Blogging from China

You might be wondering why I haven’t posted since we arrived in China. Well besides the fact that we have been run ragged by my always-on-the-go, 71 year old mother seeing the sights, the real reason is because I’m blocked from getting onto my Google hosted blog. Facebook is also blocked here in China. We take freedom of speech for granted in the States. As a result, I am having my cousin post this entry for me. We are currently in Shanghai and have taken some day and overnight tours to some nearby cities. Our plan is to stay in Shanghai for a few more days, then head to Hangzhou where my mom has some family. (Her cousin has been helpful in getting a hotel reserved for us near Hangzhou’s famous West Lake.) We are all doing ok. The pace with my mom and brother has been faster than when we are alone. They’re going to do another 2 day tour this weekend, while we stay in Shanghai to do some schoolwork and relax. Thank goodness we have my mom to translate for us. She’s been an immense help to us and is really resourceful. We’ve been saving money on hotels, eating out and by taking public buses (which would be nearly impossible without her since everything is posted in Chinese.) She’s good at bargaining too, so it’s been fun to pick up little souvenirs here and there, as everything is “MADE IN CHINA”. My experience here is different from when I was here about 15 years ago. So much has changed (modern buildings, modern trains, subways, better roads), but a lot has stayed the same too (nasty squat toilet bathrooms, tons of people everywhere, laundry hung out to dry).

Here is a link to our “while-in-China” blog. Paul started it last year to try TravelPod as our blog host. He wrote about a trip we went on to Yellowstone and Mt. Rushmore. I added pins in the map for all the places that we’ve been so far on our RTW trip. But as for reading stories and pictures, they start at the Korea entries. I’ll update this “new” blog as we go in China, then switch back to the Google based blog when I have access after we get out of China.

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog/paulfeuerborn/1/tpod.html

Japan Whirlwind (Aug 19-28, 9 days)

Time went pretty fast as we sped through Japan. Started with a red-eye from Perth that wiped me (Paul) out, but we still managed to pack a lot into our first day as usual. We landed near Osaka around 7 am and took the train to Kyoto, the old capital of Japan. We were fortunate to be able to drop our bags at our Ryokan (hotel room – which consisted of one large room without any furniture and tatami mats and futon pads to sleep on. Quite cozy for all of us, but did the trick. The owners were very sweet especially with the kids and the kids liked the different experience. Kyoto itself was more developed than we both expected since we had heard so much of the ‘antiquity’ that Kyoto had to offer. We saw some if it on the first day seeing the old castle, but later we found much more in the old parts of the city around the temples and parks. We did have a very nice time feeding the wild monkeys outside the city and the last day we saw the Golden Temple which was impressive and the kids really thought the temple with the 10,000 red Torii gates was amazing, even when they were running up hill in the high heat. I think it provided a bit of a maze to run through so that kept them feeling like it wasn’t just another one of Mom and Dad’s ‘hikes’ that they have learned to dread. All in all I’d have to agree with Debbie that Kyoto was nice, but didn’t quite hit us as dramatically as our expectations had been built up.

Our second stop in Japan was to visit Deb’s cousin who is working for Ford on an expat assignment in Hiroshima. They were very gracious to put us up in their spacious pad with amazing views from the tallest building in the city. Kids of course immediately latched on to the Wii and playing Legos with their cousins. Teresa and Ben were great at introducing us to a lot of the diversity of food from ‘conveyer belt sushi’ to okonomiyaki (Japanese pancakes with noodles, veggies & and an egg) cooked right in front of us to teppanyaki (marinated meat & seafood grilled at your table). We took a great hiking day out to Miyajima island off the coast for 10 miles of hiking up the hills. Paul and Ben were able to check out an onsen (Japanese Bath), which was very relaxing after a full day of hiking.

On to the more interesting things... Deb and I took Jacob and Charlie to the A-Bomb museum and memorials and tried to grapple with the mixed views and emotions. At the heart of the museum was the obvious and indisputable theme of ‘the world would be a better place without nuclear weapons’. When I asked Jacob to write a paper on whether or not the bomb should have been used by Truman, he made a compelling case to say that it shouldn’t have been used based on the fact that he believed Russia and the US could have defeated Japan in a traditional land war. Deb and I struggled with the lack of any joint accountability on the Japanese part or acknowledgment for the heinous acts that they committed to start the Pacific war or what they did during it. Clearly Truman’s decision to drop the bomb was one that had enormous horrible consequences for the civilian population, and was a very controversial one, but Debbie and I would have been a bit more sensitive if the Japanese had provided a bit more of the balance on the event. For example outside the museum and barely mentioned in the museum was a memorial to the Koreans that died from the bomb. About 10% of all those killed were Koreans that were basically enslaved by the Japanese during the war to help with the war industry and various other services like the ‘comfort women’. Appalling to think that in the 20th century all this could have happened and by a country of people that appeared to be as friendly, polite, and low key as any that we have met. I’m sure they feel the same way about the Americans, wondering how we could have been so evil to make and use the A-bomb. Somewhere there is something that doesn’t compute on both sides. I guess that is why they say War is Hell. Not that any of this justified the dropping of the bomb itself, but the lack of perspective from other angles was a bit disturbing.

On to Tokyo on the high-speed Shinkansen at about 160 mph. Hard to take pictures out the window at that speed. The first time I visited Tokyo in 2004, I was quite impressed by the city, but I failed to realize how un-childfriendly it was as it was a nice business trip I was on. Kids didn’t have much space to run off their steam – we found a total of one playground on the whole trip I think. The city itself is pretty overwhelming albeit fairly accessible with the subways and train rides. People were everywhere (but a good test to see if we can keep track of 4 little ones amongst 15 million people). We had a great day trip out to Nikko, which in essence is the burial place for some of the legendary Shogun rulers. First class World Heritage site there around all the tombs, temples, and shrines. Also felt good to get out of the hustle and bustle of the city.



Deb’s high school friend, Bill joined us to tour Tokyo. We had a great time seeing the Yokohama Stars baseball team play the night before we left. The fans are absolutely crazy – every time their team gets up to bat they are on their feet continuously singing cheering songs personalized to each player. During a rally in the game we didn’t hear a pause for about 20 minutes as they roared at the top of their lungs their chants. This was all accompanied by a band in the stands to keep the beat with drums and trumpets. Deb got a massive headache from it all after 3 hours. But the kids thought it was a blast and the Stars won the game which made it all great fun.




In summary on Japan I’d have to say it was a bit disappointing in the round. I’m glad we went and saw it and seeing the Kuo family was very nice, but probably a bit better suited for adult only travel. Food however was outstanding.

(Debbie now) We are in Seoul now. We've been in Korea for about a week. Lucky us, we visited a friend here as well, so we have really enjoyed our stay, having a 'local' show us around and help us with our Korean itinerary. (More on Korea later.) We leave on Sunday for Beijing, where we will meet up with my mom and brother for a few weeks. Hard to believe we've been traveling for 2 months already. The kids say, "Two months?! It feels like 2 weeks!" So it is passing by quickly for all of us. We are going toward the 'harder' countries though. The kids make fun of me because I am dreading Chinese public toilets. Hope you all are well and the blog isn't too boring for you to read. It's weird that you will be starting your fall schedule, back to school and school routines, and we're moving on to another Asian country, while trying to get some homeschooling in. If only we could get rid of that pesky schoolwork....