Author Topic: It's Another BigMike's Japanese Vacation! [many pics!] (Read 23767 times)

BigMike · « **on:** Sep 01, 2011, 09:14:18 PM »

BigMike's Japanese Trip Threads

		Pages	Date
First	BigMike's Big Japanese Vacation	12+ (incomplete)	December 2005
Second	BigMike's Big Japanese Vacation II	3 (haven't even uploaded a single picture)	June-July 2006
Third	BigMike's Big Mini Japanese Vacation	4+ (incomplete)	June 2010
Fourth	It's Another BigMike's Japanese Vacation! (currently viewing)	4+ (incomplete)	September 2011
Fifth	BigMike's 2013 Japanese Vacation	Just started	December 2013

It's time again for another trip across the great pond to the Island Nation!

I don't have much time to post, so here goes! My brother-in-law is getting married next week so my wife & I are off to great food and nice people!

This will be a shirt trip but with a really cool highlight: For the same ticket price, we are first stopping off in Beijing!! We extended our stay in China for 3 nights and will get to check out the forbidden city and some wall that ppl keep talking about, amongst other things!

It's gonna be great and we don't have much time! We are on the 101 right now heading to the S.F. Airport. After a quick stop in LA, it'll be CHINA HERE WE COME!!!

I'm posting this from my iPhone and may not get a chance to (really) update this thread until next Monday or Tuesday. So until then I'll take a ton of pictures and in typical fashion I'll post up some killer trip reports! Hopefully this time I'll actually finish all my trip updates before abandoning this thread

Have a nice Labor Day Weekend and see everyone at the Round Up!! (we get back Friday right before MCRX)

CYA!
BigMike and Misato

zembalayan · « **Reply #1 on:** Sep 01, 2011, 09:18:20 PM »

Have a great trip!

rockin86runner · « **Reply #2 on:** Sep 01, 2011, 09:20:01 PM »

sweet have a good trip see ya at round up

ajordan1975 · « **Reply #3 on:** Sep 01, 2011, 09:45:11 PM »

Enjoy!!

jrock · « **Reply #4 on:** Sep 01, 2011, 09:49:40 PM »

Lucky little Mike. I am quite jealous

*FFC* · « **Reply #5 on:** Sep 01, 2011, 11:12:51 PM »

Nothin like cutting it close!! Have fun!!

fordh8r · « **Reply #6 on:** Sep 01, 2011, 11:33:08 PM »

have a fun and safe trip BM!

See you on the return trip!

83 Crawler · « **Reply #7 on:** Sep 01, 2011, 11:38:51 PM »

Have fun!!! Take lots of pictures

IMMUDDY · « **Reply #8 on:** Sep 02, 2011, 06:31:00 AM »

Hey , while you are in China. Why not snap a pic of the local competitor's parts suppliers/builders?

I crack myseld up sometimes.

83 Crawler · « **Reply #9 on:** Sep 02, 2011, 07:56:33 AM »

Quote from: IMMUDDY on Sep 02, 2011, 06:31:00 AM

Hey , while you are in China. Why not snap a pic of the local competitor's parts suppliers/builders? I crack myseld up sometimes.

Rocksurfer · « **Reply #10 on:** Sep 03, 2011, 02:46:59 AM »

Quote from: IMMUDDY on Sep 02, 2011, 06:31:00 AM

Hey , while you are in China. Why not snap a pic of the local competitor's parts suppliers/builders? I crack myseld up sometimes.

BWAAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BigMike · « **Reply #11 on:** Sep 04, 2011, 06:13:11 AM »

Checking in from a Peking Duck restaurant in Bejing

It is 9pm Sun night here, 2nd day abroad. We went to the Great Wall of China today and I outpaced our Mongolian guide while hiking 32 towers!! I'll have to wait till I get to a computer in Japan to post up pics (currently on my iPhone via Wifi). We are having a GREAT time! Will talk later, Mike

jrock · « **Reply #12 on:** Sep 04, 2011, 08:49:49 AM »

Mikes posting from the future

brainlessfool · « **Reply #13 on:** Sep 04, 2011, 10:20:34 AM »

Quote from: jrock on Sep 04, 2011, 08:49:49 AM

Mikes posting from the future

that makes me hot.

IMMUDDY · « **Reply #14 on:** Sep 04, 2011, 10:47:55 AM »

Quote from: jrock on Sep 04, 2011, 08:49:49 AM

Mikes posting from the future

HAHAHA
It is still not Sunday 9pm here.
We

you BigMike from the future.

Have a good time on your trip.
See you at the Round-Up.

BigMike · « **Reply #15 on:** Sep 06, 2011, 07:23:35 AM »

Hey guys! Checking in here from Osaka, Japan! We had a safe flight to the land of the rising sun and even got a chance for a quick trip over the foothills to Kyoto before dinner. We are staying at a friends 14th floor Apa-to (apartment) tonight and then will head to Misato's hometown of Kumamoto (located on the southern island of Kyushu) early tomorrow morning.

We had to wake up at 4am in Beijing this morning as we took our last Chinese taxi cab ride to catch a very early flight. Beijing is a very interesting city, there of course was so much that we couldn't see/do, and wow

what a cultural & civilazitional shocker!!

I am not sure when I'll get time to share pics, but I have many awesome things to post up!

Hope everything is going well back home, gotta go!

BigMike
Tuesday 11:22 PM

superyota · « **Reply #16 on:** Sep 06, 2011, 09:06:15 AM »

sounds like your having a good time big mike. post up pics when you get a chance.

BigMike · « **Reply #17 on:** Sep 06, 2011, 08:26:07 PM »

Quote from: superyota on Sep 06, 2011, 09:06:15 AM

sounds like your having a good time big mike. post up pics when you get a chance.

Will do for sure!

We finally made it to Misato's home in Kumamoto, Japan. We are on the island of Kyushu up in the foothills east of Nagasaki. Local time is 12:20pm Wed afternoon. The weather here us very nice, clear blue sky with a few pretty white clouds. Guessing, I'd say the temperature is in the lower 80s and the humidity is around 50%.

It is verrrrrry nice to see my family-in-law again!! I really miss everyone over here, I can't imagine how much more Misato must feel.

Anyhow, all is well, I'm still using my iPhone (and the images on here are far to large to upload to the forum), should be able to get on a computer later tonight!!

Cya!
Mike

BigMike · « **Reply #18 on:** Sep 07, 2011, 05:37:16 AM »

Okay guys, time for some pictures!!

Here we are leaving S.F. Intl. headed for Beijing with a quick layover in LAX

Made it to Beijing Capitol International Airport! It was only an 11 hr flight; I thought it would take longer.

Waiting for our luggage to arrive

We couldn't walk more than 10 feet and there was yet another Starbucks. I'm afraid the rumors are true, it's a global plague.

Not far away from the $tarbuck$ I found this

Yeah, crazy huh! I've never seen a Jeep apparel store before.

We got some USD exchanged into Yuan!! The exchange rate was about 7 yuan to 1 USD. We pretty much felt like millionaires hahaha

On our way out of the terminal, I found this. It was PACKED with Chinese people! I felt really weird taking a picture of the place. Fast food is a last resort option for me (I've not had McD's in I'd guess over 6 years). I always think its strange that the "typical lazy American" eats at the golden arches everyday and yet there I was the whitest tourist in the building who doesn't enjoy McDonald's with 40-something Chinese people get'n their bigmac awn while watching me take their picture.

One last shot of the 1st floor before we made like a tree

BigMike · « **Reply #19 on:** Sep 07, 2011, 05:55:36 AM »

We had a rough time trying to find out where we could store our luggage (as we had packed a lot of stuff for our next flight to Japan, stuff we wouldn't need in China)

Finally made it to the airport train, came across a Hyundai showcase

Some artificial grass next to the train entrance

Chinese countryside outside of Beijing! Cool!

Starting to get closer to the city now... WOW so many apartment buildings!!

Some cool grass area

Transferring to the "Line 2" subway line.

It's actually a really well designed subway system with 19 stations city wide. They are building another dozen or so stations with numerous more lines, all set to be open by 2025.

The blue circle ring is the "Line 2" and encircles the heart of the city. Our stop for our hotel is the Guloudajie station, which is the 3rd stop after the airport line from Dongzhi men station...

Purchasing subway tickets. For those of you who can't decipher Chinese characters, don't worry, they have an English menu. Misato probably knows over 4,000 Japanese Kanji, which are imported Chinese characters with, for the most part, different meanings, but she was surprisingly able to read enough broken Chinese characters that she had a pretty good understanding of things.

The busy traffic in the subway station

Here are humans doing well at acting like sardines. We experienced plenty of other much more crowded subway rides, but when it gets really crowded I literally cannot take even 1 picture.

Outside the Guloudajie station we found this tour bus full of caucasians. LOL They were staring and pointing at me and vice versa hahaha

BigMike · « **Reply #20 on:** Sep 07, 2011, 06:09:41 AM »

After arriving at our final station, we had to get to our hotel. The hotel about 3/4 mile's walk down the main road right outside the station.

We passed this bicycle rental place that merited a quick snap

Chinese magazines at a small street convenience store

One thing I noticed right away is that the city is under heavy construction. There were hard hat wearing construction workers crawling all over the city. Even in the above photo. As we had read in both our Lonely Planet & Eyewitness Beijing travel guides, this city really truly is evolving right before our eyes.

There were a bunch of doggies in the city, hardly any had leashes, many seemed to be without any owner. This sad? sleepy? fellow is the exception as most dogs were very active, walking around with light feet, looking like they were having a great time being free.

Sights like this soon became a common occurrence as we would soon discover

Check it out, street side bicycle repair! We saw a number of these gigs

Nearly every alleyway was buzzing with life

Looking over the construction site, I was able to get a quick glimpse of Chinese apartment life.

Yours truly pulling out some yaun from an ATM. Beijing is very debit card traveler friendly as many ATMs are part of the Star network.

BigMike · « **Reply #21 on:** Sep 07, 2011, 06:35:59 AM »

Traditional architecture commingling with the modern world

A lady carries her white dog grocery bag style

Another example of old buildings. We quickly discovered that the fledgling Beijing modernization was engulfing old buildings. I thought it was awesome seeing so many preserved/original buildings.

Check it out! A fish out of water!

Complete with the Chinese characters that read "Beijing". Actually nearly every car had this.

These Samurai dudes (for a lack of a better understanding) I believe are warriors buried with former Chinese emperors which are being dug up and found in recent excavating. No, I'm sure they are not the real McCoy, but these guys represent strength or protection as they were used in the afterlife as guards/warriors of deceased emperors. They were more or less commonplace.

Nice clean sidewalks with plenty to catch our wandering eyes

Here is a picture of my first Hutong! Hutongs are narrow allies where the commoners lived during the heydays of the imperial reign. Today with the increasing land value within the city, many hutongs are being destroyed to make way for glorious monstrasities, yet there are many, many hutongs still very well alive and thriving as we would soon find out.

Found this American restaurant with some comical window signs

Misato pointing out that my days could very well be numbered (or I suppose repeated?) at any time. Sign reads, "I Recycle Boyfriends" hahahaha

BigMike · « **Reply #22 on:** Sep 07, 2011, 06:52:08 AM »

We finally found the street for our hotel!

We really wanted to stay at a traditional place, so we went with the Four Seasons Courtyard Hotel. Here is a shot of the quaint courtyard, complete with gold fish swimming around in the plant pots!

We were greeted by a very nice young Chinese fellow named Andy, who spoke pretty good English. We checked in early and then left for some sightseeing. Here is the breakfast spread we enjoyed in haste.

Here is our very first Rickshaw ride! It was unnecessary and a bit expensive but we just had to do this in China!

I should have wore my sunglasses! Experience El Dorado National Forest in China 8)

We rode the Rickshaw all the way to the Forbidden City, our first tourist trap, which was quite a long ride. The driver was SUPER COOL and took us down many hutongs along the way! I'll let the pictures do some talking for a bit

BigMike · « **Reply #23 on:** Sep 07, 2011, 07:04:41 AM »

Ok guys, that's it for now! It is 11pm Wed night here and I need to get some sleep. Got a long day of work with my father-in-law tomorrow!

Expect a lot more as these pictures haven't even scratched the surface!!

BigMike

superyota · « **Reply #24 on:** Sep 07, 2011, 08:22:16 AM »

it's cool seeing all the different cars and motorcycles around there. Keep the pictures coming....

jrock · « **Reply #25 on:** Sep 07, 2011, 08:55:03 AM »

Very cool future Mike. Keep those pictures rolling. I loved the dragon art in the grass.

Wermz84 · « **Reply #26 on:** Sep 07, 2011, 03:07:13 PM »

Very cool. Can you get a picture of the Gundam for me next time?

BigMike · « **Reply #27 on:** Sep 08, 2011, 03:05:23 AM »

Updates!

At the end of this hutong...

We came across this! I think it is called the "Flower Door", but honestly we couldn't understand the driver to save our lives.

While heading through the hutongs, he took us past such famous landmarks as the...

Beijing Bell Tower:

and the...

Beijing Drum Tower:

BigMike · « **Reply #28 on:** Sep 08, 2011, 03:16:27 AM »

Here are the various sights we saw once we emerged from the hutongs

If you ask me, Beijing is a proper metropolitan. If you guys have ever wanted to see the 3rd-world Beijing, then you'd better book your flights today.

A KFC hahahahaha! Actually, Misato's two Chinese coworkers claim that the Chinese KFC is a genuine eatery. They use high quality chicken and believe it or not, the food is "far" better than what you get state-side.

A compact Chinese street cleaner

Another traditional building squashed in the busy city

Other than it being a Park, I'm not sure what this is...

...but here it is:

Another pic of morning sidewalk life

BigMike · « **Reply #29 on:** Sep 08, 2011, 04:17:26 AM »

And ...finally... we arrived at the outskirts of the Forbidden City!

The Forbidden City is so called for its exclusivity to only the emperor and his subjects. Serving both the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it dates back to the early 15th century.

I know you guys can read about it on Wikipedia, so I'll summarize:
At an area covering nearly 8 million square feet, it is the largest surviving palace on earth.
It is 0.6-miles long by 0.4-miles wide, has 999 buildings and nearly 9,000 rooms!
It is surrounded by walls that are as wide as they are tall at 26-feet.
It took us 2 hours just to get from one side to the other.

Here is the layout of the city:

The city is so busy...

This July they initiated a south-to-north visiting system. Unfortunately we were at the north end of the city.

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