Well, here I am on the design roller coaster, sipping Kirin and staring out of my immaculately clean 30th floor window at the improbably Parisian Tokyo tower, and thinking things are rather nice. Kan pai!
View out to the rather camp Tokyo Tower
Some station, squeezed between the buildings
Keeping my feet on the ground in Tianjin
The research wagon sets out for northern China, and we set our sights upon Tianjin – a city not too far away from Beijing. I was pleasantly surprised by the place, seeing as it had been populated by various Europeans at the start of the twentieth century, and they had left a decent legacy of colonial buildings and handsome streets. Although there were few actual attractions to speak of, it was really an interesting location and a notch more ‘Chinese’ than Shanghai or Beijing. It must be said that it is still unlikely that I have seen the ‘real’ China after my forays onto the mainland. None the less, interesting enough to entertain us for a few days of business.
The handsome side streets west of the city centre were packed with vendors selling classic Chinese tat. Sadly, no Christmas presents were found! But this was perhaps due to the very cold weather.
Old boys play games in the streets, away from their wives (much like Taipei!).
Somewhat reminiscent of the Hutongs in Beijing
This guy was one of the most characterful people I met – down from the north in Hubei, he ran a Xinzhuang (need to check) BBQ that just pumped out the best lamb kebabs … after a tip from Lars in Shanghai, I now seek out these chaps. Killer, every time… and worth returning to! This type of BBQ can be seen on the streets quite regularly.
… which we did, when Alfie arrived a day later (with beer added).
The guy insisted we take a photo together, but then entirely lost interest when I suggested I send it to him … he thought I should just give it to him the next time I see him!
And why was I seeking out the street food? After recommendations from several people, I was to check out the internationally famous ‘Gou Bu Li’ dumpling restaurant. The name (狗不理）comes from a story of the original owner who used to cook dumplings of astoundingly poor quality. Some say, the quality was so bad that when he dropped one, even dogs would not eat it … hence ‘Even Dogs Wouldn’t’ as a name. When this happened, he went away and learnt from a great master (I am somewhat making this up) and came back to great acclaim, but the name stuck.
Walk in and taste the food… and well, the only thing I would add is that ‘Even Rich Dogs Wouldn’t’, as they were pretty bland and very expensive. The photos of George Bush Sr. and various Chinese dignitaries didn’t help me change my mind.
‘Even Dogs Wouldn’t’
Rows of electric bikes, which are ubiquitous in China
After a day of seeing the same shops and hearing the same blaring music, I happened upon a Starbucks opposite a rather an attractive old Church. Clearly, this was what all the other foreigners in Tianjin thought too, and I bumped into a pair of fresh-faced English teachers who pointed me towards a couple of night spots. Well, ‘the’ night spot…
Dubbed ‘Alibabas’ it is down a dark, dark street, down a dark, dark lane, behind an unassuming door and a large piece of carpet… the only place to hang out for those living in Tianjin, it was none the less lively and fun enough to return with Chinese people in tow.
Reflecting on religion
New friends
The Liverpool match
Entertainment from our Chinese hosts takes rather a different form, and mainly revolves around displays of taste and wealth. Lunch on the Saturday consisted of one of the local banquet restaurants, and in typical tourist fashion I went around taking photos of everything moving… which it turns out is quite a lot!
The welcoming committee
Yes, that is a turtle, and yes, it probably has a price on it for cooking
Delicious frogs
I’ll take the snake in Black Bean Sauce… seriously
Charming location in front of the freeway… with good parking. China and Korea often seems to have this sort of hazy light that is quite hard to describe.
Great views.
And to top off our ‘cultural research’ we went to check out the tallest tower in Tianjin, and a building that has clearly seen better days since opening in 1991. There was almost nobody there, and I for one felt particularly fidgety at this height!
The ‘TianTa’ (天塔）- China’s scariest building
My guides walked straight out onto the glass-floored deck. Normally, I think I would have no problems doing this, but my whole body only wanted to do one thing, and that was to go DOWN, away from this shaky, rickety building with wobbly floors and bumpy elevators.
It’s very traditional for lovers to put locks onto the gratings of such buildings to signify their love for one another. With this symbolic gesture, the lock then spends the rest of its life looking out across the pollution of northern China …
In this photo you can definitely SEE the pollution just hanging in the air – and today was not a bad day. Combine it with the dust storms coming from the ever dustier north, and you can palpably taste the air whenever you step outside. So, even sunny days are reduced to hazy, foggy experiences which leave you squinting into the grey distance, dry of lip and scratchy of eye.
And as an industrial designer actually making these
goods, I have to feel a major pang of guilt when I experience it.
Well, there is a reason they call it a ‘kickoff’ meeting … we waited six months to start this project, and now I am spending more time abroad than I am at home. I can’t relax as much as I might like, but if you know me well you’ll know that I maxed out on the fun, frolicking and food – and most importantly had the chance to meet up with Anke, Lars and Bump (a huge part of the Singapore story that I was not allowed to divulge is that Anke is preggers with a baby – Made in China of course – and she announced it on the beach… hang on, this is too important for brackets…)
So – congratulations guys! You have your own paragraph now… look how spacious it is!
Anyway – I spent the days visiting clients and factories, and the nights heading out with the crew and meeting some new and old friends, and some like Simon that I know through multiple contacts, but never actually saw face to face. Anyway – not too good with words right now, so here are some pics. Ahh.
Shanghai World Financial Centre – not without its fair share of controversy… its original (elegant) shape had a large circle in the top … but the locals are still rather sensetive about the whole Japan thing, and so dropped that for some kind of melted square hole. And in the process of the delay lost top spot as the world’s tallest building.
Not quite the world’s tallest building … on the streets of Shanghai
View from one of the client offices – quite funny to be up above one of the recognisable locations in Shanghai – The Pacific Mall (same name as the one in Taipei!)
Elevated
Sunset in Shanghai
View from the Galaxy Hotel (translation ‘Star River’)
Road block
Hangzhou sunset – really rather wonderful
Loch Ness
Shattered mirror (just look at the texture on that one, Michael and Markus!)
Totally ridiculous – the only thing missing was the whiny Chinese music
It’s really amazing to be around Taiwanese guys when they come to China… there is all this tension, but at the end of the day their culture is rooted here, and they know all of these stories… quite touching. Here is Alfie contemplating things.
Bikes – Shanghai Style
Well, here I am in Hong Kong airport, on my way to Shanghai. I am coming over at the last minute to kick off one of my projects. In typical DEM style, schedules were changing by the minute right up until I left work yesterday, as we juggled schedules from people flying in from all over Asia. Quite a feat.
And here I am, waiting for four hours in arrivals, waiting for the Visa to be processed. I can’t really go anywhere as they have my passport, and all the fun stuff is really in departures. One bright light is the fact that Cathay Pacific have (cynically) offered me free membership to their ‘Marco Polo’ business club, and with the Silver card have access to all the lounges and cool stuff I have for so long been denied access to. Finally! Of course, it coincides with my almost having enough air miles for a return trip to London, so it is a sweetener to make me stay loyal, obviously, before I splurge it all on going home. But, the quicker check-in, extra 10kg and sense of elitist satisfaction I have more than makes it worth it!
Next stop Shanghai … there for two days on business, then a weekend of fun with Anke & Lars … and who knows, I might be in Korea and Beijing next weekend. It’s all to play for!
Kyoto is now officially one of my favourite places on the planet. The weather has been nigh on perfect for my time here and it has been truly splendid seeing the city.
The highlight of the trip – just perhaps one of the highlights of all my travelling – was renting a bike and riding around in the winter sunshine on a rented bike with my Cambridge University scarf waving behind me. I had a smile on my face for the entire day, popping from temple to temple, putting my head round the door of a few UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and cutting up taxis riding just like a student so late for their morning lecture there is simply no point rushing any more.
It would be very easy to overdo the temple thing here. They form the city’s major industry and have done for the last thousand years. I think I have done a reasonable job mixing it up though, making sure I also include some gardens, pagodas, food and stopping to ponder the immense complexity of this society – at once immediately accessible and frustratingly impenetrable; espacially here in Kyoto.
I suppose the feeling I have of this place is of awe, but in a similar way to the secretive halls and passages of Cambridge University, even if I was Japanese I would have difficulty breaking more than the most superficial of surfaces – let alone understanding the place.
I’ll have one more day to soak, then I will have to the even more historical capital of Nara and then on to Tokyo for a weekend of eating, shopping and drinking with Kaoru. Should be a blast, and a nice contrast to the hostel + ‘cultcha’ of this place.
Ridiculously beautiful and endlessly layered, this place is beguiling.
Sanjusangen-do. This temple had 1001 human-sized standing buddas standing inside. Each budda sported 40 arms. Each of those arms are able to protect 25 universes from evil. In turn, each can save 25. So, this insurance policy – an insurance policy that took 100 years to build – can protect a total of 30,033 worlds from destruction, and save mankind. Seems… a touch… excessive.
Kiyomizu-Dera – UNESCO World Heritage Site
The weather was simply perfect
Pagodas in the mist
What more to say? I played for a while with B&W;
Views over Kyoto
Happy Budda at the love temple – I would be too, surrounded by such beauty
Hon-do – rather an arresting site in the gorge
Even lamps in the cafe got my pulse racing!
Everything – everything – seems to be considered and nicely executed, with little design solutions everywhere you turn
Yeah, so my new camera has depth of field – you guys have guessed. Again, not Sakura!
Port hole
The roofs just blew me away every time
3G monk!
Heian-Jingu is a rather large and gaudy temple – or shrine, I always get them mixed up – in a very Chinese style
Fortunes tied to trees
Ginkaku-Ji, or the Silver Pavilion, is another UNESCO site. Very nice, but with a pretty ugly Zen garden (in my opinion) and rather too many chattering tourists
Make a wish
Tools of the trade on show at Ryoan-Ji. But he messed up all the raking!
Hi Contrast
Layer cake
Icy cold sunshine
Is this just the nicest row of buckets you have ever seen?!
A very pleasant lunch while looking out across an immaculately manicured garden
Hello … or rather Konichiwa
At the Imperial Palace … much more well preserved than the other places. But with an organised tour, lots of camera toting tourists and a slightly hygienic feel, I think other locations were better
Yeah sorry! Sakura? No.
A lovely garden… but I have begun to realise that while Japanese gardens seem to be made for looking at, Western gardens are for sitting in. If I sat down I am sure a necromancer or irate gardener would shoo me away!
Too cool!
The English chap I hung around with for a couple of days; a hip hopper from Oxford
This second trip to Japan is a complete, unfiltered assault on my senses. I return to my room each night completely shattered, my nerves shot. I have travelled to some relatively extreme places, but Japan repeatedly leaves me bewildered, shaken and stirred.
Waiting for my flight at Taipei Taoyuan International Airport – formerly Chiang Kai Shek… the island is in the process of severing links with the man, which I think may be going too far in some ways
After a couple of months of tough projects, I escaped from the ROC while the rest of the island celebrates Chinese New Year, and landed in Japan’s third city – Osaka. I have already visited Japan once before while visiting my sister, so some of the sights and sounds were certainly familiar, particularly after living in Taiwan for so long.
Shinkansen are astoundingly, stupifyingly fast – especially when standing a few metres away when they rocket by
Zoom Zoom
I definitely need a post dedicated to bullet trains. This is the oldest type, I think, but still my favourite – why oh why doesn’t the UK have these?
Osaka is certainly more laid back and accessible, though it must be said that there is less to see than some of the other locations here. The prime attraction is the city’s castle, and this constitutes the most visited tourist attraction in Japan. I might suggest that the only reason for this is that there is nothing else touristy to see here! It was still a bit of a let down to reach the top and be told, in dramatic scale model style, that the entire thing is made from concrete and was constructed a in the last forty years. Still, Osaka’s octopus balls I could eat all day.
Picadilly Circus in London can only dream – Dotomburi in Osaka
The kids rock out to scores of amateur bands. They were actually pretty good and made for a very nice alternative use of a shopping arcade, once the shops has shut. Tokyo, sadly, has pushed out its amateur rockers from Harajuku.
The walls of Osakajo (Osaka Castle). Interestingly, some of the blocks which seem to be as big as small lorries were only recently discovered to be about 20cm thick. All for show!
My old man’s a Samurai
Roar!
I had been hankering to visit Kobe for years. The only two pieces of knowledge I have are A. the earthquake and B. the beef. Earthquake aside, I had a bit of a disappointing time looking for a decent beef restaurant and in the end I gave up. Much like buying an expensive bottle of whiskey or wine, I didn’t want to part with my cash without knowing what I was buying, and certainly not in one of the establishments established solely to cater to the dollars of Jonny Foreigner. They are 100 bucks a piece, minimum, so that cow lives to drink beer, be doused in Sake and receive erotic massages for another few months. But revenge will be mine, fat, drunk cow – mark my words.
A super cool shopping arcade under the railway line had a super vibe, packed with old record shops, vintage clothes and military surplus
China town in Kobe – ironically, full of Taiwanese tourists (though I can hardly talk!)
After the suburban delights of Kobe, it was a delight to reach the castle town of Himeji. What a castle. Set as the backdrop to the Tom Cruise vehicle ‘Last Samurai’ and James Bond ‘You Only Live Twice’ it really lived up to expectations, and at the end of the day the sun emerged from between chilly clouds and I think I almost burnt out the SD card slot on my camera, taking the same shots over and over again as the light continued to improve.
How cool is this?!
View from the quarters of ladies in waiting
I am a Ninja. I kill people. And I am awesome.
This is the where the Samurais and warrior dudes keep their stuff. Know that I was almost peeing myself being surrounded by so much cool and smooth weaponry.
Sakura! (or actually Plum – thanks Kaoru!)
The Japanese clearly mastered Corporate Identity a long, long time ago
Carping on
A Kimono-clad lady flees a ninja attack!
Plum I guess. Not Sakura.
Rooflessly good
I never really understand why bamboo never got exported to Europe when trading began. It’s such a versatile material, and surely some seeds could have been taken over? One of my little questions.
How cute is this little girl? I mean really?!
Roar 2.0
It was at this point that I was in somewhat of a quandry – head for Hiroshima or for the delights of Kyoto and Nara? Well, after the so-so reaction to Kobe, I decided to stick with the ancient Japanese thing and head for Kyoto. It seems that I could spend several days here with no problem, and I am presently in a hostel, ready to sleep in the floor of the living room as the place is booked out – makes a nice change from the businessman hole in the wall hotels I have been frequenting up to this point. And tomorrow I plan to rent
a bike and check this place out – I already have invitations from a fleet of Taiwanese students who clucked away with me in Chinese while booking in. A nice reminder of travelling on more limited means!
Sayonara!
I have had this vision in my head of drinking a G&T; in Honk Kong airport for the last week. And here I am. And it tastes just rather bloody wonderful!
I have not posted so much of late – perhaps because work has been grilling me, and I have had so many to finish at this most busy time of year. It’s a strange environment to be in heading up to Christmas – there is no communal Christmas spirit (why should there be) and the idea of my leaving is not quite synchronised. So, I have an enormous pile of projects to finish (one of them being Christmas shopping for certain family members!) and my brain is hurting from having to think about packing.
This is a tale in itself. I am bringing my old bike back to sell, so I though it would make sense to buy a specific bike box for the task. However, upon weighing bike in box, I discovered it came to something over 25kg… and my weight limit should really be 20. So, a change of pants, a toothbrush and a credit card for me! And some intelligent packing of pockets and notebook computer bags!
You’ll be able to spot me – I’ll be the one with the huge oversized suitcase and the paedophile jacket packed with consumer electronics!
The sooner I get out of here the better for my sanity.
Today, I was finally granted the future I was promised as a child. Today, I rode the Mag Lev.
Linking the Airport and the city – or at least a parking lot in the middle of nowhere kind of near the city – it covers the 40km run in 7 minutes! Half the time is spent accelerating, and the other half braking. The most efficient way, of course – perhaps the Shanghai taxi drivers understand physics better than I realised.
The whole experience was however slightly provincial, and rounded off with a very slow, frustrating and badly organised airport. Strange, considering the epic world class proportions of the exterior. Perhaps it is an ideal analogy of my whole China experience so far.
Anything with red glowing lights gets my vote
For those of you that are interested, this is a mag-lev track. Where is the dry ice and lasers?
Fast! But not quite as smooth as I expected
My plane to Hong Kong, and after back to Taipei and *cough* civilisation
As an interesting note, the MagLev was constructed using German know-how and is the only commercial example existing in the world, saving the technology from becoming a white elephant. The Germans are now up in arms because the Chinese are planning their own version, but cheaper this time. However, as some observers have pointed out this may be the only way to recoup costs – by supplying key components. That the Chinese copy the system and make it cheaper, could open the door for it in other locations.