captivating kyoto

lost in a maze of shrines

golden pavilion in fresh snow

bamboo grove in the same blue jacket

emil says:

i loved me some tokyo.  but after visiting kyoto i found yet another new favorite. kyoto is the powerhouse of culture in japan. gardens, shrines, temples, buddhist figures, geisha walking the streets, rock gardens and a "path of philosophy" (how fabulously pseudo-intellectually emilian is that).  its clearly calmer than tokyo but downtown has that edgy techno feel to it nonetheless and this against a backdrop of super genuine ancient shogunate and feudal culture. japan as a whole i would say has developed plenty of uber modern technology but has been able to maintain some real cohesion to its past. most countries and societies have a few museums or structures where people go to pay homage to the past, but in japan, and most notably kyoto, the past is part of their daily lives. in fact, in some ways it is as though they live in the past, but in a good way.  bow, have respect for self and others, be honorable, have pride in what you do, be in control, be thoughtful in your action; all characteristics of a seemingly bygone era for most of us.  i must confess i have never laid eyes on a more serene, more beautiful city than kyoto. i had been looking forward to seeing angkor wat in cambodia for a long time but it was in kyoto that i found the zen eat prey love moments: rock gardens that have seemingly been tended to by a one armed buddhist monk for 7 generations all by his lonesome, to an endless bamboo grove that rocks, pitches, and sways with every gust, to kinkaku-ji (the golden pavilion) against the backdrop of a killer snowy day, you can be lost in a sea of tourists if you wish or you can sit and lay like broccoli alone beside a shrine built 1000 years ago.  for me kyoto ranks up there with places everyone should see one day, alongside paris, rome, and sayville.    

finding peace in the zen garden

laurel learning her craft from real geishas

one of kyoto's many shrines

cinderella

my carriage awaits

walking the streets of gion

paparazzi

a geisha needs her sustenance

off to write my memoirs

laurel says:


kyoto is a cultural gem.  loaded with 17 unesco world heritage sights, more than 1600 buddhist temples, and over 400 shinto shrines you could spend your entire trip here and still not scratch the surface.  we had 4 wonderful days in kyoto and packed as much sight-seeing in as we possibly could- out the door by 9am and home at 9pm!  by the end of it we were both exhausted and enlightened.  kyoto was the capital of japan until the meji period when it was moved to tokyo in 1868.  and it remains the cultural heart of the country.  the center of the action is the higashiyama district, where geisha still roam the teahouse lined streets.  in many ways it feels trapped in time, like a scene out of memoirs of a geisha.  to get in the spirit, i spent a day getting my very own geisha make over or "maiko-henshin."  emil was such a trooper and even came along for the ride.  i had my hair done in the traditional style, which in reality turned out to be a bit of a long island prom circa 1980's look.  then i selected my kimono, obi belt and purse.  but that was just the beginning.  it is not easy being a geisha! it took 2 women, and nearly 15 minutes to get me into my frock.  there are layers, upon layers, upon layers under that kimono!  and even as a petite american, i could not help but feel like a plus sized geisha next to my tiny japanese counterparts.  emil and i both got a kick out of my nickname for the day, "fat geisha!"  after slipping on my split toe socks and sliding into my sandals, my transformation was complete.  we hit the streets of gion for a stroll and emil served as my trusty photographer.  turns out a white geisha is quite a novelty, and we were inundated with well wishers and requests for photos.  needless to say, i hammed up every second of my fifteen minutes of fame!  it wasn't until my toes began to freeze in the 30 degree temps, that i finally surrendered and returned my beautiful kimono for my boring old western clothes.  sad face.  other highlights of our time included seeing the golden temple of kinkaku-ji, strolling the tree lined path of philosophy, hiking up the countless vermillion gates at fushimi-inari taisha and taking in the mesmerizing bamboo forest at arashiyama.  i can't recommend kyoto highly enough.  it is a must see and should be at the top of everyone's japan itinerary.

raked sand and stone garden

mobbed by japanese teens on the path to enlightenment

oh deer!

giant buddha daibutsu

strolling between temples

emil's zen master

tokyo gogo

laurel and emil after all their sushi dinners

upon learning the tuna auction was cancelled

fish monger

imperial palace

laurel says:

see ya, beijing.  this girl is firmly on team tokyo.  what is there not to love about this city?  (oh yeah, besides the outrageous costs!)  the food is next level a-mazing.  the fashion is fierce.  and each neighborhood oozes its own unique personality.  full disclosure, i am obsessed with tokyo!  let's start with the cuisine.  i think i should probably have my mercury levels checked because consuming this much sushi simply can not be good for you.  i am talking morning, noon and night.  even this self proclaimed sushi addict never thought of raw fish as a breakfast food.  but when you are at the tsukiji fish market, how can you deny eating the freshest sushi in the world, even if it is only 8am?  and for the perfect dessert, you can get green tea flavored anything in this city.  lattes, ice cream, kit kat bars.  you name it, they've matcha flavored it.  then there is the fashion.  from the fifth avenue vibe of ginza to the soho feel of harajuku the shopping here is unreal.  and the japanese have got it dialed in- impeccable customer service, exquisite packaging and gorgeous store design.  it is retail heaven.  but the best part of tokyo for me is just walking thru each neighborhood and soaking up the energy.  you can go from cutting edge modern to old school in one subway hop.  showcasing the modern side of tokyo is shinjuku (where lost in translation was set) and its sea of neon flashing lights.  then there is shibuya where the main intersection sees an estimated 100,000 pedestrians passing thru every hour.  (side note, this is where the highest grossing starbuck's in the world is- and they only serve tall sizes to discourage loitering)  on the flip side, the older neighborhoods like asakusa have retained much of their old charms despite the modernity surrounding them.  i was shocked to see women in full kimono plodding down the streets in their wooden sandals, dodging the traffic swarming by.  and zen gardens and temples mingling amongst the sky scrapers.  tokyo is a chirashi bowl full of flavor and i am it's #1 fan. 

asakusa market

30 foot lantern

view from our hotel

streets of shinjuku

wall of sake

emil says:

tokyo takes the cake as best city we have visited on the trip thus far.  i don't see some everlasting recession here as the economic data describes. folks look fly. 9 out of 10 dudes are in sharp looking suits. women look as cute as can be with short skirts and long stockings, and multiple shopping bags in each manicured hand. malls are full. cranes seem to be swinging around ala shanghai. i don't see a down economy here, nor ill effects from the devastating earthquake and tsunami at all. only negative from a business perspective is the fact that in this hotel i see 6 guys approach each other, all of them bow, all of them hold their business cards in both hands, and all of them bow again, and then they try to push their business cards forward and then each of them is loathe to be the first to take the other persons card as if it were the last pepperidge farm milano cookie on the platter. by this point i think most business types would be on their second deal, but in japan its courtesy and respect first, business seems a distant third.   japan is just super clean and super hip.  the subway is clean. the sidewalks are clean. here in japan they care to a fault. the amount of care and attention to detail by a sushi chef is almost humbling. everything seems done with tremendous personal passion and pride. some would say the japanese are too reserved, conforming, too calm, and i thought i would be the first to dislike this as a backdrop for a collective psyche but honestly this place and its people are just awesomely spirited but inwardly. people are calm but they care intensely and are proud of being japanese like i have not seen another culture be proud. i love the freedom of expression and individualism in america but lets be honest usually that means one has to deal with a bunch of punks on the subway blaring terrible tunes and numerous other negative anxt ridden expressionism thats not really standing or representing much of anything other than personal discontent. the japanese seem mellow and sometimes docile but this manifests itself in a public harmony that at first can be misconstrued as sterile but peel back some of the onion and its gloriously kind, warm, generous and super passionate. i love it here. japan is uber urban and beyond tech savvy but its equally ancient and steeped in tradition. hong kong was east meets west. but tokyo is ancient tradition meets urban realism and the combustion is pretty delicious. laurel and i look forward to making visiting japan a part of our future in the years to come. 

shibuya crossing

becoming the newest yomiuri giants fan

begging for tickets to the sumo match

harajuku girls

asian toilets- why don't we have these at home?

china e-con-omics

chairman mao

emil says:
most economists suggest china needs to stimulate their local domestic demand and move away from an export and government infrastructure-spend economy. from what i see here the malls are empty.  there are many starbucks but there are no lines at any of them. there are cartier, gucci, and prada stores everywhere but the only thing people do in the malls is warm up and get a nibble at the food court.  walk out of a nike store and you will get crushed by folks trying to take you down the alley (right alongside the nike store) to sell you fake nikes. it's a culture of copying. there is little original in any mall or public commercial space. everything is european or american save for the occasional local food spot. everyone seems to be wearing knockoffs and i don’t know what would make them adjust away from that. the thousands of highend retail stores seem to be waiting for something to happen.  could they be waiting for the middle class to rise to the point where they will want to consume $200 montblanc pens?  seems like a silly strategy to me. from what i have read (didn’t confirm this while in shanghai) middle class earners, ridiculously defined by the government as income of 7-75k, spend their disposable income on real estate. the massive flood of people from the countryside throughout this economic boom has made owning urban real estate a homerun over the past 20 years. the government has even had to put in restrictions on the amount of properties the locals can buy.  seems to me that the real estate trade can only be supported by ever more rural chinese migrants flocking to urban areas but many suspect this large urban push has already happened. and now wages are rising as fewer ruralites flee to the cities while factories are in need of labor. and what do you think happens once these employees demand healthcare or a minimum wage or something as ludicrous as safe working conditions? so where to invest? buy apple stock. anyone that has enough money to eat and not worry about 2 weeks from now is trying to buy the greatest status symbol they can, namely an iphone 4s. outside the apple store in beijing you will find numerous folks selling iphones for over $1000 since the store is sold out. next, invest in lamborghini or some other uber high end product, perhaps even the diamond interest de beers (if you think engagement rings will catch on) and short any mid level retailer that has pegged their hopes on china.  the uber rich will pay 3x normal prices to own things that signify that they are just that "uber rich". any brand that relies on a tag that can be copied may be in trouble with the ferocity of this knockoff industry. also i don't know what the next cheapest manufacturing country is but they are looking like a better alternative than china with each passing day as input costs rise, vietnam perhaps?  and lastly buy america. we rock. we innovate and we drive what they are copying in china. apple, starbucks, mcdonalds, ibm, caterpillar, gm to name just a few. if we build it they will come.

busted beijing

sorry mother nature 

the forbidden city

laurel actually smiling while in beijing

sharp elbows lead to a solo shot at the forbidden city

emil says:
the forbidden city in beijing is dynamite.  hiking along the great wall of china is extremely memorable. tiananmen square is historically relevant. there are numerous other culturally significant and super unique places to visit, particularly in comparison to industrial shanghai. still you can find a few decent spots in just about any city, but there just arent enough of them in beijing to make me want to stay another moment. its bleak, its nasty, miles and miles of concrete and an air so foul one cant actually see what the weather is like outside. the word smog probably comes from the words 'smoke and fog' but i think this is more like 'groke' a light grey omnipresent smoke. if you want to pollute back home just go for it, there is nothing that recycling one can or placing the right food scraps in the appropriately colored bin is going to do. It won't make one iota of difference in comparison to what is happening here in china.  this is an environmental nightmare of a city and i cant even imagine what it looks like in the larger manufacturing areas in southern china. god help us. its just a tough place. folks are trying to survive. there is no sense of customer care or service because most of these people have never been in a position to be waited upon themselves, so how can you blame them (though laurel found a way). there is just nothing architecturally worth looking at. its pure grey high rises spotted by numerous malls. i don't know what they mean by middle class in china. we saw a few ferraris and a few mercedes and there was noticeably more wealth in beijing than in shanghai but i could see nothing of what we call 'middle class'. the best part of china was to my surprise how cool people were to us. i really was expecting something out of rocky 4 when at the end in the ring stallone says to the crowd of russians "you didnt like me much, and i didnt know what to feels about you so i didnt like you all much none either".  the problem here lies in my ignorance as well as media coverage in the states when it comes to china.  there are too many contradictory images. on one hand the economy is on fire, a capitalist machine that will likely be the worlds leading economy, and on the other hand a hard-lined closed communist run dictatorship state.  one doesn't know whether to picutre pandas and pagodas or a totalitarian wasteland of environmental decay. its really hard to come up with a summation for our time in beijing.  it really sucks to be in beijing and you really want to get out with only a portion of your lungs blackened, but there is something phenomenally arresting about the growth thats happening here so its just an incredibly intriguing place to me.  whether you think the billions of poor can rise and one day find a decent life, or whether you think massive social unrest will unfold at the hands of incredible income disparity, or whether you think the environment will just implode in the face of the world's greatest industrial revolution or whether you think its a low-cost manufacturing powerhouse that cannot be stopped.  china may be the land of opportunity right now, but if i had to live in this land you can keep your opportunity.  

tiananmen square

laurel and mao

there will be no unrest at the square

a great day at the great wall

great wall meets wolmut

on the lookout for mongolian rivals

epically alone on the wall

still walking on the great wall

emil couldn't resist doing the running man

the perfect way to come down from the great wall...luge!!!

laurel says:

all the leaves are brown, and the sky is grey.  and the streets are grey.  and the air is grey.  and life in beijing is just grey.  it's big. it's dirty.  and it ain't pretty.  i found simply surviving beijing to be exhausting.  at one point i laid my head down and when emil asked what i was doing i replied "i am pretending i am not in beijing anymore."  just getting from point 'a' to point 'b' in this mega-city is a daunting and frustrating task.  the city blocks are vegas sized and everything looks same same, making walking the streets feel like a forced death march.  you can also forget taxis, even if you have your destination address written down in chinese the cab drivers are still baffled.  in a city that's the size of belgium and growing at the speed of sound, i guess you can't really blame them for getting lost all the time.  we quickly learned that the subway was bizarrely the most enjoyable way to navigate the city.  and you better have a restaurant in mind for dinner.  there is no strolling thru a neighborhood and popping in to a cute place in this town.  acceptable dining options are very few and far between, but these are the prices one must pay to take in the magical historic sights beijing has to offer.  and in fact our trip to the great wall was one of the highlights of our entire trip thus far.  we took a car out to one of the distant and less visited sections, about 110 kilometers from the city, and had the wall nearly all to ourselves on a stunningly bright winter day.  we walked for hours in the crisp mountain air, mesmerized by the scale and beauty of the wall.  as mao said, it truly is a sight that everyone should see once in their lifetime...errr in his words, "he who does not reach the great wall is not a true man."  and of course the forbidden city, tiananmen square, summer palace and temple of heaven are all tremendous.  i am happy to have seen them, but i think i can safely say that china was a once in a lifetime experience for me.   

the summer palace (minus the summer)

the long passage at the summer palace

chilling in our hutong (alley)

managing to find the superbowl in beijing

temple of heaven