahoo!s go out to "kalbi" , which is korean barbeque. You sit down Indian style in front of these long tables with the bbq grill right in front of you. Then the waitress puts a million little serving dishes with all this food. Kinda hard to explain, but basically you have the meat on the grill, and then you can choose what food you want to eat with the meat. So one dish might have lettuce, some funky seaweed salad , or kimchee, etc. So we eat away, with "Soju", an alcoholic beverage. Korean custom is that no one can drink alone. So if I start drinking, everyone else has to cheer every single time. I thought this was the best way to make everyone drunk, but I didn't abuse it.
Then we go to a bar. Apparently anytime you drink , you have to eat appetizers. So we were served dried octupus and squid, cheese that didn't look like cheese, wasabi green peas, and some other things I didn't even try. I actually liked the dried squid. Anyway, they served us the biggest beer pitcher i've ever seen in my life. It's about twice the size of the normal American pitcher. We started playing drinking games...which is pretty funny because you get this surreal sense that ...wow. I'm really in Korea.
So after we all get pretty lit at this bar, we decide that our fun isn't over. We go to ANOTHER bar called "Flair". All the waiters are dressed up as military. I tried to bust out my "where's the bathroom" in Korean, and somehow the guy actually understood me. I was soooo proud of that. Of course, today's a new day and I already forgot how to say it. So no bathroom for me. We were having more shots..I chose the "playboy" shot just for it's name. By this time it's about 1am and we are all pretty lit. Jetlag hit me up the head and basically I couldn't handle it anymore, so we all headed out for the hotel. Two of our guys were walking waaaay behind us, and apparently they got lost so they went to another bar until 430am. Too funny.
Today's going to be even more fun because we can all party again. Tomorrow is a holiday here, so all the Korean guys are ready to stay up late into the night. Tonight all of Customer Care will go out for more Kalbi (but they say it's better than yesterdays) and the manager mentioned something like karaoke (uh oh) afterwards. She politely asked me, "Sara, do you sing?". UHOH. Maybe they can give me lots of soju.
Our flight was with Singapore Airlines. The flight attendants (the girls only) have probably the best outfit of all airlines. The food was great, but I don't care how spoiled you get on a plane...a 12 hour flight is a 12 hour flight. You come out of the plane feeling like a lazy old woman...crinks in your neck, tired and feeling guilty that you haven't done anything but sleep or eat.
We arrive to Incheon airport at nighttime. On the way to the hotel I started learning simple Korean sayings like "thank you" , "excuse me" etc. I think the taxi driver thought I was nuts. But at least he seemed to understand me because every once in a while I saw him smile. He was probably thinking, "American accent so ugly". The next morning I get up at 8am to get ready for work. It took me 5 minutes to figure out how to turn on the shower, until I finally found some obscure knob in the back. Seriously. I see these numbers: 30,40,50 and I'm thinking...is that the angle of the showerhead, the strength of the water stream or good God I hope it's not Celsius! I actually still have no idea what the numbers stand for, but I can at least successfully shower. The hotel towels are harder than sandpaper, with a huge lion face on it (the hotel's logo).
So off to work i go. I meet my coworkers downstairs and we walk about 15mins to the office in rain. What happened to the weather? Last night it was beautiful. Oh well. I go to work and meet some coworkers of mine that I've never even seen face to face, and had lots of meetings, blah blah blah. Not interesting to you.
So let me get back to the interesting stuff: Drinking. Haha! So after work a bunch of Yahoo!s go out to "kalbi" , which is korean barbeque. You sit down Indian style in front of these long tables with the bbq grill right in front of you. Then the waitress puts a million little serving dishes with all this food. Kinda hard to explain, but basically you have the meat on the grill, and then you can choose what food you want to eat with the meat. So one dish might have lettuce, some funky seaweed salad , or kimchee, etc. So we eat away, with "Soju", an alcoholic beverage. Korean custom is that no one can drink alone. So if I start drinking, everyone else has to cheer every single time. I thought this was the best way to make everyone drunk, but I didn't abuse it.
Then we go to a bar. Apparently anytime you drink , you have to eat appetizers. So we were served dried octupus and squid, cheese that didn't look like cheese, wasabi green peas, and some other things I didn't even try. I actually liked the dried squid. Anyway, they served us the biggest beer pitcher i've ever seen in my life. It's about twice the size of the normal American pitcher. We started playing drinking games...which is pretty funny because you get this surreal sense that ...wow. I'm really in Korea.
So after we all get pretty lit at this bar, we decide that our fun isn't over. We go to ANOTHER bar called "Flair". All the waiters are dressed up as military. I tried to bust out my "where's the bathroom" in Korean, and somehow the guy actually understood me. I was soooo proud of that. Of course, today's a new day and I already forgot how to say it. So no bathroom for me. We were having more shots..I chose the "playboy" shot just for it's name. By this time it's about 1am and we are all pretty lit. Jetlag hit me up the head and basically I couldn't handle it anymore, so we all headed out for the hotel. Two of our guys were walking waaaay behind us, and apparently they got lost so they went to another bar until 430am. Too funny.
Today's going to be even more fun because we can all party again. Tomorrow is a holiday here, so all the Korean guys are ready to stay up late into the night. Tonight all of Customer Care will go out for more Kalbi (but they say it's better than yesterdays) and the manager mentioned something like karaoke (uh oh) afterwards. She politely asked me, "Sara, do you sing?". UHOH. Maybe they can give me lots of soju.
Argentina - March 2002: Asado - A Barbeque Argentine Style
March 08 and 09, 2002 Friday and Saturday
The Asado? A Barbecue Argentine Style
Sara's Mom
We visited Sara's friend Marcelo's work at Scania on Friday. Scania is a Swedish company that manufactures trucks. Marcelo is amechanical technician there, and he arranged a tour for us. This is unusual for them to do so Sara and I felt privileged. Miguel, the product manager was our tour guide. He showed us the factory thatbuilt the drive shafts and steering columns that are later shipped to Brazil for further assembly. A very modern up-to-date factory with arobotic assembly, and computer tester. He also showed us the truckfactory, which was deserted due to their poor economical conditions. The banks in Argentina have frozen all loans since September 2001. Without the loans and the uncertainty of the country the demand fortruck sales doesn't exist. They still have some trucks availablesince after the shut down, but only had two sales since September. On the way back to the apartment we passed another peaceful protestgoing down the street.In the afternoon Sara went to Aticana School, and I stayed in theapartment to finish up our laundry. Javier was kind to loan us hiswashing machine. Clothes had to be hung up on a line located on thebalcony. Nothing dries in this humidity, and it was 42 degrees Cwhich is about 110* F. HOT!!! This is the day I picked to iron. Itwas good to have some clean clothes.> Saturday was our last day in Tucuman for we were leaving toCordoba, Argentina on Sunday. Marcelo and Javier took us for a rideto see the country. It was another hot day, but a little bit coolerthan yesterday. We went up to the mountains to see the lake, and thedamn. We also visited a monastery that monks lived and made fooditems. A tourist attraction. We bought duce leche there. Dulceleche is like a thick caramel sauce that is sweet, and goes great onice cream or fruit. That evening Sara and I were invited over to the family's house for a pizza (different from American pizza.) This is the family that Sara stayed with when she lived there three years ago. This family included 50 people for a typical family style gettogether. Wow, you can fit all of my family in a Toyota. This was special for me. Well, needless to say, a simple pizza turned out to be pizza,empanadas, asado, and a very large birthday cake for one of thegirls.
The Asado? A Barbecue Argentine Style
Sara's Mom
We visited Sara's friend Marcelo's work at Scania on Friday. Scania is a Swedish company that manufactures trucks. Marcelo is amechanical technician there, and he arranged a tour for us. This is unusual for them to do so Sara and I felt privileged. Miguel, the product manager was our tour guide. He showed us the factory thatbuilt the drive shafts and steering columns that are later shipped to Brazil for further assembly. A very modern up-to-date factory with arobotic assembly, and computer tester. He also showed us the truckfactory, which was deserted due to their poor economical conditions. The banks in Argentina have frozen all loans since September 2001. Without the loans and the uncertainty of the country the demand fortruck sales doesn't exist. They still have some trucks availablesince after the shut down, but only had two sales since September. On the way back to the apartment we passed another peaceful protestgoing down the street.In the afternoon Sara went to Aticana School, and I stayed in theapartment to finish up our laundry. Javier was kind to loan us hiswashing machine. Clothes had to be hung up on a line located on thebalcony. Nothing dries in this humidity, and it was 42 degrees Cwhich is about 110* F. HOT!!! This is the day I picked to iron. Itwas good to have some clean clothes.> Saturday was our last day in Tucuman for we were leaving toCordoba, Argentina on Sunday. Marcelo and Javier took us for a rideto see the country. It was another hot day, but a little bit coolerthan yesterday. We went up to the mountains to see the lake, and thedamn. We also visited a monastery that monks lived and made fooditems. A tourist attraction. We bought duce leche there. Dulceleche is like a thick caramel sauce that is sweet, and goes great onice cream or fruit. That evening Sara and I were invited over to the family's house for a pizza (different from American pizza.) This is the family that Sara stayed with when she lived there three years ago. This family included 50 people for a typical family style gettogether. Wow, you can fit all of my family in a Toyota. This was special for me. Well, needless to say, a simple pizza turned out to be pizza,empanadas, asado, and a very large birthday cake for one of thegirls.
Wednesday, March 13, 2002
Argentina - March 2002 - Tucuman
Tuesday March 05, 2002
Sara's mom
I think I lost a day?? We walked back to town in the morning to get caught up in the Internet lab. Then we went to visit the family that Sara had stayed with when she was here. She is like a family member to them. The unquiness of this trip there house is so South American. I really enjoyed thier home and thier hospitality.
We picked up Juliata in town and took a taxi cab to the grandmother▓s, aunts, nephews, more aunts, you get the picture. We entered into their outside walkway through an iron gate fenced off with an adobe wall. The main house was in the front were all the aunts lived, and in the back another quaint home were the grandma and some other family members lived The land was narrow, so the homes were built accordingly. Adobe walls, shutters on the outer windows, tile everywhere including the outside porch, granite stairs with a beautiful wood staircase bannister. The kitchen had tile from the floor to the ceiling, and the sink counter was in granite. A small refrigator was standing on a petasol a few inches in height made with the same tile as the floor. There were two front doors. Almost looked like two homes instead of one. The door to the left led into the kitchen, and the door to the right led into the dinning room. They had a long wooden table in dinning room that sat about 10 people comfortably.
When we enter the kitchen and meet everyone there, there were three ladies preparing lunch. One was fixing sandwiches, and the other two were preparing empanadas. The sandwiches are not anything like the American sandwiches. In fact if you don't know what to expect, it can be quite confussing for us. They are made up of white bread, thin with no crust. They are a perfect rectangle. Very plane with one slice of cheese, or one slice each of cheese and one of ham. Not the thing to order if you are hungry and expecting everything on a big two slices of bread with all of the toppings, however they are indeed tasty. The empaЯadas are fabouls. A pastry shell about 6 to 8 inches in diameter filling it with chopped egg and meat. They boilded the meat (beef), and put fried onions in it. I can get the reciept if you are dying to try this. Two ways of cooking this. One way is to fry it, the other is to bake it. Our hostess went all out and did both for us.
Despite my lack of language our visit was very pleasant. I could understand about half of what was being said. I am starting to get a little brave and attempting to speak Spanish, but I know it sounds awful. As they say in Argentina.... chow.
Sara's mom
I think I lost a day?? We walked back to town in the morning to get caught up in the Internet lab. Then we went to visit the family that Sara had stayed with when she was here. She is like a family member to them. The unquiness of this trip there house is so South American. I really enjoyed thier home and thier hospitality.
We picked up Juliata in town and took a taxi cab to the grandmother▓s, aunts, nephews, more aunts, you get the picture. We entered into their outside walkway through an iron gate fenced off with an adobe wall. The main house was in the front were all the aunts lived, and in the back another quaint home were the grandma and some other family members lived The land was narrow, so the homes were built accordingly. Adobe walls, shutters on the outer windows, tile everywhere including the outside porch, granite stairs with a beautiful wood staircase bannister. The kitchen had tile from the floor to the ceiling, and the sink counter was in granite. A small refrigator was standing on a petasol a few inches in height made with the same tile as the floor. There were two front doors. Almost looked like two homes instead of one. The door to the left led into the kitchen, and the door to the right led into the dinning room. They had a long wooden table in dinning room that sat about 10 people comfortably.
When we enter the kitchen and meet everyone there, there were three ladies preparing lunch. One was fixing sandwiches, and the other two were preparing empanadas. The sandwiches are not anything like the American sandwiches. In fact if you don't know what to expect, it can be quite confussing for us. They are made up of white bread, thin with no crust. They are a perfect rectangle. Very plane with one slice of cheese, or one slice each of cheese and one of ham. Not the thing to order if you are hungry and expecting everything on a big two slices of bread with all of the toppings, however they are indeed tasty. The empaЯadas are fabouls. A pastry shell about 6 to 8 inches in diameter filling it with chopped egg and meat. They boilded the meat (beef), and put fried onions in it. I can get the reciept if you are dying to try this. Two ways of cooking this. One way is to fry it, the other is to bake it. Our hostess went all out and did both for us.
Despite my lack of language our visit was very pleasant. I could understand about half of what was being said. I am starting to get a little brave and attempting to speak Spanish, but I know it sounds awful. As they say in Argentina.... chow.
Tuesday, March 12, 2002
Argentina - March 2002 - Arriving to Buenos Aires
Arriving to Buenos Aires
Sara's mom
The Plane Ride:
We left SF airport to Buenos Aires Tuesday February 26th. The plane took off 30 minutes late. I don't know why. It arrived 5 hours later on time in Miami Fl. I don't know how. This is the first time that I have flown since the 9/11 happening. It was a bit of a shock to see armed military in uniform with guns at the airport. Wow. The security even made Sara take off her shoes to check. They didn't want my smelly shoes. I was wearing sandals, and Sara wore tennis shoes.
Sara (I thought) bumped into a friend at the airport. He gave her a hug and with a British accent ask "How are you doing darling?" Then he shook my hand for a greeting. As we were walking away with starry eyes she said "Wow, I just meet Craig David". "Who", I said? She was so excited she just had to call one of her friends up on a payphone. I guess now I ought to buy his CD, Ya think.
The plane ride was pleasant. We saw a movie "Hearts in Atlanta" staring Anthony Hopkins. Cute movie. I wouldn't mind seeing it again. We arrived in Miami 10:30pm and walked a mile or two to the next terminal to catch our next flight to Buenos Aires. The plane ride took 8 hours and we arrived the next morning. I can sleep in cars, trains, but not a plane. Most everyone on the plane was Argentino with a few of us Americanos. I had a conversation with the lady next to me some in Spanish, and some in English. We understood each other ok, and had a nice chat. A lot of people warned Sara not to leave me alone in Buenos Aires, and to be very careful. Things are tenser down here. I was becoming more and more paranoid and wonder if we should have made vacation plans somewhere nice in the US. I got a hold of my fears and decided if I could survive NY City in a very country-looking dress (dumb country hick written all over me), I could also handle Buenos Aires. After all, we are all part of this big beautiful world.
Hola Buenos Aires:
The airport there was calm. The first noticeable thing was the heat and the humidity. They were having a record heat wave that day. Gee it was just winter yesterday. This is my first time across the equator into the opposite season. We rode off in a remis (pronounced raymeese) taxi to our hotel about 20 to 30 minutes from the airport. I notice a Shell gas station on the way that looks like the ones we have. Even the sign for "car wash" was in English. Shell stuck their American gas station here and didn't change a thing.
The hotel that we are staying is in Central Buenos Aires (downtown). Very nice and comfortable. Our room has hardwood floors, not too much of a view, modern fluorescent lights, and a cool coffee machine. It does espresso and well as regular coffee.
Sara and I walked for 30 blocks to exchange our dollars for pesos. I really got to see a lot of the downtown area. A few things that I notice to be different are the police are on foot everywhere wearing bulletproof vests; the traffic is crazy no one stays in their lane, and they make a left hand turn from the right lane three lanes over. How do they survive here? No one one bothers with seat belts, and the traffic light flash yellow before they turn green. Despite Argentina's bad times I only saw two homeless people begging in the street. SF has much more than that even in the best of times. When we got to the bank it was crowded, and the bank was much smaller than in the US. It was the size of a small jewelry store. There was a doorman letting people in one at the time. Most everyone there was business men/women exchanging their pesos for American dollars. The exchange price changes daily now, and the dollar is more solid. It is sad to see this happening to a country that used to be strong economically. The exchange was $2.15 a peso for one dollar. It was one to one in better times. For me thats great, I get double my money down here.
We did a little shopping and found the prices to be much cheaper. Sara bought a bikini for $7 pesos. While we were at this little shop we heard a lot of clanging noises from the street. It was a peaceful protest against their national banks. Sara and I went over there, yeah we got in the middle of it all. We took a lot of pictures. They had signs and banners and banged on cups or some kind of metal. The news cameras were there. The police lined themselves up against the front of the bank, and the bank employees were inside looking out at the crowd. Wow, it was exciting. I was proud of the protesters for taking a peaceful stand for what they believed in. Then they moved on and stopped traffic in a busy intersection. Of all the protest in the US, this was my first one. This Friday there will be another protest in favor of the President. I don't think I will want to get in the middle of this one. I don't want to push my luck; this one might not be so peaceful.
In the evening Sara and I went for dinner and a Tango show. The food was fabulous, and the show was great. I order my meal in Spanish with a little help. Then I learned how to say carrots and raspberries. Now I have forgotten it. I bought a book that is meant to teach English to Spanish speakers. A little backwards, but I can still learn from it. The shuttle that took us there also picked up two other couples that were American also. One couple was from Wisconsin and had just arrived like us. The other couple I didn't get to meet. They were further in the back of the bus.
We had a good night sleep in the hotel, and ready to start another adventure. The sleep was very welcome because I was up the entire night before. I think I am already used to the new time. The change hasn't bothered me too much.
End of day One.
Sara's mom
The Plane Ride:
We left SF airport to Buenos Aires Tuesday February 26th. The plane took off 30 minutes late. I don't know why. It arrived 5 hours later on time in Miami Fl. I don't know how. This is the first time that I have flown since the 9/11 happening. It was a bit of a shock to see armed military in uniform with guns at the airport. Wow. The security even made Sara take off her shoes to check. They didn't want my smelly shoes. I was wearing sandals, and Sara wore tennis shoes.
Sara (I thought) bumped into a friend at the airport. He gave her a hug and with a British accent ask "How are you doing darling?" Then he shook my hand for a greeting. As we were walking away with starry eyes she said "Wow, I just meet Craig David". "Who", I said? She was so excited she just had to call one of her friends up on a payphone. I guess now I ought to buy his CD, Ya think.
The plane ride was pleasant. We saw a movie "Hearts in Atlanta" staring Anthony Hopkins. Cute movie. I wouldn't mind seeing it again. We arrived in Miami 10:30pm and walked a mile or two to the next terminal to catch our next flight to Buenos Aires. The plane ride took 8 hours and we arrived the next morning. I can sleep in cars, trains, but not a plane. Most everyone on the plane was Argentino with a few of us Americanos. I had a conversation with the lady next to me some in Spanish, and some in English. We understood each other ok, and had a nice chat. A lot of people warned Sara not to leave me alone in Buenos Aires, and to be very careful. Things are tenser down here. I was becoming more and more paranoid and wonder if we should have made vacation plans somewhere nice in the US. I got a hold of my fears and decided if I could survive NY City in a very country-looking dress (dumb country hick written all over me), I could also handle Buenos Aires. After all, we are all part of this big beautiful world.
Hola Buenos Aires:
The airport there was calm. The first noticeable thing was the heat and the humidity. They were having a record heat wave that day. Gee it was just winter yesterday. This is my first time across the equator into the opposite season. We rode off in a remis (pronounced raymeese) taxi to our hotel about 20 to 30 minutes from the airport. I notice a Shell gas station on the way that looks like the ones we have. Even the sign for "car wash" was in English. Shell stuck their American gas station here and didn't change a thing.
The hotel that we are staying is in Central Buenos Aires (downtown). Very nice and comfortable. Our room has hardwood floors, not too much of a view, modern fluorescent lights, and a cool coffee machine. It does espresso and well as regular coffee.
Sara and I walked for 30 blocks to exchange our dollars for pesos. I really got to see a lot of the downtown area. A few things that I notice to be different are the police are on foot everywhere wearing bulletproof vests; the traffic is crazy no one stays in their lane, and they make a left hand turn from the right lane three lanes over. How do they survive here? No one one bothers with seat belts, and the traffic light flash yellow before they turn green. Despite Argentina's bad times I only saw two homeless people begging in the street. SF has much more than that even in the best of times. When we got to the bank it was crowded, and the bank was much smaller than in the US. It was the size of a small jewelry store. There was a doorman letting people in one at the time. Most everyone there was business men/women exchanging their pesos for American dollars. The exchange price changes daily now, and the dollar is more solid. It is sad to see this happening to a country that used to be strong economically. The exchange was $2.15 a peso for one dollar. It was one to one in better times. For me thats great, I get double my money down here.
We did a little shopping and found the prices to be much cheaper. Sara bought a bikini for $7 pesos. While we were at this little shop we heard a lot of clanging noises from the street. It was a peaceful protest against their national banks. Sara and I went over there, yeah we got in the middle of it all. We took a lot of pictures. They had signs and banners and banged on cups or some kind of metal. The news cameras were there. The police lined themselves up against the front of the bank, and the bank employees were inside looking out at the crowd. Wow, it was exciting. I was proud of the protesters for taking a peaceful stand for what they believed in. Then they moved on and stopped traffic in a busy intersection. Of all the protest in the US, this was my first one. This Friday there will be another protest in favor of the President. I don't think I will want to get in the middle of this one. I don't want to push my luck; this one might not be so peaceful.
In the evening Sara and I went for dinner and a Tango show. The food was fabulous, and the show was great. I order my meal in Spanish with a little help. Then I learned how to say carrots and raspberries. Now I have forgotten it. I bought a book that is meant to teach English to Spanish speakers. A little backwards, but I can still learn from it. The shuttle that took us there also picked up two other couples that were American also. One couple was from Wisconsin and had just arrived like us. The other couple I didn't get to meet. They were further in the back of the bus.
We had a good night sleep in the hotel, and ready to start another adventure. The sleep was very welcome because I was up the entire night before. I think I am already used to the new time. The change hasn't bothered me too much.
End of day One.
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