Welcome Back!
Moving on from a city as wonderful and comfortable as Tokyo was kind of sad. Spending as little time as we are in all these places, it makes you realize that you could spend so much more time in all of them. I'd love to go experience Kyoto, and Osaka, and so much more of Tokyo, than we could in 6 days. I suppose travelling just gives you tastes of things; just more to see. So, although I was happy to go on with our trip, Japan/Tokyo now has the distinction of a place to make a point to return to in the future, it has a nice little place in my memory, and it has our damn digital camera battery and charger. We forgot it in the hotel, and now we're looking for a new charger.
"I would take Thai Airways pretty much anywhere."
Here I am in coach from Tokyo to Thailand, and I can pick my own movie and/or tv show and/or interactive game. Over the course of the 6 hour flight, Lucy and I watched episodes of Arrested Development, Pushing Daisies, and the majority of "The Savages" (which is fantasic). They even had an episode of Dexter available! OH: and the tv control turns into a videogame controller, and we played blackjack and poker, and old school super mario bros. If I wanted, I could challenge Lucy, or any other interested member of the main cabin to trivia or pong or centipede or anything. And their meals were great. Just to let you know - I would probably take a Thai Airways flight to the supermarket, if I could.
"But where do we play Chess?"
Despite being very eager to move on to the Philippines, 1/1.5 days in Bangkok aren't really what I'd call "enough." It's a very vibrant city, punctuated by gorgeously intricate hallmarks of Buddhist history, and occasional centers of upscale commerce, and swathed in very real, very present poverty. And in this way, it was unlike any place I had previously been. With every corner you turn, every boat pier from which you disembark, there are motorcab drivers who will ask you where you are going, and when you tell them, will in turn say "It's closed today," or "It doesn't open until later," in order to offer you a ride "around the city," which very likely leads to some sort of scam. Being aware of this is very important in the city, and usually they'll give excuses like this, even where, upon looking up at your destination, you can see tourists filing in and out. It's not even really what I would call a problem, just because it was very obvious, and actually entertaining, in a way, to see what people would come up with.
SO, basically, after landing at Suvarnabhumi Airport (pronounced sa-wa-na-poom, for some reason), we took a cab to our fabulous, although difficult to find, hotel (I have strong suspicions that the street naming process in Bangkok was created by someone who either is or has the city planning savvy of a lobotomized goat. Our address essentially meant "the 46th building on the 1st alley off of Thewet, which is not actually a labelled street, but is instead an area of a different street, which has two different names, neither of which are Thewet, and which are also not labelled). Hotel Phranakorn Nornlen is owned by a former Miss Thailand, and she's done a superb job - accommodations come with a fabulous vegetarian breakfast each morning (might as well start your day off with a dose of good karma, right?), there is an attentive and endlessly helpful staff, and they are currently working on cultivating an organic garden on the rooftop, so they can provide their own food to the people who stay there. Oh! And it had free internet and computers! Which is spectacular, considering the fact that our computer is beyond repair... It was essentially a backpackers' dream place - reflected in the price, which while relatively expensive by backpackers standards, was less than a third of what we paid per night in Tokyo. I'd say one of the few things I had to get used to was the fact that there was no distinction between the shower and the rest of the bathroom. Meaning, that a medium-length shower would leave you standing in a bathroom with about a quarter-inch-deep pool of water covering the floor, which would eventually dissipate slowly down the drain over the next ten minutes or so. Still, gorgeous accommodations, and a very nice, large, clean bathroom, all things considered.
"Muay Thai Relaxation"
It was at this hotel where I had my first Thai massage. Now, up until this point, I was under the impression that a Thai massage was just someone beating the crap out of you. I wasn't completely off base. Indeed, up until this point, I had only had massages which were in various states of undress, and during which my limbs were not manipulated into a series of yogic stretches, while a masseuse pummeled the muscles. Suffice it to say, it was a new experience. And not at all a bad one. Sitting up Indian style (note to self: is that PC?) both hands behind my head, fingers interlocked, not unlike as if I were held up mid-elementary school assembly, the masseuse swung my torso to the side, cracking my back, and proceeded to smack the underside of my arms. Audibly. And for some reason, it all worked quite well. Indeed, the fact that you are fully clothed during a Thai massage really works in the interests of practicality. One would think it rather uncomfortable for both the client and the masseuse, for the client to be anything approximating nude while on his or her back, as his or her leg is bent at the knee, turned to the side, and pushed back over the head.
"No One Here Knows Who Murray Head Is"
The massages, oddly enough, were the last thing we did at the hotel, before we checked out. The previous day was really where we explored the city. We basically went from Buddhist Temple to Buddhist Temple, braving crowds, heights, and heatstroke. The Grand Palace was impressive. The temple there, amazing. It's really difficult to sum up - the intricacy of the sparkling mosaic exteriors was simply breathtaking. The interior paintings, and the 9 meter high, golden statue-bedecked platform, on which the jade "Emerald Buddha" is enshrined is a sight to behold, and which pictures could not do justice, even if they were allowed inside this holy site. It's massive and gorgeous, focusing on a revered and beautiful image of the Buddha which you are not to point your feet at, out of respect. We sat in the temple for a while, taking in the amazing surroundings. Just a wonderful experience, to have the opportunity to explore, and appreciate another culture and another faith. From there we went to Wat Po, which houses a massive "reclining Buddha." This statue is housed in a building which basically just fits it - it's just gigantic and pretty darn awesome - with a row of 109 pots for donations which don't even run 3/4 the length of the corridor. We then went to the "Temple of The Dawn" Wat Arun, which was across the river. This temple features a series of increasingly-narrow-stepped staircases, which you have to weather in order to see the beautiful view of Bangkok and the Chao Phraya river. It's very much worth the climb. Thank goodness for handrails!
"And Then..."
Okay, so then we walked through Chinatown, got some gifts, and went to the mall. I know. But it was a pretty great mall, and we had dinner and whatnot, and then went to the VIP movie theatre. So, there were some travellers at the hotel who had told us about it - and really, it was a great flippin experience. The refreshments at the Bangkok movie theatre were relatively inexpensive - certainly far cheaper than in the states, but the VIP theatre is special, in that you are seated in small alcoves of two huge comfy reclining electric leather chairs - and thus, the VIP theatre tickets are among the most expensive I've ever bought. But you are given a blanket and a pillow, and served drinks and popcorn, both of which come in one size: big ass size. So, we sat and watched "Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull." Which, brings us to this:
I hate George Lucas.
That is pretty much my review of the movie. The guy wrote the lame story, and it's an outlandish, albeit sometimes fun, movie that jumps the shark at one very specific point. You may or may not agree. Is it better than no Indiana Jones movie? Sure! Of course it is! A lot of things are. And it's still entertaining. And Shia La Boeuuoeuuf actually does some of the very best acting in this movie - he's quite good.
But why is there so much expository dialogue? Why does the end suck? Why is the first half so much better than the second? Why is the life sapped out of every interesting character (Karen Allen, Cate Blanchett, and yes, Harrison Ford have a whole lot of mediocre script to make up for) who I have such an interest in? And, honestly: Monkeys??? Might as well have thrown in some flippin ewoks, while you're at it. What the heck, make the big secret be that Cate Blanchett's character is actually Jar Jar Binks. Which shows you what a memorable character it was - I don't even remember the name.
Anyway, the answer to all of those questions:
Stay tuned in 2009 for American Graffiti: Old People With Cars, and what the heck, a crapload of cgi just because they can.
Sorry for the rant - it's hard to keep stuff like that really contained. As a side note, Rasheed mentioned the possibility of me playing "Son of Short Round" in a sequel. And, quite frankly, I am more than happy to take this on. I think I could really provide a nice tan counterpart to Shia LaBeuoueueuouf's character. Maybe Short Round's son turned out to be an accountant. That might suit me. Anyway, perhaps while he's rummaging through his repertoire for things to bring back, Lucas will stumble upon his original sense of creativity. It'd be nice if he could dust that off for us.
Hmm. This post was supposed to be about Bangkok, wasn't it? Yikes. Sorry. I love Bangkok. And if you get the chance to go, try to take it from someone who knows: spend more than a day and a half there.
On the plus side, we are in the Philippines, planning on heading up north on the overnight bus to see the rice terraces in Banaue tomorrow night. I'll catch y'all up on this leg of the trip in a few. Thanks for reading, and have a great night! See y'all in July!
~phil~
P.S. We saw Iron Man the night we got into Manila. Who woulda thunk that the whiny romantic guy from Swingers would direct a better action movie than Steven Spielberg. Okay, I'm done now, I promise.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Tokyotastic
Sorry to have left so suddenly, last post. Where was I?
Oh yes, sooo.... The computer was broken. And I had no money to pay for an internet cafe. Essentially, the better part of the first half of the day was wandering around trying to find a bank that would change our money. Of course, I didn't figure in the time change and the fact that it was now Saturday instead of Friday, and most of the banks were closed, so we did sort of a defeatist move and tried to get wifi in the only place we knew would probably have it: That's right, a Starbucks. It didnt actually have wifi (wtf, japan? get on that."), but since it actually took credit cards we had our first japanese breakfast - a grande caramel frappuccino and a grande java chip frappuccino, both of which we enjoyed walking down the street towards a vague destination (shinjuku will probably have a money changing place. somewhere. riiiight?), following the one book we had left - a tokyo street map with no actual guidance or tips or anything other than maps. So, basically, were in flippin Tokyo and the first thing we do in the morning is get frappuccinos and walk down the street with a guidebook. It was beautiful. If we were a superhero duo team, we would have been Mr. and Mrs. American Tourist. Speaking of new places and languages, it's time for:
TokyoTravelTip 2!
"Our Friend, Pronunciation"
Here's a quick little way to help you with the tricky multisyllabic nature of the Japanese language. Open up a map or a book or something, written in letters you understand. Now, look at a medium-length to long word. Say it aloud, for starters. Now, take note of all the syllables you accentuated. Circle them on the page in the book. Now cross them all out. Pronounce/accentuate all of the leftover syllables. Congratulations! You are now pronouncing Japanese words correctly!
Aaaaanyway, eventually we got some money changed (which is good, because we would soon find that both of our atm pins were too long to take money out at any atm), and Tokyo was a ball. We wandered through the impressive gardens of the imperial palace, wandered through the gorgeous frenetically-lit streets of roppongi, ginza (yeah! free wifi at the mac store!), and shibuya (the ubiquitous blinking lights of tokyo would make a 12 year old with ADD and a candy-binge-fuelled sugar rush stop and go "holy crap, thats a lot of lights.") ate a bunch of raw fish in a shack at the Tsukiji fish market (if you go, honestly go to this thing. show up at 5 am and watch the Tuna auction - its the one thing we would have done if we had longer), ate a bunch of raw fish in a place underneat the train tracks (eat in places underneath the train tracks too - amazing), and ate a bunch of raw fish in the most elaborate restaurant Ive ever eaten at (more to come on that later).
Hey, guess what? Its time for
TokyoTravelTip 3!
I am a size large in Tokyo.
I know, thats not really a tip. But, seriously, what the crap??? How is it that in Tokyo I am an underdressed (as in, "Are we the only two people on this subway car not wearing three piece suits?") fat American?
"The Marionette Scene from Sound of Music Meets An Opera With A Lot Of Dishonor And Suicide"
We saw a good amount of theatre in Tokyo. It was actually really really awesome. We did see a gorgeous kabuki theatre production in the big ole kabuki theatre - flippin 6 bucks for balcony tickets for one act! And that was two hours!!! The other thing we saw was a gorgeous full Bunraku production at the National theatre. Let me explain Bunraku. Bunraku is puppets, yes. Puppets roughly half the size of regular people, with tiny heads. But they are used to tell a story very much like a japanese opera. The story is sung by a series of narrators and accompanists. I guess, sort of picture Avenue Q. Now picture Avenue Q with maybe a 12th of the humor, but mostly about honor and seppuku and whatnot, and with only a fraction of the nudity (which, yes, I will admit, surprised me). And four and a half hours long. Yeah, there you go - that would be Bunraku. Gorgeous production, though - I would highly recommend it. And their bento boxes for the 25 minute intermission are enough to share, just so you know.
"Shooooooooo RYU GIN!!!!"
We ate a lot of wonderful food in Japan. Even outside of Starbucks (which we sadly visited twice more during the trip) Honestly, the fish market had some of the freshest seafood ever. Even the place under the tracks had the best mackerel Ive ever had. But we closed out the trip with a sumptuous dinner at the Michelin-rated "Ryu Gin." There were a number of questions which entered my head, throughout this meal. How are there twelve courses? Why are three of them dessert? How is each accompanied with its own tea? How did that meal just take three and a half hours (the subway is already closed)? How did the last of the desserts feature a tomato? And why did I love it so much? This was daring food. Gorgeous, progressive food, but firmly rooted, unmistakably Japanese. I dont want to give anything away, in case any of you goes there, but the chef is creative, brilliant. And not in a way, where you are like, "what the hell am I eating this for?" but "why the hell cant I eat like this more often." It was a spectacular capstone to our trip.
Anyways, weve actually already spent our day in Bangkok, and were packing up to leave for the Philippines tomorrow! Wooooo! Ill post on Bangkok later, but I will say - it is one of the most gorgeous places ever - more on that to come...
P.S. I hate George Lucas.
Oh yes, sooo.... The computer was broken. And I had no money to pay for an internet cafe. Essentially, the better part of the first half of the day was wandering around trying to find a bank that would change our money. Of course, I didn't figure in the time change and the fact that it was now Saturday instead of Friday, and most of the banks were closed, so we did sort of a defeatist move and tried to get wifi in the only place we knew would probably have it: That's right, a Starbucks. It didnt actually have wifi (wtf, japan? get on that."), but since it actually took credit cards we had our first japanese breakfast - a grande caramel frappuccino and a grande java chip frappuccino, both of which we enjoyed walking down the street towards a vague destination (shinjuku will probably have a money changing place. somewhere. riiiight?), following the one book we had left - a tokyo street map with no actual guidance or tips or anything other than maps. So, basically, were in flippin Tokyo and the first thing we do in the morning is get frappuccinos and walk down the street with a guidebook. It was beautiful. If we were a superhero duo team, we would have been Mr. and Mrs. American Tourist. Speaking of new places and languages, it's time for:
TokyoTravelTip 2!
"Our Friend, Pronunciation"
Here's a quick little way to help you with the tricky multisyllabic nature of the Japanese language. Open up a map or a book or something, written in letters you understand. Now, look at a medium-length to long word. Say it aloud, for starters. Now, take note of all the syllables you accentuated. Circle them on the page in the book. Now cross them all out. Pronounce/accentuate all of the leftover syllables. Congratulations! You are now pronouncing Japanese words correctly!
Aaaaanyway, eventually we got some money changed (which is good, because we would soon find that both of our atm pins were too long to take money out at any atm), and Tokyo was a ball. We wandered through the impressive gardens of the imperial palace, wandered through the gorgeous frenetically-lit streets of roppongi, ginza (yeah! free wifi at the mac store!), and shibuya (the ubiquitous blinking lights of tokyo would make a 12 year old with ADD and a candy-binge-fuelled sugar rush stop and go "holy crap, thats a lot of lights.") ate a bunch of raw fish in a shack at the Tsukiji fish market (if you go, honestly go to this thing. show up at 5 am and watch the Tuna auction - its the one thing we would have done if we had longer), ate a bunch of raw fish in a place underneat the train tracks (eat in places underneath the train tracks too - amazing), and ate a bunch of raw fish in the most elaborate restaurant Ive ever eaten at (more to come on that later).
Hey, guess what? Its time for
TokyoTravelTip 3!
I am a size large in Tokyo.
I know, thats not really a tip. But, seriously, what the crap??? How is it that in Tokyo I am an underdressed (as in, "Are we the only two people on this subway car not wearing three piece suits?") fat American?
"The Marionette Scene from Sound of Music Meets An Opera With A Lot Of Dishonor And Suicide"
We saw a good amount of theatre in Tokyo. It was actually really really awesome. We did see a gorgeous kabuki theatre production in the big ole kabuki theatre - flippin 6 bucks for balcony tickets for one act! And that was two hours!!! The other thing we saw was a gorgeous full Bunraku production at the National theatre. Let me explain Bunraku. Bunraku is puppets, yes. Puppets roughly half the size of regular people, with tiny heads. But they are used to tell a story very much like a japanese opera. The story is sung by a series of narrators and accompanists. I guess, sort of picture Avenue Q. Now picture Avenue Q with maybe a 12th of the humor, but mostly about honor and seppuku and whatnot, and with only a fraction of the nudity (which, yes, I will admit, surprised me). And four and a half hours long. Yeah, there you go - that would be Bunraku. Gorgeous production, though - I would highly recommend it. And their bento boxes for the 25 minute intermission are enough to share, just so you know.
"Shooooooooo RYU GIN!!!!"
We ate a lot of wonderful food in Japan. Even outside of Starbucks (which we sadly visited twice more during the trip) Honestly, the fish market had some of the freshest seafood ever. Even the place under the tracks had the best mackerel Ive ever had. But we closed out the trip with a sumptuous dinner at the Michelin-rated "Ryu Gin." There were a number of questions which entered my head, throughout this meal. How are there twelve courses? Why are three of them dessert? How is each accompanied with its own tea? How did that meal just take three and a half hours (the subway is already closed)? How did the last of the desserts feature a tomato? And why did I love it so much? This was daring food. Gorgeous, progressive food, but firmly rooted, unmistakably Japanese. I dont want to give anything away, in case any of you goes there, but the chef is creative, brilliant. And not in a way, where you are like, "what the hell am I eating this for?" but "why the hell cant I eat like this more often." It was a spectacular capstone to our trip.
Anyways, weve actually already spent our day in Bangkok, and were packing up to leave for the Philippines tomorrow! Wooooo! Ill post on Bangkok later, but I will say - it is one of the most gorgeous places ever - more on that to come...
P.S. I hate George Lucas.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Ohio Gozaymas-o-menos
“Introit”
Dear Faithful Reader,
It’s been many days since I first (and last) wrote. I apologize for having left you, no doubt clinging desperately to the edge of your foam-cushioned seat, fingers clenched in white-knuckled anticipation, fighting off sleep and the oncoming spectre of dread, in relentless vigil, awaiting another post. I assure you, both I and my travel companion are content and well-fed; indeed, brimming with the satisfaction of bellies full of raw fish, sweetly vinegared rice, and the best sake I’ve ever had the pleasure of tasting. This trip did not, however, begin in such a manner, and it is this very series of events which I hope will explain my absence.
"e.g."
Imagine, if you will, that you are in New York. Nay, Manhattan. Now, imagine Manhattan is a couple times the size and tenders its very own currency. I mean, other than spite and guff, which are freely traded in New York City like spices in the Orient. Now, imagine that you have managed to enter using your credit card, but you have none of the aforementioned currency. "Manhattan Bucks," we'll call them. You've kind of assumed, "Hey, the card worked to get me into the city - it will undoubtedly work to get me around and to my hotel as well!" Now you are told that the subway system only takes Manhattan Bucks, and your card is essentially an inert piece of plastic with a magnetic strip, with no value outside of the worth of its raw materials. Now imagine you are walking aimlessly spiraling out around the subway station for an hour, trying to find a bank or atm or anything which can extract the cash in Manhattan Bucks from your account, but all the banks are staffed by robots, and the atms don't even recognize your card, and no one can change your money to Manhattan Bucks, because there are no money changing places there, and every person you encounter only speaks the same crazy Manhattan moon language that's printed on all the signs, and that includes the poor guy in the subway office who couldn't accept credit/atm cards, if he wanted to.
Okay, so let's join Lucy and Phil as they putter around this guy's office. 500 worthless American dollars in hand, searching for options which can get them to their hotel, so they can start enjoying the city. We are in Tokyo, in the station, but can't get in to the trains because we don't have cash, and Lucy's been sitting in the subway pass guy's office for an hour, waiting with the bags.
"Can we use credit?" "No."
"Can we use travelers' checks?" "What are those?"
"Can we buy tickets from you?" "No. Just passes."
"Can we buy passes from you?" "Only with yen."
"Can we sell our American money, for its worth as a textile, or a food, or anything, to you, or anyone, so we can just get on the subway?"
And so on. Long story short, this brings us to:
TokyoTravelTip #1!
Q: What's the cheapest way to get around the Tokyo subway system?
A: Pity.
Now, with two of the subway pass office guy's generously given staff passes, we ride straight down to a gorgeous and relatively inexpensive hotel room. We check in - the room is lovely as well. The toilet seat even has features we won't even use. The seat heats up. And it plays noise/music when you sit on it. And it is fitted with one of Asia's ubiquitous bidet contraptions. The type where you have to activate the feature by pressing a button which looks not unlike a rotund lower-case w being sprayed with a stream of water with deadly accuracy. I note that whoever used this feature last had set the "water pressure" to its highest setting. And thus, my distrust deepens - Distrust in both a hypothetical person who requires such a focused stream of highly-pressurized water for such duties (this can only be indicative of a person prone to becoming unreasonably jaded), and distrust in a machine which needs a button for you to tell it to stop the aquatic photon-torpedo pummeling your netherregions.
Anyway, we go to the bags to take out the amazing Tokyo guidebook we skimmed through on the plane, ready to delve into the pages and plan our trip. But the guidebook is not in the bags. It is nowhere. Well, okay, that's not true. It is somewhere. And that somewhere is in the seatback pocket on the plane from which we disembarked about 3 hours ago. Probably nestled between a battered multi-lingual copy of SkyMall and the barf bag I spat my gum into. Oh well, no worries - let's plug the computer into our hotel's free internet and surf away. Oh wait. The computer is broken. And the internet in the lobby and every internet cafe we encounter only takes.... you guessed it: japanese yen.
So, this is our first day in Tokyo. We eventually just kind of ate at the hotel restaurant and went to sleep, resting up for our first full day in Tokyo.
But at that, I will have to leave you, with a big ole "To Be Continued."
Dun dun dunnnn......
Dear Faithful Reader,
It’s been many days since I first (and last) wrote. I apologize for having left you, no doubt clinging desperately to the edge of your foam-cushioned seat, fingers clenched in white-knuckled anticipation, fighting off sleep and the oncoming spectre of dread, in relentless vigil, awaiting another post. I assure you, both I and my travel companion are content and well-fed; indeed, brimming with the satisfaction of bellies full of raw fish, sweetly vinegared rice, and the best sake I’ve ever had the pleasure of tasting. This trip did not, however, begin in such a manner, and it is this very series of events which I hope will explain my absence.
"e.g."
Imagine, if you will, that you are in New York. Nay, Manhattan. Now, imagine Manhattan is a couple times the size and tenders its very own currency. I mean, other than spite and guff, which are freely traded in New York City like spices in the Orient. Now, imagine that you have managed to enter using your credit card, but you have none of the aforementioned currency. "Manhattan Bucks," we'll call them. You've kind of assumed, "Hey, the card worked to get me into the city - it will undoubtedly work to get me around and to my hotel as well!" Now you are told that the subway system only takes Manhattan Bucks, and your card is essentially an inert piece of plastic with a magnetic strip, with no value outside of the worth of its raw materials. Now imagine you are walking aimlessly spiraling out around the subway station for an hour, trying to find a bank or atm or anything which can extract the cash in Manhattan Bucks from your account, but all the banks are staffed by robots, and the atms don't even recognize your card, and no one can change your money to Manhattan Bucks, because there are no money changing places there, and every person you encounter only speaks the same crazy Manhattan moon language that's printed on all the signs, and that includes the poor guy in the subway office who couldn't accept credit/atm cards, if he wanted to.
Okay, so let's join Lucy and Phil as they putter around this guy's office. 500 worthless American dollars in hand, searching for options which can get them to their hotel, so they can start enjoying the city. We are in Tokyo, in the station, but can't get in to the trains because we don't have cash, and Lucy's been sitting in the subway pass guy's office for an hour, waiting with the bags.
"Can we use credit?" "No."
"Can we use travelers' checks?" "What are those?"
"Can we buy tickets from you?" "No. Just passes."
"Can we buy passes from you?" "Only with yen."
"Can we sell our American money, for its worth as a textile, or a food, or anything, to you, or anyone, so we can just get on the subway?"
And so on. Long story short, this brings us to:
TokyoTravelTip #1!
Q: What's the cheapest way to get around the Tokyo subway system?
A: Pity.
Now, with two of the subway pass office guy's generously given staff passes, we ride straight down to a gorgeous and relatively inexpensive hotel room. We check in - the room is lovely as well. The toilet seat even has features we won't even use. The seat heats up. And it plays noise/music when you sit on it. And it is fitted with one of Asia's ubiquitous bidet contraptions. The type where you have to activate the feature by pressing a button which looks not unlike a rotund lower-case w being sprayed with a stream of water with deadly accuracy. I note that whoever used this feature last had set the "water pressure" to its highest setting. And thus, my distrust deepens - Distrust in both a hypothetical person who requires such a focused stream of highly-pressurized water for such duties (this can only be indicative of a person prone to becoming unreasonably jaded), and distrust in a machine which needs a button for you to tell it to stop the aquatic photon-torpedo pummeling your netherregions.
Anyway, we go to the bags to take out the amazing Tokyo guidebook we skimmed through on the plane, ready to delve into the pages and plan our trip. But the guidebook is not in the bags. It is nowhere. Well, okay, that's not true. It is somewhere. And that somewhere is in the seatback pocket on the plane from which we disembarked about 3 hours ago. Probably nestled between a battered multi-lingual copy of SkyMall and the barf bag I spat my gum into. Oh well, no worries - let's plug the computer into our hotel's free internet and surf away. Oh wait. The computer is broken. And the internet in the lobby and every internet cafe we encounter only takes.... you guessed it: japanese yen.
So, this is our first day in Tokyo. We eventually just kind of ate at the hotel restaurant and went to sleep, resting up for our first full day in Tokyo.
But at that, I will have to leave you, with a big ole "To Be Continued."
Dun dun dunnnn......
Monday, May 12, 2008
Welcome To A Month-and-a-half-long Journey To The Other side of our Two-dimensional Planet
Welcome, Dear Reader, and thank you for viewing this web-based captain's log, or "w-BcLOG," or "BLOG," for short.
You are reading the first of what will become many lovingly hand-typed glimpses into my half of a two-person journey to the flipside of this celestial disc on which we live. This is a journey we undertake, casting to the wind our more local "obligations," the comfort of our familiar surroundings, and all ordinary perceptions of what one can accomplish with relatively shallow pockets.
Indeed, the choking humidity of the Tokyo rainforests, the barren oceanless beach-like sprawl of the rural prefecture of London, the intricately-crafted high-rise metropolis of upscale Manila (a.k.a. Asia's Manhattan), the lush riverless prairieland of Paris (somewhat bewilderingly known to its native bushpeople as "Pear-y," despite its notoriously inhospitable climate, for arboreally-cultivated fruit) - all of these places will be scoured, their inhabitants engaged in glorious conversation, voices made passive, tenses made past, all in the pursuit (as you no doubt have heard of on suppertime national radio broadcasts, and/or read of in your local picayune) of the perfect pair of socks.
Our month-and-a-half long Wanderjahr (Wander-munth-und-eine-haffen?) commences at the light of the cock crow - not five and a half hours away. I will now retire, my friend, to my nightly 14-minute dental ablution, and then to take my physician-recommended 3 hours of very deep sleep, resting up for tomorrow's first leg to "The Fertile Flatlying Lowlands/Meadows" of the "Snow-covered Place" - I have managed to translate this from the Spanish "Las Vegas" of "Nevada," and I am excited to make use of the collapsible skiis I created especially for this leg of the trip.
A good night to you and your family.
With Love and All Due Admiration,
Philip Alexandrovitch Magcalas The Third
You are reading the first of what will become many lovingly hand-typed glimpses into my half of a two-person journey to the flipside of this celestial disc on which we live. This is a journey we undertake, casting to the wind our more local "obligations," the comfort of our familiar surroundings, and all ordinary perceptions of what one can accomplish with relatively shallow pockets.
Indeed, the choking humidity of the Tokyo rainforests, the barren oceanless beach-like sprawl of the rural prefecture of London, the intricately-crafted high-rise metropolis of upscale Manila (a.k.a. Asia's Manhattan), the lush riverless prairieland of Paris (somewhat bewilderingly known to its native bushpeople as "Pear-y," despite its notoriously inhospitable climate, for arboreally-cultivated fruit) - all of these places will be scoured, their inhabitants engaged in glorious conversation, voices made passive, tenses made past, all in the pursuit (as you no doubt have heard of on suppertime national radio broadcasts, and/or read of in your local picayune) of the perfect pair of socks.
Our month-and-a-half long Wanderjahr (Wander-munth-und-eine-haffen?) commences at the light of the cock crow - not five and a half hours away. I will now retire, my friend, to my nightly 14-minute dental ablution, and then to take my physician-recommended 3 hours of very deep sleep, resting up for tomorrow's first leg to "The Fertile Flatlying Lowlands/Meadows" of the "Snow-covered Place" - I have managed to translate this from the Spanish "Las Vegas" of "Nevada," and I am excited to make use of the collapsible skiis I created especially for this leg of the trip.
A good night to you and your family.
With Love and All Due Admiration,
Philip Alexandrovitch Magcalas The Third
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