Hangzhou, China

Ask any traveler that has been through China what their destinations were and you will almost always hear “Hangzhou”. Famed for it’s West Lake and surrounding gardens that have inspired poets and artists for centuries, Hangzhou’s beauty seems to be a blend of a timeless esthetic and a tourist manufactured “must-do”.
Just a short train ride from Shanghai, I arrived in Hangzhou in the thick of winter. After dropping my bags at the hostel, I took a walk under grey skies drizzling rain, among trees that were bare until Spring and braved temperatures which had me carefully choosing pictures so that I wouldn’t have to take my hands out of my gloves too often. But even with all of this, I agree…Hangzhou is beautiful.
Chancing upon bonsai tree forests while watching Koi fish chase raindrops as little boats carry young lovers around the lake can start to feel pretty romantic. Unfortunately for this solo traveler, I had no one to hold gloves with or gaze at the weeping trees by the waters’ edge, so in my self-imposed solitude, I released some romantic frustration by learning about how larvae turn into moths at the silk museum.
The pro to visiting this relaxed city alone in the wintertime is that you can have sprawling gardens all to yourself whereby peacefully wandering through the landscape can make you feel like a frozen line of poetry or a human stroke in a calligraphy drawing. The con to visiting this relaxed city alone in the wintertime is that the concept of indoor heating hasn’t really made it to these parts of China, and without a warm person to snuggle up with, the cold nights can produce an American inspired hissy fit.
Even though the common area of the hostel felt like the inside of butcher’s freezer, the small heater in my room gave off the illusion that it would provide some warmth. But when cold air continued to blow from the vents I felt myself uncontrollably becoming “that demanding Westerner”. In frosty desperation I took the “heater” control to the front desk and calmly tried to explain that it wasn’t working, but when the maintenance guy gave the temperature a “thumbs-up”, I nearly burst out with a tearful complaint of “Hey, I am paying a good twelve bucks for this room!”
I am happy the better half of me stopped this from being said, and when I finally accepted that this is just the way it is in China, I put on my all my winter clothes, burrowed a cave under the blankets and gave myself a nice, warm hug.

Shanghai, China

While the days of smoking opium under the watchful eye of Chinese gangsters is a distant memory for Shanghai, the city is not as sterile as the twenty-first century descriptions make it to be. While it’s focus has certainly been on new development knit with the yarn of Westernization, it’s core character remains uniquely Eastern; it’s as easy to stumble upon a small side street lined with mopeds, traditional housing and local food vendors as it is to grab a Starbucks coffee in the shiny new shopping center around the corner.
While I was digging deep for the historical roots of the city on my one-day stop over to visit my family in Tokyo, someone else was digging deep into the front pockets of my purse as I battled the pre-holiday crowds on the shopping promenade. My outer purse pockets, usually filled only with an international assortment of lip gloss and a tattered Xerox copy of my passport, was unfortunately, on this particular day, also holding the rather new point and shoot camera I had purchased after my original one was stolen four months earlier in Greece. Vrasta! (it means “Boil Them!” in Greek), Laoshu! (it means “Rat!” in Chinese). They did it again!
But who was “they”? My mother used to throw around a vague “they” in conversation, saying things like “oh well…you what they say…” referring to some phantom group of all-knowing individuals. When I was robbed in Greece, “they”, I was told by the locals, were most likely Albanian or Romanian. And for a moment in Shanghai, I had made “they” the entire 1.3 billion population of China, until I took a deep breath, irrationally thought about the situation, and then hastily singled someone out.
I remembered passing a mother and her young son asking for money on the street where I was sure I was pick-pocketed, and so, with my anger blooming like a fresh lotus flower, I did something completely out of character– I confronted this poor family with American arms waving and language-barriered accusations flying. My usual feeling of injustice concerning the economic and social inequalities of the global population was quickly trumped by the personal injustice at having a material object I can easily afford taken from me. As I watched this mother opening her jacket pockets and her sons’ diapered pants in a show of proof to deny my claims, I realized that I had finally tapped into the ancient history of the city. Shanghai had turned me into a gangster.
When I returned after the holidays, it was time to raise my guard again after letting it down for ten days in Japan, a place where my Brother was convinced that no one stole, cheated, murdered or committed any disrespectful offense whatsoever; his quick dismissal as folklore of the story his wife told him about a highly publicized murder trial in the papers didn’t seem unreasonable. After having Japanese waiters chase us down the street to return 1 yen (.0123 cent) in change, it seemed possible that a suitcase full of valuable jewelry left on the side of the road would be waiting for our return, cleaned and polished by the people who first found it.
I was walking a regular, un-populated street in Shanghai from the Jade Buddha Temple to the local art district with my purse secured tightly by my side, when I felt a strange weight on my shoulder. When I turned to investigate, I caught a young kid with his hand in my bag, grabbing for anything that the time frame allowed, which was, fortunately, only my water bottle. Vrasta! (Boil them!) Laoshu! (Rat!) They tried it again!
The “they” in this situation happened to be two well-dressed-zit-faced-bored-looking teenagers that so surprised me with their… boldness…that I initially thought they must be trying to catch the water bottle that had fallen from my tightly-zipped purse. Out of reflex, I looked and them and said “Xie-Xie”, which means “Thank You” in Chinese.

Xie-Xie? Thank You? What had Shanghai done to me? Here I was about to send a poor mother and her five-year old son to jail for a crime I didn’t see them do while I was thanking…thanking… two young punks that I physically caught trying to steal the entire contents of my bag.
After nine months on the road I started to think that I had become a savvy traveler, aware of and adaptable to the constant cultural changes around me, but Shanghai taught me that no matter how tightly your perceptions or beliefs are secured to your side, there is always a pocket, somewhere, that is waiting to b explored.

Kyoto, Japan

After visiting the enormous city of Tokyo and spending a quiet Christmas in the town of Takayama, we arrived in Kyoto, a place that felt like a perfect blend between the two. While still maintaining a city atmosphere with many restaurants, shopping streets and nightlife, getting around is very manageable and, thankfully, much more affordable.
I don’t know if it was the easy pace of the city or the three of us finally getting into a unified travel groove, but John, Jess and I felt immediately comfortable walking the streets and exploring. Our activities seemed to follow more of an organic format and Kyoto lends itself to accommodating the spontaneous itinerary; you could walk along restaurant alley and choose almost any place and wind up having a great dinner or wander down a little side street and find a whole new district to explore or while on the way to visit one temple, you could be sidetracked by another one that was equally interesting.
I had told John and Jess in Tokyo that I was making an audition video for a travel show and that I had previously filmed an introduction at the Great Wall using my International Almost Naked idea as a theme. The goal of the International Almost Naked photo contest is to try to get as naked as possible, without graphically revealing anything or offending anyone, in front of as many world heritage sites as possible. The big ones, such as the Great Wall, the Giza Pyramids, or the Parthenon obviously win the most points and will earn you the most respect from your fellow traveler’s, which is why you do it in the first place. I was pretty proud of my Almost Naked video on the Great Wall and when I showed it to John and Jess they were equally enthused, but it inspired an idea in a whole different direction.
I was fortunate to be in the presence of two humorous and creative people, my sister in law being an actress and in the film industry for many years and my Brother being a natural comedian; before long they had transformed themselves into my writers, producer, co-producer, and videographer. They created a solid and playful story and when we arrived in Kyoto, we were ready to roll…
The concept really came together when, over a delicious lunch on the waterfront, I read in the guide book that you could have yourself made up like a geisha from one of the local studios. It was to be the prefect ending to a storyline that had me looking for the famously elusive geisha in Kyoto, interviewing people find out where to spot them and then finally getting so frustrated at not finding any that I just become one.
That evening as Jess and I were planning for the early morning make-up session, she turned to John and said, “oh, your sister is going to look so pretty tomorrow.” I went to bed thinking that maybe, just maybe, they will make me look like a Japanese starlet from the olden days and, beyond the sheer absurdity of it all, it would allow me to relish in a moment of glamour.
When we arrived at the studio, I surprisingly was not the only customer. Who knew that quite a few young Japanese girls love to get dressed up like a geisha and slowly walk the streets with a wood clog strut and a serious expression while their family and friends take photos of them? I am not quite sure when the last time a 34 year old American showed up for a make-over, but alas, there I was and I was ready to enter the world of geishadom. 

Jess wasn’t allowed in the dressing room with me and they had so many rules to follow that I didn’t even know if I was allowed in the dressing room with me, but soon enough I was picking out a kimono and kneeling in front of the make-up artist. When she finally finished painting my face white and my lips bright red, I had the chance to look in the mirror and what I saw looking back at me was nothing short of terrifying. Was that really me? She had succeeded in making me look like the Bride of Chucky, which, after the lead iron wig with the sideburns was placed on my head, had transformed into a spitting image of Ronald McDonald as a drag queen. And just as I thought it couldn’t get any better, it was the look on Jessica’s face when she saw me for the first time that solidified my feelings that this was one of the greatest things I have ever done.
I was allowed fifteen minutes, with a chaperone, on the streets next to the studio. While the other girls were carefully passing and posing, Jess and I were practically rolling on the ground in belly-aching laughter, making filming a bit difficult. When I pulled out an unlit marlboro menthol cigarette as part of my skit, the poor chaperone must have thought this a very, very sad day for the geisha.
I didn’t know which felt more freeing, stripping down to almost nothing in the wintertime on the Great Wall of China or donning a ridiculous geisha costume while running through the alleys of Kyoto. Whichever it was, I do know one thing for sure – that I haven’t laughed that hard in years.

Takayama, Japan

Leaving Tokyo for Takayama had me a little worried that perhaps we were on a bullet train headed nowhere. Even though the tickets in our hands said Takayama and the printed hotel address said Takayama, more than a few people I had met traveling who had lived in Japan for many years had never, ever heard of Takayama. I remained suspicious, but as we started to wind through the landscape of the Japanese Alps, I didn’t really care where were heading so long as it was going to be as beautiful as what I saw from the window.
We arrived in Takayama, a place that actually exists and is labeled the “little Kyoto” of Japan for it’s preservation of historical charm, and were immediately ushered into the door of our ryokan and into the thousands of rules that exist within. A ryokan is a traditional type of Japanese lodging which has simple rooms lined with tatami mats and sleeping futons on the floor. They typically serve a five to seven course breakfast and dinner and make use of available hot springs by offering separated soaking tubs for men and women.
There is a definite etiquette involved and as this was being explained to us in a welcome ceremony padded with cupcakes and tea, I felt as though they were prepping us for our entrance exams into a secret ryokan cult. There was a box full of robes, vests, jackets and sashes; you had to wear the robe on the premises and it had to be tied in a special way with the “evening” sash, not the “sleeping” sash, and could be layered with the vest for trips outside of the room and the jacket for when you left the building for the baths. There were hall slippers that could not be worn on the tatami mats and tatami socks that could not be worn in the halls and bathroom slippers that couldn’t be worn in either of these places. We had barely put our bags down and I already had so many questions. 

Could I wear my vest outside of the building or only my jacket or both at the same time or only my jacket and not my vest inside the building and was this appropriate for breakfast and dinner or only breakfast or only dinner? Did my robe tie to the right or to the left? Did I have to remember which hall slippers were mine or could I take any pair that fit? Were there sash police?
They needed to know right away what we wanted for dinner the next night and when we asked for a little more time with our decision it looked as though the whole operation might blow.
This was certainly worth all the initial confusion though, because once we got settled, it no longer felt like a grade school classroom, but rather a warm cocoon of free-wheeling-robe wearing-Japanese-love. It was soon time for dinner and we were led to our private dining room where we were fed one delicious and beautifully presented plate after the other while being formally introduced to Hida Beef, a local specialty similar in pedigree to Kobe beef.
During our meal they had dimmed the lights in our room and lined up the sleeping futons covered with puffy blankets and once we had digested on these for a few minutes, it was time to walk across the street to the soaking chambers. The female bath was in a warm, wooden house with a big soaking tub with smooth rocks and waterfalls, a shower deck looking out onto a garden courtyard and a resting room with a suspended tea kettle. Jessica and I just kept looking at each other in disbelief and I knew at that moment that they could have added a hundred and ten more rules for me to follow – I wasn’t going anywhere on that Christmas Eve.
After dreams of St. Nick secretly nibbling edamame, drinking mugs full of sake and leaving me a piece of origami under my pillow, I awoke on Christmas feeling relaxed and ready to explore the town’s riverside markets, hillside temples and quaint streets lined with traditional wooden houses, shops and restaurants. We were dismissed from the ryokan for lunch so we happened upon a restaurant serving up the Hida beef we had liked so much from the previous night and, before long, we started a self-grilling love affair with the local delicacy. It was the prefect compliment to our Sushi Santa Christmas dinner where we toasted, in our robes, to the loved ones we all had lost, the importance of being together and our gratitude at being able to have such a wonderful experience in Takayama. And, as if our loved ones had heard our prayer, when we finished our dinner and looked out the window, we saw the town being gently covered in pure, white snow.

Tokyo, Japan

Skyline from the Park Hyatt

Hotel Okura's retro lobby

All eyes closed except for John

An example of some of the "interesting" architecture

Man walking in front of Sake barrels

 John and Jess in the city

A wedding we stumbled upon at a temple

A monk moves through the corridors of the temple

Harajuku area at night

Harajuku street with the holiday crowds

A Princess Girl

John debating a new look after Princess Girl inspiration

My excited anticipation for Japan wasn’t rooted only in visions of myself endlessly stuffing sushi pieces in my face, running around Tokyo like a brown-haired, flat-chested Scarlett Johansen, yelling “arigato” to anyone or anything with a pulse, but knowing that, after having completed another solo four months on the road, I would be spending the holidays with my Brother, John, and his wife, Jessica.
As I sat on the mezzanine in the lobby of the Hotel Okura waiting for their arrival, I felt as though I had been transported back to the 1960’s and invited to peek through a secret opening in a soji screen. As the evening conservatively bustled around me, I became a silent observer to the lives of the elegant Japanese patrons; young, tailored mothers with well behaved children in tow gracefully strolled across the retro carpet and bi-speckled, grey haired business men in sharply pressed suits carried leather briefcases to writing desk cubicles as their girlfriends carried designer shopping bags to their room. Beautiful elevator hosts with perfectly pinned hair and pink kimonos were holding the opening and closing doors as the reserved tone of the guests echoed against the softness of the live piano music wafting through the high ceilings of the warmly lit lobby. Besides for the traditional dress worn by some of the women, there was not much color or decoration in the rest of the attire, so when I spotted a pair of blue jeans and a colorful fur collared hippie jacket, I knew my family had arrived safe. When John and Jess walked through the door it was as if the Fifth Avenue wind tunnel of New York City followed behind them and it sent the smell of roasting chestnuts and the sound of cars honking straight up to the balcony where for a moment I felt strangely homesick.
It is very easy, at first, to feel a little out of place in a country whose people seem to like everything in place; trains run perfectly on time, no one talks too loud in public places, clothes, hair and nails are pressed, coiffed and manicured, city streets are clean, administration is efficient and communication and exchange among citizens is carried out with mutual respect; even the homeless take off their shoes, leaving them neatly on a mat outside of their cardboard box. The precise cardboard box I would be living in if I chose Japan as a base as this was the first time in my life, even as a former New Yorker, that I experienced full on sticker shock. Tokyo is a sprawling city, that when viewed over $300,000 cocktails at the top of the Park Hyatt Hotel, it’s urban surface area becomes an incredible site, but unfortunately taking taxis between all the different districts can cost as much as your airfare ticket.
Once you digest the price of everything, it’s a good idea to start digesting all the amazing food this country has to offer. For the first time in my travels I had to match my agenda to the agendas of my family and it seemed as though John’s focus was on fine dining, my focus was on cultural sites and Jessica’s focus was somewhere in between. At first I would open my mouth to protest a lunch in exchange for a museum, but then that same mouth would be stuffed with a savory piece of barbeque yakitori or a perfectly textured soba noodle or a piece of jaw dropping fresh sushi and after being paired with a shot of smooth sake I would have no idea why I even wanted to see the museum in the first place; it seemed as though nothing in the world could compare to the relaxed family time we shared over some of the best food I have ever eaten and soon that became the focus for all of us.
From walking down the famous youth powered fashion runway street of Harajuku and wandering the boutique alleys that surround it to witnessing the bright lights and bar activity of Roppongi, catching a few temples and gardens along the way while eating our way into the Japanese culture, Tokyo was a great rice breaker into a country that holds entertainment, honor and efficiency in high regard and can be summed up with the incident of the missing glove:
On our way out of town, on a train transfer, John lost a glove, and in the ten minutes it took to realize this he decided to go back and see if he could find it. When he inquired about the glove to an attendant, he was promptly taken to the lost and found where the glove, already numbered and tagged, was waiting for him. Ten minutes. Hey, are you listening Amtrak?

Andriana’s Do’s and Don’ts of Tokyo

Do
Do sit on a Japanese toilet seat and make a doo doo. These technologically advanced wonders in hygiene maintenance should be international standard. With their seat warmers and selection of sprays, it makes the thought of returning to a non mechanical seat seem barbaric. Just be sure to look closely at the diagrams of exactly where these sprays are supposed to hit or you might be in for an unexpected surprise.

Don’t
Don’t engage in buffet activity with the Japanese – you will feel like an animal. The all-you-can-eat buffet is an American cultural pastime of over consumption and a fine-tuning of the “get as much as you can for free” philosophy, which are two components that simply do not exist in Japan. Every morning the hotel would offer an incredible breakfast buffet that had these three Americans running back and forth with armfuls of piled-high plates to which we ungracefully woofed down all the hoarded goodies while our Japanese neighbors carefully dissected and portion-controlled a piece of lettuce.

Do
Do try to spot and take pictures of the Japanese Princess Girls, which are a group of soft-spoken, coy youth that combine the looks of Marie Antoinette and Paris Hilton into some Japanese style, frilly acid trip. It can be a lot like playing the Volkswagon Bug game while on a road trip and it certainly had my sister in law fascinated. Sightings turned her into a crazed paparazzi.

Don’t
Don’t live in a constant state of excitement over the toilet seats that you start confusing your bowing and squatting. Bowing is a beautiful part of the Japanese culture, a way to show respect and gratitude to others, and after just a day in the country it feels normal to start bowing just like the locals. And squatting becomes a highly anticipated activity for the Japanese toilet novice. But after a few jugs of sake it’s easy to start mixing up the bow and the squat and I am sure I may have left a few confused (or offended) Japanese in my wake.

Don’t miss Japan. Do save up before you go.