Everything that happened in Asia (well most of it)

Finally…
I am horrible at keeping my blog up to date. I am very sorry about that, but in my defense my trip has been very busy, I have barely enough time to do and see everything.
First I want to say that I have pictures up on http://picasaweb.google.com/sheppard.tim.c (there are several hundred pictures up.)
So this update will be much more of an overview of what I have done rather than a day by day record.
So last time I wrote an actual update was in Beijing China. A LOT has happened since then.
In Xi’an China we danced in the fountains in front of the Wild Goose pagoda. That earned us the title of crazy Americans. We also saw the remains of the Bampo village, which is the oldest remains of a village that has been discovered in China. It is believed to date to 4500BC. In Xi’an we saw one of the wonders of the world (I don’t remember if it is ancient or modern, I’m guessing ancient, if you care look it up on Wikipedia). We saw the Terra Cotta army. It is impressive, but none of the soldiers were found whole, they had to be reconstructed, like jigsaw puzzles. We also rode bikes on the city wall. It is taller and thicker than the Great Wall, although a lot shorter in length. The ride was about 8 miles, verses the 4000 or so miles of the Great Wall. We also met with students from XPU (Xi’an Polytechnic University) they send some of their students to OC to study in the USA.
From Xi’an we took an overnight train to Shanghai. Shanghai was quite a change from Xi’an. Shanghai is a modern city, with the currently second highest building in the world. We saw a lot of cool sites and some worthless ones. (If you ever visit Shanghai do NOT bother visiting the Bund sightseeing tunnel. It would not be worth it even if it was free. It’s like an Acid trip, I think; it is just worthless and strange.)
Shanghai did have a lot of other amazing things to do and see though. Jill, Jordan and I went up the Shanghai World Financial Center (SWFC). It is the second tallest building in the world and has the highest observation deck in the world at 474 meters (1555 ft) high. It was quite a view and worth the money to go up. We waited up there until dark and got to see the city at night with all the nights. It was a beautiful sight. (I’m pretty sure I have a picture or two of it.) We also went to the Shanghai museum; I spent over 3 hours in there and still did not see it all. At the end of my time in Shanghai I met with our family friends the Lazos, and had supper with them. I rode the subway back to my hotel and as I walked back from my hotel I bought an ice cream bar, not an unusual event, but I only spoke Chinese to the lady I bought the ice cream from. I was happy as that was my last day in China.
From China we flew to Japan. I’m going to sum up a month in Japan in a couple paragraphs so things will be missed.
We flew into Osaka, and then took a train to Kyoto. We spent a couple days in Kyoto. At Kyoto our group saw a palace, a kimono fashion show, and the Golden pavilion. Also on our last night in Kyoto we went to the Ninja restaurant. It was epic!
One of the days we were staying in Kyoto we took a train to Hiroshima. In case any of you do not know your WWII history that is the site the first a-bomb was dropped on. We visited the memorial and museum. It is hard to describe the feelings I had as I walked through the museum and saw the destruction done by the bomb dropped by the country I live in. It is something I will not soon forget. We are all brought up to think that our country is “good” but that is a hard idea to fit with what I saw in the pictures. Now the city has been rebuilt and other than memorial dome, park and museum one would never know that most of the city was destroyed in a matter of minutes.
Next we took a train to Tokyo. We had a few days to explore the city. I visited the Edo museum, which tells the history of Tokyo since before it was called Tokyo up to the present. A few of us went up Tokyo Tower on our first night to see the lights of the city. Jordan and I did the Alpha arms outside the imperial palace. We walked the electric district. I really enjoyed it there, shops full of computers and other electronics.
Finally, we headed to Ibaraki to meet our host families. For most of the month of October we would be living with a host family. My host family was the Akiyamas. The mother and father lived at home and their two children are away at college, the older one is an ME grad student.
While I was there I enjoyed my time other than some of the classes at Ibaraki Christian College (IC). We had several weekend trips which were a lot of fun. One of the weekends we went to a place near the beach and enjoyed Japanese style BBQ. Another weekend we visited Nikko. It was one of my favorite places in Japan. I really enjoyed the natural beauty. While we were there our whole group went to an onsen, a Japanese public bathhouse. I think we are the first PAC rim group to have all gone. At the bathhouse men and women are divided and clothes are not worn. It was a new experience, but relaxing to soak in the hot pools. Also at Nikko we saw the lake there and a beautiful waterfall. I have pictures of both of picasa, no pictures of the onsen ;)
I did return to Tokyo for a weekend and met an old family friend, Bin. He showed me around the city. We visited Tokyo University, one of the oldest and best schools in Japan. We visited Meiji shrine, one of the most important shrines in Japan, as they used to worship the emperor there. We also went up the Tokyo municipal building, the highest point in Tokyo. That evening he took me out to a nice restaurant, it was rated in the top ten in the world back in the 90s. On the way back to Ibaraki I was not paying attention and missed my stop and got off one late. It was ok though because I was able to take a local train back to my stop.
It was a sad thing to say goodbye to all my friends at IC but all good things must come to an end. It was off to Hong Kong.
Hong Kong, it’s a big city and it might be my favorite city that I have visited. There was a lot to see and do there. The first night there we went to an interesting place, Modern Toilet, it doesn’t sell toilets. It sells food. It was actually very reasonable and tasty. The next day we went to actual Hong Kong Island, because our hotel (the YMCA) was in Kowloon. We saw the sights, visited Victoria peak overlooking the city. At the end of the day we took the ferry back to Kowloon and watched the light show. It was the whole city and quite a show, you can see pictures if you want. The next day we went to see the giant Buddha. We took a bus there and then several of us took a sky rail back to the hotel.
There were about 10 of our group who went to Macau. It was quite a city, similar but different to Hong Kong. While we were there 7 of us went bungy (that is the British spelling) jumping. It is the highest bungy in the world, 233 meters (764.4 ft) high. It was 4 to 6 seconds of freefall. I enjoyed the rush.
Since this blog post is over 1,400 words long and I have cover most of what I did in Asia I shall create a second blog post about what I have done down under, in New Zealand and Australia.