All this happened, more or less...

My name is G and these are the true stories of my adventures.
Showing posts with label tourists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tourists. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Returning to Japan: Kyoto

Kinkakuji Gardens and Grounds

I've been spending quite a bit of time lately talking to my little German brother, Steven, who left his life in Mannheim for a year to come to the US. After a few months back home, he's discovering what I found when I moved home from Japan. When you drop your whole life to immerse yourself in a new experience -- a school, a job, a journey -- it comes at a price. The friends you make in your new locale aren't there to bolster you up when you get home, and the time away has distanced you so completely from your old friends that they are worse than strangers. Steven's life, like mine, is now gloriously shattered by the social San Andreas of "living abroad."

Strolling through Gion

We all compartmentalize our lives: work, friends, relationships, family, that crazy summer with the traveling circus; but in normal, healthy lives, we have cross-over. Our coworkers meet our friends who hang out with our boyfriends who make awkward appearances at family gatherings and so forth. Those subtle links bind our experiences together into one collective mass we call: Life. Without them, we become scattered, disjointed; instead of being multifaceted, we become multi-lived. The problem with Dissociative Life Disorder is that whatever side of your life you happen to be on becomes dominant, reducing its counterpart to that slippery, half-imagined state of dreams. Kind of like the way we all felt about Top Gun after this.

Hiking up through the shrines

Returning to Kyoto this summer, I was a bit apprehensive. I had been away for three years, and in that time, I wasn't sure how much I had romanticized my experiences there. Kyoto was the epicenter of my life in Japan -- not just a city where I lived, but a city where I fell madly and irredeemably in love. In love with the play of light on the Kawaramachi; with the clatter of bamboo in the wind; with narrow, snaking alleyways and a thousand little bridges; with the startling white glide of a crane; with soaring orange tori and ten-story buildings dripping with neon; with the lullaby rock of subway trains; with 7-Eleven sushi and one very well-worn blue sweater. In love with a lifestyle, with a rhythm, with an aesthetic, with a man. I was afraid that returning to Kyoto might shatter its magic for me -- might flip the garish house lights on after an enchanting show.

Workers at Fushimi Inari

Instead, I discovered that even my most vivid memories didn't do any more justice to this incredible city than snapshots do to a mountain range.

Kinkakuji

Kyoto embodies the best of Japan -- a deep reverence for tradition interlaced with freshness and vitality; a startling juxtaposition of nature's stillness and the steady urban buzz; a cultural character that is rich, unique, and always surprising.

Schoolboys Lighting Incense

I should not have worried about Kyoto disappointing me. Coming back was like coming home, not just in the familiarity of the winding streets (a maze I long ago committed to memory) but because the rhythm of the place was once the rhythm of my life, the way an old song always takes us back to ourselves. I felt this way as my students and I entered Fushimi-Inari and as we made the steep climb up to Kyomizu-dera, but more than ever I felt myself coming home in the fervent embraces of old friends, in an icy beer and a bowl of edamame, in a smokey bar at three a.m., and in the well-worn, quiet comfort of friendship that time cannot fade.

Biru!

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

London, Day 4.5 -- PS, re: Roommates

In all the excitement of regaling you with our adventures, I nearly forgot to make note of the shifting roommate situation. After the first night, Naked French Guy vanished into the sunset, so the second night, it was just Aussie David and the four of us girls (myself, S, Anna, and Lauren).

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Tuesday, Lauren went home and David left to go stay with a friend, and Wednesday Anna moved to a hostel on the other side of town -- though we met up with both Anna and Dave throughout the week for various shenanigans. In their place came an Argentinian guy called Diago. Being from Argentina is cool, and his presence afforded S and I a chance to hone our EspaƱol skillz. The only problem with Diago was that he didn't come alone. He brought his mom.

Yeah, to a youth hostel.

Awkward, at best, but extra hilarious because of this sign that was posted in several locations in the kitchen/dining room:

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I don't know if this means Diago didn't have to wash his own dishes, or maybe his mom was supposed to wash all of our dishes...? Who can say for certain? All we really know is that a youth hostel is not exactly a family atmosphere, buddy, and perhaps next time your mom comes from Argentina to visit you in Europe, you could try to come off as not quite so cheap. Or at the very least, get a private room.

It could have been worse though. At least nobody was naked while Mom was there.

London, Day 4 -- Take a Deep Breath

Wednesday we slowed down. Two days of full-on touristing coupled with two nights of sleeping with the Buzz Saw took a toll on our momentum. We didn't get out of the hostel until 10:30 or so, significantly later than the last two days.



S and I wanted something a little quieter to do in the morning, so we went to the Tate Modern. I get pretty excited in the presence of Art, and S at least did a quality job of pretending to be interested long enough to appease me. They have some really incredible pieces, so if you're into modern art, this is a worthwhile addition to your London experience. If you're not into art, well... skip this and do whatever you're into. Geez, I'm not in charge of you.

Tate Modern

We met up with Anna, our hostel roomie, for lunch. The plan for the afternoon was for us girls to relax and go shopping while we waited for David to get out of work. (Do you like how heavy with gender stereotypes that sentence is? Yeah, me too.) Then the four of us were going to go take a beef-eater tour through the Tower of London, have dinner, and find someplace interesting to go out in the evening.

Well, kids, here's a little lesson in how to be a good tourist: Spontaneity will get you pretty far, but you really should consult the guidebook now and again. By the time we rallied ourselves over to the ticket office at the Tower, we'd already missed the last tour of the day. We really could have made it with plenty of time to spare if we had known what time the tours stopped, so we kicked ourselves over that one a bit. So don't cling to the guidebook -- it was written by LonelyPlanet, not Jesus -- but remember, it's there to help you.

The Tower of London

David ended up getting out of work late anyway, so S, Anna, and I spent the afternoon sitting in a park. We had a great view of the tower and the tourists, and more importantly, we had access to ridiculously beautiful sunshine. Tanning was not on my list of authentic London experiences, but hey, no complaints!

Soakin' up some rays in the park

In retrospect, I'm sure we needed a day to relax anyway.

Monday, June 23, 2008

London, Day 2 -- The Touristy Bits

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I woke up on Monday morning at 4:15, about four hours after I'd gone to sleep. I could blame the jet lag for this, except that when it's 4:15 in London, it's 11:15 in the evening at home. So that would be backwards jet lag.

No, there are two far more probable causes.

First, as it was just after the solstice, the days were extremely long. You welcome these long summer days when it's still light out at ten in the evening; however, the flip side of that is the sun streaming gloriously through your window at 4:15 a.m. When I woke up, my first thought was: O crap, did I miss breakfast?

Nope, I didn't.

The second cause of my untimely awakening took a moment longer to creep into my consciousness. Then it hit me: Roommate. Snoring.

Now, I actually love sleeping in a room full of people. Even strangers. I find it very soothing to lie in bed and listen to all the little noises people make in their sleep. Maybe this recalls my time in Japan, when I quite often had a pile of friends staying at my place after a long night out; maybe it goes back more deeply into my childhood when my brothers and sister and I spent many pleasant summer nights crammed in tents or pop-ups; maybe farther still to my twin and I bobbing around in the womb together. Whatever the reason, I always prefer to be with someone else.

But o god, the snoring was bad. Normally, a snorer will fade in and out over the course of the night. They'll get themselves in the wrong position and really start sawin' logs. Then they'll roll on their back and quiet down. Then they'll shift again and start all over.

This snorer was a steadily roaring buzz-saw. What made it worse: it was a girl. You can pick on a guy about snoring, poke him in the ribs, roll him over, tease him about it in the morning. But it's just embarrassing for everybody when a girl snores like that.

I laid in bed for about an hour and a half -- actually stuck my iPod in my ear to help cover the maddening drone. When it became clear that I was not going to get any more sleep, I gave in, got up, and went downstairs to beat the morning shower rush.

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The snorer actually disrupted everybody's sleep. Even when I was still lying in bed, there was restless stirring among all the roommates, and by the time I got back from the shower, S was up and ready to tackle our first day of the London tourist circuit.

After a quick -- but invaluable -- breakfast in the hostel, we headed for Pimlico Station and hopped on (in?) the Tube. We started at Big Ben, which was... ya know, big. We walked down the street past the Old Bailey, laughed at the massive line queue of tourists outside, and passed a very pleasant morning people-watching in a tiny coffee shop. We then meandered through West Minster Abbey.

Westminster Abby will pique the interest of almost anybody. As frail beings who are daily reminded of our own mortality, we may fear and loath the dying, but we are irresistibly drawn to the dead. We spend millions of dollars making and watching horror movies about them, and we gawk at a corpse any chance we get. If you don't believe me, check out the crowd in front of a mummy at any museum. Well, in Westminster, there are loads of people laying around dead, including royalty and public heroes from over the centuries, as well as some more surprising folks and some pretty intriguing stories. For example, Oliver Cromwell -- who became Lord Protector in 1653 and died of natural causes (probably malaria) in 1658 -- was first buried in Westminster Abbey, in spite of the fact that Westminster is a Catholic church and Cromwell was vehemently and violently opposed to Catholicism. In 1661, shortly after the monarchy was restored, he was charged with regicide and his body (or what they believed to be his body) was exhumed and "posthumously executed" -- that is, decapitated and hung in chains. His head was put on a spike outside Westminster and stayed there until 1685. Whether that body actually was Cromwell's and what has happened to it since then are both matters for debate that you can research on your own time, but I think the moral of the story is clear: Don't piss off the king. Or, you know, kill him.

I can't even get started on Poet's Corner, but if you're a lit buff like I am, you might be surprised to find yourself quite moved by it. Or if you're a physicist or a naturalist on a pilgrimage, Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin are interred there, too. So overall, I give Westminster Abbey two enthusiastic thumbs up; regardless of what you happen to be into, you'll find something someone there worth seeing. The Jeremy Irons narrated audio tour is a nice touch as well.

The sky was brilliantly clear, so we decided to swallow the rather large admission fee and go up in the London Eye. I do not recommend doing this on a cloudy day or if you have claustrophobia or acrophobia (that's fear of heights, not acrobats), but otherwise, it's quite a sight to see. I brought my brand-spankin'-new camera and am absolutely giddy over how my photos turned out -- you can see all the way up the river to St. Paul's in the shot at the top of this entry. Thank you, wide angle lens!

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After the Eye, we wandered aimlessly through Jubilee Gardens and then down through Green Park. S and I share many passions -- travel, sushi, karaoke, soy products, putting on fake accents, etc -- but one of the strongest is people-watching. London's parks afford limitless opportunities to act as if you're minding your own business while subtly minding other people's. Case in point: the woman above, whom I have dubbed The Pigeon Whisperer.

Buckingham Palace, another touristy must-see, is located on the other side of Green Park, so after our stroll beneath the trees, we watched the guards do their little marching bit. They march exactly as you expect them to, so it actually gets quite boring pretty quickly, particularly on days like this when the palace isn't open for public tours. You simply stand outside the gate and look at it. However, back along the people-watching lines, tourist-watching is its own special branch of the discipline, and fascinating subjects abound outside the palace.

The guy pictured below officially wins my "Stupid Things Tourists Do" Award for this trip. And I say that in love. He brought a teddy bear with a policeman's hat to Buckingham Palace and took several minutes to negotiate with the officers outside the gate in order to get a picture of them with the bear. The joyous photo below came after lots of stubborn head-shaking from them and shameless pleading from him. I don't know what he said to finally make them cave, but it's clear that this moment was the pinnacle of his trip to Europe.

Bear Guy, you rock.

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