Shanghai Shenanigans

The Henderson/Bocskai family, including a Lundqvist this time, had a great long weekend in Shanghai! Here is a long blog because I was too lazy to blog while in Shanghai! For those of you who don’t enjoy reading my long blogs (Diana is one of those), I’ll give you a short list of major events and you can just look at the pictures :)

Sichuan dinner (times two)
Per’s Birthday! 29 years old!
People’s Park and People’s Square
The disappointing Bund and the really weird Bund Sightseeing Tunnel
Oriental Pearl Tower, 350 meters up
New camera for me!
Yu Yuan Gardens and bazaar
Jade Buddha Temple
Jinmao Tower and cocktails on the 87th floor
Shanghai Museum

We arrived on Wednesday night and took a taxi to the hotel. Oy, the traffic! Once we made it, we checked in and headed to a Sichuan restaurant to eat. It was yummy! Very spicy and the most similar thing I have eaten to the Chinese food you get in America. Per arrived a few hours after us, so he said hello to the family and then it was time for bed to rest up for a day of sightseeing.

Thursday was Per’s birthday! He turned 29 (what an old fart!)

The birthday boy eating his birthday lunch at Blue Flog:

In the morning we woke up, ate another yummy hotel breakfast, and headed out. Our hotel was right next to Nanjing Road, the very famous shopping street in Shanghai. They had just about everything there…except an H&M (don’t worry, I found TWO later on). We visited People’s Park and Renmin (People’s) Square.

People's park:

Then we decided to head down to The Bund, which was the heart of colonial Shanghai. They were doing a lot of construction, so I think we probably missed the impressiveness of it all. Just looked like some old buildings with a view of Pudong blocked by construction walls on the promenade. Lame.

From here we took the “Bund Sightseeing Tunnel” over to the Pudong side of Shanghai, under the river. This was by far one of the weirder things I’ve encountered in China. Apparently someone thought it would be interesting to make a psychedelic tunnel/train ride. It was totally random: space swirls, meteor showers, and blow up people. Who on earth came up with that??

Random blow up dolls in the tunnel:

Once on the other side we headed to the Oriental Pearl Tower, which I believe is a TV/radio tower. We took the elevator up to around 350 meters and had a great view of all of Shanghai. Holy cow it is huge. At a slightly lower level they had this CRAZY glass floor you could walk on with a view straight down to the street. Pretty much everyone had a hard time gaining enough guts to walk on it. The body has an immediate reaction to something like that, I suppose because it’s really unnatural to walk 250 meters above the ground with a view straight to the bottom.

The Oriental Pearl Tower:

Me on the glass floor, eek!:

After the tower, we walked across the street to the Super Brand Mall to have lunch and do some shopping…at H&M! Yay!
My dad and Per snuck off to Best Buy to see if they had the camera my dad and mom were going to buy me for my birthday. I called to see if they were ready to meet up, and Per said they were on their way and that they didn’t find the camera. Poo!! 15 minutes later, they still hadn’t showed up! I called again and Per got “held up” because he found a shirt he liked. Yea right. 5 minutes later they showed up…with my camera!!! Yay! I love it :)

My new camera (in Per's sunglasses):

By this time we were tired, so we went back to the other side of the river and went back to the hotel. After much discussion and efforts toward finding Per a delicious birthday dinner that wasn’t Chinese food, we gave up and went to the same Sichuan restaurant as the night before. Sometimes it is VERY hard to find places to eat when on vacation!!! But the dinner was good, and I think Per enjoyed it even though it wasn’t his ideal birthday meal.

Friday we visited the Yu Yuan Gardens. Unlike most travelers in Asia (I would say anyway) we decided to walk there instead of take a taxi. The huge amount of construction going on in Shanghai because of the 2010 World Expo made it difficult to navigate the streets, but we finally got there. It was a very pretty garden in the middle of a C.F. bazaar. We spent some time exploring the gardens, got ripped off on some stuff in the bazaar, and then took a cab to the other side of town to see the Jade Buddha Temple.

Mom and dad in Yu Gardens: More of Yu Gardens:

The temple was rather nice, like most that I’ve seen in China/Asia. The special features in this temple were two jade Buddha’s, one sitting, and one lying down. Not as impressive as I thought they would be, and you couldn’t take pictures! Oh well.

The Jade Buddha Temple:

After sightseeing, we ate some McDonald’s and Diana and I spent some time shopping on the shopping street :)

That night, we decided to head back to Pudong to find the Jinmao tower. Our plan was to have a drink in the Cloud 9 bar on the 87th floor (belongs to The Hyatt), and then find some food. The bellboys at the hotel informed us that it would be very hard to find a taxi and suggested we take the subway to Pudong. Well, that would be a genius idea, EXCEPT for the construction, which made it nearly impossible to get to the tower. After exciting the subway, we were SO close to the tower, but the path there was blocked. We tried to walk around, but it was a mess! We walked for like 45 minutes to get there, and it probably should have taken 10. But the bar was nice, the view was cool, and we ended up eating a yummy buffet at The Hyatt.

The Shanghai Financial Building (left) and Jinmao Tower (right):

Saturday mom, dad, and Diana were mega poops. They had had it with sightseeing and wanted to do nothing all day. So Per and I decided to go to the Shanghai museum alone. It was a good idea because not only was it free but they had a lot of neat stuff to see. We did pay for some audio guides, which was a good idea because it kept us interested in the things longer than we usually would have been!

Per and I at the museum:

That night we ate a tapas restaurant in the French Concession. It was very yummy, and a great last meal in Shanghai.

Diana and I enjoying cocktails at the tapas restaurant:

Sunday morning we flew from Shanghai to Beijing, and took a car to Tianjin. Now we are at our apartment doing nothing but relaxing :)

Sushi, Buddhas, and Japanese School Girls

Our last two days in Tokyo FLEW by...but they were great!

On Monday morning we woke up early, ate a delicious American/European breakfast at our hotel (pretty relieved to not eat a Japanese breakfast again), and prepared for a day of sightseeing.

The first place we visited was Asakusa, where the Senso-Ji temple is. After the first gate of the temple is a long street with vendors selling all kinds of Japanese tourist souvenirs! Of course, Diana and I loved this street and we took our time looking at all the adorable things you could buy. We purchased some items of course! Dad waited for us in front of the temple while we shopped.

The tourist street on the way to the temple:


In normal Allen style, he made some new friends while waiting for us, four Japanese school girls who wanted to practice some of their English. They were there on a school trip, "traveling school".

More of the temple:

It is always interesting to me how there are these temples and old historic places in the middle of a huge city, hidden by sky scrapers, malls, and restaurants. If you didn't know to look for them, they would be hard to just run into.

After the temple, we decided to do something a little more modern and check out The Ginza, the major shopping area in Tokyo. From Prada to H&M, they had just about everything expensive, stylish, hip, and classic you could imagine when it comes to fashion and accessories.

Mom and dad at the major cross streets of The Ginza:

Mom and Dad headed home, and Diana and spent an hour or so more looking around...we didn't buy anything though. As mom would say, we had a successful shopping trip...more like a bad shopping trip in my mind!

That night we decided it was time to eat some REAL Japanese sushi. We went to a small sushi restaurant in the building across from our hotel. It was really yummy, and now we can say we ate at a sushi bar in Japan!

Sushi bar:

On our last day in Japan, we checked with our trusty concierge Ben to be sure we had seen the no brainer sights in Japan, and decided to head out of the city to Kamakura (the name of the sushi restaurant in Los Gatos). It's a small beach town with a lot of history...aka lots of temples and old stuff.

Our first stop was to see the Kotokuin Daibutsu (Great Buddha).

The Great Buddha with the Henderson/Bocskai family:

We were not the only toursits there! There were a number of younger children there with their schools. Three little girls came up and asked me to sign a piece of paper for them. I think that maybe it was a school assignment of some type - Find a white person, introduce yourself, and have them sign your book. Haha. I felt special :) One of the girls was even named Sara!

My fan club (hehe):

After the big Buddha we found another temple, the Hase-dera temple. They had lots of Buddhas on display at this temple and a pretty garden. They also had a creepy cave you could walk through. In one part of the cave, you could buy a little Buddha figure, and it looked like you were supposed to leave it in the cave because there were hundreds of little Buddhas in the cave. Im not buying a cute little Buddha and LEAVING it somewhere. That's silly ;)

Diana and I at the entrance of the temple:

Koi fishies in the garden:

We were tired, so it was time to go back to our hotel....but we were not the only ones tired!

Four sleepy boys on the train:

These boys provided me with a lot of entertainment on the ride home, so much that I went into one of my famous laugh fits. I was giggling, crying, and laughing uncontrollably for a really long time. The boy with the blue baseball hat could not stay awake for the life of him. He was holding his pencil and his homework in his hand but he kept dropping them and falling over on his friends next to him. The one of the far left kept falling asleep on stragers and watching their recction to him was a crack up. It was pretty darn hilarious, especially because the boy in between the two of them was SO irritated at both them sleeping and undoubtedly my histeric laughter at his friends. But it was a cleansing laugh, I love laughing like that!

After some rest we went to the hotel bar for free cocktails!

Me!

Then it was time for our last dinner in Japan....Italian food!! It was rather yummy.

At the restaurant:

Tomorrow morning we head off to Shanghai, China where Per will meet us for a weekend there!

I Think I'm Going Japanese-a

Greetings from Japan!!!!

I arrived at Narita Airport in Japan on Thursday night at 6PM. My parents had landed a few hours before me, from their flight from SFO, and were waiting for me in the arrival area. After talking to my sister on Wednesday morning, I had this feeling she would be there also. Unfortunatly she recently got laid off from her job, but I thought that might mean she would be able to tag along when my parents came to visit. She had said some fishy things when I talked to her....like mentioning a vacation she was going on and then seemingly covering up quickly with a clever story and also asking if "we" would eat at the restaurants in Tianjin that Per and I frequent. But alas, when I walked out of the arrival gate it was only Allen and Lena. I was of course SO excited to see them, but how could I have been so wrong about my feeling Diana would also be coming? I began to tell my mom about my feeling that Diana would come and all the reasons why...when...TADA! Diana appeared behind me!!!! What a wonderful surprise!!!!! And what a GREAT start to our wonderful Japan/China trip!

We headed to our hotel in Shinigawa, I LOVE traveling with the parents because we are staying in an AMAZING place, and decided that despite their serious desire to sleep, the desire to eat was greater. We went ot a Japanese "pub" in our building. They had an interstingly translated English menu, and to your delight (?) a very interesting appetizer which only my dad ate.

Dad eating some sea snails:

Mom, Diana and I:

With our first meal complete, and very successful, we headed home for some rest in our gorgeous hotel room.

In the morning we had a few hours to do some tourist-ing before my dad's collegue and his wife, who live and work in Japan, were going to pick us up to travel to another city. We decided that visting a shrine and the near by Harajuku shopping district would be a great afternoon trip.

We headed by train north-west to the Meiji Jingu shrine. We were very lucky here because not only was it a gorgeous place, but they were also having an ikebana (Japanese flower arrangement) display, some traditional weddings, and an adorable family taking pictures in traditional clothing.

The two cutest little kids!

After the shrine, we headed into a really cool part of Harajuku called Takeshita Street. If you have heard of Gwen Stefani, you know that she is really into "Harajuku girls". For the most party, these girls dress really extreme. Think tutus and knee highs and crazy hair.

Some school girls shopping on Takeshita Street:

In addition to the extreme shopping was some more ordinary stores, including H&M which I will have to go back and visit before I leave Japan! :)

We headed back to the hotel to meet with Raiko and Koichi (sorry if I miss-spelled their names) and drove to Hakone for the next two nights.

The place we stayed at in Hakone was a traditional Japanese style home with a hot bath area as well. When we arrived we took a look at our rooms and then went to have our first really traditional Japanese dinner. Really traditional Japanese food is SO far from anything we eat in the United States. The people that find sushi otlandish would be SHOCKED to see what you can be served at a traditional meal in Japan. They eat A LOT of fish, all parts of it and in all forms. They eat them whole, they eat their livers, they eat their bones...I don't think they waste anything. They also love tofu in all its shapes and forms, sweet potatos in every way imaginable, and miso soup in different ways.

The first thing we were served (clockwise and starting with the seperate bowl): cream cheese with a sweet sauce and gold flakes, mackerel sushi (very fishy taste), a ball of sweet potato (I do not love sweet potato), pickeled ginger stick, and eggplant.

The meal was REALLY long, with tons fo food, and more and more strange things to eat. I can totally understand how if you grew up eating that food you would love it, but for a westerner like me (and my family) it was difficult to eat two nights in a row and for two breakfasts (which I will discuss later). But it was a GREAT experience, and I'm really happy we had the chance to eat foods like this. It was a true Japanese experience that most poeple don't get to have when they visit Japan as tourists.

The room we stayed in was like a traditional Japanese house, a roukan. We slept on tatami mats on the floor! Because the place was near a hot spring, they also had a public bath, which Diana and I went to the first night there. They gave us traditional looking robes to wear in our room and up to the baths!

Diana and I in our robes (probably doing something "sacrilegious"):


Mom and Dad in their robes:


The following morning we wole up and prepared for a day of sightseeing with a traditional Japanese breakfast....a lot like dinner.

Breakfast: tofu with onions and soy sauce, white rice, pickeled re-hydrated radish, fish, sweet potato with something else in it, seaweed paper, egg and tofu block, miso soup, other pickeled type veggies, tea, salty/sweet plums, candied mini fish, and wasabi/soy milk paste.

No bacon and eggs at this place! Egg McMuffin please?!

We headed up the mountain in a gondola to see the hot springs and the amazing view. We had a slight glimpse of Mt. Fuji this day also, but it was hard to see.
At the hot springs, you could buy an egg boiled in hot spring water which turned the egg black. Eating one of these eggs adds seven days to your life, I opted to NOT eat the egg, forgo the extra seven days, and instead take a picture of the "Black Egg Hello Kitty":

We also visited a Japanese art museum, which mostly had some old ceramics. It also had a really pretty garden.
Me being a nerd in the garden:

After the museum, we ate pork sandies and headed home, rested a few hours, and ate our second traditional Japanese meal...it was the same types of foods as the day before...strange.
That night we decided to have some fun in our room. After being inspired by my bug like shape underneath the covers the night before, the family took individual photos being insects/turtle people.

My personal fav, mama turtle:

The next morning we woke up early, had a final Japanese breakfast, and headed back to Tokyo. On the way we stopped at a French glass museum with glass pieces from Lalique. Nice but...French glass in Japan?
We also saw Mt. Fuji. The snow probably ended up there the night before. The mountain was huge and very ominous, but a great sight to see!
We settled back into our hotel in Tokyo where we will stay for another three nights. Diana and I skipped adult dinner with my parents and Raiko and Koichi to eat some interesting Japanese/Asian delights from a deli nearby. Really yummy!

Family Henderson/Bocskai in Japan!!!!

Really looking forward to some bacon and toast and cheese and potatos for breakfast tomorrow!!!!!

My 1st Chinese Birthday

Yesterday was my 24th birthday (oy vey), and my first (and probably last) birthday in China!

Per says women and men are like bottles of wine, but women are open bottles. While men get better with age, women get worse and turn into vinegar. He said I was getting vinegar-y but that he was sure I would be the best vinegar out there. Sweet? I'm not so sure >o

We had to wake up pretty early because we had to catch our flight from Xi'An to Beijing. One great present was leaving Xi'An and getting back to civilization. What a relief to find clean toilets and something other than holes in the ground, even at the Beijing airport!

Ate some Burger King for lunch :)
Checked into our hotel in Beijing.
Rested for an hour.

Then went to Da Dong Beijing Duck Restaurant. Per and I had eaten there before, but we were excited to take Per's parents.
It was really delicious, and Per's mom thought it was the best Chinese food she had eaten since she got here! Success! Per's parents bought me dinner for my birthday, and it was a great dinner :)



My birthday duck!

My adorable "birthday cake". It was a frozen crab-apple filled with bean paste, coated in melted sugar, with a layer of cotton candy on the outside. Creative yes? (Its the white thing next to my head)

Tiramisu...weird at a Beijing duck restaurant but pretty good I would say.

I tried to upload a video of me being a fat kid and eating my "birthday cake". I think to save myself the embarssment, I'm lucky I couldn't get it to work ;)

Then we came back to the hotel, and Per got me a massage in the room for my birthday....by a real masseuse! Lucky for him, my present meant he got a massage too. 45 mintues full body massage and 30 minute foot massage. Fabulous!

I also got a whole bunch of other presents, both before my birthday and today! I scored a Chanel purse, a D&G scarf, some Tods's shoes, a Burberry scarf, and a Max Mara coat. All real of course ;) I also ordered a tailored silk dress which I pick up tomorrow.

What a great birthday! Great company, lots of love, and all the wonderful designer presents I could imagine :)

Terra Cotta Warriors in Xian

Here comes another long blog!

After spending a week in Tianijn with Per’s parents, it was time to move on to other things! We had run out of things to see and places to eat, so we decided to head to Beijing a day early before we headed off to Xi’An to see the Terra Cotta Warriors.

Beijing

The Summer Palace

After taking the train to Beijing from Tianjin, we headed to our hotel, The Holiday Inn Central Plaza, checked in, and headed by taxi to the Summer Palace.
It was a warm day, and because of the vacation week (China’s 60th Birthday) it was PACKED with people. We walked around for about 2 hours and enjoyed the sights. It is a magnificent place, and it is clear why the emperors and important people wanted to spend time there. It is SO huge, so it would take hours more to explore all the buildings, but we did the basic sights. “Been there, done that” tourism as I like to call it.

Some pictures from the summer palace:

Ya Show Market

After the Summer Palace, we headed to Sanlitun, the weastern part of Beijing, ate some lunch and took Per’s parent to the market place. I think they really liked it although the bargaining was hard to get used to for them.

Per and I are excellent bargainers (in my opinion) and we have a lot of fun doing it! We often get people telling us we are very tough, and I think that that is probably true…but I’m sure they still make a killing off of us J We make a good team though!

Here is a great picture of Per and I mid bargain:

Then we had to head back to the hotel and get some sleep because Tuesday morning we were going to head to the Silk Market to do some more shopping and then catch a plane to Xi’An!

Xi’An

We arrived in Xi’An late Tuesday night. The rainy weather and the darkness contributed to our major tourist mistake…taking a black taxi…dun dun dun! We were already in the taxis and driving toward the hotel before Per’s mom realized there was no qualifications for the driver on the dashboard as there usually is, and only a few seconds later the driver handed me a paper with the prices from the airport…220 RMB. What? No meter? He laughed…and simply replied…no meter. OK THEN! So I called Per, who was in the cab behind us, and asked him what to do. To late to do much but go along for the ride, hope we get there safe, and learn our lesson.

Xi’An is kinda a dark dirty city, not nearly as clean or “nice” as Tianjin or Beijing. But we weren’t here to see the city but to see the Terra Cotta Warriors!

Day 1 : Terra Cotta Warrior Tour

Wednesday morning we were picked up at 8AM by a tour guide, Bruce, in a very 70s van with Mr. Down, the driver.

- The Big Goose Pagoda
Our first stop on the tour was the Big Goose Pagoda and the Thanks Giving Temple! The story behind this temple escapes me, but I believe it had something to do with an emperor’s mother dying during birth and praying for food and getting goose heads from Buddha.

The temple and pagoda:

Per and I in front of the Buddha responsible for granting children…we have an announcement to make everyone…JUST KIDDING…not yet J

Per and his twin Happy Buddha. I’ve always loved men with bodies like a god…that is why I love Per, he has a body like a god…Buddha!

- Other Stops on the Tour
On our tour we also visited a jade factory, the remnants of a 6000 year old civilization, a silk making place, a place where they make terra cotta warrior copies, AND an authentic Chinese restaurant full of other tourist groups.

-The Terra Cotta Warriors
Finally we made it to the Terra Cotta Warrior museum!

The story goes something like: Emperor Qing united all of China and wanted to be buried with an army to protect his soul so he had a bunch of warriors made.

I’ll just post some pictures…not too much more to say about it really. It was pretty neat though.

Bronze statues:

Warrior up close:

Pit 3 - the most impressive pit

Also, outside the warrior museum you could purchase skins…of dogs and cats:

Our tour guide and bus driver in front of our first class transportation:

Day 2 : Wandering the Rainy City

After deciding to “sleep in”, we headed out into the rain to check out the major attractions in Xi’An city: The Bell Tower and The Drum Tower. They ring the bell in the morning and bang the drum at night.

Some pics:

We wandered into the Muslim district of the city to do some more bargain shopping and also checked out The Great Mosque…which looks more like a Chinese temple than a mosque besides the Arabic writing here and there and the people walking around with Muslim hats on.

Then I dragged Per and his parents to what the “Lonely Planet” called the “most famous restaurant in Xi’An” for a “fantastic” and “absolutely delicious” soup which your crumble flat bread into.

Here is Per crumbling his flat bread:

Well, besides the place being run down, the food was NOT all that the book made it out to be, and in addition there were two absolutely disgusting individuals SPITTING on the restaurant floor which pretty much made me wanna barf into my nasty soup…which looked like throw up anyway with all the bread chunks floating in it. FAIL. Probably why Per looks so miserable in the picture above..he looked even worse after. Thank god for McDonald’s cheeseburgers.

After the slightly traumatic lunch experience which I had to smile through, I had had enough of the rainy crowdy pretty-nasty city and went back to the hotel. Per and his parents decided to follow a few minutes later, probably realizing how genius I was to go home J

For dinner we went to a dumpling dinner and a show. The dumplings were good but we were very rushed, and the show was entertaining but maybe a little too modern and not traditional enough for me to really buy it.

Some pictures from the show:

Tomorrow we head back to Beijing for a few more days of sightseeing before Per’s parents go back to Sweden. Two days later, I meet my parents in Japan! Busy busy!

P.S. MY BIRTHDAY IS TOMORROW