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chertop

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Trips:

Japan and South Korea 2010

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My mother tells me that when I was five and she took me by train from Vancouver to Edmonton, we had barely left Vancouver when I declared "Enough train. Get down now." But, at age 11 when my paternal grandmother took me from Edmonton to California and Disneyland, the trip instilled in me a sense of travel being adventure, living intensely, having pie for breakfast, grilled cheese and pickles in bus stations for lunch, and encountering the unexpected. After my first year of university, I traveled to Rome on an archeology course; I recall that flying through an abbreviated night and landing in Rome at dawn was like being reborn. My travel in Canada, Europe, South American and Asia may have been escape, or finding myself, but always made life "ever so much more so." (The profile photo is of me in Maui, Hawaii, loading images into my computer, apparently dazzling images, judging by the sunglasses).


From Tokyo subways to Hakata (Fukuoka) ramen

Hakata, Japan

Monday (Getsuyobi) November 1
Waking numerous times in the night, I was grateful to keep going back to sleep until quarter to six when I got up and went to the second floor breakfast area, and pressed the button that asked me to choose my “desired” coffee, ground fresh from beans I could see through the plexiglass. Soon almost every table was filling with young traveling Japanese.
I took my travel mug with fresh ground coffee up for Mary, had a welcome shower and breakfast of miso soup, orange juice, croissant, egg boiled in salt water (doesn't need salting), yoghurt and Danish – truly an international breakfast!

Breakfast, Comfort Inn
We walked over to the temple,

Buddhist temple
walked back and checked out and headed into Tokyo by train for Haneda airport.

On 1 hour subway ride from Narita to Haneda airport
En route I began to suspect that there were two trains on the one track, only one of which went to Haneda... we got talking to a man nearby who got off at the same station and showed us the station where we could transfer to an express train. He even waited with us until the correct train arrived before he left for his gym. It was his day off from work in a hotel and he told us he used to work for airlines. Even with the express train, we rode for 2 hours, longer than our flight time to Fukuoka city in southwest Japan from where we will cross to Korea.

Tokyo subway train

We were at the airport 1 ¼ hours before our flight and checked in, then were in the Ladies room when I heard an announcement about gate change. Checking the departure listings we headed for gate 9, a loo-ong hike, where we rested in the priority seating since few other seats were available and there were no elderly people around to use the chairs. But, trying to board, we found we were at the JAL flight for the same city departing at the same time as our Skymark flight. We sprang out of our handicapped seating and ran all the way back to where we'd come through security and then an equally long distance on the other side to gate 24, only to find the people gone, gate locked and yet the plane sitting outside attached to the gate. An airport employee approached and indicated we were again at the wrong gate. We ran again, for gate 38, though I was tempted to abandon the struggle, sure the plane would have gone. We arrived sweaty and breathless and discovered the departure had been delayed.... so another wait.
Flying over Tokyo gave me an idea of its enormity. Then we were over sharp and rugged mountains. Water and harbor as we descended into Fukuoka. We took a taxi to the International hostel where we had a twin room reserved, not much bigger than the bunkbeds. Supper at a nearby ramen house where we sat at the counter and watched the steam rise from the ramen pot of boiling water, watched the bowls being heated, steaming soup and slices of pork added. The soup was delicious, the pork ramen a specialty of Fukuoka, the décor, in red and blank, traditional Japanese style, the pickled bean sprouts crunchy and spiced with hot pepper, the pickled ginger hot to the tongue, You not only chose your type of soup but also the doneness of your noodles – 5 degrees of doneness from childishly soft all the way past al dente to the crunchy, barely cooked rare version. Walking back, we found the air delightfully cool and less humid that in Tokyo.

permalink written by  chertop on November 1, 2010 from Hakata, Japan
from the travel blog: Japan and South Korea 2010
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Arrival in Japan

Narita, Japan

Finally we descend into Tokyo. After a 14 hour flight it ironically seems to end too fast. Passengers race walk down the corridors, as briskly as they can without seeming rude, to get to Immigration and Customs ahead of as many people as possible Looking for the right Immigration line, I didn't notice a double-decker wheeled piece of luggage arc in front of me; I instinctively called out “God!” as I fell; the Japanese man pulling it made a conciliatory gesture --- I made a note to be more aware, even if slower.
Despite all the airports I have arrived at alone, I could not stifle a longing to be met, a scanning of people waiting. but then I was off to Information, Money Exchange and the Keisei train to Narita station, grateful my luggage is not any heavier as I sweated up stairs and escalators and over overpasses. Hesitating, then I go to the ticket booth to find which is the east exit; up over the overpass where there are big planters of colorful flowers. Narita's Comfort Inn is a very ordinary Western-style hotel, ours a small twin room but it's the Hilton compared to wandering the narrow streets looking for the ryokans that didn't return my inquiry or .... over an hour being hot and sweaty on a train into Tokyo.
After a very welcome shower, shedding sweaty clothes, and sorting my belongings, I ventured out walking the outdoor mezzanine back to the station, out the other side to a busy urban environment – yet one so human-sized that it seems minature to someone accustomed to the oversize selling-boxes of North American big box stores. The one lane street has about 2 feet wide pedestrian lanes marked on each side, lanes shared with bikes and parked cars. Small shops sell an array of beautifully presented edibles, sweets to take as hospitality gifts, fabrics for kimonos, simple and elegant salons, gaudy souvenirs, I noticed tall stylish young women with slender, pant-clad legs and leather boots. It's a town living its Japanese life in which I floated down the curved street to its temple.
Especially after the compact shops, the huge complex of enormous Buddhist temple buildings blew me away. Steeply climbing up the rocky hillside, were the imposing gate, array of temple buildings, multi-storied pagoda, hanging red lanterns, fierce guardian deities which all spoke to me as powerfully as the soaring cathedrals of Europe. The falling rain and dimming evening added a sombre dignity. I saw no foreigners, no cameras, but young couples together and older people bringing plastic bags to make offerings to the statues of Boddhisatvas at the smaller temples. Two lighted pavilions that looked like food shops, turned out to be places to buy inscribed papers and wood. I felt myself in the presence of the Divine and gave thanks for being here.
At the upper reaches of the temple, where it extends into the greeness of garden and park, I suddenly felt the nausea of too long without sleep. Descending slowly, I stopped under the eaves as rain fell and as the gong began a solemn conversation with the deep temple bell. I glimpsed, peering between temple buildings, the man on a distant temple balcony, striking the large gong. Walking back, I saw hanging red lanterns, Some older women, with the bent over backs from inadequate nutrition during childhood, were working with husbands to close up the shops. Passing a small supermarket, I strolled in, past shelves of unrecognizable packaged foodstuffs, but also fruit including persimmons, that I recall first encountering here in Japan in the 1970s. I hadn't expected to buy anything, but stryfoam cups of soup noodles caught my eye and I left with them and a Kirin beer so Mary and I would not have to go out again in the rain.
Back at our small white nest of a room, when I heard the expected knock at the door and opened it to the wide smile and rain-soaked hair of my sister Mary, I felt the joyous miracle – each of us had come from different places, traveled separately half way round the world and found each other at the appointed time in this 4th storey niche.

Mary in Halloween gloves, eating ramen from styrofoam cup, Oct 31

Flopped on armchair and bed, we poured each other the beer, in Japanese custom of serving each other, and shared high and low points of our flights. I had boiled water in the electric heater so we ate the soup noodles using disposable chopsticks that the shop girl had thoughfully offered. I brought out the cheese, crackers, pecans and dried cranberries that were my emergency rations for the plane, since I didn't expect the two dinners and a snack. Eventually so tired that I would lose the thread of a conversation, I fell asleep almost as soon as we decided it was legitimately bedtime (by Japanese time) and turned out the light.

permalink written by  chertop on October 31, 2010 from Narita, Japan
from the travel blog: Japan and South Korea 2010
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In flight

Newark, United States

October 30 Departure Day
Two alarms set for 4:30am woke us. I turned on the coffee maker and made yerba mate for Hamilton, donned the clothes I had set out (amazing how quickly they slip on after all the deciding what exactly to take!). Before 5am we were on the road, predictably empty of cars in the early morning darkness. I was grateful to feel a 7am wakefulness, instead of 4am grogginess. And to have finally dropped into my “travel mode” in which my pre-trip anxiety is replaced with a sense of “here we go” - the adventure is on, I'll deal with whatever happens.
It's also a relief that my carry-on items are all in my daypack and waist belt, plus my much-traveled photojacket, so that walking through security and to the gate in Albany was easy, and I had a comfortable (though major) hike from the gate where we landed in Newark to the far distant gate for the flight to Japan.
During the wait in Newark, drawing 2 moveable chairs over to the electrical outlet in the middle of an empty wall, I set my pack on one, together with wireless mouse on a pad which I improvised from a box of Vermont maple candy. I plugged in the computer and, even though you have to purchase internet connection, I began to describe my trip, an adventure where even mundane details take on the special significance of the voyage.

October 30,10:45pm Vermont time or Oct 31, 11:45am Tokyo time. I started out on the tarmac at Newark reading and highlighting my guidebook, delving into the cultural treasures of Kyoto and Nara which I hadn't found time to explore before leaving, amazed and gratified that my mind was clearer than at home, freed of pre-travel tasks. I watched the film Coco Before Chanel, then part of Fellini's La Docle Vita, and suffered through the violence of Rio de Janiero slums in City of God. Marvelous to have one's own small screen in the seat ahead of me and be able to start, as well as pause, a film at one's convenience.
After Coco, I started to explore games, especially Berlitz language learning... but first I had to figure out how to work the wizard wand to get the selection to learn Japanese. The words for days of the weeks, months, counting, simple phrases that I learned years ago! when I spent an academic year studying at Waseda university in Tokyo... had a forgotten familiarity. Reinforcing the learning were video games of shooting down the numbered spaceship matching the Japanese name for the number, though I never did figure out how to save Rapunzel in her tower from the dragon by getting the hero to jump up to the correct month.
Another welcome surprise was the hot meals. When the first, a dinner, appeared, the woman across the aisle exclaimed, “And we don't have to pay for them?!” to which the flight attendant answered, “You pay for them all right.” Yakuniku with good sticky Japanese rice. Afterwards, great sleepiness overcame me so I inflated my pillow, covered my eyes with my black mask and huddled under my blanket. Good Bennington time for a nap.
The woman next to me and her preteen daughter have had some arguments. She wears a skimpy top and long black fingernails decorated with gold symbols – as far from a geisha as one could imagine. They have kosher meals and I'm curious about how one would keep the Jewish dietary laws in Japan.
I have gotten up almost every hour, a benefit of my choosing an aisle seat, found a space near the emergency exits where I could stretch and do some isometric exercises. Three hours into the flight we are over Hudson Bay, temperature ranges from minus 50 to minus 81 degrees outside. Eight hours later when I am trying again to sleep and the mother taps me to let her get out for the restroom, I feel a burst of annoyance, I've had enough of this flight and the man ahead pushing his chair back and knocking my tray table frays my nerves more – it takes effort to keep calm externally and go with the flow – how would I do in a mine a half mile underground with all these people for 69 days?
Some eleven hours into the flight we are over the sea of Okutsk (according to the video monitor)...but when I raise the blind just enough to look out, I see stark snowy and rock mountains then wilderness like one hardly associates with the huge populations of Asia – perhaps the remote islands north of Hokkaido, Japan?

permalink written by  chertop on October 30, 2010 from Newark, United States
from the travel blog: Japan and South Korea 2010
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Pre-trip Preparations

Bennington, United States

The day at last and almost too soon. It seems no time since it was weeks, then 9, 8, 7 days before my departure for Japan and Korea. My “to do” list on the computer got printed out in revised versions, then I festooned the paper version with additions and with cross-outs as the tasks got done.
Perhaps the annoying and persistent anxiety I felt in the last week came from the many tasks large and small that I felt compelled to complete, not only for this voyage but for our church's Snowball Bazaar publicity and for the book of my poems which I was trying to compile and get to my brother Glenn (who offered to help me put together a book) as well as to my reader/editor/friends Chris and Gail. Uncertainty about how much time was needed for these tasks as well as whatever further items I would add to my “To Do” list may have been expressed in the dream a few nights ago in which I was trying to return from China but bureaucratic officials made impossible regulations that I was trying to get around.
Trying to keep in mind to “Be here now,” I looked at the preparations as part of the trip..but I was amazed when someone confided to me that they planned a trip so thoroughly that ultimately they didn't need to take it! I never plan that well and every trip I have ever taken emerges as I travel. Some involved my first reading my Lonely Planet guidebook on the plane; some just going and discovering once I got there. As the poet Theodore Roetke said “I learn by going where I have to go.”
But, because of the many travelers in Japan and the potential expense and vexation of being without reservations, I had worked on-line and by phone to make reservations for our first night (a hotel 10 minutes from the Tokyo-Narita airport), our flight the next day to
Fukuoka city in southwest Japan, 4 nights in the Fukuoka Youth Hostel (where Mary and I are to have the luxury of a twin room and, I hope, the chance to meet other travelers and get some helpful tips about that area of Japan); return tickets for the hydrofoil boat from Fukuoka-Hakata to Busan, South Korea; and Japan Rail Passes for when we return to Japan November 15.
In between computer and guidebook and selecting what to take, piling those things on the guest bed, I was rescued from mental work by raking leaves, twice in the almost dark in the evening when the pool was closed (broken pump) and the hard physical exertion of raking raised my sweat and lowered my tension. Several times Hamilton rescued me from planning, inviting me to participate in the opportunity of raking or of helping him pull the tarp laden with heavy, wet leaves. Working with Ham, I would look up into flocks of golden yellow leaves on our maple tree, a gentle drizzle of leaves descending as we raked, and the azure sky brilliant beyond the leaves. For three nights we saw the full moon, at times unobstructed and at times sailing in and out of night clouds, illuminating the edges with magical, sacred light.
Wednesday evening Hamilton and I drove to East Greenbush for the funeral of his cousin, our generation, amongst other things a reminder to seize these opportunities to explore the world, to have adventures, and seize opportunities for extraordinary living.
After a full and intense day Thursday, Hamilton and I came in from raking leaves and I was so tired that I didn't know what to do with myself. Caffeine wouldn't help, it was too late for a nap (I thought), I had already swum at noon – Hamilton and I sat down on our sofa and I fell asleep on his shoulder, until he woke me over an hour later. The butterflies in my stomach threatened to revolt if I fed them anything fiercer than an omelette: I brought out the beautiful farmers' market eggs - green, beige and brown - and made us the best looking omelette of my life, golden brown and delicious with cheddar and tomatoes in the center. Friday evening, the night before I left, Hamilton made dinner that included the delicious new potatoes and spinach from the farmer's market. After parking my bags on the launching pad near our side door, Hamilton and I managed to be in bed between 8-9pm, our goal!

permalink written by  chertop on October 22, 2010 from Bennington, United States
from the travel blog: Japan and South Korea 2010
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The IDEA is hatched

Bennington, United States

When my niece Jennifer and her fiance accepted a posting to South Korea, I was not surprised that my sister Mary made plans to go to visit her daughter. When Mary, thinking of stopping somewhere warm en route to Korea, asked if I was interested in a winter vacation in Hawaii, my answer was "sure, but I'd really like to go all the way to Asia." We discovered that both of us would most like to be away from home in November when the autumn colors are gone and winter darkness, and sometimes blues, close in.
Time and finances ruled out a stop in Hawaii, but Lonely Planet guidebooks on Japan and Korea presented adventures enough for dozens of months more than the one we have.
Being unable to read straight through a guidebook, I proceed by fits and starts, looking at and combining LP suggested itineraries, surfing the internet for discount flights within Japan, ways of crossing to Korea, ways of evaluating whether the Japan Rail Pass is worthwhile for our itinerary, and accommodation ranging from youth hostels to Japanese inns or ryokan. Making each actual booking, I feel the anxiety of uncertainty whether it's the right decision, even though I know travel is full of uncertainties, and there are many different roads to travel and each might be "right" just in different ways. I reward myself for decisions made by letting myself indulge in the tangible pleasure of throwing clothing candidates for the trip on the guest bed, along with camera, passport and travel paraphernalia. 9 days to departure and I am starting to wake early with pre-trip excitement, revisions to my to-do list, and another day of tasks and mental activity divided between Vermont and northern Asia.

permalink written by  chertop on October 21, 2010 from Bennington, United States
from the travel blog: Japan and South Korea 2010
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