The express train from Hakata to Nagasaki is beautiful – hardwood floors, great colors.   Breakfast was on the train.  Cheese bread and raisin bread. Again. There are so few vegetarian options here.

The countryside here is beautiful. Mountains covered in green are everywhere, and everything is so tidy. I keep thinking I could live here again. (It would be easier to keep vegetarian cooking on my own).

(En route to Nagasaki.)

Nagasaki is beautiful. I grabbed an unlimited street car ticket and headed off.

I first went to the Peace Park. I thought I was emotionally prepared for it. I was not.

The bomb (Nagasaki was plutonium, Hiroshima was uranium) was dropped just 3 days after the one in Hiroshima. Nagasaki was chosen after the bomber couldn’t see Kokura (north of Fukuoka) through smoke. Just after 11:00, the bomb exploded north of downtown. The blast was terrible. Thousands died immediately, and thousands more died in the coming weeks and months. This museum doesn’t have all of the original US government documents that the one in Hiroshima did, but the effect is still haunting. The bomb heliocenter was close enough to knock down a prison and what was then the largest Catholic church in east Asia. And, of course, everything else nearby. A sign near the heliocenter shows how the ground was several feet higher before the bomb.

(At the Peace Park.  Also, some history  in the text.)

(Peace Park.)

(More statistics.)

(The main monument in the Peace Park and a collection of origami cranes – regularly replaced – for the victims.)

(A replica of the plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki.)

(You can see the heat damage to the exposed part versus the unexposed part.)

(A collection of coins and other materials melted in the blast.)

(More everyday items melted in the blast.)

(Scorched clothing.)

(Pictures of the immediate aftermath of the bomb.)

(A then-and-now photo of Nagasaki.)

(This is the character for “prayer,” made from hundreds of origami cranes folded by schoolchildren in Japan.)

The memorial for those who died is columns of water pouring over rocks, to answer the call of so many victims for water to soothe their scorched throats.  It was haunting.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki chartered a mayor’s plan for peace. I was happy to see both Salt Lake City and San Francisco as signatories. I signed their pledge for a global convention on nuclear weapons.  You can too, here.

After some time to gather myself, I hopped on the street car to Oura Catholic Church, the oldest Christian church in Japan. It has a great collection of artifacts related to the persecution on early Christians: it had fumie images, which were carved images of holy figures on which people suspected of Christianity had to walk, to show their disregard for Christianity; it had sculptures of Kannon with Marian imagery or a cross on the back; and it had a variety of everyday objects onto which Christians carved hidden messages.  It was really interesting to see these artifacts in person.  They figure prominently in Silence (沈黙), a novel by Endo Shusaku – and the first full length Japanese book I read in the original.

(The oldest Christian church in Japan.)

(Inside the church.)

(Check out the difference between the front and back.)

(Technically, this looks like Kannon/Guanyin/ Avalokiteśvara – but it’s really Mary.) 

(A fumie.)

The views from the church are of Nagasaki harbor, and are amazing.

From the church I wandered through the Chinatown, where Chinese laborers built a variety of temples that are still standing.  Nagasaki has long been an international city.

My next stop was Dejima (出島).  In the closed country period (鎖国時代) Dejima was the only port open to foreign trade. Originally it was for the Portuguese, but after the government moved to ban Christianity, the Dutch took over the facility. This was really quite cool. Tons of trade goods (including at some points millions of dollars worth of sugar) flowed through the island. And western medicine. Dejima was the first place where vaccination was performed in Japan.  Dejima was also fun because a bunch of Japanese girls on the street car kept talking amongst themselves about what it was, and no one knew.  Eventually, I explained that it was the only foreign port in Japan during the closed country period.  Their first shock was that I understood them, and their second was that I knew the answer. They went on about how they learned about Japanese history from a non-Japanese.  Hehe.

(Dutch merchant quarters.)

(More of the merchant quarters at Dejima.)

(A cool packing job!)

From Dejima, I went to the site of martyrdom of 26 Japanese saints (6 foreigners and 20 Japanese) who were collected from throughout Japan after Christianity was formally outlawed, and crucified on a hill overlooking Nagasaki bay.  This is now a pilgrimage site.

Next stop, the Nagasaki museum of history and culture. By this point, having been to Oura and Dejima, I’d seen most of it. But the artwork is great. There were fascinating fusion pieces, like katana guards with western people on them.

I went to the mall by the station for dinner. There was an Indian place. It was overpriced, but it actually had vegetarian food. After asking if there was anything veggie at 3 restaurants before this one, I was sort of willing to pay anything for vegetables.

Back to the station for the train to Hakata. I need to be up early tomorrow to get to Kyoto.

There were big delays on the Toikaido line (the main train line between Tokyo and the cities to the south and west), so they let us switch at Shin Osaka to a super fast bullet train. (Yes, there are different bullet trains, some faster than others).  Of course, they announced this about an hour early, which lead to even less sleep. In retrospect, I should have stayed on the sleeper car – at least I could have stayed lying down. But, I got to ride on the fastest bullet train, which normally would not be covered by my pass. That was cool.

The bullet trains really are slick. In some ways they represent Japan: organized, on-time, super clean. Passengers are organized and don’t go out of turn.   Unlike China, which was a lot more chaotic, with an every-man-for-himself feel.

By daylight I was in Fukuoka.  I’d never been to Kyushu, so this was exciting.

(Hakata Station, the main station in Fukuoka.)

(Wandering around I saw this post with Sister Cities. I immediately recognized Oakland.)

There is a cluster of temples in the Gion neighborhood, including the main shrine in Hakata.

(An omikoshi, or portable shrine.)

(Hakata Shrine.)

(I love these straw ropes.)

(At the main Shinto shrine.)

Next to the main shrine, there was  a farmers market stand from a local tea growing region (Yame).  Japanese green tea is so different than Chinese. It was on a great sale. They also had some homemade miso and other perishable items I didn’t think I could get home.

Nearby was a Buddhist temple.  The architecture is very Japanese. Chinese-influenced, but still very Japanese.

(Chinese influenced pagoda, Shinto influenced temple.)

(At the Buddhist temple, a pictorial exposition of jigoku, or hell.  As you can see, it’s remarkably similar to Christian imagery. It’s interesting how most religions struck on post-mortal punishment as a mortal motivator.)

I went to a nearby museum of local history.  Very interesting.  Fukuoka is quite close to Korea, so it’s long been a cosmopolitan and international city. This was an artisan making Hakata dolls, a local specialty.

I walked to the Tenjin area, which is the main shopping district of Fukuoka. Western brands and high-end Japanese ones all over the place. I got lunch here – cheese bread and tea – because finding anything without meat is proving really hard.

I took the subway to Ohori park, which is a beautiful lake in the middle of town. Nearby is the ruins of Fukuoka castle. Great views.

(Ohori Park Lake.)

(The castle foundation.)

Even better, nearby was an excavation site from the castle era. Historically, Fukuoka was one of 3 diplomatic entry points to Japan (along with Osaka and Kyoto), so it was a big stop in what was called the ceramic road.

For dinner I found a place that had a veggie spaghetti.  Not very Japanese, and certainly not the ramen for which Hakata is famous, but it was the only veggie option I could find (and I certainly know how to ask). Then off to bed for my first real sleep in a while.

And here are the leaves after sitting overnight. You can definitely see the oxidation process in action.  The controlled management of this process is what makes most of the difference between teas.

When we went down to breakfast, there were government officials.  They were enjoying Zhonghua (中華) cigarettes.  This is a serious brand, and fetches some of the highest prices on the market.  After the discussion yesterday about cigarette giving, I was impressed.

After breakfast, we set out for Taiping lake (reservoir, really). The drive takes us near Huangshan, yellow mountain, which is one of the most scenic mountains in China. The scenery is stunning. Tall mountains, narrow valleys, all covered in trees.

(The highest peak at Huangshan.)

(Such pretty scenery.)

(Tea growing throughout the mountains.)

The lake is in the middle of furious development. Which was sort of sad, because there was lots of infrastructure for no people.  Like, there were plans for lots of people, but the Field of Dreams rule did not apply (that is, they built it but nobody came).  A vendor met us at the lake and took us by boat to this little village perched on a very steep hill. There, families were processing Taiping Houkui.

(To qualify as Taiping Houkui, it has to grow on the islands on this lake.)

(Steep inclines, tea growing in every crevice.)

We watched the entire process.  The leaves are much larger, so the same 100 grams fills a lot more space.

(Fresh and processed.)

(You can see how the leaves are much bigger.)

(More pretty leaves.)

After picking, the leaves wither for a couple of hours. The leaves are then pan fired.  Essentially this is stirring them in a hot cast iron wok for about 3 minutes.  You can hear the oils in the leaves popping. The smell is great.  As they lose moisture, their volume shrinks a lot.  I got to toss them. Hot! It’s an art to keep the leaves moving so you don’t scorch them – or your hands.

After the firing, they are rolled by hand.  At this point they are super pliable.  This picture is mid-roll.

For Taiping Houkui, there are at least 3 leaves per roll, and you use the stem to roll.

(This was super fun!)

The rolled leaves are then pressed with the stone roller. After that, they are

put on a rack, and dry in about 20 minutes.  The ratio for these is about 6 pounds wet leaf to 1 pound finished product.

(From the roof of the inn. So pretty.)

Leaving Jingdezhen we drove through some beautiful mountains on our way to Qimen, in Anhui Province. The red dirt of the mountains was covered with a carpet of trees of mixed green colors. Not many people on the road to Qimen either.

(Even the sign on the way out of the city reminded us about porcelain.)

(So green.)

(Tea!)

An hour into the ride we were stopped at a police checkpoint. Tony explained where we were going, but they still insisted on seeing my passport. I think they were bored, and I was a curiosity

Qimen has green tea growing areas around it, but once you get into town it’s all about black tea. We met Charlene’s supplier near the train station, and went to the factory. Getting there took us through tiny streets, a tunnel so narrow I’m surprised the mirrors cleared, followed by the tightest hairpin turn I’ve ever seen. The factory was in an old railroad school. There were pigs in the back.

But the smell! As we walked in our noses filled with the caramel smell of Qimen black tea. It was amazing.

The staff was happy to show us the whole operation. The day is spent picking, then the tea is sorted by grades. At night there is the first wither for 4 hours, after which the now pliable leaves are rolled on a machine.  From there, the rolled leaves are moved to the oxidation room, which is like a sauna – complete with steamer to ensure consistent moisture levels in the air.  The rolled tea is then allowed to oxidize.  This is where it is as much art as science, because the process generally takes 5-6 hours, but it depends on look not time.  The oxidized leaves go in a tumbler (like an industrial clothes dryer) with heat to dry about 1 hour, and then moved to a dryer  to finalize for about 2 hours.

(Mats for the initial withering.)

(The rolling machine.)

(To keep it humid.)

(These leaves are getting close to finishing their oxidation. If you look closely, you can see some still green parts in the otherwise dark leaves.)

(Tumble dryer.)

(Different grades of tea. The upper left is an early spring harvest, and is mostly buds, which turn golden in the oxidation process.  The upper right is a standard, but still high quality, Qimen.)

(Buds.)

(Good grade black tea.)

(Lower grade. You can see that this has much smaller pieces and is more crumbly.  This is still technically a higher grade than what is used in most tea bags.  Don’t worry, though, bagged tea drinkers, most places use CTC [crush, tear, curl] processing for their bags, which means they start out wanting the finer stuff that makes it in to bags. Hopefully, though, you can see how much prettier loose is.)

From the factory we went to lunch.

(The tea was a lower grade Qimen black that was just put in a regular glass with hot water. It was interesting to watch the leaves float, but hard to drink.)

(They arranged for a vegetarian meal, and again the ferns were the standout dish.)

From lunch we saw more processing at the factory, then drove with the suppliers to a tea village. Or, that was the plan. We ended up having to wait a good 30 minutes while the government was there inspecting the facility.  Apparently, the processors had received a subsidy for a machine, and the government, entirely appropriately, wanted to make sure that the money was actually used on the intended machine.

While we sat around waiting, I learned about 2 very interesting things: cigarettes and bribes.  First, among men (and sometimes women), the exchanging of cigarettes is a big deal in business.  You have to make sure and give the right grade cigarette to people – you can’t give too good a brand to someone lower than you, and you have to give the right brands to someone above you.  There are apparently very complicated rules about this.  Generally, Western brands are highly regarded.  But they don’t compare with the top Chinese brands, which historically were made for Mao Zedong and other luminaries.  Apparently, when we first pulled up, the staff asked if we smoked, and Tony told them we don’t.  Second, cigarettes don’t count as bribes.  Fancy tea, though, does. Historically, fancy tea, like that made here, was used as “gifts” to political superiors.  However, the new government of Xi Jinping has been cracking down on corruption, so the producers commented that they had seen appreciable falls in their revenues, because people aren’t buying as much of their best tea.

Once the inspectors were on their way (happily puffing as they left), we drove off to the tea village.  The village was hidden deep in the mountains in some more windy roads. Seeing the actual plants was great though. The sound of frogs and insects filled the air.

(The flavor of raw leaves is slightly citrus, bitter, and astringent. It’s not bad, and given my predilection for raw veggies, I could probably learn to eat. But it definitely didn’t taste like the finished product.)

 

This morning I woke up to weird dreams and dead arms. I think it was an inevitable consequence of sleeping on two pillows. Which was, in turn, necessary because the bed was so hard. Anyway, up, up and away!

I left my luggage at the concierge and retraced my steps to the subway for a trip to Lama Temple. It’s the largest Tibetan Buddhist complex “in China and outside of Tibet” (which seems oddly specific – probably because there are bigger places elsewhere … India maybe). The architecture was interesting: chiefly Chinese (it started out as an imperial villa and was repurposed to show the Tibetans they were part of the empire), with some interesting touches, including Chinese script next to Tibetan, Manchurian, and Mongolian. Very cool.

(Lots of incense here. And script in 4 different languages on the plaque above the door!)

(A Tibetan sand mandala. So, so cool.)

The audio guide had some clear communist overtones. It described at length the process of selection for the Dalai Lama, including how the central government in Beijing has final say.  According to the guide, this stemmed from a dispute in the distant past about succession, which was resolved by the then Buddhist emperor.  It also talked about the visit by the current Dalai Lama to the Temple after the revolution when he met with Mao Zedong.  No word about his later exile though. It repeated several times how the central government supported the temple.

Outside of the temple were dozens of sellers of immense bundles of incense. This is because people burned 3 sets of incense at probably a dozen different censers throughout the complex. There were a lot of people genuflecting before the images. The burning of incense and the genuflections were potent counterpoints to the statist audio guide. Here were sincere believers doing what they could within the system.  Not matter how heathen I am, I respect people taking a stand for personal conviction.

(I debated taking this photo for a while, and revisited the debate when it came time to post.  I decided to post it for the same reason I decided to take it: this man was making a very public display of religiosity both as a manifestation of personal faith, and given the location, as a political statement.  I respect risky personal self expression.)

From Lama Temple I walked across the street to a tea shop with a sign for vegetarian food (again, I felt lucky I could read the characters, even if I can’t pronounce them). I grabbed myself some snacks and went on to the Confucius Shrine.

The Confucius Shrine was impressive. It is on the site of the old imperial academy. Again, the party message was clear: Confucius should be respected because he articulated a secular morality that supported classical Chinese culture, and helped China develop some innovative technologies and systems.  After all the focus on secularism, though, it was unusual to have donation boxes in front of all the buildings.  I suppose they could have been donation boxes for museum upkeep (like those in nearly every museum I’ve ever seen), but the shape, structure, and placement of the boxes were more like Buddhist offering boxes.

The academy side of the museum was interesting because it praised the wisdom of the imperial examination system for breaking down class barriers, but it also acknowledged that the examination system resulted in confined thought processing.  The academy had a great exhibit on modern calligraphy. It didn’t make up for the one at the Forbidden City, but it was good to have.

(Cool trees at the Confucius Shrine.)

After the Confucius Shrine, I went to a great vegetarian buffet.  More veggie options is definitely one of the good things about being in a Buddhist area.

From there, I took the subway back to my hotel, and went to exchange some money.  I had travelers checks (I know lots of people just do ATM withdrawals, but that continues to be rare in Japan, so I thought travelers checks throughout the trip would be better).  The hotel had never seen them and didn’t know what to do.  Luckily, there was a bank next to the hotel, but even there it took about 5 forms, multiple copies of my passport, input from 4 different employees, plus a phone call to someone in a different office, to actually get my money).

(Beijing subway station.)

From the hotel I took a taxi to the airport to meet Charlene and Tony and start the trip.  We flew Air China, and the domestic terminal had some seriously nice shops. Better than those in the international terminal.  Domestic security was efficient. Big mistake though, I left my bug spray in my backpack, so it was confiscated.  This may sound paranoid, but with a new strain of bird flu being announced shortly before I got to China, I was all nervous.  And for a country that, at least according to news reports, has no real concerns with industrial chemical use, I was surprised that for the rest of my trip, I was unable to find any insect repellant with DEET.

At the airport, while we waited to board, we sat across from 4 women, who may have been clones.  They were all wearing their hair the same way, wearing the same exact shoes, and transfixed on their cell phones. Tony took pictures because it was so funny. I thought about how big the world is to have these people who have important things in their lives, and who were unconnected with me except for that one random moment in the Beijing Airport.

Well, except for our phones. One of them also had a Galaxy S3, and the others had Apple and HTC models. So we did have some connection in that we were both consumers of the same companies. As I thought about that I realized just how many Samsung, HTC, and Apple phones I saw as I wandered Beijing. Plenty of Chinese domestic tourists were using them, like me, as a primary camera. Talk about market penetration.

Our flight was delayed about 30 minutes getting on the plane and then for about 45 minutes taking off. So, by the time we got moving it is already really late. The benefit was that Air China serves really nice food on flight. I got a steamed bun, and when I read it was beef, I told them I don’t eat meat, and they swapped its for a veggie one.

We arrived at Jingdezhen and the first thing you notice is that everything is ceramic. Everything. The airport is coated in ceramic tiles. The lamp posts are too. So are the trash cans. Anyway, we picked up the car, and came to, appropriately, the Porcelain Inn.

(Jingdezhen Airport. Yes, those are porcelain tiles on the wall.)

Porcelain tiles everywhere in the lobby. And the guest room. It’s actually very cool.

(The construction, though, was not as impressive.  The sink emptied through this pipe into a hole in the floor – you could hear water flowing whenever you ran the sink.)

Off to sleep.

The next day was all on my own. I woke up without an alarm around 7:00, which was nice – jetlag mostly conquered.

I started out walking for the Forbidden City. My hotel was close to the northern gate, but you can only enter through the southern one.  So getting there involved a schlep the full length of the Palace Museum (as the Forbidden City is known in China). Even at my brisk walking pace, it was a good 25 minutes to walk the length of the complex.

Once I made it to Tiananmen Square, I had to queue for admission. Security checked IDs and bags. I was the beneficiary of discrimination, though, because the woman who checked my passport didn’t really look at it. She was bored with foreigners. This was unlike the Chinese nationals who underwent a more searching review based on all sorts of data, including current picture, pulled up from the national ID card: scan the card, and a registered picture and tons of info (address, etc.) popped up.  Efficient, but very Big Brother.

Tiananmen Square is massive. I read that it’s the largest public square in the world, and I believe it. It’s also spartan. No benches, no trees, nothing that casts shade other than a large pillar celebrating the site from which Mao Zedong announced the founding of the PRC.  The museums surrounding the Square are impressive, statist. But I was excited to see the Forbidden City.

As far as art and architecture go, it was amazing. The architecture was immense. Not as big as Tiananmen Square, but the various courtyards could hold a lot of people. The amount of labor spent on the roofs and walls was staggering.  This includes ongoing maintenance – at one point, I came across two women with small brushes and a bucket of red paint who were working on a small building just off the main tourist path.  So much work to keep the compound as impressive as it is.

Seeing the various buildings, I had the sense that the imperial life was about the administration of state, not necessarily the personal lives of the imperial family.  The personal lives of the emperors was lived in small rooms. Well appointed, to be sure, but small.  And tradition circumscribed a lot of daily life.

(Isn’t this a great door handle?!)

(The stone garden in the imperial garden.)

(At a pool in the imperial garden. I don’t understand the urge to throw money into standing water, but it was everywhere in China too. Including bills!  Yes, those are notes floating among the fishes.)

(Everything else on this is tile, but there’s this fun wooden replacement one. There are lots of stories for why it’s there.)

(The Forbidden City has seen its fair share of of violence.  This just sort of struck me.)

(Yes, that’s a bathroom.  Not in particularly good repair, either.)

(I love the history of Chinese characters.  These were the “Stone Drums of Qin” and some of the world’s oldest instances of characters.  Super cool!)

Another thing that struck me is that the doorpost signs announcing the of buildings throughout the Forbidden City were in Chinese characters and Manchurian. A reminder that the Qing dynasty was Manchurian.

I’m glad the communists kept the Forbidden City. Yes, it is a relic of the feudal past, which they tried hard to eliminate. But it’s also important to world history.  A lot of my time wandering about was filled with thoughts about the development of human societies.  For example, I couldn’t help but think that human systems seem to create rules simply for the sake of having rules. The last emperor, Puyi, certainly rebelled against the rules that existed for the sake of rules. But his grandmother, the Dowager Empress Cixi, knew how to work within those rules.

A lot of the Forbidden City dealt with Cixi and her escapades and machinations. And her failures. It was Cixi, after all, who decided to support the Boxers in their rebellion. That the Boxers attacked the Legation District, where the European and American embassies (legations) were, lead to military efforts to reclaim them.  The official Forbidden City tour made sure to point out where French and British soldiers scraped gold leaf from the bronze vessels for water storage (fire protection) after invading Beijing during the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion (called the Eight Ally Invasion). (Later, Tony mentioned that the iron cauldrons from which invading armies scraped gold were carted by the Japanese during World War 2 to be melted down, but Japan lost the war before that could happen.)  They also bombed the Old Summer Palace, which I didn’t visit, and which the Chinese did not restore, to memorialize the “national embarrassment”. (Though, according to Tony, the story of the destruction of the Old Summer Palace in Beijing is only part true. While the British and French did burn it during the Boxer Rebellion, they didn’t carry away the building materials. That was done by locals stripping the usable materials from it. There was photographic evidence of people taking it.)  So, it was an interesting historical experience.

After about 5 hours at the Forbidden City, I went back to the hotel to recharge my muscles – and phone/camera.

I decided I wanted to go to the Temple of Heaven, to complete the imperial experience. I asked the concierge for a cab, but he suggested a no-transfer bus trip for just 1 yuan (6 yuan to 1 dollar, so around 16 cents). So off I went. It was an interesting experience, but let me see how the buses work. Most of the system is electronic, with tagged fare cards. It was a slick system.  However, I was really glad that I can read Chinese characters.  Some stops had English announcements, but many did not. It was much easier to read where I was going and then count how many stops I had left.  The main tourist parts of Beijing were pretty English-friendly.  The buses weren’t as much.

The temple was on a massive area. Beautiful cypress trees. The complex was for the emperor to make sacrifices for good harvests. One downside of the Mandate of Heaven, of course, is that you could be blamed for natural occurrences like droughts.

I found the Temple of Heaven very relaxing. Apparently it was not so relaxing for the Emperor, because one of the halls was the hall of abstinence, because he needed to avoid sex and alcohol before making the sacrifices.  That was interesting.

(I love the stairways – they were carved with dragons for the emperor.)

(Dancers in the park. Why not?)

I took the subway to Wangfujing, because it’s where Night Market is, and I thought I should experience that.  The most important phrase I used here? “I’m not going to buy you a drink.” Why? Because this area was crawling with women who would call out in English after (obvious) foreign men.  They were persistent! Some just wanted to get drunk, but others were part of persistent scams that take you to massively overpriced tea shops, where the bill for both of you can hit several hundred U.S. dollars (and then take a cut from the bill once you’ve paid).

Night Market is a sprawling mess of food stands selling all sorts of things. The phrase “I don’t eat meat” was partly useful, until someone offered me some dumplings that happened to have shrimp. Throw those out. (Alas, these were also the most expensive thing I tried at the Night Market). I didn’t partake of the fried scorpions, worms, lizards, or other specialties. The homemade tofu, and a fried bread with potatoes and carrots (rather like a burrito), were delicious.

(Candied fresh fruit.)

(Yes, those are fried starfish and scorpions.)

(Look at all the protein sources.  Did not tempt me away from vegetarianism.)

(Yes, I know it’s fuzzy. But it’s modern China.)

After my bus experience, I felt empowered about public transportation, so I took the subway back to the hotel – including transfers.  Hooray!