Sleeping Jellyfish

As a student, my main priority is to learn. Now many of the folks educated in or studying the “hard sciences” give us Liberal Arts folks some guff because we just read books and the newspaper and then sit around and talk over coffee about whats going on, who was involved, why did it happen, how did they do it, when did it occur. Class dismissed. Now I may not be a math wiz, or understand the intricacies of quantum physics, but I would say that my critical thinking and problem solving skills are top notch. So are my coffee drinking, newspaper and blog reading, and sitting on my duff talking nonsense skills.

I'm a pretty big deal in Japan. 新宿、東京

The one thing that all students should agree on is that we can only make educated decisions based on what we know. This generally falls into two categories: facts we’ve learned (knowledge) and useful experiences (wisdom). As I think back over my travels during the winter holiday I realize that I could have done a few things better, but I didn’t have the proper information at the time to make the right decisions. Two of those stick out quite blatantly at me, and so I’d like to give warning so maybe others won’t make the same mistakes.

1) Don’t use Facebook as an online photo storage site.

This might seem evident to seasoned photographers, but as I’m of the more casual type (in fact when I’m not traveling I never take photos) it didn’t occur to me that some photo hosting sites might change the size and file type of your photo. While I was traveling, I would have to make stops at a net café to upload my photos to the internet and make more space on my memory card. Between this blog (which allows me quite a bit of free upload space!) and Facebook, the later had a faster upload speed, and since I was often paying per 15 minutes I of course used it. Well, it crunched some of my pictures. Crunched them into smaller, lower quality versions of themselves.

Lantern and Light Exhibit near the Imperial Garden, 東京

I’ve talked before about setting up a flickr account as a photo sharing and photo storage page, and since I’ve returned I finally did, after I found out about the Facebook crunching. Check the link at left. So, as far as next time, I hope to be better prepared in two ways. One, use flickr to host photos online, not Facebook, so they don’t get smushed. Two, get a bigger memory card, probably the easiest way to solve the issue. I’m not sure what the price is at home, but 8GB SD cards are about 20$ here. It’s probably not what AJ/Peter/Jordan/Shelli/Word use but it would have solved my problem.

2) Check all transportation options before leaving your house.

Now I had a vague idea of what I was going to do, where I was going to go, and how I was going to get there, but about 10 minutes on the internet would have saved me a considerable amount of money.  I was frugal to be sure, I used strictly night buses all the way to Osaka, the cheapest public transportation in Japan, but I could have done better. I didn’t find out about the 青春十八切符 – seishun juhachi kippu – until I got to Osaka.  For about 23$ a day one can take as many local trains and some buses as they wish, even some night trains. With the two days I spent getting from Akita to Osaka, I could have done it cheaper, in about the same amount of time, and possibly even stopped at a few more places on the way.

I often like to do my traveling on a whim which often leads to exciting and unexpected adventures.  It also frustrates people a lot. Especially planners. Like AJ. But I really wouldn’t have it any other way, and I have absolutely no “regrets” about my winter break adventure, but I learned a few things too, which is good, right?  So, when spring break comes up, instead of going to Cancun, getting drunk, and sleeping with nameless strangers like all the other tools in the States, I think I’ll be going to Hokkaido, and hitch-hiking around the island. But this time I’ll be prepared, with a bigger memory card, my flickr account, and a seishun 18 kippu in my wallet, just in case.

Again, don’t use Facebook to store and share photos. These have been some of the salvaged ones.

Well, I’m back from my brief exodus to Korea and back. 23 days in the saddle, and I have returned with lots of pictures, memories, and friendships strewn across Japan and South Korea. The purpose of my journey specifically was to visit my girlfriend, AJ, in Gwangju, South Korea where she works as an English teacher at the elementary and middle school levels. More broadly I wanted to see whatever there is to be seen, meet interesting people, find hidden places, and eat delicious foods. I think I accomplished all of theses objectives and would consider this trip an outstanding success.

An hour till the next train in Nagiso

I took a few hundred pictures over the course of the trip. AJ took quite a few as well. I’m probably one of the worst people to keep on of these types of blogs because I just want to tell everything and show everything with no filter whatsoever. The mundane, the details, the normal things; these are what really interest me. The daily lives of people, how they get actually live in such a radical different place, what they eat, listen to, where the walk, what their hobbies are like, and on and on. I’m the worst tourist ever.

To fill in a bit on getting to Korea, I’ll say that I learned a lot about transportation in Japan. After taking the night bus from Tokyo, a bit dismayed that I payed a bit more than some of my other friends, I was again bummed out when I had issues getting to Osaka, and had to split the trip up into two stops; I took a night bus to Nagoya, arrived before sunlight, and had to sit around till the next bus to Osaka which was a few hours away, and more expensive than a single bus from Shinjuku to Osaka would have been. Then when I got to Osaka, feeling the utter dread and peril of having the ferry canceled for the weekend, I was blessed by the wonderful women at the Osaka East Exit Information Kiosk. They informed me that during the holiday seasons, about 3 or 4 times a year, there will often be a special ticket on sale, called the 青春十八切符, or “youthful 18 ticket”, though anyone can use it. It always the bearer to ride any local buses and trains and some special ones, but not the Shinkansen or Limited Express. They also gave me a time table and helped me plan out my route so that I would hopefully get there on time, before the ferry departed. I purchased one at a discount ticketing booth they had directed me too, and then had nothing but to wait until morning to begin jaunt. Welcome to Osaka.

The Famous Osaka Ferris Wheel

I have noticed that Japan, never ceasing to amaze and bewilder, has two quite distinct personalities. Like many of its faces, the difference between daytime japan and night time japan is quite an impressive one. For example, the cooperative, polite, obedient salaryman turns into a rowdy and belligerent drunkard.

Now to be fair, many cities, especially large ones, have the creatures come out at night, for better or for worse and that provides a lot of flavor to an area. A friend I made in Shinjuku, Keisuke, had told me about this place in Osaka, and I happened to have the address to it in the back of my Slingshot planner. So I looked up the address, and wandering like I do, found a wonderful little community space that welcomed me with open arms, and fresh plate of warm food. They gave me some very cool literature in both English and Japanese, and a few Japanese only publications, about what they do. They focus on the arts, on wholistic cooking and agriculture, and revisiting Japanese culture in both traditional and non-traditional ways. They reach out to the homeless and those with disabilities, and provide many and workshops and classes for both adults and kids in the area. This is where I also met my first Japanese vegetarian – going 13 years strong!

The place I described is called the CoCoRoom and operates as a café and meeting space for people from the area. I did not catch either of my two friends names, and they never asked for mine, but that didn’t stop the hours of conversation, and the late night Japanese and English lessons. They have a well stocked library where you can borrow what you’d like, and flexible menu where you can negotiate what you’d like to eat – something I’ve never experienced in Japan, you usually just pick something, and it is how it is.

I spent the night sleeping in an internet café, in Japan called a manga kissa, which often have a large library of manga along with free soft drinks, internet, television and even console video games. But honestly, I just went there to sleep, and it happens quite often, whether traveling, drunk, or bored, many people will check into a manga kissa and clock in for a few hours, often staying till morning. 6 hours and 20$ later, I felt rested and ready to take on the whole day of trains.

Well, tomorrow starts the first day of the 冬学期 (fuyu gakki), my winter semester here at Akita. I’m thinking I’m just going to take two classes because they are much more intensive than the fall and spring classes due to the shortened time period. Japanese Language of course and the second class I’m not sure about, but probably Japanese Foreign Policy.

How is this whole thing going? Is it fun to read? Is it too slow, too infrequent, are there enough pictures, too much text? Let me know what you want to see and I will do my best to meet your requests!

Oh! Super exciting development. Since this isn’t the most efficient way to post and view pictures by any means, myself and AJ have set up a Flickr page so we can both upload photos from our time in Asia. I will have my own page too, and I believe she plans on getting her own as well, but the joint on will be mostly pictures from when we are together, so then we can share the files among ourselves as well, and each own a set of the pictures. Anyways, yeah, thats cool. I will post the link at left soon, when we get some pictures up. Until then, here’s one of us. Shes pretty cute.