European Costume Flip-flops, Women and Socks August 22, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Europe, Hotels, Japan, London, Rail Pass, Restaurant, Tickets, Tokyo, Tour, Trip , 4commentsOnce Europeans had become accustomed to flip-flops, it wasn’t all that difficult to get used to mitten- shaped socks, each holding the big toe in its own little pocket and letting the other four doss down together. But the very first visitors to Japan assumed, from the local socks, that the Japanese had only two toes. And the Japanese, on the basis of the visitors’ socks, thought that Europeans had none. (more…)
Asian Beijing Travel and Finest Art Exhibition Tour July 5, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Australia, China, Europe, Hotels, Japan, Restaurant, Tour, Travelling Bag, USA , 3commentsThe tourist coaches disgorge their contents into the forecourt of the Jinling Hotel, Nanjing. The colours and shapes of middle-class Europe, America, Japan, Australia, stream through plate glass doors and stand in dazed clusters among their luggage, whilst tour leaders completeyet another set of check-in formalities.
Polished chrome and marble reflect luxuriant indoor gardens. A pianist’s vacuous tinkling drifts from the intercommunication system. It could be the foyer of an international hotel anywhere in the world.
Outside, late autumn sunshine filters through the industrial haze. A complex of fountains makes dark splashes on patterned paving. The white-painted concrete fence marks a boundary, on the far side of which the other China, in sober-suited rows, peers with impassive curiosity at this world within their world, as we stand before cages at a zoo. We are aware of another China. It flows past endlessly on jangling bicycles; it smiles from doorways and factory workbenches when we are shown round. (more…)
My Perugia Travel Diary June 19, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, China, Egypt, Flight Schedule, Hotels, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, London, Malaysia, Morocco, Nepal, Round The World, Singapore, South Korea, The Nile, Victoria Falls , add a commentThe Brufani Hotel brings back memories of dinners with the Buitoni (pasta) and the Perugina (chocolate) tycoons, not here but in their homes. To judge by the absence of any renovation in the Brufani in the intervening third of a century, we assume that hotels in the smaller Umbrian towns are also not likely to have been upgraded since Smollett and Hazlitt griped about them.
The huge basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli in the Tiber valley below Assisi was built to enclose the tiny church of the Porziuncola, whose walls are traditionally reputed to contain a stone from the tomb of the Virgin. Saint Francis died here in 1226, after, but not as a result of, throwing himself naked into the rose garden outside his small cell. His blood is supposed to have left a perpetual scarlet stain, but the roses bloom every spring, and the thorns have disappeared (miraculously). (more…)
My Dairy of Korea Travel June 13, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Aquarium, France, Hotels, Japan, New York, Restaurant, Seoul, USA , add a commentNo sooner does midnight flight 007 take off for Seoul than the stewardesses change from military uniforms and New York-style indifference to flower-patterned kimonos and oriental manners: quick, short bows at every contact. A “heavy snack” is served: hors d’oeuvres (ginseng root), a “starch” course (”France fried potatoes”), bulgogi (marinated beef), and kimchi (fermented pickle of cabbage). The menu reproduces a Yi-dynasty (1392) embroidery of the mythical bird Bong Hwang, which “luckily foresaw coming catastrophe of the country.” The pilot’s English and Korean are indistinguishable, but the all-night TV advertising of duty-free products is mercifully silent. (more…)
My Thailand Travel Diary part 3 June 12, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Bangkok, Hotels, India, Japan, Museum, New York, Singapore, Thailand , add a commentSome attractive old wooden buildings survive in Chinatown (Yaowaraj), most of them owned by gem-cutting and money-changing establishments. I go next to the zoo to see the white elephants. The mother of Buddha having dreamed of one during her pregnancy, these off-pink albinos are regarded as holy and are the property of the king. Mr. Niloubel assures me that most of the reptiles in the zoo can also be encountered in the city’s parks and canals. Near the entrance is a pet shop advertising “Newly- Whelped Tigers.”
For me the main attractions of the Emerald Buddha and the Dusit Palace are the electric fans. The emerald-and-jade idol is small and at a squinting elevation, while the decor of the palace’s royal audience room will make little impression on anyone who has seen the Oriental Hotel first. But this is niggling: the gold statues of mythical man-animals, of warriors with roosters’ tails, and the music of golden bells windblown under temple eaves are dazzling. (more…)
Medieval Europe March 30, 2008
Posted by flyman in : China, England, Europe, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Lodges, Spain , 5commentsAfter the chaos of the Dark Ages that followed the fall of the Roman Empire, states and nations began to evolve. At the same time science, letters, arts and culture were developed by the monastic civilization that exercised a Christian order over an emerging feudal system, in the same way as the Samurai developed almost total military power over an identical system in Japan. But whereas the Japanese declined to lose its scholars to China and Korea by reverting to a complete and deliberate isolation that mummified any architectural development, the nations that were emerging in western Europe were becoming powerful enough to set aside the rule of the Holy Roman Empire, and they no longer stood in awe of the architectural remains that memorialized the genius of Roman architecture. Thus, Romanesque was born from the ruins of ancient buildings and developed as a prologue to the great European period of Gothic architecture. Romanesque was a compound of many influences, including Roman, Byzantine, Carolingian and Ottonian, Viking Celtic and Saracenic, but it was universally influenced by the monastic churches of St Bernard and St Benedict, where an eclectic style was homogenized by the development of the Roman vault. (more…)
Coming to Far East March 30, 2008
Posted by flyman in : Asia, China, Egypt, Europe, India, Japan, Pacific, The Nile , add a commentIf an Arabian legacy to India and, particularly, Pakistan, is the Muslim mosque, then the Indian legacy to China must be the pagoda. Buddhism was introduced to China about AD65, and the pagoda was a strictly Buddhist building.
Before that, Confucius (c.550-478BC) had laid down a social, ethical and moral order that competed with the more mystical teachings of the Taoist teacher Lao-tze. Thus, three religio- socio-political systems dominated the early world of China, which foundered under a line of early despotic emperors, but was revived under the Han Dynasty (206BC—AD220), which so developed the economic and cultural state of the empire that, under Emperor Kuang Wu Ti, it challenged the Roman Empire of Hadrian as one of the greatest on earth. (more…)
