Got Lost

words about stuff

2011-04-18T11:45:00.003+02:00

Where have I been all this time? Beats me... but somehow its already April 18th and work is starting to pick up! After this easter we will all be working 6 (or even 7) days a week until the end of May. The fun begins....?

The weather here has started to really cool down. Its around 12-18 degrees usually and only rains when I am NOT at work. Its only fair that way, right?

Quite a bit has happened since I last wrote here. Firstly, I had finally moved into a "better" room. Originally I was to have a desk in my room. You know, for working on. But apparently my room was the one room without one and the rest of the rooms were all booked up for the month. We decided to wait for a few weeks until one of the rooms opened up for me to move in. Eventually they put me into a room in the basement. Although it had a desk, it was a major downgrade and quite dingy (as said by the manager at the front desk). Everything in it was falling apart, windows did not open and the ceiling was real low. I tried to tough it out for the next few days to see if it would get any better.

The next day, the company hosted "Animology". A showcase of their past, present and future work, followed by drinks and sausages under the stars. After Animology we all headed to Flinder's Hotel, which actually isn't a hotel at all. Its more of a pub. I was told that there was an old law here from back in the day, that pubs had to have hotel rooms, or something like that. It was explained to me that (in the outback) people would get too drunk to get all the way home and ended up having to sleep at bars. I'm not sure if thats very true or not... but I'm going with it. I grab some McDonalds on the way home and place my food on my glasstop table when I get home. I sit down and adjust the table ever so slightly, somehow causing one of the legs to break off. Down goes the table and across the room goes my food. I sat there for about a minute watching the cola drip down my wall. Not really surprised at what just happened, I chuckled to myself, wiped down the wall and ate my fries off the floor. Filled with dignity and french fries, I crawl into bed for a fantastic sleep.

The next day I woke up around 6am with the room still spinning from the night before. My head pounding like an automatic hammer machine. I realized that I left my laptop, tablet and tylenol in Lars's room. I cursed the headache for hours until lars finally woke up at 11 to relieve my brain from the rasin it had become. When I finally started to feel better, I got the idea in my mind that a nice Czech goulash will make me feel great. Boy, was I right. That was some fantastic and spicy goulash I had there. I think I spent the rest of the day lying around or hanging out on the rooftop... I can't really recall.

On sunday we went to Covelly (bay?) to do some snorkeling. We finally arrive and I begin to suit up in my gear (mask). I got an underwater case for my camera and I was finally going to have a chance to use it. I pray it doesn't leak, that would be quite the bummer. I get down to the steps into the water and lunge myself in. Finally I get wet and my camera did not. The bay was filled with all sorts of sea creatures, now including myself. Schools of colourful fish blow by. Real long, skinny fish hang about and then quickly darting away. I saw a huge Blue Grouper, I think. This thing was as big as my torso. I saw an octopus too, hiding under some rocks. I tried to get him out to play, but he kept cowering away and covering himself with lose shells that lay about. The water itself was REALLY rough. Trying to use my camera was quite difficult because the current was blowing back and fourth so hard that I couldn't focus on anything. I managed to snap a couple pictures, but I will definitely have to learn how to do this better for the next time. I tried to hold myself onto a rock to get some pictures, but that didn't work out to well either. Thats when I noticed the Sea Hares. These little slug like creatures were all over the rocks. I didn't even notice them at all until i was face to face with it. I have a video of one somewhere... I will upload that as soon as I can find some decent internet to borrow.

Monday afternoon arrives, I've finally had enough with my new dungeon and get moved back to my old room. This room is like a palace in comparison to the basement. I will never leave it again, but I still wish I had a desk to use. The rest of the week kinda putts by until the weekend.

This time Omar, Lars and I head to Shelly beach for more snorkelling. After taking many hours to get there, finally arrive. We run into the water and about half an hour later it starts to pour. On my way out of the water, I spotted a nice colourful fish. I follow this fish up to a rock. This was a funny looking rock I thought, before I noticed the tentacles reaching out from it. It was not a rock, but an octopus. I watched it as it walked across the beach floor trying to hide from me. But you see, I am much smarter than an octopie. Even though he held onto a rock and tried to mimic it, I still knew it was he. I pop my head out of the water to tell Lars and Omar about it, but instead find them yelling at me that they are heading for shelter from the downpour. I say goodbye to my eight armed friend and head out to enjoy some gelato in the rain.

Now that we are starting to work overtime, I don't think I will have any more excitement until after my contract ends early June... aside from easter break next weekend. I hope to get out of town for a few days but thats not very likely. Maybe I will just have to enjoy my time in the water. That doesn't sound like a bad idea now that I think of it.

I'll keep us posted.

G'day

Here is another flower for you, Beth.

Rain, rain , rain rain rainsunrain rain.....

2011-03-29T10:56:00.003+02:00

Its been some time since we last spoke. I guess I've been waiting for something exciting to happen. Well, if you think rain is exciting you're going to be on the edge of your seat. It seems as if its been raining here for the past two - three weeks. At least the weekends have been quite soggy, during the week its been mostly sunny... while inside, at work. Only to have it start raining again as we leave.

I've been blaming the rain on my pal Omar, who has just arrived here from Toronto to work at Animal Logic. Ever since hes gotten here, its been nothing but rain. I took him out in the rain for breakfast the day he landed, then showed him around the city for a bit until he was ready to pass out. Went back to the market, showed him where the shops were and how to get around. I doubt he remembered any of it, he was hardly speaking english most of the time. It happens when he gets tired. The next day I took him to the "rocks" and the opera house. Again, it was a rainy day. We walked the streets, had some beer, pretzels and corn. Quite exciting.

The weeks have been fairly quiet. We usually spend the nights on the roof of our hotel, watching bats and drinking drinks that should have parasols in them.

Just last week, Omar, Lars and I went to the fish market. It was full of fish. Yes, fish. Many Oysters, scallops, crabs, lobster, prawns... Exactly what you would expect at a fish market. Omar was having a very unlucky day. At the market, he was attacked by a lobster he was holding to his face and a crab took his train ticket and wouldn't give it back. And that was only the start of the day. We each ended up buying ourselves a seafood platter each. I completely forgot to take a picture of it, I was just too excited to eat. The mountain of food consisted of Oyster moray (?) another cooked oyster with bacon, a scallop on a shell (I had no idea that these were just clams!), fried fish, shrimp and poor grilled baby octopus with fries. This clearly was way too much food, so we thought it would be a good idea to feed the fish back to... the fish. We sat for about 10 minutes watching fish and seagulls fight for our leftovers. Cheap thrills indeed.

After the fish market we headed back to chinatown to walk around Paddy's market and area. The shops were all the same as the three times I've been there before, but Lars had never been there before. Thats when I finally broke down and bought a cheap $28 RC helicopter, as did Omar. This turned out to be a great investment indeed, more about that later. I'm not quite sure what we did later, but I do remember finding a japanese pachinko game and having a ball with it. I'm still not completely sure how to play that game, but it was still strangely satisfying.

We head to the train to go back home and get to the platform just as the doors begin to close.

"nuts" we thought, having to wait another 10 minutes for the next train. Then, the doors pop back open! We jump in, two and a half out of three of us made it into the train. Omar was the unlucky half. What a bummer, he was a pretty nice guy. I kid. He's a jerk and the doors opened back up for him and got on. Fueled by his new-found lust for life brought on by his near-near death experience, he decides to go home for a nap. We all agree. It was a long day.

I get home and immedietly plug in my chopper for it's first charge. I would spend the next half hour watching it charge. I don't think I did anything else, but sit there staring blankly at it propeller blades staring blankly back at me. I pick up the remote and to my shock discover that it takes 6xAA. These things must have been made in the late 80's or something. Using six AA batteries on a remote control is like filling your mazda with rocket fuel when you can't even go over 150km/h and you're in a school zone on top of that. Anyway, I ready the chopper for liftoff.

"contact" I yell to myself.

The blades spin, the chopper stays on the ground. I realize that the blades were inverted for upside down flying. Completely useless. I unscrew the screws holding the blades and lose a screw somewhere in the engine. I lose another screw in the engine while putting the blades back on, but that one was recovered. Again, I try for a take off. It works! I'm flying! I'm crashing. Over and over I crash. I eventually learn how to crash pretty well. Maybe I can somehow make a career out of it. A little while later, Omar comes over with his whirlybird. I queue up Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries and spend the next 15 minutes (thats how long the battery lasts) playing battle copters. We never managed to crash into each other, but we hit everything else in my tiny room.

Can you believe I just wrote all that about a silly little RC chopper? Neither can I. I guess that really was the most exciting thing that has happened here since my last post. That same weekend it was all rain. I woke up early in hopes of going for a swim, despite the overcast. When I make it outside, it starts to pour. Back inside we go. We spent the rainy days watching movies. First was Rubber. A nice story of a murderous car tire. Rolling through the desert, killing anything at all that lay in its path using it's telekinetic powers. It was thoroughly enjoyed by us all. We also watched Jackass 3d. Also enjoyable, but on a completely different level.

Of course, now that the weekend is over, its been sunny all day. I'm expecting next weekend to be all rain, but I won't let that stop me.... not this time.

Beaches and Cream.

avi

How to ruin perfectly good banana bread

2011-03-13T08:39:00.002+01:00

Just when things here start feeling like home, they do a complete 180. Banana bread for example. Part of my weekly diet at home, plain and simple. A loaf of bread is sliced, I eat it. Over here they complicate it by toasting it and buttering it up. Why?!! Although I had to try and it wasn't terrible, but nothing beats banana bread served straight up. Another example would be the crows here. Back at home they would be crowing away like we're used to, with a "CAW CAW". Not here. They have a funny little accent that kind of sounds like a baby crying with its face in a 5cm deep bowl of milk. Also, I noticed some pigeons here that look like regular pigeons, but upon closer inspection they appear to be wearing very small hats. At least they look like hats to me. I can't seem to get a good picture of them because they see me coming and walk away just as fast as I walk up to them.

Lately my weekends have been spent wandering around town. I would walk down to George street and then south (I think) to chinatown. Recently I just discovered a huge market / mall in the area. Full of cheap souvenirs, little remote control helicopters (they call my name as I walk by) and local produce. Its kinda crummy looking down there on ground level, but just walk up a flight of stairs to the 2nd floor and you would think you walked into a fancy asian mall. Looking down at the dusty soot covered market from the stainless steel and glass balcony above, it reminded me of a sort of dystopian future where I would look down on the lower class from the comfort of my flying condo. Feeling uncomfortable and out of place, I went back below and had another lap around the market among my people. Pricing out the Helicopters with every lap I took. I eventually left, empty handed (thankfully).

I recently returned from a day trip to Manly beach. I would hop on the 324 bus from outside my hotel, but I seem to always miss these busses by mere seconds. Half an hour later, another bus arrives and takes me rather quickly to Circular Quay. I think this is the main human transport harbour in Sydney (downtown). To the left of the harbour is the Sydney Harbour bridge, where cars drive over the bay and people pay to walk OVER the suspension rails themselves (the large arch that holds up the road). To the right is the famous Sydney Opera House. I heard no opera as we floated by in our vessel who's name escapes me. The short trip around the bay took about 25 minutes, until finally we arrived at Manly Harbour. This place already had a different vibe than that of the city. Pedestrians wandered at a slow pace as did the cars. I walked down to the beach and to my surprise, it wasn't very busy. Plenty of space to park yourself on the beach and plenty more space to surf or just swim and not bump into anyone. This was great I thought, but I was on a mission. I was to find a dive shop and get myself some snorkeling gear and finally play among the fish. After walking in circles for 30 minutes I finally find the shop, quite far from where I was to swim. I bought myself a nice mask and snorkel and proceded back to the harbour to find some lockers. Now apparently, there are no public lockers. Despite what the research I did before hand had turned up. Down the road (back towards the scuba centre) was an internet cafe with a luggage storage area. I dropped my bag off there and then walked back to the harbour and beyond to this spot I was told about.

I run into the water, it was quite cold, but I cared not. Put on my mask and stuck the hose into my mouth, I was among the fishies. My mask quickly filled up with water and my eyes are submerged in seawater mixed with dishwashing detergent ( I had washed the mask to remove the chemicals inside that fog up quite easily). A few minutes later, my vision returned. Next time I go diving I must remember to shave my moustache or cover it in Vaseline for a better airtight seal. What I saw was not too exciting at first. Alot of seaweed and kelp and a few fish. I swam about, looking at the kelp, the rocks that they grew on, the coral that may be there. I came across a field of happy little barnacles, waving at me from their rock. I waved back before I realized they were just scooping up any organisms that flow past them in the current. The more I watched these happy barnacles, the more I started to notice. Immediately to my right a large rock starts to move. Upon closer inspection, it was a giant sea snail. Cool! Right next to that was another little fish that had been sitting on the rock all along, staring at me with me staring right though him the entire time. Then a family of happy yellow and black striped fish came by and started eating the barnacles. I though they were kinda jerks, but thats life. I really need to invest in some sealife books, because it would be nice to know exactly what it is that im swimming with. Moving on I dive down below to see what may be under the rocks. Lots of very big sea urchins and a ... CRAB!! oh wait, its just a corpse. More swimming now.... oh look, a Jellyfish. A massive tentacleless jellyfish! This thing is HUGE....oh wait, its very small and half a foot from my face. You can't see these things coming until its too late. Now that I noticed it, I see them everywhere. No avoiding them, but I don't think they sting very much anyway. Otherwise I'd be in severe pain by now. A few hours of being a fish has taken a toll on me, I was freezing cold and thought its about time I get outta there. On my way back I come across another strange fish. It didn't have any exciting colours, but had these massive lips to kiss the rockface with and a big spike coming out of its head. The spike retracted and his friend's spike went up. They go back and fourth having a conversation, I wondered what they were pointing at. Anyway, Out of the water I go.

The ride back to Circular Quay was less exciting than my ride there. The outside decks were already full, so I had to sit on the inside with less of a view. This was a good excuse to catch up on some reading (thats right , I CAN read).

I hope to have some more excitement in the coming weeks and dive even deeper next time. Pictures will be coming, flicker doesn't seem to like me uploading full resolution images. At least not from this burger joint.

siyonara suckers.

Bat Country

2011-03-01T08:26:00.003+01:00

My my... A week has gone by and somehow I am supposed to remember all the interesting things that have happened... well here it goes.

I literally jumped out of bed when my alarm went off on Tuesday morning. Not that I was excited for my first day of work, instead I was lying awake in bed counting down the minutes for my alarm to give me permission to get out of bed. Finally, I head out the door and hop in a cab to head to work. I'm not really that lazy that I need to take a cab to work , but .... yeah, okay... I was lazy and didn't want to have to figure out how to get to work and get lost along the way for my first day. I try to study the route the driver takes me along. This is pretty difficult when I have no idea where I am and have no clue as to where I am going. 10 minutes and 15 circles around the town later, we get to the entrance of Fox studios. Animal Logic is located inside the Fox studios compound. An area where alot of Sydney's media offices are (as far as I know). Its across from Moore Park, a nice big grassy field with a mucky pond of stagnant water. To the north of the lot are two stadiums, one for Football and the other for Cricket (I may be making this up). I head towards the gatekeeper and give her my name. She gives me a map and tells me to follow the highlighted path to building number 54. The inside of the compound looks like it used to be some sort of theme park, like universal studios. There are fake storefronts like a film backlot and big sound stages that look like they are converted to offices. After 10 minutes of walking on a very small map I get to what I think is Animal Logic... theres no building number, but my assumption was right. I follow up the stairs where a sign reads "welcome to Titanic, the experience... you must be at least this tall to ride". I beat the height restrictions with about 4 feet to spare.

Inside the building I was greeted by the receptionist and given a stack of forms to fill out. While I fill out the forms, out comes Phil (from the kitchen). I had worked with him in Toronto about 5 years ago in 2006. We chatted for a bit before he went off to his desk and I finished the forms. I then met Esther, a nice lady that gave me a tour of the building. This building is really huge with alot of levels and circular corridors. Real easy to get lost in. She shows me one of the meeting rooms upstairs.
"that's one of our meeting rooms, we call it the Tim Ship" she says.
"The Tim Ship"? I remark, not being used to the accent just yet.
"no no, Tim Ship"
"ohh, Team Shit" I say. pretty certain thats what she said.
Its actually called the Tin Shed, I must apologize to her next time I see her. She showed me the kitchen where the in house chefs prepare meals for people that work really hard (overtime) and also provide us with a gourmet meal on Thursdays. mmmmmmmm... Then we head around more circles, showing me other work areas, she showed me the other kitchen where we could keep our own lesser gourmet lunches. The kitchen is stocked with cereals and a variety of fresh bread and fruit for us. There are also a pair of real nice barista machines which I scold my knuckles on every morning making my coffee. Its well worth it.
Finally, I get to my desk. Its set up real nice with a pair of big monitors and a wide wacom tablet. I have TONS of space around my desk, its actually more of a cubicle. I have a chair too! And what a chair. One of those $800+ mesh Aeron chairs I've heard so much about. Pretty comfortable stuff. Shortly after I sit down, I'm greeted by Julien who is one of the lead compositors. He briefs me on what we need to do and how we do it, gives me a shot to work on and then disappears. Then I meet with Aaron. He is the compositing supervisor on this show, we also worked together in 2006 on Resident Evil 3. He's the one that hooked me up with this job, what a swell guy. Later, I eventually get that done and its the end of the day. I run home and pass out pretty quickly. I wake up the next day and do it all over again.

I get to work and start working again, nothing real fun happens until lunch time when Julien tells me about a market that opens up every Wednesday outside the office. I head over and see all sorts of goodies. Fresh fruits and vegetables, fancy cupcakes, grilled prawns, cheeses... all kinds of markety goodness. I pick up some dried figs and a prawn chorizo roll and enjoy my lunch. I head back to work after lunch, work for a little and then attend a sorta boring training class on the computer systems. The next few days at work are pretty much the same. Work and training with a lunch in between. I won't bore with any more boring work details. I've figured out a route to walk to and fro home now. My favourite part of the walk is the walk home. Every evening as I walk home around sundown, the skies fill with bats. EVREYWHERE. HUGE , big bats. Its pretty fun to watch them flapping about and swooping around. I'll try to catch one next time.

It's now the weekend.... finally! Much to do! Saturday morning I rush out of bed and figure out my route to the bank to open an account so I can make the monnies. I take the bus to Chinatown and barely miss my stop. I wander around for a bit before I find my bank. This all would be much easier if I had a map... I must try to find one before I get even more lost. Now that I have a bank card, its time for some breakfast. Dim Sum isn't something that should be eaten alone, but I only figured that out afterwards. Next, off to the beach! I hop on the train which takes me to Bondi Junction where I catch a bus to the beach. The beach is PACKED, but it could be alot worse.

I looked at the surfers and imagined how frustrated they are catching a wave and then having to dodge a sea of heads. At this point nothing will stop me from tasting salt water, so I get changed and hop in. The water is wet, its is also salty. It is the ocean. I get nailed by a few body surfers catching waves and in turn I also nail other people while body surfing.
"sorry" I say as I woosh by them, but they are underwater so they can't hear anyway.
The next moment my leg and hand get tingly, then a little stingy. I guess a jellyfish tried to eat me and failed. I ask the person beside me if they would pee on me. They start crying and calls for their mom. Next thing I knew I was being handcuffed and put into a paddy waggon. Actually, that part was a lie. I would never ask a stranger to pee on me.

Feeling accomplished I weave my way out of the water and wander around the area for a bit before the sun goes down. On my way back home I stopped at a few mobile phone stores to try to get cheaper internet. Good god, its like the internet here is from the stone ages. For $50 I got 3 gigs of bandwidth to use within 30 days. Hell, I sneeze a gig of bandwidth! I had already used up my hotel's 2 gig limit within 6 days while moderating myself and I didn't even download a single thing! This is going to get expensive. (keep this in mind Canadians!! http://openmedia.ca/meter !!!!) After buying more internets I went to the grocery store for the rest of the things that help keep me alive. I bought a few staples, some OJ, yogurt, crackers, mint aero mousse, deodorant (after I dropped mine in the toilet). Then came the wall of cheese. What a variety and I had no idea what most of them were. I stand by and watch which one most of the people go for. Tastystrong cheese it is. I think others had the same idea as me, as if they were all waiting for the first person to go for the right cheese. Heres something new, Vegemite. THE Australian spread I've heard so much about. I had to get it. I come home and hit the bed hard again.

I woke up again! who woulda thunk it? Today I'm going to hit up the aquarium, but first, time for breakfast. Crackers, cheese and Vegemite... This oughtta go over well. I open the Vegemite, looks like a jar of tar / molasses. Okay, I spread it on a cracker. Not too thick, just a taste. GUHAEHAEAEHAEH@RT#... holy salty! This is terrible! I down a glass of OJ and neutralize my taste buds with some Tastystrong cheese. "ahhhh", much better. I try again, this time I spread the Vegemite as thinly as humanly possible. Nope, still just as bad. At this point I feel like my life was a big joke and Vegemite was the punchline. Good one universe. At least I know who my real friends are... cheese.

At the aquarium there was a massive line, I reluctantly stand in it because thats what I came here to do dammit! 10 minutes later I was set free inside the aquarium. Look at all the fish! i see a cod and another type of cod and a trout, more cod... I check my ticket to make sure I didn't just pay $36 to walk around a pet store. Oh here we are, a big, gigantic, animatronic great white shark! Pretty cool I guess, but what was cooler was the life size shark make out of lego. There was a lego exhibit going on, what a treat. Eventually I stumble across a couple jellyfish tanks, some coral, a small octopus, a few different kinds of seahorses and seadragons and a giant cuttlefish. Further down below is a glass tube you can walk through and see all the sharks and rays swim all around you. Thats pretty neat, but all this is doing is making me want to go diving instead. Boy did I wish that I was diving instead. Down the hall there were a pair of Dugongs.
They kinda look like Manatees, but they are not. I hear that these are what sailors saw and though to be Mermaids. I can see the confusion... woozza wozza. Further up the exibit was a big lego moby dick with an amazing lego mural behind it. Pretty remarkable for something that isn't a fish. The next room was pretty fantastic. I can hear the music coming down the hall. Camille Saint-Saens' Aquarium movement from The Carnival of the Animals suite. I enter the room and come face to face with a 20ish foot tall glass wall with all sorts of groovy fish swimming about in. I got goosebumps, the glass wall with the music made it feel like I was walking into some weird dream.

That was the end of the exhibit. Fueled by fish I wandered through the gift shop in search of a few pieces of lego to play with at home (curse their superliminal marketing techniques!). Not one single set of lego appealed to me. Every set they had was made up of custom parts. What happened to the old sets that just came with plain blocks and a few wheels. What a bummer that was.
It then started to rain. I went to a mcdonalds for shelter, lunch and to steal some internet. I got myself a small cheeseburger meal. For $4.75 I got a cheeseburger, fries, drink and a sundae! what a deal! I wandered about a whole bunch more, visited some shopping centres and looked at all the expensive goods. The shopping centres here (arcades) are real nice, or at least this one was. Shiny, gold, carpeted and vertical. I stopped into a hobby shop and looked at some toys that I knew I didn't need. I then dragged myself out of there kicking and screaming because I didn't get the remote controlled helicopter that I wanted.

Then off I went, back home to sleep. My head was throbbing, I blame the high salt content in Vegemite and the sun. I drank 5 glasses of water and took a Tylenol to no avail. I then cursed myself to sleep, that seemed to have worked.

I'm sure I'm missing alot of fun details now, its been a week and my memory sucks. Next time I promise to keep it short!

avi later

ps. check out my latest pictures from Australia on the left hand side.... click for more photographs!

ɹǝpun uʍop

2011-02-22T11:22:00.002+01:00

It begins... my journey to the land where kangaroos drive taxis and boomerangs are used as a form of currency. At least thats what I thought, I was in for a big letdown.

My name was flagged upon check in because it sounds suspicious. The lady at the counter said they were checking to see if I was sweating, but I am good to go.
"phew" I said as I wiped the sweat from my forehead. I hope she didn't see that.

I had a 21ish our journey ahead of me that will seem to have taken twice as long once I land. The flight from Toronto to Vancouver was quite quick. I watched 127 Hours and Megamind to pass the time and boy did it help. We landed in Vancouver 4.5 hours later where I wandered around the international wing of YVR. Much nicer than the domestic wing! There I ate a burger next to an artificial waterfall and river. After a quick swim (not really) I hopped back onto the plane for the "fun" part of the ride. I knew this was going to be a long ride. Not only because I will be in the air for 15 hours, but because I had watched the only 2 interesting movies on my way to Vancouver. Dinner was served once we took off. Now, for some reason I thought it would be fun to order the Vegetarian meal option for the flight. What a mistake that was. I watched Due Date while I ate my curry lentil and rice meal with a cup of frozen fruit in frozen syrup and a frozen bun. I thought about sitting on my bun to defrost it, but figured that wasn't the greatest of ideas. After dinner I put on another movie, Legend of the Guardians. You know, the animated movie about Owls. The entire production was done at Animal Logic (my Australian employer) so I figured I would do some "research". The movie itself looked REALLY great (seriously!) , but didn't really seem to target any specific audience. It was too dark for children and too child like for adults. I guess like the Secret of Nimh.

I cracked open a beer to help knock me out for what I was hoping to be 13 hours. Instead I woke up 3 hours later with about 11 hours to go. I was already getting a little anxious and I was barely 1/4 into the flight! I was sitting in the aisle seat, so I didn't have a window to glue myself to. The man next to me also looked quite bored, also staring at nothing. We started to chat and I learn that he and his wife are on their way to visit their daughter in Sydney who is a dental hygienist in New Zealand. There, they will rent an RV and drive across to Adelaide. What fun! He also was telling me about how he and his wife joined an expedition to antarctica to look at... ummm... ice? He told me how the had visited a Ukrainian research centre and right away I asked him if he saw any shape shifting aliens. Obviously he hasn't seen The Thing, because he immediately stopped talking to me and asked to switch seats to sit next to the fat man with grease stains. At least thats what he was thinking. He also told me about how he mailed himself a post card FROM the research station and finally got it 3 weeks ago, a whole year later. Talk about snail mail. He should have just emailed himself, he would have gotten it much much sooner.

I had 2 more meals during the flight. One pita wrap popsicle with hummus and vegetables (seriously, it was COMPLETELY frozen) and tofu scramble for breakfast... at least my food was thawed out by then. Both came with a cup of fruit in syrup. Had I ordered the carnivore meal I would have gotten a cup of FRESH fruit in NO syrup... With about 9 hours to go, I couldn't imagine myself sitting still for much longer. I had to keep reminding myself of the people that took this trip 100 years ago and all the months it took them. Right away i started to appreciate that I only had 9 hours to go! And with a very minimal risk of Dysentery!

The rest of the flight went real slow, but we landed eventually and much to my surprise. After the crew spayed the entire cabin to kill off the dirty North American germs I bid my new buds farewell and took off to get my baggage. This was after his wife sat on my headphones and flatulated on them. Now these headphones come with a lifetime warranty for physical dammage of any kind, but I don't think it has ass gas coverage. The quarantine line was VERY long, but after declaring my sack of Jellybeans I was let lose. FINALLY!

Now off to my hotel. My cab driver took me for a nice long ride around and around the city until finally he decided to take me to my hotel. My room is real nice and cozy. I have a TV and a microwave... and a bed, sink, stove, shower and floor. Everything I need except a place to keep my clothes! Once I showered it was time to sign up for a bank account and tax number. After buying a very luxurious internet package ($60 per week with a 2 gig cap) I get all the boring stuff done then release myself into the city. I started to wander around trying to get my bearings. I'm at Potts Point, not quite sure what to make of this neighbourhood just yet. I found a meatpie stand and try one because apparently its THE Australian dish? It was pretty good. Later in the day I get a call from my pal Kim at my hotel. She wants to take me on a tour of the town, what fun! it was only 3pm and I must fight my jetlag, so I hop on the tube and meet her in a fancy pancy shopping area. She showed me around, took me to get a sim card for my phone and ate at a german themed restaurant. One schnitzel pretzel later we head to the very literal Circular Quay which is across from what I guess is the very non literal Neutral Bay.

The sky is still bright and much to my surprise its already 7:30! I'm still used to complete darkness by 5:30. Feeling like I accomplished alot for the day I decided to finally reward myself with a very vertical sleep. Back onto the tube I head back home quite swiftly. I stocked up on bottle of Schweppes lemon / lime + bitters and a box of TimTams on my way back to my room.
I hit the hay so very hard and somehow I woke up for work the next day.

More on that later.... I will make less sense if I continue this nonsense. I'm still dead tired and I feel like the walking dead.

Please disregard this posting if it doesn't make any sense

Eilat, a week later..

2009-01-06T18:11:00.003+01:00

Tonight be my last night here in the beach city that sleeps early. Having completed my open water diving course without drowning, I was given my certification. Hooray! Now I can dive myself up to 18 meters and get my own air tanks filled... oh the possibilites.

Today on our final dive we went down to 25 meters, instead of my 18 meter limit. Ludo said that I was doing well in the water and that I could go the extra depth and it was no problem. Down at 25 meters we saw a shipwreck. A kinda small motorboat that sank for reasons unknown to me. On our way back to a shallower depth I found some sort of seahorse like creature, but it wasn't really a seahorse. They looked like seahorses, but straightened out and not soo curvy. I'll have to look 'em up later. When we got out of the water I gave Ludo my ugly ass mugshot of a photo for my certification and then I was left to do whatever I wanted for the rest of my stay here. So I took a nap on the beach with a cool can of pineapple juice, and then later finished off vol 4 of the Saga of Swamp thing.

Tomorrow I'm off to Tel Aviv again, hopefully to meet up with some fellow Canadians before we head off to someplace else together. Probably a short sweet trip somewhere as I've suddenly become a pennypincher. It must be something in the water here in Israel. Now that I've tasted some of the beachside BBQ corn here, there isn't much else left to do, so i'm off to wander the streets again before passing out in my very uncomfortable bed.

adios muchachos

The fish, the fish, of fishy fish fish...

2009-01-05T16:22:00.002+01:00

Not much has happened the past few days. Just diving, eating and sleeping. I wish that I could take my camera and show what im going to try to describe.
On the first dive I saw some great sea creatures... another puffer fish and a moray eel or two. After swimming along the bottom of the sea at 14 meters we come to a bare patch of sand with what looked like a feild of sea grass gently waving in the currents. Ludo (my instructor) tells me to look closely at them (using a series of hand gestures). As we get closer I begin to notice that it was not grass, but eels. Garden Eels to be exact. We swam into the garden and as we approached them they retreated back into the ground, and then popped back out once we passed. As I looked behind and around me I saw that we were surrounded by them. It was very surreal to see this in person and not just on that little black box us humans call TV.
Later I get back out, shower, change and then pass out on my bed for an unknown lenght of time. I then wake up, go to Aroma for a sandwich and then read a bit before I pass out. Ohh the lazy life by the sea. I might be able to get used to it.

Today is the same as yesterday pretty much. I woke up, wrote my final open water exam, which I think I passed, and then went for a dive. This was another great dive. From the moment we submerged I noticed very many jellyfish. Not the creepy ones with the tentacles, but the bulbus ones with rims of flashing lights. So pretty and soo delicate, I wanted to eat them. We practice a few technical saftey techniques before we dive along the sea floor. This time at 18 meters. Ludo pointed out to me a spotted ray, like a small sting ray, very neat. Later on he points for me to look under a piece of coral. I couldn't see what he was trying to show me untill he poked at it and *abaracadabera* a piece of the coral changes colour and moves away. It be an octopus! I diddn't think that we would be able to find one but there it was. He pokes it again to try to get it out and it shoots its ink on us. How lovely. Then it starts to crawl away changing colours. It was incedible to see how quickly it changes colours, almost at an instant like lightning. Apparently they are friendly and playful, but Ludo doesn't like the suction feeling. Perhaps next time I see one I will try to make friends. I don't think the suction will bother me too much.

Now that I'm dry and out of the water there isn't much else left to do but wander the streets and eventually go to bed. And on that note....

toodle doo

I'm a fish!

2009-01-02T17:19:00.003+01:00

The other night I ran into Ilya, Aaron, Dave and Mark on my way back to the hotel (to use the water closet). Lucky for me they were on their way to the shooting range, so I decided to tag along. We roll up to a really fancy hotel down the road thinking we went to the wrong place, but surprisingly enough there was a shooting range in the basement. We stocked up on 50 .022 mm (?) rounds each, shooting a baretta of some sort (i think), and Mark split his .365 Desert Eagle with us. We stand in front of our targets and load our clips into the guns.
*pop*
*pop*
*pop*
we shoot off a few rounds as Mark is briefed on how to shoot the Desert Eagle... and then
*KABOOM*
The whole rooms shakes as we all turn to Mark shooting what appears to be a hand cannon. That Desert Eagle makes our Barettas look like BB guns. Soon it was my turn to fire the thing. I nervously hold the gun in my hands, not really knowing what kind of recoil I should expect. I envisioned myself being knocked in the face by the blowback. With a gentle squeeze of the trigger I shot the round into the target. At least I think i hit the target. I was so shaken by the recoil and the target was obscured by the muzzle flash that I couldn't really see where I hit. 5 Rounds later and I was done. For my first time shooting a real gun I think I did pretty well. I got mostly headshots and "A" rated chest shots, and came very close to a few bullseyes on the smaller targets. That was some great fun we had and I'm sure I'll go again to fire my Beretta p92.
Later that night we met up with the rest of the crew and strolled down the beach to a resturant simply called "kosher" (at least to my knowledge). We were greated with terrible service and were even denied appetizers at the start of the meal. Finally we got some pitas and humous ordered and it was pretty fantastic.

The next day was day 1 of my open water course. We started off by suiting up and jumping in the water. 40 minutes and 12 meters later we emerge from the water. I had thought that I would at least have to learn something before diving, but apparently I diddn't need to. We swam around some amazing looking coral sights. Saw many Lionfish, jellyfish, some weird looking camoflauge fish that looked like a rock, a pufferfish and a real neat looking spotted ray... and many more. After the dive I was tought some dive theory stuff such as hand siginals, how to breathe properly, dynamics of buoyency and water/air pressure stuffs.

After that was done with I met up with Aaron, Dave, Ilya and Mark. They snorkeled while I did my homework on the beach and then we went back to their hotel for some sauna beers. Finding the sauna itself was probably the most difficult part of the trip so far.
"its right next to the snackbar by the pool" says the lady at the front desk.
We scour the area a few times and couldn't find a single sauna! Finally the security guard comes out, probably after watching us run around in bathing suits for the past 20 minutes, and he shows us the way. It wasn't exactly next to the snack bar... It was more like it was around the fence and into the next hotel, down an unmarked staircase and through a shady looking basement to the corner of a room. Finally. We enjoy our sweating with a warm beer or two and then head back to the room only to find out that they locked us in the back yard of the next hotel with a chain and padlock. We manage to find our way out individually and meet back at the room.

We relax for a bit then it was off to Cosa De Brasil (i think thats what it was called). A real nice resturant where you order 14 different kinds of meat and can eat as much as you want. It was pretty delicious and VERY filling, I think I only made it to 7 different kinds of meats before I had to call it quits. It was also my first time eating chicken hearts <3 and bbq goose. Fearing that I would slip into a coma before finishing my diving homework I head right home after the meal and power through my homework.

The next day of diving is somewhat different. I learned how to better controll my buoyency and some emergency techniques like using my secondary respirator if my buddy runs out of air. The most difficult was breathing underwater without my mask on. I inhaled alot of water up my nose, but eventually got the hang of it. Tomorrow should be more of the same, just so I get comfortable with underwater emergencies.

There isn't much to do around here now that all my friends are gone and I've seen everything I wanted to here. Maybe now I'll get to spend some quality time reading Swamp Thing (finally) and sleeping on the beach for 14 hours at a time.

ima shelcha

....To Eilat

2009-01-01T16:16:00.003+01:00

These past few days have been a blast. I made it down to Eilat after a few logistical errors. I was to fly here and to get to the airport I had to ride the train. Silly me, I ended up getting on the wrong train to Ben Gurion University instead of Ben Gurion airport. Realizing that I diddn't have enough time to get back to the airport I decided to take the bus from Be'er Sheva to Eilat. The bus finally arrived after waiting for an hour and a half as my bladder slowly grew larger and larger. I wasn't sure what time the bus was to arrive so I diddn't want to risk missing it just for a little pee pee. Finally the bus arrives and 30 min into the trip i REALLY have to go pee. It was a 3 hour bus ride but seemed like much longer because of the urinal agony I was experiencing. Finally the bus stopped at a gas station for 15 min and I RAN (very carefully) to the bathroom. Feeling relieved I sat back down on the bus and relaxed myself. On the ride to Eilat I talked with an old lady named Samantha from Eilat. She was real nice and kept offering me apples. After a while I diddn't feel like squeazing any more hebrew out of my very tired brain so I gave her one of my headphones and we listened to John Zorn's classical Mesada album. She seemed to like it and I passed right out.

Finally, we arrive at Eilat. I hop off the bus and grab my bags and try to find my hotel in the skyline. Right then my cousin calls me to make sure I made it to Eilat in one piece. She then tells me that Be'er Sheva was hit by missles only hours after I left, but luckily they hit an empty field and anj empty school. What good timing that was. Having given up on finding the hotel by food I hailed a taxi and asked him to take me to the holiday inn. He drives half a block down the street and around the roundabout and then stops.
"12 shekels" he said with a grin on his face.
That Ben Zona (son of a bitch) could have at least told me that the hotel was a 30 second walk from where he had picked me up. Back in the hotel I finally meet up with all my jew friends again and another familiar face from Thornhill. Later that night we walked throughout the town and ended up eating dinner at the soon to be famous "beatles bar". It was "just okay".

The next day we awoke and Immedietly hit up the beach for some sun and snorkeling. There were many brightly coloured fish in the area and I even met a few friendly jellyfish too. Not the ones with the tentacles, but the little bulb shaped ones with the christmas lights that run up and down the sides of themselves. Really neat stuff. We had lunch on the beach and then headed back to the hotel to prepare for sylvester (new years in israel). For Sylvester* we went to some really shitty overpriced club that wasn't that good, but at least we had fun all bieng there together to celebrate whatever Sylvester* is. Alot of money later we head off to find some shawarma and then back to the other friend's hotel where we ended up passing out very quickly. Eventually we kicked ourselves out to our OWN hotel where we once again passed out, but this time quicklier.

Today was a rather laid back day in Eilat. We walked the beach, went coffee shop hopping and generally lazed around all day. I think tonight a few more of us Taglitists are meeting us in Eilat and a few more are leaving perhaps? As for tomorrow, that will be the first day of the scuba course. I hope my cold gets better by then, otherwise I may have to put the course on hold untill I become less congested.

Happy Jew Year.

*Wikipedia to the rescue... heres what INTERNET has to say about Sylvester...
Germans call New Year's Eve Silvester. Since 1972, each New Year's Eve, several German television stations broadcast a short English theatrical performance titled Dinner for One. A punch line from the comedy sketch, "same procedure as every year", has become a catch phrase in Germany. [1] Every year Berlin hosts one of the largest New Year's Eve celebrations in all of Europe which is attended by over a million people. The focal point is the Brandenburg Gate and the fireworks at midnight centered around that location. Germans have a reputation of spending large amounts of money on firecrackers and fireworks.

Somehow Israelies also celebrate this Holiday instead of new years, and Saint Sylvester himself is said to be one of the biggest jew haters of all time.

The Real Brithright

2008-12-30T09:05:00.003+01:00

Half of us ended up going back home, but as for the other half that stayed... well... most of us ended up trying to go to a Tel Aviv disco. We had hopped from one bar/club to another and no one seemed to want to stay put at any of them. After about an hour of hopping around we finally made it to some fancy club that seemed to close shortly after we got there. Even though it was only a brief time, it was fun times. Some of the Israpals ended up sneaking into the hostel and sleeping on the floor of the other guys's room only to get chased out by the management in the early morning.. I wish I was around to see that.

I met up with my cousin Tom around noon and he took me to a really nice, tiny, Yemen resturaunt where we had some sort of beefy soup with pita and hummous. It was soo very delicious and new to me. Then we strolled down the market and to a coffee shop where we enjoyed our beverages while we talked for a while. From there he took me to Moshav Ein Vered where I met up with the rest of the familiy and had a massive BBQ dinner. It was soo good, but theres only so much I can eat in one sitting. *drool*

The next day I joined Tom and his friends on a hike up Mt. Karmel. It was one of the more challenging of the hikes that I've done since I got here. We ate some Melowa (a VERY GOOD yemenite dish) and enjoyed some funky coffee on the peak of the mountain. On our way down we came across a cave. Armed with only cell phones , lighters and a single headlamp we ventured into the darkness that was before us. It was a really eerie feeling crawling our way through a cave when you cant even see your own hand in front of your face. After about 5 minutes in the darkness with only a single candle burning I was able to make out the shape of the cavern. I'll just say it was bigger than I had thought... pictures to come. After the cave we went wine tasting and got very drunk. Also, the wine diddn't taste that bad at all. From there we went to his friends where we ate some couscous with other homemade things from morocco (i have no idea what they were but it was damn tasty!).

The following day I went to the mall with Metzada. It was a MADHOSE. The kids had the day off school so EVERYONE was at the mall. I shopped a bit, ate some high quality Burger Kings (its actually good here!) I also bought a syringe full of fountain chocolate which I injected into my face throughout the day...mmmm.... Later that night we went to a Yemen Henna party, some sort of pre wedding ceramony with Henna and more great food, funky clothes and borderline irritating music. In all though, it was really neat and I would surly love to go see more.

Yesterday was laundry day.

And now that brings us to today... I'm getting ready to go to Eilat to meet some more of us Canadians where we will attempt to spend our new years in style on the beach. Hopefully it wont be too cold there and I hope that finding my hotel wont pose any problems. The person at the front desk said that he will hide a key for my room for me to find since they will be closed once I arrive.

Its going to be tough leaving behind my sweet digs that I got here, thanks to my cousin Dor who is in Thailand right now. Eventually I shall return and maybe sleep on his couch.

shalom (goodbye)

Isreal, Still in

2008-12-30T08:35:00.004+01:00

I've been here in Israel for about 2 weeks or so and theres so much to write about, I don't even know where to begin... so I'll just start at the begining.

Instead of going into detail about the birthright trip I will briefly go over the events.
We land at Ben Gurion airport after a very long, bumpy flight and were greeted by an organizer that immedietly made us feel welcome and somewhat proud to be jewish. From then we went to a nice Mexican? resturant in Tiberias and then to our nice little kibbutz where we stayed for 3 nights, right on the coast of the Sea of Gallelie (kineret). Over the next few days we hiked up and down a few mountains whos names escape me right now. We also wandered through the mystical city if Tzfat, which was pretty amazing. Thats the first 3 days in a nutshell, and I'm definetly forgetting ALOT.

Later on we headed off to Jerusalem and met up with our new Isreali friends on the street. We played a few icebreaking games in the middle of the road and occasionally had to break for groups of people to walk through and the odd car or two. After that we headed into the old city, where we were rushed around and diddn't really get much info on what we were seeing but it was still nice to look at. At one point we were told to blindfold our eyes and hold hands with each other. I had no idea what was going on at this point, but being blindfolded is usually a good time so I went along with it. As we stubmled blindfolded up and down stairs, around blind corners and into walls, I was told to remove the blindfold. And low and behold, right in front of us was a spectacular view of the Western Wall (kotel). There were people praying all over the place and sacraficing lambs and chickens as far as the eye can see... well, maybe not sacraficing lambs and chickens, but they were preying. I thought the whole blindfold thing was a really neat way of introducing us to the Kotel, especially those of us who have never seen it before.
The next day we went to the holocaust memorial museam, which was one of the nicer of the holocaust museams that I've been to. They really put alot of thought behind everything they do. Even the arcitecture is a symbol of the jewish people and our future. Sometime after the holocaust museam we went back to the Kotel for Shabbat services, which was pretty wild in terms of more people running all over the place and sacraficing bigger animals like elephants and dragons (okay, I lied about that again too). From there we walked back to the Hotel, it was a nice, but VERY slow walk. Later that night we ventured around the kibbutz compound and got word that there was a local bar nearby. We eventually found what was a bomb shelter with loud beats blasting out of it. After a few drinks we attempted to stumble back to the hotel only to be cut off by fences everywhere we turned. Luckily we found some more sober birthrighters heading back to the hotel and they seemed to know the way, so we followed.

Eventually, somehow, we made it to the bedouin tents where we learned about their history, culture, heard their music and ate their food. They have some neat set of rules that they use when someone comes to stay, for example you must cough 3 times before entering a tent and if you overstay your welcome they won't directly ask you to leave, they simply fill up your next cup of tea to the top (as a sign that one should leave). We took part in fake military drills and I may have broken Emma's shoulder.. sorry emma :( Then we drank, smoked narghilla and had fun by the fire all night long.

Next stop was... uhh.... the dead sea I think. After hiking a few moutains earlier that day (cant remember the names, but they sure were beautiful) we finally make it to the dead sea. As we raced the sun to the beach we barely made it just in time. We only had a few minutes of salting before the sun had dissapeared behind the mountains. It was tons of fun to float around and pretend to defy gravity before we were quickly rushed out. On a sadder note, just before heading into the Sea we had to say goodbye to our new Israeli friends. I had tons of fun hanging out with them and learned lots of new things. It was also interesting to get a different perspective on life in Israel from someone closer to my own age. It was also fun listening to them talk openly about us canadians and them forgetting that I mostly understand what they are saying... but at least they didd't say anything too bad.

Whith the soldiers now gone, we headed to tel aviv on our own. Tel Aviv was mostly raining and there isn't much to see there. So we just had a good time on our own, going to some local pub and attempting to check out other scenes while avoiding the rain. We also got a very brief and soggy glimpse of Jaffa, but then retreated to the dry cover of some mall where I tried McDonalds here for the fist time (since I was last here)... it wasn't so good.

So theres the very vuage, rushed, and broken synopsis of the Birthright trip. I know I'm definetly missing out on alot and there are some great details that are too much to recall right now. Maybe someone can fill me in if i missed something big and important.

oh yes, and we went up Mt Arbel.

END

In Israel

2008-12-28T08:01:00.000+01:00

brb

Straight Forward

2008-09-26T02:58:00.003+02:00

Well I might as well make a habit of keeping this travelblog updated, so here it goes.
I ended up in San Francisco rather spontaneously and so far its been great, except for a few blunders, but thats almost expected at this point.
After a slight delay at the airport I was soon on BART heading towards downtown SF, I was surprised at how easily it was to find a train and take it to the right destination. I must be used too used to figuring out foreign logistics in any language but English. The BART trains here are real comfy and big... I could easily have a great nights sleep on their "couches".
A short while later I arrive at my stop, powell street station. I am immediately bombarded by flashing lights and trendy restaurants. Having dodged the flashing lights, I start to make my way to my hostel following the very vague directions I got from INTERNET. The directions lead me to an alleyway and the hostel is behind the dumpster at the end of the alley. As i enter the hostel I notice that its mostly under construction. When I get to the front desk I ring to check in.... No response (i can hear the bell ringing in a room upstairs) I ring again, no response. I man walks out of the shower and asks me if im checking in.
"yes" i said,
but he didn't work there, he was a traveler like myself. He tells me that they guys that run the hostel are "fucking lazy" and hits the ringer a few more times... no response. Being the helpful person he was, he went up to the hostel-keepers room and says that theres someone to check in.
"fuck off" he says, "its past check in time"
It was 11:30, 30 min past check in.... I blame the delay at the airport.
I ring the bell a few more times, then go up to the guys room to try to get him to check me in (i already had reservations at this point i should add). He doesn't respond, but i can hear him watching TV very loudly. I go back to ring the bell again (which was actually the page button on a wireless telephone) and i hear him throw the phone across the hall upstairs. At this point I was very tired and jet lagged and just wanted to drop my bags and take a nap. Feeling like I diddn't want to waste my $8 deposit on this craphole, I go upstairs and see the phone battery and cartridge on the floor.
"this must be worth at least $8 i thought" , so I took it in spite and tossed it in the dumpster down the street... I immediately felt better.

Now I was stuck trying to find a new hostel at 12am, and having no map or internet would prove to be very difficult. Luckily right at that time a local walked by me and said "hello", I responded with a "hello" aswell, at which point he turned around and asked me if i needed anything. I thought he was trying to sell me drugs, which he might have been, but I told him that I need a cheap hostel to stay in for the night because those jerks down the road were too busy watching the simple life, or some other crap. He tells me he knows EVERRYTHING about the city, and that I can trust him. He takes off his shirt and shows me his chest, which looked like a microwaved strech armstrong figure with bellybuttons everywhere.
"ive been shot here, here, here, here, stabbed here and here..." he says
If thats not a sign of a trust worthy guy then I don't know what is. He then goes off listing off all the hostels in the area and their prices per night. I was pretty impressed with his hostel knowledge of the area, and the fact that hes still alive after being shot in the stomach 4 times.
"wow" I said, "you're one helpful guy"
He tells me about how most people rob and stab people for a living, but he helps people instead for money to feed his kids. What an honest guy. He walks me to a nice hostel, which is fully booked up and then he takes me to a different hostel down the street telling me about all the places we pass along the way. I felt like I had my own personal midnight tour guide. I get a room at the next hostel and give him some money for his help. I asked him about what cool things there are to do in the city and he goes off for 30 minutes about all the "cool shit" in the city and how much he loves the place. He told me where to go, how to get there, what to aviod and all sorts of goodies that the lonely planet wouldn't be able to tell me (if i had one).
Afterwards we parted ways. I went to my room and he went home down the street. He tells me his name is Canada, maybe I will run into him again on my journeys around town.

The next day (today) I awoke to the sounds of construction.
"ahhh, the big city"
I roll off the top bunk and hop into the shower (after running to 7-11 to buy shampoo and soap). I stroll down a main street and grab a coffee and croissant, then park myself by some really neat looking buildings and art galleries while I enjoy the sights and warm dry air. I head down the street a little more and stumble across some sort of outdoor music festival / oracle business party / i'm not sure what. They were giving out blankets, which will come in handy im sure. I sit on a grass hill, enjoying the band and reading a mad magazine that I aquired along the way.
From there I head for the water... I get to the bay bridge... It looks like a long brige, kinda neat against the mountains in the background. I stroll northwards along the waterfront untill I finally hit pier 39, fishermans wharf, tourist city. Having blended in I walk around taking a look at all the sights in the area. I can see Alcatraz, the golden gate bridge and a pile of sea lions barking at boats. It really did smell like a sea lions ass (thanks for the warning Lisa).
At this point I felt that walking was way to slow for my liking so rented a bike-ing. I biked all the way down the beach, up and down a few crazy hills and happened to end up at ILM by chance. I took a detour to their grounds to find master yoda. Eventually I find him, he tells me nothing important, so I leave. This is the point that I realize that I really havent eaten anything since that croissant and that I was thirsty as hell. I grabbed myself an amazing taco and chips and ate them in less than 3 min flat.
From there I rode closer to the golden gate bridge .
"oh, a red bridge" I thought, took some pictures and then rode back to the wharf.
When I returned the bike I was greeted by the bike staff.
"how was your ride" she says.
"it was great, except my ass is killing me" (he bike seat was at a weird, extreme forward angle)
She points to the sign of the biking company... "blazing saddles"
I laugh
she laughs
I leave.

I leave to go back to my hostel, or the area that it is, when I realize... I have no idea what my hostel is called or what street its on. All I know is that its around the corner from an Indian restaurant and down the street from 711. I hop on the cable car free of charge because some lady gave me a ride all day free transit pass... thanks lady! I think I live at the end of the line, so thats where I will ride. This is my first time driving on the streets of SF and its goes like this: upppp.... downnnnn...upppppp....downnnnn....uuuupppppppp......downnnnn....etc,,,, END OF THE LINE. It was a less than exciting ride, as I was expecting a loop or corkscrew or something. When I get off the cable car I see my 711.
"how convenient" I thought.
And this is when I walked by this internet cafe.

Using my clairvoyance, this is what I did tomorrow.

After waking up I jump into the shower again to start my day. Theres no hot water so I shower in ICE cold water... kind of refreshing. Then I go down the street and hop on a bus to take me to Berkley. Right at the next stop Keanu Reeves gets on and screams "if this bus goes under 50 mph we all get blown up"
Everyone on the bus cheers.
As we plow through the streets up and down all these crazy hills we get to a gap in the bridge.
"im gonna jump the bridge" yells Keanu
at which point I hop off the bus and onto the roof of a cab.... oh shit, my internet time here is up.
I'll finish this later.

conclusion

2007-10-24T01:06:00.000+02:00

Back home again, and I am already missing Japan... It was a great trip and theres still alot to be seen there for my next visit, so I am very looking forward to going back soon!

as promised, here are some (not all) pictures from the trip.

Japan

and here are some videos

Japan vids

winding down

2007-10-15T16:25:00.001+02:00

The last few days have been pretty slow, in terms of treking around the country. We arrived in Nagoya and spent a few days at Marc`s, just hanging out and taking it easy. I was to come to Tokyo yesterday, but never made it. Deena and I joined Marc and his mates for dinner and drinks, and finished off the night with some karaoke rockin`. As we left karaoke we went for some famous japanese curry, someone pointed out that the sun was rising. I thought it was around 2 or 3, but I was way off. Getting back to Marc`s around 6:30, I decided that I was going to stay another day and recover before heading off to Tokyo City... and I`m glad I did.
This morning, feeling fresh as a daisy, I hopped out of my sleeping bag, took a shower and headed for the train to Tokyo. I got here around 5ish and decided to hang around the Shinjuku area untill I was ready to crash. I played some video games, and walked the streets for a few hours untill now... I found a fancy internet cafe and its almost bedtime.
Tomorrow I`m going to meet Deena (she stayed in Nagoya an extra day to catch up on some work) at our hostel in Asakusa (Tokyo). Afterwards I plan on wandering around Roppongi and Akihabra one last time before our flight home in a few days. Hopefully I will be able to remember where the locker was that I stashed my suitcase full of goodies (I had found an almost perfectly good suitcase in the dumpster and it amazingly fit all my junk snugly like a good game of tetris).

thats all for now
so long folks

Sapporo, Hiroshima and Italy

2007-10-11T14:48:00.000+02:00

Silly me, I forgot to mention our 2nd day in Hiroshima! After our first fun filled night in Hiroshima we had a more depressing view of Hiroshima. We started off by visiting the A-bomb dome, which was a building thats still standing (with a little help) after the atomic bomb was dropped nearly directly over top of it. They kept the building there, despite its delapitation, to remind the world of the destruction that took place there many years ago. We then strolled through the peace park and visited various statues and reminders of the atrocities that took place. Most of them were in memory of all the innocent children and older folks that died in the attack. After working through most of the park it was time to go to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museam. In it was a timeline of all the events that took place in Japan before, during, and after that fatefull day. They started off by saying how there was many battles being faught between Japan and China. After that was resolved Japan became active in World War 2. Hirshima was a mobilized military town which housed many soldiers and military personell. They also mention that Hiroshima was the prime target because there were no allied priosoners of war on site. Once the bomb was dropped it had destroyed most of the city centre. There were many pictures and miniature models showing the path of destruction left behind by the bomb. It was very depressing, but that was only the begining. After the introduction there were ruins brought back into the museum. Metal girders warped by the heat, burned clothing, melted glass bottles and roof shingles. They even had a stone staircase that was charred by the atomic rays, but left a shadow where a lady was sitting on the bank steps, waiting for the bank to open during the time of the explosion. This was all very emotional, and it could have done without the wax sculptures of 2 kids and a woman walking through the rubble with their skin melting off their arms. They then showed the effects of radiation on the human body (short and long term) and revealed to us how many of the countries today still have stockpiles of atomic weapons. It was really scary actually. In the end, the museum never justified Japan`s involvement in the war, but rather show the effects of the kind of destruction atomic weapons can produce and are trying to show all the people that we shouldn`t let this happen again.

After the museum we were pretty bummed out to do anything fun, so we then decided to get the hell outta there and hopped on a train to Fukuoka.
We all know what went down in Fukuoka and Nagasaki.

Right now its day #2 in Sapporo. 2 days ago we took a real long train(s) ride to Sapporo from Fukuoka. The train ride was fun for the most part. During the longer train we enjoyed ourselves by sitting on a couch in the train watching black sheep (not the chris farley movie) on my ipod, dined in a fancy traincar and then had a nice sleep on a bunkbed. It was a real fun experience and I would love to do it again.
The next morning we awoke in Sapporo and were releived to enjoy some nice fall weather. My first impression of Sapporo was great. Nice weather (in comparison) wide streets and not too many people (in comparison). We stuck our bags in a locker, took a change of clothes out, and then made our way to the Sapporo Brewry Museum. Along the way, we stumbled by our new favourite Japanese chain store, Hobby off / Book off (no Hard off there). There was lots of fun junk to buy, but I had to restrain myself and only walk away with a Power glove for my new (very used) famicom system, and a copy of Super Mario Bros 3. when we got to the Sapporo Brewry Museum were greated by very friendly staff and the enterance was free! yippie! We made up our own explainitory captions, since there was no english, and then we came to the first bar. 400 yen for 3 glasses of various Sapporo beer products, with cheese! It was quite delicious, and very cold. After finding out how cheap of drunks we were, we continued through the museum and came by a 2nd bar, only one exhibit away too. We then drank a bit more cheap and tasty beer. Then we staggered into a Sega arcade, played some games and walked through the mall. Tired as hell, we then went to our internet cafe where we stayed the night and barely got any sleep at all.

Day 2 (today). We woke up kinda, and emmiditly headed for the mountains. Finding our way there was rather difficult as all the english we came across in Japan had suddenly dissapeared. After some minor difficulties, we found a bus to the mountains where we enjoyed some onsen bathing in the outdoors. It was really, really relaxing. After a few baths we headed further into the mountains, up a cable car and ate some almost delicous lamb dish which we cooked ourselves. Had in not been damp outside, we would have have been able to enjoy a beautiful view of the mountain covered with trees in their fall colours. Instead, we ate inside and then viewed the mountains afterwards. It was quite grand. Quite. I can try to explain how nice it was, but that would just be paifully boring to read. Pictures to come within a few weeks.

Tomorrow were off on another long trip, 4 trains and 12 hours later, to Nagoya. I will look forward to finding out if my package made it back to me or not.

chumbawumba
avi

Fukuoka and Nagasakiiiiiii

2007-10-08T14:39:00.000+02:00

A slight change of plans... Since Nagasaki was totally booked up for the few days of the festival, we chose to go to Fukuoka and head to Nagasaki the next morning. Our first night in Fukuoka wasn`t very eventful. We got in, in the mid afternoon and found ourselves one of the only hostels availible. We quickly booked it and dropped off our bags. From there we took a little stroll through the city. Fukuoka doesn`t offer anything different than most of the other cities we`ve visited. Tall buildings, busy streets, Japanese food... nothing to write home about. We took it easy that night. Although the most exciting part of the day was when Deena had stumbled onto a few websites that were talking about her`s and Robb`s comic book, Titty Terror. People from all over north america were writing about how much they enjoyed it and there was even a fan art section where people were submitting their own titty terror drawings. It was quite shocking to see this, especially for Deena, since they only released a small teaser comic and handed out some coppies in Toronto. Deena celebrated on our way back to the hostel by jumping up in the air, we then returned to our beds and passed out.

The next morning we were awoken by a construction crew next door. It helped us wake up early and rush to the train station to catch our train to Nagasaki for the day. After a beautiful train ride we arrived at the main station. The weather there was VERY hot and VERY humid... We both felt really gross the instant we walked into the open air. We headed for the tourist information booth, grabbed a bite to eat, and then ventured into the city via streetcar to catch a festival with a big paper dragon (the name escapes me right now). It was really neat to see all the participants walking around and hoisting the dragon up and down in the air. Quite the spectacle. Then we walked down the street and saw a huge staircase with Torii all along the way. I hiked my way up to the top while Deena hung back and enjoyed some shade (not like it would have helped, it was still hot as heck). At the top of the staircase lived a large temple, I didn`t catch the name since it was all in Japanese, but it was still very nice. I also enjoyed a great view of the city from atop of the staircase. After I met back up with Deena we both decided to go back to Fukuoka to escape the tremendous heat, and I`m glad we did.

Along the way we planned a spontanious route to Sapporo to hopefully enjoy some nicer cooler weather, to get a cross japan view of the land and also to take full advantage of our rail passes. The trip leaves tomorrow and should take around 17-20 hours. We are both very looking forward to the trip.
Tonight we are staying at a surprisingly large japanese style hotel in Fukuoka, equipped with tea and a biscut. Hopefully they will replenish our stock before we retire for the night. They were damn good biscuits.

Thats all for today, stay tuned for more updates from the land of the rising sun.

g`bye

goodbye Osaka, hello Koya-san

2007-10-06T15:07:00.000+02:00

We, very leisurely, left Osaka early in the morning and slowly made our way to the train station to get to Koya-san. We went to a department store to find a bag for me to carry all my goodies in, only to find that the bags I had in mind cost upwards of 20,000 yen.
`forget that` I said.
we then went for breakfast and then hit up the post office, where I was to spend over an hour trying to mail a box full of treasures to myself in Nagoya. Hopefully this will all go off without a hitch, and I wont end up like the guy next to me in line (from Detroit) yelling at the postal workers that his package was supposed to have arrived a month ago.
`good luck` he said to me.
My heart sank a bit.
From there we were on our way to Koya-san, which is a small village up in a basin of a mountain where there are over 100 Buddhist temples. Along the way, I made friends with an elderly Japanese woman. At least I think we were friends, she diddn`t speak a lick of english, but she was very kind. She gave me a little pack of tissue paper and told me what the advertisement on the back was (in Japanese). She then got off the train at her stop, after many nods of me not knowing a word she was saying to me. Again, she was very nice and friendly. After taking a train, then a train, another train, and a cable car, and finally a bus... we make it to the `town centre`... Its pitch black outside by this point, and we are tired as hell. We decide to go to the only hostel in town for the night and spend the next night at a temple lodge.
We very quickly find the hostel and approach a drunken clerk (at least I think he was drunk, he smelled of booze and stumbled with his words a bit)
`reservation?` he said
`nope` I replied
A shocking look came over his face which only concerned me a bit. He showed us the only room left in the hostel which was all the way up in the attic. He was very apologetic that this was the only space available. He revealed the room to us, after climbing a very steep staircase and crawling through an oompaloompa sized door. The room was magnificent. It was very large (with very low ceilings), it had a window, lamp, TV, a table with a few chairs, and a large log strangely placed across the centre of the room. It was the fanciest attic I`ve seen in my life, so far.

The next morning we left to find our self a temple to stay in. The lady at the tourist information centre told us that many of the temples were very full for the night, and that the one we were to be staying at would have an outhouse and paper walls separating the rooms from one another. That was fine, we said. Having booked our accommodation for the night, we headed off to get some breakfast. We went to a little restaurant by the tourist centre. I ordered Udon noodles, and Deena vegetable rice. During our meal I made conversation with an elderly Japanese man, who also diddn`t really speak any english. He was talking about how Canada was cold in the winter and warm in the summer (at least thats what I gathered from playing a spontaneous game of Japanese style charades). He was also very friendly and cheerful, and in great shape for a 72 year old mountain man. From there we headed off to launder our clothes. We were both very stinky, more so Deena, and felt that it would be a fun experience (doing laundry in the mountains).

It was time to check into the temple, I was really looking forward to this experience. We were very cheerfully greeted at the front entrance by a monk who was happy to check us in. He was a very tall man, but acted very small and humble. He asked us what time we would be eating dinner and bathing, and took our drink orders for dinner.　He walked us to our room, down a very very clean wooden corridor and showed us in. The room was magnificent. Not only were there solid walls between the rooms, but we also had an indoor washroom. After dropping off our bags, we went for a stroll through the town. We looked at some temples and walked through a very nice and almost eerie Buddhist cemetery.
Finally, it was time for this very refined Buddhist dinner I`ve been hearing so much about. We were walked into a rather large room, with 4 little tables and 2 floor mats, quite the private meal. It was a strictly vegetarian meal consisting of 2 kinds of tofu, various pickled mountain veggies, some sort of seaweed dish, some kind of lemon soup (to fight the mountain scurvy), white rice and a rice cake they call `devils tongue` (I believe).
After dinner we waited in our room for bath time. After a half hour there was a very quiet, but persistent, knocking at my door.
`sumi, sumi, sumi, sumi...` he said, until I opened the door.
`this way` he said
by the time i got to the bottom of the staircase, he was already waaaay down the hallway by the bathhouse. My fat feet don`t really fit into these slim slippers they gave me, which makes walking (quickly) a challenge. The bath was lovely, I had a good soak in the stone hot tub and then washed myself clean.
Then Deena showered. Then we went to bed.
early the next morning, around 6:30 in the AM we were greeted by another very persistent knocking at the door.
`sumi, sumi, sumi, sumi...` I answered the door and we were off to the morning ceremonies.
I diddn`t know what to expect, as I know nothing about Buddhist culture. Our favourite monk walked us to the ceremony hall. We entered a room full of ornaments, statues and all sorts of religious things that I diddn`t know of. In the centre of the room was 2 stools, for Deena and I. I thought that there would be other tourists here also observing the ritual, but it was just the two of us. We sat and watched them chant (a) very mesmerizing prayer(s?). I wonder what they were saying.
`zee zee wuh wuh nai uh gee wah zee zee..` this went on for about 30 min. There was some cymbal crashing throughout, and some gong dinging with a little bit of bell bonking. It sounded neat, but nothing I would put on my ipod. Now was time for the tourist interaction. We got on our knees and were told to put 3 pinches of some dried plant on a burning incense. Then, after a little more chanting, the main priest in the centre of the shrine turns to us. From behind he looked like a really old man, but was surprised to see him as a young man when he turned.
`thank you very much for staying and observing our ceremony, we hope you enjoy your time here. Breakfast will be served... arigato`.. or something like that , I can`t remember it word for word. It was a really great experience watching them do what they do... whatever it is that they were doing.
Breakfast was similar to dinner, but with other styles of pickled veggies, miso soup, seaweed and some sort of tofu and bean pancake. There was also what looked like a baby plum, which was EXTREMELY sour, and somewhat tasty.
After breakfast we took a little nap and I charged my dead ipod for the trip that lay ahead. We left the temple and headed to the cable car station where we would take the train back to Osaka. On the cable car we met our Belgish/kazakastanian chums... I knew we would be seeing them again, somewhere. We rode the train back to Osaka together, and one of them psychoanalyzed Deena with some mind games (quite accurately too). When we got to Osaka we said goodbye and went on our way.

We make it to Hiroshima around 4 and find out that all the hostels and hotels are booked.
`this is preposterous` I thought.
We then decide that we should stay the night at one of these luxury Internet cafes. We checked it out, and it turns out that it would actually be cheaper to spend the night in a private internet booth with a TV and internet than an actual hostel. I opted for the room with a bed and Deena selected the reclining chair option. This was definitely more worth while than just a straight up hostel. They supply us with towel, slippers, toothpaste and brush, and a locker for the night.. and all for 2300 yens! I should also mention that there is an all you can drink fountain pop machine, espresso machine, soup and soft serve ice cream. Man, am I going to be sick tonight!
Before we got here, we killed some time around the city (since all the museums and such were closed for the day). We had a nice soba noodle dinner at a tiny hole in the wall and saw some action on the street shortly afterwards. I wasn`t sure what was going on, but there was a tall American looking guy holding onto a pole with a small Japanese man pulling on his bag with all his might. They were both screaming at each other while the obvious tourist`s friends were only watching on. Deena had pointed out that the Japanese man was wearing a jazz club t shirt, and we had noticed smoke or steam billowing out of the jazz club as we walked by. I wonder what was going on.
This post has gone on long enough... Tomorrow we are to check out the city and then make our way to Nagasaki for a festival we only found out about today. The whole city`s accomodation is already booked up, so we may be staying at another internet cafe, if we get lucky again.

bless spellcheck
avo

osaka, the city of many flashing lights

2007-10-04T02:55:00.000+02:00

Two more days in Osaka have gone by, and weve see quite a few specacles. The first one being the Osaka Aquarium. This is a huge aquarium with 9 large tanks inside, and as you descend in a spiral down from the top floor to the main floor there are 9 different depths of sea creatures to view. Everything from sea lions and penguins, to giant spider crabs and jellyfish... with a manta ray and whale shark in between. It was most incredible. Afterwards we rode a large ferris wheel next to the aquarium which moved veeerrryyy slowly, but eventually made it all the way around and we got a great view of the city en route. From the ferris wheel we headed to see an underwater 3d IMAX film. It was great, I actually felt like I was underwater with all those sea creatures, untill tremendous strain came over my eyes and I started to get very sleepy... 3d really takes a lot outta ya.
After we left that zone, we dicided to walk in a single direction from our hostel. Eventually we came by this street that sold all sorts of good goodies. Used video games, and large toy stores. We quickly hurried by most of the stores, as I was to spend the better part of the next day there. We then finished off the night by eating various fried foods off sticks and falling asleep to a kickass japanese assasin film.

The next day I hit up that video game district we had found earlier, of course. I bought all sorts of goodness for myself, but now I have nowhere to put em. My best finds were an original nintendo famicom and a 3do system for 1000 yen.. WHAT A DEAL! now I gotta carry this crap everywhere I go, but it will definetly be worth it in the end.... unless it breaks. We then took the rest of the day off and just wandered around the area for a while.
So far there seems to be the largest homeless population here in Osaka, at least around where we are staying that is. There are ALOT of them, compared to the other cities we visited (I maybe saw one other along the way). Its kind of comforting though, it reminds me of home.

Today we are off to try and get to Koya-san, i think its called... A bhuddist monastary up in the mountains. I expect to eat some great vegitarian meals and find jesus along the way. From there we are to go to Hiroshima and then continue on with the rest of our trip, but right now I gotta run and try to find a suitcase to buy and put all my goodies in it...

bobye

kyoto to osaka

2007-10-01T13:53:00.000+02:00

Kyoto.... what can I say... its a VERY large city, with lots of streets and buildings on either side. Riddled througout the newer buildings are temples and shrines everywhere. Kyoto used to be Japan's capital city, before the [capital] moved to Toyko. There were very many sites to see in Kyoto, but very little time to see them in.

On our first day out in Kyoto we rented a pair of bicycles and rode them to the western outskirts of the city to see some temples. By looking at the map, I figured we will be able to see plenty of hotspots before 7pm (we had to have the biked back by 7). After about 40 minutes we began to realize that the scale on the map(s) that we had wasn't very consistant at all. Also, our maps diddn't have any street names labeled, making the journey quite difficult. Deena then decided that we should ask someone on the streets for directions. She approached a lady on a bike at the intersection and pointed to where we wanted to go on the map. The bike lady pointed to herself and then down the street, assuming we were to follow her. We kept pace with her for about 20 minutes, winding down and around small streets, and eventully come to a glorious Tori surrounded by trees. This wasn't really where we wanted to go, but we were very glad that she had showed us the way. We would have never found this temple on our own, all tucked away within the suburban outskirts of Kyoto. Beyond the tori lived a large and rustic temple, surrounded by all sorts of exciting plants and a thick bamboo forest. We walked the grounds, stunned by the awesomeness that it was. I payed \200 to try and shoot 2 arrows at a target. Apparently my arching skills aren't as good as I remember it being. I missed the first one by alot, but the 2nd arrow almost made it to the actuall target.
After that temple (i think it was called the grand temple) we tried to find a shrine dedicated to insects. A pesticide company here felt bad for all the insects it helped slaughter, so they built a shrine for them. I'm not sure if we found it or not, but we did come across a really nice shrine with a very large lineup. We looked at it briefly, then went on our way. Leaving there we met a very friendly security officer, who was very eager to talk to us. He was very interested in why we came to Japan and how we ended up so far from the city. He was also very interested in the sweet bikes we rented... mine was brown and deenas was green. Upon leaving the shrine we figured that there was no way we would be able to see all the sites i had planned for the day, so we rode back to the city centre to return the bikes.
Needless to say we were really pooped out by the end of the day, so we just went for some eats and then off to bed.

Day 2 in Kyoto, it was a very rainy day. I awoke with itchy bites all over my body (much like the first night). The first night there I saw a little black spider crawl away from under my pillow, so he was my main suspect. I decided to let him be the first night, hoping he wouldn't do it again, but I was wrong. The 2nd morning was the final straw. Again I saw the little critter crawling away from me as I woke up, so I grabbed the can of raid in our room (handy that it was there ,eh) and sprayed the little bugger to death. After a few minutes my face felt a little numb so I thought it would be a good idea to open the window. I also gave Deena a little nudge just to make sure I didd't kill her so early on in the trip. I was ready to roll, and Deena was still in bed, so I went on without her. I walked in the rain to a covered street where they sold clothing and touristy shops. Not soo exciting, but at least I was out of the rain. From there I headed off to Sanjusangendo Temple which is home to 1001 wooden cannon statues. It was very spectacular, seeing all these hand made statues lined up all the way down a narrow corridor. Throughout them were various deities. Unfourtunetly picture taking was not allowed. Afterwards it was time for me to walk back to the hostel. I was already soaking wet at this point, so I didn't have to worry about getting any wetter. When I got back to the hostel, Deena looked very comfortable, having taken both matresses and pillows, and wedged herself into the corner of the wall. She had drawn some lovely pictures and wrote some stories while I was gone. We then hit up foods and hung out at a media cafe for some good ol american TV. On the way back to the hostel, I stopped in at the 711&holdings (its what they call 711 here) for a can of fresh flavoured oxygen. I decided to get the forest aroma flavour, rather than the coffee scented one. Feeling bright and refreshed after some good oxygen, we went right to bed.

The next day we woke up and checked out of our hoste. Before we hopped on the train to Osaka, we hit up the Golden Pavillion. This place was real nice. A 3 story old style house, with 2 of the upper floors covered in gold leaf, surrounded by a lake with little islands througout. Needless to say, it was quite shiny, quite.

We then rode the bus back to our bags and then trucked it to the train station. We waited for about 50 minutes for our train and were really concered when the train diddn't show up at the time specified. Every train/bus we caught here came and left the minute it said it was supposed to. Finally the train showed up, and 29 minutes later we were in Osaka. Again surrounded by a huge city with bright flashing lights. We booked a last minute hotel in the northen disctrict of Osaka, dropped off our bags, and then headed out for some tasty eats (cold soba noodles with tempura). Before we went for food, we wandered around a 9 story department store (there seem to be alot of these in Japan). I was looking around at gundam figures, when the airsoft department caught my eye. I've been looking for an airsoft gun here since day 2, specificly a mini electric MP5 that I've been eyeing for years (since I first became interested in non leathal firearms). There it was, the last one in stock. I emmidietly bought it and am looking foreward to practicing my target shooting all night. Moving and non moving. Which brings us to today... here.... right now... sitting at the Media Complex Space in Osaka, wondering which direction I left the hotel at. With some luck and little guidance, I'm sure we will once again find our way back.

good-bye
a.

this field was intentionally left blank

2007-09-28T12:36:00.000+02:00

It has been a few days now since we left Nagano. The train ride to Nagoya was quite magnificent, winding through valleys surrounded by even more moutains than we saw before. We also watched vanishing point on my ipod during the trip, which was also a spectacular movie.

We arrived at Nagoya and was greeted rather quickly by Deena`s friend, Marc. He took us to his apartment just down the street from the train station and we got settled in before he left for work (teaching english). Deena and I took this time to wander around Osu, which was an area of Nagoya much like that of kensington markets. There they had vintage clothing stores selling all sorts of vintage tshirts from my childhood (star wars, ninja turtles, alf, californaia rasins etc.). We also came across many amazing toy stores with lots of toys that I could never find at home. Of course many of them were too big and expensive to fit in my bag, so I decided to wait outside the stores while deena browsed. As I was waiting outside a toy store, I noticed a hippy looking japanese man riding his bike past me. I thought that he looked familiar and I only realized who he was once he rode past me. Cotton Casino was his name from the (in)famous japanes psychedelic band Acid Mother Temple. For a moment I though to chase him down, but I was too starstruck to even move. A few seconds later he was long gone.

Later that night Marc and his room maties took us to a Japanese bar/resturaunt (Izakaya). I`m unsure what the resturaunt was called, but we all ordered many small dishes and shared them amongst each other. It was quite delicious. After a few small meals there, and a few drinks later, we headed to an irish pub where we drank a little more and then headed back to Marc`s apartment.

The next day was pretty laid back. Deena and I headed into the middle of the city to try and buy Battles (the band) tickets, only to find out that it was sold out. Pretty dissapointing. Afterwards we went back to Marc`s to meet his roomate, Bob Moody, for some japanese curry. Very delicous it was and a little spicy. Afterwards we went to an american sports pub, hung out and played some darts.

One of Marc`s friend`s, Phil (I believe his name was), was also at the bar with us. He began to tell us an interesting story about how he was to have some couch surfers crash on his couch, but got disconnected during the phonecall and they never called back. He felt pretty bad about it, because they called from a payphone so he couldn`t call back. Somewhere in the story he said that one of them was from Belgium.
`was the other from Kazakastan` i said
`yes` he replied, somewhat intruiged as to how I knew.
We had met them our 2nd night in Tokyo and saw them again in Nagano. They seemed to be taking the same route as us, and I`m sure we will be seeing them again soon... somewhere...

The next day, which is today, we left for Kyoto... once our landry was done drying. We had just checked into our hostel, which was rated pretty low on hostelworld.com and were very surprised with how nice the room was. It was a traditional japanese style room where you sleep on the floor. With the air conditioning blasting, I`m sure we will have a good nights sleep.
Tommorrow we are to once again get back into the sightseeing groove and hit up as many temples as we can, here in Kyoto. So far the weather here is nice and dry feeling, with a cool breeze cutting across the streets. This is a nice change from the humid and hot weather we had in Nagoya.

More exciting updates to come soon!

so long and thanks for all the fish

Mountainous protruberances

2007-09-25T14:31:00.000+02:00

It was a wet morning in Nagano today, as we slipped and slided our way to the train station. From there we headed to Jigokudani Monkey Park via Kanbayashi onsen guchi. The trip went surprisingly well, transfering seamlessly from train to bus. Although we don`t speak japanese, and the people there diddn`t speak english, we managed to find our way quite easily. My excitement grew as the bus winded its way up the mountainside and let us off somewhere along the way. The air was cool and fresh, and I was very excited to meet these monkeys.
After a 40 min hike up the mountain, we had finally arrived at our destination. The monkeys sprawled on the roofs of the buildings were a dead giveaway. After paying our 500 yen enterence fee, we were free to walk around a gyser and watch the monkeys play in a hot spring. The best part of all is that there were no cages, so the monkeys were all around us. On the paths and even in the trees right over our heads. We sat stood aside and watched as the monkeys played and clawed at each other. We even had a little scare when a group of monkeys a few feet beside us got in a little scuffle and nearly ran right into us. One of the monkeys ran away while spraying its pee in a mad dash, missing me by only a few inches.
As we walked back to the town, we stopped off at a little noodle house / monkey candy shop. The elderly ladies there kept repeating "monkey candy" at every item we looked at. We both ordered Soba noodles with tempura. It was the best damn delicous soba ive ever had, and some tasty potent wasabi. Before we got to the bus stop, we stopped off at a japanese onsen (natural hot spring). There we sat (in seperate pools) enjoying the sweet sensations of natural springs. The air had a little bit of a sulphury scent, but it was enjoyable knowing that it came from the cracks in earth`s crust, instead of the crack`s of the old mens butts as they sat around me. We managed to find a direct bus for the ride home, which was very enjoyable aswell. Giving us a nice view of the valley as we descended from the mountains.

From there I went on a solo mission to the Zenkoji temple as quickly as I could (before sundown) On my way to the temple I had passed a few hobby stores, and I just couldn`t walk by them without checking them out. About an hour later I had reached the temple enterance, after sundown. Although it was dark out it was still very visible, and the bats circling the area made it look even more mystical. Unfourtunely all the shops along the walkway were closed, but im sure I will return to there at some point in my life.

And as promised, here are some pictures from the last few days here in Japan.

japan part 2

canned coffee

2007-09-24T11:50:00.000+02:00

It was a glorious overcasted day today in Tokyo, which made our trek to the Shinjuku bus station all the more comfortable. We arose from our capsule and emmidietly headed off to the bus station, after my morning soak of course. Right when we got to the subway station, we were greeted by 2 english speaking travellers. They noticed that we were canadian because of the canadian flag patch I was sporting on my bag (thanks mom). One of them was from Saskatchewan and the other was from South Africa, and both were english teachers in the Japanese Alps area. Lucky for us, they were also heading to the same bus station, so they let us follow them. It was such a pleasure not having to try to figure out our own way, and just follow them blindly to the station. Of course they were very friendly, telling us all sorts of interesting tidbits about japan and teaching here.

From Tokyo we headed off to Nagano. Deena and I were both very excited to get out of the big city. Tokyo was really fun but very similar to Toronto in terms of it being a giant city with shopping centres and neon lights. We were both glad to leave the hustle and bustle of the city and get some fresh air. The busride to Nagano was breathtaking. The bus winded around mountains, across valleys and through clouds. The Mountains were beautifully arranged (thanks god/buddah/allah/zappa) and covered with very green, lush trees with clouds billowing out. The bus took a 10 minute break along the way and we took the oppratunity to sit outside and breathe in the fresh mountain air as we watched the clouds seep from the forests. Shortly afterwards we arrived in Nagano and were relieved to find that the city`s air was nice and fresh and there was a cool breeze with almost no apparent humidity. There were also no skyscrapers making the moutainous surroundings a pleasure to look at (we get a great view from the hotel room window) and it was very quiet. So quiet in fact, people seemed to move in slow motion compared to the hecticity in Tokyo. There were still billboards and personholes (because manholes just isn`t PC anymore) advertising that the 1998 winter games are/were here. Unfourtunely there weren`t any [visible] olympians lingering around anymore.
We decided to take the 2nd half of the day off from sightseeing, and just stroll around the main part of the city. We found a store along the way called Hard-Off, which was a used electronics store much like value village is a clothing store. This store puts Akihabara (Tokyo`s electronic district) to shame. It was full of old laser discs, old instruments, cameras, video games, comptuers and whole lot of other junk. My best find was on the 2nd floor, labeled the JUNK floor, where I had found an original Famicom system (the first japanese nintendo console) for only 1400 yen!! (which is roughly $14-$15). But alas, it was too big and delicate for me to bring with me on my trip, so hopefully I can find another one on my way back. I was also very tempted to buy a large synthesizer that I wanted eversobadly. I ended up purchasing a single computer speaker shaped like the *?* block from the mario brothers games. Can you tell that I`m a sucker for nintendo? Which reminds me of the night before in Tokyo. Deena and I were looking for some Yakitori when I noticed an arcade, and right in the window was a Mario Kart arcade game. I couldn`t not play it. I raced against Deena and kicked her sorry little ass. go me!!
After purchasing my speaker and Deena`s records, we went for some ramen and gyoza. It was damn delicious, with the returaunt priding itself in serving special salt from the x-mass islands which was tasty and not as salty as one would think... with it being salt and all.

I think thats all for today. I`m sooo sreepy right now and can`t wait to jump into my extremly soft bed and fall alseep to the japanese home shopping channel.

skate straight

avi

ghibli museum and harajuku

2007-09-23T12:44:00.000+02:00

Today was another fine day in Tokyo City. The weather was beautiful. I nice overcast and a coolish breeze, which made wandering all the more comfortable. We spent the night in a capsule hotel, which was quite the experience. For those of you that dont know what a capsule hotel is, it is what it sounds like. Picutre a hallway of pods stacked 2 high. Inside said pod is a bed, big enough for one person to lie in comfortably, given they aren't taller than 6 feet. There is also a TV, a radio, light, and alarm clock. There was also a AC vent installed, which was not working, thus making the pod extremely hot. They also supplied a pair of stylish pajamas, razor, towels and toothbrush. everything needed for a tired businessman to spend the night. They also have a dry cleaner on site. The shower room was also a new experience for me. There was a bucket in the shower room to sit on while you wash yourself, and a really hot tub to soak in as well as a very hot dry sauna. All while on the 9th floor of the building which provides a great view of the city.

From the capsule I grabbed some street tempura and we headed to the Ghibli museum. The museum was much more than I thought it would be. Studio Ghibli is a famous Japanese animation studio that created great cartoons such as Laputa: Castle in the sky, princess mononoke and spirited away. The architecture of the museum was very nicely done up. It reminded me of the salvador dali mansion, but more childlike with round walls and pastel colours with a soft stucco finish. When we entered the museam we were very enthusiasticly greeted by the staff and given 3 animation cells which were to be our tickets into the Ghibli theatre. The first room we visited was quite mindblowing. It featured various animation stills of the films and minuture dioramas of their animation studio. Next were some zeotrope animations of their characters (a disc with drawings on it and slits on the opposite side, when you look through the slits, the object looks animated). That was impressive, but next up was probably one of the most amazing things i have ever seen. We peered into a glass tube and saw about 30 sets of statues all surrounding a big tree. After a few seconds the whole platform of characters starts spinning. Next the lights start to flicker at a specific rate. And right before my very eyes the statues start to come to life. I've seen animations before, and i understand how they work, but i never thought I would be seeing this. It was as if I was watching a live action stop motion cartoon, but in live action right in front of me. It probably doesnt sound all that exciting in writing, but I highly recommend the trip to the museum (if your in town) just for that exhibit. The rest of the museum was also very magical, but diddn't make as much of an impact on me like that spinning doohickey did. The museum in whole was very magical. There were some rooms that were built right from childrens story books, we got to wander through goldie locks and the three bear's house, sat in baby bear's chair and played with his or hers poridge. There was also a rooftop garden with a giant metal robot (statue), and replicas of some home animation studio (all the signs were in japanese, so I could only assume what I was looking at).

After the museum, we took another one of our famous accidental detours around the town, which was very nice. From there we headed to the Harajuku district. Despite not having a map we found our way, thanks to Deena's lip reading skills. She noticed some other people across the street asking for directions to Harajuku, so we just followed ever so stealthily behind them.
We navigated our way through very tiny streets, crammed with people and checked out some of the most fasionable people in japan. I kind of felt more like a bum wearing plaid shorts and a t shirt, instead of being dressed up like a vampire (i left my costume at home). There were some really interesting people there, wearing the strangest costumes i've seen so far. Some covered with blood, a few wearing eyepatches, and even a girl dressed like strawberry shortcake. Alot of the stores were selling band shirts, the most popular being the sex pistols, the clash and the misfits. I couldn't find any leftover crack shirts.

Tonight will be our final night in Tokyo (for now). We will be in Nagano tomorrow if all goes well. Playing with macaque ( snow monkies) and enjoying the (hopefully) quiet countryside.

Happy Passover
avi

tokyo game show day

2007-09-22T13:07:00.001+02:00

Today we hit up the tokyo game show. The biggest video game convention in the world. It was pretty hectic with flashing lights, crazy sounds and lots of people dressed up as their favourite gaming characters. Most of the lineups were too long for me to bother standing in, just to taste some games of the future. But, boy howdy, there are some great looking games to look foreward to. Mainly Metal gear solid 4, and metal gear online looked pretty badass. as well as some sword fighting game for the wii. Although the best game i played there was spaced invaders for the DS. There was no line, so I grabbed a DS and played away. It was great fun, and I am really looking foreward to playing it again in the future.

Getting there and back took some time, so we diddnt do much else today. We ate some tempura, which was delicious of course. And i think i may have eaten jellyfish too.

Right now I am in a namco internet cafe which is pretty amazing. Im in a little booth with a nice reclining chair, a fast computer with a large screen, and all you can drink beverages. There is also a DVD room with a large TV and a huge selection of DVDs and manga books. I guess living quarters in japan are soo small, that its more worth while to go to a place like this with your friends, then having to pay lots more money for a bigger apartment or house. I could even get used to this life.
Tonight we are staying in a capsule hotel, so stay tuned for an update on that. As well as some pictures if i can get them online.

peace out

pictures

2007-09-22T03:03:00.000+02:00

Japan

day two and thre3

2007-09-21T16:06:00.000+02:00

So much has happened since i last updated ... where to begin? I guess i'll start at the beginning.

Our second day in tokyo started off pretty early, since we are both still jet lagged. We started off by trying to buy sumo tickets. We left the hostel without a proper map (i thought Deena brought hers, and she thought I had mine) so we decided to go on an adventure in tokyo without a map. After almost getting lost we managed to find the sumo stadium, and had stumbled across a very lovely temple dedicated to war heroes along the way. The early sumo matches were amateur wrestlers only, so we decided to go to Shinjuku until the pro tournament started.
Shinjuku was really nice, and not at all what I had expected. The streets were long and wide with huge department stores all along the way. T'was a very fancy shopping area much like yorkville in toronto... only in japanese. We hit up a few record shops in Shinjuku that had a very bad ass selection of records that I never came across in toronto, and at really cheap prices too. Sadly I diddn't want to cary a stack of records along for my trip so I opted to just browse instead. What really surprised me the most is that there were alot of posters and promos for The Shaggs, who were (or still is) a 60's rock trio consisting of ... (3) girls that don't really know how to play their instruments very well. I don't think they were very popular in North America, but are apparently hot shit in Tokyo. We also stopped into a pachinko parlour along the way and were mesmerized by the flashing lights and exciting sounds around us. I think we were doing pretty good for our first time playing, but really, we had no idea what was going on. nevertheless it was a great time. However, I would have to say the biggest and best surprise in Shinjuku was when we got off the subway. There was a Japanese guy walking towards us, and I noticed his shirt from a distance. I thought to myself "that guy looks like hes wearing a leftover crack shirt". I continue to walk down the street towards him, and to my surprise, he was actually wearing a leftover crack shirt. Even the Japanese (or at least that one guy) can't seem to get enough of that crack rock steady beat!
From Shinjuku we went to the sumo tournament which was very exciting. I thought I knew what sumo was like, from watching it on TV, but I never realized how much goes into the tournaments. Each match would start off with a clensing of the ring by throwing salt onto the floor. Then the wrestlers would stomp out (at least to my knowledge) all the bad spirits within the ring. They did this many times before the actual fight took place. The process would take about 5-8 min, and the actual fight would only last a few short seconds. After one of the wrestlers won, some guy would come out and sing a few short notes, and the whole thing would start all over again.
As we were walking back to the hostel for the night, we saw some kids playing catch (with a ball of course) across the street. One kid misses the ball and it bounces across a busy 4 lane street, Which I then caught with my ninja (ferret) like reflexes. I then threw the ball back to the kid, but I seem to have been out of practice, because the ball slipped from my hands, landed short in front of the kid, and then it bounced right into his gonads. He let out a litte yelp and cupped his naughty bits. I felt pretty bad about it afterwards, but it was a good laugh at first.
I also bought some Black Black chewing gum (highly caffeinated gum) and rose gum (supposed to make you sweat out a sweet rosy scent). I think the rose gum actually worked, but I bet Deena would say otherwise.

As for day 3, we started off by waking up at 5 am to check out the fish market madness. After taking a very long and out of the way walk, we finally arrive at our destination. The Fish Market. There were lots of fish. Afterwards we went for breakfast sushi, which isn't always the best idea, but I just had to try some fresh sushi straight from the market. It was pretty damn good, but I still felt a little ill, as did Deena. The sushi we had was much much bigger than back at home, and I was not expecting them to be so big (surprisingly enough, im not much of a fish eater).
After the fish market we headed to my old home, around roppongi. This was to be the most exciting part of my whole japanese trip. We get to Hiro-o station, and we find my old local grocery store, National Azubu market. It was just how I remembered it looking, not much had seemed to change. Across the street was a really nice park that we walked. It diddnt look familiar, but im sure I played in there. Next up was my old home. I was very excited to visit it, and the streets seemed somewhat familiar to me. As I walked towards the side of the house, I notice there is no driveway. Then as I get closer, I notice there is a big white barrier across the front. Shortly afterwards I am standing right in front of the house, only to realize it had recently been demolished.... sacré bleu! It was quite the letdown and very anticlimactic. We then walked very slowly down my street towards the peacock grocery store and eventually find the Wendeys restuurant I used to frequent as a youngster. We ate a greasy burger that made me feel like poop, and headed off shortly after.
From there we hit up Akibhara, the electronics district of Tokyo. There were lots of neon lights and the largest electronics department stores I had ever seen. They had some really nice TVs set up too, and properly hooked up to HD sources for the best possible picture. Unlike future shop and best buy, who look like they connect their HD TVs to VCRs for display. We saw lots of really cheap and elaborate cell phones and itty bitty laptop computers that caught my eye. We even came across a store that sold nothing but robots (for mucho dinero)
From Akibhara we headed back home via a few trains in rush hour. That was loads of fun. Now I'm about ready to hit they hay, after this long day. I hope I'm not forgetting anything. I feel that this entry may not be long enough. maybe next time I can elaborate more.

Evi L. Salem

The beagle has landed

2007-09-20T01:05:00.000+02:00

Ahoy!
Deena and I have arrived in tokyo! And so far we only got lost once, which is pretty good i think considering We dont know any Japanese.
After the flight , we immideatly got our train passes and hopped on a train to asukasa station where our hostel is. On our way to the hostel we saw a giant golden turd, at least thats what it was according to a friend of mine {thanks jen}
After looking for our hostel for about 30 min i ask a younger person on the street if he knows where it is. He does\t speak english, but he tells us to go to the police station across the street for directions. Not really understanding him , we walk the opposite direction, only to have him run after us and take us to the station himself. He explaoins to the officer where we are trying to go and the officer draws us up a little map {that was of little help}. We took a spiral pattern around the blocks to look for the hostel, only to find it in the centre of the spiral we took.

I will post some pictures of our adventures soon.

also, its interesting to note that of all the bikes that we saw on teh streets, only one of them was actually locked.... hows that for trust?

avi and out

Pre flight part 2

2007-09-18T14:53:00.000+02:00

Europe was great, I got back July 31st.
Japan awaits...I'll be eating sushi in no time*.

*about 4am EST

pre flight

2007-07-02T16:59:00.000+02:00

im sitting around home, in anticipation of my flight.... i hope my ears don't explode again making me deaf for my trip.