The End...

I started listening to Dir en grey again today...

Heeyy...

but if thats my hand lotion..those are my instructions to my free sample of foaming face wash!! You naughty person...

Heehehe, random strange train people..and a bloody man!:


Oh and Kou, does the name of the cafe behind me remind you of toothpicks?
[Les Deux Magots]

[Scientist]

Where is my brain?

If anyone finds my brain please tell me. I was trying to read the instructions to the free sample of foaming face wash that I got with my purchase of hand lotion from Fancl when my brain excitedly re-appeared from its wanderings to remind me that I was now of course living in the same country as Gackt. But it seems to have left again...

- Kou

Bangkok

Hello everyone from my birthplace!!! yay!! It's really exciting and strange and new and SO clean. It's so amazing that in a city of over 10 million people there is almost no litter anywhere. It's quite a relief after Delhi.

When my parents got here, they didn't recognize ANYTHING. What used to be the tallest building in Bangkok when they were here 15 years ago is now dwarfed by a score of others all over the skyline. Another change is the highways: now almost every major groundlevel street has a highway directly above it! The whole city used to be canals, and 100 years ago they filled them in to make paved roads. You can imagine how bad the traffic used to be. My parents said it could take you an hour to move a mile. And thats in Asia, where almost no one uses cars! Now they have overhead highways that weave between the buildings. Plus they have an overhead train and a subway system! Everything looks so new and modern. It makes Denver look like a small town. I can't imagine what Tokyo looks like. This is like Tokyo on a mini scale. I wish I had pictures, but their on my dad's laptop and he's using it right now. Plus, posting pics takes time and this is costing me $4/hr to use the internet.

The bad thing is, I've been sick for 4 days. I got sick in India, probably from something i ate, who knows what horrible diseases are all over their food. (trust me, just breathing the air there is probably enough to give you some deadly infection.) So anyways, i got here and i don't feel like eating anything, even if it is Thai food, the best in the world. And i especially don't feel like eating spicy food, and EVERYTHING is spicy. I've been eating rice. Oh, and we're staying with one of my parent's friends, Waew (pronounced like Wow.) She's staying in our hotel with us, cuz she lives outside Bangkok. She works in a pharmacy that sells Western and Chinese medicine, so she's been giving me all this weird stuff that is supposed to make me feel better. She gave me these black pills that said "charcoal" on them, and she's like "take 3." So I was like, hmmm this is interesting, i wonder what it is if its called charcoal. must be some Engrish thing. I took them out of the package and they turn my fingers black, and i discovered they really were charcoal! can you believe that?? she gave me CHARCOAL to help my stomach. But I couldn't really do anything, I had to be polite, this is Asia after all. So I took them. And then an hour later she gave me three more. I ended up taking 4 doses of pure charcoal. Boy was that weird. I looked on the back of the package and it said "made in Germany" so i figure it can't be too bad. Oh, and the funny thing was, she was telling her friend at dinner that night about my symptoms, and her friend was like, "Oh, wow, you should give her charcoal." and when she heard that i had taken some, she was like , "Oh, that's good. she'll feel better by tomorrow then." 999 must be a Thai thing. I do feel better now, so maybe it works.

My parents speak Thai to Waew all the time, cuz they speak Thai better than she speaks English. I can understand some, but speaking is SO HARD especially with tones. I'm lost most of the time. It's still fun to be hanging out with real Thai people and not just tourists. In Bangkok there are a lot of farang (foreigners), like tourists and business people. In Delhi I saw almost NO non-indian people. I mean, like none. it was weird. Here, tho, theres a lot. So I'm glad we know Thai people cuz it's a lot more of a Thai experience. Believe me, tho, its weird sometimes. (like with the charcoal thing)

well, there's lots more but i don't have time now. i hope to post pics soon, maybe some from india too. India is a really beautiful country if you get out of the city. I had a hard time there but there were some awesome things about it too. It was really eye-openning for me. Bangkok is much more exciting and fun, though. India was just stressful most of the time. I miss you all and I can't wait to talk to you about everything. Kou, that sounds crazy with the whole train thing. Hang in there. Oh, and those are AWESOME pics, Scientist. i have to go to france and england!!! and tokyo!! and everywhere. right now, i'm ready for travelling to be over tho. 2 1/2 more weeks to go! wow, meri, can't imagine what its like for you. I miss everyone and i love you all!!!

~amelie

(cont. from below)

A train ride that normally takes me 20 min was drawn out
to 1hr and 15 min because they had to wait 5 min at every
station. Not to mention that at 10pm the train felt like
a 6pm rush hour train. It was FUN *sarcasim*
←in case you didn't catch that.

- Kou

=?ISO-2022-JP?B?GyRCQ08/TBsoQg==?=

So Yokohama was great and the weather was great...but
there was an earthquake at 4:30 pm just northeast of Tokyo
that messed up the trains something terrible. And guess
where I was? That's right, a train between Yokohama and
Tokyo. 2 hrs later JR had arranged buses to take us all
to Tokyo station, but only two trains were running in all
of Tokyo and neither of them went where I needed to be.
Finally, after an hour dinner the train I wanted was
running...slowly.(my phone is cutting me short, please see
↓)

Three words:

Simpsons in Japanese!

Because i've nothing else to do...

I'll post some random different ones for anyone's amusement. This is next to a field with trees all around that i go lay in about 3 blocks away from my grandparents house in Tavistock. It was a nice little retreat though, especially when it was raining. The house looked a touch wabi-sabi mostly because the unevenly broken windows and lopsided door but lonely. Maybe that's just because i was kind of lonely at the time. Someone else goes there too though because i found this and a couple socks in a tree. Speaking of trees i found the best tree so far, i don't know if it's big enough to see really [camera doesn't zoom in very far] but here
Eurostar: it was surprisingly old fashioned and clunky looking. It got us under the ocean and back though. Completely random London:
More interesting: 'Twas in a park in Paris [Jardin du Luxembourg] I don't know if you can really see it but they had these big clippings from a scene in the park and they put them in clear plastic sheets or something and hung them from this building so it changes from every angle but the scene can still be seen.
Teehee.
Fun picture. The first taken from the smaller pyramid. The other taken from below the huge pyramid in the courtyard of le Museé du Louvre where you buy tickets and whatnot...very good planning actually. And i found it interesting that the late french president, François Mitterrand, asked for La Pyramide to have exactly 666 glass panels in it for whatever reason. Designed by I.M. Pei, it's 70ft. tall and is really controversial in Paris. And like i was saying earlier, there's about 65, 300 peices of art and would take an estimated five weeks to really appreciate all of them! It's the longest building in Europe because of the horseshoe shape and the courtyard is a million square feet wide between the two wings. To walk the perimeter it would be about 3 miles! And even though it's only two levels the ceilings are so tall it's seems like it's about 5 storeys up [like the below picture]. Amazing. The ceilings of the Louvré were beautifully built...furnished...painted...everything in detail, and this was one of the smallest galleries there. The biggest is the Grand Gallery in the Denon section which primarily houses the italian paintings [including the Mona Lisa] Also good planning; Le Metro: I was surprised at how big it was and the funny noise it made then i realized they run on huge tires so it's not really a train. The stained glass in Notre Dame were beautiful as well even if you don't get what they're trying to show [like moi], i consider it more art than anything else. more so with flash though.
Boat rides! That was probably the best part [Especially at night]. Water+cool+good viewing+cheap. Last night out: [La Seine]

Bye for now.
[Scientist]

New Delhi

hey everyone,

I'm in New Delhi. We arrived last night at 3:00 in the morning. I'm pretty tired right now. I can't even describe what it is like here. For me, it is unlike any other place I've ever been too. Istanbul was so much like Europe that it seemed almost familiar. Here, everything is different.

Last night we had called to reserve a shuttle to take us to our hotel. That was lucky, cuz at 3 in the morning the normal taxi options looked pretty scary. We were walking throught the taxi terminal to get to where the shuttle was parked, and I saw my first cow in India. It was just lounging against the wall, right in the airport! It wasn't exactly in the airport, but it was in the part that still had a roof and everything. Oh, the other thing was that it was hot. I mean, you walk out of the air-conditioned building and the heat just hits you. and that was in the middle of the night! The thing is, its not really all that hot, it's in the 90s. But the humidity makes the air so thick its hard to breathe.

We got to our shuttle and the driver was putting our luggage in the back when about five guys came up and were like climbing over each other trying to get a hand on our bags, trying to help put them in the back of the shuttle. Then they all wanted a tip. It's crazy here, cuz there are so many people who just need a job that they will do anything to get a tip.

We finally got into the shuttle, four of us in the back seat and dad in front with the driver. It was HOT. we drove for what felt like forever and we were all holding our bags on our laps and sweating all over each other. it took me about 20 minutes to realize that they drive on the left side of the road here, cuz our driver wasn't really showing any preference for the right or left lane. He just drove down whichever was more convenient at the time, and for awhile he drove down the middle.

Even at night, you can see immediately the poverty of this city. It's unlike anywhere I have been, even Romania which is pretty poor. There were homeless men sleeping right outside the airport and in the parking lot. And the buildings, and streets, everything is crumbling and dirty. In the daytime, it's even clearer. There are people EVERYWHERE. i like crowds, but this is different. As soon as we walk out of the hotel we are mobbed by people wanting to give us a ride in their rickshaws, for a fee of course. The buildings are all either falling down or being repaired again. There are battered signs and ads covering everything, hanging from telephone poles and the sides of buildings and hanging over the streets. It's like a ghetto version of Tokyo. There are cows EVERYWHERE. at first you don't notice them, but if you look they are in every alley and behind parked cars and walking down the side streets. There's shit all over the place, too. And trash, and beggars, and just regular people. It makes me sad. At first i just wanted to get OUT, to go somewhere sanitary where i could breathe. And the sounds are everywhere, honking horns and motorcycles and people and animals. And walking down the street is really scary cuz there is no difference between the street and the sidewalk really. There are people, cars, motorcycles, rickshaws, cows, bicycles, street vendors, stray dogs; all just intermingled. In a way, it's actually really exciting. But the poverty makes me so sad. It just seems so...hopeless. It's so huge I don't know how anything could ever change or get better. Everything is crumbling and falling apart, and at the same time everything is so alive. I don't know how to react to it.

Okay, you can probably tell that i'm going through some minor culture shock. The thing is, if it were just crowds and noise and heat I don't think I would mind, as long as it were more modern and less poor. But it's like going back a few decades or something, and adding chaos. It's shocking cuz I didn't expect to ever be anyplace like this. I knew places like this existed, but it's different being here. It's not like being a "tourist" at all. I don't know what it's like. I just need to process it for awhile, cuz right now my mind is spinning. Istanbul was nothing compared to this.

Thanks for reading this, i'm mostly just venting all of my feelings right now. Like I said, i'm really tired, so maybe things will look different after i've actually slept. Another thing is that Ben is sick. He had a fever of 103 the night before we left Istanbul, and he was having trouble breathing. Missing a night of sleep didn't help. We're hoping he will be okay cuz the hospitals here look pretty scary.

We're going on a tour tomorrow and the next day to smaller cities outside Delhi, including Agra which has the Taj Mahal. I don't know when i'll have internet access again, hopefully after that. It's great to hear from you guys, keep posting. I can't wait to see everyone and talk about everything. And kou, say hi to Meri for me! I love you!

~Amelie

Record Setting Day

It was the hottest day since I've been in Japan, I've had more pictures taken of me today then all the other days of my life combined, and deffinately the most guys have asked me out (so what if it was in broken English and I had to turn them down in broken Japanese). At least they know when to stop here. I just planted myself on the pavement in Harajuku and watched the crowds all day.

Istanbul

Hey guys!!!

Wow, I haven’t had contact with the world in forever. This is the first time I've been on a computer in a month! I love your blogs, everything sounds so amazing!!! I can’t wait to see you guys and hear about everything. Scientist, those pics are awesome. I want to be there!! But here is way too cool to leave. I've been visiting mosques, so seeing pics of cathedrals is a cool comparison. Nothing compares to the art at the Louvre, tho. And Kou, I saw this Japanese guy at the Budapest airport who was using his cell phone to watch TV on his laptop. It made me think of you in Japan. And then I read your post about the musical toilet paper dispenser. You're right, only in Japan.

I’m typing this on a Turkish keyboard, which is incredibly challenging cuz some the letters are in different places, as well as all the punctuation marks. It’s gonna take awhile.

I just had the most amazing three weeks of my life in Romania. I don’t know how to describe it. It was so much fun and yet I cried more than I have cried in a whole year. I have never been so tired in my life. When it was over, I was so emotionally and physically exhausted that I just wanted to go home and lie in bed and cry. But the morning after driving out of Romania, we flew straight from Budapest to Istanbul. Craziness.

Istanbul is AWESOME though. It’s fabric heaven here. I’ve already bought seven scarves, hehe. I need to control myself. And we visited the Aya Sofya (Hagia Sophia in Greek, Church of the Divine Wisdom in English), one of the most famous buildings in the world. It is over 1500 years old and was the biggest dome in the world until St. Peters Cathedral was built almost 1000 years later. It was originally a church but was turned into a mosque when Muslims took over Constantinople. All of the intricate Christian mosaics that covered the dome were plastered over and painted with Islamic designs. It is beautiful, but it would be cool to see the huge dome covered with mosaics too. The few that have been uncovered are so amazing. Nobody wants to uncover too many because it would destroy the Muslim art, which is also very cool. No matter what religion it represents, the interior is absolutely stunning. The pics can’t capture just how BIG the whole thing is. It’s amazing.

We’ve also visited some mosques, which are so beautiful. I’ve gotten lots of chances to wear my scarves. The best so far was the Blue Mosque, which is in some of the pics. It’s only blocks away from our hotel, and it looks much more impressive than the Aya Sofya from the outside. It is cool because it is a real mosque where people come to pray, while the Aya Sofya has been turned into a museum.

Like I said, there’s been lots of shopping. Kou, you would love it here. We went to the Grand Bazaar, which has 4,000 shops full of jewelry, fabric, clothes, chessboards, Turkish rugs, Turkish coffee, glassware, shoes, cell phones, pottery, decorative tiles, and anything else you can think of. But lots and lots of fabric. It’s awesome. And there’s crowds of tourists but also lots of Turkish people, so it feels very real. As soon as you walk in, you’re mobbed by people trying to sell you something. Here are some of their catchphrases:

“Very nice family. Have you had lunch?”
“I have a rug in your size.”
“Let me help you spend the rest of your money.”
“It’s my turn to sell you something now.”

The favorite seems to be, “Hello, yes please.” I’m not sure what they’re trying to accomplish with that one, but oh well. Imagine it all in a heavy Turkish accent, and it’s pretty amusing.

Okay, if you’ve read this far, I’m truly impressed. Sorry to ramble on for so long. Here’s what you’ve been waiting for: pictures!

These are of the Aya Sofya:


This might come out too dark on your screen, but it’s a picture of Arabic calligraphy next to a Christian mosaic. Interesting.







These are of the Blue Mosque:







And some others:





I can hear the call to prayer coming from the mosques right now. It’s awesome. I am dreading coming home and yet I can’t wait to talk to you all. See you in a month!

--Amelie

P.S. by the way, please include an English translation of any Japanese you post, cuz while I can now speak Romanian fairly well, it’s driven the remnants of any Japanese I used to know completely out of my head. Plus I don't know if it will show up on some of the computers I use, cuz I'm going to internet cafes. Thanks!

I meet メリ on Monday 18 July, so if there's anything you want me to pass on email me. I think Japan is GMT plus 22.

Long silence

Time flies when you're having fun. I had completly forgoten about posting. I found noise CDs! The room spins the wall of sound is so intense! I'm hooked! I've deffinately spent way too much money, but I have Moonchild and Lily Chouーchou! I went to the national stadium today, the place where the Lily concert is held. That felt so strange to be standing there. There was a concert there too, so there was a pretty big crowd! I'm going to Harajuku tomorrow (Sunday) to see the コスプレー.

flood of pictures

So now that i'm home i'm able to put the other pictures on that wouldn't go for whatever reason before. There's nothing else really from London that you can't look up on google so we'll move on to Paris. This is a good shot from one of the spire things on Notre Dame. The building behind it is the Council Building of sorts probably with a fancier name. It seemed almost as high as the Tour Eiffel but more free because there weren't heavy restraining bars everywhere. It felt like the top of the world.
This shows kind of where we were. We were on the very tippy top and also one level down where the gargoyles were but on the other side.
Sepia!
And the front :
Hehe, and here is the bidet in our hôtel room. If i had one it would be lime green.
Anyway, here is the famous bridge that leads from one side of the Seine across to the Louvré [which was awesome but someone wouldn't be able to see all of it unless they took up temporary residence there for about a week straight]. It was a beautiful bridge-all embroidered with gold and monuments. But in truth if it weren't for the gold it would have been just like any other bridge in Paris which is saying a lot. The architecture on every single one was beautiful but the designs weren't repeated so they were all unique. I'm going to make a collage of them. Along with stained glass.
And this is just something random. It was a display in some shop window on the way back to our hotel en Champs du Marche.
The beginning of the skulls de Les Catacombs.
Eerie is such an understatement, but so is cool. We had to go down about 80meters of stairs of a stone spiral staircase. It seemed like with each step the temperature dropped five degrees. There was a long walk before we reached a plaque that was in french but it didn't matter because the point obviously was to tell the visiters not to disturb the dead. About every 10 meters there was a sign carved out of stone that gave the date and the church that the bones were taken out of the cemetery. The wall was neatly stacked with thigh bones and the skulls were used to make designs, but behind the wall i could see broken bones as they were just thrown back there. Here and there gaps in the wall signified skulls that had been stolen over the years. We came upon a man that worked there and he showed us a skull that still had teeth in it and said that the bones go back 200 meters in all directions. He also said that visiters were only allowed in a small part and that the other corridors go on for many meters all around us. The uneven ground, cold musty smell and dripping water let you forget you were in the middle of the sweltering city. Now for some history. The purpose was to get rid of these corpses because during the plague the cemeteries were 10-12 ft higher than ground level. Also it was a good way to keep other people from getting sick. So all the people were moved down to these natural lime caverns so they could still be visited by their relatives.
And just some quick things from Rodin's garden. The Thinker: And the gates of Hell: Rodin's garden [eventhough we weren't able to go in the acutal museum] was my second favourite thing after Museé d'Orsay [the impressionist museum]. That means full of paintings like this: [Monet] And my favourite "L'eglise d"auvers-sur-Oise, vue du chevet": [van Gogh]
These are just the highlights, so you can imagine how long it would take to show it all. The rest can be for a later date. Happy traveling.
[Scientist]

Coincidence?

I was in Shibuya sitting in the Starbucks, sipping a delicious chocolate frapaccino and eating a notーtooーsweet coconut pineapple scone, watching the same intersection that Lost in Translation watches. I gn downstairs into the HMV movie store and what do I see staring back at me but Lost in Translation. Surreal...

Break in Yoyogi

After putting something in the community fridge in the common area of her Yoyogi area apartment yesterday, すごくバカな外国人コウ found herself locked out of her apartment. Having no spare key she was forced to climb the pipes at the back of the building and climb through the window! One mister Tanaka spotted the spectacle and had this to say: "I hope those damn gaijin get their act together, I see too many legs wriggle through those windows!"

-Kou

Clear of the throat

Here is a poem i thought up:

As the broad, straight wing
Cuts through the white,
The fragile ice
Melts to night.
I look down
at the parched ground
And i groan
Because i'm home.

[Scientist]

My apartment

How can I put it? My apartment isn't a dump, but you can tell its been well used. I managed to get it clean, but now it just feels sterile. I'll have to go shopping...The view is great but its noisy because they're doing construction. There's some rich condos (マンション) that don't believe in curtains...Then of course there's the strange clinic and the rice warehouse. All are very interesting but the people are the best. I'm on a small side street that conects 2 large streets so there's always traffic.

-Kou

Our last hotel

I droped the toilet paper dispenser last night and now it
wont stop playing Fur Elise. Only in Japan...

-Kou

it's strange..

.this week. i wonder how fast news makes it around the globe. i'm so sad right now. i don't see what the bloody terrorists think is going to come of bombing. i know this is supposed to be a travel blog but forget that for now...this is more heart renching than 9/11 in some ways for me. to think we were just there, just at a different time. over here it's such a small world, more connection to places and things and people. more feeling.

The rainy season

When we first arrived here I heard that this was a dry rainy season, but my weather luck hasn't followed me and it has been cool and rainy in Kyushu. It rained so hard they had to stop the shinkansen for25min one time. And can you imagine a small Japanese style tea house playing Georgian chants!

-Kou

the little things

You're on a train that feels like a plane and the attendant bows when she leaves the car. Where everyone emits hushed …ます's. Definetly the strangest while coolest feeling is the feeling of two trains pulling out of the station simultaneously headed in diffrent directions. You feellike you're going at light speed! I keep feeling like I'm in 「リィリィ・シュシュのすべて」. The 田　are intrinsic (is that how you spell that?).

-Kou

Ah, irony as i'm sitting in an english garden waiting for the sun.

花火! Since everyone knows that's what it's all about.

[Scientist]