Surrounded by family in Ireland

Today my sister and baby niece and I spent five very cold minutes at the beach in Salthill. It's been almost three months since I started this trip by touching the other side of the Atlantic. Clearly today called for a brief but eloquent speech on the smallness of the world and the interconnectness of all its people.
"Brrr. Ok, I'm done. Coffee?"
And on that note, I'll leave this blog too. It's been a good journey, dudes. If you've read this far, thanks for coming with me :-)

In Brussels train station

My favourite thing about central Europe is how everyone speaks four languages. The woman in the cafe here told me the specials in English, then fielded a question in French from the table behind, interrupting herself to share a joke in Dutch with a passerby. It's astounding.
I said "Hallo!" to the man at the ticket desk and he started out in German, switching fluidly, mid-sentence, to English when I said "Wait, I mean 'Hi!'". It makes me feel like a slacker: I can sort-of-kind-of follow what's happening in German if everyone speaks slowly and uses small words, but it's not enough to pull my weight in a conversation; I can barely get by in Irish for that matter. This relaxed and easy multilingualism is a wonderful thing. I love it.
My other favourite thing about central Europe is bread. I could live entirely on bread and butter here. And the other best thing is cheese, of course. And the way that enormous dogs come up to talk to you in cafes, though I admit that this doesn't always happen. And pedestrian streets and plazas with markets on them. Those are great. And bikes, too, and separated bike paths and miles and miles of canal paths to ride along. Or riverbanks where you can sit and think and watch ducks. Although, actually, big train stations with lots of platforms are even better than any of those. All of those trains heading off to everywhere. Trains and trains and trains. Europe is amazing at railways.
I love trains. That's pretty much why I'm here, travelling, I mean, instead of being a productive member of society. I wanted to sit on a lot of trains. Europe has the most fantastic network of high speed services. I have a timetable here for international trains from Brussels: in the next few hours, just to list a few options, I could take the TGV to Nice, the Benelux IC to Luxembourg or Amsterdam, the Thalys to Paris, or the ICE to Frankfurt. From each of those cities more lines spiderweb off in all directions. If you've got your visas sorted out, you can take trains from London to Tehran and beyond. How cool is that?
International railways feel positive and optimistic to me. It takes time and effort and cooperation (and a huge pile of money) to build them and, if you stop being friends with your neighbour, you can't just point them off in another direction. Wars happen and borders close and the tracks sit there, getting grassy, waiting for people to get over themselves and reconnect. Just think about that! The conflict fizzles out and the engineering is ready to go again. Cooperation and trade and unity, all symbolised by parallel lines running off into the distance. Wonderful!
I do realise how cheesmongery this sounds, but I can't help it. I get pretty excited about railways :-) And individual trains, for that matter. My favourite days on this trip have been sitting by the window watching the countryside go by, reading for a bit, maybe talking with other passengers, just sort of logging out of the real world and into the train world, and getting such a kick out of the parts of the journey when the train is going around a curve and you can see it out of its own window. That just about makes my day.
I'm about to get on the Eurostar to London. This time tomorrow I'll be on the Dublin ferry, and then off to Galway on the last train of my trip. I'm looking forward to seeing you, Ireland-people!

On the Rail. Way. To. The. Euro zone.

(Joel says that isn't as hilarious as I think it is.)

Right now I have fourteen currencies in my bag, including a Sri Lankan two rupee coin, an inch thick wodge of Uzbek som and some goaty Mongolian tögrög worth $120. If asked at some border to declare the money I'm carrying, I think I would lie.

But no new currencies for me for a while, because it's eurotime! I'm writing this on the Spirit of Zurich, a lovely red Railjet train bound for Austria. This wasn't in the plan, but I suddenly realised I could have breakfast in Vienna tomorrow morning and there was no good reason not to. I'll get an early train from there to Munich so I'll have daylight for looking out the window: the internet says that it's a scenic part of the country. That said, the only part of Germany I've ever been in is Frankfurt. Let's just say that the bar is low :->

We had fun in Budapest. It's a peaceful place to walk around and look at things, and it's insanely beautiful at night. The wind was too cold for us to work up enthusiasm for the baths, but we saw the synagogue and the cathedral and the castle and Buda's old town and some bridges and a Christmas market. That actually sounds much more productive than we were: mostly we just sat around and ate things. It was pretty great. More of that kind of thing.

Budapest is funny because it starts off so hostile. You get off the train in a station that has few signs and no ATMs. Guards stand blocking the doorway for no obvious reason. You leave the station and go down the street to find an ATM between a gambling hall and a sex shop. Then you walk along a building site until you notice steps leading down to the unmarked metro station. There's a woman selling orange paper tickets at an unofficial looking desk near the top of the stairs. When you see a more traditional ticket booth inside the station, you wonder whether you just bought a black market metro ticket or maybe entered a raffle. On the platform, there's no subway map and no list of stops for the line. Many of the other stations have both, but I guess they want visitors to prove their worth.

I mean, obviously it's saner than the MTA -- the one time I took a bus from Montreal to New York, the gate from the bus station to the subway was locked and I had to find my way out to the sketchy, poorly lit street, cross over, then navigate through a party of winos to get to the A train. Where there were rats on the platform. Welcome to America, Canadians! -- but that's New York for you, bless its grubby, surly heart. We expect better from you, Hungary! Be more Central European! Aw, ok, or give us more of that bean soup and we'll call it good.

Btw, I feel like I must know someone who lives near Munich. If that's you and you'd like to have dinner, please drop me a line.

On the Bosfor Express

The restaurant at Istanbul's international train station is called the Orient Express. I found myself humming "I would have liked to know you, but I was just a kid", wishing for the romance and adventure of the Paris-Istanbul train. Aw, even by the time Paul Theroux did it in 1975, it wasn't too exciting any more, but the legend is good enough to withstand any kind of reality check. RIP, Orient Express, 1883-2009.

By the way, Theroux's short story, Misery on the Orient Express is great fun and I thoroughly recommend it: http://m.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/75jul/misery.htm It's expanded in his travelogue, the Great Railway Bazaar. I'm only half way through that and I recommend it too, but the short story is magic.

The Bosfor Express goes to Bucharest. Joel and I are on it! Istanbul is one of the best places it's possible to be, and we were almost hoping the train would be booked out, but time is tight and it makes most sense to move on to Bucharest tonight and then Budapest the day after tomorrow. Joel will fly out from there, and I'll continue to Munich and then probably go home via Brussels rather than Paris because I don't know what Belgium looks like. Everyone is a monk or a politician, right? And the streets are paved with waffles?

We crammed a lot into three days in Istanbul. We took a boat to Asia and bought berries from a street vendor. We devoured pomegranate molasses and figs and a view of the city at a new-Turkish rooftop restaurant. We admired recreations of machines and winced at surgical implements at the Islamic Museum of Science. (Upstairs: astronomy, navigation, clocks, warfare, medicine. Downstairs: chemistry, mathematics, not sure what else because the museum closed.) We drank endless glasses of lovely tea. And of course we saw the Aya Sofia and several impressive mosques and the fantastic haunting Basilica Cistern, which would be one of my favourite things on the planet if only the other tourists would just stop chattering for ten minutes. Grr.

It would take a long time to be bored of Istanbul, and then you'd just be a few hours away from any number of other wonders, so it'd be hard to stay bored. Istanbul is great. We'll be back.

But for now we're in our own little compartment for two on this pleasantly rumbling train and it's about as good as it gets. The carriage was built in a time when wood panelling was the classiest of all possible decor, and it has a little wash basin and tons of storage space and tiny reading lights. We love it, but feel that we dressed inappropriately for the occasion: those hooks should have hats on them. We should probably be smoking. There is insufficient intrigue.

Look, seat61 has pictures of train compartments! Scroll down a wee bit to see the Bosfor:
http://www.seat61.com/Turkey.htm#What%20are%20the%20trains%20like

At Ankara Otogar

The bus from Trabzon blew a tire, so we had a bumpy journey and then a two hour delay. We also had an unscheduled stop at a petrol station because some idiot foreigner got food poisoning and needed private time. It was dramatic. But we made it in the end.

The good news is that I have a ticket to Istanbul, or actually to somewhere called Bayrampasa, which probably means Istanbul. With luck, no unscheduled stops this time, but I'm not going to risk eating anything for a while.

Stranded in Trabzon

I'm still on the Black Sea, this time in Turkey. Trabzon is probably an ok city, but tourists mostly come here to change buses. It's the easiest stop between Georgia and Istanbul.

Except, wow, it turns out that every seat on every bus to Istanbul is booked out for the next _three days_. I managed to get the very last ticket to Ankara instead, leaving tomorrow night. It gets me closer at least!

Ankara is six hours by bus from Istanbul (if there are any seats left) and I get there around eight hours before Joel lands in Istanbul, so this can still work... *cue dramatic theme music*

In Georgia, trying to get "Georgia On My Mind" out of my mind

"A khachapuri please. What's the difference between Imeretian style and Megrelian style?" "Imeretian has cheese on the inside. Megrelian has cheese on the outside too". Wow. You have to admire a cuisine whose food options are "lots of cheese" or "seriously, tons of cheese".

I'm in Batumi, a port town on the Black Sea, just north of the Turkish border. The Stalin museum is sadly closed for the season, but I took a bus out of the town to see the Roman fortress at Gonio, then went to the beach and added the Black Sea to my short list of maritime firsts for this trip. (Also on the list: the Yellow Sea; the Pacific Ocean from this side. I could have added the Caspian too, but I decided against touching that. I don't know where it's been.)

I think a lot of people fall madly in love with Tbilisi on their first visit. That didn't happen to me. It's a nice looking (though kind of decrepit) town and I liked it plenty, but I was waiting for the magic that entices everyone and it never appeared. Maybe it's weather related. We had miserable sleeting snow, and power outages kept taking out the streetlights, so that didn't show the city at its best. It's probably more magical with dry socks.

I dutifully saw some churches and I  got a violent massage at the sulphur baths, but mostly I spent my two days in Tbilisi randomly getting into  conversations with strangers. That always happens a bit, but it was unusually constant in Tbilisi (maybe that's the magic, actually), and I had fun dialogues on subjects as diverse as Armenian politics, spoons, special relativity, nomadic dog ownership,  the Norwegian film industry and evangelical hitchhiking. The last was enlightening: I didn't know that being a Hitchhiker (as opposed to just hitchhiking) was a Thing, but apparently they have events and competitions. Behold:

http://hitchwiki.org/

Tomorrow I guess I'm going to Turkey somewhere, but I don't have anything approaching a plan. Three sleeps until I meet Joel in Istanbul!

Leaving Baku

Wow, Baku is expensive. A manat is worth around the same as a euro, but it doesn't seem to go as far. I've made six separate withdrawals from ATMs in 48 hours. After Uzbekistan, everything costs a shocking amount of money. You want to charge me $3 for tea? You thief! Going back to New York will take some adjusting.

It felt like a month since I'd met a fluent English speaker, so last night I dragged the two Japanese kids from our hostel to the local Irish pub/restaurant, Finnegans. Jackpot! The oil industry means tons of expats working in construction, and we got talking with an Irish architect and a bunch of Liverpudlian builders, all apparently called Danny. "There's no building happening in Liverpool now", Danny told us, "and we heard there was lots of work in Azerbaijan.". "I bet I know what your first thought was", I said. (In chorus) "Where the hell is Azerbaijan?"

We went to hear a live band at a gay bar where my Japanese friends danced and I got all the English conversation I could wish for. I can survive another week of talking to myself now. And I got a cultural experience to boot: a gay bar in a Muslim country is a new one for me.

Yesterday I just walked around a lot, enjoying the difference between the old town and the rapidly developing new city. There's a great promenade along the water, very striking in cloudy weather when the (oily) water, the seagulls and the distant smoky ships are all starkly black and white.

The old town here is quite lovely and well preserved. Wooden balconies covered in flowers hang over busy flagstones streets. It's a good place to stroll. On Thursday I had dinner in the old town with people from the hostel, one Japanese and one Turkish. We went to a caravanserei -- a sort of old travellers' inn with little stone rooms around a courtyard -- which is now converted into a good restaurant. Carpets and kilims covered the walls, and the rooms were lit by little gas fires and candlelight. A band played Azeri music, which sounded great to me but infuriated the Turk: he ranted (at great length) about how the Azeris are exceptional poets and musicians and how the tourist-quality music wasn't acceptable to his ears. Apparently the Azerbaijan Philharmonic is incredible, if you're in the neighborhood.

Today I visited the Shirvanshah's palace, a surprisingly big complex of mosques, mausoleums, galleries, etc, connected together with steep stone stairs. I played with some cats and sat in the plaza watching people go by. It was relaxed and easy.

And I drank a lot of tea. There's good chai in these parts.

In summary, Baku is a pleasant place to be. As the capital city, it's probably not at all representative of Azerbaijan, and I'm curious now about what Azeri people are like. I won't find out on this trip though. To Georgia!

In Baku

Aw, I take it back. Baku seems rather nice. I auditioned the city on the walk to the train station, and concluded that I should stay for a second night. Besides, who knows when I'll have a reason to be in Azerbaijan again.

Azeri appears to be Turkish with a French accent. Who knew?

Killing time in Tashkent

I've sorted out my next visa, collected my next ticket, and handed off a load of laundry, and now there's nothing to do but sit in a cafe and read the paper. You could argue that Tashkent has attractions, buildings, statues, etc, that any worthwhile visitor would go look at, but after Bukhara and Samarkand I have monument fatigue. I have seen enough wonderful blue tiled buildings with beautiful domes, thank you. I'll just sit here with my coffee and cake.

Pictures are at http://whereistanya.smugmug.com/Uzbekistan/ if you'd like monument fatigue too.

Tomorrow I'm going to Baku, capital of Azerbaijan. From my brief reading about Azerbaijan, it seems that this is one of those places that have suffered horribly from finding oil and having sudden wealth: their environment's fouled up, their hotels cost a fortune, but somehow the average person is still broke. The Lonely Planet's suggested three day itinerary includes places that it later describes as "spirit crushing","mesmerising ugliness", "infamous pollution", "a nightmare vision of leaky small-scale oil detritus and rusting old boats". (I know at least two people reading this are buying plane tickets already).

I do enjoy horrific decay as much as the next person, but this, the book reckons, is the very best the country has to offer if you only have three days. If you visit for a whole week, who knows what kind of oily adventures you get to have. Poor Azerbaijan.

[Side note: six months ago, Tanya's knowledge of Azerbaijan was: 1) beside Armenia, right? 2) probably has a complicated relationship with Russia 3) um...? Since then, she has skimmed a pdf version of an out of date travel guide to the country. There is a reasonable possibility that she has no idea whatsoever what she's talking about. Azerbaijan might be perfectly charming. Also, Baku's old town has UNESCO world heritage status, so it does have some nice things and stop being mean.]

Anyway, I'm flying to Baku tomorrow afternoon. I've got nine days to get from there to Istanbul, so I won't be there long enough to see much of anything, nightmarish or otherwise.

Having to fly is disappointing, because I'd hoped to go by land, but without a Russian visa the options were
- wait three weeks for a Turkmenistan visa that's 50% likely to be rejected for no reason, or
- go back through the border crossing of doom, spend 84 hours on a train across Kazakhstan, then wait around until a cargo ship is crossing the Caspian sea. Since they'd like me to be back in the office at some point[1], Tashkent airport, here I come.

[1] Probably. It's likely that I've been automated by now.

Freezing my fingers off in Samarkand

Brrr. Winter arrived. Joel's bringing my winter coat when we meet in Istanbul in a couple of weeks, so I'm trying to survive without buying a coat until then. I'm up to five layers.

Alain de Botton says this: "A danger of travel is that we may see things at the wrong time, before we have had an opportunity to build up the necessary receptivity so that new information is as useless and fugitive as necklace beads without a connecting chain". In other words, "Ok, this monument was built in the Shaybanid dynasty? So what? Why do I care?". I was kind of braced for this feeling in Bukhara and Samarkand. I tried to read some background information and quickly build an understanding of 14th-16th century central Asian and Islamic architecture, but my eyes kept glazing over. It takes some time before it's interesting and you start to care.

Luckily, Samarkand and Bukhara are magnificent. Even if you can't remember the difference between an emir and a khan, you can stand there with your jaw dropped at how big everything is, how striking the blue tiles are, and what a great job the restorers have done.

The Registan is the obvious attraction here, and it is indeed awe-inspiring. It's impressive that Ulugbek's madrassa, built in the 1400s, has withstood earthquakes and chaos better than anything built since. It's good to have a nerd running the country. Today I also saw the tomb of the prophet Daniel from the Old Testament (probably; there's a contender in Iran). These were both great and fascinating things to see.

However, the thing I found most interesting in Samarkand, which isn't on any of the tourist maps, is a modern graveyard attached to the Shah-i-Zinda avenue of Mausoleums. Rather than just names and dates, the gravestones have lovely etched pictures of the deceased person. Maybe this is a common thing, but I haven't seen it before, and I spent an enjoyable hour guessing people's lives and personalities, looking for family resemblances and so on. After some internal debate, I decided that photographing gravestones is only disrespectful if anyone sees you who is likely to be offended (This is my philosophy on a lot of things) so I have a bunch of pictures of the people I liked the most. It was interesting: couples tended to match in attitude, some solemn, amused, friendly, thoughtful, etc, but usually matching.

Walking around here is still fraught with pestering, worse than in Tashkent. It feels like every second Uzbek who passes is all "Hello! Madame! Signora! Where are you from? What is your name?". It's a prelude to money changing, tour guiding, buying appalling junk, etc, so after a couple of days I started only responding to the kids. The problem is that the police do the same rigmarole, and it seems less wise to blank them. The ones around the Registan come up close and, after we've ascertained what everyone's name is and where everyone is from, whisper "Climb a minaret? Very cheap!". Grr. I don't object to paying a few quid to get a better view, but there's no way I'm lining their pockets to do it. And I'd rather not be in a tiny enclosed space with them. Taxi drivers are the other worst: they slow down and crawl along beside you in case maybe you remember that you did need a taxi after all. It's creepy at night.

On the other hand, yesterday I was kidnapped by a delightful middle class family of four who saw me reading my map under a streetlamp after getting out of a shared taxi from Bukhara (That's the problem with travelling in winter; you always get to new cities after dark) and decided that taking me to my hotel was their good samaritan duty. I promise I don't usually get into cars with insistent randomers, but the 17 year old pharmacology student, her baby sister and their mum and dad were the least threatening people you can imagine. And they did indeed get me to my hotel :-)

One day each is enough in both Bukhara and Samarkand (or two if you cleverly visit a city of mosques when they're all in use on a Friday and you can't come in). It's easy to travel between them and Tashkent, the other point of the triangle that tourists usually see. Actually, Uzbekistan would make a good one week holiday, if you're looking for a place to go. Let me know and I'll tell you all about it. Madame! Signora! Where are you from? I give you good advice for Uzbekistan!

In Tashkent

Hello! This is a very quick post to say that I'm in Uzbekistan. The border control to get here was hell,  probably the worst two hours I've ever spent doing anything. I'll tell you something: I care about my carbon footprint and I will always choose a twelve hour bus journey over a one hour flight, but if I need to cross the 134km between Shymkent and Tashkent again, I will fly.

Tashkent is good. I like it so far. It's not like Almaty though, where people leave you alone and let you get on with things. This is a pestering city. Everyone wants to say hello or help you find your way, and everyone official wants to see your passport. I presented mine to six different people before noon today. Three of them photocopied it.

Money is hilarious here. The first thing I did when I arrived was change $20 into 46000 Uzbek som. The official rate is much worse than that, but everyone changes money on the black market. You find a dude in the market with a bin bag full of money, and they give you a bundle of cash. It's the unofficially official way to do it, so they're mostly honest too.

The other weird thing: the biggest note is 1000 som ($0.43). I haven't even seen one of those yet, it's all been 500 som notes. $20 becomes 96 bits of paper. It takes two pockets to hold it all.

Tashkent has a metro with stations that are absolutely beautiful, but you're not allowed photograph them.
 
In other news, I've uploaded pictures of kokpar. Look, I'm not making it up!

http://whereistanya.smugmug.com/Kazakhstan/Kokpar/ (Millions of pictures, sorry, but I've got six minutes left online and don't have time to cull them.)

Watching sports in South Kazakhstan

It was Sunday so the guesthouse owner asked if anyone would like to see the Kazakh national sport, kokpar, being played. Of course we would! We drove in his Lada to an enormous field where Shymkent and Tulkibas were warming up their horses.

Kokpar is kind of like rugby, but played on horseback by entire villages of men who claim to be descended from Genghis Khan. Riders fight to grab the ball out of the scrum and then use a combination of violence and ingenuity to get it across the opposing team's line. There isn't a limit on the number of players. I'd say there were around 120 on Sunday.

Also, the ball is a dead goat.

Kokpar is played in teams, and they do keep score, but really it's a game of individual glory. Here's how it works: The commentator (in a little makeshift box with a couple of local bigwigs) announces what the prize for the next goat is, and who sponsored it. There's some milling around as people decide whether they're in. Two men haul the goat into the centre. Some signal is given, and suddenly the mass of horses is spinning like a tornado. Clods of turf spray the spectators, who, I should mention, are standing around the action, not safely off in stands or anything. They scatter as the horde lurches towards them. Whips fly and the horses, enraged, exhausted and steaming, are yanked in one direction after another. I can't overstate this: it is madness.

In the middle of this storm, players hang off their horses between all those thundering hooves and try to grab the ball by a hind leg. The goat is heavy -- it takes two arms to hold it -- so when someone's successful, a friend grabs his reins. The two of them wheel around and gallop off at ferocious speed for the other team's goal line, pursued/attacked by the entire pack.

The game is fast. It's hard to keep your eye on the goat. Directions change abruptly and, if you're a spectator, you spend a lot of the game running for your life or diving under the horse trailers they've set up to give the kids a better view. There's no out of bounds: the field is enormous and the horde can end up behind the commentator box, among parked cars, or out of sight in the distance where nobody can see what's going on.

Eventually a goal is scored. The scorer gets this round's prize, usually cash, but I saw some carpets and things too. The team gets a point. The ball is checked for structural integrity and either goes in for another round or finds its way to someone's car boot for dinner.

Some riders swap horses, or take a rest and give someone else a go. (The horses don't get this option). A champion might sit out the rounds with low prize money to let less experienced players have a chance to win. Spectators meet their friends, shake hands, smoke continuously, spit sesame seeds. Young boys talk together in encyclopedic detail about players and previous games; older ones shove and play-wrestle. The commentator announces the next prize. Horses and riders get into position. A couple of guys bring out the goat. Game on.

So that's kokpar. I was hesitant about barging in on an activity that is really not for women -- someone told me that not even any of the horses are female -- but our guesthouse guy said it was fine. Foreigners don't really count as women. Nobody seemed to mind, anyway. Fathers dragged their kids in front of me, nudging them all "You learn english in school. Let me see you talk english!". Teenagers used my little Russian phrase book in reverse, reading out sentences in english and laughing at each other. There's an "Encounters" page for asking someone on a date, and of course they found it. "Can I buy you a drink heeeheeheehee?" The commentator did a whole bit where the word "Irlanda" was mentioned a few times. I'm a celebrity!

I've got a ton of pictures, so I hope there's fast internet somewhere in Tashkent. I'm going to find someone here in Shymkent who can sell me lunch and then I'm off to the Uzbek border.

Off to Aksu-Zhabagly Nature Reserve

Aksu-Zhabagly is fun to say. Aksu-Zhabagly! I may even be pronouncing it correctly, but I don't think it's very likely. Aksu-Zhabagly! Ten points for Griffindor!

My train ticket is actually for Shymkent, near the Uzbek border, but once I started reading about the city, the surrounding countryside seemed much more interesting. I'm arranging to get picked up by some people from a guesthouse in a village in the nature reserve. They do ecotourism, which, honestly, I'm not really sure what that is, but it looks like I give them some money and they give me a place to sleep and a couple of tours to places that are difficult to get to without a car. It works for me.

Almaty's been a good place to rest and get used to this part of the world. I have eaten a lot of plov, a lot of kebabs and and a lot of what I call "street-meat surprise": you point at the pie you want and later you find out what's in it. Greasy mutton is the most popular choice, but sometimes it's potatoes. I also tried horsemeat sausages but they weren't very good. I managed to pull together enough Russian to say "please, what is good for breakfast in Kazakhstan?" and the woman in the cafe laughed at me in a nice way and gave me some blini, which are pancakes which come with sour cream. It's all a bit stodgy, but it's good stodge.

I spent a very pleasant morning at the Arasan baths, where you move between Turkish, Finnish and Russian steam rooms, "refreshing" yourself in between by pulling a rope that dumps a bucket of freezing water on your head. Wowee. The Russian rooms were painfully hot, which was interesting, but not as interesting as the  lobster-red Russian women beating themselves with birch leaves. Apparently it's good for your circulation. (I'm not commenting on whether I tried it.). The bathhouse itself is spectacular; when you swim in the pool, it's under a huge dome.

Almaty looks a bit like this, but with more trees: http://whereistanya.smugmug.com/Kazakhstan/Almaty/

Spending the day at the Uzbek embassy

This city has one coffee shop with free wifi. It's at least a mile from my hotel, but somehow I keep ending up here, heh. I do like the internet. And coffee, of course.

Everything I've read about the Uzbek embassy tells me that I'm not going to enjoy today. If it's unusually quiet and I'm enough of a bully, I might get away with only queuing (outside in the rain, obviously) from 1pm to 4pm. A couple of hours later is more likely though, and then they'll try to find some reason to say come back in a week. They like to discourage people from casually coming to spend money in their country. These ancient cities had better be worth it.[1]

So, a fun and exciting day ahead. I'm fortifying myself with cake for second-breakfast.

[1] People I've met who've been there say they mostly aren't, but you can't really come to Almaty and not make a best effort to see Samarkand.

In Almaty

Almaty is covered in trees, like they built a park first and then decided to run some streets through it. There are tons of parks too, but it's often not clear where the park ends and the city streets begin. Autumn looks beautiful here. All of the trees are changing colour and everywhere you look there are yellow leaves falling constantly. I saw a few wheelbarrows and people raking, but mostly there are just streets and streets of crunchy yellow leaves. It's brilliant. Yesterday also had that lovely sun you sometimes get in early Autumn where everyone's face is glowing and everything looks calm and seriously pretty. (Today is raining, which is less attractive.)

So far, being in Almaty is relaxing and easy. Nobody bothers you and nobody stares. It's a relief to not be interesting. There's very little English, but it's easy to make yourself understood here. When I try to say things in Russian, people figure out what I mean and speak slowly in response. Nobody looks at me like I just fell out of the sky, which is the default response in China when a foreigner makes mouth-sounds. It'll probably be different outside the big city, but Almaty at least is much, much easier to be in than China.

I will eventually go look at the things tourists are supposed to look at here, but so far I've just been walking around and dealing with bureaucratic nonsense. Kazakhstan is, by all accounts, the sanest country in the region, but one of their odd ex-Soviet habits is that all visitors have to register with the migration police. When you eventually find the building and the right counter and fight your way to the front of the line, they give you two forms to fill out. These are only available in Russian, which is tricky. A woman in a nearby shop did them for me and refused payment. The kindness of strangers, eh? It never lets you down :-)

In Urumqi

It's pronounced "uh-rum-oo-chi". You wouldn't guess, would you?

Urumqi is 3000km from Chengdu. That's actually a pretty long journey to spend in a tiny room with two people (a middle manager and a fashion designer, if I had to guess) who share no languages with you. Once you've covered "hello" and what your names are, there aren't many conversations you can have. The hours did not fly by.

Comic relief came in the form of a coin collecting member of the kitchen staff who called in at intervals to geek out over the euro and raid my collection of foreign coins. He didn't speak english either, but he didn't let that stop him hanging out in our room and telling me lots of things I didn't understand.  It passed the time and I got free meals any time he was pushing the food trolley, so it was all good.

Other than that, I divided the time between reading, sleeping and taking a crash course in tourist Russian. ("Is this the bank?" "No, it is the theatre". "Is the train station far away?" "Yes." See? I'm sorted.)

The views out the window were pretty great. Hours and hours of sandy desert with proper sand dunes. Spiky grey snowcapped mountains in the distance. Signs in this province include Uighur, which uses the Arabic script, so I can read at last. Alphabets! They're going to be huge! Of course Uighur is yet another language that I don't speak any of, but I have a bit of Arabic and that's enough to read place names and feel like a functioning human again.

Leaving Chengdu

Chengdu is great, by the way. It's an easy place to spend time. Clean, safe, modern streets. Brand new subway. Fast internet. Probably the best hostels in the country. It's famous for its super-spicy Sichuan cuisine (I'm eating a hotpot as I write this and smoke is coming out my ears). It's near a panda reserve, the biggest Buddha in the world, and a particularly good holy mountain I've now failed to visit twice. Next time, Emei, I promise!

Chengdu takes very little energy and it's tempting to ditch my schedule and hang out for a few days. Very tempting. But onwards, upwards, chaoswards: I'm heading to the wild wild northwest. Urumqi!

My hostel in Urumqi doesn't seem to have internet. Or a ticket-booking desk. Or anyone who likes it. It has the worst reviews I've ever seen for a hostel... apart from the other hostels in Urumqi, which are much worse. Most reviews mention either mould or bad smells. Almost everyone comments on the ramshackle metal beds and the surly staff. One guy notes that he came out of the shower dirtier than he got in. It sounds so inviting! This may be a situation where I cut my losses and check into the Sheraton, but it's still worth buying a dorm bed for access to the hostel common room. Common rooms are where all the good information is.

I've a 49 hour train journey ahead of me. My train to here, the K146 from Kunming, was really nice, so I'm hoping that the smoke, crowds and blaring music on the train from Shanghai were all consequences of the holiday week. Not many people travel the week after the major holiday, so the Chengdu train was half empty and very calm. I got the bottom bunk. The guy opposite gave me a hard boiled egg. The views were good and I slept like a baby.

There's only one Chengdu-Urumqi train each day though and all of the hard sleeper (second class) seats were booked out for the next few days. I have to pay fifty quid extra for a "soft sleeper", a bunk in a comfy four-bed compartment with a door. I can probably live with that.

Kazakhstan very soon. Can I learn Russian in 49 hours?

Uploading photographs of Tiger Leaping Gorge in Chengdu

I'm at a fast computer with a mug of coffee, a modern browser and a proxy. After four days of everything interesting being blocked, the whole internet is available again! If someone could bring me a plate of cheese, I'd promise never to complain about China again.

Tiger Leaping Gorge was spectacular. The Lonely Planet was all "this is the hardest hike ever even for people who are really fit. You'll probably fall down and die, unless you're killed by bandits instead. We really don't recommend it" (I'm exaggerating. A bit.), so I almost didn't go, but of course it was completely wonderful, completely doable, completely safe. Stupid book. The first half day is all uphill, but there are only a couple of hours (the famous "28 bends" section) where you hate your life a bit. The altitude makes it a bit harder to get your breath back, but I took a lot of rests and it was mostly ok.

The various groups of us who kept passing each other out eventually made a party of eight and we reached the peak together. And stopped there, because the peak had a fantastic old woman who had set up a barricade and was charging hikers 8 yuan (somewhere between a dollar and a euro) to get to the best view. Very clever! A couple of guys in our party were inclined not to pay and there was an entertaining few minutes where she was waving a rock and shouting and they weren't sure what their options were. In the end they paid. She was half their height and she had two teeth and a rock. You'd have paid too.

The minority people who live around the gorge, the Naxi, are actually pretty enterprising about making money from hikers. Apart from the photograph extortion and good guesthouses dotted along the trail, there are old guys with mules offering a lift to the top and women selling fruit, water, chocolate and marijuana. The last of those grows in fields all over the gorge and is probably a pretty valuable cash crop. There are also little fields of corn anywhere they'll fit, and we saw occasional cattle and goats, pigs, geese, hens and (I don't know why) a monkey losing its mind in a small cage. It was not a good situation for the monkey and we were sad.

The second day was a pleasant, easy four hour stroll along a cliff edge. I'm looking at my photographs now and they don't even start to do it justice. It was so great :-) They've carved a little path into the cliff, maybe a couple of kilometres up, and you're walking along with a perfect clear view of the mountains from base to peak, tiny dots of other hikers on the path in the distance. It's absolutely stunning. From time to time you have to argue with mountain goats about who's going to pass on the outside, but other than that, the path is wide enough that it's never scary, just exciting. I mean, you could definitely die if you wanted to -- if you were looking at the trail through a camera, or walking along reading text messages on your phone, you would, no question about it, walk off the edge -- but so long as you pay attention, it's really not dangerous at all.

That said, I did start the first day by hilariously walking into a drainage ditch as I left the hostel and cutting open my shin. I'm calling this good luck: (a) it's useful to get a lesson about watching your feet when you're about to walk along a gorge, and (b) if I'm really lucky it'll scar and I can be vague about how I got my impressive Tiger Leaping Gorge injury.

Here are my pictures of Tiger Leaping Gorge. They are, to be honest, not as good as other pictures you'll find of Tiger Leaping Gorge, but these ones have me in them :-> http://whereistanya.smugmug.com/China/Tiger-Leaping-Gorge/

At Lijiang (and gorges it is)

Lijiang is a really lovely old town with little stone lanes and lamps hanging everywhere. People at the last hostel were snotty about it in the way that backpackers often are about places tour buses go ("It's just not, you know, authentic any more. You should have seen it fifteen years ago..."), so I didn't expect much but wowee it's beautiful. I see why five million people cram in here every year.

We arrived after eleven last night and are leaving before nine, so that's everything I know about Lijiang for now. I'll be back in two days.

For now, it's Tiger Leaping Gorge day! I've teamed up with a friendly Vietnamese-Dutch bloke called Hoan and we're going to hike the gorge for the next two days.

And now I have nine minutes to eat scrambled eggs before the bus comes.

Keeping warm in Kunming

I like trains a lot, but it's hard to feel affection for the K79 from Shanghai to Kunming. There's not enough space to see much of the train anyway. Each carriage in hard sleeper class is a dormitory of around 48 tightly packed bunks. The middle and top bunks aren't tall enough to sit up in, so you spend a lot of time lying down or holding your breath in the narrow smoky corridors while you untangle your bones.

If you want a couple of moments alone, or a change of scenery, of course each carriage has a little bathroom. As is typical in this part of the world, this has a squat toilet, but it's embedded in a floor so disgusting that you want to immediately burn your shoes. Also, it's literally a hole in the floor. You can see the tracks going by beneath you.

Back in the compartments, loudspeakers keep you "entertained" with psychotically cheerful Chinese pop, folk and opera for sixteen hours a day. Sellers of food push trolleys along the corridors shouting out what they have. Babies, unhappy with the change in routine, take it in turns to freak out and wail. After 38 hours of this, you have to remind yourself that you're too mature to do the same.

Having a place to occasionally sit means making friends with the people in the bottom bunks. The bottom-bunkers near me didn't speak any English, but everyone speaks Small Child and they'd taken the precaution of bringing a three year old girl. We bonded over clapping games, small child antics  and crisps. (They were crisps that Small Child had dropped on the floor, but sometimes you have to risk germs in the name of international relations.) It was actually a pretty nice way to pass the time.

I still wasn't sorry to get to Kunming.

First impressions of Kunming: it's not a loud, smoky, packed train. I love it here!

Ok, second impressions of Kunming: we're in the countryside now. The population is a mere 1.1 million. People are friendlier, traffic is calmer, prices are sane. Taxi drivers don't try to scam you (as much). Restaurants sell Chinese food. There's no KFC on every corner. Also, it's getting cold. You can feel Autumn in the air for the first time here. Three layers weren't really enough today; I'll need to buy a coat.

Once I'd checked in and had an _epic_ shower, I went to see the Bamboo Temple, on a hill outside the town. It's a regular serene Buddhist temple, but what makes it spectacular is its collection of Arhat statues. These are 500 statues of noble blokes, all with different faces and expressions, some wise, some playful, some completely nuts. They're supposed to "perfectly represent human existence". Some of the states of human existence apparently include:

- "Hurray! A frog jumped on my arm!"
- "This single macadamia nut causes such sorrow in my heart."
- "Have you seen anything as fabulous as my legwarmers?"
- "WAAAAAAAGH, a dragon!!!"
- "My ear is itchy."
- "My earnestness is conveyed by my beard"
- "Is this REALLY a DOG???"

Even the ridiculous ones are so expressive and lifelike that it's a bit creepy to turn your back on them. It near killed me to obey the no photography sign.

Finding my way back from the Bamboo Temple was a two hour/three bus comedy of errors, but the hostel has put on a Clapton album and the common room is warm and contains big bowls of soup.

So, that's Kunming so far. It's awfully nice and you should visit soon. Please bring my winter coat when you do.

Leaving Shanghai

Happy National Day! Today is the start of one of the two Golden Weeks where the entire country closes up shop and gets out of town. There'll be fireworks in all of the big cities tonight. None for me though: I'll be on a train until the 3rd. Hotels and trains book out quickly at this time of year -- I'm leaving Shanghai two days later than planned because everything was gone -- but the hostel in Kunming has beds left, so I probably won't have to sleep in the forest. (It wouldn't be so bad: the bears are off visiting relatives in Chengdu.)

Shanghai's motto is Better City, Better Life. At the Urban Planning Exhibition Hall they set out their goals for making a Better City. It's good stuff: tons of green space, reclaiming polluted land, energy efficiency, public transportation, preserving historical buildings, making the place beautiful. They claim that they've already achieved a room-sized patch of green space per resident, and that they'd like to make it a house-sized amount instead. This seems ambitious to me, but it's true that it's a very green city. There are lovely big parks and public squares everywhere, and very many tiny ones too, squeezed in anywhere there's room. More often than not, the streets are tree-lined. You can usually find somewhere pleasant to sit. Good job, Shanghai Urban Planners.

Some author, Scott Adams maybe, once wrote about telling convincing lies to gullible people and seeing how far the story would travel. His example was "You know, they don't really eat Chinese food in China". In Shanghai, it's true! Sure, you can easily find noodles and dumplings and rice, but if you walk down a random street and eat at the first restaurant you pass, you'll be having Italian or Korean or Thai or hamburgers. It reminds me of my first evening in Kochi when Jonathan said "We're going to have what a Japanese family would traditionally eat on a Sunday evening. Indian food."

So Shanghai is beautiful, and its authorities put effort into making it a good place to live and it has good food and a cosmopolitan attitude and interesting people doing interesting things. The public transport is decent and the public spaces are filled with art. It's a fine city. I could not live here.

This is why: Shanghai is LOUD. It's really really loud. It is so freaking loud. Even the less busy streets are a cacophony of honking horns and screeching brakes and people bellowing over the sound of the traffic. The car's horn doesn't indicate that there's a problem here; it's just letting everyone else know where you are on the road. "HONNNNNNNK. I have a car!" "Parp! Parp! My scooter will overtake your car now!" "BEEEEEP! I'm riding my motorbike on the pavement!" "HONK! Still have a car!"

It's constant and it's piercing. Walking anywhere here gives me a headache and makes me crabby. I get irrationally furious about it all. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? I shout, not helping with the noise pollution (or the residents' opinions of the mental health of foreigners). If I was in charge, etc.

An Australian who had moved here told me that you do get used to it but that it takes a year or more.

So, Better City, Better Life, and it's a very good city indeed. But you'll want to bring earplugs.

In Shanghai

Picasa is completely blocked from here, so I've moved to Smugmug. If you're interested in pictures of Qingdao, http://whereistanya.smugmug.com/China has pictures of Qingdao.

Shanghai (or at least tourist-Shanghai) is phenomenal. Elegant buildings, elegant streets and oh-so-elegant passers-by. Skyscrapers wrapped in clouds shining out in blue and silver lights. You stand on the Bund and look across the river at Pudong, lit up at night like a classier Times Square, and it's like Coruscant or something. You know in a scifi movie where the more advanced life forms live in a glorious white city of spires and walkways and flying cars? That's what it's like. (The superintelligent aliens probably wouldn't block Picasa.)

I took the Maglev yesterday. One minute it's an unassuming brownish plasticy looking train with a wedge nose -- not at all like a bullet train -- and then suddenly it's leaning deeply into a turn at 431kmph and... yeah. Not too shabby. It runs for just eight minutes out to the airport, so you barely have time to appreciate it, but it's at least as cool as I'd expected and that was a high bar. I love that it makes "seriously I'm working quite hard here" noises when it gets fast. It's somehow less impressive when trains glide silently.

China is twelve hours ahead of New York. It's the same o clock. All of China uses Beijing time, which is a bit mental. Crossing the border to Kazakhstan you have to subtract two hours.

I'll be in/near Shanghai for another two days, and then I'm off to Kunming, capital of the Yunnan province. Kunming really isn't on the way to where I'm going, but I was in the mood for a long train journey and Yunnan is 38 hours away. No part of China is as highly/frequently recommended as the Yunnan province, except maybe Shanghai.

All good until I looked at timetables and realised it'll take at least three, maybe four, days to get back out of there and up to Urumqi, near the Kazakh border. Whoops. Well, my kindle is well stocked at least :-) We'll see whether I'm still in the mood for long train journeys once I get there.

Visiting Qingdao's main tourist attractions

(Well, not any more. In reality I'm failing to find words for how beautiful Shanghai is at night, but here's what I wrote yesterday before my hostel's flaky wireless fell over.)

Brewery tours can be pretty boring and the city's main museum is very boring indeed. "We've been making beer since 1905.", they say, and then they tell you in excruciating detail how they did it then and how they do it now. (Spoiler: it's the same way everyone else makes beer.) There are many rooms describing the history of the Tsingtao company and its Corporate Strategies. "In nineteenmumble we moved from the Larger Then Stronger strategy to the Stronger Then Larger strategy.", they explain, clearly. "Here's a picture of the Board at that time. Later we had some Strategic Alliances with other companies. Recently we have adopted the Recycling Economy strategy because the environment is very important. Here's a diorama of a man in a hat looking thoughtfully at some barley." I barely got out alive.

No, ok, I stayed for half an hour watching the packing production line at the end with real fascination. It's _almost_ worth going to the factory to see at how cleverly they move bottles around and into boxes. Other than that the best I can say is that it's less pretentious than the Guinness Storehouse. But most things are.

In the afternoon I saw the rather nice Tianhou Temple, devoted to a Goddess of the Sea. She's got incense burning on every flat surface and she's accompanied by threatening guardians, a friendly metal dragon who was shiny from being petted and a shrine to the God of Wealth that collected a continual stream of coins. It's a clever setup: the shrine has a small hole that you can throw coins through if you have good aim, so people keep trying.

After that, I climbed up the hill to see the Christian church, built by the Germans in 1908. It had fewer fierce statues and no dragons at all, but the clock tower was lovely.

Last thing for the day was to walk down Huangdao Road, a nighttime food market warm with orange lights and filled with all sorts of aromatic, sizzling (and sometimes wriggling) things to eat. There are hens pecking around underfoot, tanks of assorted shellfish waving claws or fronds or feelers, slabs of dangerous-looking meat on hooks, and sinister quivering objects that you're not really sure what they are. I bought three types of pancakes (all excellent) and a bowl of very spicy potatoes and beans and peanuts, then brought them back to the hostel to fill my belly. A contented evening.

Typing with my thumbs in Qingdao

For the comfort and safety of its citizens, China blocks Blogger (which is where this blog is hosted) and parts of Picasa (which is where I keep my pictures). It looks like they may have missed the mobile interface to Blogger though, so I'm writing this on my phone and we'll see if it goes through.

While I typed the last paragraph, I've collected three mosquito bites on my hands. They really don't want people to blog here :-P

Mosquitoes aside, I'm enjoying  Qingdao well enough. It's not a madly exciting place, but it works well if all you want to do is pass through immigration, book an onward ticket and eat some noodles. The ferry here was excellent too.

This town was built by Germans. It's funny to see European-style buildings everywhere and restaurants with German names. It's also why this town started producing one of China's most famous exports: Tsingtao beer.

I've got one more day here before I move on to Shanghai. Shanghai! I'm already geeking out about the maglev.

Off to China

She's got a ticket to ride... well, to sail. Assuming ferry, immigration, customs and finding the hostel all go well, I'll be back online from China around this time tomorrow.

I'm getting prepared for a less law-abiding society by deploying the horrible traveller money belt. I hate these things, but I hate pickpockets even more. I've also caved and bought the lonely planet book ($40!!! And it weighs a ton. You'd definitely know you had it in your backpack.) so I'll be able to point at place names in Chinese.

Byebye, South Korea. Your old men spat on the streets more than I was comfortable with and you tried to kill me that one time, but I liked you a lot otherwise! Thanks for all the food <3

Recovering from Jirisan in Seoul

One more post while I have wifi (and it got pretty long, sorry) to share pictures of what I spent the last three days doing. Jirisan was a big deal for me because it was my first proper solo hike, as well as the longest and most difficult trail I've done so far and my first time hiking at night. (In case this sounds insane, I'll add that I chose very busy, popular trails and went at the weekend). It was also the first time I turned up in a village looking for a homestay, which I was a bit nervous about, but which turned out to be fine.

I did my research, reading about various trails online, spending half a day scouring Busan for a trail map (and another evening translating it into English) and learning the basics of reading Korean characters so I could verify my path by reading trail and village names on signs. I had my trusty compass, raincoat, water purification equipment, spare socks, plenty of food and a few bars of chocolate. It was on.

The first day and a half were brilliant. I easily found a homestay and a gigantic hot meal. I clambered on ropes across a river and successfully translated Korean words on signs. I felt pretty clever, I have to tell you :-) It got steep, and sometimes the trail was hard to find, but it was all under control. And then it started to get misty and the mist turned to rain. I began to find that slogging up the horrible bits wasn't nearly as much fun without my hiking friends there to share the pain. The rain meant there was no reward: every view was like standing inside a cloud. Without someone else to say "Wow, we're seriously supposed to go up _that_?", it was hard to get enthusiastic about the climbs. Near the end of the day I just wanted to be out of the rain so I didn't stop to eat when I got hungry. (Tip: this is stupid.)

The penultimate peak, Jungbong, was a great celebration. I had it to myself for a few minutes and I stood in the white mist, arms in the air, declaring the third highest peak in South Korea to be mine. From there, it was a hard but triumphant 45 minutes up to Jirisan's 1915m peak, Cheonwangbong. And it was _rubbish_. The top was crowded with a group of noisy people, all very comfortable with the height, leaning back off the ridge to take photographs, trusting their hiking boots and poles. They bustled and shoved and barged into each other at the edge of this sheer mountain top and I, without mountaineering in my blood and with low blood sugar, was suddenly really scared that they'd knock me off the edge. I inched back down to flatter ground and sat and ate chocolate until I  was un-scared again. Lesson learned.

After that, the hour scrambling downhill to the shelter in rain, cold and no visibility was horrible and being the only person at the shelter without a stove or a circle of friends was miserable too. In New York I'd have been fine with mooching a mug of hot water for tea off a stranger, but I didn't have the energy to conquer the language barrier. It was all a bit sad and lonely on Sunday evening, so I wrapped up in my blanket in my corner of the cosy (and heated!) shelter and went asleep. Sleep is usually a good remedy for things.

Since I'd never really hiked at night before, and since the day before had ended so badly, I wasn't sure I wanted to take out my headlamp and join the group climbing back up to the same peak at 5am. I was awake anyway though so I ate a huge breakfast and decided to tag along and bow out if it got at all scary. This turned out to be a great call: I ended up in the middle of the pack, which meant help and encouragement for the rough bits,  hearing other people wheezing around me, and feeling like I was part of things. Before I knew it, it was brilliant again.

We got up there just after dawn to shouts of welcome from two guys who'd arrived just before us. One of them saw that there was a non-Korean and shouted "Welcome to Jiri Mountain!". I felt personally welcomed :-) They gathered the ten or so of us into a circle and shared a bottle of soju. The first glass, with much bowing, laughter, thanks, applause and great ceremony, was given to the mountain itself, then they filled a glass for everyone else.

In great spirits (and warmed by great spirits), we set off in various directions down the mountain. I was going to the same place as two young guys, Han and Jon, and we trudged downhill at a solid pace for the next six hours, declaring "Very easy!" after every horrible slope and  chanting "bus bus bus bus bus bus" to try to convince the bus terminal to move up the mountain to meet us. (It didn't work). Han spoke a bit of English and Jon didn't and we had good conversations anyway.

Overall, it was a good experience and a learning experience and, if my knees ever recover, I would like to hike in Korean mountains again. I'm in bits today though. I couldn't get out of bed the first couple of times I tried and I stayed in Busan for an extra half day until I was sure I could manage the subway stairs. Every time I stand up or sit down it's with an oof of pain. All of that downhill is rough on the joints.

Finally, I should mention that when Tiarnan was heading off to hike the Appalachian Trail and I was looking at visiting random dictatorships, I joked that he'd probably get kidnapped by militants and I'd get eaten by bears. The very first sign I saw on Jirisan? "Asian bear. Carnivorous" with a lot more text in Korean. So that was reassuring. (I'm pleased to report that Tiarnan got  home safe and unkidnapped from the forest and that I have not yet been eaten by a bear.)

In a Vietnamese soup shop in Seoul

At home I try to eat sustainably. When travelling I just try to eat. "Huh, I wonder what I just ordered... kitten noodle soup? Well, that's a shame. Pass the soy sauce."

Food's interesting because it's such a huge part of our lives and it's so easy to get wrong. For example, lots of Japanese and especially Korean food comes in a bunch of little bowls. Sometimes it's for mixing together, sometimes it isn't. You just have to know. Similarly, you just have to know whether you're supposed to eat with your hands or a fork, whether something is a condiment or an integral part of the dish, whether there's a big chunk of wasabi, chili or raw garlic sitting right there that you probably don't want to eat in one bite. And then, is it ok to slurp from the bowl? Can you double-dip? Can you ask for it without meat? With chips?

There's a good chance that you're doing something culturally weird, like ordering porridge for dinner or soup for breakfast. Or something disgusting, like tearing bread with your left hand in a country where the left hand is unclean. At any moment you're probably being rude, ridiculous or gross and people might not tell you. So it goes.

Lots of types of Japanese restaurant bring you food and a hot plate or stewpot and leave you to it. Wait, come back! I don't have basic life skills here. How do you do okonomiyaki again?

People tend to not get offended if you eat food wrong (probably apart from the poo-hand situation), because you're just an idiot foreigner who doesn't know how to behave. If you're polite and friendly, you can get away with it being part of your idiot foreigner charm and people are lovely about sitting down and showing you how to debone a fish or whatever. You really can cause offense through ignorance in other ways though. Tipping, for example. Tipping is the worst. Over here you don't do it at all (hurray!) but on the first day of my very first ever trip, I had a room go quiet when a restaurant owner held out the (very small) change and I picked up the coins from his palm. It was a keep the change sort of place, and you're supposed to know that. Try not tipping for drinks in the US and see how quickly you get served next time. Tipping is hard. They should hand out informational leaflets at airports.

The big thing you can do wrong here is put your feet in the wrong place. Shoes off at the door, slippers in the house, bathroom shoes in the bathroom. No slippers on tatami floors. Undoubtedly other rules that I don't know and have broken fifty times. At the hostel today I hovered outside until the guy came out to see why I wasn't coming in. "Should I take off my shoes?" "No, of course not! Shoes are ok here." Huh. It's all part of the mystery of travel, I guess.

On the internet

Photos for the US and Japan.

whereistanya 2011: USA

whereistanya 2011: Japan

Enjoying Busan

I spent a day at Busan's important temple last time I was here, and I'be had plenty of seasides recently, so Busan's main attractions haven't been too attractive. Instead I've just walked around in the unreasonably hot sun and looked at things. I like this place a lot.

Busan has a lot of the rough and ready feeling that you often get with port towns, but it's also the second largest city in South Korea. Four million people live here. "Dynamic Busan", all the municipal posters say, and that's exactly how it is: this city is going places and is taking the direct route there. Go with it or you'll be barged into, backed over, or knocked flat by a commuter or a shopper or a motorbike speeding along on the pavement. Everything's moving.

It's vibrant. Shops, signs, ads, buildings, street art, ipod-wielding students... anything that can be vivid is. In the evenings love hotels shine out in neon stars and flowers. Sculpture parks and shopping streets display more public art than I've seen anywhere before, very modern, often interactive: a metal man on a bench posing for a photo with you, a woman with arms outstretched for a hug, reed-like structures that sway in the wind, seagulls and flowers near the beach, a cheerful hippo for no obvious reason, lots of lights and fun and things to touch. It's happy,  unselfconscious art.

There are cafes everywhere. If you thought East Asia was all about tea, ten minutes in Busan would prove otherwise. This is a coffee city. Pop music and jazz pours out of thousands of cafes and bars. There's Americana everywhere too: shirts with college sports teams, distressed leather with wild west slogans, hamburger chains with American-themed names, tons of American references everywhere you look.

I found myself in a department store that was indistinguishable from any department store in the US. Same brands, same prices. I considered picking up some hiking gear but could only find the same high end shops you'd find in any Western city, stuff that's well outside my backpacker budget. Busan's cheaper than Japan, particularly in street markets and the like, but there's still plenty of money sloshing around.

I'm heading up to Jirisan Mountain tomorrow for a few days hiking. I initially thought the peaks were only a little more strenuous than the hills we climb in upstate New York, but then I remembered that New York measures in feet. Ah. It does explain the hundred year old Korean women who regularly sprint past us on hikes in NY though. This place gives you plenty of practice.

Eating eggs in a hostel kitchen in Busan

Apologies to the people on gplus because I've already talked about this at length there, but here's a post about my itinerary.

The spreadsheet I used to plan this trip is complex and detailed, with multiple routes, notes, reminders of visa validity and colour-coded alternatives and contingency plans.  One thing it didn't cover though is what would happen if I didn't get a Russian visa because, honestly, it just didn't seem very likely. I'd pick it up in Tokyo or, absolute worst case, I'd make a visa run to Hong Kong which never says no.

So, anyway, I don't have a Russian visa. The embassy in Tokyo said no and apparently the Russian embassy in Hong Kong has just implemented a policy of no visas for non-residents. The Russians are adopting this policy across all of their Asian embassies. You can only get a visa in your resident country. "It is the rule!", the embassy guy in Tokyo said, so happy he almost smiled. "Is it possible to make an exception?" "It is the rule!" "Come on, it's a new rule and New York is very far away." "It is the rule!" "Do you have any other suggestions?" "It is.." "I get it." (With this sort of inflexibility I don't know how anyone ever gets bribed.)

I was initially despondent. I'm actually pretty ok at this logistical stuff -- give me a train timetable and a map of the world and I'm in my element --  but standing outside the embassy in Tokyo's stifling heat thinking of tickets to be cancelled, new visas to be chased and countries I could get to that might have more relaxed Russian embassy rules, I felt suddenly exhausted, out of my depth. "WHAT WILL I DO!?". A cafe right beside me, perhaps used to dejected rejects from the Russian embassy, had a huge sign. "Coffee First", it said. Good advice. A latte, a pint of water and some air conditioning later, I decided that Russia could get along fine without me. By the end of the second latte, I was excited again about whatever lay ahead. Adaptable like water, my travel brain is, so long as it has easy access to warm milk, espresso and a sit down. :-)

Not going to Russia unfortunately also means no Mongolia, since the most sensible path is to take the crazy night bus directly from China to Kazakhstan. A further complication: my China visa gives me thirty days from whenever I enter the country, but the Kazakh visa has a fixed date: I can't come in until October 16th. This means I have to be sure not to activate my Chinese visa until a few days after September 16th to make sure I don't find myself in a visaless nomansland and get fined and deported.

All this is leading up to saying that yesterday I took the ferry to South Korea to kill a week before moving on to China. A week of spectacular food and hiking wasn't in the original plan, but I think I can get used to it.

Visiting friends in Kochi City

We had a moon viewing party last night at Kochi castle. Yesterday was the day of the year when you view the moon, so we did. Jonathan explained that occasions like this (cherry blossom viewing is more famous example) provide an opportunity for a regulated and rather formal society like Japan to let its hair down. We went to a convenience store to get supplies and I asked J to explain what everything was and when it was appropriate to eat it: this is dried octopus; it`s a snack people have while watching movies; this is a rice ball; it`s good for travelling; this is like porridge; it`s a comfort food for when you`re sick. We bought a little bottle of sake (traditional for moon-viewing) and two bags of crisps (uh, not quite so traditional), ramen flavour and pizza potato flavour.

The top of the castle grounds was deserted, but a canopy had been raised: other moon viewers must have been there earlier. We sipped our sake and ate our crisps and watched the very yellow moon. A cicada attacked us. It`s been four years since Jonathan and I hung out last, also at Kochi City. We talked about old times and new times and getting older and how everyone we knew was doing and how metallic and unsettling cicadas can be and how sitting under the moon sharing sake would be a crime in Ireland and how different societies can be: when there`s effectively no violent crime, alcohol isn`t at all a cause for concern; Jonathan said that nobody would think anything of it if you picked up your kid from daycare while drinking a beer. It`s a whole other world.

The lack of crime is initially unbelievable, then wondrous. Jonathan`s wife, Hisa, had been bewildered in Dublin airport when he picked up all of their belongings -- laptop, wallets, camera -- and took them with him to the counter when they went for more coffee. Why not leave them there? Wait, why would someone take them? It must be horrible for Japanese people on first trips abroad. Compared to here, almost everywhere is violent, crime-riddled and, well, kind of savage. Rude as well. Nobody here is rude. Every interaction is friendly, enthusiastic and full-on engaged. Another data point: Japanese doesn`t have swear words, or at least none that anybody ever uses.

Aw, every society has advantages and disadvantages, but I`m really enjoying this right now. In one way it`ll be a relief to move on -- it is EXPENSIVE here and my newfound cake-for-breakfast habit isn`t helping my bank account -- but I kind of wish I could wander around Japan for a long time more. The lack of chaos, the lack of crime, the helpfulness of every single person... it`s like a massage for the brain. It`s very relaxing. But having my cares soothed away in Japan won`t get me closer to the Atlantic (though I am moving slowly, slowly westwards), so on I go. Busan tomorrow.

In Ito City on the Izu Peninsula

Man, I'm a comic genius. I must be because I'm not even trying to be funny but people have been laughing at me since I got to the Izu Peninsula. A nice family today nearly fell over laughing, then gave me directions, then laughed some more. It's weird, but not unpleasant, to be spreading this much joy just by existing.

Once the initial hilarity wears off, the most common question goes like this: there's a pause, intense  concentration and then words, slow and careful: "where are you from?". "Irelando", I say. The teenagers today on Mount Omuro weren't sure about that. (Actually probably nobody is, but the kids were willing to admit it). "U2", I said. Much discussion in Japanese. One drew the letter and number on his palm with his finger. Nodding and more discussion, then "U2 bando?" "Yes!" "... Enya?" "Yes, very good!" "Radiohead?" "No, that's England."

"We are Japanese", the Enya fan said, and I pretended to fall over in astonishment. (If they're going to find me funny anyway I may as well get the occasional joke in). Laughter all round and then it was time to take the chairlift back down the mountain.

This evening I sat on the third beach of this trip and put my feet in the Pacific. It's my first time seeing it from this side and it does seem to be calm and gentle and, well, pacific on the beach at Ito City. There's a tsunami warning on the lamppost outside. It's hard to imagine.

The hotel here, K's House, is part of a hostel chain, but one that wins awards for being exceptional at what they do. This hostel is a hundred year old registered wooden building with tatami rooms and sliding doors and both shared and private onsen baths. My room (a dorm of four futons, but I've had it to myself) is so peaceful that I dropped all plans for yesterday evening and just sat by the window listening to the frogs. This region is well worth a visit but, even if it wasn't, I'd recommend visiting this hotel.

On the Tokyo-Atami train

The Japanese Rail Pass doesn't cover the super-fast Nozomi service, but this Kodama local train is fast enough to keep me happy. The Shinkansen bullet train is a beautiful creature. We're zooming along. High speed trains are the best.

Tokyo is a great place to start a journey like this because it's a safe, modern city and it's easy enough to find your way around, but you're definitely not at home any more. Though, that said, Tokyo's actually a lot like a politer New York if New York had more public toilets and fewer tiny dogs: it's a centre of culture and business and retail with buckets of history, flagship stores, lost tourists from everywhere, busy but generally helpful locals,  walkable and bikeable streets, excellent public transport (once you figure it out) and all sorts of crazy neighborhoods and subcultures... well, ok, Tokyo wins hands down on that last one. Did you know that there's a subculture of people who dress like broken dolls? I swear. It's a new one on me. Anyway, in some ways a big city is a big city and Tokyo is like any of what I think of as the Great Cities, except you sometimes (often) have no clue whatsoever what's going on. And of course you don't know how to read.

I've been here before so I thought I'd probably take it easy and not run around too frantically this time, but boy was I mistaken. It's been three days of wall to wall activity: eating super-fresh sushi just off the boat at the biggest fish market in the world (wasted on me; I can't tell the difference), looking at delicate paintings at the Imperial Palace, petting the dog statue and being impressed at the elaborate style of every single person shopping at at Shibuya, watching the red evening sun from the Municipal Government Office Observatory, gawping at the crazy geek/fandom kids at Akihabara, causing the Wrong Coffee Incident of 2011 (you can't imagine the flurry of bowing, apologies, thank yous and running in circles, and that was just me), and stopping myself from buying the entire contents of Loft and the Studio Ghibli merchandise shop. My bag's less than 20lb and needs to stay that way.

There was also a bizarre incident involving a theme park, but that's a longer story that'll have to wait until later.

It's been busy, is what I'm saying, and it's also been too hot for this kind of headless-chicken activity. It'll be good to get to the Izu Peninsula and spend a couple of days hiking and sitting quietly and maybe even drinking some tea.

Pictures later when I'm more online.

On the other side of the Pacific

We only had half a day in Santa Monica but it was a good half day. Watching the sun set with your beloved is a classic for a reason.

The next morning we had a sad time at the airport, then Joel went to Seattle and I went to Tokyo. I realise this isn't news but, dudes, the Pacific is _really big_. It takes eleven hours to fly straight across it and, once you get there, you're in a timezone that's sixteen hours ahead of where you were. It's hard to be certain about what day it is.

It's 5am on whatever day it is and I've been wide awake for two hours. Travelling by land is gentler on the internal clock.

In downtown LA

LA's City Hall and LA Times buildings are pretty cool, but mostly we were entranced by the spectacular awfulness of the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center. It takes some self confidence to put up a building that ugly, especially right opposite your dignified city hall. Nice work, someone!

There weren't a lot of internet particles for the last few days. Here are a few cameraphone pictures from the train. I have to work out a strategy for getting pictures from my real camera to the internet.

On the Southwest Chief somewhere in California

I'd expected a lot from this train journey and it's more than delivered. I might be the only person on the train relishing the delays (one medical emergency, one car broken down on the tracks, two commuter trains that needed to overtake) and wishing the US was a day wider. It's lovely.

The best things so far: the stunning Hudson Valley. Crossing the mighty Mississippi. Realising how beautiful agriculture can be. A lightning storm as we crossed flat bits of Colorado.Northern New Mexico's red velvet cake soil. Sunrise over the Mojave desert. Being rocked to sleep to the thunk of the tracks. The cheeriness and goodwill of the staff, particularly the conductor from Chicago to Kansas City who gave us a commentary on all of the cities we passed. "And now it's marvellous Mendota, the Las Vegas of Illinois! Is Mendota your final destination? You can get out here if you enjoy Mendota's attractions, such as eating Del Monte tinned fruit! Well, that was Mendota. I miss it already".

Our roomette is teeny tiny, just big enough for a fold-down upper bunk, two comfy chairs that slide together to make the lower bunk, and two adults who _really_ like each other. It's close. There are a bunch of little bathrooms and a shower down the hall as well as an ice cold water dispenser that dispenses tepid water and a boiling water dispenser that actually contains tolerable coffee.

The upper bunk has no outside view so we've been living on the lower one, reading, playing Carcassonne, doing NYT crosswords, taking frequent naps (Joel), eating all of the fig rolls (Tanya) and looking out the window for hours at the country going by.

It's super relaxing. I would do this again in a heartbeat.

At Coney Island on Day Zero

Hello Atlantic ocean! I hope to see you again in three months.
After weeks of green card preparation and fighting with the Russian embassy it's pleasant to just sit on the beach and watch the waves.

Outside the USCIS building in Garden City

It's a beautiful day and the drive here was unexpectedly smooth: we're two hours early. We're going to head in  and see if they'd like to interview us anyway. It's green card day! Keep your fingers crossed for us.

Getting ready for the last week in Brooklyn

Today's acquisitions: an exchange order for a Japanese rail pass and a small wodge of Mongolian money. One of these things has a distinct smell of goats.

Getting my passport (with or without visa) back from the Russians on Friday. Green card interview on Monday, unless Hurricane Irene blows the immigration centre away. Two days left at work. Eight days until I get on the train to LA. It's getting kind of close now.

Learning Cyrillic In Manhattan

I was going to write here about Russian visa applications, but then I realised I was boring myself to sleep, so I'll spare anyone else who's reading this. Suffice to say that there's one final disagreement between the producers of the bureaucratic paperwork and the consumers of the bureaucratic paperwork and I've mailed them both to see if the application of yet more cash can't resolve this. I'm getting a business visa because... no... it doesn't matter. It'll probably be fine. Zzz. In triplicate.

What's much more exciting (at least if you're me) is learning a new language. Russian! I tend to play with languages a bit anyway, getting distracted by new words in French or Irish or whatever, or making Joel wait outside a Syrian restaurant for five minutes while I puzzle out that its name is "Restaurant... of Syrian Food. Oh right." If you enjoy learning a bit of a language, I heartily recommend the Michel Thomas Method. It's a very conversational approach and I like that you don't need to sit down and get your formal learning brain on; you can pass time pleasantly while walking or cleaning your house or whatever.

I've had good results with the Michel Thomas introductory courses before, so I've grabbed the Russian Introduction on audible. This one's a bit harder than, say, Spanish because every word is at least five syllables long and doesn't sound like any words I already know. However, it sinks in after a while, and I now can walk up to a stranger on the street and stammer out "I understand that the cafe is nearby but I don't know where it is and I am hungry" over about five minutes and not have a notion what she says to me in response. Is there any way in which this will be more useful than my previous skill of knowing how to say "cafe?" in a slightly desperate tone and having the same stranger sense the caffeine deprivation and point me in the right direction? It's unclear.

The other part of learning Russian is, of course, getting your head around the alphabet. I love this stuff. Solving substitution ciphers is the sort of I did for fun when I was a nerdy kid, and I'm enjoying figuring out that B means V and H means N and K means K. I found this great site that has a list of English words written in Cyrillic with hints beside each one. You work through the list, translating each word and building up the number of characters you can read without having to look them up. Before you know it, you have an entire alphabet. At least, I assume so. So far I'd say I have three quarters of an alphabet. With luck, I'll get a visa so I can actually use it.

18 days.