Ella, Sri Lanka - Home

Peaceful
By the time we reached Ella it was dusk.  Our AirBnB host sent a Tuk Tuk to the train station to fetch us.  We drove down the main drag, perched on the peak of a mountain and not more than a half-mile long and then began a long plunge into an adjacent valley.  As usual, Dodo had booked us a stay in the boonies.  Our AirBnB was a small house built along a roaring river.  This is the view from our balcony.  After we dropped off our luggage, we climbed back up to town on foot for dinner.  It was close to a mile each way and probably a thousand feet of elevation change.

Ella, Sri Lanka - Train Ride

From Hot Soup to Cooler Climes
We came to Sri Lanka to hike and see the countryside.  We were on our way to the village of Ella, which is 3,000 feet above sea level.  There are a few ways to get there - by taxi or train.  For the local experience, we chose the latter.  We booked a second class ticket on a hulking China-made locomotive.  The selling point of second class, though there is no air conditioning, are the big windows that can be opened to take photos.

Colombo, Sri Lanka - First Impressions

Hot and Crowded
The first thing you notice is the heat and humidity.  It overwhelms the airport air conditioning and sticks to you.  Within minutes I felt like I'd showered in olive oil.  While waiting to pass through immigration, I peek outside.  It's early afternoon and the sky is already black, but then the blackness swirls and shifts to blue.  A swarm of crows had blotted out the light temporarily.  Colombo was not our destination, but a means to an end.  We'd soon be taking a train into the mountains to hike.  It looked to be a good plan since this city of five million is a sweaty people stew bubbling under a swollen sun.

Dubai - Al Bastakiya

The Old City is Way More Interesting
There is a tiny part of Dubai which wasn't razed for modernity's sake.  Al Bastakiya sits along a large creek that cuts in from the sea.  It dates back to the 19th century and was, up until the 1960s, how most people here lived.   The government had already knocked down a sizable portion of it when an English architect, who was living in one of the houses, asked Prince Charles to chat with the UAE royalty about it.  Chuck somehow convinced them to save some of it for historical purposes.

Dubai - First Impressions

Setting Down in the Desert

In just a few hours I flew from one of the oldest cities in the world to one of the newest.  The Dubai airport is enormous, the reception hall alone could accommodate a hundred football fields.  If Pablo Escobar were an architect he'd create an airport like this.  It's ancient Rome by way of Vegas: high ceilings, marble floors, large faux marble columns.  White on white to the 3rd power.  Even the customs officer was dressed in white.  He wore a bright white sheet and a matching white hat curled at the sides.  He looked like a cowboy as imagined by Georgio Armani.

Lebanon - Harissa

Pilgrimage

There is no official single religion in Lebanon, there are myriad unofficial ones: christian, maronite, druze, shia, sunni, eastern orthodox and more.  Some of my tour group were proudly christian - speaking about it as one would the weather.  They were excited to ascend to the village of Harissa, to see the 15 ton bronze statue of the virgin Mary.

Lebanon - Byblos

One of the Oldest Cities...

Our tour guide was modest, he described Byblos as one of the oldest cities in the world, not THE oldest, even though it was founded over 10,000 years ago and has been continuously inhabited since 6,000 BC.  It's staggering to think about those numbers.  It's older than all the history I know.

Lebanon - Jeita

What's the Difference between a Cave and a Grotto?
Jeita is a small town north of Beirut in the mountains.  It's known for its Maronite population, adherents to an ancient version of Christianity from Syria.  On our bus ride there, our guide explained that we were on our way to Mount Lebanon to visit the Jeita Grotto.  "I am not, as your guide, allowed to give my personal opinion" he explained, before proceeding to do just that.  "The Jeita Grotto should be one of the seven wonders of the world, but since they have not asked experts but rather took a vote from 7 billion people, 6.9 of which have never heard of a small country called Lebanon....."  His voice trailed off for a moment before he began again.  "We are dealing with this unfortunate event as best we can."

Beirut - Lebanese Sojourn

It's a Complicated Place
How can you possibly wrap your mind around the history of this place?  I could spend the rest of my life here and never figure it out.  Next to the giant mosque is the Christian church, which itself is built on top of the ruins of a Roman bathhouse and across the street from a gleaming new high end mall.

Syracuse - Fall

Changes
In Singapore the sun rises at the same time every morning.  Twelve hours later, almost to the minute, it sets.  Each day is hot and humid, differences are measured in degrees - a few one way or another.  If you're observant, you can trace the slow passing of the seasons by noting where the sun rises against the backdrop of skyscrapers.  In February it passes over the far left of my balcony and by November it rises over the far right.  I used to tell myself I didn't miss the seasons.  Truth is, I miss three of them.  Luckily, we passed through upstate NY at the peak of fall.  Everyone was complaining about the lack of color but I wasn't one of them.

St Gervais les Bains, France

Hiking and Eating the French Alps
Jet lagged, I was up early padding around our AirBnB in my socks.  As I filled the coffee pot with water, I stared out the kitchen window at Mt Blanc.  The sun was beginning to show, back lighting the giant in a pink glow.  The locals couldn't take this view for granted, could they?  I imagined the hike - thick forest stubbornly giving way to ice pack.  If you scrambled across the glacier to the peak, you could, in a single glance, peer down on Italy, France and Switzerland.

Tokyo - Japanese

The Uphill Battle
Japanese is a peculiar language compared to those I've learned.  There is a lot to it and if you think you're going to master it easily, you're kidding yourself.  I've now been in immersion class for about a month - it's been an interesting ride.  The first thing I and almost everyone else learns is the Hiragana alphabet.  Using this alphabet, you can, in theory, write Japanese.  You're expected to learn this on your own before you start a Japanese class.  I learned it about a year and a half ago and this has made the transition to class a lot easier.  With Hiragana, you could, for example write "kuruma" which means "car."  It looks like this: くるま。Hiragana is pretty straightforward, Japanese is spelled like it sounds.

 

Tokyo - Kawagoe

Edo-Period Town
On Sunday we rode our daily train in the opposite direction to its end.  Just past our house it ceases its westerly direction and turns right, plowing due north for thirty minutes towards a town named Kawagoe.  It's an old town, a supposed Edo-era town that is more aptly described as one with many Edo-period-looking buildings.  It's both touristy and nice, two words I rarely use in conjunction.     

Tokyo - Biking

It's a Way of Life Here
It may be a stretch to characterize cycling as part of the Japanese DNA but if you spend some time here in the outskirts you might draw the same conclusion.  The train is king, no denying that - each town or neighborhood is built around the train station.  All the businesses are close to the station; there is always a grocery store or two, the post office, the library, the butcher, the schools, etc.  The housing radiates outwards from the station creating a giant circle of life the edges of which are quiet and overlap with the adjacent towns, no further than half a mile away.  Everything in town is done on the bike.  You take your kids to school that way, you go shopping that way - bouncing from small shop to small shop, filling up your basket (or baskets) as you go.

Tokyo - Schooling

Hitting the Books
We've finished our first week of school.  I've gotten over the initial disappointment of doing poorly on my entrance exam.  Reading and writing I did great, hardly missed one.  My speaking exam was horrendous.  As a result, they put me back a few chapters from where I've progressed with my tutor.  Right after the exam was over, they dropped me into an ongoing class.  I took my seat and everyone introduced themselves in Japanese.  I did the same.  There are seven of us at the moment - an Australian, American, two Germans, a Swiss, and a Mexican.  It's an interesting approach - the  schedule changes every day and every two hours you get a different teacher.  I think I had about six different teachers so far.  They all have one thing in common - they don't speak a word of English and you're not allowed to either.  We speak a lot - we write a lot - we have a lot of homework every day.

Tokyo - Cooking Class

Lessons from a Master
Our landlady's mother gives cooking classes so of course we took her up on her offer.  Hotaka, on the left, translated for her mom as we learned to cook two different dishes.  First, a meat and vegetable hotpot then okonomiyaki - a savory pancake filled with vegetables and pork.

Tokyo - Hiking

West, Into the Mountains
We hopped on a train bound for Chichibu, a small town renowned for hiking and onsen (thermal springs.)  It's an interesting train, it heads west for a short spell, stops at a station and then reverses out, heading northwest.  So, you're facing the direction of travel and then you're not.  This being Japan, there's a small lever at the end of your seat that you can press to spin it around 180 degrees if you like.  Most, like us, stayed seated and happily rode backwards into the mountains.

Tokyo - Spring has Sprung

Sakura Season
Today is the official kick off of Sakura season, which lasts approximately two weeks.  Not only are the cherry blossoms showing, just about everything is beginning to bloom.  We took a short train ride to a park south of our neighborhood to take it all in.  The custom is to take your camera, pitch a blanket and have a picnic.  We took some sandwiches and spent three hours walking around.  We also saw some bonzai trees that were hundreds of years old.  Enjoy the photos.

Tokyo - Japanese

Slow Improvement
Our Japanese classes start on April 2nd.  Four hours a day, five days a week.  I expect there will be homework as well, we'll find out soon.  Dodo is starting in the absolute beginner class, though she is a bit more advanced than that.  She has been practicing reading and writing the two Japanese alphabets every day.  I will find out what class I'm in once I arrive on the day.  We're using the same books that I've been using with my private teacher.  I am a quarter of the way into the second book and they think they'll be placing me in a class that starts near the end of the 1st book, which is fine by me.  It will give me a chance to review.  We went to Shinjuku to see where our class is going to be.  It's in a small commercial building.

Tokyo - Garbage

The Schizophrenia of Recycling in Japan
Japan takes recycling more seriously than any country I've been to.  The rules are daunting and most foreigners don't do it correctly.  When Jean lived here previously, she messed it up so bad that she started taking her garbage to the train station and chucking it there.  Luckily, our landlady left us instructions in English.  All plastic items other than PET bottles have to be washed, dried and then cut into pieces and put in a special "plastic refuse" garbage bag.  After you remove the cap and labels from the PET bottles then wash and dry them out, you carry them to the local supermarket to throw them in a special recycling can.

Tokyo - Life, Part II

Our Neighborhood
We are 15 miles outside of downtown Tokyo.  I guess you'd say we live in the suburbs or the "greater Tokyo area."  We live in Higashimurayama, in a small neighborhood called Tamakocho.

Tokyo - Life, Part I

Our House
We live in a relatively traditional wooden house.  It has no central heating, just area heaters and floor heaters that you can turn on if necessary. There is a small button on the wall you can press to heat the wooden floor. It has become necessary in the past few days as the temperature has dropped into the 30's and there was a coating of snow yesterday.  Downstairs, we have a large living room that has a western style table looking out through a panel of south-facing windows onto the back yard.

Singapore - Changes, Part III

Apartment Update
After our tenants moved back to France, Dodo's mom contacted Dodo and told her the house needed to be refreshed.  Let's just say, to be polite, that there was some sort of miscommunication.  The apartment got white-washed: all of the strong colors were removed, couches were changed, curtains added.  Not to our liking, shall we say?  So, a re-refresh was in order.  This is how the living room looked when we arrived.

Singapore - Changes, Part II

The Park Connector Network
They're ambitious here.  When they say they have a plan to be car light, they actually take action to make it happen.  By 2020 they plan to have 225 miles of dedicated lanes for biking, walking or running.  By 2030, the target is 435 miles.  They call it the Park Connector Network ("PCN") and the idea is to connect every park and green space in the country with these dedicated paths.  When I lived here a few years back they'd begun work on it but it wasn't very impressive.  I didn't have a bike at the time so I tried it out on foot and jokingly dubbed it the "stair connector network."  Every path invariably led to a staircase to traverse the highways or canals.  I didn't think very much of it.  A lot has changed.

Singapore - Changes, Part 1

Rental Bikes
From none to drowning in bikes, in just a single year.  They're everywhere - bikes to be rented by the minute, by the hour.  Even though Singapore has a grand plan to go 'car light' in the future, this was something I never expected.  There seem to be four to five companies competing, but the two I prefer are from China: Mobike and Ofo.  They're the cheapest and seem to have the most bikes.

Paris - Musée d'Orsay

Daily Goals
We're staying with Dodo's cousin in her two bedroom apartment in the Marais.  It's very comfortable, perhaps too comfortable.  I had to set myself a daily goal just to force myself out and about.  Usually it's something simple like "tomorrow my goal is to eat confit de canard."  I've been very successful I'll have you know.  By those standards, a trip across the river to the Orsay museum is epic.  I'd never been and it was time to rectify the oversight.