Back to China

I'm in Incheon right now, on the west coast of South Korea. I'll be taking a boat tonight back to Qingdao in China. Qingdao was a city built by the Germans in the early years of the last century. As a result, the architecture is very different from other Chinese cities. It was a really fun city to walk around, but I got lost quite a bit because of the hills and curvy roads.

Walking around outdoor food markets in China is a blast. I'm excited to head back to China and see the outdoor markets in all of the different cities that I will visit.

Seoraksan

Here's one of the frozen waterfalls I saw today in Seoraksan.
I spent the day hiking in Seoraksan, which is a national park on the northeast coast of South Korea. It was a cold and windy day but the views made everything worthwhile.


I climbed to the top of this rock formation. The wind was fierce.


You can see the rock formation that I climbed in the background.




I couldn't stop taking photos. Every turn I took in the trail led to another beautiful view.

Korea

I arrived in South Korea on Tuesday. Since then I've been staying at a small hostel in the university district in downtown Seoul. My first impression of Seoul was that it looks a lot like Tokyo. It was a big difference coming from China, where everything is anything but neat and orderly. The streets, gardens and landscapes of Korea are all very well kept as they are in Japan.

I saw quite a few sights in Seoul, including some of the old royal palaces and tombs. I saw a "drawing show" last night. It combined theater with live painting. It was very original and entertaining and further sparked my interest in art. It made me realize that artists are not always people working by themselves to produce an interesting picture for others to observe at a later time. The creation of drawings or paintings themselves can be a performance.

Tomorrow I will go hiking in Seoraksan National Park on the northeast coast. I expect the views to be beautiful, but there is currently a fierce wind blowing off of the ocean. I hope I have enough clothing to stay warm.

Arrived in Beijing without my bag. Spent time at the hostel in Beijing trying to track it down as well as exploring the city.

Also discovered that I am unable to access my blog as it is blocked in China so will need to send the information to my parents and have them post on the site. They will also send any responses to my blog through my e-mail.

After taking a class in Chinese brush painting, I went to Inner Mongolia. I am pictured here with Genhgis Khan.

Upon arriving back in Beiiing I discovered that my bag had been found at the L.A. airport and shipped to Beijing. It was delivered the next day to the hostel. While I packed light, all that I did bring was important.

Buck Lake in the fall

Buck lake was my favorite swimming hole as a kid. I went for a swim on the last day of September. The water was cold but the reflection of the fall colors in the lake was beautiful.

Gasu

This is name Gasu.

A student made this for me. He sat on my desk for a long time.

Tokyo and Niigata

This photo is from the Takada half marathon in Niigata prefecture. The course wasn't very great and it was very hot but visiting the Joetsu/Naoetsu/Takada region is always fun.

This is me looking out of one of the Tokyo city government buildings. The Tokyo city government towers are free and always fun.

Tokyo is huge, but for some reason Osaka seems even bigger. I'm not sure why.

Life in Nagano-ken

Snowboarding on a snowcovered mountain road in Hakuba.

This picture was taken on April 2nd.

The famous nanohana flowers of Iiyama.

This photo was taken in early May.

Here is the view from my small garden plot which overlooked the valley. This was a particularly cloudy evening when I biked out there.

I din't get a chance to pick or eat even one fourth of what grew in that small garden plot. I took the daikon that I grew to work once and heated it up on the English office stove. It stunk up the entire office with daikon smell. Woops.

Soba! More specifically, this is Togakushi soba from the famous mountain shrine and soba growing region of Togakushi. Soba (buckwheat noodles) is presented differently at every shop you go to in Japan. The regional variations are usually in the presentation of the noodles and in the ingredient that they use to make the noodles stick together.

In Iiyama, the connecting ingredient was a wild mountain plant called yamabokucho. A little north in Niigata, the connecting ingredient is seaweed.

Soba is one of my favorite dishes in the world, and sometimes I consider opening my own soba shop.

I hurt my knee last October so for two months I couldn't run or bike or even hike. I took up sketching and painting on the weekends, and with the fall colors it was the ideal time. Here's one of the shrines in Nagano that I went to to practice.

I love dried persimmons (hoshigaki) so much that I tried making some myself. A teacher that I worked with at Norin Koko let me pick several types of persimmons from his yard, which I then peeled and hung up to dry on my little balcony.

They never turned out as good as the hoshigaki that I would buy, but it was fun to watch them dry up and to watch the sugar crystallize on the outside. They took a little over a month to reach their best state. I put them up in late November and they were good to eat by New Year.

Blackberry Picking

Blackberries are very common in northern Wisconsin in late August and early September. I enjoy picking blackberries. It is a good way to get outside, see animals, and collect delicious blackberries.

We turn the blackberries in pie or jam.

Blackberry pie is my favorite pie.

Memories of Last Winter

Here's a view of the Shiga kogen area. The great thing about Shiga is how big it is. It consists of about six or seven different peaks. For backcountry and terrain though, Nozawaonsen is better.

The super-G course from the 1998 olympics is at Shiga. I crashed really hard on it while going full speed. My nose decided to bleed all over the slope. Fortunately, I always wear a helmet, as everybody should.


Here's a picture of our campsite on top of Madarao mountain. I went with Brian from Ireland and Derrick from Colorado. We hiked up the mountain in the evening, camped on top, and then glided down in the morning.


This is looking south from Yomase ski-jo just northeast of Nakano city.
What I love about snowboarding is that everyday is filled with small victories.

The Packers

Inside Lambeau Field, waiting for the Packers to arrive.

Here is an explanation about the Packers for my friends overseas:

-The Packers play in Green Bay, so they are called the Green Bay Packers.

-They started in 1919, so this year is their 90th year.

-Green Bay is the smallest city to have a major sports team in the U.S. or Canada.

-The Green Bay area is less than 200,000 people. All of the other sports teams' cities are over a million people.

-They are called 'The Packers' because they were started by people whose jobs were packing meat.

-The Packers are the only pro sports team in North America that is owned by the fans. All of the other teams are owned by very rich people.

-Wisconsin makes a lot of cheese, so people in Wisconsin are called 'cheeseheads.' Many people at Packer games wear hats that look like cheese.

Outside Lambeau Field in Green Bay, where the Green Bay Packers Play.

The Packers are about to score in this photo. In the game that I saw, The Packers beat their rivals the Chicago Bears. The score was 21-15.

Midwest Travels

I've been traveling a lot around the midwest over the past month. I started out in Minneapolis, then I went up to a friend's wedding in northern Minnesota. I went rock climbing soon after that in southern Wisconsin, then to visit a friend in Iowa. From there I went up to the shores of Lake Superior to watch my friend perform in a songwriting contest. He won and got to open for Suzanne Vega.

My dad and I then went to visit my sister in Door County, where she works. Wisconsin is shaped like a mitten and Door County is the thumb that sticks out into Lake Michigan. It is a very popular vacation spot.

I then had to take a bus to Chicago to get my visas for China and India. Soon after I got back from Chicago I was in Madison. My mother had an Americorps training session, so I tagged along and spent two days hanging out on State Street, which is the famous street in Madison. I ate at some really delicious Thai, Mexican, and Laotian restaurants. I discovered this Cambodian/Californian band in a record store in Madison and I've been listening to them a lot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4M-Eq7vxVb4&feature=fvw

Finally, just yesterday my dad and I made a trip to Green Bay. He was meeting up with an old college friend to go to the Packers/Bears Game. They happened to have an extra ticket, so I got in as well. It was really exciting.

Recent Photos

I took a afternoon trip kayaking up the Pelican River that runs nearby my house. I saw a pack of four river otters. Their heads stuck out of the water and they chattered noise at me as I tried to sneak past them.





My first night back in the states. I flew Tokyo to Chicago and then Chicago to Minneapolis. My college friend Ben (Dubee) picked me up at the airport and we went for pizza and beer. It was a huge culture shock. Everything was different; eating outside, the size of the parking lot, the casualness of the waiter, having to show ID, leaving tips, paying with a card, and listening to English conversations.


I hardly ate any pizza in Japan. Okonomiyaki is just as good. Since I've been in the states, however, I've had a lot of pizza. I had to try the deep dish pizza while in Chicago, and there aren't really any other good foods around my hometown.


Living in Japan really made me a food tourist. I enjoy regional foods now even more than I did before I went to Japan. I recommend people travel through Japan so that they can see just how many regional differences there are in the cuisine.





Here's my dog. His name is Skipper. He grew old while I was in Japan, but he still has the same energy that he had when he was a puppy.

Some Photos of Japan

Iiyama, like everywhere in Japan, has great sakura in the springtime. This was sometime in mid April. The prominent white building in the center is the apartment that I lived in.

I took this photo on the season's last day of snowboarding, which was the last weekend in April.

The place is Charmont ski hill in Niigata prefecture. You can see the Sea of Japan just past the hills.

I never got tired of seeing the mountains everyday that I lived in Japan.

New Blog

Here is my new blog.

Please check this site for my updates from China, Japan and India.

I will also post a lot of things that I like on this blog, such as new bands that I find.

More to come soon!
-Tristano