by Audrey -

Scooters in pre-Christmas Saigon

Saigon is by far the most motorcycle-dense city I’ve been to yet.  If Taipei can be said to have swarms of scooters, Saigon has the killer bee attack version.

Which is to say, I don’t like the city much, but I’m probably biased because I don’t like the smell of raw exhaust or seeing black when I sneeze. (Same goes for Beijing.)

I only had one day in Saigon itself, but there was enough time to walk to a nearby market, check out some night scenery, and and go down to the river.  Really, the main sight was the congested streets, and learning how to navigate them.

It’s very simple.  You walk slowly, deliberately, and determinedly forwards, and trust that the scooters will magically part, brake, and swerve around you.  Think of swimming through a school of small fish.  You’re surrounded and overwhelmed, but nothing ever actually touches you.  A little bit of a power trip, actually, crossing the road.  A little scary, taking those first steps though.

From Vietnam

The other interesting thing in Saigon was the ubiquity of Christmas decorations.  Variations on Santa, lights, and reindeer were in every shop window, and adorning various street corners.  Vendors were selling glow sticks, light up headbands, and balloons.  It was weird because the locals were all posing to take pictures in front of the shop windows – that was the activity of the weekend, it seemed.  Lots of kids were running around with glowing horns on their heads.  I can only guess that this might be a more local take on reindeer antlers, but really, who knows?

From Vietnam
From Vietnam

There wasn’t as much street-street food as I’d expected here, much of the food was in small cafes, like Taiwanese 小吃 type eateries. We did find a woman roasted sheets of thinly sliced banana – a nice cross between fruit leather and banana chips.  She utterly ripped us off by charging $.75 for 2 sheets (but it was good!)

From Vietnam

The river itself was a litle disappointing – other than some tourist-targeted boat restaurants, the waterfront was dead quiet.

From Vietnam

We stayed in Saigon one night, and the next night took a train to beachside Nha Trang.  It worked out well, I think.  The city itself didn’t seem particularly friendly, delicious, or useful as more than a starting point for trips to the Mekong Delta.

by Audrey -

Gotta run

For some reason, when I travel, I inevitably end up running to catch something.  Previous hasty sprints have involved a bullet train in Nagasaki, a midnight train in St. Petersburg, a flight in Johannesburg, and a transfer in Bangkok.

My most recent episode was a trot through Shibuya station (because who knew the Shinkansen platform was so so far from all the other ones?)  to catch the first Narita express of the day, to catch my flight to Saigon.

I got to Shibuya station a solid 15 minutes before my train was supposed to depart, so I thought I had plenty of time.  But then I had to find the special train ticket machine that sold Narita Express tickets, and then I had to get on the train.  I knew where the entrance to the platform was.  Five minutes to go – just an easy walk, right?  As I walked through the ticket gates, I slowly realized that there was a really long hallway ahead of me, and it had a bend to it, and … where was the platform, exactly?

After turning hallway #2, we realized that maybe, if we didn’t hustle, we’d miss the train.

So, backpacks hefted high, taking full advantage of the already moving walkways,  an increasingly hasty jog led us to … more stairs.  (Critical reason why backpacks beat suitcases – sprintability).  Those walkways are nice and springy by the way.  Rather surprising.

We were almost there!  So close, in fact, we could hear the wheels of the train hissing, and the beginning of the “Please beware of closing doors” spiel.  Leaping down the stairs and almost rolling onto the train…we made it into the closest car (#4).

Usually it wouldn’t have been a problem to walk through the train to my seat in car 7, but this particular train had a conductor’s office in car 6, which blocked the way.  So we had to stand awkwardly in the luggage space of car 6 for 20 minutes, until the train stopped at Tokyo station.  Once stopped, we sheepishly hopped off the train, stepped two feet over to car 7, and hopped back on.

Phew. The rest of the transportation for the trip was happily uneventful, though.

No pictures of the mad dash, but here’s an amusing sign from the airport.  It seems as though someone might have complained about the lack of warning, because there were at least two of these as you walked to the boarding gates.  In the exact same format, too, there was also a sign with a real announcement about switched gates. Strange.

From Vietnam
by audrey -

Post-fall colors

Okay, so it’s a little late for a “fall leaves” post.  But they’re still out in Japan, AND I caught some on … memory card these past two weekends.  Thanks to some zoom and crop, you’d never know I wasn’t surrounded by a bunch of dead sticks otherwise.  Actually, there really was plenty of scenery to drink in; it’s just hard to capture a bunch of colorful trees in a meaningful way in a photo.  For me, at least. 

I’d have to somehow grab the crispness of the air (which adds a certain snap to the colors), the wet smell of leaves that haven’t quite started decaying yet, and a pinch of ifi’mthiscoldnowwhataboutnextmonth? fear.  Camera wasn’t up to it.  Photographer either. 

A bunch of these were taken in Tokyo, at the Ebisu nature preserve (who knew?) which my friend described as a big carbon dioxide sink for the freeway that surrounds half of it. 

The other bunch came from a one day trip to Kyoto (bounded by two yakou bus rides – a post of their own).  Kyoto is really THE place to see fall foliage, but I hadn’t been able to make it down to visit my surrogate family until last weekend. Â