Yesterday I drove 3 hours to a clear, stony lake at the base of the Bihoro mountain pass. I was looking forward to a few days of biking, fishing, and guitar picking.
I got there and pitched my tent to realize that i had forgotten my bike shoes.
I shrugged it off and started preparing dinner when it occurred to me that i had neglected to buy a grill and ice on the drive there.
Chewing a raw carrot and thinking to myself, i unpacked my guitar, cracked a warm beer, started tuning and... SNAP! No more D string.
Deep breath. I chatted with the family in the next camp site for a while and went to sleep early. Woke up at 4 am to go fishing. Success! Perfect timing. The red salmon were feeding. I tied a fly, made a few casts, got a bite, and...
SNAP! No more leader.
I hope that the kid in the next site was a heavy sleeper, or at least that he doesn't understand English profanity
I'm home now. And I'm going to bike to the creek to fish and then to Tochi's for a BBQ.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
Thailand
This is a long post, but I promise it is the shortened version.
It was strange not being home for Christmas but I had a great time. I went to Thailand with Austin, the English teacher in Shikaoi. We were there for two weeks.
We spent the first week on the north-east coast of an Island in the Gulf of Thailand called "Koh-Phangan." There is a not very famous but interesting dystopian movie with Leonardo Dicaprio called "The Beach" that takes place in this area.
We had pretty mediocre weather (no sun and no rain) but the contrast in temperature was really nice. To go from freezing and snow driven Tokachi to swim suit and t-shirt weather over night was pretty incredible.
The week blends together in my memory. We really just chilled. We kayaked one day, rented motorcycles another. Read a lot. Made friends at bars.
The only real change of pace was the famous "Full Moon Party" that the Island hosts for new years. There were 50,000 people there and it went all night. There is one problem that is implicit in partying all night on a beach and it is that when the sun comes out you see the filth that you have been reveling in. It was a great experience but I dont think one that I`d want to have again (well, maybe one more time, but that would really be it).
After a week on Koh Phangan we went north to Chang Mai. It took two days to get there, with a overnight bus to bangkok and another overnight train to Chang Mai. If you travel long distances in Thailand, go by train. It is roughly the same price, the trains give your more space, and your seats turn into a bed.
In Chang Mai we rented motorcycles. Austin and I are both losers and did not know how to drive manual transmission motorcycles or have licences to do so. That was "OK" by them. They just wanted ~6 dollars per bike per day and my passport and we were set loose on the streets of Chang Mai.
It was trail by fire but we made it out of the city and went 130 clicks northwest to a strange little backpackers village called Pi. From Pi we explored the hill tribes and caves in the area by motorcycle and bamboo raft.
We had another night in Pi and two more in Bangkok before returning to Japan. Austin was sick for a day in Bangkok, so I explored some of the more famous temples in the city. I saw the giant reclining Buddah thats in the background of Sagats stage in Street Fighter II. That was pretty sweet. The next day we went to a giant mall where we haggled for bootlegged hardware and software and renewed our wardrobes with cheap knock-off brands.
The trip back to Shimizu was arduous. We had an over night layover in Tai-pei, no sitting space on the train from the airport and a meter of snow to shovel before we could liberate austins car from my driveway. I have been working since last Wednesday.
I have explained our itinerary in such detail because I cant find the words to describe Thailand itself or the character of the trip. It was fun, amazing, life-changing, unforgettable, inspirational and blah blah blah. But it was also sobering, challenging, eerie, uncomfortable, self-illuminating, and all sorts of other contradictions. The third world is a long ways away from Shimizu. It is the same distance from Hillsdale, but in a different direction.
Look at me in my profundity. It was a great trip, and you should go to Thailand if you can find the time.
It was strange not being home for Christmas but I had a great time. I went to Thailand with Austin, the English teacher in Shikaoi. We were there for two weeks.
We spent the first week on the north-east coast of an Island in the Gulf of Thailand called "Koh-Phangan." There is a not very famous but interesting dystopian movie with Leonardo Dicaprio called "The Beach" that takes place in this area.
We had pretty mediocre weather (no sun and no rain) but the contrast in temperature was really nice. To go from freezing and snow driven Tokachi to swim suit and t-shirt weather over night was pretty incredible.
The week blends together in my memory. We really just chilled. We kayaked one day, rented motorcycles another. Read a lot. Made friends at bars.
The only real change of pace was the famous "Full Moon Party" that the Island hosts for new years. There were 50,000 people there and it went all night. There is one problem that is implicit in partying all night on a beach and it is that when the sun comes out you see the filth that you have been reveling in. It was a great experience but I dont think one that I`d want to have again (well, maybe one more time, but that would really be it).
After a week on Koh Phangan we went north to Chang Mai. It took two days to get there, with a overnight bus to bangkok and another overnight train to Chang Mai. If you travel long distances in Thailand, go by train. It is roughly the same price, the trains give your more space, and your seats turn into a bed.
In Chang Mai we rented motorcycles. Austin and I are both losers and did not know how to drive manual transmission motorcycles or have licences to do so. That was "OK" by them. They just wanted ~6 dollars per bike per day and my passport and we were set loose on the streets of Chang Mai.
It was trail by fire but we made it out of the city and went 130 clicks northwest to a strange little backpackers village called Pi. From Pi we explored the hill tribes and caves in the area by motorcycle and bamboo raft.
We had another night in Pi and two more in Bangkok before returning to Japan. Austin was sick for a day in Bangkok, so I explored some of the more famous temples in the city. I saw the giant reclining Buddah thats in the background of Sagats stage in Street Fighter II. That was pretty sweet. The next day we went to a giant mall where we haggled for bootlegged hardware and software and renewed our wardrobes with cheap knock-off brands.
The trip back to Shimizu was arduous. We had an over night layover in Tai-pei, no sitting space on the train from the airport and a meter of snow to shovel before we could liberate austins car from my driveway. I have been working since last Wednesday.
I have explained our itinerary in such detail because I cant find the words to describe Thailand itself or the character of the trip. It was fun, amazing, life-changing, unforgettable, inspirational and blah blah blah. But it was also sobering, challenging, eerie, uncomfortable, self-illuminating, and all sorts of other contradictions. The third world is a long ways away from Shimizu. It is the same distance from Hillsdale, but in a different direction.
Look at me in my profundity. It was a great trip, and you should go to Thailand if you can find the time.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
The View From My Window
This is a picture that I`ve been meaning to take and post since last August. One of those weird things that you never get around to even though its easy to do and it always bothers you that you havent done it yet. Like dusting the top of the bookshelf or shaving the back of your neck. I don`t know. I suck with analogies. Here`s the picture.
Taken from the third floor of Shimizu Jr. High, where I spend a third of my teaching hours. Pretty, huh? It`s hard to see the mountains because of the flash and that will bother me until I fix it.
Taken from the third floor of Shimizu Jr. High, where I spend a third of my teaching hours. Pretty, huh? It`s hard to see the mountains because of the flash and that will bother me until I fix it.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Travels in the South Country
Last week I went on a whirlwind trip through central honshu with my friend Hitoshi.
We started in Osaka, where we met a few of Hitoshi`s friends. Osaka is the culinary capital of Japan, so we naturally proceeded to eat ourselves completely retarded. We went to 3 restaurants, but I was amazed by the consistency of ingredients. You would not believe how many delcious ways there are to mix eggs, pork, squid and noodles.
We went for a couple drinks afterwards but were too full to make anything of the night so we went to bed pretty early. We slept in a business capsule hotel. It was...weird, but cheap and worth it for the experience.
There was so much in Kyoto that we wouldn't have seen a fraction of it had we stayed for a month. We had 2 days. The highlight for me was our trip to Mt. Hiei, the birthplace of Japanese (Tendai) Buddhism, the first religion that merged with Japanese nature worship and ascetics and gave the religious class (with Mt. Hiei`s hard-ass line of warrior monks) dominance over Japanese politics for centuries.
After two days in Kyoto we moved to Kobe on Wednesday. We saw some old Portuguese houses, a famous sake brewery and China town. We had world-famous Kobe beef for lunch, and then snacked at a bar in the night life district for dinner.
One thing that I noticed in Kobe was that all three cities that we visited had very distinct night-lives. Osaka was scrappy and loud; the bars full of leather-clad vampire-looking punks. It`s the only place in japan that I've ever looked over my shoulder to make sure that some guy didn't follow me around the corner. Kyoto was esoteric (it reminded me of Sapporo, actually). The streets were packed to the brim with people going places- but going there together and not very interested in meeting you, thank you very much. Kobe...well...Kobe had lots of Chinese prostitutes. "full service messaji. very nice feeling." I guess that happens in port cities.
At any rate, it was a great trip, and it`s been hard to come back to work. In the mean time school is busy, Halloween parties are coming up, and Austin and I are scheming a trip to Thailand for new years.
Pictures are here.
We started in Osaka, where we met a few of Hitoshi`s friends. Osaka is the culinary capital of Japan, so we naturally proceeded to eat ourselves completely retarded. We went to 3 restaurants, but I was amazed by the consistency of ingredients. You would not believe how many delcious ways there are to mix eggs, pork, squid and noodles.
We went for a couple drinks afterwards but were too full to make anything of the night so we went to bed pretty early. We slept in a business capsule hotel. It was...weird, but cheap and worth it for the experience.
There was so much in Kyoto that we wouldn't have seen a fraction of it had we stayed for a month. We had 2 days. The highlight for me was our trip to Mt. Hiei, the birthplace of Japanese (Tendai) Buddhism, the first religion that merged with Japanese nature worship and ascetics and gave the religious class (with Mt. Hiei`s hard-ass line of warrior monks) dominance over Japanese politics for centuries.
After two days in Kyoto we moved to Kobe on Wednesday. We saw some old Portuguese houses, a famous sake brewery and China town. We had world-famous Kobe beef for lunch, and then snacked at a bar in the night life district for dinner.
One thing that I noticed in Kobe was that all three cities that we visited had very distinct night-lives. Osaka was scrappy and loud; the bars full of leather-clad vampire-looking punks. It`s the only place in japan that I've ever looked over my shoulder to make sure that some guy didn't follow me around the corner. Kyoto was esoteric (it reminded me of Sapporo, actually). The streets were packed to the brim with people going places- but going there together and not very interested in meeting you, thank you very much. Kobe...well...Kobe had lots of Chinese prostitutes. "full service messaji. very nice feeling." I guess that happens in port cities.
At any rate, it was a great trip, and it`s been hard to come back to work. In the mean time school is busy, Halloween parties are coming up, and Austin and I are scheming a trip to Thailand for new years.
Pictures are here.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Cookbook
We just finished a cookbook in one of my evening adult classes. It's embedded below.
All recipes are in Japanese and English. I did not contribute a recipe, but I figure that it's ok since I provided inspiration for the cover art.
Click in the middle of the book to get a more legible verison.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Rising Sun Rock Festival
The Rising Sun Rock Festival is a outdoor music festival in Western Hokkaido. Every August they make a tent village that hosts 5 or 6 stages, well over a hundred artists and thousands of people. I just got back from it's 10th anniversary.
I guess that this is is the first proper rock festival that i've ever been to. Unless you want to count Sugar Island's folk music festival or the Hillsdale County Fair bluegrass convention... which you probably don't. But it was more or less what I expected of a rock festival. Music and food and alcohol. Hippies and long lines at bathrooms. Siezure-inducing lighting.
But a noteworthy difference (I imagine) between this rock festival and its american counterparts is that nobody knew how to dance. If you know me at all, you know the profundity that I hope to communicate with this statement. I really can't dance. Like, really. But I feel perfectly confident in saying that I can dance better than most japanese people. Will Ferguson, a Canadian travel writer, put it right when he remarked that the Japanese as a people "couldn't jig their way out of a mental ward."
It happened that on Friday night I fell out of touch with the friends in whose tent I was supposed to sleep. I didnt have their number because I lost (and replaced) my cell phone a couple of weeks ago. There were thousands of tents set up in three separate 'villages' and so, at 1:30 in the morning, things weren't looking good and I was starting to get grumpy.
And then it started raining. So I wandered until I finally found a dry seat and, more importantly, someone that would listen to me to complain. Sonoko was a college student from Tokyo. After I finished relating my sob-story of the night, she patiently educated me that Japan is the land of the rising sun. Moreover, that we were at the Rising Sun Rock Festival and that it would be utterly foolish to go to bed before the sun came up.
Well...if you put it like that...
So we finished out the last of the performances, went for a bite to eat and then finally to a bar where we made quick friends with another group of die-hards. We drank mulled wine and hot tea until sunrise. They played "here comes the sun."
I guess that this is is the first proper rock festival that i've ever been to. Unless you want to count Sugar Island's folk music festival or the Hillsdale County Fair bluegrass convention... which you probably don't. But it was more or less what I expected of a rock festival. Music and food and alcohol. Hippies and long lines at bathrooms. Siezure-inducing lighting.
But a noteworthy difference (I imagine) between this rock festival and its american counterparts is that nobody knew how to dance. If you know me at all, you know the profundity that I hope to communicate with this statement. I really can't dance. Like, really. But I feel perfectly confident in saying that I can dance better than most japanese people. Will Ferguson, a Canadian travel writer, put it right when he remarked that the Japanese as a people "couldn't jig their way out of a mental ward."
It happened that on Friday night I fell out of touch with the friends in whose tent I was supposed to sleep. I didnt have their number because I lost (and replaced) my cell phone a couple of weeks ago. There were thousands of tents set up in three separate 'villages' and so, at 1:30 in the morning, things weren't looking good and I was starting to get grumpy.
And then it started raining. So I wandered until I finally found a dry seat and, more importantly, someone that would listen to me to complain. Sonoko was a college student from Tokyo. After I finished relating my sob-story of the night, she patiently educated me that Japan is the land of the rising sun. Moreover, that we were at the Rising Sun Rock Festival and that it would be utterly foolish to go to bed before the sun came up.
Well...if you put it like that...
So we finished out the last of the performances, went for a bite to eat and then finally to a bar where we made quick friends with another group of die-hards. We drank mulled wine and hot tea until sunrise. They played "here comes the sun."
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Road Trip
I'm writing from Hillsdale now, and the tail end of a ridiculously meandering road trip around the Eastern half of the country. It was an epic road trip. It was an all American road trip. It was a deliriously American road trip. It was a 3,000 mile, corn-fed road trip from Chicago to Boston and back through the Smokey Mountains. We sat on rocks under the New River Gorge. We ate at diners where they called us 'hun. We drank cheap beer and cheaper whiskey. We rolled our own cigarettes and played folk music on a porch in North Carolina. There was a dog with a bandanna around it's neck... it was all there. We never planned more than a day ahead and slept on a different floor, couch, futon, or inflatable mattress every night.
The reason for the trip was the wedding of Isaac Weinkauf and Erin Hougland (i never did figure out what they did with their last names). That was in North Carolina. So the trip started in West Virginia where I picked up an old friend, Beth Tuck. We spent a couple of days there. Beth walked me through the rivers and mountains of her home state. We watched an outdoor musical about the Hatfield and McCoy family feud. We saw Wall-e.
After three days in West Virginia we headed to New York for just a night. We stayed with my friend in Queens and had a night out with hookahs and sangrias in the West Village. The next day we headed to Boston, stopping in Connecticut on the way for lemonade and walking with Beth's aunt. In Boston we stayed with rhiannon, went out for one or two too many drinks with my old highschool friends. Sometime that night Kyle Eriss stumbled into our entourage and stayed there for the rest of the trip.
The next day we drove 14 hours through New England (and some nasty hangovers) until we came to Salisbury, North Carolina. The wedding was small and casual. There were bare feet and short sleeves. The priest was the brides father and he managed to keep it together through *most* of the service. The reception was pretty rowdy. But we slept it off and were able to head west into the Smokeys for white water rafting the next day. We had a jenk raft that we got for free but had to drain with nalgene bottles. We met a chatty Apachee river guide called "Cap'n Wolf" who trash talked the Cherokees and held us in rapt conversation an hour longer than we would have liked.
The next day Beth had to go back to West Virginia. Something about a job. And so with tears in our eyes Kyle and I dropped her off and drove off into the sunset until we came to Chicago. Three nights there. With grills and margaritas and guitars on porches. My brother was studying for the bar, so I hope we didn't distract him too much.
And yesterday Kyle took a bus to Indy and I drove back to Hillsdale. It was weird to sleep in a bed last night, and it will be weirder still to sleep in the same bed tonight. But I'm looking forward to kicking my feet up for the next week and a half until I return to Japan.
More pictures here.
Beth Tuck: Cell Biologist; Folk Singer; and Fearless Travel Companion.
Kyle trying to look like a hard-ass.
The bride and groom... and me and Beth.
The New River.
The reason for the trip was the wedding of Isaac Weinkauf and Erin Hougland (i never did figure out what they did with their last names). That was in North Carolina. So the trip started in West Virginia where I picked up an old friend, Beth Tuck. We spent a couple of days there. Beth walked me through the rivers and mountains of her home state. We watched an outdoor musical about the Hatfield and McCoy family feud. We saw Wall-e.
After three days in West Virginia we headed to New York for just a night. We stayed with my friend in Queens and had a night out with hookahs and sangrias in the West Village. The next day we headed to Boston, stopping in Connecticut on the way for lemonade and walking with Beth's aunt. In Boston we stayed with rhiannon, went out for one or two too many drinks with my old highschool friends. Sometime that night Kyle Eriss stumbled into our entourage and stayed there for the rest of the trip.
The next day we drove 14 hours through New England (and some nasty hangovers) until we came to Salisbury, North Carolina. The wedding was small and casual. There were bare feet and short sleeves. The priest was the brides father and he managed to keep it together through *most* of the service. The reception was pretty rowdy. But we slept it off and were able to head west into the Smokeys for white water rafting the next day. We had a jenk raft that we got for free but had to drain with nalgene bottles. We met a chatty Apachee river guide called "Cap'n Wolf" who trash talked the Cherokees and held us in rapt conversation an hour longer than we would have liked.
The next day Beth had to go back to West Virginia. Something about a job. And so with tears in our eyes Kyle and I dropped her off and drove off into the sunset until we came to Chicago. Three nights there. With grills and margaritas and guitars on porches. My brother was studying for the bar, so I hope we didn't distract him too much.
And yesterday Kyle took a bus to Indy and I drove back to Hillsdale. It was weird to sleep in a bed last night, and it will be weirder still to sleep in the same bed tonight. But I'm looking forward to kicking my feet up for the next week and a half until I return to Japan.
More pictures here.
Beth Tuck: Cell Biologist; Folk Singer; and Fearless Travel Companion.
Kyle trying to look like a hard-ass.
The bride and groom... and me and Beth.
The New River.
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