Saturday, February 28, 2009
Hasaam Desu Ne~~~
Day #111
Funds: Y25000
Michael got snowed on again. And is in desperate need of Rudd Money.
So I paid all my accomodation off and splurged a little on stupid presents for some of you but not most of you, unfortunately my budget just cannot accomodate for that sort of thing. Also, I lost a little bit of my savings to uh, clubs and bars and cafes and random things you have to go to say you can say you went? I did a handstand in said club, and some random guy clapped and gave me bananas. This made me very happy. But yeah now I can afford food for the week, the trip to the airport, and maybe one more little something. This was very well timed. If I planned on staying, I would have not bought presents, and then I would have taken up one of the jobs I turned down and survived quite comfortably until my next paycheck, by also working in a hostel for free accomodation. So in my mind, I'm very pleased with how my plan worked out, all the possibilities were sort of accounted for, even surprises. I already have a couple plans for when I get back, ahah. If I learned anything on this trip it's that I gotta be able to go with the flow more, and although I'm unable to really turn my brain off, the way I'm thinking has been sort of changing bit by bit. My plans are quite different now. ^^
Me and Shannon have mostly been hanging out with hostel people, and I'm fairly certain I've waffled about how cool those guys n girls are. Way too many of them are from Aus though, we have pretty much invaded this country. I think it's probably because of our holiday season being so different to everyone else's, but also we are a bit closer. There have been lots of really cool personalities pretty much all over this trip from start to finish, and I keep getting excited about writing stuff these days, all these different characters keep popping into my head already half-formed ... will have to do SOMETHING with them, won't I?
EVERYONE'S language abilities put me to shame, it's woeful. I've pretty much interrogated everyone I've met on how they got so good, what they do to practise, and all that stuff. Shannon'd tell you, she was there for 90% of those conversations, probably bored her silly. But I now sort of have some ideas about how to go about kicking arse back home. Most of these guys have gotten so good at their second language that they can be spoken to by native speakers totally normally, but I'd say only half of them have actually spent a large amount of time in the country whose native tongue they kick arse with. I think I need a fairly decent computer to accomplish some of my ends though. Ah well we'll see what happens.
Saw Maxine, which was cool. Maxine was on the Shanghai program with me and the rest of them, and we were actually both talking about riding the same Ferry into Japan (she's been here before, her Jap is really really good) but we both found cheaper flights from other places anyway. We tried to find eachother using Facebook, but the fact that I don't have a working phone in this country really hindered our ability to organise anything. So ... me and Shannon went for a walk last Sunday and randomly heard somebody yell "Michael!!!" I think this is Pure Awesome. We basically bumped into eachother, randomly, in TOKYO. (Is Tokyo the biggest city ever or top 3? Whatever, made my point =P) Maxine spotted me because I was a) white and b) in a t-shirt, haha. It made me wish that we'd never discussed Japan even in Shanghai, because bumping into eachother like that was totally unrelated and would have happened anyway. We hung out for the day and went up Tokyo Tower and stuff. It was good fun.
Oh yeah and Ghibli Museum was awesome. Studio Ghibli is basically Japan's Disney (you may have seen Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, something like that), and the place was kind of small, but pretty much awesome in every way. It walked us through the basic processes as well as being contained in a really weird building that really did capture the vibe of one of their movies. My favourite doowhacky was this round table, that had a bunch of statues on it, each one identical to the last except it was in a slightly different pose. Then the strobe lights came on the table spun around really fast and it looked like every statue had come to life! I stared at that thing for like 20 minutes. Actual 3D animation, I mean, come on!!!
Saw a Japanese Scienceworks kinda place too. Digital gadgets galore! Erm there were a bunch of TVs set up with cameras on em so when you stood in front of them you could see a bunch of special effects happening to you on screen, like shooting fire or whatever. Oh and one that was supposed to run on facial recognition software so little anime-style cartoons would appear around your head depending on the emotion you expressed. That one didn't work so well but the idea itself was kind of cool, I'm sure they'll get it right someday. After all, they're JAPANESE.
Beyond that there has been AMPLE eventy-type goodness, thanks to Shannon I've been like, a Super-Tourist, and I couldn't begin to name all the places I've been and seen. That's what cameras are for though, and that's why Facebook is nice. Shannon got far more photos and actually knew what places were called and famous for and all that, so much sure if you are interested you check out her Japan albums too. See most of you quite soon!
Funds: Y25000
Michael got snowed on again. And is in desperate need of Rudd Money.
So I paid all my accomodation off and splurged a little on stupid presents for some of you but not most of you, unfortunately my budget just cannot accomodate for that sort of thing. Also, I lost a little bit of my savings to uh, clubs and bars and cafes and random things you have to go to say you can say you went? I did a handstand in said club, and some random guy clapped and gave me bananas. This made me very happy. But yeah now I can afford food for the week, the trip to the airport, and maybe one more little something. This was very well timed. If I planned on staying, I would have not bought presents, and then I would have taken up one of the jobs I turned down and survived quite comfortably until my next paycheck, by also working in a hostel for free accomodation. So in my mind, I'm very pleased with how my plan worked out, all the possibilities were sort of accounted for, even surprises. I already have a couple plans for when I get back, ahah. If I learned anything on this trip it's that I gotta be able to go with the flow more, and although I'm unable to really turn my brain off, the way I'm thinking has been sort of changing bit by bit. My plans are quite different now. ^^
Me and Shannon have mostly been hanging out with hostel people, and I'm fairly certain I've waffled about how cool those guys n girls are. Way too many of them are from Aus though, we have pretty much invaded this country. I think it's probably because of our holiday season being so different to everyone else's, but also we are a bit closer. There have been lots of really cool personalities pretty much all over this trip from start to finish, and I keep getting excited about writing stuff these days, all these different characters keep popping into my head already half-formed ... will have to do SOMETHING with them, won't I?
EVERYONE'S language abilities put me to shame, it's woeful. I've pretty much interrogated everyone I've met on how they got so good, what they do to practise, and all that stuff. Shannon'd tell you, she was there for 90% of those conversations, probably bored her silly. But I now sort of have some ideas about how to go about kicking arse back home. Most of these guys have gotten so good at their second language that they can be spoken to by native speakers totally normally, but I'd say only half of them have actually spent a large amount of time in the country whose native tongue they kick arse with. I think I need a fairly decent computer to accomplish some of my ends though. Ah well we'll see what happens.
Saw Maxine, which was cool. Maxine was on the Shanghai program with me and the rest of them, and we were actually both talking about riding the same Ferry into Japan (she's been here before, her Jap is really really good) but we both found cheaper flights from other places anyway. We tried to find eachother using Facebook, but the fact that I don't have a working phone in this country really hindered our ability to organise anything. So ... me and Shannon went for a walk last Sunday and randomly heard somebody yell "Michael!!!" I think this is Pure Awesome. We basically bumped into eachother, randomly, in TOKYO. (Is Tokyo the biggest city ever or top 3? Whatever, made my point =P) Maxine spotted me because I was a) white and b) in a t-shirt, haha. It made me wish that we'd never discussed Japan even in Shanghai, because bumping into eachother like that was totally unrelated and would have happened anyway. We hung out for the day and went up Tokyo Tower and stuff. It was good fun.
Oh yeah and Ghibli Museum was awesome. Studio Ghibli is basically Japan's Disney (you may have seen Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, something like that), and the place was kind of small, but pretty much awesome in every way. It walked us through the basic processes as well as being contained in a really weird building that really did capture the vibe of one of their movies. My favourite doowhacky was this round table, that had a bunch of statues on it, each one identical to the last except it was in a slightly different pose. Then the strobe lights came on the table spun around really fast and it looked like every statue had come to life! I stared at that thing for like 20 minutes. Actual 3D animation, I mean, come on!!!
Saw a Japanese Scienceworks kinda place too. Digital gadgets galore! Erm there were a bunch of TVs set up with cameras on em so when you stood in front of them you could see a bunch of special effects happening to you on screen, like shooting fire or whatever. Oh and one that was supposed to run on facial recognition software so little anime-style cartoons would appear around your head depending on the emotion you expressed. That one didn't work so well but the idea itself was kind of cool, I'm sure they'll get it right someday. After all, they're JAPANESE.
Beyond that there has been AMPLE eventy-type goodness, thanks to Shannon I've been like, a Super-Tourist, and I couldn't begin to name all the places I've been and seen. That's what cameras are for though, and that's why Facebook is nice. Shannon got far more photos and actually knew what places were called and famous for and all that, so much sure if you are interested you check out her Japan albums too. See most of you quite soon!
Friday, February 20, 2009
Hasaam Spinning Around and Around ...
Day #103
Funds: Y69000 (hehehehe)
Location: Khaoson Annex and Smile, Asakusa Area, Tokyo
Well ... somewhere in there. Tokyo is pretty dense. Melbourne is gonna feel weird and quiet I think ... xD
Michael is pretty comfy, but still kinda knackered.
We broke triple digits!!! Unfortunately I kind of didn't move at all on my hundredth day. My brain is struggling to process everything that's going on because it's all been moving so fast. So ... living in Tokyo is a bad choice haha. It's an awesome place though. Took a chill day in Kyoto and now I'm chilling here for a day - I got more time than Shannon and she doesn't seem to mind wandering around without me here and there, which is lucky. It also means I can use her laptop!
I've made the call, I'm just going to press on with these blogs and when things settle down, maybe I'll catch up on the stuff I didn't write about ... or heck, maybe you can just find out from me directly, huh?
Hanging out with Shannon's been pretty good for me, sometimes she just pulls out the notepad and draws her pictures n stuff ... guess I've picked on up her vibe or something cos I've finally started writing again, little bit by little bit ... just sort of sketchy plans so far but nobody's allowed to read them haha.
By the way, those of you who didn't know, I will be back home March 7th. This is a bit sooner than we all thought, but I'm satisfied with what I've accomplished out here, 100 days is pretty good actually, and I've discovered a few places I could have worked, hostel's take you in for free if you work a couple hours a day for a month, and made a few contacts through which I could have gotten proper jobs, so I know I could have done this. And I've met quite a few cool backpackers in the last couple of days who get up to some neat stuff too, from camping randomly around Japan and hitchhiking to riding their bikes all the way from France to Osaka, having stayed in a number of countries long enough to learn a bit of the language, I've gotten to hear all these cool stories. If I stayed ... well I'm sure my Japanese would improve an incredible amount. But it's possible to improve my Japanese back home, as well as other things.
Tokyo's a cool place btw. Having trouble finding a 'quiet moment' though, this hostel is cheap but it's packed. Sorry for not really giving too many details, especially of late. My mind hasn't been quiet enough recently, so I'm thinking now I've rested properly I should just take in as much as I can in these next couple weeks. Blogs may be really sporadic scarce or maybe completely non-existent until then. I'll just keep seeing stuff and doing stuff and take as much in as I can. In a little while, I'll process it all bit by bit and then I'll make a bit more sense ... But right now, =P
The red circle is Tokyo, the two big cities on the far left are Kyoto at the top and Osaka on the bottom
Funds: Y69000 (hehehehe)
Location: Khaoson Annex and Smile, Asakusa Area, Tokyo
Well ... somewhere in there. Tokyo is pretty dense. Melbourne is gonna feel weird and quiet I think ... xD
Michael is pretty comfy, but still kinda knackered.
We broke triple digits!!! Unfortunately I kind of didn't move at all on my hundredth day. My brain is struggling to process everything that's going on because it's all been moving so fast. So ... living in Tokyo is a bad choice haha. It's an awesome place though. Took a chill day in Kyoto and now I'm chilling here for a day - I got more time than Shannon and she doesn't seem to mind wandering around without me here and there, which is lucky. It also means I can use her laptop!
I've made the call, I'm just going to press on with these blogs and when things settle down, maybe I'll catch up on the stuff I didn't write about ... or heck, maybe you can just find out from me directly, huh?
Hanging out with Shannon's been pretty good for me, sometimes she just pulls out the notepad and draws her pictures n stuff ... guess I've picked on up her vibe or something cos I've finally started writing again, little bit by little bit ... just sort of sketchy plans so far but nobody's allowed to read them haha.
By the way, those of you who didn't know, I will be back home March 7th. This is a bit sooner than we all thought, but I'm satisfied with what I've accomplished out here, 100 days is pretty good actually, and I've discovered a few places I could have worked, hostel's take you in for free if you work a couple hours a day for a month, and made a few contacts through which I could have gotten proper jobs, so I know I could have done this. And I've met quite a few cool backpackers in the last couple of days who get up to some neat stuff too, from camping randomly around Japan and hitchhiking to riding their bikes all the way from France to Osaka, having stayed in a number of countries long enough to learn a bit of the language, I've gotten to hear all these cool stories. If I stayed ... well I'm sure my Japanese would improve an incredible amount. But it's possible to improve my Japanese back home, as well as other things.
Tokyo's a cool place btw. Having trouble finding a 'quiet moment' though, this hostel is cheap but it's packed. Sorry for not really giving too many details, especially of late. My mind hasn't been quiet enough recently, so I'm thinking now I've rested properly I should just take in as much as I can in these next couple weeks. Blogs may be really sporadic scarce or maybe completely non-existent until then. I'll just keep seeing stuff and doing stuff and take as much in as I can. In a little while, I'll process it all bit by bit and then I'll make a bit more sense ... But right now, =P
The red circle is Tokyo, the two big cities on the far left are Kyoto at the top and Osaka on the bottom
Thursday, February 12, 2009
The Hasaam of Strangers
Day #98
Funds [ergh. It gets confusing cos it's all in Shannon's bank account for the moment (she gets better rates than me). So from now on, I'm counting down in Yen ==" This is the amount I have left to SPEND, there's actually $1700ish left in my own account that I'm not touching ... Anyway]: Y95000
Location: Well, I'm starting to fall behind severely on these owing to the fact that I don't wanna hog Shannon's laptop and because of the sheer volume of stuff going on. At the time of typing I am sitting in a very nice Osaka Hostel called Lemon House, but you might not get to hear about it until a later entry!!!
Michael is alert, but not alarmed. Japanese people ... so nice!!!
Okay, I thought about this and I've decided that I'm going to have to just bullet point a few of my experiences. I've been keeping a list to make sure people don't miss out on all the fun stuff that's happened but upon typing those last two things in my usual In Brief section, it occured to me that if I just keep letting it all pile up it might lose the whole 'personal touch' thing ... I'll try to fly through it all to get us to today at least.
Kyoto
So we needed to be in Nara late Saturday morning to see Aoi, this meant being in Kyoto the night before, but I hadn't counted on the overnight bus being totally booked out. Because I was keen to see my busy busy Japanese friend with two jobs, I forked over the extra cash for a bullet train on Friday. We got from Hiroshima to Kyoto within the space of 2 hours easily, and it was very comfortable. I'd already gotten over the whole "ohmygod we're going so fast!" thing on the Maglev in Shanghai (from the city centre to the airport), but in all fairness these things cover the whole country while the Maglev runs for less than 10mins per ride.
The following two things must be said: First of all, Kyoto Station is THE most difficult place to navigate through I've encountered. Others have agreed with me (others being Shannon and Lily, who will be mentioned at least once more in this entry). In Japan, there isn't one group running all the public transport, which means there are different platforms for different groups. Some trains are just for the subway and others between cities, and the place itself is also kind of combined with a shopping mall of sorts and a whole bunch of restaurants, spanning 7+ floors, and not all the trains are on one floor. Maps here, like all others in Japan, make no sense, even with my advantage of being able to read more of the names of things than Joe Average tourist (have I mentioned yet that scale is not internally consistent on these things, North is a different 2D direction on every one you look at, not all streets have names, those that do don't always have signs, and numbers aren't always consecutive?!). We managed to basically guess the right exit and press on by foot since the map we read appeared to indicate our hostel of choice was fairly nearby. After 30 minutes on the road I was 100% confident would get us there, I started to get nervous. We stopped to look at a map for a few seconds and this woman pretty much materialised beside us to ask if we were lost. The conversation pretty much went like this:
Lady:"What are you doing here? Are you lost? Don't know where you are? Where are you trying to get to? Where do you wanna go?"
Me: "We were looking for Maruta Street, actually ... our hostel is there ... "
Lady: "Maruta Street? Maruta?! From here? You can't walk there you're out of your mind! You're crazy, it'd take you forever and then a little while! You can't walk to Maruta Street from here it's just too far! Too far, nowhere near this spot, take the bus!!!"
Me [having followed, well, MOST of that]: " ... uhh ... so, we can't walk? More than uh, 10 minutes to walk?"
Lady: "10 minutes? Way more than that! You really have to catch the bus to get there, then it'll be easy! Here, my friend's going to walk past the bus you need, walk to the bus stop with her!"
2nd Lady [having just materialised on cue]:"Yes! I live quite close to that bus! I know it well, come with me, new foreign friend, and I will get you home safely!"
Me: "Ahhhhah. Thankyou very much!"
Lady: "Oh my goodness your Japanese is amazingly good!"
Okay ... well I didn't change the script that much. Shannon will back me up. This is the inevitable effect of standing still and looking confused and white pretty much anywhere in Japan. I would like to play a game with other foreigners to see who can get approached by a friendly old Japanese person wanting to help them the fastest. They ARE keen with their 133+ hospitality skills.
We got to the self-proclaimed "Cheapest Hostel in Kyoto" very easily after that. The place certainly lived up to its name, in pretty much every way you would imagine. 1000 yen a night (best I've found anywhere else was twice that much) provided you bring your own sleeping bag and sleep on a rock directly beneath a heater on overdrive in front of the exit sign which never switches off and above a chronically obnoxious snorer. The guy at the counter was friendly enough, though, but my goodness was that place cheap. We found a really good place to eat though, where they pretty much BBQ'd stuff on a stick for us. It's kind of hard to describe, except the sauces they marinated with were really cool and something about the service/ambiance made it all really cool. It's weird if you go into a place around these parts without people yelling "Irasshaimase~!" ("Welcome!!!") at you.
Ok, ok, so I just detailed a couple more days. Stuff it, I'm still going at a decent pace. A couple more sessions like this and I'll have practically caught up!
=="
XD
Funds [ergh. It gets confusing cos it's all in Shannon's bank account for the moment (she gets better rates than me). So from now on, I'm counting down in Yen ==" This is the amount I have left to SPEND, there's actually $1700ish left in my own account that I'm not touching ... Anyway]: Y95000
Location: Well, I'm starting to fall behind severely on these owing to the fact that I don't wanna hog Shannon's laptop and because of the sheer volume of stuff going on. At the time of typing I am sitting in a very nice Osaka Hostel called Lemon House, but you might not get to hear about it until a later entry!!!
Michael is alert, but not alarmed. Japanese people ... so nice!!!
Okay, I thought about this and I've decided that I'm going to have to just bullet point a few of my experiences. I've been keeping a list to make sure people don't miss out on all the fun stuff that's happened but upon typing those last two things in my usual In Brief section, it occured to me that if I just keep letting it all pile up it might lose the whole 'personal touch' thing ... I'll try to fly through it all to get us to today at least.
Kyoto
So we needed to be in Nara late Saturday morning to see Aoi, this meant being in Kyoto the night before, but I hadn't counted on the overnight bus being totally booked out. Because I was keen to see my busy busy Japanese friend with two jobs, I forked over the extra cash for a bullet train on Friday. We got from Hiroshima to Kyoto within the space of 2 hours easily, and it was very comfortable. I'd already gotten over the whole "ohmygod we're going so fast!" thing on the Maglev in Shanghai (from the city centre to the airport), but in all fairness these things cover the whole country while the Maglev runs for less than 10mins per ride.
The following two things must be said: First of all, Kyoto Station is THE most difficult place to navigate through I've encountered. Others have agreed with me (others being Shannon and Lily, who will be mentioned at least once more in this entry). In Japan, there isn't one group running all the public transport, which means there are different platforms for different groups. Some trains are just for the subway and others between cities, and the place itself is also kind of combined with a shopping mall of sorts and a whole bunch of restaurants, spanning 7+ floors, and not all the trains are on one floor. Maps here, like all others in Japan, make no sense, even with my advantage of being able to read more of the names of things than Joe Average tourist (have I mentioned yet that scale is not internally consistent on these things, North is a different 2D direction on every one you look at, not all streets have names, those that do don't always have signs, and numbers aren't always consecutive?!). We managed to basically guess the right exit and press on by foot since the map we read appeared to indicate our hostel of choice was fairly nearby. After 30 minutes on the road I was 100% confident would get us there, I started to get nervous. We stopped to look at a map for a few seconds and this woman pretty much materialised beside us to ask if we were lost. The conversation pretty much went like this:
Lady:
Me: "We were looking for Maruta Street, actually ... our hostel is there ... "
Lady: "Maruta Street? Maruta?! From here? You can't walk there you're out of your mind! You're crazy, it'd take you forever and then a little while! You can't walk to Maruta Street from here it's just too far! Too far, nowhere near this spot, take the bus!!!"
Me [having followed, well, MOST of that]: " ... uhh ... so, we can't walk? More than uh, 10 minutes to walk?"
Lady: "10 minutes? Way more than that! You really have to catch the bus to get there, then it'll be easy! Here, my friend's going to walk past the bus you need, walk to the bus stop with her!"
2nd Lady [having just materialised on cue]:
Me: "Ahhhhah. Thankyou very much!"
Lady: "Oh my goodness your Japanese is amazingly good!"
Okay ... well I didn't change the script that much. Shannon will back me up. This is the inevitable effect of standing still and looking confused and white pretty much anywhere in Japan. I would like to play a game with other foreigners to see who can get approached by a friendly old Japanese person wanting to help them the fastest. They ARE keen with their 133+ hospitality skills.
We got to the self-proclaimed "Cheapest Hostel in Kyoto" very easily after that. The place certainly lived up to its name, in pretty much every way you would imagine. 1000 yen a night (best I've found anywhere else was twice that much) provided you bring your own sleeping bag and sleep on a rock directly beneath a heater on overdrive in front of the exit sign which never switches off and above a chronically obnoxious snorer. The guy at the counter was friendly enough, though, but my goodness was that place cheap. We found a really good place to eat though, where they pretty much BBQ'd stuff on a stick for us. It's kind of hard to describe, except the sauces they marinated with were really cool and something about the service/ambiance made it all really cool. It's weird if you go into a place around these parts without people yelling "Irasshaimase~!" ("Welcome!!!") at you.
Ok, ok, so I just detailed a couple more days. Stuff it, I'm still going at a decent pace. A couple more sessions like this and I'll have practically caught up!
=="
XD
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Hasaam Got a Minute
Day #95
Funds: $3200ish
Location: Weeeelllll ... as of this exact moment, Kyoto, but all my stuff's still in Nara ...
Michael has discovered the joys of spontaneity. Also my thoughts are with my Victorian homies and their crisis.
Been having trouble getting access to a stable internet connection, or finding enough time online to post photos or seriously write a blog/send emails. The reasons why will be crazy clear shortly.
Hiroshima
Here I had an epiphany on the first night. I have a certain plan which will be revealed when the time is right. We met some girls from Brisbane in our dorm who let Shannon use their phone charger (she's pretty much out of juice again though). They seemed to be having fun, last I saw they'd well and truly loaded up on pre-drinks and stumbled out rambling not-especially-sincere-sounding apologies in advance for waking us up when they got back. They weren't back by 6am, which is when me and Shannon left that morning, so I hope they're ok ... So yeah the reason we got up so early is cos the backpacker in Fukuoka who pointed me in the right direction bus-wise also emphatically insisted I go to Miyajima (lit. "Shrine Island"), and to do it early so the tide was low. You know that characteristically asian-looking gate thing, yeah there's a nice one of them just a little ways off shore and when the tide's low you can walk underneath, thus assuring your good luck in Japan! Anyway turned out the lot tide wasn't until noon but it was still nice to see the place fairly void of other tourists, made us feel like we'd found something secret and neat. Anyway we went for a walk and kind of accidentally climbed to the highest point of Misen (maybe "Mi Mountain" in English?). After a brief encounter with some deer who attempted to steal my soyjoy bar and eat our maps (ok we didn't have any maps but that did happen to someone else and it was really funny) we saw a sign that kind of sounded alright telling us that a certain kind of shrine was at the end of this path but it didn't specify how far away. We figured that meant it had to be fairly close and since it was going UP a mountain every couple minutes or so would see us winding around a curve. We were convinced that around each curve would be the end, but we were only right once and naturaly we were wrong a WHOLE bunch of times before that. The shrines were a little scattered across this tiny little field and there was no English., I recognised a couple of the names of Buddhas and was able to tell Shannon a little about them at least from a Chinese/Taiwanese perspective. It was cool being there because firstly it was beautiful and secondly it was such a pain in the arse getting there that we really could believe that not so many foreign people had been here. There were shovels and things like that around, so it was obviously still being maintained though. At this point obviously we had no choice but to get to the top since we were well and truly closer than halfway. So after a total of about 3 or 4 hours, we had hiked all the way up and we treated to a lovely view. Guess what we found at the top of Misen on Miyajima? That's right, a vending machine =D Actually, for most people the absolute highest point on this mountain is a convenience store, which is so freaking Japanese it was almost not funny. I made myself feel better by climbing some rocks equal in height to the shop, and some Japanese guys on the shop seemed to think this was great so I posed for some photos of theirs (well actually they just took photos while I kind of made manly gestures at them). This whole experience, as well as getting back, left us basically totally knackered and we ate in, Shannon is quite good with random vegetables noodles and sauce, as it turns out.
Aoi had invited us to catch up Saturday morning, so the next day was to be our last in Hiroshima. I tried and failed to arrange an overnight bus, but they were all full so in order to make it on time we agreed to splurge a little on a shinkansen (bullet train) trip, which was neat in its own way because now I can say I've done it, but really it was basically the same as the mag-lev in Shanghai, only it travelled a lot further distance and was, as seems to be the trend in Japan, a bit more comfortable.
Before that we had to do the thing that everyone has to do in Hiroshima, and that was visit the Peace Park and the epicentre thing. Ms Boltong read the story of Sadako and the 1000 cranes to my class in Grade 3, which was sort of the point at which I decided I wanted to go to Japan at all. Sadako was a girl who had leukaemia because of radiation poisoning after the a-bomb and tried to fold 1000 cranes so she could wish to get better. She didn't make it but her friends finished the 1000 for her and it's been tradition since then to pretty much cake the place with origami cranes. Sadly, this was the point in my journey at which I also realised how much of a better commision Shannon gets than me for withdrawing money and I couldn't stop calculating how much I saved by transferring mine into her account and just getting it from her in cash. Thanks to that it looks like I'll have exactly enough to survive until the time I need to, it's actually like $500-700 I save (crazy, right? don't trust Travellex, they're scheming bastards), and before I was assured of that I wasn't sure if I was going to make it. Because I can get a little fixated on my schemes while I'm sorting them out, I know I bothered Shannon a little bit given the time and place, and I am a little ashamed of myself. When I saw the statue of Sadako I did go quiet and got a tiny bit teary though. They also have the ruins of a building that was directly under the bomb preserved as a reminder, and the list of names of everyone effected beneath a flame that they don't stop burning. That was nice too.
Oh and just while I'm in the mood, I just want to say that I've been following the Victorian fire situation as closely as I can from where I am, it hit fairly close to home at a certain point (the part in Cranbourne touched was much closer to Shannon's place than mine though) and I really am sad for all those affected by it. The number of charity organisations and fundraisers and official international well-wishers springing up is actually freaking me out more than inspiring me, I think because that really hammers in the severity of the situation to me. You're all in whatever my version of prayers is.
This is in no small way the sum of everything I've done since my last entry. I now have a list of stuff for reference so I can just catch up a little bit everytime I blog. Next stop, a brief stopover in Kyoto before being spoiled absolutely rotten in Nara!
Funds: $3200ish
Location: Weeeelllll ... as of this exact moment, Kyoto, but all my stuff's still in Nara ...
Michael has discovered the joys of spontaneity. Also my thoughts are with my Victorian homies and their crisis.
Been having trouble getting access to a stable internet connection, or finding enough time online to post photos or seriously write a blog/send emails. The reasons why will be crazy clear shortly.
Hiroshima
Here I had an epiphany on the first night. I have a certain plan which will be revealed when the time is right. We met some girls from Brisbane in our dorm who let Shannon use their phone charger (she's pretty much out of juice again though). They seemed to be having fun, last I saw they'd well and truly loaded up on pre-drinks and stumbled out rambling not-especially-sincere-sounding apologies in advance for waking us up when they got back. They weren't back by 6am, which is when me and Shannon left that morning, so I hope they're ok ... So yeah the reason we got up so early is cos the backpacker in Fukuoka who pointed me in the right direction bus-wise also emphatically insisted I go to Miyajima (lit. "Shrine Island"), and to do it early so the tide was low. You know that characteristically asian-looking gate thing, yeah there's a nice one of them just a little ways off shore and when the tide's low you can walk underneath, thus assuring your good luck in Japan! Anyway turned out the lot tide wasn't until noon but it was still nice to see the place fairly void of other tourists, made us feel like we'd found something secret and neat. Anyway we went for a walk and kind of accidentally climbed to the highest point of Misen (maybe "Mi Mountain" in English?). After a brief encounter with some deer who attempted to steal my soyjoy bar and eat our maps (ok we didn't have any maps but that did happen to someone else and it was really funny) we saw a sign that kind of sounded alright telling us that a certain kind of shrine was at the end of this path but it didn't specify how far away. We figured that meant it had to be fairly close and since it was going UP a mountain every couple minutes or so would see us winding around a curve. We were convinced that around each curve would be the end, but we were only right once and naturaly we were wrong a WHOLE bunch of times before that. The shrines were a little scattered across this tiny little field and there was no English., I recognised a couple of the names of Buddhas and was able to tell Shannon a little about them at least from a Chinese/Taiwanese perspective. It was cool being there because firstly it was beautiful and secondly it was such a pain in the arse getting there that we really could believe that not so many foreign people had been here. There were shovels and things like that around, so it was obviously still being maintained though. At this point obviously we had no choice but to get to the top since we were well and truly closer than halfway. So after a total of about 3 or 4 hours, we had hiked all the way up and we treated to a lovely view. Guess what we found at the top of Misen on Miyajima? That's right, a vending machine =D Actually, for most people the absolute highest point on this mountain is a convenience store, which is so freaking Japanese it was almost not funny. I made myself feel better by climbing some rocks equal in height to the shop, and some Japanese guys on the shop seemed to think this was great so I posed for some photos of theirs (well actually they just took photos while I kind of made manly gestures at them). This whole experience, as well as getting back, left us basically totally knackered and we ate in, Shannon is quite good with random vegetables noodles and sauce, as it turns out.
Aoi had invited us to catch up Saturday morning, so the next day was to be our last in Hiroshima. I tried and failed to arrange an overnight bus, but they were all full so in order to make it on time we agreed to splurge a little on a shinkansen (bullet train) trip, which was neat in its own way because now I can say I've done it, but really it was basically the same as the mag-lev in Shanghai, only it travelled a lot further distance and was, as seems to be the trend in Japan, a bit more comfortable.
Before that we had to do the thing that everyone has to do in Hiroshima, and that was visit the Peace Park and the epicentre thing. Ms Boltong read the story of Sadako and the 1000 cranes to my class in Grade 3, which was sort of the point at which I decided I wanted to go to Japan at all. Sadako was a girl who had leukaemia because of radiation poisoning after the a-bomb and tried to fold 1000 cranes so she could wish to get better. She didn't make it but her friends finished the 1000 for her and it's been tradition since then to pretty much cake the place with origami cranes. Sadly, this was the point in my journey at which I also realised how much of a better commision Shannon gets than me for withdrawing money and I couldn't stop calculating how much I saved by transferring mine into her account and just getting it from her in cash. Thanks to that it looks like I'll have exactly enough to survive until the time I need to, it's actually like $500-700 I save (crazy, right? don't trust Travellex, they're scheming bastards), and before I was assured of that I wasn't sure if I was going to make it. Because I can get a little fixated on my schemes while I'm sorting them out, I know I bothered Shannon a little bit given the time and place, and I am a little ashamed of myself. When I saw the statue of Sadako I did go quiet and got a tiny bit teary though. They also have the ruins of a building that was directly under the bomb preserved as a reminder, and the list of names of everyone effected beneath a flame that they don't stop burning. That was nice too.
Oh and just while I'm in the mood, I just want to say that I've been following the Victorian fire situation as closely as I can from where I am, it hit fairly close to home at a certain point (the part in Cranbourne touched was much closer to Shannon's place than mine though) and I really am sad for all those affected by it. The number of charity organisations and fundraisers and official international well-wishers springing up is actually freaking me out more than inspiring me, I think because that really hammers in the severity of the situation to me. You're all in whatever my version of prayers is.
This is in no small way the sum of everything I've done since my last entry. I now have a list of stuff for reference so I can just catch up a little bit everytime I blog. Next stop, a brief stopover in Kyoto before being spoiled absolutely rotten in Nara!
Saturday, February 7, 2009
A Brief Walk Down Hassamity
Day #90
Funds: $3600ish
Location:
"Kyoto Cheapest Hostel", on this street in the middle of the page.
Michael's back aches and his legs hurt.
Ahhhh this place is nuts! Love it. The day of my last blog I spent in a deep state of mind in which all my thoughts were slow and heavy and time passed sort of quickly relatively to my perspective. I wasn't stoned, I was just kind of sitting in a MacDonald's with a dictionary and a random Death Note manga, translating pretty much word by word for hours. Dunno what good it did me if any, but it was actually kind of fun and somehow extremely relaxing. The reason for this was, the Maccas was close to where my bus was gonna leave from and I didn't wanna be lugging my luggage around for the whole day. Fukuoka's a lovely place, filled with lots of friendly people (much like the entire rest of Japan it would seem ... ) and it is a crying shame I didn't get the chance to see Miki again. I'm going to call her before I leave and lecture her profusely about sending more regular emails and stuff. The overnight bus was absolutely fine, it was recommended to me by another backpacker who said it was uncomfortable, but I was asleep in half an hour. At 6am I walked a k or so from the Bus Station to the main Hiroshima Station, and searched the South Exit for a "Futaba Book Store", where Shannon and I agreed to meet. Couldn't really find it. Wandered around a bit more, and upon giving up, found it immediately on the North Side. "Hmmm" I thought. "I wonder if this is going to confuse Shannon." Then I went in, bought the #1 GTO, and sat down in front trying to read it for a few hours. It occured to me as I read that Shannon and I had neglected to pick a very specific TIME to meet, even though the place had very specifically been "South Exit Futaba Book Store". This would be problematic as my phone doesn't work in Japan, foreigners can't buy SIMs, in fact I'm not sure they have SIM cards at all anyway. Shannon is on International Roaming but I can't figure out how to make pay phones call those (think you need a special prepaid card of sorts). So I had no way of contacting her and checking where she was. Occasionally I would leave my post for 20-30 minutes (I figured that if she did show up she might wait for that amount of time assuming I'd gone for food or something) to go scout for information. I learned that there were 2 North Side exits from the Shinkansen (bullet train) she'd rock up on, both of which would see her walking straight past the Futaba book shop, causing no problems. But there was one South Side exit, and if she left from there this place was big enough that she might never stumble across our meeting point. Boy was I glad that I'd already told her the address of the hostel I intended on staying at. So anyway on one of my trips I wandered around to the South gate and fumbled through a little chat with the lady who checked tickets. I described Shannon to her as "this white chick with black hair who is this tall and is probably wearing black" and she said she hadn't seen her. I then attempted to explain to her that if she did see this friend of mine, she had to make her go through the other exit by any means necessary. Satisfied with the arrangement of this blockade, I waited at the bookstore for a further hour before going to the information booth and having them make an Engrish announcement calling Shannon Berr (Bell) informing her that Michaer Kerry was waiting for her to come to the Information Booz. When this had no effect, I figured it was safe to assume she hadn't arrived yet. To make sure, I also called the hostel to see if she'd somehow slipped past my elaborate net but she hadn't checked in there yet either. And so I waited some more. Oh and also I called my good friend Aoi's mobile to ask her to call Shannon's mobile and see where she was, but of course Shannon's phone was out of battery at the time so that didn't work either.
I like to think that I'm the resourceful type ...
And so I waited some more. I considered trying to strike up a conversation with the girls working at the bakery opposite the bookshop in order to alleviate the awkwardness stemming from my sitting in front of them doing nothing for hours, but remembered how bad my Japanese is and decided that might just make things worse. Finally, I decided there was nothing to be done but to book into the hostel, hop online and send her a message that way in the hopes she would get that. Once on the tram we passed 2 stops before I saw her in the street dragging her suitcase. So of course I jumped off and ran, forgetting to pay, thus enraging my first Japanese Public Transport Guy. He didn't buy my gibberish apology, but grumpily accepted my money.
Turns out there WAS a Futaba Book store on the South Side as well. Shannon had been there for several hours and probably has a similar story to tell, only without all the brilliant scheming.
And that's my story. This of course was several days ago and a shitload has happened since then. There will be more updates in the near future. For now I have to let others sleep. Just know that at this point I'm actually not in Hiroshima anymore.
(Bottom-left = Fukuoka. Top-right = Hiroshima)
(Black letters: Far left = Hiroshima. Red circle = Kyoto, straight down on the left = Osaka straight down on the right = Nara, where Aoi lives!!!)
Funds: $3600ish
Location:
"Kyoto Cheapest Hostel", on this street in the middle of the page.
Michael's back aches and his legs hurt.
Ahhhh this place is nuts! Love it. The day of my last blog I spent in a deep state of mind in which all my thoughts were slow and heavy and time passed sort of quickly relatively to my perspective. I wasn't stoned, I was just kind of sitting in a MacDonald's with a dictionary and a random Death Note manga, translating pretty much word by word for hours. Dunno what good it did me if any, but it was actually kind of fun and somehow extremely relaxing. The reason for this was, the Maccas was close to where my bus was gonna leave from and I didn't wanna be lugging my luggage around for the whole day. Fukuoka's a lovely place, filled with lots of friendly people (much like the entire rest of Japan it would seem ... ) and it is a crying shame I didn't get the chance to see Miki again. I'm going to call her before I leave and lecture her profusely about sending more regular emails and stuff. The overnight bus was absolutely fine, it was recommended to me by another backpacker who said it was uncomfortable, but I was asleep in half an hour. At 6am I walked a k or so from the Bus Station to the main Hiroshima Station, and searched the South Exit for a "Futaba Book Store", where Shannon and I agreed to meet. Couldn't really find it. Wandered around a bit more, and upon giving up, found it immediately on the North Side. "Hmmm" I thought. "I wonder if this is going to confuse Shannon." Then I went in, bought the #1 GTO, and sat down in front trying to read it for a few hours. It occured to me as I read that Shannon and I had neglected to pick a very specific TIME to meet, even though the place had very specifically been "South Exit Futaba Book Store". This would be problematic as my phone doesn't work in Japan, foreigners can't buy SIMs, in fact I'm not sure they have SIM cards at all anyway. Shannon is on International Roaming but I can't figure out how to make pay phones call those (think you need a special prepaid card of sorts). So I had no way of contacting her and checking where she was. Occasionally I would leave my post for 20-30 minutes (I figured that if she did show up she might wait for that amount of time assuming I'd gone for food or something) to go scout for information. I learned that there were 2 North Side exits from the Shinkansen (bullet train) she'd rock up on, both of which would see her walking straight past the Futaba book shop, causing no problems. But there was one South Side exit, and if she left from there this place was big enough that she might never stumble across our meeting point. Boy was I glad that I'd already told her the address of the hostel I intended on staying at. So anyway on one of my trips I wandered around to the South gate and fumbled through a little chat with the lady who checked tickets. I described Shannon to her as "this white chick with black hair who is this tall and is probably wearing black" and she said she hadn't seen her. I then attempted to explain to her that if she did see this friend of mine, she had to make her go through the other exit by any means necessary. Satisfied with the arrangement of this blockade, I waited at the bookstore for a further hour before going to the information booth and having them make an Engrish announcement calling Shannon Berr (Bell) informing her that Michaer Kerry was waiting for her to come to the Information Booz. When this had no effect, I figured it was safe to assume she hadn't arrived yet. To make sure, I also called the hostel to see if she'd somehow slipped past my elaborate net but she hadn't checked in there yet either. And so I waited some more. Oh and also I called my good friend Aoi's mobile to ask her to call Shannon's mobile and see where she was, but of course Shannon's phone was out of battery at the time so that didn't work either.
I like to think that I'm the resourceful type ...
And so I waited some more. I considered trying to strike up a conversation with the girls working at the bakery opposite the bookshop in order to alleviate the awkwardness stemming from my sitting in front of them doing nothing for hours, but remembered how bad my Japanese is and decided that might just make things worse. Finally, I decided there was nothing to be done but to book into the hostel, hop online and send her a message that way in the hopes she would get that. Once on the tram we passed 2 stops before I saw her in the street dragging her suitcase. So of course I jumped off and ran, forgetting to pay, thus enraging my first Japanese Public Transport Guy. He didn't buy my gibberish apology, but grumpily accepted my money.
Turns out there WAS a Futaba Book store on the South Side as well. Shannon had been there for several hours and probably has a similar story to tell, only without all the brilliant scheming.
And that's my story. This of course was several days ago and a shitload has happened since then. There will be more updates in the near future. For now I have to let others sleep. Just know that at this point I'm actually not in Hiroshima anymore.
(Bottom-left = Fukuoka. Top-right = Hiroshima)
(Black letters: Far left = Hiroshima. Red circle = Kyoto, straight down on the left = Osaka straight down on the right = Nara, where Aoi lives!!!)
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Taking the Miki out of Hasaam
Day #86
Funds: $4200ish
Michael is chilling with the Japs, Korea-phile Yanks, and an assortment of Poms who, turns out, do not seem to be all that whingey.
So I gotta admit, I haven't been the most dedicated little tourist as of yet, partly because I had to recover from the food poisoning fiasco, partly cos Fukuoka doesn't have tons of tourist attractions besides Fukuoka tower (and sorry, the Rialto and Eureka Building were plenty for me, I saw this place from a plane), but mostly because of cash restrictions. What I keep telling myself is I'm in this country for the long haul, I don't have to worry about missing out at this stage, I have to worry about starving before I can find work. I won't be neglecting Shannon's tourist needs though of course, she's part of the reason I've been holding back while by myself. It's also been good being tight because I learned a few things that will save us a bit of cash in terms of what to but for food etc. For example, for the price of 2 decent meals from a cheap restaurant or about 7 or 8 little snacks from something like a 7/11, I can prepare 4 dinners and 3 breakfasts, without even spending all of my daily food budget! To celebrate this discover I went to buy a dictionary, which are generally equivelant to my total daily spending budget, but it turned out they were all one-way and aimed at Japanese people. This means that if you looked up an English word, the dictionary just shows the kanji (the character for that word) without the furigana (how to actually pronounce that word). I don't need that, I can already write a ton of words I don't know how to say in Jap, thanks to Chinese. In fact, many of my conversations with the locals tend to degenerate into me scribbling down characters and them reading aloud ... it's a start.
Speaking of conversations, it's not hard to start one around here. I met quite a few interesting people, (my facebook buddies list is growing =P) except for two guys none of them really speak Japanese at all so when we've gone out places I've felt pressure to ask directions and sort out little confusions, stuff like that is good for forcing you out of your comfort zone. Last week there were a LOT of people on holiday from Korea who were actually American English teachers. It's only a 3-hour boat ride apparently so that's why. So I learned a lot about Korea in my first week in Japan, heheh.
The staff at this hostel have been super friendly, some speak really good English, but others started chatting with me as soon as they realised I could understand them if they spoke in Jap the same way I imagine you would speak to a retarded person. It's actually very encouraging, I feel like I'm just short on experience and vocab, which I'll surely build up over a couple months.
Today was supposed to be the only day I was gonna get to see Miki, but her grandmother fell ill so she had to bail. We'll be looking for more opportunities later but while travelling I'm only going further and further from Nagasaki (where her uni is). This makes me sad, but once I set up base somewhere I'll definitely figure out how to stalk her. It's been 4 years and I'm actually in the same country, little frustrating. But we'll figure something out, I'm not too worried.
Saw some street performers yesterday, super cool! Whoever said Japanese people didn't have any individuality? A chick with an accordion who danced while her partner also danced while juggling and did a couple other things. A dude who made quite intricate characters similar to balloon animals only instead of a giraffe, Mario (as seen on my fb pix)!
The day before, we were greeted by some people who were offering free hugs. I took one instantly, then asked what they were doing this for. Apparently they were spreading "free and love". I decided this really spoke to me, so along with an American girl and a Canadian girl we stuck around for an hour or so. I was probably the most enthusiastic, after learning a couple basic phrases to explain the situation ("furii haggu shimasen ka?" = "won't you free hug me?") I was off! We agreed that even if we were rejected, a smile from a passerby counted as a victory as we would have affected their day in a small way. It was a lot of fun, I was in a good mood for the rest of the day after that.
One other discovery I made which was quite encouraging: a lot of youth hostels will take foreigners in for free if they work 2 or 3 hours a day 5 days out of 7 for free. So now I've got 2 safety nets! Well gotta check out of this place, tonight I'm leaving for Hiroshima. Shannon had better bring fresh news of Australia, cos you guys been way too slack!
Funds: $4200ish
Michael is chilling with the Japs, Korea-phile Yanks, and an assortment of Poms who, turns out, do not seem to be all that whingey.
So I gotta admit, I haven't been the most dedicated little tourist as of yet, partly because I had to recover from the food poisoning fiasco, partly cos Fukuoka doesn't have tons of tourist attractions besides Fukuoka tower (and sorry, the Rialto and Eureka Building were plenty for me, I saw this place from a plane), but mostly because of cash restrictions. What I keep telling myself is I'm in this country for the long haul, I don't have to worry about missing out at this stage, I have to worry about starving before I can find work. I won't be neglecting Shannon's tourist needs though of course, she's part of the reason I've been holding back while by myself. It's also been good being tight because I learned a few things that will save us a bit of cash in terms of what to but for food etc. For example, for the price of 2 decent meals from a cheap restaurant or about 7 or 8 little snacks from something like a 7/11, I can prepare 4 dinners and 3 breakfasts, without even spending all of my daily food budget! To celebrate this discover I went to buy a dictionary, which are generally equivelant to my total daily spending budget, but it turned out they were all one-way and aimed at Japanese people. This means that if you looked up an English word, the dictionary just shows the kanji (the character for that word) without the furigana (how to actually pronounce that word). I don't need that, I can already write a ton of words I don't know how to say in Jap, thanks to Chinese. In fact, many of my conversations with the locals tend to degenerate into me scribbling down characters and them reading aloud ... it's a start.
Speaking of conversations, it's not hard to start one around here. I met quite a few interesting people, (my facebook buddies list is growing =P) except for two guys none of them really speak Japanese at all so when we've gone out places I've felt pressure to ask directions and sort out little confusions, stuff like that is good for forcing you out of your comfort zone. Last week there were a LOT of people on holiday from Korea who were actually American English teachers. It's only a 3-hour boat ride apparently so that's why. So I learned a lot about Korea in my first week in Japan, heheh.
The staff at this hostel have been super friendly, some speak really good English, but others started chatting with me as soon as they realised I could understand them if they spoke in Jap the same way I imagine you would speak to a retarded person. It's actually very encouraging, I feel like I'm just short on experience and vocab, which I'll surely build up over a couple months.
Today was supposed to be the only day I was gonna get to see Miki, but her grandmother fell ill so she had to bail. We'll be looking for more opportunities later but while travelling I'm only going further and further from Nagasaki (where her uni is). This makes me sad, but once I set up base somewhere I'll definitely figure out how to stalk her. It's been 4 years and I'm actually in the same country, little frustrating. But we'll figure something out, I'm not too worried.
Saw some street performers yesterday, super cool! Whoever said Japanese people didn't have any individuality? A chick with an accordion who danced while her partner also danced while juggling and did a couple other things. A dude who made quite intricate characters similar to balloon animals only instead of a giraffe, Mario (as seen on my fb pix)!
The day before, we were greeted by some people who were offering free hugs. I took one instantly, then asked what they were doing this for. Apparently they were spreading "free and love". I decided this really spoke to me, so along with an American girl and a Canadian girl we stuck around for an hour or so. I was probably the most enthusiastic, after learning a couple basic phrases to explain the situation ("furii haggu shimasen ka?" = "won't you free hug me?") I was off! We agreed that even if we were rejected, a smile from a passerby counted as a victory as we would have affected their day in a small way. It was a lot of fun, I was in a good mood for the rest of the day after that.
One other discovery I made which was quite encouraging: a lot of youth hostels will take foreigners in for free if they work 2 or 3 hours a day 5 days out of 7 for free. So now I've got 2 safety nets! Well gotta check out of this place, tonight I'm leaving for Hiroshima. Shannon had better bring fresh news of Australia, cos you guys been way too slack!
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