Back from the trip to Israel. Here are some observations (some of them just for myself, some could be useful for other tourists).
It was a somewhat overwhelmingly social holiday, but it was awesome to see everyone we managed to see, and in fact we didn't even manage to see everyone who was there. Next time, I guess, or maybe they'll visit me here in sunny Finland.
Not surprisingly, there were a lot of historical sites, good restaurants, and awesome beaches.
I wasn't sure if the early November was a bit too late in the year, but it wasn't. The temperature varied from 16 (Jerusalem) to 32 (Ein Bokek), and there was just one rainy day. The water was warm (25 or so) both in the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea.
November is off-season, most national parks close early, like at 3pm.
Jerusalem is full of tourists, and Tel Aviv and the Dead Sea have quite a few, but the national parks are almost empty apart from some school groups.
There are a lot of public toilets, almost all of them free. The ones in the restaurants are often unisex. Although pretty much anywhere I've been in Asia, from Turkey to Japan, they had more public toilets than pretty much anywhere in Europe.
The public transportation doesn't work from Friday sunset till Saturday sunset. If you are not in a religious area, some restaurants and convenience stores will be open.
The stores appear to stop selling beer by 11pm. Not sure if it's a law, company policy, or Tel Aviv city ordinance.
They are building and renovating a lot.
Almost everyone speaks very good English, and a lot of people speak very good Russian as well, but most of the written stuff is written only in Hebrew, so unless you read Hebrew you will feel a bit lost while shopping for groceries. I generally asked some friendly local people for help, and they always helped.
The places we stayed at were Tel Aviv - Jerusalem - Ein Bokek - Haifa - Tel Aviv. Did day trips to Herodion, Sorek cave, Masada, Ein Gedi, Mamshit, Ein Avdat, Avdat, Beit Guvrin, Akko, Tel Megiddo, Beit She'an and Tsippori.
Here's place by place, with links to the pictures:
Tel Aviv: a big city with a lot of restaurants and the greatest beach ever. Lots of Bauhaus buildings but they didn't impress me. Some nice markets. Yafo old city. A very nice area in the old port.
Jerusalem: I am sure even a bad tourist guide will have more details than I can describe here. One thing that a bad tourist book might not mention: the Western Wall tunnels.
Herodion: Herod's palace. You can go up the mountain, and then down inside the mountain.
Haifa: many residential neighborhoods are on the mountain, which makes for pretty cool views on the city. The main tourist attraction is the Bahai shrine gardens. The area around Sderot Ben Gurion has a lot of nice cafes.
Akko: a very pretty Arab town reminiscent of a few medieval places in Southern Europe. An undeground tunnel, a pretty mosque, and the underground crusader city in the citadel. Don't miss the genuine crusader toilet seat.
Ein Bokek: a touristy place on the Dead Sea shore. There is nothing there, really, except some Russian tourists (not many, because it's out of season) and one decent restaurant, but the sea looks lovely at sunrise, and it's a good base for visiting a lot of sites. The biggest minus: the pool and the beach closed at 5pm. WTF is that?
Sorek (Soreq, Avshalom, whatever) cave: a little but beautiful cave with stalactites, beautifully lit. In a way you've seen one of them, you've seen all, but I still enjoyed it. Quite a way down from the parking lot. The tour was supposed to be guided and photography forbidden, but the guide didn't mind us wandering around and taking pictures without flash.
Masada: the famous fortress on a high hill. If your map app is showing you two entrances you really want to use the one from direction of the Dead Sea. This one has a cable car, the other ones doesn't.
Ein Gedi: we came there late and didn't see much besides the rock hyraxes. Loved watching the rock hyraxes though.
Mamshit and Avdat: old Nabatean towns. Very interesting. There are two more, but we didn't have time for that. If you have even less time, Avdat is the biggest of the four.
Ein Avdat, aka Avdat canyon, not to be confused with Avdat. A canyon right next to Avdat. Also a national park, with a separate ticket. The entrance about 4 kilometers north from Avdat (the only one Google Maps currently show) is the top entrance, from where you can look at the canyon from above, and are not allowed to go down (falling in is also forbidden). If you want to come in from below (that's where all the really nice pictures are taken) and climb up, use the entrance near Ben Gurion university (may the road signs be with you).
Beit Guvrin: that's a really big and great park, and when the park rangers tell you what to see in what order they really know what they are talking about. Bell caves (beautiful, unusual and easily accessible), Sidonian burial caves with paintings, the ruins of Maresha and much more.
Tel Megiddo: not really that much to see, except that you get to tell your friends that you've seen the real Armageddon site. If you do get up there, don't miss the Hellmouth, aka the water system. you can go down there. It's right on the way from Haifa to Beit She'an, so if you are going there you might as well.
Beit She'an: a huge and awesome Roman ruin. Don't miss.
Tsippori/Zippori: beautiful mosaics and lots of cactuses.
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Sunday, November 20, 2016
Sunday, January 10, 2016
Chungking Mansions
This time when I was planning a trip to Hong Kong I wanted a gritty ethnic experience, and decided to stay in the infamous Chungking Mansions. I had no idea how gritty and how ethnic that would turn out to be.
All my previous experiences of cheap Hong Kong hotels could be described as "small but livable" and I tend to assume that bad reputation of various places is overblown. Well, it wasn't.
I heard that the place was renovated, cleaned up, etc. All of this seems to refer only to fire alarms, sprinklers and security cameras, which is nice but not enough.
The building has 5 blocks, each of whom has two elevators: one goes only to he even floors, and one goes only to the odd floors. The elevators are equipped with security cameras, and people who are waiting in line for an elevator get to see what the people currently in the elevator are doing there. This included, but was not limited to, checking their phones, and the cameras were conveniently located for all of us to see each others' security patterns and other passwords.
The true hell is the ground floor of the building, filled with all kinds of gentlemen from various countries trying to sell genuine fake watches and genuine fake SIM cards to everyone who walks by.
I had a reservation in a place called Peace Guest house. When I arrived there I showed the reservation to the guy at the reception, and he grabbed my phone and ran somewhere with it. I demanded it back, he said that it's OK, I said that it's most definitely not OK and ran after him. After consulting with a coworker he said that they have cancelled my reservation. I told him that that's not how reservations work, and he told me that he doesn't know or care what it says on Hotels.com, but my reservation is cancelled, they don't have any rooms left, and I should go elsewhere. I demanded some written proof that I was there and the guy said it was OK. I said it was most definitely not OK and told him to write it down. He said he couldn't write in English. I told him to write it in Chinese. He got scared at told me he cannot write anything at all without the permission from the big bosses on the Mainland.
Anyways, I found myself another hotel in the same building. It was fearsome to behold, but it had a working toilet, a working shower in the toilet a working internet and a bed that didn't do "bed kaput" every night, or indeed any night. The place even had a water boiler in the hall so one could even have tea. On the minus side, the place was overrun by little ants, and you could hear everything that you neighbors were doing. On the night that the restaurants downstairs served beans there was both the sound and the smell effect.
The security was fantastic, with the door code 987654, and the WIFI password abcd1234.
The most horrible thing were the restaurants downstairs. I usually like the food from the Indian subcontinent well enough; this was some evil cousin of the real Indian food, or maybe all the chefs were the people who were forcibly exiled from India and/or Pakistan for being a huge disgrace to the local food culture.
The most amazing thing was that at some point a couple of guys started to sell drugs outside the building. I'd never seen that in Hong Kong before. I asked them if they would like to talk to the police about it, and they disappeared.
But hey, at least the location was good.
All my previous experiences of cheap Hong Kong hotels could be described as "small but livable" and I tend to assume that bad reputation of various places is overblown. Well, it wasn't.
I heard that the place was renovated, cleaned up, etc. All of this seems to refer only to fire alarms, sprinklers and security cameras, which is nice but not enough.
The building has 5 blocks, each of whom has two elevators: one goes only to he even floors, and one goes only to the odd floors. The elevators are equipped with security cameras, and people who are waiting in line for an elevator get to see what the people currently in the elevator are doing there. This included, but was not limited to, checking their phones, and the cameras were conveniently located for all of us to see each others' security patterns and other passwords.
The true hell is the ground floor of the building, filled with all kinds of gentlemen from various countries trying to sell genuine fake watches and genuine fake SIM cards to everyone who walks by.
I had a reservation in a place called Peace Guest house. When I arrived there I showed the reservation to the guy at the reception, and he grabbed my phone and ran somewhere with it. I demanded it back, he said that it's OK, I said that it's most definitely not OK and ran after him. After consulting with a coworker he said that they have cancelled my reservation. I told him that that's not how reservations work, and he told me that he doesn't know or care what it says on Hotels.com, but my reservation is cancelled, they don't have any rooms left, and I should go elsewhere. I demanded some written proof that I was there and the guy said it was OK. I said it was most definitely not OK and told him to write it down. He said he couldn't write in English. I told him to write it in Chinese. He got scared at told me he cannot write anything at all without the permission from the big bosses on the Mainland.
Anyways, I found myself another hotel in the same building. It was fearsome to behold, but it had a working toilet, a working shower in the toilet a working internet and a bed that didn't do "bed kaput" every night, or indeed any night. The place even had a water boiler in the hall so one could even have tea. On the minus side, the place was overrun by little ants, and you could hear everything that you neighbors were doing. On the night that the restaurants downstairs served beans there was both the sound and the smell effect.
The security was fantastic, with the door code 987654, and the WIFI password abcd1234.
The most horrible thing were the restaurants downstairs. I usually like the food from the Indian subcontinent well enough; this was some evil cousin of the real Indian food, or maybe all the chefs were the people who were forcibly exiled from India and/or Pakistan for being a huge disgrace to the local food culture.
The most amazing thing was that at some point a couple of guys started to sell drugs outside the building. I'd never seen that in Hong Kong before. I asked them if they would like to talk to the police about it, and they disappeared.
But hey, at least the location was good.
Monday, October 28, 2013
Back from the US
Back from Florida and Boston and NYC. Should really visit there more often. Yes, even Florida.
For the first time ever didn't go anywhere at all in Boston, just spent my time seeing people, and still didn't see everybody I wanted to see.
This was my first time in Florida, and it was quite lovely, much better than expected. They have sandy beaches, and warm sea, and little lizards, and iguanas, and weird-looking turtles, and weird-looking birds, and flying fish.
Like almost any American I occasionally have some grievances against the federal government, but I could never imagine that I'd add "they hid all the crocodiles and alligators in Florida" to the list. But they did. We didn't get to visit Everglades or see any crocodiles at all.
Realized I actually like beaches quite a lot as long as there is no hot yellow thing in the sky.
Wish I could have taken some pictures of the flying fish, but they absolutely refused to pose in midair.
For the first time ever didn't go anywhere at all in Boston, just spent my time seeing people, and still didn't see everybody I wanted to see.
This was my first time in Florida, and it was quite lovely, much better than expected. They have sandy beaches, and warm sea, and little lizards, and iguanas, and weird-looking turtles, and weird-looking birds, and flying fish.
Like almost any American I occasionally have some grievances against the federal government, but I could never imagine that I'd add "they hid all the crocodiles and alligators in Florida" to the list. But they did. We didn't get to visit Everglades or see any crocodiles at all.
Realized I actually like beaches quite a lot as long as there is no hot yellow thing in the sky.
Wish I could have taken some pictures of the flying fish, but they absolutely refused to pose in midair.
Monday, February 04, 2013
France: Amiens, Rouen
I guess the fine art of vacation blogging still eludes me. I'll try though.
In October I started blogging about my trip to Paris and the the north of France, in November I got as far as Beauvais.
In real life everything was a bit faster.
Amiens had a beautiful cathedral, a nice riverfront, and hortillonnages, which are sort of gardens on a swamp. It also had gardens that were not on a swamp. At night the town was dead-dead-dead.
Rouen was quite a lot livelier than Amiens. Bigger, too. Full of half-timbered buildings. Or maybe half-full of fully-timbered buildings? Whatever. Beautiful. Cathedral, churches, clock tower, pederstrian area. I am so totally gonna visit there again.
They were really proud of Jeanne d'Arc, which was a bit tasteless since their only connection with her was that they burned the poor kid at the stake. But their is Jeanne d'Arc this and Jeanne d'Arc that everywhere, the actual place of burning is marked, and there is a Jeanne d'Arc church next to it, which is shaped like a flame on the inside (how tasteless is that?) and has hanging eaves for some reason.
In October I started blogging about my trip to Paris and the the north of France, in November I got as far as Beauvais.
In real life everything was a bit faster.
Amiens had a beautiful cathedral, a nice riverfront, and hortillonnages, which are sort of gardens on a swamp. It also had gardens that were not on a swamp. At night the town was dead-dead-dead.
Rouen was quite a lot livelier than Amiens. Bigger, too. Full of half-timbered buildings. Or maybe half-full of fully-timbered buildings? Whatever. Beautiful. Cathedral, churches, clock tower, pederstrian area. I am so totally gonna visit there again.
They were really proud of Jeanne d'Arc, which was a bit tasteless since their only connection with her was that they burned the poor kid at the stake. But their is Jeanne d'Arc this and Jeanne d'Arc that everywhere, the actual place of burning is marked, and there is a Jeanne d'Arc church next to it, which is shaped like a flame on the inside (how tasteless is that?) and has hanging eaves for some reason.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Beauvais
Beauvais is a small town a bit north of Paris. I always known it as the place Ryanair flies to because it's too damn cheap for CDG, and also, more charitably, as the place that has a cathedral with a famous clock. We figured that we would visit it on our way to Amiens.
On arrival we noticed in rural France, unlike in Paris, pretty much everything is closed on Sundays, and beheld the strangest structure.
It was quite lovely, and decorated as a proper Gothic cathedral should be, but it was the weirdest shape of all the cathedrals I have ever seen, and I have seen a few. It didn't have a nave. At all. Nor a spire.
Inside, it was the tallest church I'd ever seen (the tallest in existence, claims Wikipedia) - my photos don't quite do it justice - and had weird wooden things clearly keeping the walls from caving in.
The clocks was there too, with more faces than could fit into any picture, showing interesting things like the age of the world.
The flying buttresses outside looked very airy indeed, but clearly failed to buttress anything, and had to be propped up with huge iron beams.
Later I read up on the cathedral and learned that they never got around to building the nave in the first place, that they did in fact build a tower but it fell off about 500 years ago, that the choir caved in a bit and that it's quite a job to keep the damn thing standing. But damn, this marvel of medieval French architecture was beautiful and I wanna see it again.
More pictures here.
Monday, June 11, 2012
Back from Germany
Been on a much-needed vacation (you know you really need a vacation when you passport picture starts crying after looking at you). Berlin and Cologne, primarily, but also Potsdam, Dresden, Lübeck, Hamburg, Aachen, Düsseldorf, Koblenz and a bit of Rhine valley on day trips.
Sorry about not visiting any of my German friends, and not-German friends living in Germany. It was just not possible with my parents on a mission to see all Germany in two weeks.
Germany is still very pretty. Rhine valley especially so.
Berlin is not pretty at all, ugly as hell in fact, but a very pleasant place to be in, pretty much the only place in Germany where I just want to hang out and not look at the historical monuments. German architectural neo-Classicism sucks ass. OK, let's face it: everyone's architectural neo-Classicism sucks ass. There is just too damn much of it in Berlin. Still loved the city, though. Especially Prenzlauer Berg and Hackescher Markt. Gonna visit there again.
Potsdam was pretty but blah. Dresden was much lovelier than its pictures. Lübeck was just as lovely as the pictures of it. Whatever I saw of Hamburg was nuce, but I didn't see much. Cologne has the loveliest cathedral ever, and really nice romanesque churches, and a small but very pretty old town. They also have a philarmonic hall build underground by some morons, and people telling other people not to walk on top of it during concerts - I am not kidding. Aachen was great, Düsseldorf old town nice, and Koblenz good too. The Rhine valley was wet, and so, I suppose, was the Rhine.
Saw our local relatives. They have changed a bit, especially the one who was 2 hen I last saw him, and is now 26. Was nice to get reacquainted.
In Germany trains rarely ran on time, and waiters forgot to bring stuff all the time. I am surprised - it didn't use to be like that. Also, they are somewhat short on internet, very few free public hotspots. A local SIM card helped a bit.
Been to a wine festival in Cologne. Lots of nice sweet wines, dry wines didn't impress me. Neither did the beer. OTOH, all the weird shandy-type drinks in Berlin were a really pleasant surprise.
Gonna have some shandy now.
Sorry about not visiting any of my German friends, and not-German friends living in Germany. It was just not possible with my parents on a mission to see all Germany in two weeks.
Germany is still very pretty. Rhine valley especially so.
Berlin is not pretty at all, ugly as hell in fact, but a very pleasant place to be in, pretty much the only place in Germany where I just want to hang out and not look at the historical monuments. German architectural neo-Classicism sucks ass. OK, let's face it: everyone's architectural neo-Classicism sucks ass. There is just too damn much of it in Berlin. Still loved the city, though. Especially Prenzlauer Berg and Hackescher Markt. Gonna visit there again.
Potsdam was pretty but blah. Dresden was much lovelier than its pictures. Lübeck was just as lovely as the pictures of it. Whatever I saw of Hamburg was nuce, but I didn't see much. Cologne has the loveliest cathedral ever, and really nice romanesque churches, and a small but very pretty old town. They also have a philarmonic hall build underground by some morons, and people telling other people not to walk on top of it during concerts - I am not kidding. Aachen was great, Düsseldorf old town nice, and Koblenz good too. The Rhine valley was wet, and so, I suppose, was the Rhine.
Saw our local relatives. They have changed a bit, especially the one who was 2 hen I last saw him, and is now 26. Was nice to get reacquainted.
In Germany trains rarely ran on time, and waiters forgot to bring stuff all the time. I am surprised - it didn't use to be like that. Also, they are somewhat short on internet, very few free public hotspots. A local SIM card helped a bit.
Been to a wine festival in Cologne. Lots of nice sweet wines, dry wines didn't impress me. Neither did the beer. OTOH, all the weird shandy-type drinks in Berlin were a really pleasant surprise.
Gonna have some shandy now.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
I still ain't dead
It's been a while, I know. All kind of life has been happening to me, including Android, Pacific ocean, bear country, canyons, fucking huge trees ("fucking" is an adverb here, not a verb, in case you are wondering), San Francisco, mysterious mists, Hearst Castle, Boston, seals, relatives, whiskey, Numb3rs, the latest Pratchett and the newest Ubuntu.
I didn't even have time and evergy to say something snarky about the natural death of Anwar al-Awlaki and the trial of his disciple, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. I am all out of snark at the moment. Seriously, when the guy sets his balls on fire in pursuit of 72 virgins, what can you possibly say to top that? I guess al-Awlaki neglected to inform him that the 72 virgins in question are in fact the bearded men currently in detention in Colorado Supermax.
Anyway, here is my "what I did on vacation":
- Spent 21 days in the US.
- Saw 16 relatives. This was overwhelming but nice, because somehow we forgot to inform the one really obnoxious relative of our arrival. I sincerely hope she doesn't read this.
- Saw an apple dog in an Chicago airport. I shit you not: they had a dog sniffing out apples and a customs officer with a huge bag confiscating them from evildoers. Hope the customs officers baked themselves a huge apple pie.
- Took a lot of pictures. All of them here.
- Realized that the altitude of 2 kilometers and a sinus infection do not combine well.
- Drove all over the bear country and didn't see a single bear. Which is good, because I'd have to wash my pants afterwards. Saw quite a lot of deer, blue birds, seals, and a couple of zebras.
- Saw a demonstration of naked men in San Francisco.
Some observations:
- The Pacific ocean is big, cold and wet. I am totally sticking with Atlantic for any beach vacations. Or at least the Asian side of the Pacific.
- There are seals everywhere. And I mean everywhere. Check out my pictures from the Santa Cruz wharf. They also had a critter that looked a bit like a pterodactyl, but hopefully wasn't.
- Californians keep their clouds on the sea and on the ground, instead of letting them float in the sky like normal people.
- Daly City is a mysterous cold place where visibility is always zero and the sun never shines and there is thick fog everywhere. I think Cthulhu lives there right near the Hellmouth or something...
- Pluot is a good, good fruit, and I want them here.
- Sequoias are pretty big. In fact all the other trees in sequoia forests are huge too.
- San Joaquin valley is poor, desolate, dried-out and full of posters saying whom they are gonna vote out of office during the next election. Pelosi, Boxer and Costa are the "favorites". Except that Pelosi isn't in their district.
- Tioga road in Yosemite turned out to be a most interesting place, even though at first it didn't look that way.
I didn't even have time and evergy to say something snarky about the natural death of Anwar al-Awlaki and the trial of his disciple, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. I am all out of snark at the moment. Seriously, when the guy sets his balls on fire in pursuit of 72 virgins, what can you possibly say to top that? I guess al-Awlaki neglected to inform him that the 72 virgins in question are in fact the bearded men currently in detention in Colorado Supermax.
Anyway, here is my "what I did on vacation":
- Spent 21 days in the US.
- Saw 16 relatives. This was overwhelming but nice, because somehow we forgot to inform the one really obnoxious relative of our arrival. I sincerely hope she doesn't read this.
- Saw an apple dog in an Chicago airport. I shit you not: they had a dog sniffing out apples and a customs officer with a huge bag confiscating them from evildoers. Hope the customs officers baked themselves a huge apple pie.
- Took a lot of pictures. All of them here.
- Realized that the altitude of 2 kilometers and a sinus infection do not combine well.
- Drove all over the bear country and didn't see a single bear. Which is good, because I'd have to wash my pants afterwards. Saw quite a lot of deer, blue birds, seals, and a couple of zebras.
- Saw a demonstration of naked men in San Francisco.
Some observations:
- The Pacific ocean is big, cold and wet. I am totally sticking with Atlantic for any beach vacations. Or at least the Asian side of the Pacific.
- There are seals everywhere. And I mean everywhere. Check out my pictures from the Santa Cruz wharf. They also had a critter that looked a bit like a pterodactyl, but hopefully wasn't.
- Californians keep their clouds on the sea and on the ground, instead of letting them float in the sky like normal people.
- Daly City is a mysterous cold place where visibility is always zero and the sun never shines and there is thick fog everywhere. I think Cthulhu lives there right near the Hellmouth or something...
- Pluot is a good, good fruit, and I want them here.
- Sequoias are pretty big. In fact all the other trees in sequoia forests are huge too.
- San Joaquin valley is poor, desolate, dried-out and full of posters saying whom they are gonna vote out of office during the next election. Pelosi, Boxer and Costa are the "favorites". Except that Pelosi isn't in their district.
- Tioga road in Yosemite turned out to be a most interesting place, even though at first it didn't look that way.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Beijing, April 9
We start with Tiananmen square. Turns out you have to go through security just to get there, and it's not a very efficient security check.
The square is huge.
The Forbidden city is also huge, and, unlike the square, quite beautiful. In general all the traditional Chinese palaces and temples look very beautiful to my eye, and very similar to each other, and it occurs to me that if I can't tell 14-century architecture from 18-century architecture, it probably means that somebody has been honoring the traditions too seriously.
After the Forbidden city we go on to the so-called hutongs. "So-called" because, as far as I can say, "hutong" just means some kind of a small street in Chinese, but the hutongs that tourist books talk about are not just any small streets but streets full of traditional courtyard houses, that are actually called siheyuan.
The traditonal courtyard house hutongs mostly consist of gray fences around the courtyard. Usually you can't see the actual houses. Interesting, though.
Some of the hutong areas that tourists don't get taken to, but come upon while walking around the city, have a public toilet in every block, because some of the houses don't have toilets.
Near the touristy hutong area there is a lovely lake, Qianhai, with lots of reastaurants around it, and we decide to visit it later.
After the hutongs we go to the Temple of Heaven, which is somewhat different from the rest of Chinese architecture due to its main hall being round. Lovely temple, lovely long corridor leading to it, lovely park around it. You are not allowed to bring guns there.
In the evening we decide to go to a famous Peking duck restaurant, but at 8:30 we find out that it closes at 9. No duck for us, and we go to some restaurant in a mall.
The mall's basement floor, where we go to buy pastry, is unreal. We are the only customers, but the place is full of counters, mostly selling candy, cookies and suchlike, and staffed by many people who all bow to us as we walk through.
The square is huge.
The Forbidden city is also huge, and, unlike the square, quite beautiful. In general all the traditional Chinese palaces and temples look very beautiful to my eye, and very similar to each other, and it occurs to me that if I can't tell 14-century architecture from 18-century architecture, it probably means that somebody has been honoring the traditions too seriously.
After the Forbidden city we go on to the so-called hutongs. "So-called" because, as far as I can say, "hutong" just means some kind of a small street in Chinese, but the hutongs that tourist books talk about are not just any small streets but streets full of traditional courtyard houses, that are actually called siheyuan.
The traditonal courtyard house hutongs mostly consist of gray fences around the courtyard. Usually you can't see the actual houses. Interesting, though.
Some of the hutong areas that tourists don't get taken to, but come upon while walking around the city, have a public toilet in every block, because some of the houses don't have toilets.
Near the touristy hutong area there is a lovely lake, Qianhai, with lots of reastaurants around it, and we decide to visit it later.
After the hutongs we go to the Temple of Heaven, which is somewhat different from the rest of Chinese architecture due to its main hall being round. Lovely temple, lovely long corridor leading to it, lovely park around it. You are not allowed to bring guns there.
In the evening we decide to go to a famous Peking duck restaurant, but at 8:30 we find out that it closes at 9. No duck for us, and we go to some restaurant in a mall.
The mall's basement floor, where we go to buy pastry, is unreal. We are the only customers, but the place is full of counters, mostly selling candy, cookies and suchlike, and staffed by many people who all bow to us as we walk through.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
China: the general impressions
First of all, let's start with the fact that the reason I was not in FB, Blogger or Picasa lately is that all of the above are blocked in China. I am not sure what's the deal with Gmail: it kind of works but is impossibly slow.
Skype works fine, though, and so does IRC, and ssh connections.
Another thing is that I am not sure to which extent I can quote people I came in contact with. I'll try not to quote anyone specific on anything other than neutral.
Many people have told us we need native guides everywhere in China, and we had them in every city at least for some attractions, and they were good, but not strictly necessary. I'd recommend them for visiting places where the major attractions are out of town and/or the transportation is not very good. Major cities can certainly be visited on your own.
For some reason almost everyone was concerned about us getting physically lost. In the noble art of reading a map somehow rare over there? They sure make maps.
The people speak English almost as badly as the Japanese, but seem to be a lot less stressed out about it. In general people are friendly but not very considerate.
You can't drive in China with a foreign driving license (or even a Hong Kong one), and it's for the best. The traffic is enough to drive anyone postal. The drivers, especially those of scooters and motorcyles, don't seem to be able to tell right from wrong, right from left, or red from green. Turning right on red appears to be legal; turning left on red, illegal but just as popular. This is not as terrifying as it sounds: Chinese drivers, unlike those of southern Italy, tend to do stupid things at reasonable speeds, and seem to be keenly aware that all the other drivers are likely to do similarly stupid things.
In general respect for the rules and the law is not high.
All the places where we went to appeared perfectly safe at any time of day.
For all the talk about the fake money, there was only one occasion when I felt any doubt about a bill. It was replaced by the salesperson without any trouble. Locals do check their bills though, so we did, too.
All the restaurant bills were ok, nobody tried to cheat even once.
The Chinese seem to have the same idea of private space as us (or at least as me). Every time I felt someone was entering my private space, they were doing it on purpose.
Public places have a lot of benches and other sitting space, very nice. Also toilets are widely available, and not nearly as bad as people say. Some of them have only holes, but most have at least one western-style bowl. Bring your own paper.
There are a lot of people employed as a decoration, just to stand there and smile at people or greet them or whatever.
Lots of police everywhere. They don't appear to be hunting dissidents or people who run red lights, but just stand there and guard inanimate objects that are IMO unlikely to be targeted by the enemies of PRC, such as benches, lightpoles, public toilets, etc.
The tourist information centers look, well, Soviet.
I am sure that people who know what they are doing can find whatever they are looking for, but for the first-time visitor: supermarkets are hard to find, and be sure to eat before 10 p.m., because after that it's hard to find an open restaurant. The Chinese usually have their dinner at about 6.
Shopping malls usually have some food stores, restaurants and food courts in the basement and on the top floor. Bottled water is widely available from many kinds of stores.
Decent coffee and black tea are not widely available in the cafes, but not hard to find, either.
There are many ATMs, and they work.
Skype works fine, though, and so does IRC, and ssh connections.
Another thing is that I am not sure to which extent I can quote people I came in contact with. I'll try not to quote anyone specific on anything other than neutral.
Many people have told us we need native guides everywhere in China, and we had them in every city at least for some attractions, and they were good, but not strictly necessary. I'd recommend them for visiting places where the major attractions are out of town and/or the transportation is not very good. Major cities can certainly be visited on your own.
For some reason almost everyone was concerned about us getting physically lost. In the noble art of reading a map somehow rare over there? They sure make maps.
The people speak English almost as badly as the Japanese, but seem to be a lot less stressed out about it. In general people are friendly but not very considerate.
You can't drive in China with a foreign driving license (or even a Hong Kong one), and it's for the best. The traffic is enough to drive anyone postal. The drivers, especially those of scooters and motorcyles, don't seem to be able to tell right from wrong, right from left, or red from green. Turning right on red appears to be legal; turning left on red, illegal but just as popular. This is not as terrifying as it sounds: Chinese drivers, unlike those of southern Italy, tend to do stupid things at reasonable speeds, and seem to be keenly aware that all the other drivers are likely to do similarly stupid things.
In general respect for the rules and the law is not high.
All the places where we went to appeared perfectly safe at any time of day.
For all the talk about the fake money, there was only one occasion when I felt any doubt about a bill. It was replaced by the salesperson without any trouble. Locals do check their bills though, so we did, too.
All the restaurant bills were ok, nobody tried to cheat even once.
The Chinese seem to have the same idea of private space as us (or at least as me). Every time I felt someone was entering my private space, they were doing it on purpose.
Public places have a lot of benches and other sitting space, very nice. Also toilets are widely available, and not nearly as bad as people say. Some of them have only holes, but most have at least one western-style bowl. Bring your own paper.
There are a lot of people employed as a decoration, just to stand there and smile at people or greet them or whatever.
Lots of police everywhere. They don't appear to be hunting dissidents or people who run red lights, but just stand there and guard inanimate objects that are IMO unlikely to be targeted by the enemies of PRC, such as benches, lightpoles, public toilets, etc.
The tourist information centers look, well, Soviet.
I am sure that people who know what they are doing can find whatever they are looking for, but for the first-time visitor: supermarkets are hard to find, and be sure to eat before 10 p.m., because after that it's hard to find an open restaurant. The Chinese usually have their dinner at about 6.
Shopping malls usually have some food stores, restaurants and food courts in the basement and on the top floor. Bottled water is widely available from many kinds of stores.
Decent coffee and black tea are not widely available in the cafes, but not hard to find, either.
There are many ATMs, and they work.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Berlin
Apart from bitching about the weather, been to Berlin with on a company-sponsored trip and a mini-vacation.
This was my first time in Berlin, and I must say it was livelier and more enjoyable than any other German city I'd seen. (My experience so far had been limited to Munich, Frankfurt, Regensburg, Saarbrücken and Karlsruhe.)
A picture (or 147 of them) is worth a thousand words.
The place is a mix of rather pleasant parts of both neoclassical and post-war Vienna, the rather ugly parts (ok, they were all ugly) of Brezhnev-era St. Petersburg, Belle Époque Paris and bits and pieces of Amsterdam. It also looks like it has really nice little parks in summer.
Some observations:
- I don't like neoclassicism in general, and Berlin doesn't have the best examples of it.
- Kurfürstendamm is lovely. I heard it called the Champs-Élysées of Berlin, but it's closer to Saint-Germain in the 6th, or rue de Rivoli somewhere in Marais.
- Reichstag is huge. The museums are also so huge that you are afraid to go in, knowing that you'll die from exhaustion before even getting to impressionists, expressionists and whatever other sionists they have had in relatively recent times.
- In spite of that we went to the historical museum and had a good time,
- Food is better than elsewhere in Germany, and cheaper, too. They also have woodruff beer called Berliner Weisse.
- The hotels are weird. They think that twin beds need to be put together, don't have locks on toilet doors, and charge ridiculous sums for the internet. Park Inn had a delicious breakfast, and a shower with glass walls. Go figure.
- More people speak English in Berlin than elsewhere in Germany.
- The difference between the east and the west is still quite obvious for the most part.
- Neue Synagogue is much better from the outside than from the inside.
- Berlin has good pastries and really good hot chocolate. Vienna should drop on its collective knees and scream "we are not worthy"!
- The shadow of the wall is still impressive, where it was allowed to remain.
- The history seems to be a heavier burden there than in the rest of Germany.
- Pfannkuchen doesn't mean pancakes, as my father has always said, but donuts.
Woodruff beer was pretty good (if any Russians are reading this, think тархун: a different plant but a similar flavor), even if I was the only one who liked it.
Their handling of the history is a bit heavy on the Nazis, which is understandable but still, they did have other history too. The history museum is not so Nazi-flavored. I also liked it that they speak about the Jews in a sensible way, as "people who lived here and did this-and-that", not primarily as "people whom we killed, bad, bad us!"
Some coworkers asked me whether being in Berlin is emotional for me. At first I assumed they meant the wall, but they turned out to mean the Holocaust. I was sort of surprised - the Holocaust is an emotional topic for me but I'd never thought of it as a Berlin-specific thing.
The wall, on the other hand, is Berlin-specific (in the rest of East Germany they had even higher walls, that's why people preferred the one in Berlin). It was an emotional thing too, and I noticed that the question of what happened to the people who shot the fleeing easterners, and those who ordered to shoot, is rarely raised.
Interesting place. I guess I gotta come back in summer, for a longer time than now. I'd say "Ich komme", but I'd probably be misunderstood.
This was my first time in Berlin, and I must say it was livelier and more enjoyable than any other German city I'd seen. (My experience so far had been limited to Munich, Frankfurt, Regensburg, Saarbrücken and Karlsruhe.)
A picture (or 147 of them) is worth a thousand words.
The place is a mix of rather pleasant parts of both neoclassical and post-war Vienna, the rather ugly parts (ok, they were all ugly) of Brezhnev-era St. Petersburg, Belle Époque Paris and bits and pieces of Amsterdam. It also looks like it has really nice little parks in summer.
Some observations:
- I don't like neoclassicism in general, and Berlin doesn't have the best examples of it.
- Kurfürstendamm is lovely. I heard it called the Champs-Élysées of Berlin, but it's closer to Saint-Germain in the 6th, or rue de Rivoli somewhere in Marais.
- Reichstag is huge. The museums are also so huge that you are afraid to go in, knowing that you'll die from exhaustion before even getting to impressionists, expressionists and whatever other sionists they have had in relatively recent times.
- In spite of that we went to the historical museum and had a good time,
- Food is better than elsewhere in Germany, and cheaper, too. They also have woodruff beer called Berliner Weisse.
- The hotels are weird. They think that twin beds need to be put together, don't have locks on toilet doors, and charge ridiculous sums for the internet. Park Inn had a delicious breakfast, and a shower with glass walls. Go figure.
- More people speak English in Berlin than elsewhere in Germany.
- The difference between the east and the west is still quite obvious for the most part.
- Neue Synagogue is much better from the outside than from the inside.
- Berlin has good pastries and really good hot chocolate. Vienna should drop on its collective knees and scream "we are not worthy"!
- The shadow of the wall is still impressive, where it was allowed to remain.
- The history seems to be a heavier burden there than in the rest of Germany.
- Pfannkuchen doesn't mean pancakes, as my father has always said, but donuts.
Woodruff beer was pretty good (if any Russians are reading this, think тархун: a different plant but a similar flavor), even if I was the only one who liked it.
Their handling of the history is a bit heavy on the Nazis, which is understandable but still, they did have other history too. The history museum is not so Nazi-flavored. I also liked it that they speak about the Jews in a sensible way, as "people who lived here and did this-and-that", not primarily as "people whom we killed, bad, bad us!"
Some coworkers asked me whether being in Berlin is emotional for me. At first I assumed they meant the wall, but they turned out to mean the Holocaust. I was sort of surprised - the Holocaust is an emotional topic for me but I'd never thought of it as a Berlin-specific thing.
The wall, on the other hand, is Berlin-specific (in the rest of East Germany they had even higher walls, that's why people preferred the one in Berlin). It was an emotional thing too, and I noticed that the question of what happened to the people who shot the fleeing easterners, and those who ordered to shoot, is rarely raised.
Interesting place. I guess I gotta come back in summer, for a longer time than now. I'd say "Ich komme", but I'd probably be misunderstood.
Sunday, November 07, 2010
The vacation and pictures
The pictures are up, in Picasa (1600x1200) and on my own server (full size). There are as usual lots of them, sorted more or less geographically.
I visit Paris quite often, but it was only my second time in Rome, and the first one was rather short. Never been to Chartres or Ostia Antica before.
Paris was, well, Paris. Beautiful, but colder than it should be this time of the year. We rented an apartment in the 6th, Place Saint-Sulpice, and it was lovely, much nicer than any hotel I've ever been in. Been to Louvre, Museé d'Orsay (too many paintings for my taste, but it'd been a while since the last time), Notre-Dame, Palais Chaillot for some modern ballet (I didn't get its name or point, but very much enjoyed the dancing, and was even more impressed with the theater itself, all black and red and huge and vertical), Palais Garnier for the premiere of La Paquita (also quite amazing), and for the first time in many years did not go to Sainte Chapelle, which feels vaguely wrong.
Hmm, now that I am writing this: maybe fewer art museums and more theaters is the way to go for me in general?
Another new thing was the St. Eustache church in Paris. The cathedral in Chartres was amazing; my pictures are unfortunately not worthy.
The one new thing in Paris were the women (my best guess would be Eastern European gypsies) who pretend to find your ring and give it to you; I am not sure how this scam is supposed to work, but on a good day three people can find "your ring" in one block.
Rome was very beautiful too, but somehow not as enjoyable as Paris (few places are). Much warmer, though. The ancient ruins were interesting to see, Piazza Navona and Piazza della Rotonda were lovely, Spanish steps a bit overrated although it was nice to live a couple of blocks from there. Pantheon is incredible in being really ancient without being a ruin.
We'd seen more famous churches than I could imagine possible, and more paintings than I could imagine I'd survive. I even found a Gothic church (didn't know they had any), Santa Maria sopra Minerva.
Among the not-so-touristy impressions were the astronomical amount of bird shit on an embankment one morning, and the astronomical amount of birds over the same embankment in the evening. The flocks were so huge they scared us; it looked like a horror movie.
The annoying scam thing of the season seemed to be men with flowers who give them for free to a woman and then demand money from the man who is with her. They do run away when you yell at them.
From Rome we visited Ostia Antica, the ruins of a fairly large city, abandoned in 4th century AD (fairly common story, it used to be a port and the sea went away). Well worth a day trip. Has Europe's oldest synagogue, too, or what's left of it.
I visit Paris quite often, but it was only my second time in Rome, and the first one was rather short. Never been to Chartres or Ostia Antica before.
Paris was, well, Paris. Beautiful, but colder than it should be this time of the year. We rented an apartment in the 6th, Place Saint-Sulpice, and it was lovely, much nicer than any hotel I've ever been in. Been to Louvre, Museé d'Orsay (too many paintings for my taste, but it'd been a while since the last time), Notre-Dame, Palais Chaillot for some modern ballet (I didn't get its name or point, but very much enjoyed the dancing, and was even more impressed with the theater itself, all black and red and huge and vertical), Palais Garnier for the premiere of La Paquita (also quite amazing), and for the first time in many years did not go to Sainte Chapelle, which feels vaguely wrong.
Hmm, now that I am writing this: maybe fewer art museums and more theaters is the way to go for me in general?
Another new thing was the St. Eustache church in Paris. The cathedral in Chartres was amazing; my pictures are unfortunately not worthy.
The one new thing in Paris were the women (my best guess would be Eastern European gypsies) who pretend to find your ring and give it to you; I am not sure how this scam is supposed to work, but on a good day three people can find "your ring" in one block.
Rome was very beautiful too, but somehow not as enjoyable as Paris (few places are). Much warmer, though. The ancient ruins were interesting to see, Piazza Navona and Piazza della Rotonda were lovely, Spanish steps a bit overrated although it was nice to live a couple of blocks from there. Pantheon is incredible in being really ancient without being a ruin.
We'd seen more famous churches than I could imagine possible, and more paintings than I could imagine I'd survive. I even found a Gothic church (didn't know they had any), Santa Maria sopra Minerva.
Among the not-so-touristy impressions were the astronomical amount of bird shit on an embankment one morning, and the astronomical amount of birds over the same embankment in the evening. The flocks were so huge they scared us; it looked like a horror movie.
The annoying scam thing of the season seemed to be men with flowers who give them for free to a woman and then demand money from the man who is with her. They do run away when you yell at them.
From Rome we visited Ostia Antica, the ruins of a fairly large city, abandoned in 4th century AD (fairly common story, it used to be a port and the sea went away). Well worth a day trip. Has Europe's oldest synagogue, too, or what's left of it.
Thursday, November 04, 2010
I am back!
I was on vacation, mostly in Paris and Rome. From Paris I went for a day trip to Chartres, which had an amazing cathedral, and now I am vaguely wondering how come we haven't visited the cathedrals in Rouen and Amiens and many other places.
Now I am celebrating the victory in the US elections. The victory consists of the Republicans getting the majority in the House. I am really uncomfortable with either party having the House, the Senate and the White House at the same time, and now it's over for the Democrats this time round.
Helsingin Sanomat had a lot of people commenting about how Americans are stupid and have voted totally wrong. For some reason it makes me giggle.
Now I am celebrating the victory in the US elections. The victory consists of the Republicans getting the majority in the House. I am really uncomfortable with either party having the House, the Senate and the White House at the same time, and now it's over for the Democrats this time round.
Helsingin Sanomat had a lot of people commenting about how Americans are stupid and have voted totally wrong. For some reason it makes me giggle.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Edinburgh pics
Finally put the pictures up. I can especially recommend seals riding on a strange device.
Friday, July 02, 2010
Edinburgh
I am back from Edinburgh. General impressions:
- The city is lovely. Now I know where all those gothic buildings in the American horror movies come from.
- It actually is pretty nice, sorry for repeating myself. The contrast between the dark gray gothic buildings and the brightly painted stores on their first floors is in fact quite pleasant.
- The people speak some Germanic language, which can be recognized as English with a bit of effort.
- The people seem quite friendly, and somewhat strangely dressed. There are no cute guys at all (I saw only one, and he spoke Norwegian), but also fewer really ugly ones than in England.
- The tourist attractions are either really expensive or totally free.
- There are several bus companies and each has its own numbering, so 15 Lothian and 15 First are not the same bus route. Unless you live somewhere where you need to use one of the other companies, Lothian is the way to go.
- Traditional Scottish food, at least as sold by the pubs, is something that you eat when all the edible food has been eaten. There are many nice restaurants with normal food, though.
- Scotland is very much behind Finland as a beer country, in the sense that the bars in downtown Helsinki offer a much better selection of beer than the ones in Edinburgh and Glasgow. They do have great selections of whiskey, though, and quite a ot of cocktails.
- Leith was a disappointment.
- Glasgow is not nearly as beautiful as Edinburgh, but has a great cathedral, and the cutest tiniest subway ever.
- The ill-behaved gangs of young people were nowhere to be seen.
- People there really take their football seriously.
Funny moments:
- Breasts stuck in Sir Walter Scott monument.
- Seals riding by on a device that resembled a water bike, but apparently wasn't.
- A military parade and a Gay Pride parade at the same time in the same part of town, with the result that the military had a lot more colorfully dressed guys in skirts than the Gay Pride.
- The city is lovely. Now I know where all those gothic buildings in the American horror movies come from.
- It actually is pretty nice, sorry for repeating myself. The contrast between the dark gray gothic buildings and the brightly painted stores on their first floors is in fact quite pleasant.
- The people speak some Germanic language, which can be recognized as English with a bit of effort.
- The people seem quite friendly, and somewhat strangely dressed. There are no cute guys at all (I saw only one, and he spoke Norwegian), but also fewer really ugly ones than in England.
- The tourist attractions are either really expensive or totally free.
- There are several bus companies and each has its own numbering, so 15 Lothian and 15 First are not the same bus route. Unless you live somewhere where you need to use one of the other companies, Lothian is the way to go.
- Traditional Scottish food, at least as sold by the pubs, is something that you eat when all the edible food has been eaten. There are many nice restaurants with normal food, though.
- Scotland is very much behind Finland as a beer country, in the sense that the bars in downtown Helsinki offer a much better selection of beer than the ones in Edinburgh and Glasgow. They do have great selections of whiskey, though, and quite a ot of cocktails.
- Leith was a disappointment.
- Glasgow is not nearly as beautiful as Edinburgh, but has a great cathedral, and the cutest tiniest subway ever.
- The ill-behaved gangs of young people were nowhere to be seen.
- People there really take their football seriously.
Funny moments:
- Breasts stuck in Sir Walter Scott monument.
- Seals riding by on a device that resembled a water bike, but apparently wasn't.
- A military parade and a Gay Pride parade at the same time in the same part of town, with the result that the military had a lot more colorfully dressed guys in skirts than the Gay Pride.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Argentina: food
We were told they eat meat, and they sure do! There are delicious steaks to be had everywhere, for about 8-12 euro. The best bet is just to order "bife de lomo" everywhere. Potatoes and suchlike often have to be ordered separately.
in Patagonia they have Patagonian lamb (I can especially recommend the one in the restaurant called Las Barricas). In Iguazu they have the traditional local fish (surubi, dorado and pacu). The only reason it became traditional is probably because they didn't have anywhere to put cows to pasture, or any better fish. Avoid if possible. They do also have salmon and steelhead trout, so the fish lovers are not totally fucked.
The have quite a lot of sushi places, I even saw a kosher sushi place in Buenos Aires. My one and only attempt at sushi revealed that the restaurant only had four kinds of fish: salmon, tuna, shrimp and an unidentified white-colored fish. They did a very good job out of it, much better than I could ever imagine anyone doing, but I decided to leave sushi at that.
Anything sweet either looks very suspicious or contains a lot of dulce de leche. I happen to like the stuff; if you don't, Argentinian pastry is probably not for you.
Finding the wine to our liking was a challenge at first; later we fould a producer we liked a lot, Luigi Bosca. Among local beers, El Bolson totally rules.
They make good coffee. Really good coffee, though in all my travels i still haven't found anyone who'd brew coffee as good as the guy near the big market in Istanbul.
There is a local specialty called cappuccino italiano. That's as opposed to the regular cappuccino, although occasionally you ask for regular and get italiano. It's cappuccino with cream (in addition to milk), cocoa and cinnamon, which makes for a surprisingly pleasant combination.
Ice cream in pretty good. Normally I like coffee, caramel and green tea flavors, but in Argentina they make very good ice cream flavored with strawberry, raspberry and other berries, often combined with mascarpone. I think their secret is that they put enough berries in there.
in Patagonia they have Patagonian lamb (I can especially recommend the one in the restaurant called Las Barricas). In Iguazu they have the traditional local fish (surubi, dorado and pacu). The only reason it became traditional is probably because they didn't have anywhere to put cows to pasture, or any better fish. Avoid if possible. They do also have salmon and steelhead trout, so the fish lovers are not totally fucked.
The have quite a lot of sushi places, I even saw a kosher sushi place in Buenos Aires. My one and only attempt at sushi revealed that the restaurant only had four kinds of fish: salmon, tuna, shrimp and an unidentified white-colored fish. They did a very good job out of it, much better than I could ever imagine anyone doing, but I decided to leave sushi at that.
Anything sweet either looks very suspicious or contains a lot of dulce de leche. I happen to like the stuff; if you don't, Argentinian pastry is probably not for you.
Finding the wine to our liking was a challenge at first; later we fould a producer we liked a lot, Luigi Bosca. Among local beers, El Bolson totally rules.
They make good coffee. Really good coffee, though in all my travels i still haven't found anyone who'd brew coffee as good as the guy near the big market in Istanbul.
There is a local specialty called cappuccino italiano. That's as opposed to the regular cappuccino, although occasionally you ask for regular and get italiano. It's cappuccino with cream (in addition to milk), cocoa and cinnamon, which makes for a surprisingly pleasant combination.
Ice cream in pretty good. Normally I like coffee, caramel and green tea flavors, but in Argentina they make very good ice cream flavored with strawberry, raspberry and other berries, often combined with mascarpone. I think their secret is that they put enough berries in there.
More about Argentina
Our first experience of Argentina was an immigration official looking at my parents' US passports, noticing their birthplace in Russia, and asking "do you happen to have a Russian passport as well? If you do I won't have to charge you the entrance fee."
They didn't, and paid. I used my Finnish passport, and didn't have to pay. When it was time to fly back, the airline clerk instructed me to show both passports to her, the Finnish one to the Argentina border control, and the US passport to the US border control. (Incidentally, I passed the US border control in Miami, for the first time ever, and was absolutely shocked by the Customs and USDA officials addressing me in Spanish. They did switch to English as soon as they noticed my open mouth.)
The combination of high-trust and low-trust features in Argentina is sort of strange. On one hand, locks, bars (not just the drinking establishments) and guards are everywhere. On the other hand, the population, including lone young women, does not seem to be in any way afraid of being out at 4am. On one hand, any bill starting from 50 peso (about 10 euro) up is checked for being counterfeit by its recipient, and even fairly small credit card purchases often require a picture ID. On the other hand, nobody has ever tried to cheat us in a restaurant.
The people are friendly, laid-back, and mostly southern European in appearance. They are also covered with liver spots in a way that I found scary, and to a much higher degree than in Southern Europe, which made me wonder whether Buenos was much sunnier than, say, the south of Spain, or the sunscreen much less popular.
I really loved the way they tried to correct my Spanish, and started thinking that if I lived there for several months I would be fluent. Once I tried to find matches in a supermarket, and having failed in the attempt to find them by myself, asked an employee for cerillas. He led me where the damn things were, pointed at them, and said in Spanish in a schoolteacher tone: "Fosforos. Only Bolivians say cerillas."
Argentinians seem to love demonstrations, dogs and traveling. We'd seen at least 10 demonstrations in about 8 days in Buenos Aires, mostly on various political topics: they supported some party or other, demonstrated against paying of the national debt, in favor of recapturing the Falkland islands "because our brothers' blood is priceless!" (somebody should explain them the concept of sunk costs), and against drugs. Every self-respecting demonstration had drums, and people who beat them with a big stick and a great enthusiasm, and demonstrations seemed to compete among themselves in how much noise they could create. The only exception was a rather sinister-looking demonstration of people in Che Guevara t-shirts with evil-looking faces, who had very big sticks and no drums at all.
There is a great number of dogs, who are just as laid-back as humans. The city was full of people walking dogs, people walking as many as 10 dogs at a time, and a great number of dogs without any visible people present, who nevertheless did not seem to be strays. Picking up the dog shit from the streets is not common, and one should exercise due caution while walking.
The national parks were full of tourists, most of whom were from Argentina. There was quite a lot of people from the other South American countries, too. The parks usually have different prices for Argentinians, people from the local province, people from the local town, people from Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay) and all others.
Another interesting feature of the national parks was the languages: posted notices tended to be in Spanish, English, Portuguese and Hebrew.
They didn't, and paid. I used my Finnish passport, and didn't have to pay. When it was time to fly back, the airline clerk instructed me to show both passports to her, the Finnish one to the Argentina border control, and the US passport to the US border control. (Incidentally, I passed the US border control in Miami, for the first time ever, and was absolutely shocked by the Customs and USDA officials addressing me in Spanish. They did switch to English as soon as they noticed my open mouth.)
The combination of high-trust and low-trust features in Argentina is sort of strange. On one hand, locks, bars (not just the drinking establishments) and guards are everywhere. On the other hand, the population, including lone young women, does not seem to be in any way afraid of being out at 4am. On one hand, any bill starting from 50 peso (about 10 euro) up is checked for being counterfeit by its recipient, and even fairly small credit card purchases often require a picture ID. On the other hand, nobody has ever tried to cheat us in a restaurant.
The people are friendly, laid-back, and mostly southern European in appearance. They are also covered with liver spots in a way that I found scary, and to a much higher degree than in Southern Europe, which made me wonder whether Buenos was much sunnier than, say, the south of Spain, or the sunscreen much less popular.
I really loved the way they tried to correct my Spanish, and started thinking that if I lived there for several months I would be fluent. Once I tried to find matches in a supermarket, and having failed in the attempt to find them by myself, asked an employee for cerillas. He led me where the damn things were, pointed at them, and said in Spanish in a schoolteacher tone: "Fosforos. Only Bolivians say cerillas."
Argentinians seem to love demonstrations, dogs and traveling. We'd seen at least 10 demonstrations in about 8 days in Buenos Aires, mostly on various political topics: they supported some party or other, demonstrated against paying of the national debt, in favor of recapturing the Falkland islands "because our brothers' blood is priceless!" (somebody should explain them the concept of sunk costs), and against drugs. Every self-respecting demonstration had drums, and people who beat them with a big stick and a great enthusiasm, and demonstrations seemed to compete among themselves in how much noise they could create. The only exception was a rather sinister-looking demonstration of people in Che Guevara t-shirts with evil-looking faces, who had very big sticks and no drums at all.
There is a great number of dogs, who are just as laid-back as humans. The city was full of people walking dogs, people walking as many as 10 dogs at a time, and a great number of dogs without any visible people present, who nevertheless did not seem to be strays. Picking up the dog shit from the streets is not common, and one should exercise due caution while walking.
The national parks were full of tourists, most of whom were from Argentina. There was quite a lot of people from the other South American countries, too. The parks usually have different prices for Argentinians, people from the local province, people from the local town, people from Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay) and all others.
Another interesting feature of the national parks was the languages: posted notices tended to be in Spanish, English, Portuguese and Hebrew.
Monday, April 05, 2010
Argentina
Just got back from my first trip to Latin America, which (the trip, not Latin America) consisted mostly of various parts of Argentina.
It's a damn big country, incidentally. My mother's packing advice was along the lines of "pack for the moderate climate, the glaciers, the rainforest and don't pack too much".
The first words that came to my mind upon seeing Buenos Aires were "old-world charm", which was strange, because I have never seen any in the old world. Or rather there is quite a lot of charm in the old world, but none of the kind that I have ever felt like calling old-world charm.
The second words were "that's fucking huge". Buenos Aires has some streets that are so huge that they have to be seen to be believed.
I expected Argentina to be a reasonably civilized third-world country, but it didn't feel particularly third-worldly to me. The general impression is similar to that of a poorer Western European country, for example Portugal. Nowhere where we'd been was in any way scary (we did not seek out slums, but we weren't careful of where we were going, either), tap water was drinkable though not tasty, the restaurant bills did not have any mysterious extra items, and there were fewer beggars than in Prague, or in fact fewer beggars than in Helsinki after Romania joined the EU. The general impression of Argentina was way more civilized than that of Hungary or Czech republic.
More later.
It's a damn big country, incidentally. My mother's packing advice was along the lines of "pack for the moderate climate, the glaciers, the rainforest and don't pack too much".
The first words that came to my mind upon seeing Buenos Aires were "old-world charm", which was strange, because I have never seen any in the old world. Or rather there is quite a lot of charm in the old world, but none of the kind that I have ever felt like calling old-world charm.
The second words were "that's fucking huge". Buenos Aires has some streets that are so huge that they have to be seen to be believed.
I expected Argentina to be a reasonably civilized third-world country, but it didn't feel particularly third-worldly to me. The general impression is similar to that of a poorer Western European country, for example Portugal. Nowhere where we'd been was in any way scary (we did not seek out slums, but we weren't careful of where we were going, either), tap water was drinkable though not tasty, the restaurant bills did not have any mysterious extra items, and there were fewer beggars than in Prague, or in fact fewer beggars than in Helsinki after Romania joined the EU. The general impression of Argentina was way more civilized than that of Hungary or Czech republic.
More later.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Portugal: demonstrations, zoophile union, and fado in Chiado
Portugal was quite pretty. Before going there I was a bit stressed out about the language, mostly because I used to be able to speak it and had forgotten most of it. As usual, it was not worth stressing about. I could read everything I wanted to read, and could say everything I wanted to say. Understanding was a bit more difficult, because the Portuguese don't speak Portuguese like normal people from Somerville and Watertown. They eat almost every vowel that's remotely edible, and don't palatalize t's and d's where they should. They do, however, speak English better than most of the southern Europe.
Lisbon is full of places that are very retro and give you the feeling that you are inside some Italian neorealist movie of the fifties. Usually I only like the fifties on screen, but it was all right for a short vacation. And it was certainly unlike any other place I'd seen.
The city is situated on a bank (not both banks, really) of a huge river called Tejo. They have an unbelievably long bridge over it, 17 kilometers or so.
We stayed in Chiado apartments (well, one of them), and I highly recommend the place to everyone who goes to Lisbon for a week or more. Beautiful apartment, spacious, well-equipped, great location, great view, great everything.
Except for fado. But it's not the apartment's fault. You can't escape the damn thing anywhere in Portugal.
In fact, everywhere in Europe musicians of dubious quality like to play outside in the center of the city in hope that somebody will give them some money to go away, but in Portugal the extent of the problem was orders of magnitude worse than elsewhere. They have fado.
Fado is the Portuguese version of the common folk music topic "I am a redneck, and nobody wants to have sex with me", mostly - or so I heard - with the added theme of "I am a redneck lost at sea, and if anybody even wants to have sex with me, they surely aren't here on the boat". But whereas other peoples of Europe sing of their horny redneckitude to cheerful or at least melodic tunes, fado tunes sound like the cries of a donkey that is being raped to death excruciatingly slowly.
(Speaking about the raped donkeys: they (the Portuguese, not the donkeys) have an organization called União Zoófila. It is some animal protection organization, but the name is suggestive.)
And they sell it. To masochists, I assume, or maybe to the Deaf community. We had a fadomobile parked right on our street all day, an ancient car that played fado all day and had a human being sitting in it and selling the CDs. Every time we walked by the fadomobile we discussed various ways of sabotaging it, but there were too many witnesses.
When the fadomobile left for the night live musicians came out, even though every time they did so they risked becoming dead musicians. The worst were a couple of guys that played one night right under our windows. Their music was composed as atrociously as the fadomobile's, and played even worse. I considered throwing eggs, rotten tomatoes and other similar tokens of appreciation at them, had to remind myself that I am a cultured and law-abiding Western woman, and also that the area is probably monitored by security cameras. Then Benka came out of here room, where she went to escape the sound, and reminded me that we don't have any eggs.
Benka has become a total jock in her advanced age. Good for her, but I am not sure the rest of us will survive it. Every time she sees any steps, her reflex is to run up them. I am afraid to visit the Empire State Building with her.
The Portuguese have obliged her and built a great many steps. They also built Lisbon on a number of hills.
Anyway, this time she brought a step meter with her, and it became a bane of our existence. She holds a very firm opinion that a person who hasn't walked 25 thousand steps during the day does not deserve any lunch, and the problem with that is that after you walk 25000 steps it's usually time for dinner. My parents also disapprove of such human needs as coffee, water, or sitting down for a minute, so every time I feel in need of any of the above I get to hear a lecture about my weaknesses. I am, however, allowed to piss without a lecture.
BTW - the public places in Portugal are usually rather well-equipped with toilets.
The favorite hobby of the Portuguese seem to be demonstrations. On the day we arrived, there was a demonstration against "fortress Europe". On the day before we left, there was a demonstration of teachers against bureaucracy. One of them asked us to send them an extra Obama, if we have one. I told him that I'd be glad to send them the Obama that we have in the White House, and he found this rather generous.
In between those two big demonstrations there was a number of smaller ones. On the days when the government failed to do anything objectionable and thus provide a good reason for a demonstration, folk dancing was substituted for it.
More later.
Lisbon is full of places that are very retro and give you the feeling that you are inside some Italian neorealist movie of the fifties. Usually I only like the fifties on screen, but it was all right for a short vacation. And it was certainly unlike any other place I'd seen.
The city is situated on a bank (not both banks, really) of a huge river called Tejo. They have an unbelievably long bridge over it, 17 kilometers or so.
We stayed in Chiado apartments (well, one of them), and I highly recommend the place to everyone who goes to Lisbon for a week or more. Beautiful apartment, spacious, well-equipped, great location, great view, great everything.
Except for fado. But it's not the apartment's fault. You can't escape the damn thing anywhere in Portugal.
In fact, everywhere in Europe musicians of dubious quality like to play outside in the center of the city in hope that somebody will give them some money to go away, but in Portugal the extent of the problem was orders of magnitude worse than elsewhere. They have fado.
Fado is the Portuguese version of the common folk music topic "I am a redneck, and nobody wants to have sex with me", mostly - or so I heard - with the added theme of "I am a redneck lost at sea, and if anybody even wants to have sex with me, they surely aren't here on the boat". But whereas other peoples of Europe sing of their horny redneckitude to cheerful or at least melodic tunes, fado tunes sound like the cries of a donkey that is being raped to death excruciatingly slowly.
(Speaking about the raped donkeys: they (the Portuguese, not the donkeys) have an organization called União Zoófila. It is some animal protection organization, but the name is suggestive.)
And they sell it. To masochists, I assume, or maybe to the Deaf community. We had a fadomobile parked right on our street all day, an ancient car that played fado all day and had a human being sitting in it and selling the CDs. Every time we walked by the fadomobile we discussed various ways of sabotaging it, but there were too many witnesses.
When the fadomobile left for the night live musicians came out, even though every time they did so they risked becoming dead musicians. The worst were a couple of guys that played one night right under our windows. Their music was composed as atrociously as the fadomobile's, and played even worse. I considered throwing eggs, rotten tomatoes and other similar tokens of appreciation at them, had to remind myself that I am a cultured and law-abiding Western woman, and also that the area is probably monitored by security cameras. Then Benka came out of here room, where she went to escape the sound, and reminded me that we don't have any eggs.
Benka has become a total jock in her advanced age. Good for her, but I am not sure the rest of us will survive it. Every time she sees any steps, her reflex is to run up them. I am afraid to visit the Empire State Building with her.
The Portuguese have obliged her and built a great many steps. They also built Lisbon on a number of hills.
Anyway, this time she brought a step meter with her, and it became a bane of our existence. She holds a very firm opinion that a person who hasn't walked 25 thousand steps during the day does not deserve any lunch, and the problem with that is that after you walk 25000 steps it's usually time for dinner. My parents also disapprove of such human needs as coffee, water, or sitting down for a minute, so every time I feel in need of any of the above I get to hear a lecture about my weaknesses. I am, however, allowed to piss without a lecture.
BTW - the public places in Portugal are usually rather well-equipped with toilets.
The favorite hobby of the Portuguese seem to be demonstrations. On the day we arrived, there was a demonstration against "fortress Europe". On the day before we left, there was a demonstration of teachers against bureaucracy. One of them asked us to send them an extra Obama, if we have one. I told him that I'd be glad to send them the Obama that we have in the White House, and he found this rather generous.
In between those two big demonstrations there was a number of smaller ones. On the days when the government failed to do anything objectionable and thus provide a good reason for a demonstration, folk dancing was substituted for it.
More later.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Seoul
The road from the airport to Seoul resembles some parts of Arizona, in a good way. There are some sculptures on the way, unlike in Arizona. One of them, of which I unfortunately did not manage to take a picture, is especially baffling: if it's a penis, why does it have only one testicle, and if it's a missile, why does it have any testicles at all?
There are no women in high-heeled boots. When there are women in boots, they are carrying a Japanese-language map of Seoul.
I've always known that I can't easily tell the Chinese, the Koreans and the Japanese from each other individually, but I can do it in a big group. This is the first time I've seen so many Koreans together, though, and as a group they look a lot more different from the Chinese and the Japanese than the Chinese and the Japanese from each other. Unfortunately, and unlike in Japan and China, there are pretty much no good-looking men in Korea. Not that they are ugly; it's just that there are no good-looking ones. When you see a good-looking man in Seoul, he is also usually carrying a Japanese-language map of the city.
Myeong-dong in general and our Ibis hotel in particular are great. Unlike in Japan, , the toilet has instructions in English. The toilet bowl in Kyoto, and IIRC in Seoul as well, started making pissing sounds as soon as you sat on it. Very encouraging.
I had a pretty nice view from the window.
In Myeong-dong there is a cafe in every building, and in every self-respecting building there are at least two. They are much in the Japanese style, except that in Seoul the situation with non-smoking areas is much better. Either the whole place is non-smoking, or the smoking area is very well-separated.
The Koreans speak somewhat better English than the Japanese, and they are not shy to use it.
The city features shopping areas, cute skyscrapers, and lots and lots of street sculptures.
There are also a lot of street vendors selling mysterious foods. The least mysterious was a potato on a stick, fashioned into one spiral potato chip.
We spent the evening with an old Russian friend who's been living there for many years. He taught us to eat Korean barbeque.
There might be some American restaurant chain that is not present in Korea, but I can't think of any.
They write without using the Chinese characters nowadays. The only places where I've seen Chinese characters are museums and palaces, and there they are in brackets as an explanation. I think that as a writing system ditching the Chinese characters is a great improvement, but for my own purposes during this trip I sorely missed them. In Japan I got accustommed to being able to read a tiny little bit, even though I don't know the language, and it didn't seem like much (just basic things like "meat", "forbidden", "chicken" or "exit"), but I sure missed it in Korea where I couldn't.
The signs on the old gates and suchlike are written from right to left. When did they switch?
The palaces are pretty colorful. I like them.
There are no women in high-heeled boots. When there are women in boots, they are carrying a Japanese-language map of Seoul.
I've always known that I can't easily tell the Chinese, the Koreans and the Japanese from each other individually, but I can do it in a big group. This is the first time I've seen so many Koreans together, though, and as a group they look a lot more different from the Chinese and the Japanese than the Chinese and the Japanese from each other. Unfortunately, and unlike in Japan and China, there are pretty much no good-looking men in Korea. Not that they are ugly; it's just that there are no good-looking ones. When you see a good-looking man in Seoul, he is also usually carrying a Japanese-language map of the city.
Myeong-dong in general and our Ibis hotel in particular are great. Unlike in Japan, , the toilet has instructions in English. The toilet bowl in Kyoto, and IIRC in Seoul as well, started making pissing sounds as soon as you sat on it. Very encouraging.
I had a pretty nice view from the window.
In Myeong-dong there is a cafe in every building, and in every self-respecting building there are at least two. They are much in the Japanese style, except that in Seoul the situation with non-smoking areas is much better. Either the whole place is non-smoking, or the smoking area is very well-separated.
The Koreans speak somewhat better English than the Japanese, and they are not shy to use it.
The city features shopping areas, cute skyscrapers, and lots and lots of street sculptures.
There are also a lot of street vendors selling mysterious foods. The least mysterious was a potato on a stick, fashioned into one spiral potato chip.
We spent the evening with an old Russian friend who's been living there for many years. He taught us to eat Korean barbeque.
There might be some American restaurant chain that is not present in Korea, but I can't think of any.
They write without using the Chinese characters nowadays. The only places where I've seen Chinese characters are museums and palaces, and there they are in brackets as an explanation. I think that as a writing system ditching the Chinese characters is a great improvement, but for my own purposes during this trip I sorely missed them. In Japan I got accustommed to being able to read a tiny little bit, even though I don't know the language, and it didn't seem like much (just basic things like "meat", "forbidden", "chicken" or "exit"), but I sure missed it in Korea where I couldn't.
The signs on the old gates and suchlike are written from right to left. When did they switch?
The palaces are pretty colorful. I like them.
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