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Four years ago’s trip to Europe … blogged on BlogSpot. Tried to consolidate to here.

WordPress has a wonderful Import feature that can “suck” the old contents and comments in without any problem. Also added some pictures to some entries after uploading them online.

Don’t know whether Google will index newly added old entries? This one is an additional handle then. Here it is, our 2004 European Trip blogs, dated 2004.08, 09 and 10.

Continuing my stream of consciousness. Listening to Depapepe’s version of Pachelbel’s Canon in D. In a silent autumn night.

Visited Colin and Carrie at Susami (???), a small fishing town near the south-most tip of ??? (Honshu).

Rural Japan may be declining but is nevertheless clean, well maintained. Compared to rural China, rural Japan is a place to escape to, not from.

After visiting some parts of rural China, it is hard for me to imagine a poet will find any spark there–I just can’t see ???, sitting amongst the trash, dust, non-stop construction, walls and buildings painted with bold slogans (mostly family planning related), would have the stomach to invite a friend to join him for a drink while waiting for the snow to fall (refering to the poem quoted in the last entry).

Had coffee and cake in a village cafe. The owner used to be a “salary man” in a agrichemical company in Tokyo. One day he had an epiphany and decided to get out of Tokyo and its crazy life. After he settled down in the village we visited, he built his own house, cultivated a garden and had two dogs. He recently built a canoe and invited Colin to join him in a race.

This is not a Starbuck-ish cafe. I believe we were sitting in this gentleman’s living room, with one wall lined with books from floor to ceiling. Outside of the window, a local flower (bell-shaped bright yellow) has just peaked. He opens this “cafe” only during the peak season so neighbors can come in, enjoy the flowers in the garden and taste the organic pastries and coffee. This is where Zen meets PoMo.

Carrie once wrote a very nice piece of the midsummer night’s frog croak in their backyard. To her, it is a total annoyance (particularly when they invade your apartment en mass). But to me, that is the setting (adding some rain drops maybe) for ancient Chinese poems.  I never thought I could relive the pastoral life portrayed in those poems. But I did in Susami.

Susami is a small town. The size of 3×3 city blocks maybe? When I walked in, it was already dark and very quiet. There were so few street lights, the town seemed to be lit by the vending machines. Streets are narrow and the houses are nicely laid out.

There was a lovely, strong smell of cedar. Timber is another industry that still sustains the community and the surrounding mountains is full of cedar trees.

Had a beer with Colin and chatted late into morning. Next day, we rode bikes on mountain roads to visit towns deep in the forest.

The roads are really narrow. On steep slopes it is down to just one lane. Still, there is no potholes on the road. None. Broken guard rails all have warning flags planted nearby. Most of the hill side are covered by retaining walls made of solid concrete.

You don’t see a lot of Japanese flags anywhere. But I guess the Japanese version of “patriotism” is in how good they take care of their own communities.

The tunnels: perhaps a legacy of Japanese government’s public spending, we passed quite a few tunnels. In late afternoon, when the setting sun shining through a short tunnel, I felt I was riding into a portal to another world. Reminded me of Miyazaki’s Spirited Away (????????), when Chihiro wandered pass the abandoned temple entrance.

Abandonment: Susami is “shrinking”. Population is declining, due to both continued urbanization and aging. The elementary school Colin taught is closing. An middle school next door has been closed for years. When I first saw the middle school building, a chill ran through my back. It was somewhat ghostly even under the mid-day sun: everything inside out is in perfect order. The library, the chemistry lab, the window doors and the clock: everything is in read-to-use mode. It is as if the students suddenly disappeared right before we arrived.  I guess I wouldn’t have been this touched had I not been so used to the urban sprawl in the States and in China.

Colin and I walked along a logging road deep into the woods. The cedar trees are tall and dense, only rarely did we see native plants. Again the hill side of the road is marked by endless retaining walls (made of stones this time), some of which, according to Colin, may be hundreds of years old. Occasionally, we saw abandoned houses buried under heavy foliage. Once, even an abandoned car.

Just back from a trip to Japan. My first ever. Enjoyed it immensely.

It is also a very tiring trip–not only it was short and compact, but I was left with so many impressions and had so many thoughts, it is now quite an overwhelming task to write them down.

I tried to take notes on Euro and Brazil trips but gave up on Xin Jiang. The history and culture of the ancient West Realm (??) was just too high a mountain to scale.

But Japan is different. I feel like I am floating in thoughts, ready to write them down. But don’t know where to start. So I will try a different tack …

I will start with a poem that can best summarize my trip:

?????
?????
?????
?????

Thought about “?????” but the above poem is more secular and existential.

I was fortunate enough to have experienced both the Urban Japan (Tokyo) and the Rural Japan (Susami)

The Urban Japan:

Tokyo is a very crowded place but is surprisingly clean and quiet. The only exceptions are occasional foul smells from underground sewage and the ubiquitous door sensor chimes.

Tokyo is the epicenter of urban living. Urban living in general is about constantly generating symbols, meanings that are trivial but full of subtlety. You define who you are and which “tribe” you belong, by choosing where to shop for cloth, for shoes, or where to get what pastry from which bakery, let along to say your choice of restaurants and bars. It is something Pagans will never understand.

The Tsukiji fish market (????) is the best-kept secret from mass tourism. It is a photographer’s heaven. One can never appreciate Japanese seafood culture without visiting this market. I saw more creatures from the sea there than from any aquarium I have been to. Yet the place doesn’t smell fishy at all–just tells you how fresh the products are.

Japanese food is the opposite of Chinese food: healthy, lean and single-themed: you can trace most of the flavoring ingredients to one single item–soybean.

Japanese are relentless in their pursuit of perfect appearance: young ladies apply makeups (mostly moderately) and dress stylishly. The Brazilians like to show off their bodies but not their faces, the Japanese are the opposite but with the same intensity.

Tokyo is perhaps the best indexed city in all the places I have been to. Not only every subway stop, but every exit of every stop is marked by numbers. Tokyo’s public transit is denser than the spider webs outside of my window, yet once you understand how it is indexed, you can get around without knowing any Japanese.

Japan is clean. Very clean. Wherever you go–construction sites, store front, subway entrances …–you don’t have look hard to find a spot to put down your backpack. This is especially amazing consider how few trash bins are on the streets. I bet everyone walking around me have some trash in their pockets.

Japanese may use plastic wraps rather liberally, they have a first-class recycling culture that totally offsets the excess. Here are the categories: glass bottles, plastic bottles, paper, burnable trash and landfill trash. Public trash bins don’t always label which hole is for what–that is why I often had to carry trash back to hotel.

The recycling schedule is quite complicated (I will try to get a copy). It should be programmed on cell phones and PDAs to remind people.

All Japanese seem to use one kind of cell phone: thin, large screen shell phones.

Tokyo public transit has everything: bus, light rail, subway and train. One thing to note though: subway is privately run. Every company is called a “line” and has several “routes”. You don’t always get the integrated, city-wide subway map at the stations.

The subway entrance at Shiboya (??) happens to be the intersection of several lines. Song and I had no idea when we walked in. Suddenly, torrents of people coming from all directions and caught us in the middle. For a second, I had a sensation of drowning.

As a tourist from America, I made two mistakes during the trip:

1. Movement: ALWAYS stay on the left–particularly when riding bicycles! Never make sudden movements without looking first. In front of Asakusa Temple (???), I tried to take a picture and stepped backwards (without looking). Boom! I bumped into an old man. And that is not the only time. After all, Tokyo is a much more crowded place than most places in America.

2. Passing food using chopstick to chopstick: I was told that is a very inauspicious move–people only do so when picking unburnt bones from ash urns.

Went to Max and Stephanie’s wedding in Quincy, WA.

Here is what I said on my album log:

Two beautiful people I know got married. Max and Stephanie finally tied the knot on 2008.9.13. It was a lovely day, the ceremony was held in a romantic setting–in a vineyard overlooking the Columbia. Seeing the two being together for three years now, I was nevertheless very moved when they read their wedding vows. For a moment, I regretted any cynism I had in social rituals.

Quincy is a pretty place: the color, the solitude and the scale always remind me of autumn, my favorite season of a year. Song and I both love the place.

The Sunserra resort, however, is a different story: underwhelming buildings, excess grassy lawns and stringent behavioral codes: you shall not curse or you will be fined.

Also, met some interesting people there. One couple from Luxemburg: Maria is German, Jeff Welsh. The lady works at European Commission’s nuclear regulatory advisory agency at Brussel. We chatted a lot about European affairs, e.g. Belgium, Germany’s coal and steel regions.

The conversation led to the topic of legislative process in EU. I was surprised to learn that the binding EU laws were drafted by Ministers from member countries, something I thought would be a big no-no in the States. Maria also asked, “so what’s the legislative process in China?”

The conversation was cut short but I left wonder about the difference between the two unions: EU and China. It is my speculation that the two are quite opposite of each other in one regard at least:

EU is a bunch of sovereign polities with a strong desire to “act together”. China is a bunch of legally unified politiies with a constant tendence to “act different”.

Is this correct?

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From: "Yibing 'Bing' Wu" <yibing.wu@gmail.com>
To: yibing.wu.heros@blogger.com, songyibing.wuuw@blogger.com,
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Subject: More background info on Heros
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The critically acclaimed first season's run of 23 episodes garnered an
average of 14.3 million viewers in the United States, receiving the
highest rating for any NBC drama premiere in five years.[6][7][4] The
second season of Heroes attracted an average of 13.1 million viewers
in the United States.[8] The second season was NBC's top series in
adults 18-49,[8] the top Monday series on any network in adults
18=9649,[8] and the top scripted series on any network in adults
18-34.[8] In addition, the second season marked NBC's sole series
among the top 20 ranked programs in total viewership for the 2007-2008
season, according to Nielsen Media Research.[9] A total of 24 episodes

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Visit me at: http://www.wuyibing.com

I first heard of the wild flowers in CA many many years ago. Since then, we have been hoping to experience the spring colors ourself.
We finally made the trip this Spring thanks to a friend of Lisa’s visiting her from Joyo. Li Bo is a diehard “Donkey Friend” so she is happy to tag along and I am happy I have an excuse.
This trip rescued me from the insanity of writing papers (aka the briddled ambition).
We flew down to SF, rented a car and the route is:
1. SF HW 101, 280, 17 then 17-mile loop. Stopped at a strawberry farm and had lunch at pebble beach.
2. Was hoping to drive 4 hours to San Semion (Hearst Castle) the same day but just couldn’t make it. The beautiful but winding CA SR-1 is such a temptress that we couldn’t help but stop frequently to suck in the ocean, the mountain, the wave and the sky.
3. A fire crew putting off wild fire finally dashed our hope. We stopped at Ragged Pt. Inn, 15 miles south of San Simeon. Small but beautiful place to stay.
4. Finally visited San Simeon the next day. Somehow I was obsessed with the Hearst Castle. Now finally the complex is dissolved and curse lifted.
5. From Hearst Castle, drove east toward Lancaster, CA. CA SR-58 was a pleasant surprise. Rolling hills covered in fresh green, foraging cattles and spring breeze … Reminded me of driving along the Shenandoah Valley many many years ago. I suddenly became very nostalgic.
6. Before settling down in Lancaster, we snapped some pictures of the sleeping poppy flowers in sunset.
7. The Antelope State Poppy Reserve and beyond: speechless, shameless indulgence for the eyes. Only the pictures can tell the story now.

Song and I wanted to go to a sunny, warm ocean front to escape from the depressing Seattle winter. We settled on Los Cabos over Hawaii because the it is the rainny season in Hawaii and we thought Cabos, being part of Mexico, would be a cheaper option.

Boy, were we wrong about Cabos being cheap! For a while, I thought I made the right choice when looking around at price tags until I found out they were in … U.S. dollars! A three-mile taxi ride costs $12, car rental starts at $70 a day, the cheapest half-day snorkeling trip is over $100 per person … Even a big Mac costs over $8–more than it does in Seattle!

For a moment, I felt we were trapped: we’ve already committed to a week-long stay. But unless we stayed inside hotel eating cookies everyday, we could easily spend $2000 more than budgetted!

Soon, I realized that there was a reason why everything was so expensive and there was a way out of this bind. The key? One word: timeshare.

Yes, timeshare industry attracts thousands of middle class Americans and Canadians with excess income; Timeshare provides good jobs for the locals; Almost every hotel or resort has a timeshare program; Many locals–street vendors, bartenders, restaurant waiters, taxi drivers, tour guides … are timeshare referrers. In short, Los Cabos is built by timeshare, of timeshare and for timeshare.

To entice people to listen to presentations, timeshare vendors offer deep (between 60%-100%) discounts on almost everything. It is like a currency–you can get vouchers for lodging, food, rental, activities and tours. To us, this means that we either have to pay the inflated price on everything or to earn the equivalant by going to sales presentations. What should we do?

A presentation lasts at least two hours. Because a sales rep gets either 10% or nothing for a day’s work, you will be treated with thousands dollar-worth of intensity. If you fail them, you will be cursed behind your back as though you have stolen thousands of dollars from them. Timeshare sales rep is an unique specimen that lives on anticipation, disappointment, ecstacy and anger everyday.

Still, we chose to earn our vacation. The first presentation lasted over four hours; The second two and half . The last, just over two. As we were getting more fluent at how to say No, the conversation got uglier linearly too.

But we have to: the first one gives us $800 off lodging (from an Expedia quoted $1400) and $200 dinning. The second one gives us almost-free tickets to “Swim with Dolphins” (although I am not a circus-goer–either on land or in water, Song is dying to pat those cute creatures, ohhhh …). The third one gives us free deep-sea fishing trip! A $250/person value! And wait there is more …

If anything, we certainly did as Romans when in Rome, so to speak.

1. Los Cabos: a county/region name because having two towns named Cabo (or cave, lands’s end, or army private?): Cabo San Lucas–where we are staying, and San Jose del Cabo.
2. We saw gray whales puffing and leaping out of water from our hotel room! I thought they are not supposed to be here till late Dec? Thanks to global warming I guess … heyhey, not bad.
3. Local economy: STRANGE!
a. The “invitacion” economy. Timeshare sales dominates and fuels tourism: we got a 60% discount on our hotel stay for listening to a presentation. Although I worked for a timeshare company before, I was still green in the handling pressure sale.
b. The dollar economy. When I pay peso, people frawn on me as if I am the only cash user in the Visa commercial.
c. The stratified/tiered pricing. Locals pay different prices, which is perhaps one tenth of what we pay for food and transportation. An average dinner in a so-so restaurant downtown–not even waterfront, just two dishes with a Margarita, cost us $60!
d. Colonialized economy: full of Gringos shopping in/with Walmart, Costco, McDonalds, Harley Davidson, Hummer, etc. More so than any place I have been to.
4. People we met: mostly old and retired. But met a woman who overheard our conversation and spoke Mandarin back. She can write Sanskrit too! And shared with us on how to get out a presentation: “just tell them, we are here for the cash back and the discount. Sorry for your time, but our time is up.” Ha! We will try that tomorrow.

After we came back from Xin Jiang, we had very busy days: family visits, old friends, etc. So I never had the presence of mind nor the time to write down my daily experience. Here I am just writing down pieces of memory here and there. Not sure how readable they are but hopefully they will remind me of this trip in the future.

Eating Buddhism
9/18
Went to a vegetarian restaurant (with Teng Song). Exquisite setting, excellent presentation–reminded me of scenes from ??????. But a lot quieter.

Waiters dressed like Buddhist monks. Quiet voice and gentle demeanor. Menu full of Buddhist terms–as if dish names were randomly inserted into ????????. When we walked out of the restaurant, ?????????????????????????????????????“?”????“?”??

What is Buddhism any more? Are these “knowledge”? Metaphysical concept becomes stimulants for sensual pleasure. The force of commerce dictates interpretation.

Art Beijing 2007 and the Art of Commerce
9/19
My old pal Sun Ning is a newbie art dealer in Beijing. He took me to Art Beijing 2007. an industry expo.

Surprised by how many art works bear naked political statements: an artist uses egg shells to build a model of the iconic CCTV building. Chinese newspaper printed on a huge roll of toilet paper. Met a guy from Germany who was totally awed by another work: a pair of bloated breasts on top of a pile of RMB cash, 100 millions worth. And another: a bronze sculpture with very classic looking dragon on top of a characterless middle aged women as if raping her.

A very impressive piece of work: a bunch of toddler boys, dressed in full military uniforms as if in a meeting, all watching one boy whipping another boy who is kneeing on the floor with pants pulled down. The watching boys all appear disinterested and absent minded, with a hint of boyish innocence on their faces.

I was told the work is priced at $600K. I thought it was pretty high for an artist in mid 40s. But SN told me it is how the market works nowadays: an artist creates a unique style, manages to get in an oversea’s show, and being recognized by Western critics, his/hers works rocket up immediately. Then copycats will spurn up and fill in the lower tiers with less distinquishable works.

There are many many excellent works I’d love to have. But there are some that have too much ??.

Talking to Sun Ning really helped me to appreciate contemporary art. True appreciation has to come in incremental steps: who are the contemporaries, what are the works before and after the one in front of you, what segment (even age group) the artist is in, what others are saying, etc. Gone is the time when one can look at a piece of work and say, “I like it”.

???????
9/20
Seeing blue sky for the 2nd day in Beijing. Visited ??? with my parents.
Visited ??? inside YHY. A pleasant surprise: it houses the best of antiques found in YHY. Because it charges extra, very few people were in there. We hired a guide to show us around. Having visited the Art expo the day before, I was not surprised at all at the selection by the guide: she picked the ones with the most stories, not those that appealed to our eyes.

After seeing so many tourist art works, it is easy to tell how great the collection is. I felt it wasn’t bad to be an emporer after all. Fell in love with a piece of ????, reminded me of those I saw in ??. Didn’t buy after all.

Many bronze pieces from pre-Han dynasties. Great stuff.

I doubt I can ever anticipate just right before each trip home. Last trip home was over a year ago in the beginning of the summer. But the experience turned out much better than I expected.

But I just don’t feel comfortable this time around—even though I started my trip in the beginning of fall, which is the best season of the year. I was overwhelmed by all the senses impressed upon me: the view, the noise, the smell and the taste. So much so that I wondered either Beijing has changed so much or I am still under jetlag. Or both.

Beijing is ugly. There are so many construction going on, the high rises are like weeds in an unattended garden. If the buildings under construction are unpleasant to look at, those newly built ones are not much better: all are grey and cold mass of steel and concrete pitched against a perpetual grey sky.

Underneath the steel “weeds” are dirt, mud and pot holes. In between car horns and hamming from constructions, up comes stinky and rotten smell from drain covers. Filling in whatever time and space left, there are endless advertisements. They are at bus stops, poles, from radio, TV, on the surface of airport conveyor belt, and seat covers in cabs.

I used to adore the city. In high school, there was once a campaign of naming scenic spots in town. I wrote a lengthy letter to the local daily arguing for and against some of the names as if they truly matter. But now, just like everything else, I felt the city is slipping away from my memory and I am becoming an irrelevant stranger.

In retrospect, the trip didn’t start well. The Air Canada flight was terrible: the plane was old and dirty, the attendants were impatient and unfriendly. Unlike previous trips, this time, the jet hovered above Beijing airport in bumpy air for at least 30 minutes before landing. Yuk. No more Air Canada from now on.