After running out of disk space and fending off a hack attempt from a few days ago (oops… I’m slacking), I’ve gotten most of my pictures from my post-term trip up. 4807
Hmm, it’s been a while. I’m back Stateside now, through a slightly torturous route. Shanghai to Shenzhen was no trouble, and nor was speeding back to Lingnan by minibus. I picked up my stuff and met a small party in Trevor’s apartment, where I picked up my luggage and got a taxi bargained for me… […]
My last day in Kyoto, I saw the mostly worthless (but free) application-required tour of the not-so-old Imperial Palace. Yawn. More yawns followed during the night bus ride to Tokyo (nobody had a seatmate this time… excellent) and as I staggered through the early morning of Tokyo. In Tokyo, I wandered around Ueno before anything […]
Here is the laundry-list style recap since I am a bad blogger: Monday: Went to nearby Nara, an ancient capital. Walked all around Nara-koen, saw a really big wooden building (Grand Buddha hall) among other nice things. Came back, explored downtown Kyoto. My food staples here: Yoshinoya beef bowl at least once daily, Cafe du […]
Right, Tokyo… Shibuya, Roppongi, and I meant to see more, honest. Maybe I will squeeze in Asakusa on my way out. Shibuya was as bustling as advertised. I went to see the Roppongi Hills development and satisfy my urban planning curiosity, but wound up sidetracked as the Mori Art Museum there was hosting a Le […]
I pretty much wandered through the French concession for a day and a half or so. It was nice and… leafy. I like leafy streets, and they tend to be in short supply in this half of the world. I came down with a nasty little head cold on the morning of my departure, but […]
The title of this post is, without a trace of irony, the title of the news program playing on the bus from the airport this morning. My flight wasn’t bad—no, wait, it was, actually. The last airport bus leaves downtown Xi’an at 1800, and my flight was at 2255, so I got to spend several […]
A couple things that have been nagging at me for the past couple days: Mandarin: lots of gwailos (ex-teachers?) speak it here. I know I felt good about my street navigation ability a couple posts ago (and it’s really not anything to brag about in Xi’an), but these people make me feel bad about not […]
I never take the tour. I never take the tour. WHY DID I TAKE THE TOUR? With that out of the way, the tour was not as bad as it could have been—just two enforced 30-minute shopping breaks. Unfortunately, those were (by 5 minutes) longer than our longest sight-seeing breaks. Sigh. It was pretty cool […]
My last day in Chengdu was nice, a bit exhausting, and not entirely in Chengdu. I spent most of it on the road to, from, or in nearby Leshan, home to the Great Buddha. Built in the 700s A.D., and at over 70 meters tall, it makes the Lantau Big Buddha at Ngong Ping look […]
