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| Lost in Translation, literally ~! |
| 07.29.04 (5:27 am) [edit] |
TOKYO!!! I arrived today with a very bumpy landing. THere is a Typhoon on it's way to Japan tonight, I saw on the news as I was heading over the Sea of Japan from Seoul Korea. The wings of the plane were unsteady as we landed and the Korean man behind me spilled his water on me when we touched down in Tokyo Narita airport.
I met the Mexican Tae Kwon Do team while waiting for the JAL plane. a young 18 year old Mexican boy tried to pick me up and I just laughed at guts for trying; me who is obviously much older then him. his friends laughed on.
and the plane we were on had 2 levels!!! Japan Airlines. a flight from Seoul to Tokyo... so many people!!!!
When I arrived in Tokyo 2 hours later, the line for immigration was 45 minutes long and people were running for the line. Then as small japanese man told me their was another immigration entrance, so I walked quicky with the others to the other area. When I made it through immigration with the neon sign saying no terrorism and say no to drugs in my face, I walked down the esculators to the baggage claim, THere was only one other man waiting for the Seoul flight and he happened to be a gajin *foreigner from Brookln, my former neighborhood. we stood there waiting for the conveyer belt to move, but nothing happened. two other English guys stood on the other side. Is this some kind of conspiracy for gajin ? I thought. then I realized I
went to a different immigration booth then the others and our baggage clain was on the other side of the airport, and sure enough there was our bags waiting for us on the floor of Narita Airport.
When I exited the arrivals area and stepped into the airport it was a bit mind boggling. I saw a few rocker looking foreigners and hip Japanese kids... this place is cool, but how the hell am i going to get to my guest house?
I managed to buy a ticket for the train into the city, and asked a nice Japanese lady when my stop was, she kept kindly getting out of her seat to check the stop and make sure I got off at the correct stop ayoto. Japanese people are so polite! I made it through the TOkyo subway maze with the people in black buisness suits and breifcases as I had my green backpack and jeans. I was used to this by now... but it a bit funny when you enter a huge hip city in backpacker gear sweating from the heat, real cool... oh well.
I got to my stop and called the guesthouse. I was to meet the manager of the place at an exit 7 but it was nowhere to be found. I think I called Jay about 7 times before I found it. I asked a young buisness man and he walked quickly with me and answering me in Japanese and smiling showed me how to get to where I was going.
I finally met Jay and two others and arrived at the Guest T house. a small and efficiant Japanese PLace.
I've just filled my belly with slamon roe Sushi and Asashi beer and am sitting in internet cafe in the foreign district of Tokyo. THere are neon lights everywhere, a bit like times square but cleaner and kenji writtin everywhere!
It's been a hectic day, but I was expecting that upon my entrance into Tokyo. I guess that was part of the allure for coming here, the craziness and challenge of it all!
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| Life of a Traveller: |
| 07.27.04 (6:11 pm) [edit] |
A friend sent this in a forward. I'm not sure how I'm going to cope with routine again, so maybe I'll give this a try...
Life of a Traveller:
Try this at home for the true backpacking experience -
1) Replace your bed with two or more bunk beds, and every night
invite random people to sleep in your bedroom with you. Ensure at
least once a week a couple gets drunk and shags on one of the top
bunks. Remove beds one by one as symptons improve.
2) Sleep in your sleeping bag, forgetting to wash it for months.Add
some bugs in order to wake up with many unsightly bites over your
arms and legs.
3) Enlist the help of a family member to set your radio alarm to go
off randomly during the night, filling your room with loud talking.
This works best if the station is foreign. Also have several
mobiles ringing, without being answered. To add to the torture, ask
a friend to bring plastic bags into your room at roughly 6 in the
morning and proceed to rustle them for no apparent reason for a
good half an hour.
4) Keep all your clothes in a rucksack. When u do finally wash them remember to pack them away before completly dry to give them the correct smell and do not iron!
5) Buy your favourite food, and despite living at home, write your
name and when you might next be leaving the house on all bags. This
should include mainly pasta, 2 minute noodles, carrots and beer.
6) Ask a family member to every now and again steal an item of
food, preferably the one you have most been looking forward to or
the most expensive. Keep at least one item of food far too long or
in a bag out in the sun, so you have to spend about 24 hours within
sprinting distance of the toilet.
7) Even if it's a Sunday, vacate the house by 10a.m., and then
stand on the corner of the street looking lost. Ask the first
passer-by of similar ethnic background if they have found anywhere
good to go yet.
8) When sitting on public transport ( the London Tube would be
ideal) introduce yourself to the person sitting next to you, say
which stop you got on at, where you are going, how long you have
been travelling and what university you went to. If they say they
are going to Morden, say you met a guy on the central line who said
it was terrible and that you've heard Parsons Green is better and
cheaper.
9) Finally stick paper in your shower so that the water comes out
in just a drizzle. Adjust the hot/cold taps at regular intervals so
that you are never fully satisfied with the temperature. Because of
this frustration, shower infrequently
Sure you can all relate!
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| The dresscode of the Southeast Asian Backpacker |
| 07.26.04 (1:25 am) [edit] |
Here are a few observations of what the typical SE ASian Backpacker looks like. and here's how to tell someone went to SE ASia...
1) you wear fisherman's pants and flipflops
2) you have a tan or your red.
3) you wear T-shirts with the Logo of Beer Chang, Beer Lao, Tiger Beer, Angkor Wat, Vietnam Stars, Danger Land MineS Cambodia!
4) Lonely PLanet
5) Canadians wear the Maple leaf on their Packs.
6) the British have British made backs with their flag.
7) Americans have no flag on their packs.(or pretend they're Canadian by wearing Maple Leafs)
8) You have mosquito bite scars or motorbike scars.
9) You have bought loads of pirated cds and DVDS. (ones that you would never buy full price for at home) eg. Kylie Minogue.
10) You were those stupid Koh San Road Braids.
11) Tatoos
12) you have an illegal copied book.
13) You ask the standard questions of, where are you from, how long have you been traveling, where are you going next?
14) If your a guy you've had a Thai girlfriend or you've had sex with one.
15) you smoke lot's of green stuff.
16) you've tried a happy shake or a Special Shake.
if you can think of anymore feel free to comment. DOn't worry friends I won't be returning like this! well maybe a few of them are true! :)
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| Cycles |
| 07.26.04 (12:55 am) [edit] |
I'm back where my journey first started. Korea! aughhhhh! it's gray here. this is the monsoon season. But my skin is glowing and I've never felt more alive in my life!
I took a flight from Bali back to Bangkok, had about 6 hours to get my ticket to Korea. ran around buying last minute things. I went into this trip solo and my last night in Bangkok ended solo... a cycle of sorts. I then boarded a plan to Taipei and had a 6 1/2 hour layover. and no sleep for 2 days!
I truely beleive that life is all about cycles not straight lines... straight lines are boring anyways. our cycles are made of arteries that carry us other places and I feel lucky to have been able to do what I have done. Thank you Korea for letting my do that... even though I bitched about the place I was able to have the money to go on this trip and the guts and the adventerous spirit!
It's not over yet... there are many more places to see...
I have meet some of the best friends on this trip. when you travel you can choose your friends, choose your path... choose anything you want, as close to complete freedom as you can get. it's amazing when you let go of yourself and stop trying to control everything what can really happen in your life... that's when I feel the most alive. I don't know how I can ever go back to working in an office after this... not for me... I've realized I love working with people and being active in ways... not sitting on my ass. that's how we get "fat" American ASses.
It's going to be a shock to go back... but a good one in a way... I'm not looking forward to hearing about all the election hoopla, and eating huge portions of food and smelling all that fat cooking. But I am looking forward to seeing my family, seeing New York. being in my place of birth, my country. and going to the mountains of the Adirondecks!!! here I come! ...
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| Whose gonna tame your wild horses? |
| 07.20.04 (6:05 am) [edit] |
I just came back from the Gili Islands off the coast of Lombak Island in Indonesia... a chain of three small Islands where there are no cars or paved roads and electricity was first introduced in 1999. Instead of cars the locals use miniture horses and small carts to transport people and supplies around the Islands... I felt like I had stepped back in time... time went by without worry...
we took the local ferry from Bali to Lombark in the evening. It was a bit dodgey as some of the people couldn't stop staring at our packs... but we remained safe and met and english girl and IRish boy who shared a taxi with us to a town in Lombak once we arrived in the at port 11 at night . the English girl had been living in Java and spoke some indonesian.
the next day we took a motorboat to the small Island of Gili Air. the name itself just made me want to go.
we stayed in simple bungalows... watched the sunrise over the volcano in Lombak and sunset over the volcano in Bali.
when I was there I'd fall asleep to the sound of waves crashing on the shore and wake to the sound of roosters in the morning and tea and Bannana pancakes for breakfast. no motors or engines no honking horns. for lunch we'd eat rice and fish (Ikan) from bannana leaves with our hands... with the spicy chili sauce for 25 cents! And have dinner sitting on pillows overlooking the sea.
we met the locals and ate the local food from our Island girls, Jollie, Hilda, and Wasa, 10 year olds girls who ran around the Island making boats out of leaves and floating them in the low tide coral "lakes". They would walk arm and arm singing songs and Happily running around barefoot. the children had wild imaginations here... no tv. some of them even believed in Mermaids... even some of the Adults did as well.
One of the longhaired boys performed magic tricks for us and ate glass and told us could see into the future... western thought found it hard to believe. from an outside point of view one would think everyone was on magic mushrooms here... but no... just simple people with simple beliefs and wild imaginations.
Some of the local villagers didn't like all the tourist coming to the Island and the locals mixing with them... the men growing their hair long and marking their bodies with tatoo's. western influence tainted some things here... and sometimes I feel a bit guilty for disturbing their quality of life and mixing things up a bit... but there is good and bad in globalization.
We saw some of the effect of tourism on the largest of the three Islands, when one night we took a taxi boat to the bigger Gili Island and went to a party with some of the locals and 3 Canadians from Montreal. The big Island actually had a club on it and a resort. But Sitske and I were tired from our day of travel and fell asleep outside the reggae bar with huge pillows wrapped around us like blankets while we waited for the others to finish their dancing before we returned to the quiet Island. Upon our return I noticed phosphoresents glowing in the water from the wake of the boat: the small green glowing jewels I noticed when I was in Thailand, and again the Southern Hemisphere stars shining bright without the moon, the new moon. THe moon is even at a different angle in the south.
Our days were lazy and I was in search of sea turtles. One day we walked halfway around the Island (you could walk perimeter of the Island in about an hour) and stopped at a bar/bungalows that was empty on the other side of the Island. The men we met there told us buisness was bad this season because of the political elections in Jakarta and the travel warnings in Britain and America. ( I was unaware) No one was staying at their bungalows... so we gave them some business by have a few beers, watching the sunset and learning some indonesian words... it's a fun language... they roll their r's alot like in Spanish.
we had some snorkel gear that day and the men told us you could see turtles out in the sea by their bar... so we went out and nearly got swept away by the tide out by the huge mounds of coral. it was a bit scary considering coral is alive and the water visibility was bad from the wild waves which kept sweeping us into the coral and cutting our legs and ankles. Dark water scares me when I can't see whats underneath me... and the coral looked like ghostships ready to scrap us.
Gili Air was a refreshing change from the mass tourism of Thailand... unspoilt and peaceful, no major resorts and cheap accomodation... and lots' of the green stuff. no police patrolled the Islands... there was one governing chief who took care of the three Islands and when the cops did check up on things they were often bored cause there was no crime... the only crime was usually from other travelers in drunken fights or stealing from one another. so you were pretty much free to do as you wished.
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| Ubud, the bud of Bali |
| 07.20.04 (5:23 am) [edit] |
I went to a town in Bali called Ubud, I liked the name and it's the art and cultural center of Bali. I went with my Dutch friend Sitske. We stayind in nice digs and wandered around an old hindu temple covered in Moss with water dripping all around it.
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| Bali "Hai" will find you anywhere anyday... |
| 07.14.04 (4:45 am) [edit] |
it's your own special Island!
I learned to surf! and I love it! my arms hurt and my skin is brown. today I bought loads of balinese/ indonesian art... mmmmmmm .... Bali is paradise on earth... my kind of place... huge Indian ocean surf and mythological art and hindu temples filled with offerings in woven baskets and scented flowers... incense sticks and smiling faces... fire dances of a hundred men chanting and kicking burning coconuts... and a kindred spirit i met on the plane... an american women age 74, a former New Yorker whose dream it was to see the sea of Bali, sharing it with her children. we talked about the her cambodian friend and the sadness of cambodia and the beauty of Bali...and I know it's silly but we both cried and laughed together in joy and sorrow... we both like to touch our feet in as many bodies of water as we can in a lifetime... I, 26 and she 74... age don't make no difference... that is Bali to me so far... far away from my home... I even saw the southern cross for the first time... south of the equater... a longtime goal of mine... ahhhhhhhh candlelit seafood dinners on the beach listening to the rolling surf... Balinese coffee aroma's, just what I've been seeing and sensing all around me. this place is a feast for the senses!
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| the people you meet... |
| 07.09.04 (4:13 am) [edit] |
Tomorrow I go to Bali... I'm going to learn to Surf... something I've always wanted to do! Then I'll be in Korea soon then Japan for FUjirock!
peace out for now... I'll write more about the full moon party and tiger temple...
I said goodbye to some great friends... feeling a bit nostalgic today... you meet some amazing people while traveling... people you know when you see them again it will be as if no time has passed... miss you my friends :cry:
peace.
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| "American Beauty..." |
| 07.04.04 (7:43 am) [edit] |
is one of my favorite movies... I had an American beauty moment on a beach recently while watching a plastic bag blow around in the breeze...
Happy Birthday America! HAppy fourth to all even though we may be "ugly" sometimes...
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