In the dragon's lair

Nanjing, the old capital

2014-05-27T03:24:00.003-07:00

Last summer, when I still lived in Shanghai, I went visiting a dear friend which was studying in Nanjing at the time (Ciao Cri), the old capital of China. I never had the chance to write about it, it was about time.

I got there in the evening, so we first took a stoll in the center. Usual chinese tacky style, but it was quite fun. There was open shops, food stals, and lights everywhere!

The next day, my friend had class so I went for some culture alone. I first headed for the Sun Yat-sen Masuleum, but it was closed on Monday. DAH.

So I kept strolling around the hill, which was full of ancient tombs and stuff. That was a great thing about Nanjing, right in the center of the city there was this green hill full of things to see and pleasent strolls.

These are the Ming's tombs. hundreads years old.

Then, I just decided to follow the path on the other side of the tombs getting deep into the wood without any sign. And I got lost into the wild. It was worth it, as always.

I found this lake after a while. Some old chinese dudes were swimming into it, despite the sign forbidding it.

On the back of the lake, the path went on. What to do? Go back or keep going?

So I walked all the way to the top of the hill. Being surrounded by just nature makes you feel like your problems are just so small compared to what is around us. Getting lost in the wild is something I need to do at least once in every one of my trips.

I wasn't alone

On the way down, I found the path leading to the main tomb. It had statues on both sides along all the way in.

Then I ended up meeting again with my friend on my way to the train station. Another lake appeared next to it. It was quite a pleasent trip.

Last day in Japan: Sumo, Ninjas and Cosplay. Most Japanese day in history!

2014-01-21T07:05:00.003-08:00

Last day in Tokyo :(

But luck assisted me.

Sumo tournament, ninja event and cosplay meeting were in town that day!

Most japanese day ever

The Traveler

First thing in the morning I went to the Sumo stadium at Ryogoku to watch a Sumo tournament

The atmophere was highly Japanese. There were no seats, but squared spaces n which was possibleto seat and eat with friends, while watching sumo

fat people everywhere

Although the tournament was really interesting I had no time to see the end.

I rushed to the Ueno park to see the end of the Ninja event

At the park I also spotted some Fonzie wannabe dancing rock and roll. Just because, they had no specific reason to be there, just having fun together.

Love it

Unexpectedly, in Ueno park I also came through Tokugawa's shrine. Tokugawa Ieyasu is the Japanese Garibaldi, the man that unified the country.

The trees colours were amazing

Here's a statue of the last samurai in history, Saigo Takamori

Next to Ueno park there's a nice shopping street where I lost myself some time

The Otaku

At night instead, I went to Tokyo Dome to take a look at a Cosplay event

Cosplay = people dressed as videogame or manga's characters

Too bad it was forbidden to take pictures unless you had a specific badge.

The all thing was extremely serious, and most costumes were extremely impressive.

Again, too bad I couldn't take any pics of them

The Tokyo Dome itself was extremely impressive, it was like a little city itself

The Eater

I didn't have any interesting eats that day, as much a the next morning at the airport.

Here's a balck co...banana!

At the airport instead I found Wasabi Kitkats!!!

and some drinking...Sweat?

The Weird

Have you ever wondered about Japanese's toilets? Here's an English tutorial about how to use the "spray"....

The Artist

And so my trip comes to an end. Japan was definelty one of the most amazing countries I ever visited, can't wait to be back. It would be a dream to live there. We will see....

At the airport, this dog hugged me and told me to come back soon.

I will doggy, I definelty will.

Bye Bye Japan!

Japan day 6, Tokyo's Akihabara and Yanaka area

2014-01-19T14:00:00.002-08:00

The Otaku/The Weird

Akihabara, electronics city. Dreamland of Japanese sub culture lovers.

Videogames, Manga, and related pornography

I spent here en entire day just strolling from a shop to the other, climbing up every floor, looking in every corner

This is allegedly the most competitive Arcade in all of Japan (world?) so I had to go there and have my ass kicked at Street Fighter

While usually first, second and third floor where used for electronics, videogames and mangas, fourth and fifth floor where exclusive for animated and real pornography (no prostitution)....not sure what the date at the corner of the poster means...

The Traveler/The Eater

After that, I moved to Yanaka, a part of the city known for street food and temples!

It was interesting to walk the quiet streets and the empty temples, so close to the crowded center...

here's some people playing with spinning tops

Here's the beginning of the street food area

this shop had a lot of photos on the wall, apparently it was famous

It served some fried meat things...quite good actually!

And what follows it's a magical moment.

I found this cozy, family runned, small okonomiyaki resturant

Inside the small restaurant, mom, dad and son were working together, and despite they could not speak any english they were very kind helping me having an amazing okonomiyaki experience

You are supposed to cook the thing yourself...but I asked for help!

Delicuious!

I ended the day getting lost in the small alleys walking my way through temples on my way to the metro

Hot corn and onion soup...no thanks!

...and this is the view from the terrace of my hostel!

Thank you for reading, next episode the most (and last) japanese day ever: Sumo, Ninjas and cosplay!!!

SPECIAL EPISODE Harbin, the city of ice

2014-01-17T03:16:00.002-08:00

No Japan this time, I just got back to Italy (which I'm already tired of) but I've been to Harbin before coming home.

Harbin it's a city in deep north est China, close to the Russian border, famous for its Ice and Snow festival every winter.

It is in fact known as, The City of Ice!

I've been there 3 days but I'll write only an episode about it. 230 photos.

Enjoy!

Unusually, I wasn't travelling alone this time. A chinese friend came along. And if on a side it was definetly useful and fun to have her around, being used to travel by myself made me kind of a savage. I'm not used anymore to ask for opinions or deal with other people's problems when I travel. So I can't really say if I prefer solo or in company. I guess it's just different

The Cold

Harbin was cold. Like, real cold.

I've never been anywhere that cold in my life. I was wearing a very warm hat, 2 pair of gloves, 2 t-shirts, one jumper, one jacket, 2 pair of trousers, 2 socks, warming soles, and boots.

I was still freezing the all time. Expecially my feet. Keeping your hards out without protection meant to stop feeling them after less than 30 seconds.

Expecially because all the expoitions where either in the middle of a snow or ice field.

It didn't help

It was crazy tho to see all the locals walking around as it was spring. Open shirts, short skirts. I have no idea how. I guess your body might even get used to minus 30 celsius degrees at some point. Or maybe you just lose sensitivity and that's it

The coldest it got was -30° at the Ice and Snow world at night.

It was so cold, my phone switched off and refused to get back on. For real. So I couldn't that take many pictures there...

The City

It didn't feel like China at all. The city's buildings are much more Soviet Union than anything else. If it wasn't for the Chinese writings on the walls and the chinese people walking around, you'd never say you are in China.

Also, all the heating was coal based. So...not the freshest air. At least it was warm inside...

Following is the main shopping street, called Zhong Yang Da Jie

And this is me eating an ice cream at -25°

It wasn't unsual to find Russian underground bars all over the place, some of them didn't even have Chinese writings

This instead is Saint Sophia square and Saint Sophia Church

Even the restaurants and cafes had a Russian feeling

But let's talk about my room. Well, I am a young traveler. I need to stay cheap right? No hostel could be found in Harbin, so I had to go for a cheap hotel. From the pictures online it looked legit. It was cheap and right in the center of the city.

Well, it was BAD. REALLY BAD. Luckily I had my room changed the second day (which wasn't that better, BTW) but my first room was definelty a prostitute-for-one.

Let me explain.

First of all, it looked like the room has never been cleaned up. NEVER. There was dirt everywhere.

The bathroom had...glass doors. Which I can only have two explanations for.

First is, the prostitute is taking a shower, and you can look at it. As well as the protitute is taking a piss, and you can look at it.

The second is: I am taking a shit, and I don't want the prostitute to steal my stuff and run while I'm doing so.

In any case, big ew.

Bed cover had what looked like blood stains :(

While this couch was just...I don't even know how to describe the ammount of shit you could find on it

Cherry on the cake, neon violet lights!!!

The Snow

Ok enough with prostitution, let's get serious here. Fist stop, Sun Island and the snow sculpture exposition!

This was a river. You could get on the island by car, or you could take a walk over it!

Same here

Sun Island is a huge park, and what's following is a series of all the ice sculpures you could find in it. Some of them are just huge and impressive. Other are small, but no less impressive.

And yes, all you see it's just all and only snow

This was by far the biggest and most impressive one. Look at the size. Look at the details.

Next to the ice WC, the was a little cottage. Inside (it was SO warm!) there was 2 ladies providing some local delicious food and drinks!

I wanted that coat!

Some hunted animals

Even the common Chinese bridges and pagodas had a snow feeling

Here instead a snow Micheal Jackson on the main street

The Tigers

Tigers. Yup. The biggest Siberian Tiger wild park in the world. More than 70 cubs of this endangered species are born every year and the tigers can walk around in a wide free space, not like a zoo. So I think it's a good thing. Despite the fact that China+animals is a story that doesn't usually end well. Check my Shanghai Zoo episode for a taste of waht I'm talking about.

Anyway, to see this huge animals just few metres from you (on a bus) was definetly a great experience that I'll never forget. Also, you could feed the tigers with alive animals like chickens, ducks, goats or even cows. Too bad I only saw a 3 tigers vs 1 chicken thing. You can guess how that ended. You can also see the video below.

Also few lions we there

Only a few tigers were caged, apparently because they were sick, old, or pregnant

White tigers!

And this fucker is a Liger. What's a liger? It's a half lion half tiger thing, of couse. Only 10 in the whole world!

The Ice

Here we are. There where two sities for ice sculptures, first one is Zhaolin park. Despite smaller thn the second one, this is definetly my favorite. There was some kind of fairy feeling about it....

Again, all you see it's only ice....

This is where they make the sculptures

there were a few activities you could do there. Like ice bicycles and curling!

Second stop, and world famous, Ice and snow world. A all city made out of ice. But it was so cold that my phone refused to work, so I could tak that many pictures.

All the sculptures represent famous world heritage sites, like Rome's Colosseum, New York Empire State Building and the Beijing's Forbidden City.

I took my hat off for a second to take this pictures. I'm not smiling, I'm in pain.

The Eats

I had a few interesting eats in Harbin, definetly a different cousine from Shanghai's one

Here we have a few steamed dumplings with different filling: combination of fish, met and vegetables

This instead is a honey dew pork sandwitch in a peculiar bread bun similar to italian's tigelle. DELICIOUS

This is a sweet chicken pan friend breast with cheese filling <3

This is one of the most traditional dishes of Harbin, chicken and mushrooms stew. And by chicken, I mean an entire chicken, from head to toe. Literally.

Some delicious sweet and sour eggplants on the side...

Pork knees and krauti, another Harbin must

Kiss me!

We also went to a Russian restaurant. I wasn't impressed

Steamed sweet potato, a must in the cold!!!

There was a lot of peculiar fruits, and it was all frozen and delicious!!!

This instead is a corn wrap with local vegetables. The wrap was incredibly thin and the vegetables quite tasty

Apparently also these ice cream were quite famous. I wasn't impressed tho

And....hot Coca Cola!

That's it folks. It was a magic adventure, but it was so cold 3 days were enough. I couldn't have endured more. But I believe is a thing verybody should see once in their life. If you happen to be in China in winter, get your ass up there.

Next episode, Japan again

Stay tuned!

ah, If you happen to have a favorite ice/snow sculpture, just write a comment below and let me know you opinion ;)

Japan day 5: some more Fuji, Ghibli museum and Kill Bill restaurant

2014-01-04T05:02:00.002-08:00

First of all, take this two morning shots of Mt. Fuji

The Otaku

No traveller. Get ready for two Otaku days.

Left Kawaguchi-ko, I got back to Tokyo, only to take a train to the outskirts.

Destination: Ghibli Museum

What's Ghibli? Never heard of Totoro? Stop reading, now. Go on google and look it up. Better even, find Totoro's movie and watch it. Now.

You know Ghibli? Did you go watch the movie? Keep reading.

Are you lying?

God's looking at you. Don't waste your life no more. Do yourself a favor.

WATCH TOTORO

（or any other Studio Ghibli's movie )

So, AS YOU KNOW ALREADY, Studio Ghibli is Japanese Disney.

Only better that Disney

This is their museum. I wished I could have taken move photos, but it was forbidden

So this is only few shots I was able to catch

You could breath the magic....

These are some original sketches in preparation for the movies... <3

Then, after the magic, I went for dinner with my ex-shanghai-flatmate which now lives in Tokyo (lucky B...! I'll be back!) not in some random place, but in Gonpachi restaurant, the famous restaurant in which THIS Kill Bill scene was filmed!

( if you don't know Kill Bill as well, I wonder why do you waste your time living )

The Weird

I'll leave you with two interesting items...the first is an alcoholic beverage in a...fruit juice brick! 12 degrees as well, dayum!

the second one is a Japanese interpretation (racist?) of a Chinese dumpling ^^

Next episode, Akihabara...the Otaku subculture capital of the world!

Where animation, videogames and porn melt together in the weirdest way possible!

Japan day 4, Mt. Fuji and onsen

2014-01-02T02:37:00.004-08:00

Mt. Fuji folks. Oh yeah.

I got there for my second day trip outside Tokyo

The Traveller

Being winter, there was no way to actually climb Mt. Fuji, so I went to a small town around lake Kawaguchi to admire the viewand enjoy the hot springs (Onsen)

It was not turism season, so the city was extremely quiet. As the small alleys in Tokyo gave me a sense of Italy, this small lake town reminded me of a small seaside city on the Adriatic shore of Italy I used to go to when I was little

Here is my lovely japanese style accomodation!

Being a very small city, the best way to get around the lake was on a bike!

I WILL REGRET THAT

So, I started biking around looking for good view spots to take some pictures

Listed below there's only a few of the thousands pictures I've got

Kawaguchi-ko & Fuji-yama

The amazing thing about Mt Fuji is that there's no other mountain around it. So it just stands there, in the middle of nothing, proudly, like a samurai.

Beautiful

Real Japanese Bonsai!!!

And this awesome shot costed me the bike

I walked backwards trying to get the best angle, and I bumped into my bike, which fell and broke

It was almost impossibile to cycle anymore and I was on the other side of the lake

I tried my best to get back to the hostel by myself

( because I didn't want to pay for it )

(￣▽￣")

Problem is, I was in the middle of nowhere. Damn.

So I had to go on until I found an Hotel, and luckily I found someone inside that helped me calling the Hostel, which then came top pick me up with a van

Best part? No charge

they didn't even want me to pay for the time I used the bike

It may even be because I never said it was my fault...still, another point for Japanese people!

Onsen

After coming back all sweat from the biking, I headed to the hot springs

Japanese hot springs are a little peculiar. First of all, no tattoo allowed.

Because apparently in Japan most people with tattoos are Mafia people, so they don't want such people to get into public baths and "bother" other costumers.

Personally, I think this is extremely 80'/90' mentality and should be applied now. But whatever, when you go to Rome you do what Romans do, right? So I hadto find an hot spring with tattoo allowance

Got there, you have to go in totally naked, no towels

Or at least it wasn't clear how far I could go with towels and flipflops. Luckily I was the only one there, so I wasn't worried to make any mistake

So in the first room you leave all your clothing

then you get into the second room and wash yourself

Then you go OUTSIDE NAKED ( 0 C' degrees at that time! ) and get into one of the natural hot sping pool of your choice (usually, 100 C' degrees! Holy cow!)

The overall experience was really cool. 0 degrees outside, and 100 inside the water, total silence, maximum relax

wow

THE EATER

No Weird or Otaku stuff today, but a good eating experiece

I was suggested to go to a Japanese tavern (the equal to an Italian trattoria) but, of course, it was closed that day.

So I went to this restaurant serving specialties of the area.

I DID NOT REGRET THAT

take a look at this place, DAYUM!

I ordered one of the specialties of the house, Pumpkin Thick Soda Noodles. Praticamente delle tagliatelle giganti! bonissime...

This instead, was disgusting. I'm not even gonna waste my time to describe what it was, but it was cute enough to deserve a picture (and 200 yen...)

THE ARTIST

As always, I'll leave you with some good shots.

Next episode, even better fuji pics, Ghibli Museum, and Kill Bill restaurant!

Japan day 3: Kamakura and sushi

2014-01-01T01:02:00.001-08:00

At the beginning, my intention was to travel to Tokyo and Kyoto. But being in Japan for only a week, and being the two cities quite far between each other I decided to stick with Tokyo leave Kyoto for another time. But it felt like a waste to stay in Tokyo for an entire week, so I decided to take a couple of day trips around Tokyo area.

First stop: historical city of Kamakura

THE TRAVELER

It's a wintery day in Japan. Leaves are turning red and yellow, slowly falling on the ground, creating magical paths through the gates of shrines and temples. Kamakura is a small city near Tokyo, gets crowded during week-ends, but time goes slow on a Wednesday morning. Housewifes walking the quiet streets looking for the best grocery deals of the day, small crowds of Japanese turists paying visit to the ancient shrines to pray and catch a few lucky camera shots.

Komachi-dori shopping street

Shinto gatesshinto gates everywhere.

Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu

Temple of the God of War

Kencho-ji

The oldest zen monastery in all of Japan

This is quite an old Buddha

I travelled through China and South Korea, but never in my life I saw such a thin Buddha

So Zen

After visiting the main temple, I got lost (as always) walking up the hill crowded with several other temples.

That's actually something that happen to me all the time. I get somewhere surrounded by a forest, and then I feel the unstoppable need to keep walking and see how far I can go. I have no idea where I'm going, I just keep walking. Problem is these kind of side-walking-trials never end. I get at the top of a hill, and another hill appears. And then you wonder what's up than hill. What if you are missing something amazing? Gotta go.

So usually after climbing 2 or 3 hills I have to stop myself from keep going on and go back. Although I seldomly regret taking this side tours, it always leave me breathless. Not because of the breathtaking views, but fot the thousands steps I have to climb each time....

Buddha Jesus!

E cosi' mi ritrovai in una selva oscura, che la diretta via era smarrita...I've got to the top of the mountain where I found the temple proctecting the monastery, the statues of animal-spirits are suppsed to keep away the bad ones.

Daibutsu

The most iconic sight of Kamakura is the huge Buddha Daibutsu, about 800 years old. But there's an anecdote I should tell first. I was walking on the streets looking for an hiking trial to walk my way into the forest to reach Daibutsu, but being impossibile to find your way in Japan I had to ask someone for directions. This middle-aged man, did not spoke a word of English. But apparently the hiking trial was closed, so the poor man took an hour of his time to walk all the way through the city to take me there, even if he could just have told me directions instead.

Oh, Japanese people!

This is the entrance of Sugimoto-Dera, the oldest temple in the city, dated 734 AD

Hello Ocean!

Doesn't matter where I go, being in a forest or looking at the sea it's always a magical experience, a moment of introspective loneliness, a face to face with your soul

Women walking the streets wearing kimonos

THE OTAKU/THE WEIRD

Just next to a temple, I found this...whatever-it-is-shop

Swords where sold next to anime-replica objects

like the helm from Full Metal Alchemist or Gatsu's sword

Not sure it's more Otaku or Weird, so I just decided to it under both!

THE EATER

Finally, a day full of delightful eats

Let's start with grape fanta!

Dorayaki <3 two pieces of sweet pancakes filled with a wide range of choices...

Rice balls with soy sauce ans sesame seeds

Ok. It's Sushi time.

Sushi eateries in Tokyo purchase every morning fresh fish from the Tokyo fish market (the biggest in the world) so it couldn't be fresher. It couldn't be a better quality.

When you enter the place, everybody welcomes you altogether, even the cooks. Then you sit down in front of the desk where the cooks cut the fresh fish in front of you and prepare your sushi on the spot.

Eating sushi is a slow experience. You take your time. Take a piece or two of sushi, then wait, have a chat, and order some more.

Luckily, another westener sat next to me and helped me through the all process.

I decided to buy a set of different fatness of tuna.

Now, the taste. Not only this sushi was the best thing I ate in Japan, but it could even be the best thing I ever ate in all of my life. The tuna melted in my mouth like a piece of chocolate. It didn't even tasted like fish, as much as meat.

I would lie if I say that I was able to tell the difference between the different kinds of tuna, I just know they were all delicious.

Overall the experience was also inexpensive, this set of sushi and a beer was only about 10 euros.

Can't think how expensive sushi must taste like...it's definetly worth it to go to Tokyo even just to eat this delicacy!

THE ARTIST

I'll leave you with some temple shots. Stay tuned, next episode is Mt. Fujiyama!

Japan day 2, Tokyo's Shibuya, Harajuku and Shinjuku areas

2013-12-27T06:37:00.001-08:00

Second day in Tokyo, I decided to go crazy and visit all the major urban areas of the cityat once: Harajuku shopping district, Shibuya crossing, and Shinjuku by night.

Let's get started.

The Traveller

First I headed to Shibuya crossing, known to be the busiest crossing in the world. It was quite impressive, I wonder how it lookslike during peak hours!

Some of you might remeber the movie Hachiko. It's the one with Richard Gere and the dog. The one with you crying for a week after watching it.

Well, some of you might know that that's a true story, and this is statue celebrating the loyalty of Hachiko the king of all DOGE

Then after wondering arond Shibuya crossing for a while, I moved to Harakuju, strolling around Omote-sando-dori street & Meiji-jingu shrine

This instead, is an endless line of people. I couldn't understand why they were in line, I just think japanese people really enjoy queues.

Now, something I noticed right away is that outside every shop there were black people. You don't see them anywhere else really, but just outside the shops trying to get people in. It's kind of racist. But I guess most Japanese people are too shy to bother people on the streets.

Next to the station, on my way to Nakano Broad way (see the Otaku section below) I saw a temple, so I decided to take a look. Once again I was surprised about the totally different atmosphere of the place compared to Korea and expecially China, despite the temples look pretty much the same.

cuteness level over 9000!

Before coming back to Tokyo center I went visiting thi interesting museum. I would be lying if i say that that's what I was expecting, but it was ok. Sadly it was forbidden to take any pictures.

This is a view of Tokyo from the goverment tower

These instead are lovely alleys around Shinjuku station (borrowing a friend's words, Shinjuku station is where you go after you die if you have been a bad boy. Some others call it Hell)

These alleys has some sort of chinese-like feeling. But without smell of dead bodies, food poisoning or spitters.

It's lights time! Shinjuku by night and the famous Kabukicho ( see the Weird section for details)

Inside the Kabukicho area, there was a labyrinth of little alleys crowded with extremely small bars with no more than 5 seats each. Apparently late at night, this is where business men come for a drink and a chat. It gets so crowded that a fee must be paid in order to have the opportunity and the privilegen to have a seat here for the night. Of the hundreds bars, only 2 accept foreigners. The atmosphere of this place...

Strange enough, next to the bar area there's a nice temple

The Weird

Today's weird section is quite rich.

let's start with Condomania.

Yes. It's exactly how it sounds like. A huge condom store with the strangest condoms on the face of earth!

Then, here is Kabukicho.

Now, probably none of you ever heard this name, so the place would have not said much to you. But this is the location of avery good videogame of which I played 4 chapters. It's hard to explain the feeling. iI've never been to this place, at the same time I could recognize every corner, because I've been there for hours and hours playing the game.

It's like if you are a fan of Harry Potter movies and one day you find yourself visiting the Hogwarts castle.

But with prostitutes instead of witches, and different kind of magic powders.

Definetly one of the best personal experience I had in Tokyo.

I should have put this into the Otaku section, but the weirdness of the place beats the Otakuness.

Forgot to say, Kabuchiko is the red light Tokyo district, as well as the Yakuza mafia HQ. Unfortunately tho, i didn't get to take any picture with a Yakuza :(

...Why showers?

This instead is the hotel district of Kabukicho. Better known as the Love Motel district.

Weirdly enough, I've seen more hostess clubs for girls than clubs for guys.

An hostess club is a bar in which when you enter you choose a guy/girl you like from the picture outside, and if free he is going to keep you company. For free, as far as you keep spending money at the bar.

Not to be confused as prostitutes. Even if in some cases I'm sure that's how it ends

Ah, in Japan is forbidden to smoke in the streets

not sure how to explain this....

The Otaku

On the metro walls, advertising for the new JoJo series coming out!

This is Nakano Broadway. Where any kind of vintage movie-videogame-manga related thing can be found. Also knows as paradise.

...and this is hokuto no ken (Ken il guerriero) condoms!

can't beat this....

The eater

Walking all day, no time to eat again. I only managed to treat myself with this strawberry chocolate crepe', from one of the thousands crepe' stands around Tokyo. Delicious!

The Artist

Too bad for you, today I made quite a few pretentious prick photos! Enjoy!

Hopefully I managed to transmit to you at least a part of what I felt on that day, which is what I try to do in every blog post I write. Japan is amazing, and this is only the beginning

Japan day 1, Tokyo's Asakusa area

2013-12-16T08:48:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone!

Japan, finally.

Since I was 4 years old, this is where I wanted to go. Reading mangas and playing videogames with my brother, I always dreamt of going to Japan. But it was so far, so expensive to go there that I never really thought I would have made it one day. Well, I'm 25, and it's time for me to have another life dream, because this one has come to life.

But so much pressure, I mean, 21 years of waiting, how could Japan be up to my expectations? It did. Japan is the most amazing country I ever seen, hands down. It's the future of human kind. It's beautiful, clean, fun, and people are amazingly nice. ah, and girls are all beautful in Tokyo. Like, all of them. Even the ugly ones are beautiful.

Also, Japan is not that expensive as they say. Maybe transportation is (actually it REALLY is), but food is definetly cheaper than Europe.You can have dinner in a restaurant (and not Mc Donald) for about 5 euro.

Actually living around the world I learned something. All places are expensive the same way. Let's take Shanghai and Tokyo for example. Shanghai is in China, which is known to be a cheap country. No it isn't. I mean it is if you live a Chinese life. Which means you have to buy shitty products, shitty food and live in a shitty place. Kind of things that would be cheap in Tokyo as well, but it would be illegal in Tokyo (or Europe) to sell such low quality things. You want decent/good quality life? It's gonna cost you more in Shanghai than Tokyo.

In the end, you get what you pay for.

It's almost too perfect.

That's maybe one of the two negatives I've seen in Japan. Everything it's always so perfect, you are always worried to do something wrong.

While in China you know that even being your worst self you'll still be the best behaved around, in Japan you feel like giving your best shot is just not enough. You are going to make a mistake and make people look at you with disappointment. It doesn't really happen, because Japanese people are just too nice to blame you for anything. But you just don't want to let them down.

The other negative is to get around in Japan. Definetly the most complicated place on the face of earth. I've travelled a lot by myself, and I almost never got lost. All I needed was a map and a metro map. But in Japan streets has no name. And the metro is owned by 6 different companies.You are going to get lost, for sure. And it's not even a bad thing, it lets you discover secret parts of the city.

Still, you are going to get lost. A lot.

But that's pretty much it with the negatives.

One more thing before jumping into wonderland:

I'll be writing this Japan trip blog in a different way than usual.

I'll be dividing each post into sections: the Traveler (buildings, temples and shit), the Otaku (japan sub-culture related stuff), the Weird (weird japanese moments), the Eater (food food food) and the Artist (pretentious hipster photos)

Let's get started.

The Traveler

Best time ever to leave Shanghai. While I was away, Shanghai had a record pollution week, with peaks of more of 500 pm 2.5 . It's considered not dangerous when it's under 25. You do the math.

In quite a nice and simple way I menage to reach my hostel from the airport, already delighted by the kindness of all the airport staff that helped me greatly with much kindness to find my way to my destination.

This Hostel is amazing. It's small, but clean and cheap. I think I paid around 15 euro a night or so. Which is CHEAP in Tokyo center. Actually, I was in Asakusa area (north-est from the very center) but I think it can still be considered as center Tokyo.

Anyway, I was in a 4 people room, but I had better sleep than in my own room in Shanghai. Better roomates.

Most of the visitors were from Australia and Thailand, because apparently it's summer vacation over there. Anyway, I made some good friends there that I hope I'll have the chance to see again.

Also most important thing, during my all staying I wasn't involved in any weird and grotesque sexual harrasment kind of thing. Which is unsual for me when I travel. Kind of a tradition. Almost sad it didn't happen this time.

From my window, I could see that random animal thing looking at me. Why was it there? Kinda scary.

Then it was almost evening already, So I just decided to walk around Asakusa area. And the wonder started already. Despite the high buildings, and the super modern society, culture was at every angle. You could see Japanese tradition be extremely radicated even nowadays. They love their culture, and they care about it.

Then I went to visit Senso-ji temple, one of the most famous in the city. And I walked through Nakamise-dori, a very nice food-souvenirs pedestrian street.

It was amazing to see so many people at the temple. Old, young, families, any kind of person went there to pray for the new year coming

Random girls dressed on kimonos. You could always spot some just walking around the city

On the narrow alleys around the temple, all kind of traditional style restaurants could be found. Actually, they could be spotted pretty much anywhere in Tokyo, where modernity and tradition melts in the best way possible

The Weird

As soon as a got into the airport, things weirdness started.

Obscene and immoral materials, and child pornography prohibited...in Japan. Seriously? Well I actually understand that, they already have enough of that on their own, not need to import more!

Then this random (weird?) dudes poster comes up thanking you for visiting...

...And then shower rooms appear in the airport....

...this is instead the kind of magazines you can find in the Family Mart!

The Otaku

This appeared right outside the airport doors <3

The Eater

I didn't eat much on my first day, but I could already see a difference between the Japanese Family Mart snacks and the Shanghai ones. The Japanese ones were gooooooood

two words. PIZZA. BAOZI. (chinese dumpling)

And this fried-dick thing is actually a sausage with fried potato all around. Less than 1 euro. Don't think you can find a cheaper fried-dick anywhere else.

The Artist

good for you, just one photo today!

Senso-ji at night time.

6 more days to go!!!

Korea Day 7, Last day in Korea, Incheon Island and Beach

2013-08-06T07:42:00.004-07:00

For my last day in Korea (sob sob) I decided to have a relaxing day on the beach. But who am I kidding, it wasn't relaxing at all. I ended up walking all day as always. ANYWAY, before getting to the Incheon Island Beach (which is like only an hour from Seoul...Have I mention already that I love Seoul?) I stopped at the Airport (which is on the island as well) to take care of few things. My attention was caught by this window showing...things you can't take on a plane.

We'll start with "I'm asian, who am I trying to foul with this huge underpants bomb?"

And here we have a nice selection of drugs, in case you didn't knew enough about it.

I love how they are nicely displayed making shapes...

And here we have a huge ammount of cocaine in a Harry Potter book! You'll see magic reading that book alright...

Apparently North Korea stuff is also not a good idea in a South Korean airport...

Or a crossbow.

Aww so beautiful <3

But anyway, taking a bus to the airport I arrived at Eulwangni beach. Yay!

It looks like Cesenatico...10 years ago.

When I got there it was still morning. Perfect sunny day at the airport, as foggy as fuck on the beach. Yay!

Upset about the weather, I decided to take a walk to the near and hopefully sunnier Mnuido Island.

From the boat to Mnuido I could see this round green island. I wish I could have gone there...but it wasn't even mentioned on the map. Not sure if it was possible to reach it. Maybe during low tides. The doubt will stay with me till the end of my days.

Why wasn't the island on the map?

LOST

Nobody could speak any English around there. Not that I was bothered by that (like native English speaker turists...) actually I felt stupid myself. I started studying Korean. Anyway, not sure abuot what to do there, I just started walking into the island deep forest.

And then I found myself here, and I stopped. I was alone, no human souls around, I was probably the only one in the forest on that Monday morning. No sound whatsoever. Everything was still frozen, like the all world had stopped. And it could have as well, I wouldn't have noticed or cared. I felt like the only human on earth. It felt good. Always running, always in a hurry, sorrounded by noises all the time, it's hard to remind yourself of taking a break, and think. You'll be surprised about how much you can actually realize about yourself and your life in just few minutes of total silence and distance from the society that doesn't want you to think or realize anything.

Good thing I got back to society before realizing too much.

Not sure about this. Tombs? Drunk forest people spot?

The view was nice.

My time was limited and I wasn't sure where I was actually going gettin deeper into the forest. And despite the fact that being into the forest feels like home to me, I also know it's not a great idea to get deep into it by yourself if you are not familiar with it. So I got back and I walked to the island sailors village.

And I walked al the way acroos the island till I reached Silmido beach. NNNNiiiiiceeee

These seagulls are too lazy to fly from an island to the other.

I got back to Eulwangni beach in the evening since I had a room booked there. By the time I was back the weather was better.

So I enjoyed the sunset on the beach.

Ordering dinner wasn't easy.

But I managed

On the next morning, I woke up early to get to the airport. The beach was foggy again.

So that was my trip to Korea. Awesome.

Hope you enjoyed the blog, thank you for reading.

. I'll end with some nice shots of the islands.

Korea Day 6: Best Seoul and Gangnam Style!

2013-07-26T08:34:00.000-07:00

It was a beautiful, quiet Sunday morning.

So I made my way to the Bukchon Hanok Village, which is a neighborhood of Seoul with traditional style houses.

I didn't expect much, i was wrong.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bukchon_Hanok_Village

Probably because it was Sunday, I was almost the only person on the streets. Also, because the houses are all owned by privates, there's not that many tourists attractions if not for the houses itself and little cute shops on the narrows streets.

The neighborhood is situated right in the center of the historical Seoul, but atmophere it's so quiet, and the stylish houses makes you dreaming of living here...

And that's a random weird sculpture right there

And apparently they are building new houses as well...

Too bad I didn't have that much time to spend there, I had to rush to Jongmyo, a shrine cointaning the "souls" of many Korean kings.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jongmyo

It's forbidden to walk on this path, because the souls travel trough it

And here we are. The time has come. I can finally say, I have been to Gangnam!

This is Gangnam style!

Then I moved to another side of town, to the Buddhists temple of Bongeunsa

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bongeunsa

Damn Nazi Buddhists...

And that wasmy last day in Seoul. For my last day in Korea, I decided to take a look at the beautiful islands around Incheon...

Korea day 5, Korean folk village

2013-07-17T09:44:00.000-07:00

So I left my confy hotel room that morning early, heading to the Korean Folk Village

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Folk_Village

What you see in my hand is a deceiving object. I thought it was gonna be a delicious muffin, but the troll street food vendor forgot to tell me abuot the egg hidden inside.

...and this are two cute puppies outside the store just at the entrance of the village

But what's the Korean Folk Village? It's a village that kept everything as it was centuries ago. It's a turist attraction, but it kept a decent level of realism, it actually feels like a jump in the past.

It was a really nice experience, they managed to keep a perfect balance between a turist attraction and a real experience. I think some people working there were actually living in the village.

Here some kids are writing wishes on a scaman's tree. Shamanism apparently was big in Korea before Buddism

Old Korean village were more advanced than you think...

Some ancient Korean Gods...

Some spots were actually breath taking views

Dead or Alive!

Inside the village there were a few event turist could attend. One of those was a recreation of a traditional wedding cerimony

There were also some real temples and old tombs

Fortune tellers. Everywhere in Korea

Despite the number of turists around,it wasn't hard to find quite spaces to relax

Not sure what's that tube is about. A rain catcher is my guess.

Old man sitting outside the abandoned temple

Who's getting drunk at luch???

BTW, that's not a pizza, but a traditional Korean pancake

After the folk village I got back to Seoul, and I had some time before meeting my third and last host (which luckily was a normal person this time, very nice as well) so i went to the Korean National Museum.

This are the famous dragon falls inside the museum. Too bad there's no falls at all. So....Yeah.

So this is when it all started...damn rice...

despite I was in a Korean museum, the most amazing thing I saw was this ancient samurai armor and the gold katana

This are the Buddah hands positions....

So....

....Yeah.

Later I met my host and we went for dinner. it was goooood

Later on we went clubbing, there was some party happening and I actually even met my first host there.

Most importantly, I danced Gangnam style in korea!

Korea day 4, Suwon

2013-07-14T09:56:00.000-07:00

I'll start this blog with some creepiness (is that even a real word?).

As I said before, I have been couchsurfing. And 2 out of 3 hosts where good. 1 wasn't.

I had this person hosting me in Suwon (a city near Seoul) for 1 night, and it worked for me so I could explore that city and the surroundings.

So I took a bus from Seoul and got to that house. It was in the middle of nowhere. Just a big street and forests around.

Now, I can't really get into creepy details here (just ask me in private for the horror full story) but long story short, I had to run away (literally) from a mental person. So I got kind of lost in the middle of nowhere, not sure where to go till I luckily found a taxi that took me to the center of the city. Then I just found a nice Hostel where I spent that night. Brrr.

So then I started exploring the historical city of Suwon.

While the main attraction, Haenggung, was really disappointing, what was supposed to be an old royal palace just looked like a fake attraction for turists.

http://wikimapia.org/69497/Hwaseong-Haenggung

What I found most interesting instead was the city itself. Very different from Seoul. It made me realize Seoul it's probably an exception in Korea. No one was speaking English here, actually no one was on the streets at all. And it's not that small of a city. All the lights, the crowded streets, the fancy shops were gone.

I was the only foreigner there.

It was so peaceful and quite.

And here we have the masterpiece. I personally think it's worth to come all the way here just to look at this pig gold statue.

But the city it's also a world heritage sight. The gates and the walls of the old fortress are still intact. It reminded me of the great wall of China. Just slightly smaller...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwaseong_Fortress

this is the south gate

It was a very hot sunny day. I loved walking up all those stairs...except I didn't.

Every here and there there was a pavillion like this, in which was possible to just lay down on the wood and get some fresh air. No sound but the wind passing by...

First time in my life I saw a wild heron.

At night the city was slightly more alive, with an Asian style indoor market

And here is something you'll never see in Europe.

The gate at night was quite impressive

I've got a new app on the phone, you'll se some of this pics in the next blogs

I ended my night in a lovely cafè

I had to wake up early the next day. I had to take a bus to the famous korean folk village...

Korea day 3, Historic Seoul

2013-07-09T21:58:00.001-07:00

It's history time! Yay!...right?

But first, I'll take a second to describe one of the most "peculiar" side of Seoul. The coffee culture. Coffee? In Korea? yes. When i started working for a Korean Coffee chain in Shanghai I was like...why? But after visiting Seoul all made much more sense. Cafes are everywhere in Seoul. Everywhere. Small café, chains, anything. At every corner. I don't think It's an exaggeration saying that it's easier to get a coffee in Seoul than in Rome, or New York if you prefer.

It's out of control.

Anyway, I started my third day in one of the most famous book shops in Seoul, Kyobo, where I bought some books and DVDs.

A expecially reccomend this book to everybody. It's the real story of a North Korean guy, he was born in a "North Korean Gulag" and he managed to escape to South Korea. He was forced to see his mother being hanged when he was just 13. And that's not the most incredible moment of his life.

Then I started moving torwards Gyeongbokgung, the equivalent of the Forbidden city in Korea. In my opinion, much better.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyeongbokgung

Here's some old style houses

For the chinese turists...

An old map of the place...

After that, I went into another lovely book store/café. It felt so cozy, I just loved the place. I stayed there for a cup of coffee.

Some directions in case you get lost

Then I visited another Royal palace, Changdeokgung, and it's lovely secret garden, a world heritage treasure. Not like in China, Korean actually take good care of their historical treasures.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changdeokgung

This is the oldest stone bridge in all of Korea

In these rooms, a Korean queen was murdered by a Japanese assassin. So ninja did exist, after all!

She is the lovely guide that took us around the secret garden. it was not possible to walk around by yourself.

Old korean houses used a very clever way to heat up during winter. An underground "steam system" would propagate hot steam under the floor on every room. So clever, this system is still used in modern Korean houses.

This was the prince library. The rooftop was expecially designed so that the sunlight would not ruin the books.

No idea about that little "tower" under the tree...

The characters were carved into the stone (1690) by the prince itself. It translates into

" The stream flows away endlessly and the waterfall plummets down from te sky. These reminds me of a white rainbow, thunder and light flooding the valleys "

Back to the subway, the clever monitor tells you where the train is. I still have to find a faster subway system than the Shanghai one tho.

I ended my day at a colleague's house for dinner.

SO YUMMY

Korea Day 2, NORTH KOREA

2013-06-30T21:18:00.002-07:00

North Korea. Oh yeah.

Well, not really North Korea. Just a little bit.

We'll get to that.

I started my day taking the metro and this catched my attention

They are in every metro stops. In case, you know, north neighbors decides that today it's a good day for bombing.

That is actually going to be the topic of this blog episode, they way South Koreans adapt their lives to the situation with North Korea.

The possibility of war it's just an everyday fear that they learned to ignore. At the same time, every korean male has to spend 21 months in the army for training (nothing compared to the 6 to 9 years of N.K.)

There some kind of hate/love sensation in the air, S.K. dreams of a day in which S. and N. could be reunited, but it also keep itself ready to fight it. 2 brothers in war.

I personally think it's quite a unique situation for a developed country.

Growing up with the fear your neighbors could just decide to bomb you anyday...

Here instead, we have an "asian toilet". It's...weird. There things coming out from hidden places spraying a variety of things at your genitals...not good. But the warm seat? That itself it's worth the trip to Korea!

So today I decided to visit the DMZ, the strip of land that devides S. and N. Korea.

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demilitarized_zone

Basically the DMZ it's a strip of land of 4 Km (2 on each side) in which is forbidden to have military activities. But it's all a lie, both countries has hidden military bases all along the border.

Due to the lack of human activities in this area, the area became a natural reserve.

There's only a one Joint ara in which exchanges between the 2 countires can be made, we'll get there later.

Each of the closest villages of each country has a flat. North Korea cares to have the tallest one the world.

It's incredible to see how also only on the way there, there's military posts everywhere.

Also there's hidden dinamyte in every S.K. overpass or bridge, in case of invasion.

From here on there was only very few areas in which it was possibile to take pictures, so I did what I could.

This war stones wall it's quite impressive.

So then we visited quite a cool underground tunnel. It was builded buy the N.K. to invade Seoul

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Tunnel_of_Aggression

It was impossible to take pictures, so I'll just take one from the net

N.K. Claimed it was just a coal mine. It was such an experience to walk all the way to the border with the North.

It's impressive how the S.K. managed to transform a border, sign of war and division, in a turist attraction. And not only, sign of peace and reunion are everywhere. Personally I found that quite silly. This place it's exaclty the oppposite of peace and reunion.

And here we are looking at N.K. It was forbidden to take pictures over a yellow line. Apparenlty the N.K. might just decide you are spying on them, and one of their snipers (all over the border) might just decide to shoot you in the head if you take a pic.

I took one anyway while i was pretending to make a phone call.

Here we are at the train station that takes you to Pyeong Yang. But it's closed now, since in 2008 a S.K. woman turist in N.K. was shot because she decided to go look at the sunrise on the beach and so go over the permit zone.

Let's take a train to North Korea!....Or not!!!

Here we are in the Joint Area. So cool.

S.K. soldiers are just staying there all day not moving and staring at their North Koreans friends.

That's the line between S. and N.

And I like to think that dude over there, next to the door, is my first N.K. friend <3

Next to him there's a hidden camera. Only one North Korean is outside,but many inside are looking at you...

It's interesting thinking that this two enemies spend all their day just looking at each other. So I mean, they probably recognize each other very well. But they can never spoke to each other. I wonder what they think of each other all day long. Hate? Curiosity? Pity?

Here I'm standing on the N.K. side. There's little houses where talk can happen between the two sides. It's possible to get in.

On the other side of the line...

A way to North Korea.

S.K. village flag. People are paid gold to live there.

Then I came back to Seoul city center and had a stroll around. That's the city hall.

Here there was some kind of protest.

Then I visited the villa of Deoksugung

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deoksugung

Eh...what?

After that I went to the Namsangol Hanok Villange. Hanok stands for "old style houses"

After that I visited the Seoul Tower for a panoramic view of the city

Ai Koreani "3 metri sopra il cielo" gli fa na pippa...

Home, this way!

This is the south gate of the old city Namdaemun

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namdaemun

Shopping streets at night

And this is the suvenir I got from the border. Some North Korean Liquor made with deer horns, they promised me it's disgusting!

Next episode, History History History!

Korea, Seoul Day 1

2013-06-27T07:06:00.003-07:00

I had people sending me e-mails. Some others where just stopping me on the streets. Others came knocking at my door. But the question was always the same. WHEN ARE GOING TO WRITE ON YOUR BLOG AGAIN? and the answer is, Today.

If I haven't wrote anything so far it's just because I had nothing interesting to tell. I've been working a lot. Who would like to read about that?

Anyway, here I am with some juicy adventures again. This time not China. This time is KOREA. SOUTH, Korea. And a little bit of NORTH Korea. But we'll get to that later.

So let's get started, shall we?

So this is my backpack that I had on my shoulders the all time, and the guide that I worked so hard on for days, and then forgot home after taking this picture. Yay.

But that isn't the only big mistake i made that day. As soon as I got to the airport I decided to take some money out at the ATM. So maybe because I wasn't used to Korean money, or because ATM in China just allows you to take a limited ammount of cash, or maybe (probably?) just because I'm stupid, but insted of taking 200.000 WON (ergo 175 dollars/ 135 euro) I took 2 MILLIONs. 2 F*(u)CKING MILLIONS WON. So 1.350 euro, and so on. I was aware of that only later. FML. (PS: I still have a million on my desk. Not sure what to do with it.)

ANYWAY something striked me as soon as I got out of the metro. I'm in Asia, but not in China. The sky is blue, I can see threes everywhere, the city is quiet, people are clean and (maybe too) polite. From anywhere in Seoul is possibile to see the mountains that surrounds the city. Amazing.

I'm gonna give a personal overall opinion about Korea right away. Koreans are very nice and polite people, and Seoul is a great green city which has anything you can look for. It's unexpensive and the life style is no inferior to the one in the west.

So I spent the first day strolling around the modern streets of Insadong area

Here's a little monk waiting to cross the street to get to the Buddist temple of Jogyesa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jogyesa)

Funny Buddah

The Wogaksa Pagoda (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wongaksa_Pagoda)

And then at night I met my first host. Ok I need to make a little digression here. For the first time I decided to travel couchsurfing. What's couchsurfing? Well, couchsurfing it's a smart system which helps you to find people willing to host you for free in the country you are visiting, and then eventually they'll stay for free at your place when they visit your country. How cool is that? Not that cool sometimes, as we'll see later on. But it was cool most of the time. Here, I met my first host, Dave, a friendly american guy. He hosted me for 3 days and we went for some true Korean BBQ!

This was just a little introduction to my majestic adventures. Stay tuned, soon you'll be impressed, your mind will be blown away, you'll feel scared and disgusted, amazed and surprised, and more.

Hong Kong, Day 3

2012-12-22T09:26:00.003-08:00

Tired of the metropilis? Take the metro to Lantau Island! All aroud Hong Kong there's big and small island with wild nature and awesome beaches. And that's maybe the best thing about Hong Kong, huge metropolis with so much wild nature around it!

I decided to visit Lantau Island for my last morning, and see the biggest outdoor Buddah in the world....

To get to the top of the montain you must take a 20 minutes ride funicular than takes you to a quite cool panoramic trip...

Or you can take the stairs!

The Buddah sitting on top of the Island

There's a little village at the edge of the temple

With a Ming dinasty Subway...

...and a Qing dinasty Starbucks

In case you feel like walking today

Next to the temple, there was a little monks' monastery. It just makes you feel so relax and in peace with the world walking around it. Sometimes we ran so fast everywhere we forget to stop and enjoy the beautiful big and small things that sorrounds us. What's the point in running all your life if then you don't take your time to even look where you are going? And then you might just realized you missed what you were looking for just because you were only focused on how fast you were running...

The sign said "fun walk"....looks like a "creepy walk" to me...

Past the raping site, I reached the "Wisdom Path"

Time to go back to chaos!

Casually on that day in Hong Kong the Asia Game Show convention was taking place. So I HAD to go, but I'll avoid posting all the picture...

Lots and lots of Cosplay

And for the gran finale, HK island by night

Not willing to give up, I went back to Victoria Peak. I had to see the skyline from above...

Totally worth it

I'll also remember HK for it's awesome weird drinks, like this pinapple beer in a can

Skyline time

A few fishermans

It has been one of the most intense, tiring, spectacular day of my life. I've been on the top of an Island to see a giant Buddah, I've been to the top of a peak and admired a breathtaking skyline view, and finally I've been on a ferry than gave me this view as a last present from Hong Kong

Hong Kong, day 2

2012-12-22T08:46:00.004-08:00

The second day started with a stroll in kowloon by day. Definetly lees impressive than at night, still cool. Also I noticed all the shops were closed. Apparently Hong Kong people prefer to do their shopping late at night

In a public park, some statues of cartoon heroes. Gotta love Asia!

Nathan streets and Kowloon during the day. Being the most densly populated city in the world, there's practically no space and all the shops need neon lights to attract costumers. At night it's just so awesome to walk aorund the narrow streets!

In north Kowloon I found a animal market area which was really interesting!

I'd like a Tucan please!

Little parentesis on the dude below, which deserve to be on the blog because he actually helped me instead of trying on me. And it was quite cool because he was speaking with me in English, but someway I felt more confident speaking with him in Mandarin (which not all people speak in Hong Kong, Cantonese speaking city) Cheers dude, I now have new faith in the world. You'll always be in my hearth.

Fish market!!!

what is that turtle hunting?

If you can't find it in Hong Kong, it probably doesn't exist

And now we get to the cute part. This little basterds were sold for just a few hundread pounds...I WANT THEM ALL

Someone's confused here...for more info: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Dafa

Then I moved back to HK Island to retrive my documents and stroll around

Eagles on the water

This is the green in the city I was taking about in day one

HK Island is SO posh

3 girls and a pigeon looking at photos

This is the longest escalator in the world, it runs on the outside and it takes you up the hill, while on the right and left you can see and choose which bar/club you are going to visit that night. Pretty cool.

Live music inside a bar...

...and a predator looking outside the window

After that I wanted to go on Victoria Peak taking the old tram to admire the Hong Kong Skyline...too bad it ended up being too foggy to see anything that night...

But I had a nice dinner at the peak!

So then I decided to go back to Nathan street in Kowloon for some mid-night shopping

And this nerd paradise is where I spent all my money....

And up these stairs there was such a romantic lane full of fun restaurants and stuff

And there was also a giant moving pig with wings, of course

Hong Kong, Day 1

2012-12-22T07:56:00.000-08:00

Hong Kong is probably the coolest city I ever had the chance to put my foot on.

But let's take a step back, to where all of this begun.

---- Dicember 18th, 4 PM

The cellphone vibrates inside my black, tight, H&M's working pants. I try to be indifferent since I'm talking with a costumer. Hopefully she will soon realize she doesn't like coffee and 20 kuai are a too high price just to look cool, so that I can answer the phone before it stops vibrating. It's Jean. She called me few times today because she had to book my flight for Hong Kong, where I can finally get my working visa for China.

"Wai?"

"Hi, it's Jean"

"Yeah hi"

"So I have to tell you, you flight is tomorrow morning...at 8"

"...are you kidding me?"

"No I'm sorry, you'll be back on Saturday morning"

"But...I don't have time...I mean I'm working now and I have plans for the night...I don't know what to do, where to go...how can I get ready?"

"yeah I know I'm sorry...but you know next week is Christmas. Also can you pass by the office? you'll need to take your working permit documents"

"Yeah...ok..."

-----

So that's how it started, me being extremely pissed off.

Packing, canceling a date, booking a room and realizing there's no way to get to the airport at 5 in the morning. No metro, no bus. So I took a lucky guess based on experience and I was lucky enough to find an illegal taxi that would take me there for cheap with 3 other people.

The thing that amazed me the most once I arrived there was that Hong Kong it's extremely green. Only a small part of the island is covered by tall buildings, and even in the center trees are everywhere. It feels like being in a tropical forest the all time. I couldn't take pictures of it on the first day, but I have plenty on the third day.

Rooms in Hong Kong are extremely expensive. So I decided to stay in the famous Chungking Mansions in Kowloon, which are the cheapest place to stay, as well as the creepiest and dirties. That's basically where the African and Indian illegal immigrant stays. BUT the Chungking Mansions are so famous and such an important part of the Hong Kong experience, so I don't regret making that choice.

And my room was clean in the end, just very, VERY small. And it was about 40 euro a night for this....

Here's some photo of the mighty place. Practically, a small city itself. Welcome to Africa!

I must explain before going on that Hong Kong is divided in two main parts: Hong Kong island, the rich and posh part of the city, and Kowloon. The two parts are divided by the sea which can be crossed by ferry, taxi or metro.

So then I moved from Kowloon to Hong Kong island where I had my documents done

Facing from HK island to Kowloon

It's right here on this bay that I met quite an interesting fella'. I was about to take the ferry back to Kowloon, when this Bangladesh 40 years old business guy starts talking to me. At first I think he is just another lonely traveller looking for a chat. But then he started telling me things like "Did anyone told you your lips are very beautiful?" and then some other phrase containing both the word "lips" and "chance". In that moment I realized that he was a VERY lonely traveller. So, no I'm sorry, I'm not coming to dinner with you mister creepy guy. Have a nice day.

After that lovely moment of my life I moved to the Kowloon pier, where the move star lane was!

Facing HK island

JET LI!!!!

BRUCE LEE!!!!!!!!!!!!

(jizzed in my pants a bit)

You might be dead, but there's still huge crows of people looking at you

I ended the day by strolling around the bay and my hotel

Skyline facing HK island

Every night at 8 they put on a music-light show on the skyline. here's 30 second of that

I was travelling by myself. I found that travelling alone is quite convenient, you go where you want, when you want and you do anything you want to do without having to agree with someone else.

At the same time, not being able to share the experience with someone it makes it less enjoyable.

I wasn't in fact totally by myself. Everywhere I went there was in fact the ghost of a perfect travelling partner making me company. On every single step I made, I could see myself and my partner taking that same step, eating in that same restaurant, shopping in that same place, looking at the same skyline, like re-living memories I never had.

Also, my new room-mate Totoro was with me. So I didn't felt that lonely the all time.

Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it's off to work we go!

2012-11-12T06:28:00.003-08:00

As the chinese would say, long time no see! (No, seriously, apparently the americans got the expression "long time no see" from the chinese 好久不见 - Long Time No See - )

Anyway, long time indeed. It's just I am very busy right now pretending I know what I am doing at work. Yeah I am apparently almost employed. "Almost" because I haven't seen my working visa and so my contract yet. But it should be fixed soon with me going to Hong Kong for free and have my new working visa.

Which means I'm going to live here for at least a year. And then who knows. But my company has branches all over the world so it shouldn't be diffcult to change location in the future.

All I know that I get shamefully well paid to do not only something I like to do, but also for something I'm not even good at! But so far I'm good enough to make them think I know what I'm doing. Hope I get to sign the contract before it's too late.

What's my job then? Well, if I have to describe it in two words, I am working as a "blond girl". You know, the stereotypical blonde girl, huge tits and no brain? Well, that's me 8 hours per day.

Well, it's not really like that, but that's pretty much how I feel. Hopefully I'll reach higher positions in the company with time. So far, can't really complain, I get paid more then I could EVER get paid in Italy. Plus China is so cheap that I can save almost all my money.

Enough talking, here's few pictures!

This is the place I usually work in. No CROCS allowed. I love it.

Non chiedetemi il perchè sti Koreani del menga hanno chiamato il caffè come Lugo di Romagna perchè non ne ho idea...

Everything is home-made, bread, cakes and even the coffe

This is instead the second venue I work at the moment. It's an american style buffet/bistro kind of place. THE FOOD IS DELICIOUS

Questa foto merita una piccola parentesi Italiana: questa è una vera forma di parmigiano costata 1000 euro in cui la sera ci cuciniamo direttamente la pasta col Bacardi. Mica cazzi.

This is apparently the REAL chair in which President Kennedy used to rest

E per finire ecco la scritta cinese ridicoloide del giorno:

It really is(n't)!

Shanghai's beach and other weird things

2012-10-10T07:56:00.004-07:00

Life is like a river, if you try to swim against the tide you are just going to drawn. The best you can do is just follow the stream trying to dodge the obstacles. Following this philosophy of life I try to keep calm and carry on, despite life reveal itself to be quite a bitch at times. "If life is a bitch, I'll just go to the beach" I figured. So I did.

I took a bus there with my friend Mr.S. It wasn't the safest one, but we got there in about an hour.

On the bus there's extra seat in the middle. Safe uh?

This is an "artificial" beach. Meaning that they brought the sand from samewhere else, and they have built a fence that divides the "outside yellow water" from the rather clean one on the inside. But apparelty the "water cleaner" stopped working in September since the season was over. So the water was not that clean.

Too bad the beach as well reveled itself to be quite different from what I used to, also the weather was not how we expected it to be. Despite the fact the beach itself wasn't too bad, the chinese people once again managed to make everything to be weird and not fun.

First of all, no bikini girl. Everyone on the beach was wearing everyday clothes, like they were going to work. Not to mention the "tents" they built on the beach, because everybody knows in China: if you get the sun on your skin you will burn and die. Basically Chinese people are the closest living things to vampires.

From the photo it actually looks quite nice

Giant water-bicycle which Chinese people can ride without worrying to get wet

Dirty, dirty water

Chinese people fully dressed

A little shop right in the middle of the beach

A Chinese baby playing next to the tent in which the rest of the family is avoiding the sun

We managed to have a decent time anyway, and had our daily ration of Chinese asking for a photo with us. Also we saw some cool kite action.

After a while it started raining, so we moved to the center of the city which wasn't exciting at all, so we went back to Shanghai pretty soon.

Not a wasted day, but I was expecting much more fun on the beach.

There's something else I should mention about this city, the fact that I love it and hate it at the same time. There's days in which I ask myself why am I even here, days in which I want to kill every single Chinese person on the streets. And there's days instead in which you turn left instead of right and you discover a totally new part of the city you ignored the existence of. And then you remember why you love this city, because there's always something new to do, to discover, to enjoy.

This is called "Shanghai's Times Square"

And to end this episode, some random funny things I found in the city

Don't you dare

Ok I won't even if I really wanted to

Just some monks I found outside my house

And that's how the handle a fire in China

Chinese Tortellini

2012-10-03T22:50:00.002-07:00

It's a week of vacation, relaxation and boredom here in China. Too crowded to go anywhere, I have so much time for studying = I find any ridiculous excuse not to do it. So yesterday me and my friends decide to make some Jiaozi 饺子, meaning chinese dumplings.

Here we have Mr and Mrs roommate

So first we made the stuffing

Which is a mix of: pork meat, spinach, corn, mushrooms, and different spices.

And then, of course, we folded them.

First you need to put the right ammount of stuffing inside the "dumplings base"

Then with one finger you have to take a drop of water and put it around half of the perimeter of the dumpling base

Then you'll have to fold it carefully following a precice Chinese method

then...TA-DAH! Dumpling ready to go in your mouth.

Folding this dumpligs reminded me of the time I spent when I was little making Tortellini (Italian dumplings/ravioli. If you need to read this, you should feel sorry for your miserable life) with my grandmother.

So then I thought...why not making tortellini??

This is more of a tortellone then a tortellino, but whatever

So then I made my own tortellini/tortelloni stuffing using pork meat, mushrooms, onions, tomato sauce, emmenthal cheese (I had no parmigiano...If you excuse me I'll go huddle up in the corner of my room for a second) and garlick. Needless to say, it tasted divine.

We made half and half for a total of 101 dumpligs.

Last step? Eating them of course!

Shanghai's Zoo Horror

2012-10-01T05:09:00.001-07:00

It's national holiday in China for a week, and so I decided to (finally) go to the Shanghai Zoo. Maybe not the best idea, during chinese holiday every place is just overly crowded with (chinese) people. Here's few picture:

Huge crowd at the Panda exhibition

But anyway me and Mr. S decided to go anyway. Now, before showing other picture you should know few things. First: I love animals and I love zoos. But not every zoo. I like nice and clean zoos in which they take good care of the animals, they help preserving endangered species and they teach people how to treat the animals in the best way.

Well, I knew that a chinese zoo could probably not be as good as a western one, but I never expected to see what I saw. People were feeding animals with any kind of food (despide the signs forbidding to do so) like fruit, vegetables but also popcorn and sweets. But that's not all. Most of them were having fun throwing bottles of water to any animal they could reach, just for fun. And nobody was stopping them from doing so. I yelled a few people, but it didn't helped much. So I made with pictures:

The apes are so used to receive food that they learned to ask with their hands

the baboon enclosure...and the dirt begins

A baboon dinking Yacult

White kangaroos?

The lion was trying to sleep when people were throwing bottles at him to wake him up

Same story, just a moe endangered species. the tiger is chewing a plastic bottle

Bear just waiting for food to be thrown in his face

here we have some "hidden" enclosure, in which animals are kept in terrible conditions

they still enjoy it

There's also nice places in the zoo, and in fact the problem is not the zoo, but the visitors

A very smart looking chinese fish

The last enclosure I visited was also the worst, the crocodile one

This made me re-think everything I believed about Chinese people. I've never seen anything like this before in all my life and I rarely been as disgusted by the human kind.

Into the wild - Anji

2012-09-24T00:51:00.000-07:00

Shanghai is a 25.000.000 people metropolis, sometimes you feel the need to breath. You can just feel the filth, the poverty, the luxury filling you up, till you find yourself drowning in the open air.

So sometimes you decide to take a 3 hours ride to the closest biggest bamboo forest in the world, in the city of Anji.

As soon as you get there you can sense already that Shanghai is far, far away. Everybody stares at you as you are some kind of alien. That's because you are probably the first foreigner they ever met in their life. Anji is in fact NOT a touristic attraction for foreigners.

Getting to the forest is in fact all but easy. Nobody seems to know or willing to be helpful. So we decide to use our last resource, showing people pictures of bamboo. Which as stupid as it sounds, it actually worked. So we get on this public bus, not sure if we are going in the right direction or not.

I say "we" because I didn't travel by myself this time, but with a good friend of mine. Last time we tried to get here we ended up visiting a different city, while this time it rained the all time so despite the fact he is a good travel companion I have to say we are not the most lucky travelling team.

here he is on the "family" minibus, we will call him Mr. S

Anyway, luckily on the bus we find a very nice woman that tells us (in chinese, because here nobody speaks any english) that we can go there together. So getting out the bus we get on a mini bus which we think is being driven by this woman's husband. So first we head to the local market so she can buy some fruit, then we go to her house, and in the end this man takes us to the forest. So, thinking this man is acting for kindness, I thanked him the all journey long. Too bad at the end of the ride he asked for money. Oh well, at least we arrived.

There's not much at the feet of the forest, just some stands with 竹人 (bamboo people) selling steemed bamboo and other snacks. (I myself had some disgusting fried sausages with plum sauce) so then we enter the forest, for the price of 45 kuai. Because in China nothing is for free, not even a walk into the forest.

You can see the stands at the end of the road...

...and the gates of the forest at the other end

If you think that walking ALL THE WAY to the gates would be too much effort, so you can take a ox ride

The birds are fake

It's raining. A lot. And we are walking into a forest. Ideal...NOT. But the impact is quite nice, surrounded by thousands bamboo trees while the silence of rain is hugging you like a mother would hug his crying baby.

At some point, deep into the forest you see two samurais, standing in front of each other, in silence, while a weak wind is playing with their kimonos. They slowly move their right hands gripping the hand-decorated hilt of their swords, bending slowly forward reaching a perfect draw position. Everything stops. The wind, the rain, the time. Then a leaf slowly falls inbetween the two, and as soon as it touches the ground the two draw their swords and cut the opponent with a single cut. A bamboo tree falls into the ground, cut in two. As the torso of one of the two opponents does. A powerful, but silent spray of blood gives some colour to the green forest. Then the time starts flowing again.

Except, we are in China, so no samurais. Only loud Bamboo people. So we keep walking up the walkable path till the top of the mountain. At times I can see other paths getting deep into the forest and I feel the need of seeing where it would take me. At times, with the silent rain all around me, I swear I thought I saw HIM, right there in the deppest heart of the forest.

Yes, there's a rollercoaster in the middle of the forest

So we finally get at the top, climb up an observation tower, and this is the view from the top. Too bad the day was misty, even if actually I think the mist gave it a very mysterious feeling.

Bamboo people's village

Little house at the other side of the valley, reachable riding a WIRE from a top to the other end of the valley. Too bad the WIRE thing wasn't working that day. A perfect way to die.

The observation tower

After that we quickly got back to the feet of the mountain again. But the day was young, so I had a great idea, why not walking up directly in the forest without following the path? After not even 10 minutes this was the result:

I swear I got bit at least 20 times in like 5 minutes. Bamboo mosquitos are vicious.

So we gave up on the climbing idea and we followed a second walkable path

Too bad after 30 min walk we reached a crossroad, and since we were really not equipped for a walk into the reiny forest we just decided to go back the way we came

About the next picture, if you look well enough you can spot a HUGE shadow on the top of the hill. What was that? A building? A tree? A spaceship? Godzilla? Nobody knows. Write your own opinion in the comments.

One other thing is worth saying about this second path: the ammount of spiders we saw. There were everywere, such an ammount I never saw before in my life.

Anyway after a quick break at the local tea house, we decided it was time to find a place to stay for the night.

So at this point we had 2 options, either stay at the close village with the bamboo people, in the middle of nowhere, or going back to Anji town for a fun evening. In the end we (I) decided to say bye to the bamboo people and go back into town.

So after choosing the hotel (the worst place I ever staied in my life) we had a stroll into town

The town is really small, but life seems so serene and slow compared to Shanghai. At the same time, you realize you could not live in such a small city, where everything is dead at 8 PM on a Saturday night.

You know the machines in which kids try to win a stuffed animal? Well, in China you can also win cigarettes...

The main square, people selling Chinese flags for the national "I hate fucking Japanese bastards" day

So around 9 o'clock we decide to try one of the two local clubs. Now, this needs an explanation. In real China (so not Shanghai) people go out dancing at 9 and at 1 AM the night is finished. Anyway, we find this sigh outside the club:

It means no Japanese people or Dogs are allowed inside. If you have no idea why, go read a newspaper you ignorant human being.

Anyway, as soon as we get in we gather everybody's attention. Most just stares at us, the bravest comes to say "HALLLLO" to us, and then they laugh and go back to their tables. Finally we are invited at a table for some free food/drink/anything else. They say they are 18, but that's a story for some other time. So after maybe 2 hours the attention they are giving us starts being almost umbearable, how can you dance/have fun when EVERYBODY inside the club is staring at you? I'm not such a attention whore, so we decided to leave.

After a decent night of sleep, we are going back to the smoky, dirty, filthy city of Shanghai. Home sweet home.

6 Months Later

2012-09-09T12:56:00.000-07:00

Six months has passed.

Why didn't I write for 6 months? Because I realized that I was not writing for myself, but for someone else that didn't need to read that anymore.

Why am I writing again? That's what I hope I'll find out writing this. Maybe now I'll write for myself. Or maybe I'm still writing for her. or HIM. Or maybe it's just the bloody jetlag. Probably.

Yeah about HIM: I never found him really. I always felt he was a step forward. Or maybe it was me being always a step behind. Or maybe it was both, in that case we are now two steps distant.

And I do feel this two steps. I thought that this time was the right time, I thought I was gonna catch HIM. But I never felt further than I do right now. I'll keep looking, not sure this is the right place anymore.

But since I got no choice I can't help but keep walking.

Well let's see if I can quickly recall the streets I walked in the last 6 months, if I don't know where I am I definetly cannot know where to go, right?

In April I took some time off to re-organize my plans. A very important person came to visit and helping me recover. During that time, I forgot what I was looking for. Time will tell if it was because that's when I actually got closer to HIM.

So we visited places, like the lake city of Hangzhou :

There's a Chinese legend that says that the 3 small towers in the lake will light like fire one night every year

This is Longjin willage, where the best Chinese Green tea is made

One kite slowly falling in the like as the sun is going down. (you don't say?)

Following 3 pics of Hangzhou's lake

This is the Yu garden tample in shanghai. And no, it's not snow, it's pollution.

Old town of Qingbo next to Shanghai

And we ate things:

Basic Ramen Noodles

Follows 3 specialties of Hangzhou's market, starting with pinapple rice

Fried crabs on a stick

An entire chicken in a clay box....

Snack in Old Town

...sa di panettone...

Xiaolongbao!!

Hotpot. It needs description: Hotpot is a chinese way of eating in which one person decides which soup he likes and then he orders few raw things which he will cook himself in his own pot. It's delicious and fun.

We just had the best time ever.

After that I kind of lost my motivation in finding HIM. It didn't felt that important any more. I just found some more pictures of HIM with kids:

I wonder if they would still recognize HIM after all this time...

So I moved back to Italy and Scotland during the summer.

Guess which is which

It felt good, it felt right.

So why am I back here then? Why I felt like I had to look for HIM again? Because that's what happened, I left everything and came back, for HIM.

Can't really say if that was a good idea. Maybe with time I'll realize it was. Or maybe not, maybe it was just a bad idea and time will only remind me of that.

All I know is that now it doesn't feel good at all. I started this to find what I'm lacking, and I find myself now thinking I just lost what I was looking for.

So now I'm here, lone as I deserve to be, in the city of gambles and promises, where the first are never won and the second never kept.

And I'd better make this fuckin' worth it.

In the dragon's lair

Nanjing, the old capital

Last day in Japan: Sumo, Ninjas and Cosplay. Most Japanese day in history!

Japan day 6, Tokyo's Akihabara and Yanaka area

*SPECIAL EPISODE* Harbin, the city of ice

Japan day 5: some more Fuji, Ghibli museum and Kill Bill restaurant

Japan day 4, Mt. Fuji and onsen

Japan day 3: Kamakura and sushi

Japan day 2, Tokyo's Shibuya, Harajuku and Shinjuku areas

Japan day 1, Tokyo's Asakusa area

Korea Day 7, Last day in Korea, Incheon Island and Beach

Korea Day 6: Best Seoul and Gangnam Style!

Korea day 5, Korean folk village

Korea day 4, Suwon

Korea day 3, Historic Seoul

Korea Day 2, NORTH KOREA

Korea, Seoul Day 1

Hong Kong, Day 3

Hong Kong, day 2

Hong Kong, Day 1

Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it's off to work we go!

Shanghai's beach and other weird things

Chinese Tortellini

Shanghai's Zoo Horror

Into the wild - Anji

6 Months Later

SPECIAL EPISODE Harbin, the city of ice