I think I forgot a part of me out there.

After a series of prolonged and delayed flights, I finally made it back home at 3am this Saturday morning. I thought I'd be more excited to come home and see mom & dad and eat home food, but the world works in mysterious ways and I'm not very satisfied with being here. As much as I love the city, since its where I grew up; the place is a dump. I think I finally understand was Mark/Fan was going on about while i was still in Laos. Montreal has a lot to offer to those who seek no riches or to those who have little. But it also doesn't please those who seek opportunities as much as I thought it would. The thought is difficult to explain, in fact its probably impossible to explain, but the city truly is lacking some economic pzazz (or something similar) to erase the ghosttown vision I have of its future.

In any case, its great to be home although i haven't seen any friends yet. It's surprisingly more humid here than in Tokyo. Despite the lower temperatures, it feels just as hot.

This may be a little premature, but I've pretty much decided that I will pursue an exchange program for the 2010-2011 academic year. I still have no idea where I want to go yet, but the short list that comes to mind are the following four countries: the UK, France, Germany or Japan. The main reason is the opportunity to learn a new language or improve one I already know, and to just have easy access to travel while im abroad. The friends I've made during the past 2 months have really left me with an impression that I should do everything in my power to not stay in one place. Plus it's kind of lonely here now that most of my friends from highschool have gone in their own direction, and are spending less an less time together.

Or, all these thoughts might just be the beginning of post-travel blues. Whatever the case, I've learned that I usually waste a lot of time doing nothing So I vow to start doing more with what time I have available and to stop floating around aimlessly.

In any case, to those of you who I've met while traveling and read this. Thanks for all the great times, and hopefully we'll meet again in the near future.

To those of you at home... pictures will be up on facebook... within the next two weeks? There's much to go through, and I need a desk to work on instead of the floor.

Hong Kong, and now Tokyo!

Oy everyone, it's been a while since that last rant of a post i made.  Right now I'm in Tokyo, but ill start by commenting on my short trip to Hong Kong.

 

Ill let it be known first that while i was planning this whole trip, i only really focused on south east asia as far as planning goes.  I assumed that once i got to china there would be no planning, all I had to do was make it to HK by Aug 14th.  Luckily that held true and i didnt have to plan a thing, and i arrived in HK with a few days to see the city and meet up with some friends (Vivien, her sister Ellen, and Mansi).  Hong Kong is very... special(?), on the ground level of Kowloon there are the ubiquitous neon lights which define the city strung out over every major road, intersection as well as the small alleyways that give the city the feel that defines the asian street-stall way of life.  However as you peer skyward, the gleaming windows of the countless skyscrapers tell you otherwise; the city is rich, not only in money, but also in culture.  It has managed to gain wealth without sacrificing much culture which is quite a special feat in my opinion.

 

The MTR and the octopus card system is near flawless... the price might stack up if you use it often, but man it WORKS SO WELL. Take a lesson from a city that knows how to plan and manage itself Montreal, or else you'll soon fade into a city that 'was'.  Thanks to Vivien and her sister and her cousin Coleen(?) for meeting with me on the first night, i was pretty lost and amazed at seeing a big city again.  It was really nice having more than a few days to just roam the city as you want, but I have to say, most large cities really don't have much to offer.  See a few skyscrapers, go to the harbour, eat some seafood, and that pretty much does it.  Which reminds me: the view in Hong Kong is SPECTACULAR, especially by the harbour at night.  The lights, the buildings, aghh everything is perfect (except the blazing hot weather).  I also met up with jetlagged mansi and her friend Raymond, and we strolled about seeing the major sights once more, and had some sushi.  (Even low quality sushi out here is better than sushi back home).

 

And then i left for Tokyo.  Tokyo is huge, the kind of huge that only really applies to city with a metropolitan population of over 20million.  You really dont get an idea of how big 20million is until you stand on the roof of a tall building in one of these cities.  When i saw the cityscape from the observation window, my jaw dropped.  It's literally a sea of buildings, likely similar to what you would see in Sao Paolo, and several times bigger than NYC.  Tokyo is essentially Manhattan spread over brooklyn, queens, the bronx, and all other neighbouring land.  And then theres Shibuya.  Shibuya is.... shibuya, theres really no other way to describe it.  The JR Hachiko exit is ALWAYS full of people (side story, Hachiko is a dog that came to the station everyday to see its master.  When the master died, the dog did not forget and still came back to the same spot everyday until it died to wait for its master), you'll never see a piece of sidewalk without someone occupying it.  The crossing is another thing too (apparently made famous to the western world by the movie Lost in Translation), all lights at the intersection go red as thousands of people stampede to get from one side to the other.  I took a video, but honestly the feeling of being in that crowd is only a minute part of the experience at Shibuya.  Another experience in itself is sitting at the 2nd level starbucks at the corner of shibuya, squeezing into one of the window seats, and just watching all the people cross.  It might sound strange, but everyone does it, foreigners and locals alike, and trust me when i say it's really awe inspiring to see that many people and that much energy in one spot, in any city on the planet.

 

Ill probably only post once more after I hike Mount Fuji before coming home.  To think theres less than a week before I'm back in Montreal.  Almost makes me feel sad to have to go home now.

I am Canadian

Today I took a flight with my aunt from Chengdu to Guangzhou, and by the end of this 3 hour trip I really felt compelled to write about just how differently Chinese people behave compared to western citizens.  This is a commentary about how people behave in general, not just on the airplane.

Firstly, spitting is common, common to the point where in damp weather you cant really be sure if its spit youre walking in or if its a slowly drying puddle. Also, smoking is allowed almost everywhere, but people make no effort to read the signs that have "PLEASE DONT SMOKE ON THE BUS OR TRAIN" printed in huge bold characters.  Not only that, but they make no effort to blow their smoke towards the window, they blow it directly in your face for you to choke on.

Another thing that really bothers me, and probably a lot of other foreigners, is the unwillingness to hold onto your crap and throw it into a garbage bin.  Frequently you'll see people walking along the street eating a snack, and then proceed to throw the wrapping on the floor when theres a garbage bin less than 6 feet away.  Shuang even saw some woman riding her scooter on a boulevard throw a freaking plastic bottle into the middle of a road once she was done drinking it.  And another instance was on Mount Emei where people just left bags of garbage on the side of the road (which is a great way to protect your world heritage site for the future...).

Aside from the whole keeping clean part, theres the lack of patience issue that plagues the nation.  People will push and shove and trample you to be the first to get onto a shuttle bus (that doesnt leave until everyone's on) just so they can be first.  And then theyll trample you to try and be the first to get off (when the bus will wait for everyone to get off).  They really dont have any concern for how theyre bothering the people around them.  On long haul bus rides, there will ALWAYS be someone that yells into their cellphone for at least an hour.  Seriously, what the fuck, first off you don't need to YELL at your phone, its made to be spoken into. And secondly SHUT THE FUCK UP WHEN EVERYONE ELSE IS TRYING TO SLEEP.

A similar thing happened on the airplane today, i was pretty impressed by people automatically lining up to check-in at the front desk in the departures hall.  But once on the plane, all hell broke loose.  People will push and shove people out of their way so they can 'rush' to their seat. And then once you've landed the pilot announces over the intercom "welcome to guangzhou, please stay seated until we arrive at the gate" EVERYONE gets up and opens the luggage cabins.  I really don't understand why youre in such a rush to get your crap and stand in the aisle uncomfortably before the plane has ever been anchored to the terminal. I even spoke loudly in chinese that theres "only one fucking exit at the front", so why are you tools in the last row standing up and trying to make your way ahead of 25 other rows?  The captain also said something about please dont turn on your cellphones until we give you the all clear.... and then you proceed to hear nokia, motorola and LG tunes fill the cabin.  Sometimes i really just want to yell at the people to calm the fuck down and take a seat cause theyre not going anywhere.  In Japan its even frowned upon to talk on your mobile on any form of public transit, whilst the people here have never heard of using your 'indoor voice' at 3 in the morning on a bus with the lights off.  

Another comment, chinese domestic products are terrible, their TVs are cheap and so bad that i can build a better CRT with a guide from the internet than the shit they produce here.  Apparently people have to be concerned about fake products to the point where even toothpaste and shampoo is suspect.  The chinese brand cars have advertisements touting how superior they are to imports, when in reality theyre even worse than american cars.  Im pretty sure when a medium sized sedan costs the equivalent of 10000CAD, its going to be a pile of shit.  Even while i was in Vietnam/Thailand and also in the beyond-poor countries of Laos and Cambodia, Chinese motorcycles (and other products) where synonymous with cheap, unreliable and terrible whilst Japanese and Korean goods were synonymous with quality, expensive but well worth the investment.  Vietnamese people are willing to pay 4-5x the price of a chinese motorbike (plus a crazy tax) for a japanese one... just cause they know it will still start in 6 months time.

That's not to say everything in China's terrible... just people's behavior, and their scammy products.  Otherwise, the food here is amazing, minus the suspect seafood i had today thats probably been dead for a while now...

Trekking in Sapa (forgot to mention this)

Totally forgot to mention this amazing experience.  On the 29th i left for the northern border of Vietnam to go trekking in the hilltown of Sapa.  Along the way i met two israeli's, one spoke english, the other french, and we had a 3 language chat going on that turned a few heads.  Anyways, Sapa is literally 3km away from the Chinese border, theres quite a few Hmong and other ethnic minority villages nearby.  In the morning, there was blue sky and everything and everyone thought it'd be an easy 12km trek downhill with the village guides.

 

The village guides are all pretty much fluent in english (theyre exposed to tourists from birth), which detracts from the authenticity of the experience but it was still fun.  They led us down the top of a mountain.. and then half way through we started taking narrower and narrower paths until we were balancing on the edge of a mountain in super dense fog on a piece of concrete.  The views were absolutely amazing, rice terraces covered the sides of the mountains and small waterfalls could be seen every few hundred metres.  A few minutes later we got into the real trekking, instead of winding our way down the mountain on the public road, which probably wouldve taken all day, the villagers led us down 'their' path.  This consistedly mostly of a lot of wet mud, water, and rocks.  People fell over left right and center and within a few minutes almost everyone was covered in mud.  We literally were jumping down half body height ledges most of the way.  The surface we were jumping onto was wet mud.. which made getting a grip after landing near impossible.  To add insult to injury, it started to POUR, most of us had umbrellas and raincoats which kept us clean and dry at first, but now they were pretty much useless.  But this rain was the equivalent of just jumping into a pool.  Everyone's everything got wet.

 

When we finally did make it to the home we were staying it, there was a little cooking fire the Dzay family had going.. and slowly the fire was encircled by probably 20 pairs of shoes, all dripping wet and smelling of water mixed with buffalo poo.  I managed to take a video of the beginning of the trek when we were walking along the edge of the mountain on a gutter, but that video barely does the trek justice as to how difficult it is to descend a mountain thats covered in the summer equivalent of ice.

HOTPOT and its (not so) awesome aftereffects

YAY I'm in sichuan, i actually arrived in China on the 31st, haven't gotten around to posting until now though.
 
First, I completely forgot to post about this until shuang's blog had a bit about roosters.  Roosters are quite possibly the most evil bird on the planet.  From Laos through Cambodia through parts of vietnam, every morning roosters crow like theres no tomorrow, the moment the sun rises they start croaking for god knows how long.  Not only in the morning either, late afternoon while youre napping, theyll crow like theres no tomorrow.  Sometimes i want to just run up to one and kick it.  Thankfully there arent any roosters in china... even in Saigon, in the CITY i could hear roosters.
 
Ok so yeah, about china, stayed in kunming overnight to wait for the train, and my oh my the weather there is nice.  It's called the city of eternal spring.. cause it's pretty much cool all year round. It took a 12h bus ride to get to Kunming from the vietnam border town.  Then it took another 22 hour train ride to get to Chengdu.  On the way there you could see the construction progress of the new high speed rail way above the mountains and valleys.. and man its so annoying seeing that in a year or two the same 22h route will take less than 12h to cross....
 
In any case, first night in Chengdu, we ate HOTPOT, yummy yummy hotpot, and then the day after involved a lot of crouching over a toilet.  Totally worth the delicious meal.
 
I saw harry potter too, pretty fun movie, better than i expected.  I still havent eaten enough, i want more chengdu food, and then im off to Guangdong/HK on the 9th! (arrive in HK on the 10th at night for those who care).  I'll have a chinese number by then that ill post.. but im not sure if it will work in HK.  I was thinking of bungee jumping off macau tower... but then i found out it costs 150$ so... i dont think ill do that anymore.
 
YAY civilized world is nice, no more stupid motorcycles running you over, no more people trying to scam you out of your money, no more places swarming with mosquitos!!  Which brings me to: dragonflies are awesome bugs, probably my favorite bugs.  They dont buzz around your head, generally avoid humans, and they eat flies and mosquitoes.  Can you really get any better than that?  Although having a winter that kills almost anything living is a pretty good form of pest control too...
 
Anyways, facebook and blogspot are almost impossible to access in china, so pictures of cambodia/vietnam will have to wait.  Maybe until hongkong, maybe tokyo.. maybe home.

Vietnam bus rides...

So a quick little update on what i've been up to the past couple of days. On the 21st i crossed the cambodia/vietnam border... and got stuck. My vietnam visa was dated 2010 and the border guards wouldn't even READ the freaking paper i had from the Viet embassy in canada correcting the mistake. So for a good hour i was in neither Cambodia, nor Vietnam and was freaking out. The embassy in canada wasn't open and i had no idea what the # for the canadian embassy in vietnam was. After a bit of wandering i bumped into some guards and pointed out the error on my visa as well as the copied documents i had. He said dont worry about it.. took my stuff and disappeared for a few minutes and then came back with my visa signed. He told me to try again at the border and voila, the guy reluctantly stamped my visa and let me through!

As it turns out, I think they wouldnt let me through before because the english version of the corrected document was adressed to all "airport passport control" and i was entering by land.

Anyways, on the first day in saigon, it rained. I've never seen rain like this in my life, within 30minutes of it starting, it only got stronger, and the streets started to flood. Restaurants had water flowing into them and motorcycles had water up to their exhaust pipe. People walked through the streets where water went up to their knees as if it were a regular occurence. I stayed in the most compact small alleyway, but my room was AMAZINGLY clean, there were ceramic tiled floors with a super clean bathroom, TV, everything. For only 6$ !!!.

...and then i went to Mui Ne to see the sand dunes, which were quite majestic and a sight to behold, I can only imagine what the Sahara desert must be like. Here i slept in a room... with mold growing on the ceiling, and you could smell the mould, and the bed was really spongey foam so there was no back support. I've had better sleeps on a bus then at the place i stayed.

And then i took a 20h bus to hue, which is where I am right now. I saw the imperial city and some royal tombs, and now I'm about to take a 12h sleeper bus up to Hanoi, and then see Halong bay and Sapa before i arrive in china on the 30th or the 31st! Yay almost there... I really want to sleep in AC without having to pay for it...

Oh and just a comment on vietnamese culture, its amazing just how different it is from Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, despite their proximity to one another, Vietnam is visibly much more influenced by chinese culture. From their building styles, to their food, and their spirituality just seems much more familiar than the other South East Asian countries. In anycase, it's great here except the bus rides. Buses are limited to around 50km/h, but overnight they usually break this rule and 'speed'. But when they dont it drives you CRAZY. Theyre faster than the train too in most cases... which is even stranger.

Anyways, hopefully the north has cooler weather. Hue was unbelieveably hot today, you sweat from standing under the shade.

Reviews:

Siem Reap, Cambodia: Stay at Hilton Guesthouse, outside of the backpacker area, free moto rides into 'town'. Rooms w/ fan cost around 1-3$/night.... amazing.

Battambang: Royal Hotel, clean, decently priced, friendly staff. Moto guides here speak great english and will take you on day tours of the sites people want to see. The batcave is a must see at sunset if you've never seen bats swarm before.

Phenom Penh: Royal Guesthouse, not in main backpacker area, rooms are meh, price is meh for the room. But one of the receptionists speaks perfect english, so its a great place to get information.

Vietnam:
Saigon: go to backpacker street (Pham Ngu Lau and De Tham area) and look for the ladies in blue shirts with a circle emblem/badge, theyll point you to the cheap alleyway guesthouses, and theyll also show you the better value meals nearby.

Hue: Mandarin Cafe is a great place to dine and chat with the owner. He's a photographer and let me use his 70-200mm f/2.8L, 100mm Macro and 10-22mm lenses. Plus he gives you a good map to follow for a walking tour of this city. The locals here are genuinely friendly and generally aren't trying to overcharge you. Too bad i can't stay longer, vietnam would probably take a 2-3week trip to really explore well.

Me not posting pictures (again)

AHOY, so I'm currently in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh and killing time until I leave for saigon on the 21st. I went to go see the killing fields and the old S21 prison and theyre quite... heavy sights.

The killing fields served as the execution and burial sites of some of the 200000 to 2 million people that were killed by the Khmer rouge around the time of the second world war. There are trees nearby that have sharp, hard and jagged edges that were used in place of bullets (since they're expensive) in the execution process. It's a little bit overwhelming to see all the photos and to see the stupa (buddhist temple) filled with over 9000 excavated skulls of the victims. Often times these skulls still bear the markings of bludgeoning or bullet wounds.

The old prison, also called the Tuol Slang Genocide Museum was where most of these victims were held before they were transported to the killing fields. Only 12 people are known to have survived their stay at the prison out of the tens of thousands that made their way through it. Some of the disgusting torture techniques were displayed on the walls of the prison, as well as the many faces that made their way through the prison. The whole place has an airy and dusty feeling that accompanies the general sombre/haunted feeling of the whole area.

These kinds of sites are far more interesting to visit in my opinion than the innumerable palaces and temples that cover asia. So i'm kind of excited to see the vietnam war museums once i get there. Also, it's really made me want to go see the holocaust museums in europe when i get a chance.

On a brighter note, theres a market here that has QC-rejected jeans produced by huge brands here. I think i'm gonna pick up a pair and try to wear them in this crazy weather. I have to add though, i'm getting used to the weather here, ive been sleeping with a fan and a blanket now and wearing shoes doesnt seem so excruciating anymore. Which brings me to an odd thought:
I didn't bring my own pair of shoes on this trip, i've been using my dad's running shoes as well as my own flipflops. One of the strangest things i miss are wearing my own shoes, it feels nice to have a pair of shoes that have been molded perfectly to your feet after repeated use.

Anyways, i'll post again once im in Vietnam, and then i have to blitz through the country on a 10day ish run. Pictures will definitely be up in china though.
PS. Help me decide if its worth going all the way to shanghai just to see a few skyscrapers? or is it better to spend time in chengdu and eat A LOT.