Less than 3 months

Less than 3 months to go until my exchange program begins. Quite exciting. I promise not to put myself in any danger (probably no running with bulls, but i definitely want to see the festival).

Glaciers!

Met Jen and Kristin from Maine today on the glacier hike. They're
traveling for the weekend only and are headed back soon. The glacier
hike is absolutely unreal, the ice under your feet is a mystic shade
of blue that perpetuates forever underneath you. Walking along ridges
you can see where some of the melt forms rivers and archs. On this day
there was a consistently strong wind that forced us to double back on
our tracks multiple times for fear of being blown into a crevasse. The
only way to tell the deepness of one is by chucking a block of ice in
and listening for the crashing to cease. Near the end we found an
icewall to scale, so with pick axes in hand we climbed (or attempted
to) one at a time. It's probably one of the most exhaustive activities
I've ever done.

Almost all the terrain we drove by today was barren. Not a single tree
or shrub in sight. There were rocks and volcanic ash everywhere and it
really felt like an anolog of mars. Opposite to the mountains is flat
land that extends to the Atlantic, occasionally dusted with some moss.
Iceland truly is unique in terms of landscape.

Suhan (mobile)

Impressions of Iceland

66 degrees north. You really don't realize just how far north this is
until you see how low the midday sun hangs in the sky. Admittedly,
it's not so bad considering we're a month away from equinox, but it
still feels odd seeing darkness at 9:30am.

Let's back pedal a bit because I just want to comment on how nice of a
city Boston is. I was only in the city center for an hour or two but
the place feels clean and friendly. Buildings are packed next to
eachother in the downtown core giving a slight resemblance to how
European cities feel. Apart from that, the architecture is really
stunning. Those art deco(?) styled facades are rich in detail and give
off an aura of timelessness that modern buildings lack.

The flight from Boston to reyjkavik was an overnighter on which I
really hoped to see the northern lights. Aurora activity has been at a
peak the past few weeks but to my dismay none appeared in the sky on
the way over. I'm crossing my fingers for a string of cloudless nights
here, I'd trade the rest of my trip just for a glimpse of those
magical lights.

You're all probably wondering what there is to do and see in Iceland.
Well let me tell you, this young island is a hiker's delight in the
summer time and has equal visual appeaL in the winter months. It's
recent geologic volcanic activity means there are geysirs left right
and centre. There are also glaciers that cover large swaths of land on
which you can hike and climb. Also, there's some pretty majestic
iceberg fields outside of the city that are worth a visit. Finally,
let's not forget the famous Blue Lagoon spa which is home to a scenic
and huge aqua blue silica thermal pool.

So far, I've only gone to see Gullfoss, a waterfall, and the geysirs,
of which I took an fun sequence of photos. Tomorrow I'm going to go
glacier hiking and then (attempt) to climb an ice wall. And then the
day after I'm going to go scuba diving (yes you read that right)
between the American and European continental plates. Visibility in
that water is supposed to be over 50m so I'll be taking lots of
pictures of that!

Anyways, I'll update again in a day or two!
PS. It's around the same temp as Montreal here, except. The wind can
have a nasty bite.

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.