Dueling Backpacks

Day 370 (July 3, 2019) – Tbilisi, Georgia Landing in Tbilisi was a shock. I had spent the last five months being a foot taller than everyone around me and now, suddenly, I felt small. Compared to the typical Asian, the average person in Georgia had a good foot in height and at least 50 pounds in weight over them. At first glance, Tbilisi looked a bit dilapidated. The entrance to our apartment building was made mostly of concrete, but it looked like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it in places and never bothered to repair it. But despite it's initial sketchiness, we soon came to realized that Tbilisi was actually a very cool city.

We had such a great time in Japan. It was so unlike anywhere else we had been. It was ancient and modern all at the same time. You could be walking down a bustling and chaotic street one minute and the then the next duck into a perfectly serene garden in the middle of the city. It wasn’t out of the ordinary to see a man in a business suit strolling through a Shinto shrine or a woman in a kimono riding the subway.

Day 362 (June 25, 2019) – Tokyo, Japan Tokyo is enormous. We only had four nights and it wasn’t nearly enough. There seemed to be so much to do. We were staying in another tiny apartment in a small residential area, but it was still close to the train and to nearby shopping and dining areas. We were staying in Ikebukuro, which is known for being a center for otaku culture, which is essentially young people who are obsessed with certain aspects of pop culture. In other words, the streets were lined with shops filled with anime, manga, and video games. Ikebukuro did not disappoint. We were walking home one day and there were hundreds of people out and about dressed up in cosplay. We assumed there was some sort of convention going on that day. It was really cool to see so many people dressed up like it were Halloween.

Day 358 (June 21, 2019) – Magome, Japan Our trip to Magome was a chance to escape the cities and spend some time outdoors. Located about halfway between Kyoto and Tokyo, Magome is a tiny village up in the mountains. Our primary purpose for going there was to go on a hike, but there was enough to entertain us for the two days we were there. We also found time to relax a bit and catch up on some reading.

Day 356 (June 19, 2019) – Nagoya, Japan We were only in Nagoya for a night, so it really doesn’t require much commentary. It was just an overnight layover on our trip from Kyoto to Magome, but we did visit a very cool museum in the afternoon called the Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology .

Day 355 (June 18, 2019) – Kyoto, Japan Japan is an introvert’s paradise. People are generally quiet, soft-spoken, and always exceedingly polite. Conversations are a rarity on trains and buses. Every restaurant has plentiful counter seating, so eating alone is never an issue for concern. In fact, a few ramen restaurants we visited even had dividers set up between counter seats, which nearly completely obscured the identity of your neighbor. Although Japan’s culture of introversion has the potential to become extreme for those who live there, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

Day 351 (June 14, 2019) – Hiroshima, Japan Hiroshima requires no introduction. It’s nearly impossible to forget what happened there as you’re walking around town. Just after arriving, our walk from the bus station to our Airbnb apartment too us right past the Atomic Bomb Dome. As one of the few surviving buildings from the blast it’s an eerie reminder of what happened. The building used to be a public exhibition hall but is now just a skeleton of concrete and brick. Steel beams stick out at strange angles, having been warped by the intense heat of the atomic bomb explosion 75 years ago.

Day 347 (June 10, 2019) – Fukuoka, Japan The differences between China and Japan were like night and day. It was apparent as soon as we landed. We flew from Shanghai to Fukuoka, with a stopover in Nagoya. We made it through immigration and customs in Nagoya with a cheerful “welcome to Japan” from the immigration officer, but our second flight was delayed by a couple hours. It was already dark out and the airport seemed eerily quiet. We picked up some snacks from a convenience store for dinner and what I thought was a can of beer, but it didn’t taste anything like beer. It turned out to be a highball, whiskey and soda, which we would later learn is one of Japan’s favorite drinks. Of the few people in the Nagoya airport, everyone seemed to be traveling for business, all dressed in suits and carrying briefcases. The gate staff was making occasional announcements about the delayed flight, but much to our delight, they bowed to the waiting room in unison before making any announcem...

China! Where to begin? This is my attempt to make this short, but it seems there is no end of things to talk about from our time in China. It was a challenging travel experience but rewarding and eye-opening.  It was by far the most culturally different place we visited this year.  

Day 343 (June 6, 2019) – Shanghai, China Shanghai was the last stop on our adventures through China, but in some sense it seemed like we'd  already left as soon as we arrived. Shanghai felt very different from the rest of China. It was the most cosmopolitan and the most modern. It felt more similar to Hong Kong than to other places we had been in mainland China.

Day 337 (May 31, 2019) - Tianjin, China After the crowds of Beijing, and all the hiking at the Great Wall, we were ready for a change of pace. We were headed to Tianjin, a city only about 30 minutes by bullet train from Beijing. We probably wouldn’t have come here if it wasn’t for our friend from grad school (Mark O.) now working and living in Tianjin. He has lived here for the last several years with his family, and he graciously offered to meet up with us and show us around. We only spent two days in Tianjin, but we made the most of our time.

Day 334 (May 28, 2019) – Gubeikou, Beijing, China We took a bus from downtown Beijing to the northeast corner of Beijing Municipality on the boarder with Hebei Province and arrived at Gubeikou in the pouring rain. It was raining buckets, which wasn’t a good sign. We were in Gubeikou to spend some time outdoors hiking along the Great Wall. It was starting to remind us of our drenched hike in New Zealand before we even started. After taking shelter at the bus stop during the worst of it, a brief pause in the rain gave us enough time to run out and meet the host from our guesthouse, who had arrived in his car to take us the rest of the way.

Day 331 (May 25, 2019) – Beijing, China Beijing is enormous. I feel like we only ever saw a tiny section of the city during our time there. It was also noticeably more expensive than other places we had been in China and, to our surprise, much hotter. We were staying in a hotel near the drum and bell towers, which are just north of the Forbidden City. Around the neighborhood were many small residential areas with narrow, interconnecting alleys called hutongs. Most of the neighborhoods were quite historical, with some houses and courtyards being hundreds of years old.