Tokyo Trip Summer 2009

On our way to visit the USA for the summer, we stopped off in Tokyo for a few days (I got to enjoy some very fun meetings while the kids and Dad toured around :-). Below are shots from one of my favorite areas of Tokyo - Asakusa. It is in the northern part of Tokyo, at the end of the Ginza line (on the Tok-y-oh, Met-er-oh!). It is an older area and has taken care to preserve some lovely areas.


Jessica above enjoying being in town...

Christina has always been a big big fan of plastic food (above). Actually, I hear that this has become quite an art form. The plastic food has become so realistic that often you cannot tell it apart. For a complete storefront or original sushi artwork, it can cost many thousands of US dollars.

Just a view of the nice temple grounds. Beautifully manicured...


Here's a fun thing to do - go to the fortune telling area of the temples. Shake this metal hexagonal jar - and eventually out will wiggle a stick with a number on it. Look for a drawer with the same number on it (old-fashioned card-catalog style shown behind them), then draw your fortune from the envelope! We didn't get anything too earth-shattering - - mostly "regular fortune" (not as cool as "good fortune," but luckily not "bad fortune"). The characters in the Japanese numbers system are similar to those in the Chinese system, so the big surprise I got was that J and C could actually read the numbers. (I'm so lame!).

Just a nice looking shop.

Beer, coke, or coffee. They have it all in TYO! $5 says you can't guess what's in Mark's hand...


Although we probably would all have chosen coffee had we read the sign more closely.

Here's a little friend we picked up in TYO - a little fuzzy fox. Very cute! You know, wherever we go, it seems we can find something cute to spend our money on in the tourist areas! How thoughtful the planners are.

OK now this may not seem like much to you - but pictured above are 2 US girls drinking DR. PEPPER!!! It had been MONTHS since we'd seen a DR. PEPPER. YUMMMMY!


On another day we went to Odaiba which is a nice waterside area. It has a lovely boardwalk area where we walked along and discovered a amusement park - Sega. The JP technology puts the US to shame! We had a ball, although we didn't get any photos inside.

These guys along the boardwalk remind us to be conservative with the earth.

Never know what you can find in TYO - even the statue of liberty!!!

Sims Family Visit - May 2009

The blog is a bit overdue, but the Sims family came to visit last May! Their visit was right during the height of the Swine Flu Scares - Janis and family were met with the usual precautions on the planes...luckily this has subsided.


But it is always OK to wear a mask when traveling. Particularly if you are not accustomed to the airplane cooties.


Mark, Jessica, Christina and the Sims family had a few days together while I was in the USA. Then I got to join up after I returned. Below are a few nice shots from The Peak - best view of Hong Kong there is - Victoria Harbor below is lovely, if you can convince the weather to cooperate.


One day Mark and Janis went to explore the terra cotta warriers in Xian, so we had a fun time just Me, Mark J and the kids. Unfortunately the weather really did act up a bit - we had monsoon rains!! We did make it to Repulse Bay to see some of the fun statues of sea gods/goddesses and learn a bit of the history of the sea from the native Hong Kong point of view!


Emily is fond of dragons - this is a nice one.
Rain can't stop us!
Another dragon and the soggy kids.
Peek a boo!

We miss you guys! Come see us again, soon! Love, Junginger family.

It's Chinese National Day! Celebrating 60 years of...

Well I was a bit confused about what we're celebrating on October 1...I guess I just needed someone with a bit of a Western bend to describe it to me.

(From a Nuri Vittachi Column in "The Standard" (www.standard.com.hk).)

The news has finally hit home, it just took 60 years to arrive

Happy birthday, China. Tomorrow is October 1. There will be parades in Beijing, flags lining the streets in Hong Kong and Macau, and parties everywhere with a Chinese embassy.
China is 60 years old tomorrow. Or is it? I thought I knew until a reporter from an Indian news organization phoned me to ask. The conversation roughly went like this:

Q: So, what exactly is being celebrated on October 1?

A: It's National Day. China is 60 years old.

Q: Only 60? That's so young. Our country is much older than that - thousands of years older.

A: No, China is thousands of years old. It's older than your country. It's older than any other country, older than the moon, even, probably.

Q: You just said it was 60.

A: Er, yes, but I'm not really talking about the country. This is actually the anniversary of the communist takeover of China.

Q: I see. So, how long have you been a communist?

A: Me? I'm not a communist! None of us are. These days, everyone in Asia is a capitalist. We're the opposite of communists.

Q: But you just said you were celebrating the communist takeover.

A: Yes, we are. But, er, um, it's not communism itself we are celebrating. We are celebrating the fact that the people who have run China have done a great job over the past six decades.

Q: So you think it's good that China's development is almost 40 years behind that of its neighbors, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan? Why do you prefer a slow pace of economic development?

A: I don't prefer a slow pace of development. It's hard to explain.

To fill gaps in my knowledge, I visited a keen amateur historian. "From 1949 to the present day, China gradually moved from being a communist state with no freedoms, to being a more modern society, where private property ownership is allowed, and free speech and full democracy are expected to evolve, right?" he asked.

Right, I said.

"Wrong," he laughed.

He said that in its early years, communist China was run under a constitution called the Common Program. This featured a higher degree of democracy than China ever had, before or since. People from political parties other than the communist party were included in government. Private property was guaranteed. Freedom of the press was enshrined in law.

"China suffered not because of the communists, but because people like Mao [Zedong] failed to follow the foundations laid by its other communist founders," he said.

This was news to me. And what about October 1, 1949? We're celebrating the end of the war between the communists and the nationalists, aren't we?

He shook his head. "No. The war ended in June. But communism is all about meetings. They organized vast committee meetings in September to promise a fair, democratic society with freedom of speech. October 1, 1949, was the day the meeting ended and they could all go home."

Definitely a day to celebrate.

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Typhoon Koppu

We had an unexpectedly exciting storm last night with a super lightning display. Enjoy! The schools shut for the kids today, and I got to stay home during the morning.

Now that's a Rainbow!

This is the view from our balcony this morning. Couldn't get it all in one shot, but it was 3/4 of a circle. Really beautiful!

Tokyo - June 2009

Toilets

OK I've been meaning to do this for some time, so let's just get it out of the way.

First of all, if you need to use the restroom in these parts, you'll need to ask for the "TOILET." If you are an ignorant foreigner, like myself, and you ask for the "Ladies room," you have about a 2% chance of being understood. If you ask for the "rest room," you could very well be immediately escorted to the nearest Restaurant. If you are lucky enough to land a person who understands your query, they will almost certainly look at you with a pathetic smile and say, "Oh, you mean the TOILET."

Not the loo, not the water closet, not the ladies' or men's room, not the little girl's room. It is the TOILET.

So, now let's discuss options.

Pictured above is the "Western" toilet found in our apartment in Hong Kong. Yes, there is a flush, but it is on the top of the tank just behind the seat lid. Most of my readers should be familiar with this option.

Now, when you go to Japan, you will likely be faced with something a little more high tech.

Note the control bar on the left of the photo (user's right). Look at the interesting variety of choices there are!!

Or, at the really swank places or hotels, the control center may even be mounted on the wall.

See the small control on the user's right on this one?

Let's take a look at the control panel mounted just above the toilet paper rolls...

Don't know if you can see/read the main features, but they include

1) Bidet
2) Shower wash (it's different in spray intensity and surface area of coverage)
3) Seat warmer (could be a bit disconcerting to westerners who may think of "elapsed time issues" when they encounter a warm seat...but evidently popular with the Japanese)
4) Music
5) Flushing sounds

All in all, quite an interesting and entertaining place.

And of course, in all its glory...


The Chinese toilet. Now most places in Hong Kong have Western toilet options, but many in mainland China do not. For example, on some of the remote paths at the Great Wall, the only option is the "Chinese" toilet hole-in-the ground. The above one is actually quite luxurious. Just like a high-end hotel has a different Western toilet than do the "Rest Stops" on the lonely Texas highways, so there are varying degrees of Chinese toilet. The one above is NOT the rest-stop toilet. It is in a high end hotel.

The nice thing is, at some places like the Tokyo Narita airport, you can just pick from among all three! And the the lines for each are very specific...usually the lines for the Chinese toilet are the longest. We all have our preferences, don't we???

Sarah and Max Estill visit us in May, 2009

After touring Beijing and Shanghai, Max and Sarah Estill paid us a visit! What fun it was to have Westerners in the house!
We messed around quite a bit in HK, but a few sample highlights are below...We rode the "Ngong Ping" (pronounced Ong Ping) 360 cable car/gondola to the BIG BUDDHA. He's really big! He's the largest bronze Buddha in the region. There are 268 very steep steps leading up. Christina and I went halfway up, but the rest of our party made it the whole way!!!

This is serene Buddha. Not the fat, happy Buddha with the belly, which Mark prefers.
There's also a cute village where you can shop and eat and just enjoy yourself. It was SOOOOO HOT that day, though. I don't think it has been as hot since! We lived on Gellatto.


Afterwards, we went to Tai-O, a little fishing village where you can really feel the energy and lifestyle of the native Hong Kong people as they earn their living fishing.

There are quite a few restrictions on fishing, though. From upper left to lower right from the sign above -

1) No Suction Devices
2) No Explosives
3) No Dredging
4) No Toxic Substances
5) No Electrocution

(Hardly seems fair....)

...but still they manage to catch a few and dry them out inside the house.

Max Loooovvveeed the food!!!!!

Thanks for coming, Sarah and Max!!! We love you!

Vietnam - Spring 2009

Christina and Jessica in Vietnam.


We arrived in Hanoi late one evening. Ngo Mihn Duc (a.k.a "Duc from Wietnam" - "Duc" rhymes with "took" or "book," not "duck" or "duke"), our Genral Sales Agency in SGN and HAN, picked us up from the airport and took us to eat yummy noodle soup (Pho). Duc just has very young children, so it was our honor and duty to teach him a few things about 6 year olds - - sometimes they lose their teeth! Christina lost her first front tooth at the restaurant - it was quite a show, blood and all.

The Vietnamese Tooth Fairy came that night and gave her about $150,000 VND (Vietnamese Dong, which trade for about 17,000 to 1 USD) AND let her keep the tooth! Wow. They do things differently in VN!The next morning we set out on a long car drive to Halong Bay - a world UNESCO heritage site many times over. On the way, we stopped at some nice stone carving store - the stone carvings are done by handicapped people and are simply beautiful.



The gentleman to the right of Jessica (her left) was Son, our tour guide. He took super care of us all the way through.
After the long ride, we reached Halong Bay and were taken on a ferry to our destination - the "Bahaya" cruise ship. I had been on this before during a team meeting and couldn't pass up a repeat for the kids. They have one and two night programs, and we did the one night one this time. Next time, we'll do two, for sure!

Onboard the Bayaha in Halong Bay.

There are 20 cabins so the whole thing has a very intimate and family feel about it.



We had such a fun and relaxed time...
We took a cooking class where we learned to cook egg rolls...

Outdoor massage in a private area of the deck didn't bother Jessica one bit! (Christina, Mark and I enjoyed this, of course, too!)

Christina learning about sails.

We went via row boat to the floating village. Very primitive I suppose, until you see they have a bank! Cool!

Look even closer and you can see antennae for the TVs. It sure is quiet, though, and we saw the children coming home from school in the boats. Very different from our lifestyle.

We took a little ride to some caves and went exploring. Above is our "outing" guide.



The above speaks for itself, I think.
If you want to buy a snack, here's the floating 7-11!
Just a lovely view of the village surroundings and the water.

The scenery was just breath-taking, with the enormous limstone formations extruding from the water. Halong Bay has my heart!

Then we took a nature walk - Son, Jessica and Mark took the lead...We enjoyed some time on Catba Island at a resort, then back to Hanoi for some city exploring...

Touring the streets of Hanoi by "cyclo" - bicycle powered buggies - is a must. That way you can really get to know the energy and color of the city. Christina thought it was "crazy busy." Even more bustling than Hong Kong!

You can see why from the above...there are motorcycles everywhere. Being in a car (as we often were) was kind of a drag. They go too slow and can't dart in and out. Hanoi has no real public transportation system. A few busses, and that's about it. An underground train or subway system would really rock here!
The old mixes with the new.
Here's a great shot of infrastructure in Hanoi - this shot can ONLY be caught on every street corner in Hanoi.

More street life -
More infrastructure. All houses have water tanks on top. We were a little disappointed when we learned that they were not beer kegs. They have very narrow houses (which are often amazingly deep), because the taxes are levied based on the width of the house. On the right hand side of the house, you can see gray concrete. They don't paint the sides, only front. This is because soon enough someone will build a house joining yours.

By the time we left, we felt like locals! :-)