Forbidden City, Beijing, China

Top-ranked Toilet

The Forbidden City in Beijing is one of those grand-scale displays of history that everyone should experience first-hand. It provides a striking reminder of the exalted opulence in which Imperial family members once lived. However, at the same time it lends insight into the lack of technological creature comforts accessible to even those of the highest station in life. Consider, for example, the area of hygienic indoor plumbing. Today, any old coolie can  experience the grandeur that is flushable indoor plumbing.

There is no better reminder of this than the 4-star rated toilets to be found on the Forbidden City grounds. Now, I must admit to being skeptical about this rating system. I traveled fairly extensively through Beijing, and never saw a 1-star toilet, though I did see some gagged holes in the floor. However, if you look at the sign closely, you can see that someone actually tried to add a fifth star. Now how psyched does one have to be about the cleanliness of a toilet to deface a public sign under an authoritarian regime? This isn’t America where you might get a ticket for a court date six months later at which time you may get $100 fine – if they can read the officer’s handwriting and tell what the ticket was for in the first place. In China, defacing a public sign is probably punishable by a sentence of cleaning out squat holes for the rest of one’s life.

Belize City's "Picturesque" Side

The guidebooks tend to give a good piece of advice with respect to Belize City, and that is “don’t hang out there.” Unless you are driving from Mexico, chances are good that you will have to arrive via the Belize City’s Goldson International Airport, but there is no pressing reason to stay there (unless you are doing a study on the effects of abject poverty on littering.) Whether you are going to the Cayes, inland, or to the south, transport out of Belize City is regularly scheduled, and one is well advised to take advantage of it. We stayed overnight for a total of about 18 hours, and it was more than we needed to see the “pretty” side of the City.

We stayed one night in the white and yellow shuttered hotel in the photo above. All-in-all not a bad little place. It was on the Caribbean, and is on the more scenic edge of town. We had a nice breakfast in that oversized dormer-like structure, which offered an even better sea view than did our room.  

The next morning we went to San Ignacio, which we found much more agreeable.

Beware of the Fruit Throwing Monkey

 If you see this monkey, he should be treated as armed and dangerous. Not only would he and his friends not pose in blissful solitude for a snapshot – leaving me with this and  few even more blurred and unusable shots mostly of monkey butt (yes, Bevis, I said monkey butt) – but they proceeded to rain down hot green death in the form of little unripe fruits. That might sound overly dramatic, but try getting a shot to the noggin with one of those things. 

 

 

The Center of the Pornographic Universe?

I took this photo in Budapest, Hungary last year. What is interesting, and what you must keep in mind when viewing it, is that the sign on the right side of the shot was rotating 360-degrees. Yes, it was a sign pointing both ways and rotating completely around announcing porn shops. In essence, the sign, perhaps quite correctly, was saying that wherever one goes from that point on the planet, or perhaps in the universe - there will be porn.

This is not the first time that Hungary has been attributed with being the mythical center of the porn universe. It is, after all, a country with no shortage of gorgeous women, but, like many countries, a marked shortage of jobs of the high wage variety. 

However, I had always attributed the designation of “center of the porn universe” to a running gag gone awry, but, seeing this sign, I’ll let you be the judge.  [But before you get too judgemental, note that the sign uses the English spelling of "Sex Shop" and not the Hungarian spelling /language of "Szex Bolt". I don't know what this says about my own culture. In terms of a blood analogy, if Hungary is the universal donor, America must be the universal recipient. (My assumption being that the Brits usually spell the word for store "shoppes", but maybe they are pervs too.)]

 

Father - Son Duo of Roving Musicians

Little Girl Stuck in Traffic

Both of these photos were taken over the summer in Valladolid, Mexico. The first is a traveling duo of musicians. I don’t know that they were father and son, but assumed they were. The boy played guitar and sang, and the man played the accordian. The kid was quite a crooner for his size. Those having traveled to Mexico will be familiar with the  traveling musician concept. Rather than a band or musician being hired by the restaurant, it is much more common that these free agents work their way down the street working for tips. It is a well-established symbiosis throughout Mexico. This group had a hook with the kid. It would be interesting to determine how much bigger their take was than the typical adult musician or group. I think pretty much everyone in the restaurant this afternoon gave up some cash, whereas I would be surprised if half of people did for other musicians I saw.

The girl’s parents were stuck in traffic, and she was keeping her self amused. If she could play so much as a tamborine, that duo could probably capitalize on her adorableness to double their take.

Kabuki-cho on a Rainy Afternoon

There’s nothing so dismal and depressing as Tokyo on a rainy afternoon. There is a tug of war between the neon and bright red and yellow signage that is designed to draw the eye and the elements which make one want to hang one’s head in dejection. The struggle between man and nature, or, for that matter, between man and his nature is made clear.

 

Tokyo on a rainy night is a different matter. At night the interesting people come out, and the eery glow of colored lights on rain slick streets lends a romance to the place. A rainy Tokyo night is the stuff of Blade Runner. It is futuristic, fatalistic, and surreal.  

 

Is that a bird’s beak, or are you just happy to see me?

Motorcycle Safety

If you’ve never been to the developing world, you might be inclined to chastise the dad shown above for reckless endangerment. On the other hand, after spending a little time traveling the world, one might be more likely to give him a “Father of the Year” award. He is, after all, setting a good example by wearing a helmet. (Hell, he might just survive crash over 20 miles an hour – which is more than can be said for his kids.) Second, he is having his children wear helmets. Granted the helmets in question are of symbolic value only (particularly the adult hard hat that could be upgraded to a saucepan), but it could prevent the two  from bumping their heads on their father’s helmet, passing out, and falling into the street. The reason I have this relatively tame photo instead of a more stirring example of parental failure, I kid you not,  is because the dad whose wife was on the back of the motorcycle with her two infants held sloppily in her arms like sacks of flour was just going too damn fast.

Town Square Ulan Bator

For a city of only about 1 million, Ulan Bator (alt sp. Ulaanbaatar) seems to be active almost any time day or night. I was there on a brief conference trip of less than three full days in the summer of 2007. As my body never adjusted to the time difference, I had occasion to walk down the main drag though town at odd hours, but was never alone on the sidewalk. There were quite a number of little stores that were open 24 hours a day, which seemed oddly out-of-place and inconsistent with a town this size.

Trabant in Budapest

There is a saying that “an ass is a horse designed by a committee.” A Trabant is a car designed under central planning. Yet a few are still around. Many in macked-out versions like the one shown here. Contrary to the myth that they were made out of cardboard, their bodies were really made of a material that included, among  other things,  fibers not unlike those that appear in some paper products. I don’t know if they went fast enough to get in any kind of accident that might cause them to burst into flame, but clearly the bodies were not water soluble.

 

Would the Communist car-makers turn over in their graves to see that a number of their remaining product, like this one, are essentially being used as signage to fuel a feeding frenzy of capitalism?

Pimped-out East German Ride