Around the world in 5 words

One of the sobering parts about this trip sofar is the realization that the world is getting to be rather homogeneous. Though I can't complain about the cool things I have seen, life here seems to be getting to be rather similar to the world I already knew.

Frankly, one of the biggest differentiating factors is still... language.

I have been into languages all my life, I studied linguistics, even designed my own languages, and since an early age I made learning as many languages as I could my "hobby". One of those languages was chinese, and though I didn't get very far with it, it definitely helped, and allowed me to pick up more chinese words quicker.

Of course, even as someone very much into languages, faced with japanese, korean, chinese, thai, hindi, arabic, and turkish, there was no way no how I could have learned anything meaningful for this trip. So for the three countries sofar it has been a procedure of: arrive at the airport, get your hands on a quick phrase list, and see how far you can get with just a few words.

Surprisingly, you can get very far. Being creative, you can get away with VERY few words and still communicate, even facing people that don't speak a word of english, and who have a rather different culture.

Here's how to get around the world in 5 words or so:

thank you: this is what you'll say by FAR the most often :) It also substitutes for "good bye"

hello / excuse me: you need one of these 2, to draw attention from people when you want something, but also, even if you intend to ask a question in english, starting with something in the native languages shows that you care at least a little bit and gives a positive starting point.

one/two: you don't need more counting words than these. "one" is particularly flexible, since it can substitute for I/we want/buy kind of phrases, by just using "one" and pointing at stuff. Sometimes also learning "I want" is useful, where "one" may be ambiguous.

yes: used a lot more often than no :) confirmation is very useful.

where: don't bother with "where is", sentence structure is so overrated.

China

I have just arrived in Beijing, and have spent the past 6 days in Nanjing & Shanghai.

This is certainly a country with more extremes, the recent economic growth has affected a lot of people, but certainly not everyone yet. Exiting my friends luxurious apartment (on the 46th floor of a high rise with multiple views of the yangtze and the city), past the numerous gate guards you walk straight into a very old neighborhood where people are washing themselves in the streets, and little markets where they sell homegrown vegetables, assorted animal bits, live ducks, skinned ducks, and processing all stages in between.

Traffic here is yet crazier than in Korea (and I haven't been to India yet!), sitting in the front seat of a taxi is an interesting rollercoaster of near-misses. Busses, vans, cars, mopeds, bikes, pedestrians all use the same space with no organization, lanes and traffic signs are mere decoration. As with everything here, taxis are so incredibly cheap (a 10 minute trip for little over a dollar) so there is little point in using public transport.

Food has been hit & miss, certainly my favourite sofar has been "hot pot", where you get a pot on a fire on your table, split in 2 for spicy and non-spicy soup/broth, in which you then cook your own meat/fish/vegetables as you eat.

If, as a guy, you think you can't possible get enough of girls wanting to chat you up, then you haven't been to Shanghai yet. At first I thought it was cool, locals trying to talk to me, but after a whole day of "oh, you're so tall" every 5 minutes, I had to start ignoring them as if they were beggars, which was quite surreal.

Korea

So South Korea is definitely different from Japan... messier, dirtier, louder... the people are less reserved, traffic is crazy, food is.. well, can be really good, but generally less sophisticated. Very high tech though, the various phones/gadgets I see being used on the subway is 2 years ahead of the US.

We did a nice variety of things, from crazy markets and temples, and natural beauty (mountains close to seoul), and we even rented a car to experience korean traffic jams first hand.. good fun.

Did I say markets? For me, one of the craziest things about seoul is the shops here. Think of any specialized item, say, um, toothbrushes, electric plugs, paint, whatever, then imagine a shop 3x3 meters (10x10 feet) jam-packed with just those items... then imagine several dozen stores in the same street right next to eachother mostly identical... it is quite surreal. The prettiest I found one street where tons of small shops sold and produces gears and other other mechanical items... a nice composition of fotos I took from all those shops forthcoming, I'll include a single sample below.

Sushi Binge

We are about to fly to seoul... so here some last pictures from Japan. The most amazing was the fish market in full action... this is the craziest thing I have seen in a while. Entire football fields worth of fishermen and merchents busily selling stuff that has just been caught, and, um, cutting it up and stuff. Then of course eating it fresh after, which has been both some of the best and cheapest fish I have ever had, at the same time. Can't beat that.

Mount fuji was awesome too, sadly a bit foggy so no grand views of the peak, but it made the moon-like landscapes even more surreal.

Kyoto & Nagoya..

Quick update... seen a lot of cool things, see below :)

We probably had the best dinner in a long time yesterday, in this friendly neighbourhood sushi place, where they serve fish killed on the spot for maximum freshness. At one point the chef takes a tied up octopus out of the basin, unties it at which point it starts flapping wildly (it was pretty big, probably 3ft in stretch), chops off one of its tentacles and puts the rest of the octopus back in the basin. The tentacle gets quickly skinned, and then the internal part of the tentacle keeps flopping around as it gets chopped to pieces... pretty crazy to watch. The fish at this place was some of the most amazing I have ever tasted, suprisingly, the most amazing was the shrimp which tasted nothing like any shrimp I have ever tasted before.

The japanese are generally amazingly helpful beyond expectations, but they are not much into randomly socializing with foreigners... not so the people at this sushi place, which went to great lengths to make we got to taste every crazy type of fish/vegetable we had never heard of. Oh, and the sake...

We are off to the architecture museum right now, followed by a seaside drive towards mount fuji..

Kei Fun

We have just arrived in Kyoto! We have been driving the last few days through the countryside, the mountainous areas of Japan are really quite spectacular, and the smaller towns have the more traditional houses.

We've been driving a "Kei Car" which visually is an absolutely miniature car, but inside it is actually rather spacious (more room than my Z). The challenge is more the high center of gravity, the tiny tires and engine (0.6L) which makes these mountain roads more, um, interesting.

Driving on the left was way easier than expected for both of us, its instantly intuitive, and I don't have to focus much at all to be sure to be on the correct side of the road. Which is odd because I normally confuse left & right rather easily. We did get stopped by the police (who giggled at my texas drivers license) for crossing a railroad without stopping first (oops).

We stayed in a traditional ryokan (japanese style hotel), which means sleeping on thin mats on the floor and communal baths.

Doko Maguro...?

We have arrived in Tokyo! From the plane it all looked rather european, some dutch style canals even, but from up close it is all rather different. Even though Tokyo is huge, everything here feels scaled down, and is scaled down (see evidence exhibit A below), they get very creative with using as little space as possible for everything.

First things first, we went to fish market this morning, but little was open as it is apparently a national holiday, but we had some sushi for breakfast anyway.

Though certain things are rather easy (like the subway), there are almost no people here that can speak a full sentence of english, which is a fun adventure, as are the many symbol-only signs. Our pathetic attempts at japanese are greeted with polite smiles.

Tomorrow we will pick up the rental kei-car and venture into the country side...

Where I am going...

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