Some photos of more traditional Japan, as seen from a whizzing bullet train.

There are many surprising and fascinating things about Japan that I was not expecting upon arrival. One of the things I had the most fun with was the vending machines. The Japanese Vending Machine Manufactures Association (I am not making that up) reports that there is somewhere in the realm of 5.5 million vending machines in all of Japan, roughly 1 per 23 citizens of Japan–or that means 1 roughly every 2 feet in Tokyo.

Travel constantly reminds me that we must always have a sense of humor. To help provide you a few laughs, may I present the first of an ongoing series, called “Things That Make Me Laugh.” Here is Part I of the Japan edition.

The logic goes like this: If Japan invented sushi, then they must have the best sushi in the world. To find the best sushi in Japan, you must find the best fish. To find the best fish, you must find the best fish market. And thus if you find the best sushi bar at the best fish market in the country that invented sushi, then you would therefore be eating, “The Best Sushi In The World.”

A few years ago my friend Andrew ventured to Germany to study abroad, regularly senting email update to his family and friends back home. Reading about his wild adventure and seeing his postcard perfect pictures, I began to notice one day the he was not in a single picture. I began to suspect a hoax—he wasn’t in Germany in fact, I begin to think–he was simply hiding in a cold stale dorm room somewhere else creatively writing about a trip that didn’t really existed.

I really didn’t know what to expect before we arrived at the Great Wall, and I have been greatly disappointed more than once in the past upon seeing famous landmarks in person for the first time. In the end The Great Wall of China far surpassed any expectation I had, and now gets my vote in the on-going election to name the new ‘7 Wonders of the World.’ See some photos from our walk on The Wall.

Chairman Mao (aka Mao Zedong), the leader of the Communist Revolution in China reportedly said, “You are not a man, unless you have climbed the Great Wall…and survived the swindling of the taxi drivers in Beijing.” Or something like that. Since Erick and I wanted to prove we were men, we not only climbed the Great Wall, we did it in our underpants…with temperatures well below zero….with broken glass in our shoes.

The Forbidden City, also known as the Imperial Palace is a structure of building located in the center of Beijing, last serving in its role as the center of the Chinese empire in the Ming and Qing Dynasties

I smiled and just as I looked up, a man stepped in front of us. “Taxi! You need taxi?” he said. Taken so off guard by his abruptness and his English, we didn’t respond immediately and had only barely half-nodded, when he grabbed Erick’s luggage and started to whisk us away to what we thought was a taxi line, only to find we were about to learn our first major lesson on travel in China: “don’t say ‘yes’ to a con man.”

As promised, here are the photos from the video posted earlier called Hong Kong: Places. These photos also contain captions! This collection is of photos shot in Hong Kong to give you a sense of what the city’s spaces feel like and to show you the diversity of landscapes.