For some reason my suitcase was freezing when I collected it. When I got outside it quickly became covered in condensation. And it wasn’t long until I was also dripping with water. Singapore is not as hot as I feared but it is very humid.
Welcome Gift
I’m going on holiday on Tuesday. Last year Marty bought me a Kindle. I love books but I didn’t want an electronic book reader. I had looked at these before and thought the page refresh rate was too slow for the speed at which I read fiction. But the Kindle has improved and I’m in love. It’s a magic device that can hold up to 3,500 books that fits into my handbag.
The last time I went on holiday I had 12 books in my suitcase and 2 in my handbag. This time I’m going to put my Kindle in my handbag and a couple of books in the suitcase. I’ll also have to carry the charger for the Kindle. I know that the battery life should last but I don’t want to risk running out of books because I’ve run out of power.
I haven’t completely sorted out my book list yet, but I’m planning on reading the following books:
I have two friends that have been teaching me about life in America. I imagine that this isn’t a planned thing but last year I spent the 4th of July with them and went to a demolition derby and this year I visited over Hallowe’en.
Children really do go trick or treating. They dress up, go out walking around the streets, and come back with bags of candy. I’m not really sure if there is any actual tricking, as all I saw was treating, but it looked like fun. Well, it did until the only thing I could think of was a dreadful horror movie I had watched as a child that had something to do with Hallowe’en masks and the killing of children. But back to the fun things…
My friends turned their porch into a pirate ship (I kid you not) and filled a chest full of candy treasure. I dressed up as a wench and stood back and watched as the children looked amazed at the chilling effects that can be made by good lighting, a smoke machine, and several well positioned skeletons.
This was not my only Hallowe’en event as I also attended the first Hallowe’en costume party I’ve been to since I was about 12. I can still remember that party as it was fairly unusual for us to do anything like that at Hallowe’en. The church I belonged thought that dressing up as vampires and witches was evil. But for whatever reason that year someone thought it would be fun to let us dress up. And it was. I spent hours on my make-up and remember looking fairly horrific.
This time I also spent quite a bit of time on my make-up as I wanted to look suitably dead. I also discovered that a veil is a wonderful thing for hiding the lines on my face, but not an overly practical one. It makes it incredibly hard to eat or drink. It’s also surprisingly hot to dance in.
Vampire Bride
I imagine that Manhattan looks amazing if you manage to look up and see the city. But when I’m walking through the streets I have to constantly watch my feet. The pavements are uneven and crowded with people who don’t appear to be paying attention to where they are going. Today I nearly lost my footing when someone pushed their bag into the back of my knees. I spent time dodging the tobacco smoke and the ash that gets flicked my way from the people who walk and smoke. I had to navigate road works and building works. And of course you have to avoid the cars and taxis that drive at you even when you have right of way on a crossing.
And then there is the noise. The constant honking of car horns, the blaring of sirens, the construction at the World Trade site, and the yelling people. And the people here yell all the time. I accidentally knocked into a man in the supermarket and he turned and screamed into my face whilst I was apologizing. People who are walking by themselves will be yelling into their phones or their blue-tooth headsets. I met Marty for lunch today but we didn’t talk much. He couldn’t hear me in the restaurant and I didn’t feel like shouting through lunch. I’ve always thought that people from New York talked loudly and now I know why, you almost need to scream to be heard.
But despite the noise, the smells, and the chaos on the streets, this is a city I could grow to love.
Last week I went to see the largest Buddha statue in Japan at Nihon Temple, Nokogiri Mountain. It seems that many statues claim this title by tricky use of words. This may be the largest sitting Buddha made out of stone. And even that may not be accurate. It might be the largest sitting statue made out of stone that is considered an ancient Buddha, and not one of those modern ones that was probably made to attract tourists.
Whatever it actually is it was still impressive at 31 metres in height.
On Tuesday evening we stayed at a hotel in Nikko. The hotel combined features from a western hotel and a Japanese guest house. Our bedroom reflected both styles. One half had carpet, beds, a desk, and a TV, the other half had tatami mats, Japanese cushions, a tea table, and space for futons.
Japanese Section
In the countryside restaurants close very early and we decided that it would be more convenient to eat at the hotel. The meal probably cost more than the room as they were serving kaiseki ryori, the Japanese version of haute cuisine. When we first moved to Japan I avoided this sort of food as I could rarely work out what I was eating and at times even how to eat it. I assumed that by now I wouldn’t be surprised by the food I was served, but I was wrong.
We were given 13 courses, four of which we could choose ourselves. I’m not very good at recognising types of fish from pictures so I will admit that for one of the choices I just pointed at a picture and hoped for the best. We were served tofu, tempura, pickles, grilled fish, steak, beef stew, and soba, all of which I have eaten before. The third course was sashimi, raw fish. This was the course that I picked from the pictures. The waitress had two plates, one with sea trout and the other with something I thought she called “dreaming fish”. I picked the sea trout as I don’t really like looking at fish heads, and the dreaming fish had the whole body of the fish with the sashimi in the middle.
Dreaming Fish
After the waitress put the fish on the table she kept looking at us expectantly. She pointed at the fish and again I thought she said “dreaming fish”. We smiled at her, not having a clue what she was waiting for, and then looked at the fish. It moved. The head of the fish was moving. It was then that I realised she had been saying “living fish”. We were given food that was still moving and continues to move while you eat its cut up insides! I hope I managed to hide the look of horror on my face. I could not have eaten that fish, I could barely look at that fish. After that course the strange stringy stuff in broth, the unknown squishy vegetables, and the rice served in a bowl of tea were incredibly easy to eat – at least they weren’t alive.
On Tuesday morning we hired a car and headed out of the city for a couple of days. Tokyo is amazing but I wanted to see something different than the concrete jungle. We drove towards Nikko and the Chuzenji Lake area. Nikko is about 150 km outside Tokyo and has some beautiful mountains and forests. When I went to Nikko before it was by train and, although the public transport system is fantastic, it’s not the best way to see a mountain.
Once we got off the Tohoku expressway we drove up through the mountains to the lake. I loved the drive. The scary road full of hairpin bends was one-way allowing us to enjoy the drive without being overly worried about other cars. The mountains are spectacular but I found it hard to take any good pictures.
Mountains Around Nikko
I really like the mountains in Northern Ireland but they are very different than Japanese mountains. The highest mountain in Northern Ireland, Slieve Donard, is only 850 metres. Lake Chuzenji is at the foot of Mount Nantai and the lake is about 1,250 metres above sea level!
The other thing I really wanted to see was a waterfall. I had read about Kegon Waterfall but we didn’t manage to find that on Tuesday. We did, however, manage to find Yudaki Waterfall.
Yudaki Waterfall, Lake Chuzenji
Chicago O’Hare is not one of my favourite airports. Last year I ended up stuck here for over a day because of a cancelled flight. But so far this morning things have gone to plan. I got through immigration and customs really quickly. Transferring to another terminal took a bit longer, because of the security queues, but it went smoothly enough.
At the minute I’m sitting in United’s business lounge. It’s not particularly impressive but at least I’ve managed to find somewhere to sit and use my computer.
I was surprised by how unfriendly the staff are who check your boarding card as you enter the lounge. Whilst I was waiting to get in a Japanese man approached the desk and asked about problems with his wifi. No-one could help him and the response he got was “look, I just don’t know”. And then they turned away from him and left him standing looking confused with his computer. I know that the staff may not be able to help with what they think are technical questions but they could have at least said that they were sorry. Instead they looked really put out that he had asked them a question.
Unlike other lounges I have been in you are expected to pay for most of the food and drink. It’s seems that you also have to pay for wifi if you are travelling with a Star Alliance carrier other than United. I am flying with United but nobody offered me either drink vouchers or wifi. I had to ask for the wifi voucher when I heard the other members of staff offer this to people they were checking in. I miss the friendly ANA staff who treated me so well at Narita airport.
I’ve had enough of the business lounge. Obviously I’m some sort of novelty as people keep staring at me. I’m tired from hours of travel and it’s making me uncomfortable. And the final straw? I got up to walk to the ladies room and a man actually stopped mid-eating to stare. He looked at me, with his mouth wide open, and the bread roll that he had been eating forgotten in his hand. He just leered with food in his mouth!
Who knew that a YAPC::Asia T-shirt would cause such a stir?
It’s just turned 5am and I’m sitting by myself in the Asiana Business Lounge at Incheon Airport. I’ve lost all sense of time so I find myself glancing at the clock every 5 minutes, which will be a dull way to pass the 5 hours between flights.
The flight from New York took nearly 15 hours. It was mostly uneventful. A couple of hours before landing there was announcement asking if there was a doctor on-board. The passenger two seats away from me had taken ill. I had noticed her during the night but merely to wonder why she had been given a quilt as well as a blanket.
We had two medical professionals on the plane who fussed around and asked questions in English and Korean. I was impressed by the level of care given by the air stewards. The lady was too ill to get to a bathroom and the air stewards not only held the sick bags but rubbed her back whilst she was sick. They also pressed cold towels against her head and held her hand. They were kind and I’m not convinced that this level of kindness would be displayed by every airline I travel with.
I worry sometimes about travelling through unknown airports but transferring through this airport is quite easy. They claim to have the best transfer system in the world and an airport that has rest areas, play areas, museums, restaurants, shops, and massage rooms. The transfer wasn’t difficult just a bit annoying. The people in front of me were carrying four pieces of hand-luggage each and it got a bit chaotic when they tried to get all this x-rayed. But it only required patience on my part.
Now I just need to find a way to stay awake.
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