Hong Kong, day one

By mutual agreement, Miss H and I decided not to do much today. I was exhausted from my losing battle against Singapore's confounded autocracy, and my other half had just come off a startlingly harsh week at work (and a long flight). So we went to bed early the night of Saturday, August 2, and had a lovely lie-in Sunday morning. 

The weather was a factor as well. I hadn't expected Hong Kong to be the hottest, most humid, most stinkingly sweltering destination on my journey, but that it was. We could hardly breathe. The heat and wet were living things, clawing at your throat, clamping your clothes against your body, blocking your pores like some invisible blob monster. I've always been prone to sweating when the temperature's anywhere above 70 degrees, and whenever the humidity's above 40 percent. You can imagine how I felt in Hong Kong, with the temperature hovering around 85 and the humidity at 81%. Even Miss H was melting. 

Nonetheless, we hadn't come all this way just to sit in our air-conditioned room. We practically sprinted the ten feet between the hotel lobby and the entrance to North Point MTR station, and then we were on our way to Central and the IFC Mall. 

The view from the roof deck. We'd been planning to have cocktails up there, but the prices were exorbitant.

Pepero is the Korean version of Pocky, a Japanese biscuit stick covered with chocolate. So weird seeing it labeled in English in Hong Kong...

We did a bit of shopping (Victoria's Secret, Dymocks Bookstore, Godiva) and ate a hefty lunch of salads, sandwiches, and smoothies. Then we went to see The Guardians of the Galaxy in 3D. It cost about $15 per person—not including the glasses!—but what the hell, it was a date. In Hong Kong. 

Back at our hotel—ibis North Point—we switched rooms. I'd gotten one of the cheapest double rooms, but 1901 was a closet-sized space with a view of the building behind. So we paid an extra hundred HK$ (about $12.89 US) per day and moved our stuff up to 2504, which had a gorgeous view of Victoria Harbor and Kowloon. 

Angkor Wat and environs

I won't say much about the bus ride from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. It was long and dull. I wanted to take the speedboat up the Tonlé Sap Lake, but my timing was bad—the water wasn't high enough. Even during the peak season there's still a good chance of running aground, I was told. So I gave it up, bought a bus ticket and spent a rather dull six hours in transit. 

I stayed at the King Boutique Hotel in Siem Reap. I later found out that "boutique hotel" is a slightly more upscale and discreet version of a love motel in Southeast Asia. That explains the starkness of my room. No decorations, no paintings, no wallpaper, nothing. Just a bed, a bathroom, a nicked, gouged wooden wardrobe painted all in black, and four white walls. 

Anyway, I didn't come here to tell you that. I came here to tell you about Angkor Wat. 

It's laughably easy to get around in Siem Reap, folks: fifteen dollars to hire a tuk-tuk for the day, and they'll take you anywhere. You can tour the great ruins of the ancient Khmer capital of Angkor on either a full-day (large circle) tour or the half-day (small circle) one. I did the small circle, starting with Angkor Wat itself. 

Let me explain something: "wat" means "temple." "Angkor" means "city," so Angkor Wat is literally "city temple." I know what you're thinking: Why did the ancient Cambodians live in a city named "City"? Beats me. Maybe because the names "Dikshit" and "Long Dong" were already taken. 

My tuk-tuk driver was named Yot. He pronounced it "yutz," and I labored hard to avoid stigmatizing him on that basis. His English was barely comprehensible, but fortunately he was a man of few words. He had a sneaky, shifty air about him that I didn't like. Nonetheless he was capable and patient, and drove me around Angkor Wat, the Bayon, and Ta Prohm with a brief stop for lunch in between. We established a routine: he'd drive me to a locale, I'd hop out and arrange a time to meet up with him, and he'd go park in the shade and unstring his hammock for a nap. I'd wander about the jungle-clad temples, gawping like a moron, for 45 minutes or so, and then off we'd go again. In this way I saw the Bayon...

...and Ta Prohm, the so-called "Tomb Raider temple," because it had the grievous misfortune of having an Angelina Jolie movie made there. 

This place was far prettier and more astounding than Angkor Wat. 

I was told that I'd feel like Indiana Jones walking around Ta Prohm, and boy, did I ever. 

I have no idea who this guy is, but his girlfriend was standing right next to me, taking his picture. 

It was after we got back to Siem Reap that Yot lived up to his unfortunate name. I got out of his tuk-tuk and turned to find him standing there, hand held out. I forked over his fifteen smacks, but he remained where he was, palm-up. 

"Tip, please," he said. 

The nerve of this character, I thought. 

"We agreed on a flat rate," I told him. You yutz, I added in my head. 

"Tip," he insisted. "Twenty dollars."

To this day I'm not sure whether Yot was asking me for five U.S. dollars, which would have brought his total fee to twenty, or for a further frickin' twenty bucks, a 133% bonus. Either way, I was incensed. I told him, as politely as I knew how, to go take a flying leap on a rolling doughnut.

I felt an acute need for another human's company (and a chronic need for a beer), so I walked from my hotel to the Old Market and Pub Street. I was bitterly disappointed with both: nothing but crappy souvenirs in the former and overpriced, foreign-themed cocktail bars full of phonies in the latter. I bought the most masculine-looking notebook I could find (my previous journal being filled to capacity) and went home to catch some bad Asian dramas and a little shuteye before I bugged out for Thailand in the morning. 

moving to Gangnam

This is my first official post from our new three-bedroom apartment in Gangnam!

Okay, I'm sorry. I had to. 

Anyway, it was a heck of a move—much more difficult than last time. The mover was a great guy named Jho whom I found on Craigslist and he showed up on time and was very chatty and told me what the name Jamsil means (magnanery) and discussed his favorite dish daegutang (codfish stew) and was just generally helpful. 

No, the complications arose when we arrived at our new high-rise apartment complex in Gaepo-dong, Gangnam-gu. The building security officer came out of his little cave-like office and promptly informed Jho and me that I'd have to stump up ₩50,000 if I wanted to use the elevator to take the thirty-odd boxes up to the 13th floor. Jeez. Apartment complex policy or something like that. So I paid the man and Joseph (the friend from Sejong that I brew with) helped me move everything off the truck. I tipped Jho ₩20,000 on top of his ₩100,000 fee and he left, all smiles. Then Joseph and I began the backbreaking hour-long process of moving everything Miss H and I own in the world from the sidewalk to the elevator and from the elevator to our apartment. 

Whoof. 

Anyway, the work was soon finished, and Joseph departed. I now owe him the biggest dang samgyeopsal dinner ever. 

Then I went back to the Gwangnaru apartment to clean it, and discovered that there was a whole freaking pile of stuff under the bed that I'd forgotten. Miss H was done with her new job training by now, and joined me in Gwangnaru for a moment of panic. The poor woman who was set to take over our apartment was currently sitting in the other new girl's apartment one floor above, waiting to take possession. In a frenzied flurry, Miss H and I cleaned, called two taxicabs, loaded our remaining truck into the trunks and backseats, and then hared off for Gangnam after handing over the keys. We traveled through the gathering dusk and the rush-hour traffic, the whole city cloaked in a broiling fume of Chinese yellow dust, gagging and coughing and cursing the day we were born, and moved the final two loads up the slow-ass elevator and into our new home. 

Move accomplished. 

This apartment is five rooms: three bedrooms, a bathroom and a dining room/kitchen. Two single guys had been sharing it before we arrived. The place was an absolute wreck: stinking of unwashed bedding and dirty dishes, grime covering every surface, the bathroom clotted with mold, dust bunnies and grit and loose change littering the floor. We called up our old friend Miss J from Bucheon, and the three of us spent all Sunday cleaning. We bought her Papa John's pizza as compensation (thank goodness we live within range of their delivery service; that was the first thing we ascertained). 

The apartment has slowly become livable over the past four days. Every night Miss H and I clean and unpack some more, and by this weekend we have high hopes that it'll be fit for company. It'll be bare and spartan and rather sparse, but we plan on a few runs to Homeplus for area rugs and perhaps to Insadong for Korean-themed decorations. With any luck, the apartment will have become a home before another week is out. 

...which is good, 'cause my lady and I need a clean, comfy place to crash after work. I love my new schedule, but dang, my Tuesdays and Thursdays are intense: composition classes all day, and a 90-minute listening class at 9:00 in the morning. Yikes. Miss H's kids already have her on the hop, too. Both of us are looking forward to the first weekend when we can relax in Daejin Park or go for a craft beer at Hopscotch or the first preseason baseball game at Jamsil Stadium on March 22. 

Pictures will come as soon as we finish cleaning. Postie out. 

Hokkaido diary: a weekend in Busan

2/8: 

11:30 a.m. This'll be the last entry. Meant to write it last night, but a lot of stuff happened.

Landing and disembarking [from the New Camellia] were a breeze. I'm getting to be an old pro at this. Out the hatch, down the ramp, along the skyways, through immigration and customs, out the doors to the ₩1000 Busan Station bus, and through traffic to the station. I stashed my stuff in lockers, grabbed a snack (odeng and ddeokbokki, ₩4000) and spent the next three hours flailing around the area of Nampo, Jungang and the station trying to find a hotel. Busan Tourist Hotel was cheap, but the rooms were old and shabby and reeked of secondhand smoke. Tower Hill Inn, a hundred yards away (so named because it sits at the foot of Busan Tower in Nampo-dong) was way too expensive—₩220,000 per night. I settled on the Tokoyo Inn—cheaper, cleaner, brighter, and near the station. Then I met Adam and his girlfriend Stacey for wang galbi and beer and soju. Adam is reading my novel manuscript. He described it to Stacey and it was like watching a machine I'd built start up and go for the first time. It was wonderful. Stacey expressed interest, and Adam did nothing but praise me (he always does that). I walked out of there with my head the size of a Buick. 

Then I grabbed Miss H at the station, took her to the hotel, and we both passed out. Now we're up and around, getting ready to see the tower, the park beneath it, Nampo Shopping Street, and just make a day of it. Postie out. 

THE END

And so it came to pass that Miss H and I enjoyed a wonderful weekend in Busan. On Saturday we shopped, ate and drank to our hearts' content, toured Yongdusan Park and Busan Tower (pictured above), had dinner with our lovely friend Jenn (congratulations on your recent engagement!) and sped home on the KTX on Sunday happy and fulfilled. 

The view south from Busan Tower, looking over the fishing fleets in the portion of the harbor west of Mount Bongrae.

And now I'm back in Seoul, taking walks, exploring the city, reading, writing, and frantically trying to extend my visa, switch my status from E-2 (foreign instructor) to E-1 (foreign professor), notify the immigration authorities of my impending change of address, head to the Driver's License Authority to get a temporary international driver's license so Miss H and I can rent a car and move our stuff from our apartment in Gwangnaru to our new two-bedroom apartment in...

...drum roll, please...

...GANGNAM!

Donghuamen Night Market

Hidden away behind the palatial Beijing Hotel, in an alleyway tucked between two rather larger and newer (and therefore uglier) shopping centers, lies a seedy little market street.

The place is an unapologetic tourist trap. You will find no trace of old Peking here, no sacred remnants of Chinese culture, no bastions of traditional art, handicrafts, or culinary delights. Everything that's here is for tourists, and tourists alone.

Eagle-eyed women and smirking men stand near their stalls, verbally lassoing suckers and sapheads as they stroll by: "Hey, mister, you want medallion? Or maybe coin purse? Hey, look, nice deck of cards! I give you special deal!" The stuff they're hawking looks even cheaper than Insadong and is equally pricy.

So why go there?

For the scorpions, of course.

You know me—I'm an epicurean. I exist to fly airplanes, travel the world, read great novels, write great novels (and short fiction), mix drinks, brew beer, and eat the weirdest foods I can get my hands on. All the stuff that makes me feel happy and alive, in other words.

Nobody in China eats scorpions on a stick. The food stalls in Donghuamen are just as much a part of the tourist trap as the souvenir-mongers selling decks of Chinese emperor cards and laser pointers and faux-jade figurines.

But you know who does eat scorpions?

Me, that's who. So, on our first night in China, we marched a few of Beijing's long blocks south from the Novotel Xin Qiao and straight into Donghuamen's profiteering heart. We bellied up to a visually challenging scorpion-and-starfish stall near a bunch of trash cans that reeked to high heaven.

Having survived this little preview, I prepared myself and dove in headfirst. And this was the result:  

Let's settle the bet now: they weren't alive when I ate them. The scorpion-monger dipped the stick into a vat of boiling oil, lightly killing the arachnids before they ever got near my mouth. He also salted them up plenty, which explains my popcorn comment in the second video.

One foreigner whose accent I couldn't place (southern European, if I had to guess) walked up to us and asked if he could watch as I ate. I told him, sure, heck, why not? He stood there, a half-amused, half-revolted grin on his face as I bolted these suckers down. It's him I'm speaking to in the video when I say "You should try them."

And then I was done. Three scorpions down. An item on the bucket list scratched off. I returned to the hotel and slept...not very deeply, 'cause the mattress was harder than a slab of jade. 

Next up: TIANANMEN SQUARE. In the rain.

the International Manga Museum, Rokkaku-dō, and Nishiki Market

A few quick messages before we begin:

1. Yes, I'm a day late with this post. Sue me. It's humongous. And I spent last night down at the Gecko's Terrace Restaurant inaugurating myself into the Shooters Club with an Alabama Slammer, a kamikaze, a mudslide, a yak's milk, a turkey roaster, and a Dr. Pepper. I was a bit too busy to blog.
2. I've told you only a teency bit about the prices and cost of things in Japan: admission fees and whatnot. I have not, however, told you much about the ancillary costs. By that I mean bottles of water (¥105-200), which I bought about once every three hours to offset the gallons of sweat I was shedding in the Japanese climate; snacks (¥110-400), stuff like onigiri (rice balls) or gimbap (yes, they had that in Japan) or sandwiches (which actually didn't suck) purchased in convenience stores; meals (¥800-2500, depending on whether I bought it from a snack stand or a bona fide restaurant), and so on. Just know that in between all the Big Crazy Things I Do In Japan there's a lot of small stuff like munchies and agua.
3. I was in Itaewon (the foreigner's ward of the Yongsan borough in central Seoul—remember?) yesterday and I happened to find myself in a bookshop. I picked up something by Bill Bryson. Now, Bryson's reputation as a grammarian is well-known and well-deserved. However, I had no prior experience with his travel writing. Even a superficial glance at his book In a Sunburned Country revealed him to be a humorous and entertaining writer. Looking back over my Japan posts, I've had the feeling that something was slightly off; now I know what it is. The writing's boring as hell. I need to make my posts funnier. So that's what I'll try to do from here on out. 
4. We're in Kyoto now. It's August 4. I just got off the Shinkansen from Tokyo. It's about twelve o'clock in the afternoon.

Let's settle the bet right now: I'm a geek. I'm not going to apologize for it. Geek is the new sexy. That's why we have TV shows like The Big Bang Theory. It's the reason people who've attended Comic-Con more than once in their natural lifetime haven't been burned at the stake. It's why my mother finds William Shatner attractive when he's in a Star Trek uniform (or rather, the tattered shreds of a Star Trek uniform).

Thank goodness for this new liberalism in the way geek culture is viewed! Five years ago I would have sneaked out of my 14th-floor hotel room in Kyoto with a knotted bed sheet, crept down to the International Manga Museum in the dead of night, paged through a couple of issues of Barefoot Gen, and then hightailed it back to bed and never uttered a word about the affair to anyone. Now I can stand up and boldly tell you about it.

The word "manga" belies any pat definition. You could say it's Japanese comics and graphic novels, but it's more than that. It's a culture. Hardcore otaku (fanboys) wait in lines to buy the next issue of their favorite manga; animation studios make obscene amounts of money turning these comics into animated TV series ("anime" for short); the merchandising industry makes a crap-ton of yen making and selling figurines, posters, lunchboxes, trading cards and other paraphernalia featuring popular characters. In reality, the anime and manga craze is a super-cult of unapologetic geekdom and sanctified nerdiness which has spread across Japan and the entire globe. From its humble beginnings in Japanese newspapers in the early 20th century to the truly massive pop culture monster that it's become (just look at Akibahara, for Pete's sake), manga and anime have become mainstream in Japan, and are rapidly becoming so everywhere in the world. You'll find manga sections in every Barnes & Noble in America. Companies have sprung up in Canada, the U.S. and Europe concerned with nothing else but translating these comics, light novels and cartoon shows so North American and European otaku can get the same kicks as their Japanese counterparts.

You wouldn't think it to look at the International Manga Museum on Karasuma Street in Kyoto, though. It's actually quite humble.

The main building is to the right and in the background (behind the netting which surrounds the open field in front of the entrance).

The resemblance to an unassuming public library didn't stop at the door, though. Photography wasn't permitted inside, but I can tell you that the museum was full of long linoleum-tiled hallways, creaky wooden staircases, glacial elevators, dark-stained and nicked wood paneling, and shelves piled high with faded and dog-eared but still colorful manga books.

It was also full of people. Some were foreigners, like me, making a pilgrimage to what they assumed would be a Manga Mecca; but most visitors were Japanese, young and old alike, sitting on any available flat surface and perusing their favorite titles. There were some English information brochures, but all the placards and posters inside the museum proper were in Japanese. There was little for us foreigners to do but peruse the photographs and the newspaper headlines detailing the meteoric rise of manga to international consciousness, and gaze with thoughtful but uncomprehending eyes at classic issues. I wound up tiptoeing through the halls like a guilty ghost, feeling like I was intruding on a fan club's private session in a public library. I wound up paging through a few issues of Barefoot Gen and then sneaking out.

It was time to stop indulging my rampant inner geek and start actually exploring Kyoto. So, on my way back down the main drag, I took some random pics:

Apparently a few green trees and some mountains in the background is all it takes to make me start liking a city, especially after the urban jungle that was Tokyo. I found myself growing fond of Kyoto within the first half-hour of strolling through it. It just seemed calmer, quieter, less pretentious and...well, greener. I like green. Green is good. We desert rats try to find green everywhere we go. That's why I like Palm Springs so much. More golf courses than Scotland.

I stopped at a Family Mart convenience store for some water and snacks and couldn't help snapping this picture.

If I'm not mistaken, the foreign stuff's on the top shelf (obviously), and all the bottled (er, jarred) sakes are on the lower shelves. Quite a better booze selection than any Korean pyeonuijeom, yes sirree!

Outside the Family Mart, I noticed this sign:

Well, who'd a' thunk it? A Buddhist temple just a few meters away? Why not?

Unlike at Zōjō-ji, this time I managed to get a pic of all the golden shinies in the temple proper. Score!

The hand-washing well-basin-cistern-thingy. Nice dragon!

This was Rokkaku-dō, so named because of its hexagonal shape ("roku" is the Japanese word for "six," so I'm assuming that "rokkaku" is the word for "hexagon"). For such a tiny temple tucked away behind Kyoto's main drag, it actually has some startlingly profound claims to fame. It's part of a pilgrimage route, for one thing. No big deal, right? But then I found out that Rokkaku is believed to be the birthplace of ikebana.

Ikebana, you uncultured swine! The art of Japanese flower arrangement!

And in fact, there was an ikebana equipment shop across the road with all sorts of shears, knives, scythes, and other dastardly instruments in the window. I'd have taken a picture but I was afraid the owner would come out and shank me.

While at the temple, I had the chance to rectify my previous mistake at Zōjō-ji. If you'll recall, I didn't cleanse my hands before tossing in the coin and praying, which probably caused the Shinto deities to install some hideous disfiguring illness in my future. This time, at Rokkaku, I did everything right. I washed my hands, tossed in another hundred-yen coin, rang the bell (there was a bell at this one), prayed, and clapped. If anything went wrong, it's probably that I didn't ring the bell loudly enough. At least the gods would just find me merely inaudible this time around, instead of downright offensive.

A few blocks back down Karasuma and a left on Nishikikoji Street brought me to Nishiki Market. Like a lot of Korean and Japanese markets I'd been to, this one was an arcade, or shōtengai: a narrow street or alley covered by a roof (and the occasional glass skylight) and lined with shops and food stalls. I had heard Nishiki Market mentioned several times as one of the best free things to do in Kyoto, and as it was early afternoon and I was getting hungry, I felt the need for a snack. I meandered and weaved down the arcade's central aisle, taking note of the heavy foreigner presence and all the weird and wacky things for sale. I also tried to do some surreptitious on-the-fly photography, but the results were either blurry or zoomed-in too much. I have got to read up about apertures and f/stops.

Fish snacks!

If you know anything about the Vaunter, then you know I tried one of these (a medium-size one, for 350 yen). And it was delicious.

Eels for 650 yen?! Highway robbery!

I followed the market alley until it T-boned into a full-blown shopping mall with name-brand clothing stores (the last two pictures above), in which I have about as much interest as wood pulp. So I turned around and walked back out.

On the way, I noticed a liquor store and decided to go in. I wanted to find out if they had nigori-zake, or unfiltered sake (cloudy rice wine similar to Korean makgeolli). They did, but it was prohibitively expensive, upwards of ¥3000 per bottle. So I deferred and got a bottle of Japanese-brewed Kölsch beer for ¥456. German-style Japanese beer...fancy that?

I found a convenient place in an alley behind a large garbage can to drink it. Having thoroughly researched things like manga museums, raw horse restaurants and pachinko parlors, I had stupidly neglected to find out whether Japan objects to people drinking on the street or not. So I decided to hedge my bets and wedge myself behind a rubbish bin for a brew. It was refreshing and flavorful (the brew, not the rubbish bin).

And that was essentially that. I got back to the hotel room at about two in the afternoon. I checked my e-mails,sampled the two new whiskies I'd picked up at that loaded Family Mart earlier, and researched my next day's perambulations. The whisky helped with the research. Honest Injun, it did.

I figured I'd best get as much of this crap as I can before I go back home, right? You can't take it with you...literally.

Next up: ARASHIYAMA AND TOGETSUKYO BRIDGE. Don't miss it. This is where things get scenic.