Right, let's try and get this blog back on track. The first big update from just over a year ago(!) was the trip Emma and I took with my family to India. I used to go for 3 or 4 weeks every year until I was 14. This means it had been 14 years since the last visit. My parents had been a couple of times in recent times and I had been reliably informed that everything had changed in Bombay (sorry - I don't call it Mumbai, much like it's residents) and it had become much more Westernised. Thus I approached it with an open mind whilst recollecting the madness I remembered and Emma had no idea what was coming. My parents flew out a week before us (and it rained every day that week), so our trip began at 5am on a Saturday morning when our taxi arrived to take us to Birmingham airport. The "Eurohub" looks a bit sorry for itself these days and BA have fully abandoned Birmingham. We were soon on the KLM flight to Amrsterdam which was even quicker than from Newcastle, although Emma was developing a reaction to her new contact lenses rendering her partially blind for the day. This did facilitate hiding the madness later on. Our flight on to Bombay was with KLM's partner NWA (which always makes me laugh) and before we were allowed on the plane, everyone was taken to a table with their party and asked further security questions - talk about paranoia - the plane wasn't even going anywhere near the US. The flight passed fairly quickly (~9 hours) and we were soon descending over the sea towards Bombay. If the city had modernised, then they still hadn't cleared the slums from the airport perimeter. It still seems very surprising that we were really scrutinised before being allowed anywhere near a plane, yet there is a shanty town that could house anyone and anything is right up to the airport perimeter fence. As predicted, despite pleas to remain seated until the plane had come to a standstill at the terminal, most of the Indian contingent of the flight was up out of their seats trying to unload their baggage from the overhead bins almost as soon as the plane was off the runway. As we left the plane that nostalgically familiar heat wave hit me straight in the face. As we got to the terminal, nothing much seemed to have changed - they still seemed to be rebuilding the terminal and there was the familiar feeling that absolute chaos was only seconds away. Baggage collection led to at least a couple of people learning why you shouldn't stand close to the luggage belt unless you're retrieving bags as one traveller strugled to remove a case just large enough to hold a full-grown elephant, the momentum of the belt took it straight into a couple of unsuspecting punters standing nearby - the first of which got it straight in the crotch. Whilst I tried to keep a straight face, I saw out bags and we were away. My parents had arrived with a driver to take us back to the house in Dadar and even though it was just about midnight, there was a hot and heavy atmosphere (and a LOT of people milling around). We were led to the large car that would take us back and as we piled in, the rain began. We had inadvertently arrived at the end of the Ganpati festival and the roads were strewn with fairy lights and people on the streets. Emma was still suffering from a lack of long distance vision, so she was eased into the bonkers visuals. The main problem in Bombay is that there are far too many people. This is evidenced by the scores of people milling into the roads as there is no room on the pavements. Within minutes the first "change" revealed itself - the roads which were washed away in the recent floods had been "temporarily" rebuilt with bricks rather than tarmac. I suspect they're going to be in place until they too are washed away. The first beneficial change I noticed was the construction of flyovers on the highway which negated the need for traffic lights every few hundred metres.
It's remarkable how much more things seem complicated as you grow up. When I was younger I used to just sit in the cars and look at the sites. Now I am a qualified driver I sat open mouthed at the standard of driving which I will attempt to describe. There are (or, were) lane markings that are completely ignored - if a car fits into a space, it will. Red traffic lights seem to be considered as optional - which is something I don't remember from before. The cars are an eclectic mix of the old (Fiats and Ambassadors), old-ish (Suzuki Marutis) and modern Tata and East Asian cars. The majority of them don't have wing mirrors. For the older cars, this was a design "feature", for newer cars, they likely didn't survive the drive home from the garage. Given the tight packing that drivers seem to favour, there is a matter of centimetres between vehicles. That lack of spacial awareness is compensated for by the horn. If you approach a vehicle from behind - you blow your horn to let the driver know you are there. As you overtake a vehicle, you blow your horn to make sure the driver doesn't pull into you. If the driver is slightly slow at pulling away from a traffic light, you blow your horn. If the day of the week has an "a" in it, you blow your horn. And for added amusement, sounding your horn is illegal. If you very go to India and consider hiring a car, just don't. Someone who actually learned to drive using mirrors wouldn't survive 10 minutes.
Anyway, we arrived in Dadar after about 30 minutes and I met my Aunt and Uncle who I hadn't seen since 1996. The house was built by my Grandfather and is a 3-storey building. My memories of it were that my uncle's parents lived on the bottom floor, my aunt and uncle (and us when we were there) lived on the first floor and my grandparents lived on the top floor. The house was in need of refurbishing back in the 80s and I remember sitting on the stairs peeling paint off the walls (something that was sooooo satisfying to do when you got a big piece off) and it hasn't been touched up since. Due to deaths it's now just my aunt and uncle there now along with the servants. The crazy thing with the servants is how they live. They sleep on the floor in the kitchen (even though they must be in at least their 40s and there are several unoccupied beds), they have an outhouse toilet (even though there are 3 toilets in the house), they hand-scrub the washing (even though there is a washing machine) and they are expected to do the shopping and cook all the food. One of the servants actually left to go and work in a textile mill, but came back because his life was better as a servant.
Anyway, I've typed for a long time and still only described up to the first night. I'll try to be more concise in the next parts.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
The AppleTV
It started last summer when I was sitting around talking with some friends about what a pain a large media collection is. With music - a lot of people have migrated over to mp3 and I have to say that with a decent ripper (EAC) and compressing to 192 kbps VBR I struggle to tell the difference between the mp3 and the CD - I can tell there is a difference, but can't tell which is better. This means my CDs can be stored somewhere in a big box. Someday I'd like to go back and re-rip them to FLAC or some other lossless file to have a perfect digital copy for archival purposes. The trouble is DVDs. Initially, having a big collection was something to be proud of, but as I've moved around, transporting all my disks was starting to be a handful. Unfortunately, unlike CDs, a full DVD rip would take up 6-8 GB per disk, and at a collection of some 300 discs, that can add up. We talked about how there should be a way to have your DVDs on a hard disc allowing you to box up the discs in long term storage. I didn't know it then, but such a solution already existed. When Apple launched the AppleTV it flopped. They tried again with updated software and the response was still tepid. Then came tools such as Handbrake, which allowed you to compress films down. DVDs are encoded in MPEG2 which was developed in the early 90s so the technology looks pretty ancient today. The modern Blu-Ray discs tend to be encoded using something called H.264 which is much more efficient and allows you to get the same quality from a smaller file. Thus, using Handbrake it's possible to extract and compress down a 6-7 GB DVD film to a 1-2 GB mp4/m4v file. This file can then be "tagged" with metadata in the same way an mp3 file can using tools such as MetaX (mac/windows). It can retain multiple audio tracks (except DTS for now) so you still got 5.1 sound out and this can then be copied over to the AppleTV or streamed.
There are a few problems.
Firstly, this normally just preserves the film. There are no menus or extras (unless you rip the extras too). In theory I don't mind cos I normally only watch the extras once. Also, some discs with seamless branching have to have each version of the film encoded separately
Secondly, some of the tools (for example Subler to insert subtitles) are still Mac-only
Thirdly, Apple still only sells the aTV with a maximum drive of 160 GB. They also use old-styl drives so the maximum you can upgrade it to is 320 GB, so big collections still won't fit, and Apple still insists you can only stream stuff via iTunes which needs a PC on running iTunes. There are ways around this, such as using hacks to install things like XBMC which can stream from network hard drives.
Right now I've got all my music and most of my TV show DVDs stored on my aTV with my non-DTS films available to stream when my PC is on. I can see why Apple don't put large hard drives in the aTV - so you can copy music to it and use a bit of storage for rentals/buffering and rely on streaming from a large hard drive somewhere for videos - but I don't understand why they won't move away from requiring a PC to be on with iTunes running to do it. I'm hoping the next year will bring some solutions allowing me to rip my DTS films which will reduces the physical size of my collection. We are slowly creeping towards a total digital solution with books, papers, photos and films stored on "cheap" storage and kept in small boxes that can be connected to the internet allowing us access to our data anywhere in the world we can get a connection to the internet. I say, bring it on!
There are a few problems.
Firstly, this normally just preserves the film. There are no menus or extras (unless you rip the extras too). In theory I don't mind cos I normally only watch the extras once. Also, some discs with seamless branching have to have each version of the film encoded separately
Secondly, some of the tools (for example Subler to insert subtitles) are still Mac-only
Thirdly, Apple still only sells the aTV with a maximum drive of 160 GB. They also use old-styl drives so the maximum you can upgrade it to is 320 GB, so big collections still won't fit, and Apple still insists you can only stream stuff via iTunes which needs a PC on running iTunes. There are ways around this, such as using hacks to install things like XBMC which can stream from network hard drives.
Right now I've got all my music and most of my TV show DVDs stored on my aTV with my non-DTS films available to stream when my PC is on. I can see why Apple don't put large hard drives in the aTV - so you can copy music to it and use a bit of storage for rentals/buffering and rely on streaming from a large hard drive somewhere for videos - but I don't understand why they won't move away from requiring a PC to be on with iTunes running to do it. I'm hoping the next year will bring some solutions allowing me to rip my DTS films which will reduces the physical size of my collection. We are slowly creeping towards a total digital solution with books, papers, photos and films stored on "cheap" storage and kept in small boxes that can be connected to the internet allowing us access to our data anywhere in the world we can get a connection to the internet. I say, bring it on!
Foreign Conferences
In 2008 I got to go to two international conferences. the first, in July, was the Fpi8 conference in Graz, Austria. The FPi series alternates between Europe, the US and Japan and Fpi8 marked my attendance of the complete set - Ithaca 2004, Osaka 2006 and now Graz. I was going with Martin, Mustafa and Pete from Chemistry and Torsten from CDT. While the others opted to fly down to Stansted and then out to graz, I thought of my FlyingBlue miles and flew to Austria via Amsterdam and then got the train to Graz. Both options turned out to work well and by the end of the Sunday we were all sitting down to a large Austrian meal under a large canvas roof. Soon, the rain developed into a full blown storm which made sitting outside interesting.
The difference between this and other conferences I had been to was that this time I was making an oral presentation rather than just defending a poster. Before that though I sat through 4 days of talks on functionalised pi-systems. Since Ithaca, academic interest has shifted from OLED materials to transistors (OTFT) and solar cells (OPV). Infact, most OELD talks were towards the end of the conference. The talk went well, even though I was introduced as "mister" grrr. The first one is supposed to be the hardest, so that boded well for the next conference. Instead of going on the organised excursions, Pete and I wandered around graz - which is a fairly small city - taking in all the sites from the weird "alien" buildings of the culture centre and the river-slug to the Schlossberg and clocktower that overlooks the city (taking the hillside train was a much better option than walking).
The second conference was at the start of September in Dresden. This time I was the only chemist in our visiting party made up of Andy, Olivier, Ben and mot of Andy's Ph.D. students. A flight via Dusseldorf left us in the tiny Dresden airport trying to figure out the ticket machine. It ended up stumping us. Our hotel was next to the train station and, apart from registering at the conference site, out first day and a half was free so we made good use of it wandering around the reconstructed Dresden.
Unlike blitzed cities in the UK, Dresden took a long time to be rebuilt and the extra care that's gone into it is evident - the buildings have been rebuilt to maintain a traditional feel rather than just throw up concrete buildings like we did. The end result is a much more pleasant cities than somewhere like Coventry.
A with Austria we enjoyed some excellent food - and took advantage of Andy's knowledge and contacts to get to some restaurants most tourists wouldn't including a Thai restaurant on the edge of the city and a chicken restaurant. The conference ws solely focussed on OLEDs with an emphasis on device physics and engineering, but there was still a bit of chemistry. The session my talk was in lost most of it's participants as the first 2 of 4 speakers hadn't shown up, but some of the audience had returned for my talk - which was a more complete version of the one from Graz. A Special mention has to go to the conference banquet which had some awesome food on offer, including the very moreish veal slices... Hopefully 2009 will bring a few more conferences my way.
The difference between this and other conferences I had been to was that this time I was making an oral presentation rather than just defending a poster. Before that though I sat through 4 days of talks on functionalised pi-systems. Since Ithaca, academic interest has shifted from OLED materials to transistors (OTFT) and solar cells (OPV). Infact, most OELD talks were towards the end of the conference. The talk went well, even though I was introduced as "mister" grrr. The first one is supposed to be the hardest, so that boded well for the next conference. Instead of going on the organised excursions, Pete and I wandered around graz - which is a fairly small city - taking in all the sites from the weird "alien" buildings of the culture centre and the river-slug to the Schlossberg and clocktower that overlooks the city (taking the hillside train was a much better option than walking).
The second conference was at the start of September in Dresden. This time I was the only chemist in our visiting party made up of Andy, Olivier, Ben and mot of Andy's Ph.D. students. A flight via Dusseldorf left us in the tiny Dresden airport trying to figure out the ticket machine. It ended up stumping us. Our hotel was next to the train station and, apart from registering at the conference site, out first day and a half was free so we made good use of it wandering around the reconstructed Dresden.
Unlike blitzed cities in the UK, Dresden took a long time to be rebuilt and the extra care that's gone into it is evident - the buildings have been rebuilt to maintain a traditional feel rather than just throw up concrete buildings like we did. The end result is a much more pleasant cities than somewhere like Coventry.
A with Austria we enjoyed some excellent food - and took advantage of Andy's knowledge and contacts to get to some restaurants most tourists wouldn't including a Thai restaurant on the edge of the city and a chicken restaurant. The conference ws solely focussed on OLEDs with an emphasis on device physics and engineering, but there was still a bit of chemistry. The session my talk was in lost most of it's participants as the first 2 of 4 speakers hadn't shown up, but some of the audience had returned for my talk - which was a more complete version of the one from Graz. A Special mention has to go to the conference banquet which had some awesome food on offer, including the very moreish veal slices... Hopefully 2009 will bring a few more conferences my way.
Two Weddings
In an effort to get the rest of last year blogged, here are a couple of big events from 2008. The first was the Wedding of college friends Matt and Mel in Melbourne near Derby. A group of us from Durham drove down on the Friday night to the East Midlands' Airport Travelodge (actually built into the service station). Luckily, our room didn't overlook the Burger King. Not only was I a wedding guest, but I had also agreed to act as one of the two photographers for the day. When we rolled up to the church I was handed a d-SLR and some memory cards and had a few minutes to get used to how it worked and figure out the different shooting modes before I was off taking pictures of the area and guests. I won't go on about the ceremony as I'll just post some pictures (more on my Flickr site). I will say that as a photographer I didn't get the chance to relax and chill out until the meal, after which I handed over the camera and became just a guest again. Of the hundreds of shots Caz and I took, a lot turned out really well which I'm happy about.
The second wedding was over the summer in Durham and saw Alan and Lucy get married. This time I was involved as an usher which simply involved shepherding guests around at the church and then the reception. This time it was a pretty miserable day with rain and drizzle throughout the ceremony. As we arrived at St Mary's College for the reception the sun broke out and the afternoon and evening was very sunny and warm so the drinks reception took place outside. Again, more pictures are on Flickr.
The second wedding was over the summer in Durham and saw Alan and Lucy get married. This time I was involved as an usher which simply involved shepherding guests around at the church and then the reception. This time it was a pretty miserable day with rain and drizzle throughout the ceremony. As we arrived at St Mary's College for the reception the sun broke out and the afternoon and evening was very sunny and warm so the drinks reception took place outside. Again, more pictures are on Flickr.
Friday, January 02, 2009
A review of last year's tech predictions
There's more 2008 updates on they (and more photos have made their way onto Flickr. In the meantime, here's a review of how I did with my 2008 tech predictions.
In many ways this prediction hasn't come to fruition as the new Mac Mini isn't scheduled to be launched until next week and the only other supplier, Acer, hasn't really pushed it's small systems. In fact, it's looking like small computers will arrive in the form of "all-in-ones" such as the iMac and Dell One and, more immediately, laptops which have started selling in larger numbers than desktops. The days of the massive, loud tower case are definitely numbered.
As a side I mentioned the Asus EEE PC - a cheap, small "nettop" laptop that I predicted would take the world by storm and this was a success - you can't move now for 9-10" low powered laptops in the £2-300 range. Their success has certainly annoyed a lot of people. Sony complained that it meant they would lose profits trying to sell a small laptop for over £1000. It also meant that people started to question the need to upgrade their computers when all they wanted to do was surf the net and run a word processor which panicked Microsoft who have had a keep extending the life of Windows XP.
This one is split across the world. In the US, E-paper is very popular thanks to the Amazon Kindle - an ebook that allows you to buy books from Amazon anywhere via a built-in shop. Unfortunately, E-book pricing still doesn't seem to reflect the lack of materials compared to a paper book. Sony released a new Reader that was better than the old 505, which may explain why the Reader was finally launched in the UK. Of course, the model we got was last year's 505 model (no doubt collected up from the rest of the world) and at £200 it's not exactly cheap. Still, it's apparently selling well through Waterstones. Next year will see the release of the Plastic Logic Reader and no doubt the gradual reduction in price to where they might actually be worth it.
A hit. As expected, the iPhone3G featured built in GPS. Out of the box, you've got Google Maps to use, but thanks to Apple's innovative App Store a large number of "location-based services" have sprung up allowing you to find just about anything where ever you are: ATMs, restaurants, nearby friends, public toilets... This has resulted in every other smartphone from HTC, Nokia, RIM etc coming with GPS and most mid-range Nokia phones. In the next year this will filter down to the low end phones from Nokia, Samsung, Lg and SonyEricsson. But to be honest, the iPhone is the one everyone wants.
This one is a massive failure. After years of failing to get any manufacturers on board, Splashpower went under in April. However, their patents have been bought up, so we may yet see products based on wireless charging.
Another slow-burner. These are being rolled out across transport networks throughout the country. With the credit-crisis, the banks haven't kept up the momentum in rolling out contactless payments outside of the City of London. Nevermind.
Small computers
In many ways this prediction hasn't come to fruition as the new Mac Mini isn't scheduled to be launched until next week and the only other supplier, Acer, hasn't really pushed it's small systems. In fact, it's looking like small computers will arrive in the form of "all-in-ones" such as the iMac and Dell One and, more immediately, laptops which have started selling in larger numbers than desktops. The days of the massive, loud tower case are definitely numbered.
As a side I mentioned the Asus EEE PC - a cheap, small "nettop" laptop that I predicted would take the world by storm and this was a success - you can't move now for 9-10" low powered laptops in the £2-300 range. Their success has certainly annoyed a lot of people. Sony complained that it meant they would lose profits trying to sell a small laptop for over £1000. It also meant that people started to question the need to upgrade their computers when all they wanted to do was surf the net and run a word processor which panicked Microsoft who have had a keep extending the life of Windows XP.
E-Paper
This one is split across the world. In the US, E-paper is very popular thanks to the Amazon Kindle - an ebook that allows you to buy books from Amazon anywhere via a built-in shop. Unfortunately, E-book pricing still doesn't seem to reflect the lack of materials compared to a paper book. Sony released a new Reader that was better than the old 505, which may explain why the Reader was finally launched in the UK. Of course, the model we got was last year's 505 model (no doubt collected up from the rest of the world) and at £200 it's not exactly cheap. Still, it's apparently selling well through Waterstones. Next year will see the release of the Plastic Logic Reader and no doubt the gradual reduction in price to where they might actually be worth it.
Personal GPS
A hit. As expected, the iPhone3G featured built in GPS. Out of the box, you've got Google Maps to use, but thanks to Apple's innovative App Store a large number of "location-based services" have sprung up allowing you to find just about anything where ever you are: ATMs, restaurants, nearby friends, public toilets... This has resulted in every other smartphone from HTC, Nokia, RIM etc coming with GPS and most mid-range Nokia phones. In the next year this will filter down to the low end phones from Nokia, Samsung, Lg and SonyEricsson. But to be honest, the iPhone is the one everyone wants.
Splashpower
This one is a massive failure. After years of failing to get any manufacturers on board, Splashpower went under in April. However, their patents have been bought up, so we may yet see products based on wireless charging.
Smartcards
Another slow-burner. These are being rolled out across transport networks throughout the country. With the credit-crisis, the banks haven't kept up the momentum in rolling out contactless payments outside of the City of London. Nevermind.
As a side, it seems most of my 2007 predictions have come to fruition in 2008. Digital photo frames have hit the mainstream, even if most of them use cheap screens. The next generation using OLEDs are now available (for a price). HSDPA is now built into almost every phone released and personal GPS is taking off and the Wii is running away from the XBox360 and PS3 in terms of sales.
I'm still thinking about my predictions for the year 2009, so until then Happy New Year!
Monday, December 01, 2008
Hong Kong part 3
Our last full day in HK dawned and Emma and I headed back to Hong Kong island to have a look at the escalator to the mid-levels. The mid-levels are up the hill from the Central district and accessed via very windy roads. The escalator is the world's longest outdoor escalator rising a vertical distance of 135 m over a length of 800 m. There's only one lane of escalator which changes direction running downwards until 10 am and the upwards till midnight. There is also the normal option of stairs for when it's running the wrong way for you. We stopped off for breakfast at a small cafe a few hundred metres up the hill. The place soon filled up with rugby 7s fans from around the world dressed up in a variety of wacky costumes. After a fry-up to be proud of we set off back down the escalator to see one of the wet markets - traditional street markets selling food.
There was loads of fresh fruit and vegetables, more live seafood for sale and all sorts of meat - including chickens' feet.
At the end of the market we finally caught one of Hong Kong's old trams through Central to the Bank of China, the iconic "triangle" building. The trams are pretty jerky and very narrow, but they keep going.
The Bank of China has a viewing platform which afforded us fantastic views over Central and Admiralty. Even more surprising was that the bank was open on a Saturday! More importantly though was that the fog had lifted for the first time.
For our final excursion we took a bus to the south of the island to Stanley. As the double-decker bus started climbing up the hills the roads started getting more winding and narrower. As we came down the other side of the hill, the road quality deteriorated and the ride became more akin to a roller-coaster with as we worked our way past the luxury houses to Stanley. Stanley is famous for its market and once again the area turned out to be full of knock-off shops and overly priced restaurants and westernised bars along the China Sea front. We went for a dim-sum restaurant, tucked away behind the market, hoping it might be a hidden gem. We even went for the chicken-feet. We were disappointed on both fronts. Chickens' feet are probably the most pointless food ever - there is more bone and gristle than meat.
The bus back came through a tunnel rather than the hill-top road and was much less hair-raising. We traversed the bay on the Star Ferry again to wait for dusk and the symphony of lights. This time I was able to get some nice photos without fog.
We took the ferry back to the island for our final meal out in an very old restaurant that slowly descended into farce. The waiter seem confused by our order (two different set meals), but seemed to grasp the idea in the end. After a while the first meal's first course (bird's nest soup) arrived. A few minutes later, nothing else had arrived, so we questioned where the other meal was. The waiter got across that he'd thought only one of us was eating, but we convinced him we both wanted food. He came back a few moments later and thrust a spoon at Emma and then went away again. After a few minutes it became clear he wasn't coming back with any more food and had assumed that we were being cheap-wads and sharing one meal between two. After calling over a different waiter we finally got the message across and soon were tucking into roast pigeon. Unfortunately, the main dish was pretty rank. As as final "insult" to the restaurant, their oldest waiter - who looked about 80 - nearly tripped over whilst serving our desert. We gulped down the desert, paid up and ran before we caused any other mishaps.
Hong Kong is like a real culture smash between east and west - the British influences are clearly there and they fall away quickly the further into Kowloon you go. It's a very good starting point for people who want to explore east Asia for the first time. There was so much we didn't have time for - notably the New Territories, but these are more Cantonese than British and off the main tourist trail. Maybe next time.
The next day we got up and took the MTR for the final time to Hong Kong and got the skytrain back to the Airport for the flight back home. This time, Air France had remembered our seat bookings, but of course there had to be a problem and that was that the already mediocre entertainment system refused to play any films leading to a 12 hour flight where we had to entertain ourselves. Still at least we'd get home in one piece.
Or were we? Despite have a 4 hour layover in Paris, which was extended by an hours delay, we arrived in Manchester to find an entire crate of luggage had been left on the tarmac in Paris. Nevermind, Air France had the pleasure of couriering my bag from Manchester to Durham. Take that!
There was loads of fresh fruit and vegetables, more live seafood for sale and all sorts of meat - including chickens' feet.
At the end of the market we finally caught one of Hong Kong's old trams through Central to the Bank of China, the iconic "triangle" building. The trams are pretty jerky and very narrow, but they keep going.
The Bank of China has a viewing platform which afforded us fantastic views over Central and Admiralty. Even more surprising was that the bank was open on a Saturday! More importantly though was that the fog had lifted for the first time.
For our final excursion we took a bus to the south of the island to Stanley. As the double-decker bus started climbing up the hills the roads started getting more winding and narrower. As we came down the other side of the hill, the road quality deteriorated and the ride became more akin to a roller-coaster with as we worked our way past the luxury houses to Stanley. Stanley is famous for its market and once again the area turned out to be full of knock-off shops and overly priced restaurants and westernised bars along the China Sea front. We went for a dim-sum restaurant, tucked away behind the market, hoping it might be a hidden gem. We even went for the chicken-feet. We were disappointed on both fronts. Chickens' feet are probably the most pointless food ever - there is more bone and gristle than meat.
The bus back came through a tunnel rather than the hill-top road and was much less hair-raising. We traversed the bay on the Star Ferry again to wait for dusk and the symphony of lights. This time I was able to get some nice photos without fog.
We took the ferry back to the island for our final meal out in an very old restaurant that slowly descended into farce. The waiter seem confused by our order (two different set meals), but seemed to grasp the idea in the end. After a while the first meal's first course (bird's nest soup) arrived. A few minutes later, nothing else had arrived, so we questioned where the other meal was. The waiter got across that he'd thought only one of us was eating, but we convinced him we both wanted food. He came back a few moments later and thrust a spoon at Emma and then went away again. After a few minutes it became clear he wasn't coming back with any more food and had assumed that we were being cheap-wads and sharing one meal between two. After calling over a different waiter we finally got the message across and soon were tucking into roast pigeon. Unfortunately, the main dish was pretty rank. As as final "insult" to the restaurant, their oldest waiter - who looked about 80 - nearly tripped over whilst serving our desert. We gulped down the desert, paid up and ran before we caused any other mishaps.
Hong Kong is like a real culture smash between east and west - the British influences are clearly there and they fall away quickly the further into Kowloon you go. It's a very good starting point for people who want to explore east Asia for the first time. There was so much we didn't have time for - notably the New Territories, but these are more Cantonese than British and off the main tourist trail. Maybe next time.
The next day we got up and took the MTR for the final time to Hong Kong and got the skytrain back to the Airport for the flight back home. This time, Air France had remembered our seat bookings, but of course there had to be a problem and that was that the already mediocre entertainment system refused to play any films leading to a 12 hour flight where we had to entertain ourselves. Still at least we'd get home in one piece.
Or were we? Despite have a 4 hour layover in Paris, which was extended by an hours delay, we arrived in Manchester to find an entire crate of luggage had been left on the tarmac in Paris. Nevermind, Air France had the pleasure of couriering my bag from Manchester to Durham. Take that!
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Hong Kong part 2
After exploring Central and Admiralty, our 2nd full day started off walking around Kowloon. There are two main roads that run north to south and are rammed with electronics stores. We walked north on Nathan road taking in all the sites and sounds. Unfortunately a lot of these were Indians offering me suits and Emma Thai massages. Seriously, every 20 metres another one popped up with an offer. We found another out-of-the-way restaurant downstairs in a random building. Unlike the packed Town Hall dim-sum place, this place was practically empty. Once again, we ended up ordering far too much - the mixed noodles we thought was a side turned out to be a full dish so in total we'd accidentally ordered four full dishes for two of us...
After lunch we carried on before heading across to the Museum of Hong Kong. The fixed exhibit was the traditional "history of..." exhibition charting Hong Kong from perhistoria to modern (well, the 90s) times. As ever, Britain played a large part in Hong Kong's history by breaking down the Chinese by importing drugs to the area and advancing towards to capital until the Chinese capitulated and signed over first Hong Kong island and then Kowloon and the New Territories to Britain.
The second exhibit seemed to be about banking (and HSBC in particular, of course) so we skipped out to go to the adjacent science museum to finally see the National Geographic young wildlife photographer of the year exhibition that we'd missed out on in London last year.
Once we had finished browsing through the impressive collection, we headed back to the docks. As we waited for night to fall we popped into an amusement arcade and went head to head on Mario Kart GP2, which was as fun as ever.
Hong Kong is famous for it's night-time harbour sound and light show a symphony of lights which holds the world record for the longest daily sound and light show. Every day at 8pm music is piped onto the Avenue of Stars in Tsim Sha Tsui and the lights on buildings on the island flash and lasers shine into the sky in time with the music. It's pretty cheesy, but every day crowds line up, people set up camera tripods and everyone waits for the show to start. The mist still hung over the island so the view wasn't as clear as in the pictures. We wandered up the Avenue of Stars - the HK equivalent of the Hollywood Walk of Fame and stopped off for a drink in one of the many quayside bars and then wandered back while taking in the light show.
Also on the avenue was a display of the Olympic mascots, which seemed to all be pandas. Some of the sports they were partaking in were obvious, but some were more confusing...
Once the show was over we decided to cross the harbour and take the train up to The Peak. The train runs on a pulley system, but even so the track was seriously steep. Starting at the base of the hill the journey ran uphill at steep angle. We started out at "ground level" and soon were rising above the sky-scrapers towards the summit. The Peak is predictably tourist trap-esque and the centre is full of tacky over-priced souvenir shops and places like Hard Rock Cafe. We went to one of the over priced restaurants which was pretty nice, but seemed to be lacking the live music indicated by the guide book. We got a seat with a view (again foggy) and a menu full of the promise of freshly cooked food. After ordering, the waiter returned to inform us that Emma's choice had run out so a replacement was ordered. After a few minutes, our meals turned up. A few minutes later another waiter arrived with Emma's original choice. He seemed very confused that we both had food, but unfortunately didn't decide to leave the extra meal with us.
After we got back to sea level we decided to go for a walk over the many elevated walkways back to Central, stopping to get some "lines of lights" photos along the way.
The next day we took the MTR out to Lantau island, adjacent to the new airport and took the cable car out to Ngong Ping, home of the world's largest outdoor bronze Buddha. There seem to be so many of these things around that there needs to be multiple categories to have records in. Biggest/smallest, indoors/outdoors, bronze...
The journey takes about 20 minutes and gives an aerial view of the new airport, before going over the hills of Lantau island to Ngong Ping village. If the Peak was a tourist trap, then Ngong Ping is a tourist death-trap. The entire cable car complex has been built to look old, but they did a pretty poor job as everything looks like it's made out of plastic. Overpriced cafes and souvenir shops line the path to the monastery at the foot of the steps up to the Buddha itself.
Apparently Buddha like oranges, so there were plenty of orange bushes around and small piles of offerings in front of the statues. Then we started up the hundreds of stairs. I know I'm not that fit, but daaaaaaaaaaaamn there was a lot of stairs.
After getting the cable car back to Tung Chung, we walked around the shopping centre there taking in another supermarket, complete with more live fish tanks and piles of durian fruits.
That evening we ventured back to Yau Ma Tei to take in a night market. Essentially, it was a market along a street full of stalls selling tat, knocked off toys and clothes. Afterwards we were guided into another random building, up a staircase and into a first floor restaurant, practically invisible from the street (in fact, it took us several attempts to find the building). This was another traditional place, full of Cantonese where very few of the waiters spoke English. We ordered the duck pancakes and a whole sliced duck arrived.
Afterwards we wandered back towards the harbour. As we neared the harbour we passed the Sheraton hotel. After my experiences in Frankfurt and Sheraton Preferred Guest card in my wallet I dragged Emma inside for a drink. The bar was on the top floor with an amazing view over the harbour. Of course, the drinks of choice were cocktails - margaritas, daiquiri and other strong vodka drinks that looked pretty space-age under the mood lighting. Very Lost In Translation
After lunch we carried on before heading across to the Museum of Hong Kong. The fixed exhibit was the traditional "history of..." exhibition charting Hong Kong from perhistoria to modern (well, the 90s) times. As ever, Britain played a large part in Hong Kong's history by breaking down the Chinese by importing drugs to the area and advancing towards to capital until the Chinese capitulated and signed over first Hong Kong island and then Kowloon and the New Territories to Britain.
The second exhibit seemed to be about banking (and HSBC in particular, of course) so we skipped out to go to the adjacent science museum to finally see the National Geographic young wildlife photographer of the year exhibition that we'd missed out on in London last year.
Once we had finished browsing through the impressive collection, we headed back to the docks. As we waited for night to fall we popped into an amusement arcade and went head to head on Mario Kart GP2, which was as fun as ever.
Hong Kong is famous for it's night-time harbour sound and light show a symphony of lights which holds the world record for the longest daily sound and light show. Every day at 8pm music is piped onto the Avenue of Stars in Tsim Sha Tsui and the lights on buildings on the island flash and lasers shine into the sky in time with the music. It's pretty cheesy, but every day crowds line up, people set up camera tripods and everyone waits for the show to start. The mist still hung over the island so the view wasn't as clear as in the pictures. We wandered up the Avenue of Stars - the HK equivalent of the Hollywood Walk of Fame and stopped off for a drink in one of the many quayside bars and then wandered back while taking in the light show.
Also on the avenue was a display of the Olympic mascots, which seemed to all be pandas. Some of the sports they were partaking in were obvious, but some were more confusing...
Once the show was over we decided to cross the harbour and take the train up to The Peak. The train runs on a pulley system, but even so the track was seriously steep. Starting at the base of the hill the journey ran uphill at steep angle. We started out at "ground level" and soon were rising above the sky-scrapers towards the summit. The Peak is predictably tourist trap-esque and the centre is full of tacky over-priced souvenir shops and places like Hard Rock Cafe. We went to one of the over priced restaurants which was pretty nice, but seemed to be lacking the live music indicated by the guide book. We got a seat with a view (again foggy) and a menu full of the promise of freshly cooked food. After ordering, the waiter returned to inform us that Emma's choice had run out so a replacement was ordered. After a few minutes, our meals turned up. A few minutes later another waiter arrived with Emma's original choice. He seemed very confused that we both had food, but unfortunately didn't decide to leave the extra meal with us.
After we got back to sea level we decided to go for a walk over the many elevated walkways back to Central, stopping to get some "lines of lights" photos along the way.
The next day we took the MTR out to Lantau island, adjacent to the new airport and took the cable car out to Ngong Ping, home of the world's largest outdoor bronze Buddha. There seem to be so many of these things around that there needs to be multiple categories to have records in. Biggest/smallest, indoors/outdoors, bronze...
The journey takes about 20 minutes and gives an aerial view of the new airport, before going over the hills of Lantau island to Ngong Ping village. If the Peak was a tourist trap, then Ngong Ping is a tourist death-trap. The entire cable car complex has been built to look old, but they did a pretty poor job as everything looks like it's made out of plastic. Overpriced cafes and souvenir shops line the path to the monastery at the foot of the steps up to the Buddha itself.
Apparently Buddha like oranges, so there were plenty of orange bushes around and small piles of offerings in front of the statues. Then we started up the hundreds of stairs. I know I'm not that fit, but daaaaaaaaaaaamn there was a lot of stairs.
After getting the cable car back to Tung Chung, we walked around the shopping centre there taking in another supermarket, complete with more live fish tanks and piles of durian fruits.
That evening we ventured back to Yau Ma Tei to take in a night market. Essentially, it was a market along a street full of stalls selling tat, knocked off toys and clothes. Afterwards we were guided into another random building, up a staircase and into a first floor restaurant, practically invisible from the street (in fact, it took us several attempts to find the building). This was another traditional place, full of Cantonese where very few of the waiters spoke English. We ordered the duck pancakes and a whole sliced duck arrived.
Afterwards we wandered back towards the harbour. As we neared the harbour we passed the Sheraton hotel. After my experiences in Frankfurt and Sheraton Preferred Guest card in my wallet I dragged Emma inside for a drink. The bar was on the top floor with an amazing view over the harbour. Of course, the drinks of choice were cocktails - margaritas, daiquiri and other strong vodka drinks that looked pretty space-age under the mood lighting. Very Lost In Translation
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Hong Kong part 1
So this was my 2nd East Asian holiday in as many months following my return to Japan in February. Emma and I had decided that Hong Kong was top of our "cities to visit" list so we'd booked in the post Christmas sale. After getting the parking centre bus to the terminal in Manchester it appeared that we'd walked into a building site. Online check-in promised to remove the queues, but now we simply queue at the "baggage drop" desk instead. Indeed, at Manchester there appeared to be one check-in machine shared between KLM and Air France. The staff manning the machine didn't seem to understandthat we had checked in online, but didn't have boarding passes. Eventually he ushered us towards the queue. Hopefully I'll get to Silver status this year and the business check-in will await.
The next challenge was to pick up our money. After finding the Thomas Cook booth, it turned out that the money simply wasn't there as they had "forgotten" to order it. The girl thought that they may have some in another terminal so she called and informed us that someone was "running" over with it. We still had to get through security and it was getting close to the departure time. Eventually someone came ambling round the corner and we got about half of the money we'd ordered. Thomas Cook seem to be gradually replacing TravelEx in airports so in future we've decided to simply use ATMs to get cash. We rushed through security and had 10 minutes in the shops before we were ushered onto the 737. 40 minutes later we were over the channel and descending into Paris. Of course, we landed on the runway furthest fom the terminal and when we disembarked, there was actually someone to walk us from Terminal 2E where our HKG flight was to go from. CDG is a really badly laid-out airport. Terminal 2 has 6 sub terminals, some of which need a bus to get between and the signage is pretty bad. Half of 2E was still closed after a roof collapsed several years ago. To our absolute disgust, Air France had completely ignored the seats we'd selected and put us into random seats. The very unhelpful desk attendent said - tough, you turned up late so you get what's left, completely ignoring the fact that we'd pre-booked seats. Thankfully, once on board, a much more helpful stewardess arranged for us to sit next to each other - but no window seat:( - The 777 left on time and we set about the IFE system. Unlike KLM with it's AVOD system, the AF planes mostly have multichannel but are limited to about 7 films, 3 of which were French. Once again, the plan was to stay awake all the way through the shortened night and sleep when we arrived. We just about managed it and 12 hours later we were descending through the fog into Hong Kong. The famous old Kowloon airport is closed so there was no flying through the tower blocks. We entered the country, got our bags and emerged into the arrival hall, completely unaware of what to expect. We had been told there would be a bus straight to the hotel, but we couldn't see one. Instead we took the train to Hong Kong island and bought our Octopus cards (equivalent of the Oyster card and the world's first publicly used smart-card). By now it was dark and we were soon into Kowloon going past massive docks and a multitude of tower blocks.
We got off and followed the signs to our hotel bus. We were the only ones on it and it dropped us outside the Metropark in Mongkok. Something didn't feel right, and so it turned out to be as we were actually supposed to be at the Metropark Mongkok near Prince Edward station... That's just confusing. We took a taxi to the right hotel and checked in. Our room was tiny (as most Hong Kong hotel rooms apparently are) so we didn't stay long and set out to walk to a "nearby" set of recommended restaurants. Half an hour later and we were still walking along the main road which separates Kowloon from the New Territories with no end in sight.
We decided to go for Thai and found the restaurant. Having no knowledge of Cantonese, thankfully the waitresses spoke enough English to take our order. Or so we though. despite ordering chilli prawns what actually turned up was chilli crab claws. We didn't fancy trying to sort out the confusion so just ate what was brought and it was fantastic. We carried on with dessert and bubble tea (tea with tapioca balls) and eventually set about the long walk back with a stop-off at a kwik-E-mart. Our hotel is right next to a flyover and during the walk back I started to get a feel for the area. The British influence is obvious - driving on the left, road names. The Asian "feel" of the place was obvious too and at the same time it reminded me a bit of Bombay with rubbish overflowing underneath the flyover. By this point we'd been up about 30 hours so we finally headed to bed with a full plan for the next day.
We got up (perfectly in sync with Hong Kong time) and headed to the MTR just across the street. The system is light, breezy and clean. The trains are frequent and in no time we arrived at Tsim Sha Tsui which is at the end of Kowloon. From the station we walked the few hundred metres to the docks where we took our first of many journeys across the bay to Hong Kong island on the Star Ferry. We paid the extra HK$0.5 for the top deck. The famous view of the island was diluted due to mist which is very common at this time of year. Amongst the international banks, Calvin Klein are building a new skyscraper and at the moment a giant underwear model is being draped over the building and is possibly the biggest advert I've ever seen. The crossing only takes 10 minutes or so and we were soon walking onto Hong Kong island. Immediately, everything seemed a bit more British than Kowloon. Straight away we were among the skyscrapers: HSBC, the Bank of China and the rest and with the help of our guide book aimed towards Hong Kong park which housed the Tea Museum (in the oldest colonial-style building left in HK), a botanical garden, a Tai Chi garden complete with a tall tower which gave us some great views of the skyscrapers, Kowloon and a flock of cockatoos that happened to land nearby.
Next was the avery that housed a whole host of colourful birds. By this time we were getting pretty hungry so we walked back through Admiralty to the Town Hall, where we eventually found the dim sum restaurant we were looking for.
We had no idea what we were in store for but we knew dim sum is the food Hong Kong is famous for. We were ushered to a table and as soon as we sat down trolleys started appearing, the little old Chinese ladies pushing them were offering us various dishes (that we couldn't see as they had lids on). We didn't have a clue what was going on and just said yes to everything whilst at the same time trying to order our drinks from a menu. Thankfully, all the dishes we had inadvertently chosen proved to be excellent (prawn and chicken gyozas, spring rolls, duck) and we were soon waiting for the trolleys to come around again, but we never had a repeat of the initial double-trolley extravaganza. Soups, more dumplings and the weird and disgusting buns (gooey white puff with a weird yellow paste in the middle) and more kept coming off the trolleys until we were sated. After struggling out of the room we walked back to Admiralty and into a shopping centre. I love looking round foreign supermarkets - especially in Asia and this one was no different. Sections dedicated to areas from all over the continent and the fish counter was amazing - full of tanks and boxes of live fishes - you pick the ones you want and you know it's fresh. After marvelling at the choice, we settled on some on some fresh juice drinks (made in front of us) and wandered around the rest of the shops. We strolled back though the streets to a backstreet bar in Admiralty enjoyed a couple of cocktails in the happy hour.
Wednesdays in Hong Kong are synonymous with horse racing and a trip to the track to take in the floodlit races was high on our list. Sadly as we got there it all seemed a bit quiet and as we walked the length of the stand to find the visitors entrance it began to dawn on us that it was closed. It turned out that racing was having a week off due to the rugby world sevens tournament teams training at the track. We headed back into town looking for another of the recommended restaurants, which turned out to be closed for refurbishment. This wasn't our night so we eventually piled into a kaiten sushi restaurant just before 11. It definitely wasn't our night as they switched off the conveyor at 11 before we'd had a chance to take anything so we ended up ordering from the menu.
The next challenge was to pick up our money. After finding the Thomas Cook booth, it turned out that the money simply wasn't there as they had "forgotten" to order it. The girl thought that they may have some in another terminal so she called and informed us that someone was "running" over with it. We still had to get through security and it was getting close to the departure time. Eventually someone came ambling round the corner and we got about half of the money we'd ordered. Thomas Cook seem to be gradually replacing TravelEx in airports so in future we've decided to simply use ATMs to get cash. We rushed through security and had 10 minutes in the shops before we were ushered onto the 737. 40 minutes later we were over the channel and descending into Paris. Of course, we landed on the runway furthest fom the terminal and when we disembarked, there was actually someone to walk us from Terminal 2E where our HKG flight was to go from. CDG is a really badly laid-out airport. Terminal 2 has 6 sub terminals, some of which need a bus to get between and the signage is pretty bad. Half of 2E was still closed after a roof collapsed several years ago. To our absolute disgust, Air France had completely ignored the seats we'd selected and put us into random seats. The very unhelpful desk attendent said - tough, you turned up late so you get what's left, completely ignoring the fact that we'd pre-booked seats. Thankfully, once on board, a much more helpful stewardess arranged for us to sit next to each other - but no window seat:( - The 777 left on time and we set about the IFE system. Unlike KLM with it's AVOD system, the AF planes mostly have multichannel but are limited to about 7 films, 3 of which were French. Once again, the plan was to stay awake all the way through the shortened night and sleep when we arrived. We just about managed it and 12 hours later we were descending through the fog into Hong Kong. The famous old Kowloon airport is closed so there was no flying through the tower blocks. We entered the country, got our bags and emerged into the arrival hall, completely unaware of what to expect. We had been told there would be a bus straight to the hotel, but we couldn't see one. Instead we took the train to Hong Kong island and bought our Octopus cards (equivalent of the Oyster card and the world's first publicly used smart-card). By now it was dark and we were soon into Kowloon going past massive docks and a multitude of tower blocks.
We got off and followed the signs to our hotel bus. We were the only ones on it and it dropped us outside the Metropark in Mongkok. Something didn't feel right, and so it turned out to be as we were actually supposed to be at the Metropark Mongkok near Prince Edward station... That's just confusing. We took a taxi to the right hotel and checked in. Our room was tiny (as most Hong Kong hotel rooms apparently are) so we didn't stay long and set out to walk to a "nearby" set of recommended restaurants. Half an hour later and we were still walking along the main road which separates Kowloon from the New Territories with no end in sight.
We decided to go for Thai and found the restaurant. Having no knowledge of Cantonese, thankfully the waitresses spoke enough English to take our order. Or so we though. despite ordering chilli prawns what actually turned up was chilli crab claws. We didn't fancy trying to sort out the confusion so just ate what was brought and it was fantastic. We carried on with dessert and bubble tea (tea with tapioca balls) and eventually set about the long walk back with a stop-off at a kwik-E-mart. Our hotel is right next to a flyover and during the walk back I started to get a feel for the area. The British influence is obvious - driving on the left, road names. The Asian "feel" of the place was obvious too and at the same time it reminded me a bit of Bombay with rubbish overflowing underneath the flyover. By this point we'd been up about 30 hours so we finally headed to bed with a full plan for the next day.
We got up (perfectly in sync with Hong Kong time) and headed to the MTR just across the street. The system is light, breezy and clean. The trains are frequent and in no time we arrived at Tsim Sha Tsui which is at the end of Kowloon. From the station we walked the few hundred metres to the docks where we took our first of many journeys across the bay to Hong Kong island on the Star Ferry. We paid the extra HK$0.5 for the top deck. The famous view of the island was diluted due to mist which is very common at this time of year. Amongst the international banks, Calvin Klein are building a new skyscraper and at the moment a giant underwear model is being draped over the building and is possibly the biggest advert I've ever seen. The crossing only takes 10 minutes or so and we were soon walking onto Hong Kong island. Immediately, everything seemed a bit more British than Kowloon. Straight away we were among the skyscrapers: HSBC, the Bank of China and the rest and with the help of our guide book aimed towards Hong Kong park which housed the Tea Museum (in the oldest colonial-style building left in HK), a botanical garden, a Tai Chi garden complete with a tall tower which gave us some great views of the skyscrapers, Kowloon and a flock of cockatoos that happened to land nearby.
Next was the avery that housed a whole host of colourful birds. By this time we were getting pretty hungry so we walked back through Admiralty to the Town Hall, where we eventually found the dim sum restaurant we were looking for.
We had no idea what we were in store for but we knew dim sum is the food Hong Kong is famous for. We were ushered to a table and as soon as we sat down trolleys started appearing, the little old Chinese ladies pushing them were offering us various dishes (that we couldn't see as they had lids on). We didn't have a clue what was going on and just said yes to everything whilst at the same time trying to order our drinks from a menu. Thankfully, all the dishes we had inadvertently chosen proved to be excellent (prawn and chicken gyozas, spring rolls, duck) and we were soon waiting for the trolleys to come around again, but we never had a repeat of the initial double-trolley extravaganza. Soups, more dumplings and the weird and disgusting buns (gooey white puff with a weird yellow paste in the middle) and more kept coming off the trolleys until we were sated. After struggling out of the room we walked back to Admiralty and into a shopping centre. I love looking round foreign supermarkets - especially in Asia and this one was no different. Sections dedicated to areas from all over the continent and the fish counter was amazing - full of tanks and boxes of live fishes - you pick the ones you want and you know it's fresh. After marvelling at the choice, we settled on some on some fresh juice drinks (made in front of us) and wandered around the rest of the shops. We strolled back though the streets to a backstreet bar in Admiralty enjoyed a couple of cocktails in the happy hour.
Wednesdays in Hong Kong are synonymous with horse racing and a trip to the track to take in the floodlit races was high on our list. Sadly as we got there it all seemed a bit quiet and as we walked the length of the stand to find the visitors entrance it began to dawn on us that it was closed. It turned out that racing was having a week off due to the rugby world sevens tournament teams training at the track. We headed back into town looking for another of the recommended restaurants, which turned out to be closed for refurbishment. This wasn't our night so we eventually piled into a kaiten sushi restaurant just before 11. It definitely wasn't our night as they switched off the conveyor at 11 before we'd had a chance to take anything so we ended up ordering from the menu.
Friday, May 16, 2008
The last of Tokyo
Dawn broke on our last full day in Japan. The Daily Yomiuri arrived with news of HD-DVD's demise and we headed down, once again, to the Kiwk-e-mart for breakfast. Before setting out, we managed to check in for out flights – Japan seems completely topsy turvy with regards to internet access – in room wifi was free, but the communal PCs charged £1 for 10 minutes which is the exact opposite of Western hotels. Of course, with no wifi devices, we ended up racing through websites at break-neck speed trying to find the best seats and finish checking in before our credit ran out. We finally set out to the museum in Ueno – apparently the only museum in Tokyo worth visiting according to the Lonely Planet. We walked through a large cherry tree-filled arena to the museum. Amazingly, with money running low, we were gifted a pair of entrance tickets to not only the museum, but also the special exhibit from a couple who hadn't had time to go into the exhibit. After getting confused and buying some superfluous entry tickets, being told we'd bought superfluous tickets and getting a refund for said superfluous tickets we finally got into the museum. We wandered through halls of Japanese artefacts and tales of the past we ventured into the special exhibit. It's a very good job we didn't pay for it as the entire thing was a display of Japanese literature and other manuscripts – entirely in kanji with no English descriptors.
Eventually we had seen it all and headed back via Mos Burger to get packing. We had agreed to meet James in Shibuya for a big night, so being packed for the early departure was essential. We met up outside the station and wandered into Shibuya. Once again we found a restaurant on an upper floor with no obvious (ie English) sign it was there. This time we picked out a Korean all you can eat BBQ. Once again we went for the all-you-can-consume option - £15 for food and only £5 for all your can drink for 2 hours! Needless to say we totally cleaned up. These restaurants have no equivalent in the UK and it's not hard to see why. Within half an hour, we had completely incinerated most of the food to the point where our chopsticks caught fire. The entire atmosphere was smoky with the charring of other people meals. On the floors above and below the situation was no doubt being repeated and in Nanny State UK it's several steps beyond feasible. After the 2 hours had expired we were absolutely stuffed. We had definitely come out winners in the value for money game. James lead us to a nearby gaijin bar that was full of foreigners. Set out like an American bar, Japanese girls wandered around taking orders and when I said full it was very full. It was the most offensive place I've seen in ages: typically loud Americans dressed like gangstas. James reminisced about frequenting places like this before finding them equally offensive. After debating getting the last train home (especially for James who had some stupidly small amount of money to live on for 2 weeks) we decided to find an izhkaya. We settled down to a quiet beer and snacks. Or so we thought... The couple at the next table – or more specifically, the guy – cottoned on to us as English speakers and decided to practice his English on us much to the embarrassment of his girlfriend. His English was extremely broken and he ended up talking to James in Japanese before trying with us again. For some reason, in his inebriated state he decided I was the spitting image of a Japanese cheesy celebrity. After getting me to repeat his catchphrase for the next hour or so we decided to bail. As we left, James reassured me that I did in fact look nothing like the celebrity... For all it's advances over the West, Tokyo still suffers from a train network that shuts down at midnight. Spending the night in a karaoke booth was looking like the best option when we decided a taxi would be the best option as we definitely had a sofa that James could crash on for the night. We found a taxi but it appeared to be sans driver. It would have been better if he hadn't appeared, as when he did he was clearly half cut. He stumbled into the car to find the button to open the door. Eventually we were driving through Tokyo back to Ikebukuro. After a final visit to the Kwik-e-mart, we retired to the hotel. We then realised that the sofa we definitely had was in fact in the Sapporo hotel an the Tokyo Metropolitan only had an armchair. No doubt this is what comes from about 5 hours constant drinking. After passing out we woke up early and finished packing before heading out to Nippori to catch the Skyliner to the airport. Getting off at Nippori we heard the platform melodies for the last time. The current Skyliner trains were designed in the 80s and it shows – very boxy and lots of plastic. An hour later we pulled back into the underground station at Narita airport. We'd had to wait longer than we'd anticipated at Nippori and time before our flights was getting short. Unfortunately, the station is in the sub-basement and departures is on the upper levels which meant a lot of slow escalator rides as time ticked away. Further joy awaited me as we reached the check in floor – my flight had actually been allocated an earlier departure time – just 35 minutes away. James ran off to the BA desk as I traversed the concourse eventually finding the Air France desk at the far end. The staff looked confused when I started to put my stuff through the x-ray machine. They looked even more confused when I explained I was on the flight leaving in half an hour. Thankfully as I'd already checked in online there weren't any problems (maybe they were just confused in general) and soon we had been relieved of our suitcases and were heading downstairs to join the back of a massive queue (a BA 747, AF 777 and KLM 777 were all due to leave within 15 minutes of each other) to get through passport control. Time ticked on and just as we were next to be seen, they announced that our flights were being fast tracked. Even so I made time to go to the toilet. I said goodbye to James and boarded the 777-200. After all the rush we ended up being late pushing back anyway. After push back the captain applied forward thrust to the engines and from my window I saw a load of smoke shoot out of the back. Even James saw it from his plane. Not the most inspiring start to a journey. The AF inflight entertainment system is behind that of KLM's AVOD system so I only had a handful of films to keep me entertained. Pretty soon were over France and slowing down (these planes slow down pretty quickly which always makes me feel it's about to stall) on approach to Paris. Even though the return flight is against the winds I had once again managed to avoid the need to use the toilet. Score! Charles De Gaulle is a pretty bland airport and the less said about the plane back to Newcastle the better. I was soon back in Durham – thankfully I'd again hardcore'd the trip and beat the jet lag! Yes!
Eventually we had seen it all and headed back via Mos Burger to get packing. We had agreed to meet James in Shibuya for a big night, so being packed for the early departure was essential. We met up outside the station and wandered into Shibuya. Once again we found a restaurant on an upper floor with no obvious (ie English) sign it was there. This time we picked out a Korean all you can eat BBQ. Once again we went for the all-you-can-consume option - £15 for food and only £5 for all your can drink for 2 hours! Needless to say we totally cleaned up. These restaurants have no equivalent in the UK and it's not hard to see why. Within half an hour, we had completely incinerated most of the food to the point where our chopsticks caught fire. The entire atmosphere was smoky with the charring of other people meals. On the floors above and below the situation was no doubt being repeated and in Nanny State UK it's several steps beyond feasible. After the 2 hours had expired we were absolutely stuffed. We had definitely come out winners in the value for money game. James lead us to a nearby gaijin bar that was full of foreigners. Set out like an American bar, Japanese girls wandered around taking orders and when I said full it was very full. It was the most offensive place I've seen in ages: typically loud Americans dressed like gangstas. James reminisced about frequenting places like this before finding them equally offensive. After debating getting the last train home (especially for James who had some stupidly small amount of money to live on for 2 weeks) we decided to find an izhkaya. We settled down to a quiet beer and snacks. Or so we thought... The couple at the next table – or more specifically, the guy – cottoned on to us as English speakers and decided to practice his English on us much to the embarrassment of his girlfriend. His English was extremely broken and he ended up talking to James in Japanese before trying with us again. For some reason, in his inebriated state he decided I was the spitting image of a Japanese cheesy celebrity. After getting me to repeat his catchphrase for the next hour or so we decided to bail. As we left, James reassured me that I did in fact look nothing like the celebrity... For all it's advances over the West, Tokyo still suffers from a train network that shuts down at midnight. Spending the night in a karaoke booth was looking like the best option when we decided a taxi would be the best option as we definitely had a sofa that James could crash on for the night. We found a taxi but it appeared to be sans driver. It would have been better if he hadn't appeared, as when he did he was clearly half cut. He stumbled into the car to find the button to open the door. Eventually we were driving through Tokyo back to Ikebukuro. After a final visit to the Kwik-e-mart, we retired to the hotel. We then realised that the sofa we definitely had was in fact in the Sapporo hotel an the Tokyo Metropolitan only had an armchair. No doubt this is what comes from about 5 hours constant drinking. After passing out we woke up early and finished packing before heading out to Nippori to catch the Skyliner to the airport. Getting off at Nippori we heard the platform melodies for the last time. The current Skyliner trains were designed in the 80s and it shows – very boxy and lots of plastic. An hour later we pulled back into the underground station at Narita airport. We'd had to wait longer than we'd anticipated at Nippori and time before our flights was getting short. Unfortunately, the station is in the sub-basement and departures is on the upper levels which meant a lot of slow escalator rides as time ticked away. Further joy awaited me as we reached the check in floor – my flight had actually been allocated an earlier departure time – just 35 minutes away. James ran off to the BA desk as I traversed the concourse eventually finding the Air France desk at the far end. The staff looked confused when I started to put my stuff through the x-ray machine. They looked even more confused when I explained I was on the flight leaving in half an hour. Thankfully as I'd already checked in online there weren't any problems (maybe they were just confused in general) and soon we had been relieved of our suitcases and were heading downstairs to join the back of a massive queue (a BA 747, AF 777 and KLM 777 were all due to leave within 15 minutes of each other) to get through passport control. Time ticked on and just as we were next to be seen, they announced that our flights were being fast tracked. Even so I made time to go to the toilet. I said goodbye to James and boarded the 777-200. After all the rush we ended up being late pushing back anyway. After push back the captain applied forward thrust to the engines and from my window I saw a load of smoke shoot out of the back. Even James saw it from his plane. Not the most inspiring start to a journey. The AF inflight entertainment system is behind that of KLM's AVOD system so I only had a handful of films to keep me entertained. Pretty soon were over France and slowing down (these planes slow down pretty quickly which always makes me feel it's about to stall) on approach to Paris. Even though the return flight is against the winds I had once again managed to avoid the need to use the toilet. Score! Charles De Gaulle is a pretty bland airport and the less said about the plane back to Newcastle the better. I was soon back in Durham – thankfully I'd again hardcore'd the trip and beat the jet lag! Yes!
Friday, May 09, 2008
More of Tokyo
After an early night we got up at the obscene time of 5 am to head across town to the Tsukiji fish market. Somehow, despite the hour, there were a lot of people around and they weren't pissed salarymen coming home from karaoke! We caught a train to Shinjuku at 5.30 and then got the subway across to Tsukiji.
Thankfully, we weren't exposed to the horror of Tokyo rush hour and we got there at about 6.15. After coming out of the station we smelled the fish straight away and followed someone carrying a large bag and wearing large wellingtons. He lead us to the outskirts of the markets. Swarming around were a fleet of speeding carts – essentially Segway scooters with trailers for driving around fish at high speeds. After avoiding death and navigating through the lorry bays we were amongst the fish. The narrow pathways were filled with people going about their business. The smell wasn't as strong as you might expect as all the fish was exceedingly fresh. We carried on deeper into the market and after playing real life Frogger with another lane of carts we found the tuna auctions. The floor was covered with frozen tunas, just in from the boats. Potential buyers were swarming around hacking at the tails to inspect the colour of the meat. A single auctioneer stood on a box conducting the auctions at breakneck speed. Needless to say we had no idea what was going on. Luckily for us this was before the recent clampdowns on tourists.
One by one the tunas were dragged away and loaded onto carts. With each tuna cost the same as a small car, there was clearly a large amount of money flying around. We wandered away and on our subsequent wanderings saw what became of the tunas – some people took hatchets to them, some used band saws and some just attacked them with very sharp knives.
The range of seafood on display was amazing – a lot of it was still alive in tanks. The entire market was full of activity and the small passageways between stalls frequently became blocked by people eager to examine the wares on offer. As we left, the motorised carts became less frequent and we began to stop worrying about being run down by boxes of fish. Most of the sushi joints in the market were rammed, but the lonely planet guided us to a restaurant a few hundred metres away that was almost empty. We ordered the platter which came with a wide selection from the common through to the unusual. we set about it until only 2 were left: crab paste and salmon roe. We decided to take one each... In hindsight, we should have left these until last.
We emerged to find it was still only 7 am. We got the subway back to Shinjuku – again without any sign of a Tokyo rush hour. As with the rest of East Asia, nothing really opens until around 10 am so we wandered around Shinjuku's red light district taking some of the back roads walking through the seedy areas complete with strip clubs and back alley bars. In the early hours of daylight, the streets were peaceful and uneventful.
I am a big fan of the classic Jrock band X Japan. They are the latest band to hop on the reunion bandwagon despite the death of lead guitarist Hide. The reason I mention this is that I'm fairly sure we nearly got run down by their tour bus (a big black bus with X Japan decorations all over it) just outside Bic Camera. We meandered back to the Government building to get a daytime view. Thanks to the crisp cool February weather we got some great views of Fuji San. We had a look around the nearest multi-storey Bic Camera store marvelling at all the gadgets. Surprisingly, there was a lot of xbox360 stuff despite it selling less that 3000 units per week. More expected was the whole host of BluRay equipment and not so much HD-DVD. Eventually we took the train out to Mitaka and, after stopping at the kwik-e-mart to get some more biscuits, walked down the small river to the Studio Ghibli museum. James had never seen a film from the Studio before, but the museum is very inspirational – even though it's all in Japanese. It's a shame that the film we saw, the whale hunt wasn't as good as the day I harvested a star, but the museum is still an excellent introduction to the animation basics and production. We walked back through Inokahira Park before getting lunch in one of the many French-style bakeries.
That evening, we met up with James' friend James (confusing?) and his girlfriend. James did 2 years on JET before going back to the UK and working for Accenture where he met James. He's now back in Japan doing an MBA (in Japanese!) We met up at Shinjuji and then went for shabu shabu – the traditional Mongolian self-cooking style at one of the many restaurants hidden away on the upper floor of the buildings. These are the places that foreigners never find. We set about an all you can eat/drink in 90 minutes deal getting through more than our fair share of beers and plates of meat. Afterwards we went for karaoke before catching the last train back to Ikebukuro. I haven't improved at karaoke since the last time.
Due to our very early start and late finish, we had a late start on Friday. We got our brunch from the kwik-e-mart before heading out to Tokyo station to wander around the Imperial Palace gardens. The temperature had picked up so we walked to our next destination: the Tokyo stock exchange. The exchange was computerised in the 1990s so visitors can wander around – the only people there were the computer security staff there to ensure no one hacked in and the news teams who report the financial news from the exchange historically. As seems to be the style of the time, the stock market lost ground whilst we were there.
We caught the subway to Ginza to look around the Sony building. As someone who works in OLEDs I was interested to see if they had the X-EL1 on display. The centre featured a LOT of large LCDs playing the Spiderman 3 trailer on endless replay. The X-EL1 was indeed on display. The picture quality was amazing – the clarity and “realness” of the picture was only let down by the small size (11”) and low resolution (960x540) compared to the cost (200,000yen), but once the cost comes down, they are definitely the future.
From here we decided to visit the controversial Yasukuni Shrine where recent Japanese prime ministers have drawn condemnation from Japan's neighbours for visiting. Various war criminals are enshrined there, but never ones to shirk away from controversy we went anyway.
The shrine appeared like most others. The Yūshūkan museum was adjacent, where the exhibits claim the Pacific War was fought in self-defence and hosts many war relics alongside a memorial to Radhabinod Pal – a justice who, the memorial claimed, rallied against the war crimes trials following the war. As the shrine closed we walked away from the setting sun and walked toward Akiba. On the way we stopped at another vending machine restaurant for our first taste of katsu kare – a dish almost entirely unlike curry. We carried on our way through the musical instrument district before hitting Akiba just as the last light from the day vanished, playing up the neon and overwhelming noise even more.
We browsed around the various shops – electrical, manga and toys/collectables half looking at the items on sale, half looking at the clientèle buying the goods. Not the otaku we were maybe expecting, but tired looking salarymen on their way home from work, browsing through the rows of scantily clad manga statuettes as if it were the most normal thing in the world: and in this city, it is.
Thankfully, we weren't exposed to the horror of Tokyo rush hour and we got there at about 6.15. After coming out of the station we smelled the fish straight away and followed someone carrying a large bag and wearing large wellingtons. He lead us to the outskirts of the markets. Swarming around were a fleet of speeding carts – essentially Segway scooters with trailers for driving around fish at high speeds. After avoiding death and navigating through the lorry bays we were amongst the fish. The narrow pathways were filled with people going about their business. The smell wasn't as strong as you might expect as all the fish was exceedingly fresh. We carried on deeper into the market and after playing real life Frogger with another lane of carts we found the tuna auctions. The floor was covered with frozen tunas, just in from the boats. Potential buyers were swarming around hacking at the tails to inspect the colour of the meat. A single auctioneer stood on a box conducting the auctions at breakneck speed. Needless to say we had no idea what was going on. Luckily for us this was before the recent clampdowns on tourists.
One by one the tunas were dragged away and loaded onto carts. With each tuna cost the same as a small car, there was clearly a large amount of money flying around. We wandered away and on our subsequent wanderings saw what became of the tunas – some people took hatchets to them, some used band saws and some just attacked them with very sharp knives.
The range of seafood on display was amazing – a lot of it was still alive in tanks. The entire market was full of activity and the small passageways between stalls frequently became blocked by people eager to examine the wares on offer. As we left, the motorised carts became less frequent and we began to stop worrying about being run down by boxes of fish. Most of the sushi joints in the market were rammed, but the lonely planet guided us to a restaurant a few hundred metres away that was almost empty. We ordered the platter which came with a wide selection from the common through to the unusual. we set about it until only 2 were left: crab paste and salmon roe. We decided to take one each... In hindsight, we should have left these until last.
We emerged to find it was still only 7 am. We got the subway back to Shinjuku – again without any sign of a Tokyo rush hour. As with the rest of East Asia, nothing really opens until around 10 am so we wandered around Shinjuku's red light district taking some of the back roads walking through the seedy areas complete with strip clubs and back alley bars. In the early hours of daylight, the streets were peaceful and uneventful.
I am a big fan of the classic Jrock band X Japan. They are the latest band to hop on the reunion bandwagon despite the death of lead guitarist Hide. The reason I mention this is that I'm fairly sure we nearly got run down by their tour bus (a big black bus with X Japan decorations all over it) just outside Bic Camera. We meandered back to the Government building to get a daytime view. Thanks to the crisp cool February weather we got some great views of Fuji San. We had a look around the nearest multi-storey Bic Camera store marvelling at all the gadgets. Surprisingly, there was a lot of xbox360 stuff despite it selling less that 3000 units per week. More expected was the whole host of BluRay equipment and not so much HD-DVD. Eventually we took the train out to Mitaka and, after stopping at the kwik-e-mart to get some more biscuits, walked down the small river to the Studio Ghibli museum. James had never seen a film from the Studio before, but the museum is very inspirational – even though it's all in Japanese. It's a shame that the film we saw, the whale hunt wasn't as good as the day I harvested a star, but the museum is still an excellent introduction to the animation basics and production. We walked back through Inokahira Park before getting lunch in one of the many French-style bakeries.
That evening, we met up with James' friend James (confusing?) and his girlfriend. James did 2 years on JET before going back to the UK and working for Accenture where he met James. He's now back in Japan doing an MBA (in Japanese!) We met up at Shinjuji and then went for shabu shabu – the traditional Mongolian self-cooking style at one of the many restaurants hidden away on the upper floor of the buildings. These are the places that foreigners never find. We set about an all you can eat/drink in 90 minutes deal getting through more than our fair share of beers and plates of meat. Afterwards we went for karaoke before catching the last train back to Ikebukuro. I haven't improved at karaoke since the last time.
Due to our very early start and late finish, we had a late start on Friday. We got our brunch from the kwik-e-mart before heading out to Tokyo station to wander around the Imperial Palace gardens. The temperature had picked up so we walked to our next destination: the Tokyo stock exchange. The exchange was computerised in the 1990s so visitors can wander around – the only people there were the computer security staff there to ensure no one hacked in and the news teams who report the financial news from the exchange historically. As seems to be the style of the time, the stock market lost ground whilst we were there.
We caught the subway to Ginza to look around the Sony building. As someone who works in OLEDs I was interested to see if they had the X-EL1 on display. The centre featured a LOT of large LCDs playing the Spiderman 3 trailer on endless replay. The X-EL1 was indeed on display. The picture quality was amazing – the clarity and “realness” of the picture was only let down by the small size (11”) and low resolution (960x540) compared to the cost (200,000yen), but once the cost comes down, they are definitely the future.
From here we decided to visit the controversial Yasukuni Shrine where recent Japanese prime ministers have drawn condemnation from Japan's neighbours for visiting. Various war criminals are enshrined there, but never ones to shirk away from controversy we went anyway.
The shrine appeared like most others. The Yūshūkan museum was adjacent, where the exhibits claim the Pacific War was fought in self-defence and hosts many war relics alongside a memorial to Radhabinod Pal – a justice who, the memorial claimed, rallied against the war crimes trials following the war. As the shrine closed we walked away from the setting sun and walked toward Akiba. On the way we stopped at another vending machine restaurant for our first taste of katsu kare – a dish almost entirely unlike curry. We carried on our way through the musical instrument district before hitting Akiba just as the last light from the day vanished, playing up the neon and overwhelming noise even more.
We browsed around the various shops – electrical, manga and toys/collectables half looking at the items on sale, half looking at the clientèle buying the goods. Not the otaku we were maybe expecting, but tired looking salarymen on their way home from work, browsing through the rows of scantily clad manga statuettes as if it were the most normal thing in the world: and in this city, it is.
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