Friday, October 17, 2008
Japan: You Can Tell a Lot From a Toilet
On Toilets
Stereotypes usually exist for a reason and I think Japan’s toilets just go to prove what people already assume about the Japanese: They are technological, orderly, smart, patient, and demure.
Japanese toilets are varied, ubiquitous, and complicated. They range from your standard “Asian squatter” to the “Porcelain Computer,” which takes longer to program than to piss in. The computer version comes with a control panel on the side which allows you to heat the seat, squirt water, and make funny noises among other things. The range of toilets shows the Japanese’s Asian roots and the distance they have come as a technological nation. The ever-presence of toilets is both cause and effect for Japan’s order and cleanliness. (It’s hard to be organized or clean when people are forced to pee on the street). Their complexity is yet another example that the Japanese are constantly looking for ways to challenge themselves intellectually, even in the bathroom.
Meanwhile, due to the complexity, the patience required to use a computer toilet in Japan says a lot about the Japanese psyche. When I have to spend more than 30 seconds figuring out what the button with the little pink butt is or how to stop the toilet seat heater from burning my ass, I get annoyed. From the land of road rage and fast food drive-throughs, I seriously doubt my countrymen would put up with this either.
As has been said about the culture before, the Japanese are also more demure than Americans (with the possible exception of some of my college roommates who would have loved this next invention). That is my explanation for why Japanese toilets have a flushing noise that you can turn on to mask the sounds that you are making in the bathroom. The “fake flush” button doesn’t actually flush the toilet, just makes a similar noise so that you can do your business without embarrassment. Would have saved you a few trips to the basement bathrooms in the dorm, hey girls?
On Being Cute
Beyond having an impressive array of toilets, I also think it is worth noting that Japan is extremely cute. First, the people there seem to think that other people can actually speak Japanese! Unlike my village in Peru, where people were legitimately not aware of other languages, the Japanese are a pretty educated group. Probably educated enough to surmise that a 5’9’’ Caucasian girl doesn’t speak very good Japanese. Despite this, policemen and 7-Eleven clerks had an especially long list of things to tell me. I would always nod politely and smile but I am still wondering what in the hell they were telling me.
Other cute things that Japanese people do include riding bikes while holding umbrellas, putting on slippers to go to the bathroom, wearing really weird outfits, and eating like they will once again see food in the foreseeable future. On this last note, my friend Jackie and I did all Americans proud at an All-You-Can-Eat conveyor belt Sushi restaurant in Osaka (you pull off as many plates of sushi as you want as they roll by). The all-you-can-eat price for women was somewhere around $18 (it was higher for men) and judging from the number of plates in front of Japanese women at the restaurant (I’d say an average of 7), this was probably a reasonable price. However, in an event that still causes my heart to swell with pride, Jackie and I honorably downed over 25 plates of sushi each. Being ill was a small price to pay for the ability to claim such a victory.
On Why Japan’s the Best
Besides impressive toilet facilities and a squeezable cuteness, the Japanese offer a lot of great options for tourists. Some of the highlights include Onsens, food, taxi cabs, and street signs. Onsens are bath houses with a number of pools of varying temperatures to clean yourself and relax in. They are perfect for a cold day or if you just feel like hanging out in a room with 20 other naked people. As for the food, it was the best I have eaten in the entire world. And now that I have been to 41 countries, I think that is a substantial claim. Try sushi at the fish market in Tokyo right after it comes off of the boat and eat Okanamiyaki which is a pancake-like omelet full of vegetables and meat that you cook yourself at your table. Speaking of food, feel free to eat it off of the floor of your taxi cab. Cleaner than your hotel sheets in Vietnam, taxi cabs also come with polite drivers and meters. And you actually know where they are going because streets are, gasp, clearly marked.
On Why It May Not Be For Long
As much as I love Japan, if they don’t start making babies, there aren’t going to be any of them left. Unfortunately, they might be too prude to do that. While in Kyoto my friends and I visited a trendy night club where the entertainment kicked off with a lounge band and finished with a DJ. Throw in a bit of alcohol, and any respectable Latin American night club would have already produced enough action to necessitate a few weddings in the next month. Not in Kyoto. But then again, how could you really put the moves on when you are all facing the same direction, looking at the DJ, and swaying to rap music by yourself? Talk about cultural birth control.
While in Japan I visited Hiroshima, Osaka, Nara, Kyoto, Tokyo, and the little known town of Atsumi-Onsen. Here’s a short synapses on each of them:
Hiroshima
My first trans-Japanese stop was in Hiroshima, made famous by its unfortunate status as the first city to have an atomic bomb dropped on it. The first place I visited was the A-bomb museum. Strangely, 24 hours prior to this visit, I had been perusing the Siloso Fort Museum in Singapore, in part dedicated to remembering the atrocities wreaked by the Japanese who invaded the Malay Peninsula during WWII. Once again, it appears that the bad guys are usually those who didn’t get to write the museum blurbs. In Singapore, the experiences of WWII included a scathing report of a brutal Japanese invasion and occupation. And while the atomic bomb museum did not deny any of these events, they were relegated to a single short sentence mentioning a minor foray into the Malay Peninsula, along with a passing comment noting that Japan had been a bit “unpeaceful” during WWII. (I suppose that is why the Chinese are still mad at you?). But despite the bias, the destruction wreaked by the atomic bomb was no doubt real, devastating, and horrific.
It would be comparably pleasant to think that the atomic bomb just killed a lot of people. In truth, people at the epicenter were mercifully vaporized, while those nearby were mutilated and tended to stay alive for long enough to reach home, see their families, and then die in excruciating pain, usually from horribly burned skin and damaged organs. Visuals of skin melting off of people’s bodies and skin that had been burned black, along with first hand accounts of people who watched their family members die while begging for water, were heart breaking and sickening. Many other people died in the weeks to come from the radiation, and many died years later from related cancers.
The museum leaves you wondering, was it better to drop a bomb to stop the war even though it killed thousands of Japanese civilians? Or would it have been better to sacrifice thousands of American and European military men, including our great uncles and grandpas, who were on the verge of shipping out to a virtual slaughter to attack Japan and Japanese-occupied South East Asia by land? I don’t think these are ever very easy questions to answer. The most you can hope is that the people we’ve elected into office are smart enough to make these tough decisions. Oh…shit.
Apart from its historical significance, I found the city of Hiroshima to be little more than a concrete jungle. This is likely because everything was built after 1945. Right outside of Hiroshima I visited the island of Miyajima, home to the Itsukushima Shrine and the famous Torii Gate, one of the most photographed sites in Japan. It was my first introduction to Japanese shrines and the over-use of wood, which I got a heck of a lot more of when I continued on my journey.
Osaka, Kyoto, Nara
Honestly, these three towns are a blur of temples, Zen Buddhism gardens, shrines, castles, old Japanese farm houses, an aquarium, some pagodas, conveyor belt sushi restaurants, and sake tasting. My pictures do them more justice than I ever could in words.
Tokyo
First, I would like thank my Hilton Honors American Express Card and a hectic work travel schedule last summer which allowed my friends and I to stay in the $485 a night Conrad Hilton in downtown Tokyo. I would also like to thank the Conrad for their slightly stupid slogan of “giving you the freedom to be yourself” which is surely why they politely looked the other way as we doubled the amount of people that were supposed to stay in the room and trekked through the lobby with oversized, smelly backpacks.
During my 24 hours in Tokyo I visited a number of different neighborhoods. I went from the red light district to the high-end shopping district of Ginza to the American night club district of Roppongi (which was oddly full of black ex-military Americans working as bouncers). The city was clean, the people were well dressed, there were lots of neon signs. No surprises there.
But the experience that blew me away was the Tsukiji Fish Market, the largest wholesale fish and seafood market in the world that opens in the wee hours of the morning. I arrived at the fish market at 5am and wandered along the stalls full of fresh seafood that had just been brought off of the boats. In the freezer room, I saw tuna that fit into boxes the size of coffins and would set you back as much as a small car. Small restaurants along the perimeter of the market sell fresh sushi, and for $35 a plate at 6 am you can eat the best sushi of your life for breakfast. This only leaves you feeling mildly ill for the rest of the day.
Atsumi-Onsen
My main reason for traveling to Japan was to visit my friend Riley who I met while in the Peace Corps. In the 5 years that we have known each other, Riley and I have never actually met on American soil. Riley was in the JET (Japanese English Teaching) Program and teaching English to kids in his small Japanese town. At a height of 6’ 4” with long blonde hair, he was also probably terrifying them.
The train from Tokyo to Atsumi-Onsen heads straight north for about 4 hours and passes through bright green farm land nudged up against grey mountains that run down the center of the country. In the rainy season, which I believe runs from January to December, the dark sky and low clouds give the countryside a very cozy feel. Riley’s 12,000 person town is equally quaint. Atsumi-Onsen literally means “Hot Water Hot Springs” and their town mascot is the ever-intimidating Mighty Radish. Yes, their mascot is a radish. And there is a huge purple radish on top of a 20 foot high pedestal in the middle of town in case you forget.
Atsumi-Onsen sits right on the ocean and all of the close-together houses have their own little gardens. The rural quietness of Atsumi-Onsen is a side of Japan that you rarely hear about. And, although small, Riley’s town does offer the conveniences of a bakery, a 7-Eleven, a foot onsen, and a tatami making factory. A foot onsen is a hot tub for your feet. You can sit and drink tea while soaking your tired treads in some warm water. Tatami mats are the straw mats that cover the floor in Japanese homes.
As if I haven’t made a big enough deal about how good the food is in Japan, I must mention one of my best meals in Japan was at I’s house, a friend of Riley’s. Her house is right on the ocean and her kitchen and living room windows look out across the sea, which she seemed to think is pretty normal. She served us sweet tofu stuffed with rice and noodles, hand rolls that we could fill with all sorts of vegetables and raw fish, raw tofu, and a spinach, egg, and sugar mix. It is no wonder that I liked Japan so much.
On Leaving
Alas, all good food orgies must come to an end, and thus I must take my leave of Japan. I took the night train from the town of the Mighty Radish and headed into the heart of Tokyo and on to the Narita airport. While Japan has made a name for itself in timeliness and efficiency, Malaysia Airlines seems to have slipped into the country undetected. Because they are incapable of calculating and hedging fuel costs, they arbitrarily decided to charge all passengers extra, on top of their ticket price, for fuel. Of course they wouldn’t have competitive prices if they did this up front, so they try and charge you extra when you are checking in at the counter. So, after a slight tantrum on my part and some re-booking I spent the next 12 hours at the Tokyo airport waiting for a flight on Northwest Airlines. With my faith in South East Asia no longer intact, I returned to the land of noodles and Buddhism for a month long tour of Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and Bangkok.
Stereotypes usually exist for a reason and I think Japan’s toilets just go to prove what people already assume about the Japanese: They are technological, orderly, smart, patient, and demure.
Japanese toilets are varied, ubiquitous, and complicated. They range from your standard “Asian squatter” to the “Porcelain Computer,” which takes longer to program than to piss in. The computer version comes with a control panel on the side which allows you to heat the seat, squirt water, and make funny noises among other things. The range of toilets shows the Japanese’s Asian roots and the distance they have come as a technological nation. The ever-presence of toilets is both cause and effect for Japan’s order and cleanliness. (It’s hard to be organized or clean when people are forced to pee on the street). Their complexity is yet another example that the Japanese are constantly looking for ways to challenge themselves intellectually, even in the bathroom.
Meanwhile, due to the complexity, the patience required to use a computer toilet in Japan says a lot about the Japanese psyche. When I have to spend more than 30 seconds figuring out what the button with the little pink butt is or how to stop the toilet seat heater from burning my ass, I get annoyed. From the land of road rage and fast food drive-throughs, I seriously doubt my countrymen would put up with this either.
As has been said about the culture before, the Japanese are also more demure than Americans (with the possible exception of some of my college roommates who would have loved this next invention). That is my explanation for why Japanese toilets have a flushing noise that you can turn on to mask the sounds that you are making in the bathroom. The “fake flush” button doesn’t actually flush the toilet, just makes a similar noise so that you can do your business without embarrassment. Would have saved you a few trips to the basement bathrooms in the dorm, hey girls?
On Being Cute
Beyond having an impressive array of toilets, I also think it is worth noting that Japan is extremely cute. First, the people there seem to think that other people can actually speak Japanese! Unlike my village in Peru, where people were legitimately not aware of other languages, the Japanese are a pretty educated group. Probably educated enough to surmise that a 5’9’’ Caucasian girl doesn’t speak very good Japanese. Despite this, policemen and 7-Eleven clerks had an especially long list of things to tell me. I would always nod politely and smile but I am still wondering what in the hell they were telling me.
Other cute things that Japanese people do include riding bikes while holding umbrellas, putting on slippers to go to the bathroom, wearing really weird outfits, and eating like they will once again see food in the foreseeable future. On this last note, my friend Jackie and I did all Americans proud at an All-You-Can-Eat conveyor belt Sushi restaurant in Osaka (you pull off as many plates of sushi as you want as they roll by). The all-you-can-eat price for women was somewhere around $18 (it was higher for men) and judging from the number of plates in front of Japanese women at the restaurant (I’d say an average of 7), this was probably a reasonable price. However, in an event that still causes my heart to swell with pride, Jackie and I honorably downed over 25 plates of sushi each. Being ill was a small price to pay for the ability to claim such a victory.
On Why Japan’s the Best
Besides impressive toilet facilities and a squeezable cuteness, the Japanese offer a lot of great options for tourists. Some of the highlights include Onsens, food, taxi cabs, and street signs. Onsens are bath houses with a number of pools of varying temperatures to clean yourself and relax in. They are perfect for a cold day or if you just feel like hanging out in a room with 20 other naked people. As for the food, it was the best I have eaten in the entire world. And now that I have been to 41 countries, I think that is a substantial claim. Try sushi at the fish market in Tokyo right after it comes off of the boat and eat Okanamiyaki which is a pancake-like omelet full of vegetables and meat that you cook yourself at your table. Speaking of food, feel free to eat it off of the floor of your taxi cab. Cleaner than your hotel sheets in Vietnam, taxi cabs also come with polite drivers and meters. And you actually know where they are going because streets are, gasp, clearly marked.
On Why It May Not Be For Long
As much as I love Japan, if they don’t start making babies, there aren’t going to be any of them left. Unfortunately, they might be too prude to do that. While in Kyoto my friends and I visited a trendy night club where the entertainment kicked off with a lounge band and finished with a DJ. Throw in a bit of alcohol, and any respectable Latin American night club would have already produced enough action to necessitate a few weddings in the next month. Not in Kyoto. But then again, how could you really put the moves on when you are all facing the same direction, looking at the DJ, and swaying to rap music by yourself? Talk about cultural birth control.
While in Japan I visited Hiroshima, Osaka, Nara, Kyoto, Tokyo, and the little known town of Atsumi-Onsen. Here’s a short synapses on each of them:
Hiroshima
My first trans-Japanese stop was in Hiroshima, made famous by its unfortunate status as the first city to have an atomic bomb dropped on it. The first place I visited was the A-bomb museum. Strangely, 24 hours prior to this visit, I had been perusing the Siloso Fort Museum in Singapore, in part dedicated to remembering the atrocities wreaked by the Japanese who invaded the Malay Peninsula during WWII. Once again, it appears that the bad guys are usually those who didn’t get to write the museum blurbs. In Singapore, the experiences of WWII included a scathing report of a brutal Japanese invasion and occupation. And while the atomic bomb museum did not deny any of these events, they were relegated to a single short sentence mentioning a minor foray into the Malay Peninsula, along with a passing comment noting that Japan had been a bit “unpeaceful” during WWII. (I suppose that is why the Chinese are still mad at you?). But despite the bias, the destruction wreaked by the atomic bomb was no doubt real, devastating, and horrific.
It would be comparably pleasant to think that the atomic bomb just killed a lot of people. In truth, people at the epicenter were mercifully vaporized, while those nearby were mutilated and tended to stay alive for long enough to reach home, see their families, and then die in excruciating pain, usually from horribly burned skin and damaged organs. Visuals of skin melting off of people’s bodies and skin that had been burned black, along with first hand accounts of people who watched their family members die while begging for water, were heart breaking and sickening. Many other people died in the weeks to come from the radiation, and many died years later from related cancers.
The museum leaves you wondering, was it better to drop a bomb to stop the war even though it killed thousands of Japanese civilians? Or would it have been better to sacrifice thousands of American and European military men, including our great uncles and grandpas, who were on the verge of shipping out to a virtual slaughter to attack Japan and Japanese-occupied South East Asia by land? I don’t think these are ever very easy questions to answer. The most you can hope is that the people we’ve elected into office are smart enough to make these tough decisions. Oh…shit.
Apart from its historical significance, I found the city of Hiroshima to be little more than a concrete jungle. This is likely because everything was built after 1945. Right outside of Hiroshima I visited the island of Miyajima, home to the Itsukushima Shrine and the famous Torii Gate, one of the most photographed sites in Japan. It was my first introduction to Japanese shrines and the over-use of wood, which I got a heck of a lot more of when I continued on my journey.
Osaka, Kyoto, Nara
Honestly, these three towns are a blur of temples, Zen Buddhism gardens, shrines, castles, old Japanese farm houses, an aquarium, some pagodas, conveyor belt sushi restaurants, and sake tasting. My pictures do them more justice than I ever could in words.
Tokyo
First, I would like thank my Hilton Honors American Express Card and a hectic work travel schedule last summer which allowed my friends and I to stay in the $485 a night Conrad Hilton in downtown Tokyo. I would also like to thank the Conrad for their slightly stupid slogan of “giving you the freedom to be yourself” which is surely why they politely looked the other way as we doubled the amount of people that were supposed to stay in the room and trekked through the lobby with oversized, smelly backpacks.
During my 24 hours in Tokyo I visited a number of different neighborhoods. I went from the red light district to the high-end shopping district of Ginza to the American night club district of Roppongi (which was oddly full of black ex-military Americans working as bouncers). The city was clean, the people were well dressed, there were lots of neon signs. No surprises there.
But the experience that blew me away was the Tsukiji Fish Market, the largest wholesale fish and seafood market in the world that opens in the wee hours of the morning. I arrived at the fish market at 5am and wandered along the stalls full of fresh seafood that had just been brought off of the boats. In the freezer room, I saw tuna that fit into boxes the size of coffins and would set you back as much as a small car. Small restaurants along the perimeter of the market sell fresh sushi, and for $35 a plate at 6 am you can eat the best sushi of your life for breakfast. This only leaves you feeling mildly ill for the rest of the day.
Atsumi-Onsen
My main reason for traveling to Japan was to visit my friend Riley who I met while in the Peace Corps. In the 5 years that we have known each other, Riley and I have never actually met on American soil. Riley was in the JET (Japanese English Teaching) Program and teaching English to kids in his small Japanese town. At a height of 6’ 4” with long blonde hair, he was also probably terrifying them.
The train from Tokyo to Atsumi-Onsen heads straight north for about 4 hours and passes through bright green farm land nudged up against grey mountains that run down the center of the country. In the rainy season, which I believe runs from January to December, the dark sky and low clouds give the countryside a very cozy feel. Riley’s 12,000 person town is equally quaint. Atsumi-Onsen literally means “Hot Water Hot Springs” and their town mascot is the ever-intimidating Mighty Radish. Yes, their mascot is a radish. And there is a huge purple radish on top of a 20 foot high pedestal in the middle of town in case you forget.
Atsumi-Onsen sits right on the ocean and all of the close-together houses have their own little gardens. The rural quietness of Atsumi-Onsen is a side of Japan that you rarely hear about. And, although small, Riley’s town does offer the conveniences of a bakery, a 7-Eleven, a foot onsen, and a tatami making factory. A foot onsen is a hot tub for your feet. You can sit and drink tea while soaking your tired treads in some warm water. Tatami mats are the straw mats that cover the floor in Japanese homes.
As if I haven’t made a big enough deal about how good the food is in Japan, I must mention one of my best meals in Japan was at I’s house, a friend of Riley’s. Her house is right on the ocean and her kitchen and living room windows look out across the sea, which she seemed to think is pretty normal. She served us sweet tofu stuffed with rice and noodles, hand rolls that we could fill with all sorts of vegetables and raw fish, raw tofu, and a spinach, egg, and sugar mix. It is no wonder that I liked Japan so much.
On Leaving
Alas, all good food orgies must come to an end, and thus I must take my leave of Japan. I took the night train from the town of the Mighty Radish and headed into the heart of Tokyo and on to the Narita airport. While Japan has made a name for itself in timeliness and efficiency, Malaysia Airlines seems to have slipped into the country undetected. Because they are incapable of calculating and hedging fuel costs, they arbitrarily decided to charge all passengers extra, on top of their ticket price, for fuel. Of course they wouldn’t have competitive prices if they did this up front, so they try and charge you extra when you are checking in at the counter. So, after a slight tantrum on my part and some re-booking I spent the next 12 hours at the Tokyo airport waiting for a flight on Northwest Airlines. With my faith in South East Asia no longer intact, I returned to the land of noodles and Buddhism for a month long tour of Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and Bangkok.
Singapore: Asia on Rules
I get the feeling that Singapore was created by someone who found other Asian countries to be very annoying. Everything that could potentially annoy you about Asia is illegal in Singapore. You can’t stand on toilet seats, you can’t bike or use your motorcycle on the sidewalks, you can’t harass people to buy things on the street when they are eating at an outdoor kiosk, and you cannot ask for money at religious sites without having a legitimate offering box. You don’t like this, you can pay a fine. That’s Singapore: There are rules, there are signs, and there are fines.
After spending a day in Singapore, I got to thinking that all of this order, predictability, and price transparency shouldn’t go to waste. If only there were some way to export it…So here is what I was thinking: First, we bring in engineers, city planners, business people, and government officials to Singapore from across the globe. Then, we give them a list of things that they must accomplish throughout the day (such as visit a number of different sites using public transportation, seek medical care, go to the bathroom, and buy alcohol). Once they have accomplished all of these daily necessities, they will be required to do the same thing in their own country. I believe this could be enlightening. I don’t think we are going to get anything crazy out of it, like clean, air-conditioned buses throughout the developing world, but if we could even get a few more rolls of toilet paper in public bathrooms, I would be satisfied.
Despite Singapore’s lack of disorder, the country isn’t as sterile as you might think. There is a Chinatown where you can buy all of your name brand products at knock-off prices. There is a Little India that has bright Hindu temples and wonderful food. The downtown is full of shiny, high-rise buildings. There are colorful neighborhoods along the river that have cute, brightly colored, yet overpriced, bars and restaurants. There are some beautiful parks where you can see that Singapore is not all concrete. And throughout the country are food stalls and hawker stands offering cheap, and maybe even sanitary, eats.
So you’ve got the culture, the food, and the quaintness, but you don’t have to deal with a lot of the things that makes traveling in developing countries so difficult. Of course, all of this comes at a price and this means that Singapore is much more expensive than any other Southeast Asian country that I visited. So, while I do enjoy the toilet paper and kind of got excited about bus schedules, you can plan to see me in Thailand.
My last stop in Singapore, ironically as you will later see, was to Siloso Fort, a former military stronghold, on Sentosa Island, a tiny piece of land-turned-resort town right off of the coast of Singapore. The Fort is now a museum devoted to telling Singapore’s version of WWII, including their account of the Japanese invasion. This version was notably different from the version I got in my next stop, Hiroshima, Japan…
After spending a day in Singapore, I got to thinking that all of this order, predictability, and price transparency shouldn’t go to waste. If only there were some way to export it…So here is what I was thinking: First, we bring in engineers, city planners, business people, and government officials to Singapore from across the globe. Then, we give them a list of things that they must accomplish throughout the day (such as visit a number of different sites using public transportation, seek medical care, go to the bathroom, and buy alcohol). Once they have accomplished all of these daily necessities, they will be required to do the same thing in their own country. I believe this could be enlightening. I don’t think we are going to get anything crazy out of it, like clean, air-conditioned buses throughout the developing world, but if we could even get a few more rolls of toilet paper in public bathrooms, I would be satisfied.
Despite Singapore’s lack of disorder, the country isn’t as sterile as you might think. There is a Chinatown where you can buy all of your name brand products at knock-off prices. There is a Little India that has bright Hindu temples and wonderful food. The downtown is full of shiny, high-rise buildings. There are colorful neighborhoods along the river that have cute, brightly colored, yet overpriced, bars and restaurants. There are some beautiful parks where you can see that Singapore is not all concrete. And throughout the country are food stalls and hawker stands offering cheap, and maybe even sanitary, eats.
So you’ve got the culture, the food, and the quaintness, but you don’t have to deal with a lot of the things that makes traveling in developing countries so difficult. Of course, all of this comes at a price and this means that Singapore is much more expensive than any other Southeast Asian country that I visited. So, while I do enjoy the toilet paper and kind of got excited about bus schedules, you can plan to see me in Thailand.
My last stop in Singapore, ironically as you will later see, was to Siloso Fort, a former military stronghold, on Sentosa Island, a tiny piece of land-turned-resort town right off of the coast of Singapore. The Fort is now a museum devoted to telling Singapore’s version of WWII, including their account of the Japanese invasion. This version was notably different from the version I got in my next stop, Hiroshima, Japan…
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Indonesia: A land of Great Beauty and Unsolicited Friendships
More mysterious than the double buckets in every bathroom, were the number of unsolicited friendship approaches that I received in Indonesia. On the streets of Yogyakarta men would pop up and just start walking with me. They would talk to me about the weather, my nationality (which was usually Canadian if I knew I was going to be rude to them), and what I planned on doing that day. Then my new friend would guide me into some shop where he would get commission or he would tell me 5 fun facts about the city and then try to charge me for the “guide” services. Once, after turning down a taxi driver for a ride, I was standing on the street with a map open when I felt a presence over my right shoulder. It was the taxi driver, cuddling up to me, to peer at the map! Had my “No, I don’t need a ride” come out as “but I would love someone to snuggle with on a street corner??”
Unfortunately, I was not so popular at Immigration in the Jakarta airport where, instead of snuggling, they tried to deport me. I didn’t have any blank pages left in my passport to add the new Indonesian visa, which is apparently illegal. I was actually aware of this rule, but when in the hell did we start following rules in these countries? When the immigration agent told me he would need to deport me, I laughed at him and told him that I would sleep in the airport until my embassy came to rescue me (which I’m pretty sure they would NOT have done). He smiled. I took out a magazine and a sweatshirt and sat down in a corner. He stopped smiling. When he realized that I really was going to sleep there, and probably not even offer him any money, he somehow found a way to put that visa in my packed passport.
Jakarta
And that, led me into the jaws of Jakarta. Maybe I should have stayed in the airport…My dad was actually happy about the 6 inch long lizard we found waiting for us in our hostel room because he said they eat cockroaches. (Should this be a positive thing?) We then took the city up on its “Jakarta Heritage Walk.” Note to city Heritage Walk planners: If you are going to go to the trouble of making a professional map on expensive paper, maybe you should go to the trouble of picking up the trash around the decrepit old Dutch buildings and try to lead tourists away from the houses built on stilts atop a river filled with garbage. Whatever, just a thought.
Central Java
Besides new friends, unfriendly immigration agents, and riverside slums, I found some of my most-loved sites in Indonesia. In the central part of the island of Java, we visited both the Buddhist ruins of Borobudor and the volcano Gunung Bromo. We arrived to both sites before sunrise and watching the light slowly illuminate the intricately carved old ruins and the lines of smoking volcanoes was absolutely beautiful. I don’t even have anything sarcastic or rude to say about it.
But I do need to mention that everyone in the village surrounding the volcanos looked like an Andean Peruvian. The people were short and stocky in build and had darker skin and Asian features. We were at an altitude of some thousands of feet and so they wore clothes that reflected the cooler climate. In body type, face, and clothing, these people looked like the Peruvians I knew in the Andes. Sign me up for that land bridge theory.
Bali
After the island of Java we traveled to the infamous island of Bali. The island’s country side is a blinding, incandescent green. In America, people would ingest things to make the world look this pretty.
First stop, we visited the town of Ubud which is for “older people” (I loved it!) and has tons of cute restaurants and shops. (Ladies, this is also where the author of Eat, Pray, Love was stationed). On our second day in Ubud we decided to save $5 (this became a theme of our trip) and do a rice paddy tour by ourselves, sans guide. We were pretty confident in our map reading abilities and we thought our sign language skills, as they applied to Indonesian rice farmers, were pretty good as well. Thank god we are also in very good shape. Our 4 mile paddy walk turned into a 20 mile hike. “Where did we go wrong?” We kept asking ourselves. Should we have listened to the woman bathing in the river wearing only a bra that pointed in one direction and then started jumping up and down with her hands out? I thought that meant “danger” or “lots of uphill.” But perhaps it meant “there’s the trail you F-ing moron.” I guess we’ll never know…
After Ubud we visited the smaller island of Nesu Lembongan off of the coast of Bali. There was a local ferry that brought about 60 people plus cargo over to the island early in the morning. This ferry was staked in at the beach and was just far enough out in the ocean so that when you walked out to it (there was no pier) you had to be up to your waist in water. This was helpful because when you got halfway out in the water with your big backpack and realized that you might actually drown before reaching the ferry, there were men from the ferry boat company who were willing to carry your bags (or you) over their heads for the rest of the way, for a small fee. Clever little shits.
Once on the island dad and I signed up for a diving trip, which was great since neither of us had brought any certification and had no proof that we even knew what scuba diving was. They didn’t seem to care. One of our dives was a drift dive which occurs when the current is so strong that you basically just lay yourself out super-man style and let the water pull you as the scenery goes by, quickly. For a beginning diver like myself, “quickly” meant “fear of death from being sucked 10 miles off shore”.
After leaving the island we spent a few days in Kuta to soak in the party scene, surfing, and beach town full of hot, blonde Aussies. I know it sounds like it would be kind of lame, but my dad was just BEGGING me to go there, so we did. Unfortunately, Kuta was one of those places where you kind of feel bad about going out if you haven’t showered for a few days. I think showering is pretentious. But I suppose it was good practice for our next stop, Singapore!
Unfortunately, I was not so popular at Immigration in the Jakarta airport where, instead of snuggling, they tried to deport me. I didn’t have any blank pages left in my passport to add the new Indonesian visa, which is apparently illegal. I was actually aware of this rule, but when in the hell did we start following rules in these countries? When the immigration agent told me he would need to deport me, I laughed at him and told him that I would sleep in the airport until my embassy came to rescue me (which I’m pretty sure they would NOT have done). He smiled. I took out a magazine and a sweatshirt and sat down in a corner. He stopped smiling. When he realized that I really was going to sleep there, and probably not even offer him any money, he somehow found a way to put that visa in my packed passport.
Jakarta
And that, led me into the jaws of Jakarta. Maybe I should have stayed in the airport…My dad was actually happy about the 6 inch long lizard we found waiting for us in our hostel room because he said they eat cockroaches. (Should this be a positive thing?) We then took the city up on its “Jakarta Heritage Walk.” Note to city Heritage Walk planners: If you are going to go to the trouble of making a professional map on expensive paper, maybe you should go to the trouble of picking up the trash around the decrepit old Dutch buildings and try to lead tourists away from the houses built on stilts atop a river filled with garbage. Whatever, just a thought.
Central Java
Besides new friends, unfriendly immigration agents, and riverside slums, I found some of my most-loved sites in Indonesia. In the central part of the island of Java, we visited both the Buddhist ruins of Borobudor and the volcano Gunung Bromo. We arrived to both sites before sunrise and watching the light slowly illuminate the intricately carved old ruins and the lines of smoking volcanoes was absolutely beautiful. I don’t even have anything sarcastic or rude to say about it.
But I do need to mention that everyone in the village surrounding the volcanos looked like an Andean Peruvian. The people were short and stocky in build and had darker skin and Asian features. We were at an altitude of some thousands of feet and so they wore clothes that reflected the cooler climate. In body type, face, and clothing, these people looked like the Peruvians I knew in the Andes. Sign me up for that land bridge theory.
Bali
After the island of Java we traveled to the infamous island of Bali. The island’s country side is a blinding, incandescent green. In America, people would ingest things to make the world look this pretty.
First stop, we visited the town of Ubud which is for “older people” (I loved it!) and has tons of cute restaurants and shops. (Ladies, this is also where the author of Eat, Pray, Love was stationed). On our second day in Ubud we decided to save $5 (this became a theme of our trip) and do a rice paddy tour by ourselves, sans guide. We were pretty confident in our map reading abilities and we thought our sign language skills, as they applied to Indonesian rice farmers, were pretty good as well. Thank god we are also in very good shape. Our 4 mile paddy walk turned into a 20 mile hike. “Where did we go wrong?” We kept asking ourselves. Should we have listened to the woman bathing in the river wearing only a bra that pointed in one direction and then started jumping up and down with her hands out? I thought that meant “danger” or “lots of uphill.” But perhaps it meant “there’s the trail you F-ing moron.” I guess we’ll never know…
After Ubud we visited the smaller island of Nesu Lembongan off of the coast of Bali. There was a local ferry that brought about 60 people plus cargo over to the island early in the morning. This ferry was staked in at the beach and was just far enough out in the ocean so that when you walked out to it (there was no pier) you had to be up to your waist in water. This was helpful because when you got halfway out in the water with your big backpack and realized that you might actually drown before reaching the ferry, there were men from the ferry boat company who were willing to carry your bags (or you) over their heads for the rest of the way, for a small fee. Clever little shits.
Once on the island dad and I signed up for a diving trip, which was great since neither of us had brought any certification and had no proof that we even knew what scuba diving was. They didn’t seem to care. One of our dives was a drift dive which occurs when the current is so strong that you basically just lay yourself out super-man style and let the water pull you as the scenery goes by, quickly. For a beginning diver like myself, “quickly” meant “fear of death from being sucked 10 miles off shore”.
After leaving the island we spent a few days in Kuta to soak in the party scene, surfing, and beach town full of hot, blonde Aussies. I know it sounds like it would be kind of lame, but my dad was just BEGGING me to go there, so we did. Unfortunately, Kuta was one of those places where you kind of feel bad about going out if you haven’t showered for a few days. I think showering is pretentious. But I suppose it was good practice for our next stop, Singapore!
Thursday, June 26, 2008
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