- And it was a different kind of hookah, it wasn't like a standard, water pipe, it was like a wooden stick, like a wooden pipe you stick on the-- - Yeah, on the thing. -
On the thing and it was like natural tabac. Not like, apple. - [Man] Shisha, right, shisha. - Shisha, yeah, not like in apple tobacco or orange tobacco it was like a natural tobacco. - Really strong. - It was really, really strong. - [Man] Really strong. - And it was like, yeah, you had to drink some black tea afterwords casino x ireland. Yeah, a lot of sugar to make up for that. But the thing about that was the guy was actually telling us, yeah, everything is for free. For you, no, no problem, I will show you a bit around and stuff when we were sitting at that tea place he told us, he asked us for the tip. And the tip was like one million. One million rial? - Yeah, like when we were smoking the water pipe he was like, out of nowhere, he was like hey guys, um, yeah, can you give me a tip now and we were expecting like, how much, like 200,000 rials, maybe? - Which is five euros. - Five euros, which is already, like a lot for how long did you show us around? Like an hour, half an hour? And he was like, yeah, 500,000 rials for each person. - For each, which means one million, is like 25 euros. Which like would normally be cool when you do a big tour or something like that in Europe, and in Iran maybe like a half day tour. Just to put into perspective, we've just been to Persepolis, which is like a one hour drive from here and we took a cab. We haggled the price with the cab driver, so it's like one hour from here to Persepolis and back and we stayed two hours there so it was like all together four hours and we paid for that cab about that price. Like 900,000 we paid for that cab. So for this half an hour it was quite a lot to ask for so and this is one of those traps you should be aware of, the thing which is called taroof. You should say like no taroof, so they understand that you, that they shouldn't do this kind of thing or that you mean it that you want to really know if it's for free or not, so you should say no taroof. Selfies, so a lot of people actually come up to you because you look European and Iran, they really look up to the Europeans or like people western looking people and it's the same thing I experience in Argentina. They are really looking to Europe and they want to also go to Europe at some point. And they are really looking up to the people in Europe. And so you have a lot of people actually asking you if you want to take selfies with them. I guess until now I took at least 15 or 20 selfies within one week with a lot of people. Which is, which is really nice, I mean that is like the thing about Iran, the people here are just so nice. The food is really good. I mean, if you, you really should really find out what is the special food for each region. For example, we were in Ispahan, there they eat biryani, here we eat what was it called? Gobera sabshi, or something like that? - [Man] Yeah, which you ate yesterday, right? - Ya, and Falloda, which is the-- - Here is the original falloda. - Here's the original falloda, no the best falloda they say is here this is like the spaghetti type stuff. Traveling with someone else, also helps because you can actually share those awkward moments with. - And you have a little back up like when you're like, confused and you don't know where, what to do, where to go. - Thank you David! - It's quite interesting and it's fun country to travel because it still feels like real travel in Iran. It's not like everything's convenient and stuff you need to talk with your hands a lot, and it's not easy to get around with English. But that makes it a lot of fun actually. To round up the video, you should definitely visit Iran for the people and the food. Also for the monuments, and you should do it as fast as possible before this country gets too touristic because you can already see a little of the impact right now. But for now, it's a great country to visit and if you have the chance to get a visa you should definitely do it. - Now is the time. - Now is the time.
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So the smell is quite interesting. - It's a mixture orange and gas. - Yeah, but I guess they have so much gas here it's like a really oil rich country, so gas is not really expensive but it's yeah, it's one of the first things we noticed when we walked through Tehran, it was like smelling like gas.
Okay, nicer topics, the people I guess like the people, beside all the monuments and attractions you've seen, the most, yeah, would say like the, one of the most important reasons why you should visit Iran, really nice people you will meet here on your walks through the streets. And one of the most popular questions you will get is where are you from? So you walk through the streets, and when you look like us, like western tourists obviously, everybody is interested in you and they come up to talk to you because most of these people here, I mean, most of the young people they learn English and they want to improve their English so it's a great way to interact with foreigners and as traveling abroad is really expensive, it is always a good opportunity to practice your English with a foreigner when you're not able to travel yourself. What do you think about it? - Yeah, definitely I think the people are always, you know they always come up to you offer their help. They want to give you advices to any questions you have about Iran. - Another thing, when you are here in Iran we highly recommend getting a local sim card, because data out here is really, really cheap. About 600,000 for like two weeks of traveling is not too bad 600,000 is like 15 euros for a sim card, for data for calling, and I really highly recommend that because it's easy to use Google maps to get around, and then you should also install the app Telegram, besides What'sapp so you can communicate with the locals and you have a local sim card so you have a local number. And, this is also one of those questions you get when you get in touch with locals who come up to you, to talk to you, for example when you hang out in a park and then you, yeah, you can communicate with them and they maybe invite you for a tea. Or, we actually use tele a lot to ask for help if we have, like, for example problems with reading Farsi and then we can just easily ask them to translate that for us. In your cellphone, you should also have the Farsi keyboard activated, that's pretty easy to do. Let's talk about taroof. Yeah, taroof is actually a word for, it's like a special thing you have here in Iran, and people say they don't want to have money for something. But you need to ask twice, or even three times, and they will always no, no, it's for free and then at the end they will mention the price. And we actually, yeah, we have a taroof experience. So we have this guy coming with us, he was actually guiding us through the bazaar, he was guiding us through Shiraz, it was just like half an hour or something, or an hour, and we asked in between like how much do you want to have for guiding us? And we thought, because he said he learned German in school and he wanted to just to practice his German. So we thought, okay, he can come with us and we just want to do this and this and this and he explained some stuff. And he also showed us a really cool place where you can smoke water pipe. - Water pipe, also called, what was the name? Hookah. - Hookah. - H-O-O-K-A- H. So, hookah, we smoked hookah, - Like in a really traditional, place, really local place. After showing you around the sites and attractions in Iran in my video series I want to give you some tips and insights about traveling Iran independently in this episode.
For this, I sat down with my buddy David in a cafe in Shiraz during our trip and answered some of the most frequent questions we get. Moreover, I put together a comprehensive travel guide for Iran on my blog with all information needed. You can find the link in the info box below. So, first things first, taxi drivers. Like, there are many things which are different in Iran, but taxi drivers it's more or less like in Europe, right? It's actually quite funny, because the taxi drivers when you walking through the streets, I guess everybody is assuming that you're a tourist, so you're pretty lazy so you don't want to actually walk. Even so, for example, here in Shiraz it's a really walkable city, so you can easily get from place to place in like 10 minute, 20 minute walk you can get to all the major attractions. But, when you walk, like every, every minute someone is driving by horning, honking at you, saying taxi, taxi, you want to take the taxi? And then it's way overpriced than it should be. If you don't speak Farsi, then it's really hard to negotiate a price, so you should ask a local how much it would be for the distance, and then you should stick to this price. In Tehran, you can use Snapp and the metro are quite easy, so you don't actually have to take a cab. And, I found that the unofficial taxi, so basically everyone here in Iran can be a taxi driver so, someone with a private car can just like, drive by and say like, if you want to come with him and you give him some money and I found them to be way cheaper. And they were also really nice. - Yeah, they were really nice, but I think you have to, when you are talking to the taxi driver, or the private drivers, you have to make a fixed price before. - Yeah, that's really important. - So. - Before you get in, you should fix a price. - Yeah, because afterwords, you can't say anything. - The next thing, which is really special for Iran is all their prices are in toman so you have, as a currency here, you have rial, which is basically, 40,000 rial is like one euro, but they say it in toman, and toman is one zero less, so they say like 4,000 toman and 4,000 toman is actually 40,000 rial. Which is kind of confusing, it's not really easy for tourists, when you haggle, when it's about prices it can be really confusing and at the end you maybe end up paying ten times more because you weren't really calculating that. Another thing which we encountered here walking through Iran, is like when you walk through the streets it smells like gas. This is kind of weird but I guess like all the heating and like for the cooking and stuff they use gas and there are gas lines all over, and you have these little, I don't know what it's called but you have these little things hanging out of the buildings everywhere and they are leaking so when you walk through the streets you actually smell gas and here in Shiraz, you also smell oranges. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to my laboratory, where safety is the number one priority. And today we're going to put to the test "hot dog gadgets".
Let's check this out. For the first hot dog gadget we got here: "Slotdog". So let's open it up, looks like there is a bunch of slots, so you slot a hot dog. Slotdog. I see why they call it a Slotdog. Look how many slots up there. So time to put this gadget to the test. Squish it. Look at this. Then we're gonna open it, and boom. Wow! Look at this! So awesome! Let's turn it over and squish it here. Boom. Uhh, maybe one time on one side is the best way. Squish it, open it, and boom. There's a bunch of slots right there. And why do we wanna do this? So the ketchup, mayonnaise, whatever you like on your hot dog can go between of the hot dog, and it will taste much better. Okay. Let's throw it on the grill, and see what it looks like. Okay. Time to check on the hot dogs. Look at this. This is all opened up, and it's cooking from the inside. This is awesome! Look at this! Beautiful! OOHH! Time to take them off. So, now you see why this hot dog is awesome. Look at this Casinoslots New Zealand. The inside of the meat is opened up. So when we put a little bit of onions, The onions can go inside of the hot dog. How cool is that? Also, if you like relish, the relish can go inside of the hot dog. Especially ketchup can go inside of a hot dog. Now all the ketchup, mayonnaise, relish, onions can go right inside of the hot dog so you can stuff it in. Awesome, huh? For this hot dog gadget, we got a "hot dog stuffer". As you can see from the title of it. Pretty cool. So what it is, there is a little blade here on the bottom, and you push your hot dog through like this. So let's test this out. Put a hot dog in this way. And then this side, I'm just gonna push it through. So I'm just going to push through the hot dog. Ahhh! Nice. Kinda warped. Pull it out all the way. Now we can take off. I guess I'll unroll the hot dog like this, and stuff it with different stuff. Okay. We're going to take off the hot dog off the grill, you see. Now lets start to stuff up this hot dog. Yep. It's unfolded pretty good. So, now I'm going to put a little bit of relish in this hot dog. Yeah, I got to stuff my hot dog. Heck yeah! Wow! This is the best idea. Whoa! I didn't think this gadget is good at all. But wow! Look at this! Instead of stuffing my hot dog bun, I'm stuffing my sausage. This is awesome! Thumbs up for me! I can't wait to try this. Put a little bit of ketchup in there. Boom. Nice. Look at that. Now a little bit of mayonnaise. Look at this. A stuffed hot dog. Now, of course I have to try. I never had a stuffed hot dog before. Let's try it out. Mmmm! For this hot dog gadget, this is a "hot dog holder". So what it does, you open up the hot dog holder. Let's say you only cook 2 hot dogs out from here. And you're not going to throw it back in the refrigerator. Look how much stuff, juice, leaking out, and it's going to be all over your refrigerator. So, let's take the rest of the hot dogs into this hot dog holder. Just like this. Look at this perfect fit. Wow! And then the rest of the hot dogs, put them in on this side. Boom. Now I'm just going to close it, and boom. Done. Look how awesome it looks. So the hot dogs will last a lot longer than in an open bag. And also, the juice is not going to come out and won't stink up your refrigerator. Hot dog holder. Thumbs up for me! For this hot dog gadget, I got a "hot dog griller". So with this, open this up. Open it up all the way. And then, we're going to stick the hot dogs in. From my new hot dog holder. And close it. Let's see if it will actually hold the hot dogs. Boom. Nice! Oh. Fallen out a little. So I'll be careful when flipping them over. Alright. Let's put them on the grill, and see what it does. Now that the hot dogs expanded a little bit, you can see that none of them have fallen off. So I'd say it looks pretty good. Thumbs up for me! Once you're ready to take it out, all you have to do is Open this up, and let them out. Simple. Want to cook some more? Load it up. Put it in. Close it. And throw it on the grill once again. But this part might be hot, so be careful. Use the cooking gloves. This gadget that I got here is a "hot dog toaster". Let's open it up, and see what it looks like. Look! It even comes with the little tongs. Okay. That sticker just says, "In the first use it might smoke because it has a heating element." But do you what I hate about these stickers? It's almost impossible to take them off. You see? Now I have this ugly sticker stuck to my toaster. Oh well. So, I'm going to put the hot dogs into these two holes. Look at Huger. He wants to help eat the hot dogs. And put a second hot dog right in there. Then the hot dog buns. We're just going to put them inside in here. One. And the second hot dog bun is going to go inside of here. And then we're going to... Oh, this hot dog's... And then we're going to start it. Of course, don't forget to plug it in. Okay. Let's start it, and it should pop out by itself. How cool is that? Look at this! You got the hot dog holes for two hot dogs and hot dog buns. Nice! You guys are like, "Woah!" Wow. Awesome! OH! Hot! Look at this. Ready-to-go hot dogs from a hot dog toaster. I love this! I don't have use or heat up a grill and clean a grill. All I just need is a hot dog toaster. Two hot dogs in less than five minutes. Thumbs up for me! For this gadget, we got a "hot dog maker". Looks like it's a hot dog steamer. I'm going to add some water in the first level over here. Then we're going to put this cover back in. It can cook up to six hot dogs. At least that's what they advertised. I'm only going to cook two hot dogs. Let's close it back in and turn it on and see what happens. And then with the hot dog buns, you can warm them up over here. Pretty cool! Okay. It looks like it's done. I'm going to turn it off to zero. OH! It's steaming a lot. So this looks like a hot dog steamer. Yeah. This feels warm to the touch. It's actually hot. So yeah. They heat up the buns pretty good. So I'm going to take out the hot dog. Oh! It's really hot. Awesome! Look at this. Easy steamed hot dogs. You don't even have to boil them. They're steaming. Thumbs up for me! And for the last hot dog gadget, this gadget is called "Curl-A-Dog" So what we're going to do is open it, put it in, and smash it. And then we're going to open it, and boom. Look at it. It sliced up the hot dog. We're going to take it out carefully. Boom. Now look at this. Now we're going to grill it, and we can actually stuff it in with ketchup in the middle of this hot dog. And we can stuff it with ketchup or whatever you'd like right in-between of those holes. And then on top of it, you can just add ketchup. This one is for the smaller hot dog. But let's try it out anyways. Boom. Look at this. It's curled from both sides. This is why they call it "Curl-A-Dog" because do you see? This is what it looks like when it's cooked. It curls. Pretty awesome. If I take down a little bit of voltage... There we go. It doesn't hurt. Title: 瀧の白糸 (Taki no Shiroito) English Title: The Water Magician Release Date: 1933 (Japan) Directed by: Mizoguchi Kenji Starring: Irie Takako, Okada Tokihiko There are not a great number of pre-war, Japanese silent films which have survived to this day. Furthermore, I imagine that one would be hard pressed to find easily accessible copies of the ones that do still exist. I was lucky enough to find this excellent Mizoguchi Kenji film through the Japan Foundation Library in Tokyo and write my essay about it. Although titled a “silent” film, there is music throughout the movie. Furthermore, a distinguishing characteristic of Japanese silent films was the benshi. A benshi was a narrator who spoke during the movie, giving explanations, as well as voicing lines of some of the actors and actresses. The movie gets its title from the profession of one of the main characters – she performs tricks, somewhat akin to magic, with bursts of shooting water on stage. This might be a bit difficult to visualize not being accustomed to such an act, thus it might help to think of someone juggling, to music, while also using stylized movements. The story of The Water Magician is simple, yet profound. The woman performer, known as Shiroito, falls in love with a man who has had the misfortune of having to drop out of school after his parents died due to lack of money. Shiroito, who is completely taken by the man, Kin’ya, offers to pay for him to go back to school. After some years of funding his education – he is studying to become a judge – Shiroito and her friends, the other performers, fall on hard times. Shiroito’s friends, who are in even more dire straits than she, repeatedly ask for money, or sometimes just outright take it from her. Eventually Shiroito is left with nothing and is forced to borrow money from a loan shark. Immediately after borrowing the money, she is robbed by masked men, later discovered to be none other than the troupe boss. Feeling that she now has no way to support Kin’ya, whom she has longed so dearly to meet again, she goes back to the loan shark, supposedly to explain what has just happened. Instead, he mistakes her intentions and tries to attack her. In the hustle, she accidently stabs him. Making matters worse, she runs off with more of the loan shark’s money. Now charged with murder, Shiroito is brought before the judge, who is none other than Kin’ya. Only now, in these circumstances, does she receive the grace of seeing the one she so longed to see. Kin’ya is torn and mistakenly afraid that the money he received to support his education came from this murder. Taking the action he sees to be just for the role of a judge, he condemns Shiroito to death. Consequently, she bites off her tongue. The next day, the torn Kin’ya kills himself. Shiroito in The Water Magician is a perfect example of a courageously loyal, just, and kind person who, because she is a woman, faces repeated hardships and sufferings, usually at the hands of men. Despite her sufferings, things do not turn out better for her, as she is eventually sentenced to death. The love and the sense of justice that she maintains to the end, make the story all the more tragic, and the audience feels the plight of this woman, up against all obstacles that her society throws at her. Itself influenced by an Izumi Kyoka play, The Water Magician shares elements with many later movies, some of which were doubtlessly influenced by Mizoguchi’s film. One that comes to mind would be Villion’s Wife. Title: 東京大空襲:第一夜 - 受難 (Toukyou Daikuushuu: Daiichi Yoru - Junan) English Title: Tokyo Air Raid Released: 2009 Directed by: Ueda Nobuhiro Starring: Horikita Maki, Fujiwara Tatsuya, Eita, Shibamoto Yuki “Can you imagine it? What we’re looking at now, all burned. Houses, parks, cars…men and women…children too.” – Tokyo Air Raid As I step out of the National Diet Library and inhale the cool, crisp autumn air I am almost in disbelief that the events of Tokyo Air Raid took place not far from where I now am. It is difficult for many people now to envision the events of March 9th and 10th, 1945 – the Tokyo Firebombing, in which at least 100,000 people lost their lives to a sea of fire from U.S. incendiary bombs. Tokyo Air Raid focuses on a group of people, many of whom are working at a hospital, during the war in Japan. Here we are introduced to patients who are struggling with, or recovering from, various illnesses, as well as young men and women coping with the loss of loved ones, while at the same time growing closer to each other. The movie especially follows Haruko (Horikita Maki) a nurse, and Hiroto (Fujiwara Tastuya), a patient, at the hospital. The unfortunate conclusion, which the audience is more or less informed of from the beginning, is that all of these characters are doomed to a tragic fate, caught under the bombs of the night of March 9th, 1945. In this aspect, the movie shares something in common with, for example Titanic, in that we know things aren’t going to turn out well, yet we are still drawn into the story and develop a connection with the characters. While the majority of the movie is devoted to developing the characters – especially the relationship between Haruko and Hiroto – and reenacting the actual scenes of the bombings, it also lightly touches on other issues that were present during wartime Japan. The lack of concern by the military elites for the publics’ welfare is one notable example. Hiroto’s father, a police officer, is distraught when the military issues orders prohibiting anyone from fleeing Tokyo or taking refuge in the case of a major bombing. Essentially, this is a death sentence for the citizens of Tokyo, who are granted only a token sense of security by the regular fire drills they are forced to practice. Other examples of citizens suffering at the hands of the military are apparent in one of the opening scenes of an officer harassing a group of women about their “lack of patriotism”. Relationships between Japanese, Americans and Koreans are also brought up and, while the movie briefly eludes to racist attitudes toward the perceived “other,” it is not to the extent that it probably could have. When a shot down American fighter pilot comes to the hospital, many of the staff and patients wish for the doctor to let him die. However, their opinions change once they get to know the pilot. Later, we discover that one of the nurses is in love with a Korean man. Her father is at first opposed to them getting married, not on the grounds that he himself dislikes Koreans, but rather that he doesn’t want to see them suffer at the hands of others who, supposedly, would not be as tolerant. All of the characters display a surprising amount of tolerance which, considering the violent prevalence of racism at the time, is impressive to say the least. On the whole, Tokyo Air Raid does an excellent job of portraying a historical event that deserves more attention, and gives an interesting look at wartime Japan. While some might be a little let down if they are expecting George Lucas-style special effects, the terror and tragedy of the firebombing nonetheless comes across quite clear. Director Ueda Nobuhiro deserves a great amount of credit for attempting to make the history of the Tokyo Fire bombings accessible to a modern audience, even to those who are learning about the event for the first time. |
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