Kaley Keenan and Jeffrey William Roth
For both of us, it's our first time exploring China and Japan. As we depart, travel, land, reside, and generally occupy space, we hope this geeky website will allow our experiences to be connected with yours. Please write to us. Much love,Nice Lady
Kaley and Jeff
Travel Blog Posts
August 15th 2005
Hey all, we are back and now able to post our pics from Japan - Tokyo and the Fuji Rock Festival. This is also the ending point for our blog of this trip to China and Japan. Hope you enjoy!... read more
August 1st 2005
We are writing this from Asakusa, or old Shitimachi, or the old city of Tokyo, Japan. We are currently in what was once the nighttime entertaiment capital of Tokyo, and is now mostly pochinko (gambling) and video game parlors. We are hanging out in an internet cafe that has all private booths and overnight rates and "semi-sleeping" areas with computers, beanbags and blankets, and offers free drinks and magna comic books. We have enjoyed Asakusa more than any other part of the city, so we have come back here after the Fuji Rock Festival for one more night before we head back to California. From what we have seen and read Asakusa still has more of the old personality of Tokyo than most of the city, and it is mostly narrow streets and small buildings which ... read more
July 21st 2005
Greetings from Shanghai! This is our last city in China before we head to Japan. Thanks to all who have written to us. We have had a long, but somewhat relaxing, past week. After Leshan we went to Chongqing, which was huge and crazy, like a poor Hong Kong on more hills. The skyscrapers would run into alleyways which would run into streets which would run into a bridge, and all of it was crooked. When we thought we were on the ground floor, all of a sudden we would find ourselves 6 stories above ground. Mostly, we stayed indoors and checked out the malls because it was too hot to go outside. Andy, in answer to your question, although there are a fair amount of cheap clothes and knock-off clothes, there seems to be name ... read more
July 15th 2005
Today is our second day in Leshan, and we are sitting in a nice internet cafe where no one can speak English and it is all teenage boys playing videogames and talking smack. At least we can still use the internet, Microsoft rules the world. Before that we spent 3 days hiking on Emeishan, an 1800 year-old Buddhist pilgrimage. At the highest point, it was over 3000 meters. The hike was challanging mentally and physically, and there were really nice cliffs, waterfalls, temples, and pagodas. There were also aggressive Tibetan Maccaus that would challange people for any food they had and we had to stare them down. Plus, we saw a female bearded frog. We enjoyed staying overnight in the monastaries and eating really good vegetarian food. The pilgrims were really friendly and kept trying to ... read more
July 11th 2005
We have been having a great time cruising around Chengdu and Songpan, of the Sichuan province. Chengdu is a far western city with fewer historical attractions, and thus fewer tourists. Hardly anyone here we encountered could speak English, even in American style pizza joints and cafes. We visited the poet Dufu's museum, a Taoist monastary, and some nice parks. The panda breeding center, with a large number of pandas, was excellent. We got there early to watch them active, during feeding time. Otherwise, we soaked in the local atmosphere lots of young people on the street, and great spicy Sichuan food with special chili peppers that numb your gumbs which, according to my sister, are illegal in the U.S.? They give you tons of pepper sauce on your noodles, but it isn't all that spicy, more ... read more
July 2nd 2005
We are now in Hong Kong and getting ready to leave tomorrow by plane for Chengdu. The past few days we have been exploring Hong Kong and spending a lot of time at family functions, some of which had over 40 people. We attended a high school graduation in which my (Jeff) grandfather spoke and they honored his brother. It was great to meet some of the students and to see a bit of what their school life was like, hear their school band play, feel their excitment about moving forward, and listen to their appreciation for those who had helped them to do so. We also went to a hospital to see a heart and stroke center that my family has been involved with, and I got an ultrasound of my intracranial arteries, exposing the ... read more
June 30th 2005
fun, but the reef health wasn't too good. All photos by Melissa Roth except family photo... read more
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