Florence, Italy

I arrived in Venice on May 16, and immediately met with a coworker and took a train to Florence for the weekend. I was quite exhausted from the long flight (in which I lost my US cell phone, so if any of you want me to have your number, please email it to me), but decided it would be boring to sit around the hotel in Venice all weekend by myself. Tri and I arrived in Florence, checked into our hotel, got some dinner, and then I pretty much passed out while I was walking back.

Florence Pictures
I wish I had more pictures, but they don’t allow cameras in most of the art museums.

Saturday, Tri’s cousin and his friend met us and we did a bit of exploring. We saw Uffizi Gallery, and Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (il Duomo di Firenze) in the afternoon. Uffizi is an art museum housing a lot of Italian Renaissance paintings and sculptures. I actually recognized a few pieces that I was forced to memorize in Art History in college, such as ‘The Birth of Venus’ by Botticelli, and other works by da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Caravaggio. The Basilica is a beautiful old cathedral designed by Brunelleschi with colorful marble panels.

Later that evening, we came back to the Basilica and climbed to the top from the inside. This provided a great view of Florence.

We went out on Saturday night and found more of an “American” style place to drink. It had a walk-up wooden bar, darts, and in the back was a big karaoke room with a DJ. I know karaoke sounds sorta stupid or more specific to Asia…but since Florence has a lot of college students studying abroad, it was mostly filled with drunk Italians and Americans singing Journey songs, which everyone loves.

On Sunday, we toughed out the ~2 hour wait to get into Galleria dell’Accademia which contains Michelangelo’s statue of David. Everyone’s seen pictures of this before, but it was much better in person. The statue was a lot bigger than I thought it would be, and set in natural light in the middle of a domed type hallway. While moving with the crowd around the statue, people were ranting in awe about how big his hands are, or how well sculpted his butt is, or how sexy his curly hair is. At first, I mistook all of these compliments as directed at me…but I soon remembered the statue.

(Obviously, not my picture)

I bought a language book for travelers at the museum and commenced mastering Italian at this point. You will have to check back in with me later to see how that is going. Tri and I took the 2.5 hr train back to Mestre that afternoon, and I got ready to start work the next day.

Chicago & Atlanta

I thought for sure that I would be sent directly back to China...but I was wrong. Instead I get this posh assignment in Venice, Italy with a week and a half of prep time back in the U.S. I still can' t believe that happened. Lucky for me Senor Berg was also back in Chicago sporting a mustache from working nights in Minnesota. All of us get tired of operators questioning our youth, and Mr. Berg confronted the problem head on in the most civilized manner...by growing a mustache to remove all doubt...and keeping it long enough to come meet me for a drink at Goose Island in Wrigley.

I tried this approach...with less success. (Picture not available).

It was really nice to spend some time seeing some friends in Chicago and finally get a chance to take a trip back to Atlanta to see my family.

This is Rafique on the left with Tim (friends from high school) in between us classing it up as usual. The picture on the right has Nidhi and Tori, two of my friends from GT. Good to see you guys, since I have no idea when I will be back. And...off to Italy.

Yokkaichi, Japan

I had a solid 15 days here in Yokkaichi, and I really enjoyed it.
Yokkaichi Pictures

The town was fairly small but pretty nice and new. There were a lot of places within walking distance. About the only thing I didn't like is the lack of a gym in the hotel. But that seems to be pretty constant.

Japan is expensive, though. We took a taxi to work everyday, and it was about $30 US each way (expensed, of course). Window shopping around the mall I saw hats are about 6,000 yen ($60) and haircut 4,000 yen ($40). I didn't buy much. The food was really good, too. Of course it didn't hurt that I had Sekine-san there to translate and order for me in restaurants. We brought lunch to work everyday, so I bought stuff at the grocery store attached to our hotel each night. This is the plaza right outside the hotel and in front of Apita.

The grocery store (Apita) was a huge place inside an even bigger building, which is quite common. It was a department store with nice places on different levels, a dollar store on the top floor (well, 105 yen store), and the giant grocery store on the bottom level. I mostly stuck to eating Bento (loosely translated - lunchbox)...which were delicious, but I also ate plenty of sushi and sashimi...which was even more delicious. By this time I am pretty handy with chop sticks after spending several months in Asia.

I have eaten plenty of rice.

I still have a hard time saying 'Konnichiwa' without saying 'bitches' after it because of the Chapelle show.

Kyoto, Japan

Perry, Susan, Sekine-san, and I decided to take a one-day trip to Kyoto to see some old ass temples. Kyoto is the former capital of Japan - Western Capital. It is pretty much an old city with like 4000 Buddhist Shinto temples.
Kyoto Pictures

So we took a 2 hour bus ride and started on our day. First we saw the Ginkaku-ji (Temple of the Silver Pavilion), then Kinkaku-ji (Temple of the Golden Pavilion), and finally Ryoan-ji Rock Garden. The Silver Temple was pretty nice, aside from the main temple being under repair. They do amazing things with sand, and again, what's a temple without a magnificent garden?

That's sand representing Mt. Fuji.

Up next was a Kyoto style lunch at a local restaurant. I can't tell the difference between the "styles" of food between cities, so i will just explain what I ate, or at least I think I ate.

There was some kinda spicy cold stuff on the left, Kirin beer, some tofu, an entire fish with soft bones, other fish pieces, sweet rice paste, and a giant chilled tofu square in soy sauce. MMMmmm.

After Lunch we made our way to the Golden Temple, which is probably the most recognizable place in Kyoto.

And then over to the Rock Garden at Ryoan-ji, which is quite perplexing. There are 15 boulders in an open garden with some significance.

The problem is that no one knows the significance. I asked and read the Ryoan-ji pamphlet which explained that the rock garden means whatever the hell you want it to mean. The rocks, the open spaces between the rocks...the more you meditate on them, they can mean something different. Sounds like someone threw a bunch of rocks in an open air garden and just got lazy. Shinto? Sure.