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Hiroshima, Kyoto and Beijing

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Our first day in Hiroshima, I spent in bed. Something I ate the day before didn’t sit well, but whatever it was, thankfully only got me. The next day I was feeling better, and we walked to spend the day at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park . While eating breakfast, we saw that it was snowing, but we stuck with our plan. It turned out that the path from our apartment to the park was mostly covered. I hadn’t seen this many enclosed roads before. It was like markets where they cover the streets overhead, except this went on for several blocks. Our first stop was the Hall for the Atomic Bomb Victims. It was simple and powerful in its message of reflection and peace. At the center is the Hall of Remembrance, where you take a spiral path down toward the center. The design makes you feel as though you are walking back in time, ending with a 360 panoramic photo of the city after the bombing. From there we walked to the museum, where everything became much harder to take in, with stories from s...
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Hiroshima, Quioto e Pequim

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Nosso primeiro dia em Hiroshima, passei na cama. Algo que comi no dia anterior não caiu bem, mas seja lá o que foi, felizmente só me afetou. No dia seguinte eu estava me sentindo melhor, e caminhamos para passar o dia no Parque Memorial da Paz de Hiroshima . Enquanto tomávamos café da manhã, vimos que estava nevando, mas mantivemos o plano. Acabou que o caminho do nosso apartamento até o parque era quase todo coberto. Eu não tinha visto tantas ruas fechadas assim antes. Era como aqueles mercados onde cobrem as ruas por cima, só que isso se estendia por vários quarteirões. Nossa primeira parada foi o Memorial das Vítimas da Bomba Atômica. Era simples e poderoso em sua mensagem de reflexão e paz. No centro fica o Salão da Lembrança, onde você faz um caminho em espiral descendo em direção ao centro. Esse caminho faz você se sentir como se estivesse voltando no tempo, terminando numa sala com uma foto panorâmica de 360 graus da cidade após o bombardeio. De lá caminhamos até o museu, onde t...
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Location: Beijing, China
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Beijing and Tokyo

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I arrived in Beijing a few days before my partner and her son. This gave me a little extra time to learn a few things in preparation for their arrival. I sensed a strong likeness to the US where I was staying. At first I couldn't quite place it, but as I walked around those first couple of days, it became clearer. It was the wide streets, the large number of cars, the larger vehicles like SUVs, the newer and more modern buildings, and even the fact that unlike the last three countries I visited in Asia, there were no bidet showers in bathrooms, only toilet paper. But as we interacted with people and places, and spent time learning about the culture and its deep heritage, that initial likeness faded. One of our first outings was to a Chinese community hospital for a general visit. In China, these hospitals are common and are where most people first go for ailments and to buy traditional medicine. We received a Tui Na diagnosis, and the three of us, one at a time, went through the...
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Location: Tokyo, Japan
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Pequim e Tóquio

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Cheguei a Pequim alguns dias antes da minha parceira e do filho dela. Isso me deu um pouco de tempo para aprender algumas coisas em preparação para a chegada deles. Senti uma forte semelhança com os Estados Unidos onde eu estava hospedado. No início, não conseguia identificar exatamente o que era, mas conforme fui caminhando pela cidade naqueles primeiros dias, ficou mais claro. Eram as ruas largas, a grande quantidade de carros, os veículos maiores como SUVs, os prédios mais novos e modernos, e até mesmo o fato de que, ao contrário dos três últimos países que visitei na Ásia, não havia chuveirinho nos banheiros, apenas papel higiênico. Mas, à medida que interagimos com as pessoas e os lugares, e dedicamos tempo a aprender sobre a cultura e sua rica herança, essa semelhança inicial foi se dissipando. Um dos nossos primeiros passeios foi a um hospital comunitário chinês para uma consulta geral. Na China, esses hospitais são comuns e são onde a maioria das pessoas vão primeiro para tra...
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Location: Tokyo, Japan
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Chiang Mai

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From the south of Thailand I took a plane north to Chiang Mai to visit another friend. I made it to my hostel a bit later due to a flight delay, but before heading to bed we made plans to have brunch the next day. We met at a restaurant and I had waffles, eggs, bacon, and hash browns. I realized it had been over a year since I had anything close to that, and it was nice having it again after so long. I rested at the hostel and later we met up to work out at the gym. Like the workout in Ioannina, it was good to be doing it again and mixing different kinds of physical activity. We then got ready to go to a street market in the old city that only opens on Sundays. It is so massive that we walked around for a couple of hours and only saw parts of it. The variety of things being sold and the level of detail and craft were impressive. Along the way we ate some snacks, including more miang kam, which my friend had not tried before, and visited Wat Chedi Luang, a historic temple that also hous...
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Location: Chiang Mai, Mueang Chiang Mai District, Chiang Mai, Thailand
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