My Life - So Far

"Unbounded ambition makes an obscure existence simply impossible for me"
Lucien de Rubempré

Monday, October 29, 2007

Tokyo III

With my new cell phone I called Sophie and Muriel and we agreed on meeting at Shibuya for lunch. As they didn't have some okonomiyaki before, I proposed to go to the same place i've been with my friends some days before. This time I was kind of an expert and knew how to cook the perfect okonomiyaki ;-). Then we walked back to Harajuku, where we had a short stop over at one of the ubiquitous Starbucks before we continued our walk to Omotesando. There we split and I walked further on to Aoyama, a neighborhood well known for its fashion houses, restaurants, and shopping. It's in this neighborhood, where the famous swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron have buildt their famous building for the fashion company Prada.

They are the same architects that buildt the Olympic Stadium in Beijing, which I incidentally missed when I was there. Anyway, their building for prada was very very impressing! Then I went back home, checked emails, had some quick meal and talked with other guests in the lobby.

On Friday I went shopping almost the whole day and the evening I went to Roppongi Hills to meet Sophie and Muriel. We had dinner at Bamboo Bar, which evokes a very special atmosphere, as the colorful illumination changes all the time. After the delicious meal we went to the Tokyo branch of the Absolut Vodka Ice Bar. I've already been in that one in Stockholm, and there are another five in London, Copenhagen, Milano, Shanghai and Jukkasjärvi. It was ice cold in there, but it was a nice alternation to the heat oustide...

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Tokyo II

The next two days I almost entirely spent with my new friends. They knew a japanese girl in Tokyo, so we had the perfect cityguide. First we had a walk in Asakusa where we found many small shops, selling dishes and vases. I bought a cute small brown vase before we returned back to the hostel. We talked for quite a long time until we decided to go to Shibuya to have dinner. Shibuya hosts many restaurants and is full of mainly young stylish people as there are many fashion and shoe stores. We had a quick look inside some of the stores but we all were hungry and so we went to eat some delicious okonomiyaki! After that me and Akim went to have some Ice Cream and a coffee at Starbucks whereas the girls went shopping and bought some cool hats. Back at the hostel we talked for hours and as before it was interesting as hell!


The next day we slept a bit longer than usual and me and Akim went to Akihabara, which is famous for electronic equipment. We saw the newest plasma flatscreens, the newest digital cams and the brand new iPod Touch! I bought a mobile phone so I could stay in touch with my japanese friends and with Sophie and Muriel.
Unfortunately Akim, Hélène and Ilham had to leave for France in the evening... So I intended to stayed at the hostel as I was tired anyway. But I met two girls from Switzerland. When I asked them where exactly they were from, they said: Schaffhausen! Crazy... And we even have some mutual friends! So we went to have a drink at a bar just around the corner of the hostel...

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Tokyo I

The night I arrived in Tokyo I met some high school students from Augsburg in Germany. They were on a trip across Japan because they all attended japanese classes back in Germany and the teacher, half german half japanese, was going on that trip every year. Of course, everybody wanted to learn japanese then...
As it was already pretty late (almost 3AM) I had to find my room in the hostel and then find some sleep. But it wasn't that easy... My room consisted of six beds and I got the bed number five. So I opened the door and as I had no light with me, I stepped into the room in the darkest darkness. It was very narrow and my bag punched every bed I passed. Then I had to find my mobile phone so I would have a faint light to be able to make my bed. By that time almost everybody in the room was staring at me, wondering what I was doing at that time of the night!

One thing about that was positive! We could talk about my arriving late at night! So I got to know my three roommates! Ilham, Hélène and Akim were all from France and were supposed to stay in Tokyo until Wednesday. They were working for Air France and could travel for almost nothing. That day I was slightly tired and had a relaxed day. I took the subway to Omotesando and walked to Harajuku and further on to Shibuya. There I had a coffee at the world famous Tsutaya Starbucks store that could be seen in "Lost in Translation" and "Babel". I did a bit of shopping, bought some new shoes and enjoyed the hot day (33°C). The evening I spent at the hostel talking to my french friends in english!

Monday, October 08, 2007

Beijing IV

As the weather forecast predicted sunshine on Saturday, I booked a trip to the Great Wall. Back in Switzerland I saw georgous pictures of the not so touristy section between Jinshanling and Simatai. The only problem is Jinshanling lies 120km out of Beijing. So the bus left the hostel at 6:15 in the morning and the journey took almost three and a half hours. In the bus I met a couple from London and we talked about travelling and China, because the've been in Hong Kong some days before. At Jianshanling, we had to take an old and scary cableway up to the wall...

Then the 11.5km hike began! The sun was shining and it was pretty hot, but fortunately I had enough water with me... Some sections of the wall were rebuildt whereas others were almost destroyed. However I was deeply impressed by this enormous construction! The Great Wall is the world's longest human-made structure, stretching over approximately 6,400 km. It is also the largest human-made structure ever built in terms of surface area and mass and it was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.To set an end to all the rumours about the visibility from the moon: No lunar astronaut has ever claimed he could see the Great Wall from the moon...

Mao Zedong had a saying, "You're not a real man if you haven't climbed the Great Wall" ("Bú dào Chángchéng fēi hǎo hàn"). So now I can call me a real man! :-) Having arrived in Simatai, we got lunch in a restaurant and our group talked about all the world and his brother. We all were tired and on the ride back everyone was sleeping...

The next day I had my flight to Tokyo at 4:40PM. Under no circumstances I wanted to miss my flight, so I went to the airport quite early. I had time to go to Starbucks at the Departure Terminal, where I met a webdesigner from Hong Kong, who's working in Shanghai and Beijing. We talked for a long time until we had to take our flights. Mine with Air China was delayed and so I arrived in Tokyo pretty late, as I had to go through customs and everything... As I didn't book my room in advance, I went to the Sakura Hostel in Asakusa by taxi and fortunately they still had some beds available.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Beijing III

The next day was still rainy but it didn't hinder me to do a bit of sightseeing along the mainstreets in Beijing. I walked for several hours and stopped every now and then at Starbucks or had lunch somewhere. I was impressed by the way buildings were built everywhere. And they all were huge! Really huge!

One problem I had was to stop a taxi. I never succeded and if I saw one standing near the sideway it already had a customer or was supposed to pick up somebody. So I decided to walk to the official taxi stoppoints. In the afternoon I wanted to go to the Summer Palace which is northwest of Beijing.

In December 1998, UNESCO included the Summer Palace on its World Heritage List. It declared the Summer Palace an "outstanding expression of the creative art of Chinese landscape garden design, incorporating the works of humankind and nature in a harmonious whole." It is a popular tourist destination but also serves as a recreational park but I could not really enjoy the beauty as it was still rainy that day. However Lake Kunming and Longevity Hill are even marvellous at such a cloudy and foggy day.