One Day, Three Countries and Four Airports

My Southeast Asian adventure began with me standing in the chilly Kanazawa night waiting for the overnight bus to Osaka. While the bus was pretty comfortable, leg room was a problem, and I'm not even that tall! I still managed to catch a few hours of sleep, making the seven hour journey pass pretty quickly.

My Vietnam Airlines flight to Ho Chi Minh city left at 11:00, and I was very impressed with the service. The food was excellent. Let me repeat... the airline food was excellent. The standard of service was quite high, but I guess that's what happens when you have an airline run by the government of a country desperate for tourist dollars.

Arrival in HCMC was pretty interesting, for one there were anti-aircraft guns at the end of the runway! Thats not something you see everyday. As we taxied towards the terminal we passed a very decrepit looking military airbase with lots of rusty Soviet Helicopters and a few sad little prop planes.

We also taxied past the gorgeous new airport terminal that is not quite open yet! The plane stopped on the tarmac, so rather than tromping down the jetway we got to disembark into a couple of buses. I thought it was kind of fun to be at ground level, with the jet I had flown in on looming above.

My layover went pretty quickly, but as I didn't have any dong or dollars I couldn't do much but read and watch the Vietnamese equivalent of MTV with the Vietnamese equivalent of Jessica Simpson etc singing crazy pop tunes.

Then it was off to Bangkok, a short one hour jaunt to the brand new but not quite fully operational Suvarnabhumi Airport. The new Bangkok International has been plagued with problems since it opened in September 2006, but I have to admit it is an impressive piece of architecture. Though, the luggage claim system needs some work, I couldn't find my flight listed on the display board, and with some 20+ carousels to choose from, randomly searching was out too! Luckily a kindly employee pointed me in the right direction, and I was off to the check-in counter for my third and final flight of the day. Phew.

The Budget airline Thai Air Asia sold me my round trip from Bangkok to Phuket for under a hundred bucks, but you do get what you pay for. Not to say it was a bad flight, but they sure cut costs in a lot of ways. The boarding pass was a receipt, and the airliner was a flying bilboard for a solar power company, whose logo was also pasted onto each of the tray tables! It was also open seating, which was a new one for me. Kinda cool though, hello window seat, nice to see you today. Even though being a night flight, it didn't really do me much good.

And there we have it, 12 hours after I left Kansai, we touched down in hot and muggy Phuket. A couple hours later, I was sound asleep in my luxurious hotel room, just waiting to hit the beach!

Dodging Breakers

A quick update. I have arrived in Phuket safely, after over 24 hours in transit, if you count the overnight bus from Kanazawa. Karon Beach is Paradise on earth, though the waves are a little on the large size. As in wow that giant wave just kocked me arse over teakettle. Still great fun, of course, this Mountain Man Colorado boy is having the time of his life.

Next Stop: The Tropics

Vacations seem to have a habit of sneaking up on me, and it has happened again! On Friday morning I'll depart Kansai International Airport, again. This time rather than heading towards two feet of snow in Denver, with a few days stopover in Chicago, I'm bound for sunnier climes! Friday I'll be off to Phuket Thailand for three nights, followed by Bangkok for three nights finishing up in Vietnam, Hanoi for two nights with a trip to Halong Bay the last night. This is, quite literally, the trip of a lifetime for me. It will be my first time in the tropics, and also my first jaunt to mainland Asia. After all, Japan is kind of like Great Britain, an island nation and thus both a part and apart of the 'mainland' culture. Well I'm about to get a big dose of all that and a bunch of Thai green curry. Watch out South East Asia, The TravelinGrant is on his way!

Genius and Obsession

Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time

Dava Sobel

and

The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology

Simon Winchester

In the past several weeks I have had the pleasure to read both of these excellent popular science books, and I was struck by the similarity in the stories. The time periods and individual breakthroughs achieved could not have been more different, but the difficulties encountered and the temperaments of the two individuals, John Harrison and William Smith, were quite similar.

In the late 1600's one of the greatest problems for science and commerce was longitude. Determining latitude, or how far north and south a sailing ship is was done quite easily using the sun and stars, but longitude, or how far east or west, was considerably more difficult. The problem for shipping was so severe, that in 1714 the English Parliament offered a "Longitude Prize" to the first person or persons who demonstrated a way to accurately determine one's longitude at sea.

Between 1730 and 1770 John Harrison battled technology, opposing theories, a hostile Longitude board, and his own perfectionism in the search for a clock that could keep accurate time at sea. This is much more difficult than we might suppose, being he had to contend with temperature variations, the rocking of the ships, and fluctuations in humidity. His designs were years ahead of their time, and he perfected some methods that are still in use today.

Sobel's prose is perfect, and her tale is very compelling. The story is littered with interesting people, like Sir Issac Newton, and fascinating facts, like the way we discovered the speed of light. One of the opposing longitude methods was timing the eclipses of Jupiter's moons, but the actual eclipse times kept varying from the predicted times. One man figured out that the difference was because light had a speed, and when Jupiter was on the far point of its orbit, it simply took a little longer for the light to arrive.

We go now from outer space and clock making to geology fieldwork and walking, lots of walking. William Smith was, like Harrison a tradesman, and not nobly born. Rather than a clockmaker, Smith was a surveyor, born in 1769. He was an expert on canal placement, drainage, and mining. It was his explorations deep under the earth in Southern England's coal mines that he discovered that the same rocks appeared in the same order, a thought that had occurred to no one else. He soon noticed one other thing, that while two rocks may look the same, the fossils in each formation were different, and could be used to tell the rocks apart.

Armed with this knowledge, Smith crisscrossed England, charting outcroppings, collecting fossils, and putting many miles on his shoes. While his efforts produced a beautiful, and essentially accurate, geologic map of England, the first of its kind anywhere, his profligate spending landed him in debtors prison, and enemies plagiarized his work. Luckily, Smith did receive due recognition, but it took decades.

As always Winchester layers in tons of details and facts, his book is considerably longer and more footnoted than Longitude. However, the story of Smith's rise, fall, and redemption reads like a fine play or novel, except that its all true.

Both Harrison and Smith were ahead of their time, and both sacrificed decades of their lives in their obsessive quests. One for a clock that wouldn't lose two seconds of time on a voyage that left normal clocks gaining and losing minutes a day and the other on a map of an entire unseen world. Both books provide a glimpse of England in an era of profound change. From farming and pastoral life to a life of commerce, mining, industry and science. I highly recommend both books, but if you are looking for a shorter, quicker read, than Longitude is the better. For those who enjoy a more in depth treatment, or who adore Geology as much as I do, then The Map That Changed the World is also a worthy read.

Integrity?

The post below this one marks a bit of a first for me, in that it contains three images that have been altered in very subtle ways. Usually when I make changes to my pictures, I do it in a big way, and I let people know that this is different from my original picture. But for these three pictures, I didn't want big changes, I just wanted minor tweaks to contrast and such to make them look better. Usually I alert my readers to any modifications, but to do so would have interrupted the flow of the post. The question for both myself and photographers in general is, where is the line? When does a little tweaking become too much tweaking? Should I alert people whenever I change a picture, even if it is only minor changes? What do you think?

Cherry Blossoms in Full Bloom

Last weekend was really the official start to Spring here in Japan, or at least, here in Kanazawa. The annual explosion of cherry blossoms is widely celebrated by spreading out a tarp and drinking beer and chu-hi at one in the afternoon. That is one part of the celebration I just can't really get behind. Drinking in the afternoon is, for me, a one way ticket to an early nap, and who wants to ruin their sunny Sunday napping?



One of my students made sure to point out that traditionally the Hanami parties were about viewing the beautiful flowers, and then translating that physical beauty into haiku. I think the poetry got lost on the way to the excessive alcohol consumption.



Which doesn't mean that the general idea isn't sound. Actually, gathering friends together to chat and cavort in fine spring weather is a fantastic idea. Get people outside and enjoying the fresh air for the first time since late November. Of course, being the psycho Photo-Boy that I am I had already gone to Kanazawa Castle and Kenrokuen the day before the schools Hanami Party. Most of Kanazawa joined me there, or so it seemed. Anything worth doing in Japan is worth doing by everybody!



The Sunday of the party dawned bright and clear, a rarity in Ishikawa. We had a few interlopers tho, one of the avian kind, and a couple of crazy kids.





One of my students brought her two delightful young children to the party. She told them about me before they arrived, so upon seeing me they both rushed at me yelling, "Grant-sensei!!!" They then spent an hour running round, rolling down the hill and generally making a mess of their clothing. A great time was had by all.



I then met up with some friends and we absconded to the Mexican place for a long overdue dinner of enchiladas and tacos. After that we headed back to Kenrokuen for the night lights. Despite having hundreds of megabytes of pictures from the garden at night I brought my camera and tripod, much to all the disgust of the girls.



Of course I promptly got separated from the group. It took a disgustingly long time to get back together, being it was pretty dark and really really crowded. Despite that, and the chilly April night, we had a good time, and the lights were a beautiful cap to a pretty good weekend.

Sakura: Up Close and Personal

Odds and Ends and a taste of Sakura in HDR

To start things off, here is a nice exterior shot of my new apartment building. It won't win any architectural awards, but I suppose there is something to be said for the functional modern box look.

I was glad last week that the aftershocks finally stopped waking me up. Seriously we had a pretty good number of aftershocks hitting the area at seven or eight in the morning. For a guy who works from one to ten this is incredibly annoying.

But this is Japan, so of course we had something new to wake me up hours before my alarm.



Mayoral elections! Hooray! Yup, Kanazawa got a new Mayor over the weekend, and in the days leading up to the elections the city was besieged by candidates speaker trucks. The super right wing fascist speaker trucks are pretty annoying, but relatively limited in number. But when you have a whole stack of candidates on the stump in a city the size of Kanazawa it can get pretty bad. Songs, announcements, bored looking pretty women waving a pedestrians. It seems a strange way to try and get people to vote for you. Hey, lets be really annoying and piss off the electorate! To be fair, I guess TV attack adds in the states are pretty bad too.



I'm not entirely sure, but I think this is the list of candidates. Oh, and with the election safely out of the way, I figured on a nice long sleep in this morning. Well, that was before the LP Man spent 30 minuted manhandling large, empty, loud LP bottles into his truck. It sounded like some crazy steel drum/ gong instrument. Argh!




The Cherry Blossoms are out this week, and it is much better than last year. Spring 2006 was really cold and rainy, and the flowers were late and strangely spread out. While Denver has been braving snow, Kanazawa's early April has been pretty nice during the day, though nights have been pretty frigid.

Ironically enough I hadn't intended to make any HDR images of the Sakura. After all, there isn't a High Dynamic Range to capture. Lucky me, I accidentally clicked on the wrong file name, and created the picture below.



For an 'accident' I really loved the strange 'glow' effect on the flowers, so I quickly fiddled with a few other pictures. While the original is still the best of the bunch, I think some of these look really great.



The effect is certainly very different, and while it won't supplant more traditional looking pictures anytime soon, I enjoy both creating and viewing HDR images. That said, I have to admit that while these look interesting and cool, the original images do look better, and will be posted soon.

Nagoya Aquarium

Since I had been foiled by an early close on Saturday, I made it a point to go to Nagoya Aquarium on Sunday. Sadly, I hadn't counted on one thing...



Large cultural attractions, at 2:00 Sunday Afternoon are filled with screaming children.

ooops.



Now, thats not to say I didn't enjoy it. The fish are awesome, and I had fun trying to get good pictures. But the sheer size of the crowd was pretty mind-boggling, and about half way through I got really antsy, and pretty much just jetted for the exit.



Well, that was two lessons learned. Make sure you go to attractions before they close, and don't go on Sunday afternoon.

Versatile Solutions for Modern Living

Well the move is over, let the unpacking begin! I found some pretty 'interesting' artifacts while I was packing, it really is amazing how much junk I can accumulate in a year. Even a tiny apartment can hold a lot of odds and ends. Once again, I seem to have collected far to many books! I guess being a reader does have its downsides.

The new apartment, as you can see, is a bit larger. The loft is smaller, and with its curtain has a very 'clubhouse' feel that I actually quite like. It provides a cubbyhole to escape the world!

There are a few things that really combine to make me happy about the new place. For one, it came prewired and ready to go for broadband access. That is just too cool to me, use your TV (standard with the apt) to sign up, plug the cable into your computer and you are good to go. Also, my shower has... water pressure. As in, almost painful water pressure. God I love it. Oh, and there is a heater in the shower. People in the states may not understand, but in your average Japanese apartment there is a heater in the main room, and thats it. The kitchen, bathroom etc are all unheated. This can lead to rather unpleasant showers in the winter. But not anymore, there is a fantastically powerful heater built into the ceiling.

While the new apartment is better in many ways, I admit to feeling a pang of sadness when I stood in my empty old apartment. The year and three months I spent there represents the longest I have lived in one place since I moved out of my parents house. It is also the first place that was really MINE. It wasn't Jason's House, Sean Marie's House, Mom and Dad's House, it was Grant's House. I was surprised at how keenly I felt the loss, especially given how much I complained about the size!

Moving (Again!)

The company that owns my current shoe box sold it to another housing company, who is refurbishing all the apartments and raising the rent. So, with a mere 6 months to go on my planned 2 year stint, I get to move around Japan for a second time. Luckily, instead of moving across the country I'm only shifting down the street a bit. Still a pain in the neck, but it could be, and has been, much worse. Sadly for my many loyal readers, this means that updates could be spotty for the next few weeks, until I get internet at the new place. That could be in days, it could be in a month or more! I have a few interesting things I hope to post soon, and of course my trip to Thailand/ Vietnam is coming up in about a month! Stay tuned.

Hokuriku Earthquake

As picked up by the seismographs of the USGS. The great Ishikawa Earthquake of 2007 hit us at 9:42 AM this morning, and clocked in at an impressive 6.2 Magnitude. Travis and I went out with a few people last night, and were sound asleep when the apartment started to shake rather violently. We were woken up, and I have to admit it was a little freaky. The apartment was shaking for a good 30 seconds, and I could hear some of the rampant clutter in my place shaking loose and falling. While it is a pretty efficient alarm, it is not the way you want to wake up on a Sunday morning! The aftershocks conspired to keep us all awake, though I'll admit I tried to go back to sleep. Luckily I'm safe, but it was a little disconcerting to have people in Nagoya, which is way on the other side of Japan from Kanazawa, texting me to see if I was ok. After the main shock, I leaned over and mentioned to Travis that we had just been bemoaning Kanazawa's lack of earthquakes! According to the BBC, there is a Tsunami warning issued for Ishikawa, but no reports of damage or casualties yet.

The Bright Lights of Sakae: The Sequel

Almost everything worth doing in Nagoya, especially at night, is in Sakae. I had two goals of my own this night, taking some pictures of Oasis 21 and the TV Tower with my beautiful Nikon, and eating some tebasaki (awesome teriyaki chicken wings).



Being major Nagoya landmarks, the TV Tower and Oasis 21 were pretty easy to find and photograph. I didn't take too much time, as I've already got plenty of pictures of this part of Japan. A few reprises with my new, better tools were all that was required. Then a quick stop downstairs for some Jamocha Almond Fudge from Baskin Robbins. Yes they have Baskin Robbins in Japan, only here they just call it 31.



The tebasaki proved to be a little bit more difficult to obtain. As long time readers will know I frequent a Nagoya chain called Yamachan that centers around providing chicken of all types. Chicken sashimi, chicken skin, chicken cartilage, and even a few things that I might want to eat, like chicken wings. There are literally dozens of Yamachan restaurants scattered around the Sakae and Fushimi area of Nagoya. Dozens. Yet Liz and I walked for a good 30-40 minutes, circling the center of Sakae and finding NOTHING. Of course if we hadn't been looking than we would have seen about 10 of the places. *sigh*. My GPS (Grant Positioning System) has been getting wonky lately, I suppose I need to see about getting it serviced. We ended up in Kanayama, over in my old neighborhood, and finally found the cluster of three restaurants on the same corner. Why you need three all right there, I'm not quite sure, but it was great for us. Tebasaki, Takoyaki Gyoza (gyoza filling in takoyaki dough, minus the octopus) and more made the long search more than worth it. Liz was actually pretty happy to have discovered the delicious new restaurant.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

A very happy St. Patrick's Day to everybody. We are having a big bash here, which I suppose is rather ironic as there is only (to my knowledge) 2 actual Irish people in the whole prefecture!

Nagoyako

Rather than continue on to Nagoya, I decided to take a quick side trip to Italy. I mean, Japan is great, but Italy, now that is one awesome country!



Let me back up. I got back on the train to at Maibara, but that far down the line from Kanazawa it was standing room only. Luckily, I got to stand next to a man who'd, at 1 in the afternoon, obviously been consuming more than his fair share of Asahi Super Dry. I saw him stagger down the hall to the snack cart, buy another can, and then stagger back to his spot. Yikes.



I met up with Liz (couchsurfer) at Nagoya station, and we decided to go to the port area for some tacos and to see the aquarium. It had been over a year since I'd been to Nagoyako, so I was looking forward to the trip. The redeveloped area is kind of silly, but I have to admit they've done a pretty good job. Of course, Osaka's port area is a little better, but I won't hold that against Nagoya!



The taco's were pretty good, but I was really eager to see the aquarium. Unfortunately, like everything else in Japan, the fish closed early. Yup, 5:00 PM, Saturday evening, was closing time. Now, I know that it was February, and not exactly peak season, but honestly, 5:00?!?!? On Saturday?!?!? That just boggles my mind. So with time on our hands we walked over to the Italian village, where you could cram an entire Italian vacation into about 30 overpriced minutes. We just wandered the streets and had a good time laughing about how it was all so real, yet so fake.



A trip up the ferris wheel also helped to quell my pangs of sorrow at the shuttered aquarium. The sunset, and the panoramic view of Nagoya was amazing.



It was a pretty windy day though, and while the car was very stable, it wasn't entirely stable. There was a bit of rocking back and forth, and the noise was actually quite loud. Poor Liz wasn't very fond of heights, and the racket and movement rather unnerved her. The glorious view helped make the experience worthwhile though!



It's been said before, but I'll say it again, Nagoya is a great city to live in, with lots to do and see. But as a tourist destination, it leaves a bit to be desired. Osaka does everything Nagoya does, but better. Well except for chicken wings, Nagoya has better chicken wings!

Hikone-Jo

As noted a few posts ago I went to Nagoya to see some old friends, most especially Johanna, who was having a farewell party. Between Kanazawa and Nagoya is Hikone, a pleasant town that happens to host one of the few remaining 'real' castles in Japan. There are only 12 of these left, and I've made it my goal to see as many as possible. Or at least more than Zach.



Hikone castle is not one of the largest, grandest, or most interesting Japanese castles. This is not to disparage this plucky little fortress, constructed in the early 1600's, but I have come to realize that there is not much to distinguish these castles.



Each burg has its own fascinating, or not so fascinating, local history, but I'll readily admit that after a year and a half the anecdotes and suits of armor are starting to run together!



Luckily for me it was a gorgeous day, cold and windy, being so close to the massive Lake Biwa, but clear and sunny. A perfect late February morning really. The winter has been quite mild, well it was mild until this week, so down in Shiga Prefecture the Ume (plum blossoms) were out in full force.






So after a quick tour of the keep and the adjacent museum, I was ready to finish the trip to Nagoya, meet up with Couchsurfer Liz, and grab some lunch!