Ellie's World: Travel

Tokyo

Wed, 23 Nov 2005 00:33:52 GMT

I’ll start this off by saying that my Japanese is pretty bad, so don’t go thinking that I’m any sort of expert. I did well in six years of Japanese classes in high school and middle school, but it was not like taking the easy way out with Spanish. At my peak, I spoke like a four-year-old Japanese kid with a bad accent. And I haven’t taken a Japanese class in about 5 ½ years.

With that said, I’ll say a big thank-you right now to my Japanese teachers, Hiroko sensei and Mogami sensei. I always wished I actually got good at Japanese, but after being in China for a week, I learned am grateful for my skills, as minimal as they are. There is an enormous difference between being a very foreign foreigner who speaks the language at the level of a two-year-old, and a very foreign foreigner who can only say “thank you.”

In China, all I could say was “thank you.” I could also point at things, read a few characters I learned in Japanese class, and copy characters out of tour books for taxi drivers to read. I got around surprisingly well, but it’s not really a good way to interact with a culture. I really want to learn Chinese!

In Japan, I was able to use my six years of study to communicate the following concepts using actual words (Japanese only!) and not just my ridiculous miming skills:

My hotel is closed. I’m sorry, but could I please use your cell phone to call a new one? I have the phone number here.
Thank you so much for calling the hotel. Yes, I would like a single room.
Can I ride in your taxi? I would like to go to this hotel. No, I don’t know the address but here it is on the map. Oh, this map doesn’t have street names. Here is the name of the hotel. I’m sorry, my Japanese isn’t very good.
Thank you for calling the hotel on the pay phone to get directions. You are a very good person.
Yes, this is my hotel. Thank you for driving me!

I felt like an actual person, able to communicate with other people using actual words – and neither the lady with the phone or the taxi driver spoke any English. J

A big shout-out goes to the kind people of Tokyo for their late-night hospitality. Boo on the Tokyo International Youth Hostel for closing before 11:30 PM. Also, boo to the high cab fares in Tokyo: ~$18 for a 10-minute short taxi ride – it cost about as much as a one-hour ride from Shanghai to Pudong airport!

To do now: learn Chinese -- the tones are really hard!

Beijing

Thu, 10 Nov 2005 05:22:01 GMT

I took the overnight train from Shanghai to Beijing -- it was some of the best sleep I got during that week! I traveled there myself, speaking only one word of Mandarin: "Xiexie" (thank you). The Lonely Planet guidebook was a huge help, and I made it through without getting lost or getting sent to jail!

I only had two days and one night in Beijing, so I spent my time running around to see as much as possible. Beijing has more historical attractions and has had less western influence.

There were far fewer foreigners (like me) so I stuck out a lot. Admittedly, I'm not a very normal-looking person (5'10" with red hair and pale skin) so more people were staring at me than in Shanghai, which I expected. When I was in Japan about nine years ago, sometimes people would come up to me because they wanted to practice their English conversation, but in Beijing and slightly less in Shanghai, people would often approach me to sell me stuff.

At the Great Wall and Tieneman Square, somewhere between six and twelve different people approached me to ask to have their photo taken with me. Sometimes even the grandmothers would want to get in the photo. The first time, I thought they wanted me to take their photo with Mao's portrait... but why would they ask the foreigner? Oh, they wanted to be in the picture with me and Mao. It was kind of a strange experience, but it was kind of funny and I went along with it as part of the price of being the foreigner. So if you see some Chinese blogs with photos of what looks like The Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, well, now you know the photos are the genuine, not photoshopped.

Shanghai

Sat, 29 Oct 2005 03:42:00 GMT

This week, I got to meet the excellent Shanghai members of the Hotmail team. Over the past few months, the team members have done a lot of work on some new features that I'll tell you about later here. They've done great work especially given that they're all new to the project.

Shanghai is an interesting city, especially as it's changing so quickly. Johnny has played the most gracious host, showing us the city and trying to make us feel like locals.

Las Fallas de Valencia 2005

Thu, 07 Apr 2005 18:44:17 GMT

Valencia is home to one of the world's biggest week-long parties. Las fallas de Valencia (Valenciano for "the fires of Valencia") is a cross between Mardi Gras, Burning Man, and a medieval celebration of spring and the Virgin Mary. I had a great time relaxing, celebrating, making new friends, and speaking truly terrible Spanish.