Tokyo river cruise (take 1, take 2...take 8)

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Hollywood magic revealed! When I do my lame on-camera commentaries, I sometimes do several takes. Like in the movies! Today I spent more time in Shibuya collecting footage of people, then I took the subway to Asakusa. The rest I explain in the video...over and over.

Shibuya (prelim)

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I visited Shibuya tonight, where some scenes of mass people movement in "Lost in Translation" were shot. I hope to do an experimental video of mass movement in Tokyo later, so this is raw footage from tonight. I posed by the Hachiko the Dog statue. Look him up on Google. My guide was David Alvarado, an English teacher from Texas who has no accent nor twang. But he knows what's up in Tokyo. He showed me where the Yakuza hang out near my hotel in Shinjuku. I am now very careful who I insult.

Meiji-jingu, Shinto shrine, 2:15-4:30 p.m., Mar. 28, 2007

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Meiji-jingu is a tranquil Shinto shrine surrounded by a vast forest and park in the heart of Tokyo. I had started the day...no, I stayed up last night to visit the Tsukiji Central Fish Market. I got there at 3 a.m., one hour before it's scheduled opening. I hung out till 5:30. Nothing. Finally I was informed it was a holiday and the market was closed. Not closed closed. I walked back and forth across the vast facility being teased by some action and loading of trucks. But the world-famous auction and breakfast sushi straight off the boat were not to be. I went to a nearby restaurant that did have morning sushi and got my fix, then headed back to my hotel. The taxis cost 5,600 yen roundtrip and the meal was 2,000 yen, or 66 bucks. I went to sleep this morning depressed that Tokyo was costing me a truckload of cash. Meiji-jingu was free. Today, it was the best deal in town for my wallet and my peace of mind.

Shinjuku Fast-Forward

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The scenes of Bill Murray arriving in Tokyo in "Lost in Translation" are shot in Shinjuku. This is where I'm staying. I've recovered enough from my illness to wander about and record some fun scenes and have a little fun with my camera. I hope part of this video doesn't become a nauseating blur. Let me know.

I'm in Toyko and I'm sick

I think I may have come down with some food poisoning my last light in Korea. I was very sick when I took the flight this morning. I vomited in the lavatory. It's the first time I've ever thrown up on a flight. After I got to my hotel, I recorded a video explaining my ridiculous ordeal today. I've decided just to say I was sick, I'm recovering slowly and I hope to have video of Japan up soon.

Escape to Muiido (island)

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I needed an easy getaway from Seoul and I found it on Muiido ("do" means island). There are many islands near Seoul. I took a auto-ferry from the port city of Incheon to Yeoungjongdo and then another ferry to Muiido. I visited a small fishing village and had a tasty seafood lunch. Though I've had some remarkable experiences in Korea, I had been in a funk. I don't know if it was the unending overcast weather and rain. Maybe I had been suffering vacation fatigue. But my island jaunt was therapeutic and today the sun finally came out in Seoul. I'm on my way to Tokyo on Monday.

Anti-American protesters in Korea

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There's always somebody protesting something in South Korea. Democracy is fun.

Nightlife in Seoul

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I shot this video before I went to Anyang, but I wanted to post the Anyang video first. This new video is sort of a set-up for one I shot today, but won't post till tomorrow because it will take a lot of editing. I'm staying at a hotel in the Dongdaemun Stadium district, which is a big fashion hub. So maybe my view of Seoul is being distorted here, but I have to live with it. I may post one more video tonight before I go to bed, but I'm going out now. Later.

Best TV commercial ever!

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I caught this ad while watching Korean TV. Enjoy.

Discovering my hometown in Korea

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I was born in South Korea and this is my first time back since I was 3-months old. Specifically, I was born at a military hospital in the Seoul district of Yongsan. Several days later, my parents took a taxi south to a small town called Anyang, where they lived until we all flew to the United States. Yesterday, I traveled from Seoul, where I am staying for the week, down to Anyang. I went searching for the actual neighborhood where I lived those first weeks of my life. Obviously, I can't remember anything, but my father gave me some clues to follow. I almost gave up after several hours because I was given conflicting information from local residents who were old enough to remember what Anyang was like a long time ago. But I decided to try one last place an old man suggested (his wife strongly disputed him and sent me off in the wrong direction for a while). I discovered that Anyang has changed tremendously, as has Korea.

Exotic dining in China

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Okay, it's not crazy like fried scorpions, but it was the first time I tried frog and turtle. This is my last video of China for the time being. I've got plenty more of my experiences in Beijing and elsewhere, but I'm in South Korea now and I spent the day discovering my original hometown of Anyang. With a minimum of clues, I was able to find the actual neighborhood where I lived for several months after I was born before I moved to the U.S. I'll post that video tomorrow. I'll also try to find some fried grasshoppers and silk worms to entertain the jaded masses. And I'll have more to say about returning to my home country.

Qiao Jin can kick your ass

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I attended a wedding party in Wujiang, not far from Suzhou, which is 2 hours from Shanghai. The groom, Xu Weifeng, entertained dozens of relatives and friends. I gave him my tape of the wedding so he could make a DVD for he and his wife. But I recorded some fun on my own. Qiao Jin, Weifeng's godfather, is a retired carpenter who worked at a textile factory, which are very common in the area. As the wedding night wound down, the drinking began in earnest. I overdid it and I suffered the next day. Qiao Jin partied just as hard and he was doing the next day what you will see in this video. He rocks.

Shanghai Surprise (new video!)

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I think I solved my technical problems here. Now all I need are new technical problems. Anyway, I spent a day in Shanghai looking for someway to fix my problems. It was not to be, but I was able to upload the kite video at an Internet cafe. Shanghai is a massive metropolis with some old China charm to be found on the side streets. In Beijing, scooters and motorcycles are not allowed (though you will find motorized bicycles). But down south, it's a traffic free-for-all. It's more orderly in Shanghai, but in smaller cities and towns, it's utter chaos. People are learning the ways of traffic. Only 15 or 20 years ago, many places just had bicycles with cars reserved for top communist party officials. I've got more video to come of my last days in China. I was pretty down that my vlog was inactive. Some folks have suggested that I write more. But it's a video-blog, not a blog. I want people to see what I see. So here goes. Philly to Asia (and back) is back.

Still no video, but some thoughts

There I am in Shanghai. And there I am trying duck blood soup for the first time. Yum. Well, I haven't resolved my techinical difficulties yet, but I am hopeful. I'm going to make this brief because my computer could crash at any moment. China is an amazing place, a behemoth in transition. There is the ancient and rural China. There is the drab remnants of communism. And there is the new state of glass and steel, of modernity swallowing everything in its path. I met westerners that preferred the places like Japan and considered China crude and polluted. I was fascinated by everything I saw and experienced. China is a nation in hyper-transformation. Much is being lost, but the country is so vast, there remains much to be explored and preserved. I have some good videos I want to get up as soon as possible. It is best to see for yourself.

Kite flying in Tian'an Men Square

While waiting for my overnight train to Suchou, I spent my last few hours in Beijing hanging out in the square. I was fortunate to catch a few kite flyers before I left. I'm uploading this video in Shanghai because I have had no luck with the Internet in Shengze, a bustling little city where I'm staying just outside of Suchou. I've also run into voltage problems in my hotel room. I have a 220/110 converter, but the voltage in my room is 250. So I can't charge my notebook, though I've been able to slowly charge my camcorder. I think I'm the only foreigner in Shengze. I probably won't be uploading more videos until I get to Seoul, South Korea on Monday. I'm grateful I can get this online. It's a nice little snippet of life.

The Great Wall Carnival (better quality)

I've decided to up the quality of my videos. This is a first step. I'm tired of my videos looking like sludge. This ain't hi-def, but it's better than what I've been posting earlier. I hope to up the quality of future videos even more...Okay, now sleep and then the train trip.

Drinking on Yandai Xie Jie

Or Xiejie, as the signs here say. Jie means street, and this is a famous drinking street. Anyway, this is the place to hang out, get drunk, and get hit up by aggressive rickshaw drivers and "massage therapists." It's fun and colorful. Huxley's is the best place to knock back a few and dig good tunes.

The Great Wall Carnival

The Great Wall is not just the Great Wall. There are bears and rides. And lots of stairs. But the exhausting climb is worth it. I'm using YouTube because I can't access BlipTV anymore. This is my last night in Beijing. I'm having dinner with some people I will meet for the first time. Tomorrow I'm taking an overnight train to Suzhou, which is 2-hours from Shanghai. I've been invited to a wedding! I didn't know anybody when I arrived and now I'm "in." I won't be able to post video tomorrow and I'm not sure about my Internet situation in Suzhou. So I'll try to throw up a few quickies tonight before I go to sleep. See you on the other side.

Traditional Beijing courtyard residence

On a tour of "hutongs," or old alleyways that served as the neighborhoods for old Beijing, I visited a "siheyuan" of a family that once held high-status during the waning days of imperial China. Now it is a very modest abode. "Aunt Li" welcomes visitors to see what life is like behind the walls of the hutongs. Once again, Xu Weifeng provided translation.

YouTube test

Kim Jong Il ate here!

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Peking Duck used to be a big deal in Beijing, but the variety of Chinese cuisines estblished here by provincial immigrants, especially from Sichuan, has diminished the status of the legendary dish. But I'm here in the city that used to be called Peking, so I had to try the dish at one of the best places for Peking Duck. I've never had it, so it was a learning experience - an embarrasing learning experience.

Fun with Drums

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I toured the ancient Drum Tower in Beijing with my new friend Xu Weifeng. Getting this video up has been an ordeal. I have been beset with techincal difficulties. But I have persisted and you have a new video to look at. I'll explain more later. I fear this may crash at any second, so here goes...

Noble lives in a Beijing slum

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Just outside Bei Hai Park in the core of Beijing's ancient city boundaries are clusters of downtrodden neighborhoods where residents live simply with the barest of accommodations. With Xu Weifeng, my translator for the day and a scholar of Chinese literature, we visited the people who have been left behind by China's march into modernity.

All our yesterdays

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The old world, left on the street to beg for change, and the new world, machine, all-consuming - the future.

Explanations for the videos

(Preface: New videos below this post)

First, some official business. I cannot access my work e-mail account, so if you've sent any comments there, I won't be able to see them until I go to South Korea later this month. You can e-mail me here at warpafx@comcast.net.

Technical stuff: I upload my videos on something called blip.tv. I then get html code which I paste into a new post on Blogger. The last two videos reflected a change in the code, or a change at Blogger. The video is now embedded rather than showing up in a pop-up Windows Media Player. That's good and bad. It is quicker and easier to see my videos now, but it apparently only comes in that small screen (Media Player lets you increase the viewing screen and has other nice features). I originally tried to access Google Video, but I can't get it here. It's blocked or something. I've never been able to post a YouTube video on Blogger, though that may be because I'm a dunce. I'll try to fiddle around and see if I can offer more viewing options.

Now, the three videos so far. When I access Blogger here, I get a bunch of boxes that represent unviewable Chinese characters. So I have to guess which buttons to click. (For instance, I'd like there to be a larger number of posts on the first page before they get archived, but I can't change that right now.) I would have added written captions/explanations for the videos. But I couldn't figure it out. I've decided to write a separate explanatory post here.

The Tian'an Men Square video I shot my first full day here. It was bitterly cold in the morning. The days warm up into the mid-40s, but drop well-below freezing at night and remain that way into the early daylight hours. I shot a lot of tape, but only used a fraction of what I recorded. I want to keep my videos under five minutes unless I record something extraordinary. My mission this day was to get interesting shots of Chairman Mao's portrait over what I believe is called the Meridian Gate, and get shots of Red`Army soldiers, who try to discourage folks from photographing them. At the end of the video there's a woman at a takeout place making stuffed crepe/tortilla concoctions. I've been asked what was in that "Chinese burrito." She pours batter on that round hot plate, then adds an egg or two, flips it and brushes the other side with two sauces, adds onions and parsley, then a large wafer/cracker.

The scorpion video was shot at the Wangfujing market. It is a spawling maze of vendors and street-food stalls. I read about the fried scorpion and went looking for it. I found two places that had it. One only had the scorpions, while the one I decided on also had large beetle pupae (pupa?), sea horses and some kind of tiny flayed creature with four limbs (small mammal? lizard? salamander? Geicko Gecko?). The scorpions were fried, then dipped into some tangy sauce and that's basically what I tasted. The hard part was putting them in my mouth and chewing the crunchy bits.

Most recently, I visited the Forbidden City. For all my griping, it is an impressive, massive place. I was just trying to have a little fun with my video. I imagine the crowds in the warmer months are intolerable. I talk to the camera to make it feel more like a show than a tourist video. If you think I'm a dork, I understand. Sometimes I feel like one. But that's show business!

The Forbidden City

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Fried scorpions for lunch

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Maybe it's just me...

One of the first things I did once I got online here was try to access my work e-mail account. I couldn't and assumed I was blocked. I tried to access philly.com, the home page for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News. No can do. So I assumed that most newspapers in the U.S. were blocked. But I was getting the Drudge Report and this morning I clicked on the Scooter Libby links and was getting the New York Times. Okay, let's try some others. Washington Post. Yes. L.A. Times. Ditto. Hmm, maybe it's only the big papers. So checked the Miami Herald and the S.F. Chronicle. No problem. Now maybe it's my particular connection where I'm staying and if I check elsewhere, which I shall, I'll be able to get Philadelphia's two main newspapers. Until then, I'm baffled.

Tian'an Men Square

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I live in the future (one day ahead of Philly)

And I live in the hotel of the future! Check out my retro-Jetson night stand.

Ah, six hours of sleep. I off to Tian'an Men Square this morning. I'm staying at a decent budget hotel that on a map appeared to be very close to the square and to the Forbidden City. In reality, as I saw during my taxi ride here last night from the airport, the distances are much greater. These are very big places. There's a subway stop across the street - a main drag the runs west of the square and the Forbidden City. I'm going to give Beijing's transit a whirl today and head down to the square. It's Tuesday here, but I don't know what that will mean for crowds at the square. We shall find out. And we shall find out if I can shoot video, then come back here and upload something onto this blog. If it works, then we're cooking with gas. When I rode in last night, my taxi drove through the square. I had no idea it was criss-crossed by major roadways. That doesn't come across in the guide-book photos. So I'll try to show you what it really looks like to be there. Let's go see the Chairman!

Welcome to China!

I just checked into my hotel. I'm dead tired. I haven't slept in two days. It's a little before 11 p.m. here. My computer clock for East Coast time says 9:54 a.m. I'd like to go out and look around. But I need to lay down. Not an exciting post, but the good news is that I'm doing this from my hotel room. I'd like to put up a few photos, but that would require, like effort. My tank is empty. I hope I press the correct buttons because my of my text has been replaced by boxes. mI'll just have to fumble my way through my first few posts.

Brrrrrrr!!!

I've been tracking the weather in Beijing and each time I look it's getting more frigid by the day. The highs are moderate and quite tolerable, but then the mercury crashes each night. It's gonna be rough for a while, but Philly's arctic February has prepared me for the worst. I think.

Mar 5 Tomorrow
Mainly sunny. High 39F. Winds NNW at 10 to 20 mph.
Mar 5 Tomorrow night
Clear skies. Very cold. Low 8F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph.
Mar 6 Tuesday
Abundant sunshine. Highs in the low 40s and lows in the mid single digits.
Mar 7 Wednesday
Abundant sunshine. Highs in the mid 40s and lows in the upper teens.
Mar 8 Thursday
Mainly sunny. Highs in the upper 40s and lows in the low 20s.
Mar 9 Friday
More sun than clouds. Highs in the upper 40s and lows in the mid 20s.
Mar 10 Saturday
Sunshine. Highs in the upper 40s and lows in the low 20s.
Mar 11 Sunday
Sunny. Highs in the upper 40s and lows in the low 20s.
Mar 12 Monday
Sunshine. Highs in the upper 40s and lows in the mid 20s.
Mar 13 Tuesday
Sunny. Highs in the upper 40s and lows in the upper 20s.

Mao and me, the early days

Countdown, cat transfer, prep work

I just got off work. No more work till April! Before I can go to sleep, though, I must make a cat transfer. I'm taking my cat, Fletch, to the Pen & Pencil Club where Dennis, the chef and Sunday bartender, has agreed to adopt my cat for a month. He was interested in having a temporary pet. Good timing for me! My cat hates his pet carrier and I'm sure he's not going to be pleased about being hauled over to a smoky, noisy bar at 1:45 a.m. But it must be done...I was hoping when I got to China that I could take the new train from Beijing to Tibet. However, I've been informed that I won't be allowed in because I'm a journalist. Reporters do get into Tibet, but apparently the worst kind is a journalist on vacation and the Chinese guvment will be having none of that. I still want an exotic excusion and I'm considering a cheap cruise on the Yangtze River through the famous Three Gorges. Anyway, tomorrow, after I get over my hangover (got stick around for a few drinks at the P&P), I'll try to figure out how to pack everything I need into one backpack...I think my cat knows what's up. He's giving me the evil eye. He's a 20-pounder and he ain't going quietly.