So, it looks like you're not lj friends with Colby. I would email him and ask him for travel tips. He's traveled to both China and Japan, and his Japan trip was pretty recent too. You could email Travis and Aurana too - Aurana lived in Japan for a year, and Travis is there now.
What sorts of things do you like to see? There are a lot of different sorts of sights and in the time you have you'll only get to skim the surface. I've been to all of those places except Xi'an, but my experience in Beijing is the most recent by far, since it was last year.
Also, and not surprisingly, there's a lot of great food. :)
Yeah, we're mostly treating this as an intro to the area, to get an idea of where we'd like to go back to eventually at some point in the future (except for my dad, as this will likely be his only trip there). This trip is really too short to do much else!
We have some ideas of places to go and whatnot, but if there's anything in particular we really shouldn't miss, or any restaurants that we can navigate to that are particularly awesome, we'd love to know.
Also, navigating in Japan should not be too hard, as long as you realize that they stack venues on top of each other as well as the way Westerners do, side-by-side. I.e., sometimes a hotel will start a couple of stories up, and there will be something entirely unrelated at ground level, and something else again in between.
The other quirky thing is that most Japanese cities have buildings numbered by district, not by location along street. However, most businesses have little maps on the back of their business cards. And in any case, if you have a smartphone that will help a lot.
Other than that, most things are signed in English. Kyoto even has street names for many of its streets.
China is a little harder, but Beijing put up a lot of English-language signage for the 2008 Olympics, so it's a lot better than it was.
Only place of those I've been is Kyoto; Joseph would be better at telling you what to see there than I, but DO try the Japanese streetfood if you get a chance. I also remember this one monastery with a beautiful rock garden.... Ryouanji? something like that.
I've just sent a rough draft of my post on yogurt in Beijing to the two addresses I have for you. Because they're both .edu addresses I'm not sure if that's the best place, so if there's a better address for you let me know and I'll resend it.
Still no obvious candidates for a chill place to have tea in Beijing, however.
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Also, have a ton of fun. I'm jealous.
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What sorts of things do you like to see? There are a lot of different sorts of sights and in the time you have you'll only get to skim the surface. I've been to all of those places except Xi'an, but my experience in Beijing is the most recent by far, since it was last year.
Also, and not surprisingly, there's a lot of great food. :)
Reply
We have some ideas of places to go and whatnot, but if there's anything in particular we really shouldn't miss, or any restaurants that we can navigate to that are particularly awesome, we'd love to know.
Reply
Reply
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The other quirky thing is that most Japanese cities have buildings numbered by district, not by location along street. However, most businesses have little maps on the back of their business cards. And in any case, if you have a smartphone that will help a lot.
Other than that, most things are signed in English. Kyoto even has street names for many of its streets.
China is a little harder, but Beijing put up a lot of English-language signage for the 2008 Olympics, so it's a lot better than it was.
Reply
Only place of those I've been is Kyoto; Joseph would be better at telling you what to see there than I, but DO try the Japanese streetfood if you get a chance. I also remember this one monastery with a beautiful rock garden.... Ryouanji? something like that.
Reply
Still no obvious candidates for a chill place to have tea in Beijing, however.
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