TOURING THE ORIENT

    (After Henry died, Margaret did a little traveling, and wrote articles about her trips.  These, from 1976, were published in the Coulee City News-Standard.  They didn't have spell-check in those days, and I've replaced a lot of abbreviations.)

     The editor had a card from Margaret Taschereau who is touring the Orient.  The card was written 11/7 in Hong Kong.
     Dear Pat: Finally in Hong Kong, a day late.  Plane sat in Seattle fogged in for 3 hours so missed pan Am at San Francisco.  So we got on a Japan Air Lines flight, flew back over Seattle to Anchorage and then to Tokyo.  Anchorage had snow and the miles of lights like Christmas.  Had 2 nights with no day between.  Tokyo from the air at night is really something.  All the hills are almost solid lights tonight.  Will get all the guided tours, but lose one free day here.  Was nice in Tokyo this morning, hurricanes tonight.  Not supposed to get here.


Touring the Orient  (Dec. 9 issue)

     (Margaret Taschereau recently spent three weeks on tour of the orient with a group of other grocers.  She has written quite an article about her trip and we will share it with you as space allows.)

. . . . "Left Coulee City Nov. 4, was to catch flight to San Francisco on the 5th.  Seattle was fogged in, sat on the runway for nearly four hours and missed Pan Am connections in SF.  Caught a Japan Air flight and flew back over Seattle to Anchorage and on to Tokyo.  Flight time 8 hrs.
     Tokyo was fantastic at night from the air.  Our hotel, the Den Hurami, was the only really Oriental place we stayed, beautiful.
     One night in Tokyo and on to Hong Kong.  Stayed at the Furama Hotel.  Spent next day 11/8, wandering around Hong Kong and took the Star Ferries to Kowloon and back.  Some people went to Macao to the gambling places.  I shopped and looked.
     11-9.  Guided tour up to the Castle Peak Restaurant by cable car, so steep our necks and lungs hurt.  Hong Kong is building everywhere.  They are taking off hilltops and putting them in the bay to make new streets.  The airport is all on man made land.  They build skyscrapers on what is left of the hill.  New skyscrapers all up the mountains.  British names for most of the streets.  Almost everyone speaks some English, nearly all western clothes.
     China border seemed almost not to be there.  A road led up a very long hill, beautiful trees, duck and fish farms at the foot of it.  Along the road are tourist trap sales booths.  There were 10 busloads of tourists parked in space for 5.  At the top of the hill was a big chain and barbed wire gate with Hong Kong soldiers on our side and red Chinese on the other.  They didn't want any snapshot down the hillside and across the plain we couldn't see any border.  A wide river forms part of border.
     One odd place was Kathing, the Walled City, built about 700 years before Columbus.  They exist almost entirely off tourists.  For some reason almost no children being born there, so in perhaps 3 generations there won't be any Hakkas.  The women rule the city, they look 80 but the guide said almost none live past 60, most die much younger.
     Beautiful places were Repulse Bay, named for a British ship, and Victoria Bay.  Both are places where mostly the wealthy live.  They have small clean beaches, no houseboats and squatters.  Above them are the huge resettlement skyscrapers built for the low income people.  A living room, bath, kitchen in about the space of one of our rooms.  Our guide and family live in one by lying about their income.  Otherwise they would have to share the rent with another family and live in one of the downtown buildings, sharing the kitchen, bath and living room and each family has only a tiny separate bedroom.  Single family homes have no bedroom.  Asked how two families got along that way, she said "They respect each other".  A driver's license in Hong Kong costs $400 American dollars.  Almost no one could have a car anyway.  There is no place to put them.
     The Tiger Baum Gardens are unbelievable!  They are carved and painted into and onto a straight up hillside.  Steps turn and twist up the hill.  The carvings are of Chinese legends like the War of the Black and White Rats, and a sort of Romeo and Juliet Prince and Princess story, many Gods and Tigers, Frogs and Dragons.  And a tall, tall pagoda that is like a huge Christmas tree perched on a carved out ledge way too small for it.  Can't go in because a woman jumped out of it.  An apartment house is built facing the hillside and one on our tour snapped a picture of the apartments and then noticed he had snapped into a room with someone in the tub.
     The hotels in which we stayed all had revolving restaurants on top except the one in Taipei which was an old hotel.  I made a point of having a meal in each one of them so i could try things new.  I didn't get up enough nerve to try raw fish or wild bird eggs.  I liked most of the things, the fruits, salads and deserts were really special.  Some meats were too spiced, the roasts were very good.
     (to be continued)


Touring the Orient (continued from Dec. 9 issue)

     11-10  The flight to Bangkok too 3 and 1/2 hours.  We took the tour up the canal to the supposed to be farm in the afternoon.  We went in sort of canoes, 12 in each, outboard motors.  They overload the boats so whenever another boat passes water slops over into the boats and into the houses.  on the big canals Coast Guard men stand on top of boats and slow down the traffic.  The canals and river are not salt, but high tide keeps the water from going to the sea, but the push of the river keeps the salt water out.
     This first canal went right through the city and through groves of bananas and coconut trees.  Every time we came to a bridge everyone had to bend almost flat and the same for tree limbs.  Naked boys would swim up to the boats and ask for coins, they would get a few.  No zoning anywhere so a pretty painted house and a shack side by side.  All the cities had 1500 temples.  The canals had lots of them, little ones, big, old, new ones.  The farm house wasn't, it was a tourist trap, some cobras, a mongoose, some monkeys, some snack foods.
     11-11  We went to a Rose Garden park and watched some beautiful dancing and dancers and some scary kinds of athletics and fighting with sticks and swords.  A demonstration of elephants as lumberjacks was good.  And long lines of shops, one was interesting.  Ladies demonstrated spinning the silk of silkworm cocoons and showed silkworms from egg to worm and moth.  And the processing and weaving of silk to garment.  They had a non bloody cock fight.  They don't put the steel spurs on the birds and the defeated bird doesn't die.
     11-12  We toured a floating market.  We took a larger boat which carried all of us.  We traveled on the river by the Navy base and a lot of Navy boats and freighters anchored all over the river, rice boats, houseboats, and everywhere tourist boats.  Then into a large canal that was one long line of little boats with women taking vegetables and chickens and selling them house to house.  Along shore are shops for the tourists and big platforms that had potted orchids in benches and hanging from a sort of ceiling.  And fruit orchards of incredible variety.
     The Indura Hotel had a Cowboy Room with a Western Buffet, beautiful food that no cowboy ever ate.  The room had beautiful murals of Texas, Wyoming, Montana and Bonanza.  I didn't see any of Washington.  They did have good roast beef.
     11-13  Pan Am to Hong Kong, 3 1/2 hours flight time.  Then Cathay to Taipei, 1 1/2 hours flight time.  But 3 airports in one day took up the entire day.
     11-14  Our tour of Taipei took us to a beautiful museum that was up a mountainside which was worth the trip itself.  Taiwan has to be close to the top of any list of most beautiful country in the world.  The museum building was all in the little hand painted blocks, walls, ceiling, floors; and priceless things on display really Chinese and nothing Westernised.  Another was the Chaing Kai-shek Memorial.  The changing of the guards at the entrance was very British, but the Memorial was all Chinese, gorgeous.  We stopped by a fish farm where peopled paid by the hour to fish.  But the owners feed the fish well before the people come, so few fish get caught.
     11-15  We took a plane to Hualain across the mountains from Taipei.  It has the most beautiful beach we saw and a clean one.  the airport and hotel and houses are all made of marble.  That is the only rock they have.  We took the bus trip up 45 miles into the Taroga Gorge.  American engineers surveyed and supervised building the road, but the Chinese didn't build it for the tourists and use it is getting.  They built it for the monks and hill people and to get marble out.  So now when buses meet, the inside bus stops and the outside bus squeezes by.  The river is beautiful, the water is the clearest and cleanest looking, but for some reason no fish live in it.  There is quite a large dam part way up.  A lot of the power plant is on top of the dam.  The blue and black marble are the most valuable.  We watched truck sized blocks of marble being sawed into sheets by huge saws with as many as 30 blades.  A stream of water kept each blade cool and washed the mud away into settling ponds where it became mud for making pottery.  So all the marble is used.
     (to be continued)


Touring the Orient  (Continued from Dec. 16 issue)

     11-16  From Taipei to Osaka and Kyoto, flight time 3 1/2 hours, but day gone by the time at Kyoto Grand.
     11-17  Kyoto is the old Capitol of Japan and is more Japanese than any other city.  It wasn't bombed during the war by some kind of gentleman's agreement.  We toured the old Shogun Capitol building.  It was built with a squeaking floor so that no one could surprise the Shogun.  Visited a handicraft building where Cloisonne painting and other disappearing arts were being done.  Young people aren't learning them.
     11-18  Took the Bullet Train to Tokyo, a marvelous ride, 3 hours, smooth and goes through a lot of countryside, farms, lakes and towns, nonstop, 120 mph, doesn't feel fast.
     11-19  Took a tour of the temples and gardens in the morning.  It was a day that 3, 5, and 7 year old Japanese children were being taken to the temples for blessing, all in traditional clothes, seldom seen anymore.
     Then in the afternoon we met some Japanese grocers, women of whom had been to Seattle on a grocer tour.  They took us through some modern supermarkets.  Only the wealthy buy much in them.  Others buy in the cheaper open stall markets.  They gave us a fabulous dinner after the tour.  Each of us had to tell something about our store and town.  They all nodded recognition after i told them that Coulee City was 40 miles from Moses Lake were Japanese pilots train.  The daughter of one of the men interpreted.  She had graduated from Kansas City University and was a real cute whiz.
     11-20  Was a free day, poured rain, the only bad day of the trip.  Visited a museum and spent rest of day going through shops in the hotel.
     11 21  Start of trip home.  Spent almost all of daylight at the Tokyo airport.  Arrived next day in San Francisco.
     NOTES:  Hong Kong was comfortable all the time we were there.  Taiwan was a little chilly and windy and drizzle now and then.  Bangkok was 86 and 80% humidity and changed little day and night.  The Indura Hotel had a shocking cold air conditioner in the rooms.  The guide told us to cool off in the lobby before going to our rooms.  I did and also wrapped up when I got to my room.  Everyone else got colds, some bad.  Tokyo and Kyoto were cold.
     In every city we visited temples.  In Bangkok the paving stones are ballast rocks from sailing ships.  When loaded, the ships left the rocks.  In Bangkok, especially, every house, houseboat, store, and hotel had a big or small shrine in the yard or on the roof, even the buses and cars.  In Bangkok we visited the tiny and enormously valuable Emerald Buddha, the solid gold Buddha a little bigger than life size, the colossal Reclining Buddha, which is longer than the store [a little over 100 ft].  His feet are as long as the store is tall [about 15-20 ft].  Some got tired of temples so we didn't take a couple of tours which I wanted to take.
     Bangkok and Tokyo were not laid out as cities and are having a real mess.  Bangkok is filling canals for streets so has some nice wide ones.  Tide still comes in around houses right back of the Indura Hotel.  Bangkok has no rock and no solid foundations for anything.  They build wide and juge and figure on shape holding them up.  Houses are built tiny and light.  The Indura seems to be about a half mile square and is 19 stories.
     In Bangkok we saw 4 intersections that had police and light controls.  those intersections were like the Union Jack, not just an avenue and a street.  They are just now building a few overpasses over railroads and canals.  Almost every adult owns a car and few pay taxes.  Because of no duty, cars made in japan cost less in Bangkok than in Japan.
     Bangkok had a curfew from 10:00 til 3:00 for everyone except a few with special badges.  But we saw no demonstrations and few soldiers except arount the Imperial palace.
     In both Tokyo and Bangkok, almost every teen boy has a motorcycle and they dart in and out of traffic breathtakingly and have a lot of accidents.  Because of so few lights at intersections, pedestrians cross almost anywhere in Bangkok.  Most make it because traffic stands still much of the time.  Tokyo has good traffic lighting.  Tokyo has a lot of 4 and 3 decker streets, but most streets dead end abruptly.  our bus driver took us to the wrong side of a department store and took half an hour to get to the other side where our Japanese people were.  After 6:00 at night in Tokyo, all traffic seems to be cabs.  Our guide told us always to try to get a cab with an upside down Y on the bubble.  Those were owned by individuals and they would be more careful.  She called the company drivers Kami-kazi, they don't care if a company car gets smashed.
     The service stations in Tokyo have overhead pumps, but the hoses hang down and swing, look deadly to me.  I never saw a service statinon in any of the other cities and never saw a wrecking yard.