Endpiece

In my last couple of days in Japan, I do occassionally see for myself what some might consider indicators of the less boast-worthy sides of the country. The younger sister of my friend Jun (Jun, despite having seen me only once since the second grade, went out of his way to provide me with many contacts and suggestions from his current location in DC) explains to me on a boat ride on the Sumida river how every university junior in Japan must conform to the same appearance once they begin searching for jobs--same attire, same died black hair, etc--and proceeds to point out these aspiring businessmen and women on the train later on. When I attend Akiko's performance at a cafe along with Tokyo's Macalester contingent, the models/aspiring singers that are also on the bill (and should without question stick to modeling) are fawned over by decidedly creepy old men that may have made up the largest segment of the crowd. And before the boxing match, I come across a spot in the sports complex where hundreds of guys are standing around just smoking and playing lottery--it looked as though they might have been doing so for hours. There was also the decadence of late-night Roppongi, where West Africans somehow have cornered the market of strip club doormen and aggressively pursue customers (especially white ones--I cannot seem to wrap my head around why) as they try to make their way down the street. By the way, if you ever try to attend a club in Tokyo that advertises a night of "Old-School Hip Hop," do not think that you will necessarily hear old-school hip hop. ___________________________________________________ But my overall impression of Japan is that it is a generally well-functioning and (at least in modern times) a peace-seeking society--one that is deeply suffering from the global recession but one where an inept prime minister from a political family tree may not create the chaos that he might in some other countries (i.e. mine), because the populous appears to function pretty well on its own. However, I should emphasize on both ends--and I'm probably stating the obvious--that my observations here are not exactly substantial or nuanced. After three weeks of fairly intense gathering of information and perspectives of Israel/Palestine, I have to say--only partially in retrospect--that my travels that followed were pretty intellectually lazy. Not to say that mindless travel doesn't have its occassional merits, but I'm admittedly iffy on whether it has always warranted free-flowing public observations, and if there was something I would have done differently, it would have been to maintain a much higher level of curiosity. To put a positive spin on this point, it's another justification to partake in the self-indulgence of independent travel again if the opportunity ever presents itself. ___________________________________________________ As for basic personal enjoyment, I can't complain much, and I close my trip on a good note. The boxing match on my last evening, whick I attend with Jun's friend Daisuke, is a total experience. The fighters are not especially impressive, aside from a couple promising young guys early on and one Panamanian on the co-main event who had god-awful luck--a no-decision due to an early incedental head-butt in a fight he was totally dominating (this is only interesting to me). The crowds, on the other hand, are great--not the same level of intensity as in the Mexican v. Boricuan fight I saw in Chicago with Pete E, but decked out in the freshest of costumes according to the fighter they are supporting and totally engaged. After the fight, Akiko meets up with me in Shibuya and we grab some tea--the obvious drink of choice on a Saturday night. If I may be allowed one last instance of supreme-extra-cheese in my first (and probably only) foray into blogging, I have to say that the way I closed out my trip felt right: not having it out with the Japanese nightlife or seeing an interesting new sight or doing anything especially different from home, but just having good conversation with a friend who I hadn't seen in a long while. Akiko gets me on the last train back to my hostel (barely), and after three hours of passing time, I set back out in the dark to catch the first train out to Narita Airport. I crash as soon as I get on the train, but wake up once for a few seconds and catch a last glimpse of Tokyo at sunrise.

Converting to Shinto

When I leave my hostel on my first morning in Kyoto, the falling snow doesn't exactly fill me with nostalgia for Minnesota, but once I get across town to the first set of temples, the pay-off is twofold: the snow, often paired with equally intermittent sunshine, only makes everything in Kyoto even more attractive, and the cold seems to keep the destinations less crowded and more peaceful. At some locations, such as the Ryozen Kannon, I have the entire site all to myself for the full 20 or so minutes I'm there. The site itself was the first of several that made a pretty big impression on me: outside were big, isolated gravestones against the mountain, and inside are drawers and drawers filled with lines of little tablets naming soldiers that died on Japanese soil--not just from Japan, but from around the world. Inscribed on the center of the memorial is "All honor to him, friend or foe, who fought and died for his country. May the tragedy of his supreme sacrifice bring to us, the living, enligthenment and inspiration, fill us with ever-mounting zeal, for the all-compelling quest for world peace and brotherhood." Moving stuff, and something that, along with the peace memorial in Hiroshima that I did not get to see, says a lot of good about the society of Japan. ___________________________________________________ The temples and shrines in Kyoto--and there are just tons of them--are of course the big draw, and some of them are amazing places. Ginkakuji, for example, is covered by a mossy garden that I probably could have stared at for hours if not for the fact that I was trying to pack a lot into two days. And Fushimi Inari, a series of tunnels and paths over ascending stairs in the mountainside--the tunnels made of literally thousands of torii--was awesome at night. The torii were lit up all the way along the paths, which led to some of the most incredible views of the city, views that stretched to the mountains on most sides and to the skyline of Osaka in the distance to the south. Again, I'm the last person there, and it was kind of spooky (okay a little bit more then "kind of" when a cat breaks my solitude at a cemetary near the top of the path and starts howling like crazy), but walking through all of those torii in the dark is for the most part an, um, religious experience. I unfortunately do miss out on a couple of must-see temples though, including Heian Jingu, where I had really hoped to retrace the steps of the legendary Scarlett Johansson. I'm not joking at all. ___________________________________________________ Kyoto also has a ton of beauty beyond the sites. The city itself--and it's easy to forget there is a big and modern city there before you visit when all of the pictures you see are of removed, ancient locations--has some great residential architecture, and one really nice curvy walkway along a stream through several northern neighborhoods. And the mountains really do come *right* up to the edge of the city--at any given intersection you will see them in three directions, with the homes creeping up their lowest parts. At one point I walk through a couple of beautiful parks--another thing Japan seems to do excellently across the board--in the western edge of the city, and when I keep walking upwards in one of them, I find myself on a path along a mountain side, with a river flowing in the valley below. About a half-mile in, the city basically disappears. ___________________________________________________ While I loved being in many locations across the city, I think my favorite site was the Sandal Wood Hostel, with its rich history of all of four months. The operators of the hostel are an insanely cool and affectionate women named Jumi (who also happens to reinforce Kyoto's reputation for gorgeous women) and a very quiet but sweet-as-can-be guy named Zin. When you come home from hours of walking around, Jumi greets you with a big hug and asks you how your day went, listening attentively while you talk about the places you liked most. You sit down in the cozy living room and Zin puts on a jazz CD, brings out a cup of tea, and sits down to talk (or maybe just to sit) until the next guest returns. Later, Jumi cooks some pasta for those present, and follows the meal with a big plate of fruit. After eating, you gather on the floor around the table on the other side of the room with a bottle of sake and plum wine, and Jumi brings out guitars and a keyboard, which in this instance leads to an absolutely top-notch Aussie/Japanese jam session (the Aussies at the hostel were for the most part really thoughtful and interesting and artistic--totally breaking down the stereotypes I had developed over the course of the last month about the general void of substance within the continent). At some point you learn that Jumi and Zin were in an alternative band together, as the bassist and guitarist, respectively. The band was called "The Niplets". Seriously. Incidentally, they also have among their wide selection of CDs "Illmatic" and "Hell on Earth", and now KRS-One's self-titled album, which I bought in Tokyo but felt compelled to leave for their collection. Anyways, back to the evening: you stay up chatting with the other guests and the hosts (when they're not doing some of the occasional hostel management), and when you finally go to bed, at some late hour, Jumi gives you another big hug goodnight, and thanks you and wishes you safe travels because you probably won't see her before you leave the next morning, because she'll probably be sleeping past noon. I consider myself aware of superficiality, maybe even overly suspicious of it, but I think there is pretty much zero at this place--Jumi told me she started it less so to be a business and more so just to get to know people from around the world, and considering I had to remind her on several occasions that I still owed her money for my last night, I don't doubt her for a nanosecond. Best hostel on Earth.

Another Giant City

I do some exploring while on my own my first couple of days in Tokyo, but I'm still not back to 100 percent, and I find that after two or three hours of walking around I'm ready to go back to the hostel and relax or take a nap. But I manage to see some nice temples in Asakusa, the old neighborhood where my hostel is located, and stomach a bit of tempura at a famous nearby restaurant, where I'm seated with a couple of American businessmen who kindly tell me that "konichiwa" does not mean "thank you" (*slaps forehead*). I see a couple of very nice parks and gardens, and a couple of great acrobatic performances in Ueno Park, and visit a couple of hip hop shops in the busy and popular area of Shibuya. And I stop by the Tokyo Dome and get the scoop on a boxing match the following weekend: I had wanted to catch a Daisuke Naito fight--he's one of my favorite current fighters to watch and according to the mother of one of my mom's former students (I met the two of them for a very nice visit to the Edo-Tokyo museum a couple of days later) he's also "very nice"--but the fighters who were fighting looked to be pretty good as well. ___________________________________________________ Meanwhile, I spend almost no time exploring the Tokyo nightlife. There was an R&B night that I wanted to check out at a club in Shibuya called "Harlem", but again, my body was telling me to go easy, so I spend most of my nights hanging out at the hostel and going to sleep early. I meet a couple interesting people, including a Swedish girl who is planning to take the Trans-Siberian rail back home and already has her next flight booked for Easter Island (I never went too long feeling especially adventurous on my trip), and spend plenty of time in my bed, a wooden box that sort of felt like a big coffin, but I guess afforded some decent privacy. The one time I do a little walking around at night, it's too early to see anything too exciting, although I guess it was sort of interesting getting accosted by a woman outside of a "massage parlor" who grabbed a tight hold of my arm while urgently whispering "Seckesa! Seckesa!" before I freed myself from her grip. ___________________________________________________ My proper visit to Tokyo really starts when I met Akiko in Shimo-Kitazawa, the place where she grew up and lives now, on an uncharacteristically warm day. It's a quirky, artsy neighborhood--the type of place where on Valentine's Day, you could walk out of a restaurant and find four nerdy guys on a mat at the intersection yelling to the passing girls (as translated to me) "We want chocolate! Give us chocolate!" Unfortunately, like in many of the most interesting neighborhoods in the US, a real estate and development crunch is not being kind to current members of the community, but for now, it definitely seems to be maintaining its character. We walk through these great little commercial streets and then along one residential street with a stream running down it (the urban planner bells in my head were ringing loudly) to a park where there is a small festival celebrating the plum blossoms, and then stop for a while at an empty little garden set up next to the park, and then walk back through a few other residential streets with beautiful homes and yards until we find a nice cafe, where I satisfy a long-held craving for pizza. It was sort of a perfect little tour, and it made me wonder what I missed out on by not having friends in places like Hanoi and Guangzhou. We finish by visiting the 25th floor of a nearby building called the Carrot Building, where there is a big lounge with these amazing views of the lights of Tokyo, going off endlessly in every direction. Akiko says it's a place she's always been able to go when she's needed to wind down, and I could see why.

Of Hong Kong and Moderation

Mike greets me at his MTR station in Hong Hong with a cheap local beer, and I quickly sense that any level of restraint in my visit will be short-lived. When we take a brief walk through his neighborhood on the way to dinner, a huge building looms a few blocks down his street--the Nina Tower, Mike tells me, built by and named for recently deceased billionaire Nina Wang. Originally it was designed to be the tallest building in the world, but because of its proximity to the airport (it really isn't *that* close), it had to be remodeled into two separate structures, the taller of which is still over 1,000 feet tall. Mike says it was a totally unnecessary development, built mostly for pride and extravagance. Another early indication that Hong Kong and moderation are essentially polar. ___________________________________________________ I do some sightseeing the next day while Mike is working, capped by a visit to Victoria Peak, which really is a complete mind bender the way in which the views dwarf such a massive set of buildings. When I meet Mike back down at the bottom, we head through some of the central business district, and I get a brief tour of the architectural advancements contained within. For example, I learn that the HSBC Building can be taken apart quite easily--you know, just in case the time ever arrives when HSBC needs to transport their huge headquarters down the street a few blocks. We stop for a quick drink at a swanky downtown bar, one where we very noticeably do not fit in, overlooking the river and then Kowloon (the mainland) on the other side. Scotch and Amaretto for me, Brandy and Coke for Mike. When we polish them off, we leave as inconspicuously as possible with glasses still in hand. Apparently this is standard procedure for Mike. He stops us at a wine store in the shopping center below the bar and buys a cheap Chilean red wine, and he refills the glasses before we pass through a fancy department store on the way out of the building. Nobody seems to mind too much. ___________________________________________________ Across the river by way of the Star Ferry, we head to a riverfront plaza to watch the light show. The show, done every single night at 8 PM, is a symphony of neon lights that dance on various buildings along the unbelievably long skyline comprising the west side of Hong Kong Island, harmonized to the tune of cheesy Chinese music that can only be heard on our side of the water. These are the highly practical everyday occurrences that show the Hong Kong leadership is hard at work (I have to be honest though, it was pretty damn cool). Once the show is over, we head through another uber-fancy set of stores along the water and in some indeterminate direction inland, passing a couple of Ferraris along the way. We end up at a Korean Barbecue, where we indulge in a huge assortment of meats and pickled vegetables--it was celestial--and finish the bottle of wine, leaving the glasses from the bar on the table. Nobody in the restaurant seems to mind that we brought the bottle in either. Joined by another friend of Mike's, we head through a big night market and spend way too much time looking through an enormous collection of patches at one stand (I found and bought one of these), and we head back to the apartment to crash well after midnight. Mike is a hell of a team player--I was able to sleep off the wine but he had to go to work early the next morning. ___________________________________________________ The rest of my tour of Hong Kong is a little more low-key, but lots of fun. We get proper dim sum on a Friday afternoon, get a couple drinks in the bar district with Mike's buddies the same night, and the next day go to Mike's old stomping grounds: a big, isolated hill (above the park where Bruce Lee used to train) with a great view of Kowloon from the other direction. Getting up on the hill took a small amount of trespassing, but was of course totally worth it. The only time I ever felt the need to question Mike's sense of adventure was when he cooked a meal of fresh produce--very fresh produce--from his local market. I was semi-comfortable eating unknown meats in Nanning, but feeling the crawdads kicking in the bag before they met their demise on the stove was a little further outside of my comfort zone. ___________________________________________________ We had planned to do some other sightseeing--a tour of the light rail in a more working class neighborhood (kind of reminds me of a nuisance from life back home) and a trip to a theme park--but on the way back after visiting Mike's hill and playing some basketball, I begin to feel pretty under the weather, and my condition gets worse as the evening goes on. I spend the last two days of my stay barely able to leave the couch, and had just enough of my energy back the following morning to get to the airport and catch my flight to Tokyo. Mike made sure I had everything I needed (basically the couch, water, whatever food I could manage to swallow, and a few comedy DVDs)--I suppose I was going to get sick and one point or another, and I feel fortunate enough that I caught whatever I caught at his place rather than in transit or at a hostel somewhere.

Dim Sum Alone

The night I arrive in Guangzhou, it wins me over quickly--a state-of-the-art and english-friendly rail system, subsequent arrival to a fun little waterfront neighborhood where my hostel was located, a great meal at a nearby Muslim Noodle Restaurant, and a walk along the pier looking across the river to downtown. The next day I follow the recommendations of the hostel receptionist and go to the Chen Clan Academy, an exhibit of just unreal Chinese sculptures and paintings, contained in different rooms in a temple that was impressive in its own right. Even the stuff in the gift shop was out of this world (and not at all unaffordable). I'm far from an art-head, but I walked away with my jaw on the floor. ___________________________________________________ My other stop was Yuexiu Park. The parks I went to in China were so different than I expected: they were more like hilly forests, with paths and stairways through a huge variety of trees and plants that lead to all sorts of different features, big and small: a big sculpture of rams, or a hidden waterfall, or a temple, or a mini-theme park for kids. The activities of the patrons were equally diverse: chinese chess, badminton, ballroom dancing, singing and playing music, etc. Towards the end of my walk I come around a corner and in front of me are a set of basketball courts. I can't resist hopping in a three on three game--leaving my passport and other belongings under the hoop--and end up playing until dusk. I'm rusty and honestly intimidated by all of the eyes on me, so I probably disappoint, but in the end I hold my own against my smaller foes and my team wins most of our games. When it gets dark and everyone gets ready to leave, a couple guys invite me to play the next day, but I tell them I'll be on my way to Hong Kong by then. Otherwise I definitely would have gone back. I would love to visit the city again. ___________________________________________________ The only blemish on my brief experience in Guangzhou is my ill-fated attempt to get dim sum by myself before leaving town, at an acclaimed downtown restaurant. The highlight of the debacle is probably when I abandon all that I had been told about Chinese etiquette (maybe outdated information anyway) and choose not to consume the full plate of six tennis-ball sized custard rolls I somehow managed to order. I end up making a full spectacle out of myself, but I think I make the right decision, because vomiting all over my table probably would have been far less well received. The waitress voluntarily bags up the remaining four rolls, and with a sympathetic smile, sends me on my way with my leftovers.

A Warm Reception in Nanning

In a visit filled with spotty weather, my last day in Hanoi is gorgeous, one where it's almost impossible not to be in a good mood. I visit the jam-packed Temple of Literature--as I leave the crowds make room for a music-led, double-file entrance of maybe a hundred women wearing long, light-blue dresses--and have lunch across the street at a well-designed non-profit/business venture called Koto. Later, I take a book out to the lake, and I guess by virtue of my solitude, end up attracting a couple of local residents, including the single most adorable adult human being I've ever met: a little university student wearing a big pink hat who quietly joins me on my bench and ends up talking with me for over two hours, despite the language barrier. Every time I say something to her, she repeats the last word of my sentence and nods assertively--it was sweet. I round out the day by going with a Danish girl from the hostel to make a last round to my favorite Old Quarter food spots--a pho street-stand and a hole-in-the-wall restaurant that makes nothing but pork-filled rice crepes all day. I'm up at 7:30 the next morning and soon on board an 8-hour bus ride to Nanning. ___________________________________________________ Word on the street--and in my China guidebook--was that Nanning had little to offer a traveler, so my plan was to catch a sleeper the same night to Guangzhou. I make it across town from the bus station to the train station pretty easily, but when I go to the ticket counter, the clerk informs me that the next train available is February 8--nine days away. Awesome. Thankfully, I had looked up a cheap hotel in Nanning before leaving, just in case. After eating a meal of unknown meats at the train station--the girls behind the counter laughing uncontrollably at me the whole time--a guy who hears me trying in futility to order in my native tongue senses I may be a lost puppy, and takes the time to assist me in getting a taxi to the hotel (I'm at peace with whatever it was that I ate--I was starving and tired and it tasted good). Once I got settled in my room, I felt pretty good about my delay: I watch TV while going to bed, sleep nine hours, and take a long, consistently warm shower the next morning--all firsts for my trip. ___________________________________________________ The next morning I head back to the bus station and buy a ticket for the following day, and then I get to exploring the city. I don't know how Nanning got it's reputation for being drab, because it's actually really, really nice: very walkable, full of energy and street life, maybe the greenest big city I've visited, and packed with tasteful and attractive parks and plazas. But whatever it was, the reputation must be widespread, because over the course of my visit, I literally saw tens of thousands of people across the city, and I was the one and only Westerner in sight. A brief categorization of the reactions to my exceedingly foreign presence: a) Amusement: similar to my experience with the girls in the train station restaurant, many occasions on which I was a customer were greeted with strangely elongated and intense laughter. b) Wonderment: children gave me prolonged looks filled with awe, but even some adults seemed sort of fascinated by my presence. The guy next to me on my bus to Guangzhou watched my every move--every time I changed a song on my I-Pod, turned a page in my book, or turned to look out the window. c) Thrill: this one was an exception--my taxi driver to the bus station the morning of my departure, who was clearly good-hearted but more than a little crazy. She was bursting with excitement to get to speak her recently acquired English with me--even forced me to move to the front seat so we could talk more easily--and when we got to the station she refused to accept my money. d) Empathy: a couple people went out of there way to help me out, including the guy at the train station and the only English speaker on my bus, which was very nice. ___________________________________________________ The most common reaction, though, truly seemed scornful and disapproving. I started noticing the trend while walking through downtown--people's facial expressions would transform into what I perceived to be a glare immediately after noting my presence--and the reactions became so regular while walking in People's Park (the flora-filled centerpiece of the city) that after a while I felt compelled to leave. When I got back to the hotel and spoke with the woman at the front desk, I asked (probably with little tact) why I was getting so many looks that seemed so negative, and she replied: "They are probably upset that they can't have a conversation with you because they can't speak English and you can't speak Chinese. But in the future, Nanning will get better and better!" The explanation that I got from a couple English teachers at the hostel in Guangzhou seemed more natural: that I was misinterpreting the body language and what appears to an American to be a glare is simply a long look-over out of curiosity or surprise. They were probably right, but whatever the case, at the time I had such a distinct feeling of being ostracized just because of my appearance--it's definitely a feeling that a white male growing up in the US doesn't experience too often.

Tiny Women and Happy Water

On the sleeper to Lao Cai, I share a room with a sweet, happy Vietnamese family of four, including a precious two-month old baby (the baby is sleeping the whole time, which presumably means he is happy too). They invite me to join a makeshift Tet celebration before we all go to bed, which consists of cheap beer and beef jerky, and we chat for a while as best we can. I go to sleep in good spirits, but get woken up by a loud knock on our door at 5:00 the next morning when we reach Lao Cai, and sleepily walk outside to a cold, heavy fog. Needless to say, my mood wasn't so good anymore, and only worsened by the fact that a visit to the spectacular hills in the northwest corner of Vietnam is only worthwhile if you can actually see the hills. ___________________________________________________ After breakfast in nearby Sapa, my tour group--a decidedly unhappy bunch at the time--is taken on a van ride and then led on a short walk down a muddy hill to a small village, where we all try to keep our shoes and pants as clean as we can. On the way down, tiny women from the village pair off with us and begin asking us questions about where we're from, our families, etc. This is all exceedingly confusing to us all until we realize that our "short walk" is actually a ten-mile hike, most of which is along a narrow, slippery, hilly path along the hillside across from the village. It is absolutely impossible to keep your footing on the path, especially when you're wearing old, worn out New Balances, and every step feels like a disaster in the making--at least after my first fall, straight on my rear, I don't have to think about keeping my jeans clean anymore. At one point, as we're crossing the tiny ridge of a water-filled rice terrace, I'm being held up at the hips by our guide while my tiny woman is gripping my front arm, which is all that can be done to keep me from falling face-first into the water. I'm seriously wondering at this point if I should just turn back, get on the next train to Hanoi, and fall back asleep. ___________________________________________________ After a while, when our bodies warm up and we start to find both the challenge and the humor in the whole sort of surreal hike we're on, the mood brightens a bit. And, although during the hike itself I was too busy watching my shoes and finding God to stop and look around, we do pause occasionally at little landings to regroup, and the fog has cleared enough to see our surroundings--it really is as breath-taking as advertised: a long, green valley with seemingly endless rice terraces in both directions, big rolling hills above them, a rocky stream flowing at the bottom, and a few scattered homes along the ridge. When we get moving again, it's still impossible to get up the hills of the path alone, but the women are shockingly strong--even though they couldn't be more than 4'6" and 80 pounds, they are able to hold or pull the entire weight of their comparatively inept partner without slipping or stumbling once. I was too in awe of my tiny woman to feel at all demoralized that a tiny woman was holding my hand in order for me to survive the hike. When we get near the next village, the women pull out the bags they're carrying and transform into saleswomen--so I guess they weren't just helping a bunch of tourists out of the goodness of their hearts. We all buy things, in essence to pay them for their services, and they head back to their village with their spoils. ___________________________________________________ After a lunch break, the rest of our walk is pretty easy--a dirt road, and then a steep (but thankfully dry) path down a long hill to the village where we'll be spending the night. On the way down, the view of our destination and the valley/hills stretching behind it is again really spectacular--at times we just stop and stare for a while. When we get to our homestay, we are treated to an array of really good dishes, and after we are done eating, our guide breaks out a Aquafina bottle filled with potent "Happy Water" (i.e. home-brewed rice wine, which is much closer to vodka than it is to wine). Our tour group (five Germans working in Beijing, two middle-aged Israeli-American couples, a pair of cheery young Australians, and myself) relaxes and chats while downing shots to the traditional cheers of our various homelands. Shockingly, I end up in a long and frustrating debate about Israel/Palestine with one of the Israeli couples, but for the most part, everything is really relaxed and totally enjoyable, no doubt due in large part to the perfectly peaceful setting. It ends up being one of the nicest nights of my trip. When the Aquafina bottle is polished off, around 8:30 PM or so, the group slowly shrinks as people head to the row of mats in the homestay house and fall into sleep. ___________________________________________________ The next day is much warmer, and everyone is decidedly more well-rested and happier than on day one. The village is filled with farm animals (it seems to have embraced the economic benefits of tourism without losing its foundation as an agricultural village), and when I walk downstairs, the first thing I see is a male and a female pig walking towards each other down different streets that meet at our guesthouse, almost like businesspeople on a weekday morning. The pigs meet at the intersection, the male sniffs the female's behind, and they each continue on their way to to their respective destinations, the female wagging her tail vigorously. I love animals. After a breakfast of crepes, we head on a nice hike along the rocks beside a stream, eventually reaching a small waterfall, and then after lunch, back up the hill to the main road, which is a tough but rewarding climb. A few hours back in Sapa to eat street food and rejoin the mass of tourists, and then we head back to Hanoi as a dirty, foul-smelling, and pretty content group of folks.