It's been a tedious week for me. Struggling through homework, projects, and tests while having jetlag is a hard thing to do. I somehow made it through the 1st week of the 4th quarter. Only like 7 more weeks to go.

Anyways, to continue my thoughts about China and Japan, which I should have commented on a week ago, but I just fell asleep on.

I got a new Camera there. It's only available in Japan from what I hear. It's the Canon IXY 20IS (in Maroon). It's pretty nifty, with 8 megapixels (better than my old camera), has a "subject" targeting system, and can flip the images if you flip the camera to its side, even up-side down.

In China, I went to Shanghai for one night. I stayed at this place called "Motel 168". It was NOTHING like a motel. It was pretty modern hotel, and it was just opened on Feb. 29th (I came on March 1st). It was right next to the airport (Probably 200 steps from the airport). I did nothing that night except try to sleep. I woke up at 4:00 the next day to post an entry in this blog. I then left for Xian.

In Xian, I stayed at the Shangri-la hotel. It's pretty fancy, and I stayed there for 3 nights. In Xian, I went to see the Terra-Cotta warriors. It was just amazing how realistic they seemed. I thought one would pop up at any time and dance. I also saw something like that left behind by the Han Dynasty. They're like 2 feet tall statues, naked and armless. It was a bit weird at first, but then I learned that instead of clay clothes, they had real clothing on, and that their arms were made out of wood. It wasn't just humans though, there were clay figures of dogs, chickens, goats, cows, and pigs. They are smaller than the Terra-Cotta warriors, but they have greater amounts of figures than the Terra-Cotta warriors.

After staying 3 nights in Xian, I went back to Shanghai, to stay with my relatives for 2 nights. I didn't really go anywhere much, except I went to this one arcade where I always go. Boy, how things age. A machine where I got like all my tickets from broke. Everything had just aged in that room. It saddened me. But I was able to nag a prize (A pencil, joy).

So after Shanghai, I flew to Tokyo. It was quite an adventure going to our hotel. We took a "train" to one stop. We went out of the stop, went to an AMPM convenient store (They are just stores here, not next to a gas station), and we asked for help finding our hotel. We couldn't understand a word he was saying, but he pointed to the street we were on. We thought we had to keep going for a while. After a few blocks, we were completely confused about where we were. We got a taxi to drive us to the hotel. It turned out the hotel was on a street one block from the AMPM. We made a complete circle, and the taxi driver was laughing at us. The hotel was a traditional style hotel, where we slept on tatami mats. You would expect it to be very uncomfortable, but it actually was very comfortable. In Tokyo, we stayed for 2 nights, going to Akihabara and Asakusa. Asakusa has all the little stores and stuff selling trinkets, foods, and etc.

After those 2 nights passed, we took a bullet train to Kyoto. It's a different environment than Tokyo. It's quieter, but the downtown is still somewhat like Tokyo. We also stayed at a traditional style hotel here (the same company). We saw a lot of temples, shrines, and gardens here.

Anyways, after 3 nights, we went back to Tokyo, for a flight back to Shanghai where we spent 1 night. We then flew for a 10 hour flight back to Los Angeles.

That's about it.

The sodas in Japan taste exactly the same. Except for Fanta, which the color looks like orange-yellow.