Shanghai

Room at JW Marriott, 55th floor, is exactly as it should be for spoiled americans.
Shanghai, as Doris pictures show, a combo of NY, Chicago, LA, and Dallas.
Meaning not the best of all those cities, but all those cities schmushed together on one spot.
I'm sure there are some run down areas as well, so throw Detroit into it as well.
Newspaper headline yesterday said that China was going to complete 45 new airports in the next 5 years, about as long as it took the citizens of Ann Arbor to figure out what to do with 45 lizards or frogs or whatever held up construction of sky line high school.

Memo to D. Seals.  They have an express train from airport to downtown, same concept as has been threatened in Wayne County for 25 years.  8 minutes at 260 MPH, although they usually restrict speed to a more leisurely 250 mph.

They pretty much have everything, except of course Google, blogging, and self determination.  But the trains run on time.

Enough social commentary, back to topic number one. Me, and doris of course.


Met up with Japanese sister that had once lived in Michigan and two others from the Japanese group here.  We got the grand tour of gardens and shopping and ferries, and subways, and prominades, sky scrapers, etc.  For good measure we had Korean for lunch.
What else should americans and japanese eat while in china?

Her husband us in the evening and we went to acrobat show.  On the way had our first real crushing experience of our adventure.  We were crushed, literally, into what already seemed like an impossibly crowded subway car.  I was the pulling guard hitting the hole and making room for doris and Reiko, who is all of 5' , 95#.

After 90 min of ever more unreal contortions and trickerations we finished up with Shanghai DimSum. Next set of doris pictures will fill in the visuals

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shanghai port

Shanghai

Since all the citizens of Doris Nation have already seen pictures of every sand barge in China via her beat the chinese media blockade e-mail quasi blog, I'll just add a little text and commentary.

The ship's entry into the harbor was delayed due to extreme fog.  A sound decision since there are 7,468 ships all moving at once in a river less wide than between Detroit and Windsor.  Sort of 696 during rush hour, except with 100 to 100,000 ton ships.
Plus since the river has tides, one has to wait for high tide even to try.   Net of it was a 12 hour delay

This gave us another half day 'at sea'.  The upside was we got to watch the 6 hour passage to Shanghai cruise port during the day.  
Ship had two tugs, some sort of coast guard cop boat along side and a couple of river pilots on board.  I guess it wouldn't do to have a bunch of overstuffed cruise ship people run aground.

ps found a way to post a blog from here    hehehe

planes trains and automobiles

car, plane, plane, taxi, bus, cab, cab, cab, cab, cab, ship, van, ship, bus, van, boat, taxi, bus, ship, bus, bus, ship, bus, bus, ship, subway, subway, subway, subway, ferry, subway,ferry, ferry, ship, bus, taxi, taxi, bus, ship, van, ship, van,cab, ferry, subway, subway, cab, subway, ferry, cab, cab, van

how we've traveled to date.......

If its Tuesday, this must be....

If its Tuesday, this must be Okinawa.

A little Ann Arbor reunion. Yuri Kochi and two other sisters one of whom also lived in Michigan flew down from their homes around Nagoya to meet us for the day.
A local friend of Yuri's was the van driver. A van that they rented on our behalf, by the way.
Five Japanese sisters all with their cameras and me. ( for the purposes of this discussion Doris is a Japanese sister.). Much frivolity and jocularity ensued. There were an incalculable number permutations of who was taking pictures of whom.
They had arranged a trip to a quite large ocean marine park all the way at the other end of this island. The aquariums had lots of fish in them, all kinds of fish and other sea type creatures, many, many fish.
Fish seem to be a big deal around here.
As entertaining as watching fish swim around in circles was, watching the watchers of the fish was better. Swarms, or should i say schools, of camera wielding hipster Japanese youth, apparently college kids, completely decked out in hipster fashions (Abercombray and Flitch any one?) paraded around the vast grounds concentrating fully on taking pictures of each other in every possible combination.

Saw a lot of highway work very efficiently presided over by earnest workers, working with great Japanese earnestness. The guys holding the yellow warning flags tended to their mission with the concentration of a surgeon.

Got back to Naha in time to wander about their version of open markets. Its all kinda starting to look pretty much alike.

In honor of our time at the aquarium, i had a heapin helping of Sashimi, in their somewhat more sanitary version of a local food court.

Interestingly enough, despite having a gigantic American military presence all over the island, with all the typically kitschy trappings of a military town, like Beaufort SC, Fort Bragg NC, there wasn't a Starbucks in sight. What to make of this?

Got back to the ship with just enough time to take another 4726 pictures of each other.

It was a very nice day with amusing people.

Off to last stop Shanghai. I have high hopes that this will be the best stop, except for Hong Kong perhaps. Just not having to chase back to the ship will be a welcome change.
Unfortunately since the aparatchniks who run China have a general fear of openness and specific animosity towards google, there will likely be little blogging going on till we get to Tokyo on Sunday.

food food food

i'll stray away from chronological blogging to some thematic ones.

food in asia -

Taiwan

Taipei - Keelung

After a crappy rainy, windy day at sea we were greeted by a crappy rainy day in Taiwan.
Through Tamara via a brother in Boston Chinese via Terry an MTS grad from Pittsburgh we met up with a lovely lad named Monru in a Tapei congregation. He got up at 5 am to catch a cab to catch a 6 15 bus to meet the ship at 7. We finally got cleared to get off ship by 730 and we repeated the process all the way back to Taipei, just in time for their 930 meeting( mandarin).
The talk was outstanding and the watchtower expertly conducted. I know this cause they both ended on time.

This also happened to be Irinka (from back home) congregation. She about fell over when she saw us sitting in her hall.

Cong is a real stew of different nationalities. The wt conductor, wolgang, was a German graduate of the 50th class of Gilead, who had recently come off the CO road.
The public speaker was a japanese brother who grew up in LA. Terry, the mts grad, was from maryland but worked in foreign language territories in Germany for 17 years.
So here I am in the middle of Asia speaking German.

There is also a contingent of Spanish speaking friends, some from Spain, others from Panama who are learning Mandarin.

The actual locals are largely younger who all seem to be studying English at the local universities. This is the hook for all the Americans who can work 10 to 15 hrs per week as tutors and make a good enough living, including medical insurance, to pioneer.


Everyone we spoke with, including our tour guide is the first member of their family to come into the truth, and they did so in their 20's. This is what the US was probably like in the 50 and 60's.

Terry told me that they have 100 publishers of which 50 are regular pioneers and 25 got baptized last year.

Had a great lunch with a group and shopped in the Taipei version of a bustling street market.

We convinced poor Monru that he didn't have to go all the way back with us to Keelung to get us back to the ship. It was a small conflict of his guilt in not fulfilling his' assignment' vs his tiredness and the prospect of two more bus rides. Practicality won out and he pointed us to express bus 1813 which leaves every 15 minutes to Keelung.
Piece of cake. The bus stopped smack dab in front of our ship in the Harbor.
We even had time to wander through the Keelung version of a street market.

Hopfully internet will we swift enough for some more pictures
Starbucks assessment: Taiwan had more starbucks than Seattle.

Cruise people

We have stumbled upon a new demographic of travelers. Few of these folks are grumpy, line up at the feeding troughs 'cruise' travelers. certainly not the 7 or 10 day round trip fort lauderdale type cruise people. Many are only on their first or second cruise. These folks are largely adventure travelers who are on the ship in order to see places, not the ship. In fact we just met the first couple that isn't continuing on the ship for the next 12 day cruise or even beyond. There are people who've been on the ship for 45 days already or wont be getting off until the ship comes back to Europe mid April.

People at our table are so well traveled that we kind of just sit there and listen. I knew we were in over our heads when the conversation turned to the 'last time we were in Antarctica'.

The second british comic, after the obligatory 'who's from the UK' routine and his lame version of the vacuum toilet joke, asked how many people had been to Dubai, pretty much every hand went up.

So 'hey have you ever been to Macinac Island, it's really nice' only goes so far.

On the other hand, no one comes close to the theocratic connections we've had. 'we met friends in Singapore, Ko Samui, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Okinawa' has prompted some curious questions from our travel mates.

Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Ship docked at the Ocean Terminal right next to the Star Ferry pier in Kowloon. Perfect location across Victoria Harbor from the magnificent skyline of Hong Kong island.
This being HK, the Ocean Terminal is co located in a huge mall. Four floors, full of every manner of high end luxury brand imaginable. In a new wrinkle they had an entire level with only kids stores. Children's Burberry, Baby Dior, Kiddie Kate Spade, Manolo for Juniors etc. Nothing says 'I have too much money than dropping $540 on a pair of shoes for your 9 month old.
First stop: meet mark and tamara at first floor starbucks in Pacific Center Mall, a quick subway ride to the Island.
We had a lovely time with them. Much of it devoted to shuttling between my tailor in the Pacific Center and Doris' back over in Kowloon. After some cajoling Tam agreed to let us have a decent pair of pants made for her and buy her some closed toed shoes. It totally violated her 'i can live my life just fine with two pairs of worn out capri's and flip flops' ethos.'
Mark didn't need as much prodding to allow the generous brothers at Pacific Custom to donate a few custom made dress shirts to him, as well a suit case full of shirts and suits for them to take back home with them.

Tam's special relationship with the chinese remains unchanged. I wouldn't call it love-hate. Its more like barely tolerate-hate.
Mark's chinese seems really good. But then again my chinese vocabulary is limited to knee how mah, shea shea, and 'i dont want a fake rolex'. But based on the all double takes the little chinese shop clerks did when a relatively big black guy started speaking chinese with them he seemed pretty good at it.

We met up with a Tony,local brother, for DimSum lunch, in a bustling joint where we were the only non chinese and wandered about Kowloon.
Later we hopped the subway and met back with Tony and his lovely wife and two other couples from the local congregation. They all spoke cantonese so mark and tamara were pretty much as lost as we were.
They had arranged for for dinner at a very local, and allegedly very nice restaurant for hot-pot. This joint had a bucket full of live snapping turtles on the side walk and fish heads o plenty on display. Turns out that they didnt do hot-pot after all. Just a steady stream of somewhat sketchy looking mystery meat dishes on a lazy susan.
The did offer us pots of boiling water to sterilize our chop sticks, cups, dishes, etc. Apparently this is one of those aspects of 'real chinese' that doesn't get much attention.

For us it was all part of the adventure since we have a perfectly good cruise ship to go back to. For mark and tam it was a genuine annoyance.
They get sketchy chinese food all the time and really wanted some real cheese and recognizable meat for a change. They just can't communicate this to their local friends who are just trying so hard to be generous.
(See comment on Tamara's relationship with all things chinese)
Local Witness Custom Alert: The brother baptized the longest in any group gets the 'honor' to eat the head of whatever animal is being served. In this case a slightly cooked duck head, but it could well be a squirrel, rabbit or whatever fish they happen to be serving. Mercifully this night both the local brothers were baptized longer than i was. Phew.

The next day we made sure Dan Ryan's Steakhouse was on the travel menu. Tamara was so happy to have nachos, she couldn't see straight.

Then off they went to their home. It was really fun to spend time with them.

photo updates

in hong kong with mark and tamara, all is good.  fast internet has been located.

here is a random assortment of pictures from any number of countries.

Ko Samui

Juuso in Ko Samui

Sari and the girls

long boat in Bangkok

that's an engine

Ft Lauderdale in Asia

Saigon

Candy store in Saigon

Fast food in Saigon

where snobby americans sit in Saigon

per the guide 'since it is sunday the traffic is light"

yellow mums, i need a picture of that

Cafe life in Hoi An

dorky tourist picture in Denang

happy people

the SAI in Hong Kong is off the charts

local 

what more can one say

keep 'em honest in hong kong

dinner spot with the local friends

dinner with elders 

Good morning vietnam

Saigon.

Another city way far away from port = 2 hour bus ride city center. Traffic is absolutely nuts, although the tour guide assured us that since it was sunday it was quite light.
There are thousands of mopeds/vespas/motorcycles etc that that zoom around like black flies, often laden with a remarkable amount of stuff and at least 2 people, sometimes 3 or 4. Dad drives, kid #1 sits on handle bars, mom sits behind dad, kid # 2 stands on seat behind mom.
There does appear to be some attempt at traffic control with roundabouts, lights, lanes and such. However these seem to be viewed as suggestions and are largely disregarded with everybody going every which way, crossing 4 lanes of highway traffic on foot etc.
The best tip our guide gave was that when crossing road in Saigon, you must commit to go, dont stop and under no circumstances backup. The mopeds will just swarm around you at full speed while you cross. He suggested helpfully that closing ones eyes while crossing.
This all sounds like good clean chaotic fun except coming into the city there was a big back up around one of the traffic circles. When we got closer we saw all manner of police and saw a mini bus had decided to take a short cut the wrong way around the 5 lane circle and ran a truck off the road and hit some poor dude on a moped. Eagle eyed doris, camera always at the ready, managed to take pictures of the scene including a mangled moped und the van.
Later on we heard that one of the tour buses from the ship had been in an accident. We zoomed in on the picture and sure enough it had a Princess sign.
The worst part was that the moped driver was killed.

The tour guide told us that more people have been killed on the roads of vietnam since the was ended than were killed during the way.

Saigon, which is still what the central district of Ho Chi Min City is officially called, is actually a fairly compact place. All the important tourist stuff and markets are conveniently located within walking distance.
Doris shopped until the cash ran out. No small feat since Vietnam is world's clothing, bag, and shoe factory so the volume of knock offs or 'brands' available for just a few dollars each is crazy.

Food on street or in local market was little too local even for me, so we repaired to the Rex Hotel for tourist Vietnamese food on their 5th floor balcony dining room.
The is where the American Generals met during the war years.
The upside was that they had quite fast wireless available. Go figure
I'll man up tomorrow in Denang and go a little more street.

Bangkok

Thailand Part 2: Wats the deal?

Bangkok is a huge bustling city. Since the port is inconveniently located about 2.5 hours by bus from the downtown mostly we got a detailed impression of their highway system, mass transit, traffic, taxi service.
With wider roads, more lanes, better condition that your basic freeway in Michigan, functional elevated transit system and underground transit system, slews of taxis cab and TukTuks (3 wheel powered open carts)
So, slot Detroit under Bangkok in the world rankings of functional cities. Is there such a thing a 4th world city?

With so little actual time in the city center we opted to charter a longboat for a ride through the river that bisects the city and through the adjacent canals. Ultra modern houses next to simple and even broken down hovels. Kinda reminded me of Ft Lauderdale.
The place is infested with Temples and shrines depicting Budda in all manner of ways. All very impressive in a Babylon the Great sense but we passed on detailed tours.
Instead we focused on the temples of commerce. They know how to do these as well.
MBK center was best of them. Think Twelve Oaks on Black Friday. Now imagine 6 of those on top of each other plus 2 additional floors of food courts. One floor 'international' on floor local Thai foods.
Doris did real damage in Silk purchasing.
Place has a much more lively vibe than Singapore. The SAI was acceptable, with one one starbucks per mall as well other cafes.

Thailand part a.

Thailand update:
Ko Samui: we were met at the pier by Juuso Tuomenin a special pioneer from Finland who is serving on this lovely island.
Turns out that since everybody only has mopeds he rented a larger van for the day to show us around. We picked up is wife Sari and two Japanese sisters and set off on an island tour. You know how happy Doris was to be with some her little Japanese people, lots of bowing and giggling ensued.
Cong has about 25 or so publishers, 2 elders and 1 Ms and 8 or so pioneers. Doris took notes so her numbers will we exact.
They cover this island and a number of surrounding islands. Ko is a big beach resort area. Lots of mid and upper grade hotels attracting German, Brits, Aussies, and Thaiganders from Bangkok.
Based on the SAI (Starbucks Availability Index) it is relatively prosperous. We passed three of the within a few miles in the tourist area.
They showed us their new KH, very nice and modern. This isn't the cinderblock, ceiling fan and recycled chairs model one tends to see in the Caribbean.

We had, you guessed it, Thai food for lunch. The menu was written in squiggly lines, which apparently is the local language, so it could be deemed local. Juuso ordered a bunch of dishes and we let ourselves surprised. Besides everything tasting good the real surprise it that it tasted pretty much like Thai food in Ann Arbor. The other good news was that they had napkins at the table.

Juuso and Sari, being the good special Pioneers that they are, placed literature at every stop. Juuso and i even made a return visit in town.
Then we stopped at a Thai massage store, there are 3,263 of them, where an former bible study of Sari's worked. She gave her the latest magazines and i agreed to a foot massage. The gal spoke no English but I smiled and nodded in a very christian manner for the better part of an hour while my feet and legs were being treated.
What i won't do to advance the kingdom preaching work. Then i massively over tipped her which will no doubt make her consider restarting her study. Total cost, including the big fat tip 300 Baht, about $ 10.

Considering the time some in the van made the first call until the last call on massage gal i figure a good 5 hours in service.

All in all a fine time was had by all.

Photos will come when we find some decent internet speed maybe hong knog

All quiet on the schremmer front

Blog update: nothing to report. Your basic cruise ship with wealthy white folk. Helpful staff trying to keep said folk happy. Food buffets with white folk type food. Entertainment with white folk type music and dancing.
Today is our first stop Ko Samui Thailand. We are meeting up with a Missionary couple from Finland and some local friends

misc musings

Ok this seems like an obvious sponsorship opportunity

KFZ  ????

Hawker stand

still no napkins, but out of the humid haze appeared a little dude that looked like he fell off a Michele Tomei's pandora bracelet offering to sell us tissue packs - 5 for 1 dollah, good deal, special for you.
the entrepreneurial spirit burns bright in Singapore

Chinatown

 

 

I wonder if Shanghai has a big Chinatown too

Capitalist town

Orchidpallooza

since doris handled the creature updates, i'll do the plants.

tell you what, whatever angel was in charge of the Department of Orchid Creation was a real overachiever.  He must have gotten a big promotion.

Huge botanical gardens, with an Orchid section that is awesome.  they have tens of thousands of ochids of all manner species on display.  i could ID about 350 different species but had trouble with the ones that weren't blooming.  it's hard to tell the differences based just on the greenery.