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!