Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Well hello there - i'm finally all blogged up and ready to go !!! been wanting one of these ever since my sister bry got one and then again every time i read hers ! the hope and plan is that you will get much more regular info from me and photos !! be positive and strong tess - WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO GET IS MUCH MORE REGULAR UPDATES FROM ME AND LOTS OF PHOTOS !!!! thats better
eventually i'd like to get all the old newsletters and photos set up on here as well but i think we'll start with now and see how we go. and what a place to start - Tokyo !!!!
yes christmas is here and i'm in Tokyo with my sister, looking out at crisp sunshine and brilliant blue skies !!!!! some people dream of a white christmas but after walking under this brilliant blue sky and the sparkling stars this is cracking up to be one of my favourite christmas's for a while !!!
It's wierd seeing Bryony - she's really tall, slim and city chic - not a bryony i recognise and yet still so much the bryony i know. it's also been three years since we saw each other which puts her now at the same age as i was then - does that make sense ? same age but completely different place - in some many senses of the word. and yet in some ways, with us both living and working in asia we have more in common than we've had for a long time. not to mention the huge similarities between china and japan (something china would be horrified to know!!!), so the poeple, behaviour, experiences and our feeling are all things we can talk about and relate to. i don't know if we've ever had this much in common ?! its really good though and as much as i'm enjoying tokyo - i'm enjoying spending time with bry xxx
So to Tokyo - well i arrived very hungover from a night in beijing with two of my best chengdu mates who've moved up there. and maybe because of the hangover, i was able to negotiate the subway system quite calmly - actually i think zombiefied would be a more accurate description but it did mean that when i got spat out above ground after nearly 12 hours in airports/tubes etc and still hadn't reached bryony, i was happy just to sit in a cafe and wait to be collected. and thats just what she did !!! she swept in - like a startbucks ad or sex in the city scene when the sexy city worker pops in to grab a coffee. chengdu maybe growing and becoming more westernised and growing economically but it is a backwater compared to tokyo - even the mates in beijing can't compete !!!
we chatted over coffee and than went back to her appartment - i'll put up photos of that !! and chatted some more.
that was saturday, today is tuesday and bry's gone back to work so i got up late and am writing to you while my hair dries. i'm going to go out and explore the neighbourhood today - its a simple series of streets from bry's house to the subway but we seem to have come a different way every time !!! i'm also on cooking dinner tonight so i want to see what sichuan/chinese dishes i can pull off !!!
sunday we went to hear live bands in a park - all the local bands bring out all their amps, mikes and instruments and set up and jam, they are just far apart enough from each other that you flow from one into the next and on both sides of the path - really good fun, expecailly as in chengdu its so hard to get a young amateur music scene going - this was really positive. i don't think they pay for their spots but the police definielty don't move them on and its every sunday afternoon. Around the bands was a flee market where i bought cups with sumo wrestlerts on them !!! i'm am going to buy so much pottery from this place !! Just lots of young japanese selling old clothes and knick nacks - kinda felt like a jumble sale and camden market all rolled into a park with yellow leaves blowing everywhere. And then it was on to 'the bridge' where lots of young japanese dress up in very outragious clothes and pose for passers by, tourists, photos and for each other. i don't think my photois will be good cause the light was shit but it was really fun to see. makeup, heels, lace and bondage all on a windy, winter day !!! we carried on down into the shopping arcade where they buy all their stuff - its all off the rail, any look you could want !!!!
bryony took me for my first printclub experience - now that she's given up cigarettes i think printclub is her biggest addiction !!! we have it in china but i've just never got around to it - and she's right it is fun !!! and i will make anyone who comes to visit me do it !! so be warned !!! no i'm not going to tell you what i'm talking about !
yesterday, monday we went out of town to Kamakura - a small town with lots of temples and shrines. bryony had been before but there were lots of temples she hadn't been to and wanted to, so that was really good for both of us !! we started at the Big Buddha - or bigga- badda- buddha as bry says - well i live near leshan which has one of the top 5 biggest in the world and so my first though was - 'call that big!!!' but it was lovely and very different in style from chinese buddhas AND we got to go inside !!! there's nothing in there but its really interesting because you're inside the hollowed out frame of the buddha - i don't know who had the strange idea to let tourist get inside the mould, but a glass of sake for him !! i liked it.
we then wandered over hill and dale through side streets and back roads, took our leap of faith and arrived on the other side of town and more temples. its was a really interesting day because we saw temples that were buddhist and ones that were shinto - Shinto is the 'native' religion of japan although i think that nowadays buddhism is just as stong. shinto means 'the way of the gods' and concentrates very much on nature - the rock and water that people think of in japanese temples is shinto. but because buddhism has been in japan so long and is also such a strong faith - they both have a great involvement with nature. and although the temples were not spiritual to me in the traditional sense - they were strikingly calming, pure and simple. in trying to describe both types of temple it could sound sterile but it feels more like the bullshit has been left out and there is just reflection and reverence - i liked them very much.
budhism is a weird one - i've now seen thai, indian, nepalese, tibetan, vietnamese, chinese and japanese - and while they share so much they are different in as many ways. temple layouts, buddha images, offerings, everything - such contrasts - i really would like to go back and look at buddhist temples and then at the people and society. they are such a reflection of each other. everything about japan is the same or contrasted with china but they are so closely linked and it feels the same with buddhist temples - some much is familar and yet its its own country and religion its is own way.
add to this chinese zen and confusiasm and seeing buddhist and shinto temples has been great. i'm looking forward to seeing more!
waffle,waffle, waffle - think its time to get out the house and go exploring !!! sounds brave and exciting but i'm actually only going to the corner shop to buy veggies - but then i'm not in kansas anymore toto - so anything could happen !!!
lots of love
tess xxx
eventually i'd like to get all the old newsletters and photos set up on here as well but i think we'll start with now and see how we go. and what a place to start - Tokyo !!!!
yes christmas is here and i'm in Tokyo with my sister, looking out at crisp sunshine and brilliant blue skies !!!!! some people dream of a white christmas but after walking under this brilliant blue sky and the sparkling stars this is cracking up to be one of my favourite christmas's for a while !!!
It's wierd seeing Bryony - she's really tall, slim and city chic - not a bryony i recognise and yet still so much the bryony i know. it's also been three years since we saw each other which puts her now at the same age as i was then - does that make sense ? same age but completely different place - in some many senses of the word. and yet in some ways, with us both living and working in asia we have more in common than we've had for a long time. not to mention the huge similarities between china and japan (something china would be horrified to know!!!), so the poeple, behaviour, experiences and our feeling are all things we can talk about and relate to. i don't know if we've ever had this much in common ?! its really good though and as much as i'm enjoying tokyo - i'm enjoying spending time with bry xxx
So to Tokyo - well i arrived very hungover from a night in beijing with two of my best chengdu mates who've moved up there. and maybe because of the hangover, i was able to negotiate the subway system quite calmly - actually i think zombiefied would be a more accurate description but it did mean that when i got spat out above ground after nearly 12 hours in airports/tubes etc and still hadn't reached bryony, i was happy just to sit in a cafe and wait to be collected. and thats just what she did !!! she swept in - like a startbucks ad or sex in the city scene when the sexy city worker pops in to grab a coffee. chengdu maybe growing and becoming more westernised and growing economically but it is a backwater compared to tokyo - even the mates in beijing can't compete !!!
we chatted over coffee and than went back to her appartment - i'll put up photos of that !! and chatted some more.
that was saturday, today is tuesday and bry's gone back to work so i got up late and am writing to you while my hair dries. i'm going to go out and explore the neighbourhood today - its a simple series of streets from bry's house to the subway but we seem to have come a different way every time !!! i'm also on cooking dinner tonight so i want to see what sichuan/chinese dishes i can pull off !!!
sunday we went to hear live bands in a park - all the local bands bring out all their amps, mikes and instruments and set up and jam, they are just far apart enough from each other that you flow from one into the next and on both sides of the path - really good fun, expecailly as in chengdu its so hard to get a young amateur music scene going - this was really positive. i don't think they pay for their spots but the police definielty don't move them on and its every sunday afternoon. Around the bands was a flee market where i bought cups with sumo wrestlerts on them !!! i'm am going to buy so much pottery from this place !! Just lots of young japanese selling old clothes and knick nacks - kinda felt like a jumble sale and camden market all rolled into a park with yellow leaves blowing everywhere. And then it was on to 'the bridge' where lots of young japanese dress up in very outragious clothes and pose for passers by, tourists, photos and for each other. i don't think my photois will be good cause the light was shit but it was really fun to see. makeup, heels, lace and bondage all on a windy, winter day !!! we carried on down into the shopping arcade where they buy all their stuff - its all off the rail, any look you could want !!!!
bryony took me for my first printclub experience - now that she's given up cigarettes i think printclub is her biggest addiction !!! we have it in china but i've just never got around to it - and she's right it is fun !!! and i will make anyone who comes to visit me do it !! so be warned !!! no i'm not going to tell you what i'm talking about !
yesterday, monday we went out of town to Kamakura - a small town with lots of temples and shrines. bryony had been before but there were lots of temples she hadn't been to and wanted to, so that was really good for both of us !! we started at the Big Buddha - or bigga- badda- buddha as bry says - well i live near leshan which has one of the top 5 biggest in the world and so my first though was - 'call that big!!!' but it was lovely and very different in style from chinese buddhas AND we got to go inside !!! there's nothing in there but its really interesting because you're inside the hollowed out frame of the buddha - i don't know who had the strange idea to let tourist get inside the mould, but a glass of sake for him !! i liked it.
we then wandered over hill and dale through side streets and back roads, took our leap of faith and arrived on the other side of town and more temples. its was a really interesting day because we saw temples that were buddhist and ones that were shinto - Shinto is the 'native' religion of japan although i think that nowadays buddhism is just as stong. shinto means 'the way of the gods' and concentrates very much on nature - the rock and water that people think of in japanese temples is shinto. but because buddhism has been in japan so long and is also such a strong faith - they both have a great involvement with nature. and although the temples were not spiritual to me in the traditional sense - they were strikingly calming, pure and simple. in trying to describe both types of temple it could sound sterile but it feels more like the bullshit has been left out and there is just reflection and reverence - i liked them very much.
budhism is a weird one - i've now seen thai, indian, nepalese, tibetan, vietnamese, chinese and japanese - and while they share so much they are different in as many ways. temple layouts, buddha images, offerings, everything - such contrasts - i really would like to go back and look at buddhist temples and then at the people and society. they are such a reflection of each other. everything about japan is the same or contrasted with china but they are so closely linked and it feels the same with buddhist temples - some much is familar and yet its its own country and religion its is own way.
add to this chinese zen and confusiasm and seeing buddhist and shinto temples has been great. i'm looking forward to seeing more!
waffle,waffle, waffle - think its time to get out the house and go exploring !!! sounds brave and exciting but i'm actually only going to the corner shop to buy veggies - but then i'm not in kansas anymore toto - so anything could happen !!!
lots of love
tess xxx
