On the road again!
I’m off to Nagasaki at sparrows fart tomorrow morning, as are Kat, Darin & Jake Taiga, to attend Tyler and Mihoko’s wedding. It’s gonna be such a hoot! Tylers family are coming out from Wisconsin and it’ll be their first time in Japan. There is a lot of cool stuff planned for us, hopefully the rain won’t be too much of a problem.
After the 3 day wedding celebrations settle down, I’m planning a slow trip up to Kyoto on my own, stopping off in Onomichi, Kurashiki and Nara. In Kyoto, I’m meeting up with my dear Aureole – she’ll be in Japan for 5 days on her way to the European Tattoo Convention circuit. I’m pretty excited about being able to show her Kyoto in hanami time. The cherry blossoms will be out and there’ll be a great vibe in the air.
Spring is really an important time in Japan (as I have mentioned on at least 5 other occasions) – an annual cycle ends, another begins. Schools graduate. Companies accept their new staff intakes. Taxes are paid… More so than usual, this spring feels like significant time for me. Lots of people leaving, others swinging by for visits, and all the while all of them/us making great plans for the future. I had an interesting meeting with a guy today about a potentially awesome option for my fabulous new career (in all it’s embryonic glory). Hope it pans out. Will be able to talk about it some more by the end of April (if we can make it happen!).
Anyways.
You can see some snaps from the past weeks worth of events over at my facebook albums. They include pics from the mad night out for the beautiful J-sters flying visit, Mountaingoat and Oshioto’s itterashai party at Araku, a day at the park and Timbo and Andrews sayonara party. Actually, Tim isn’t leaving till next week but Kat, Darin & I are heading off to Nagasaki so last night was the last night we’d all be in Tokyo the same night… seems so strange. I will really miss you, Tim. Tokyo won’t be quite the same without you.
Kanpai!
Bye Timbo!
Bye (again) Andrew!
Walk long and prosper Mountaingoat
*Love* that golden hair J-Ster!
Oh. And I bought a new camera.
The Roadtrip
Hello friends, are you still with me? I know it’s been a while but it only seems like a few days! So. I’m in Tokyo, nestling back into my cosy little house with a new vegie cookbook, a million chores to catch up on, fresh Kaldi coffee in the fridge and my full iTunes library. I got back on Tuesday, during a remarkably mild period – it was 12.5 degrees that day, but the coming forecasts scare me and I think I feel a healthy hibernation coming on. I’m back at work, eating well, avoiding alcohol and considering a detox.
2007 was a fantastic year for me, I have to say, although it did have the odd sour point too. Spending the past 6 or so weeks with my family and getting to catch up with so many old friends and family members during the Australian holiday was such a momentous occasion. The trip was important on so many levels, and I will be sharing many of the highlights with you over the coming weeks as I trawl through the photos and dig through my beer-soaked memory files.
In the mean time, please feel free to check out this ROADTRIP slideshow I made testing the slideshow generator at animoto. It’s made up of photos taken during the roadtrip I took from Mossman, in far north Queensland, to Maroochydore in the states south-east – a distance of around 1800 km. I had this idea about making a roadtrip slideshow after watching the awesome video Michael Gondry made of a cross-USA road trip. Of course, his video is way more awesome and well-planned than this little kindergarten piece… but I have to say I’m pretty happy with animoto – it’s a rather nifty little service though the photos seem to have degraded a little and maybe even been made a little fuzzy (?).
They told me I needed a long, legal song so I chose one of my favourite old songs – The Day Everything… – from the fabulous Rival Flight (a great band I used to manage) since I doubt they’ll sue me for copyright infringement. It’s a little dramatic but I like the effect and I think it makes for a nice little first slideshow video attempt.
Just remember, it’s 8:49 minutes of your life that you’ll never get back 
Oh, and I put a handful of new holiday pics up at Flickr. More to come.
8 days in paradise
Joris leaps
Traveling ain’t traveling without taking feet shots everywhere you go. I found a foot-photo buddy in Joris. Kindred spirits, truly. He he.
Wun, one of the local pretty boys. Terrible but persistant guitar player.
Gili Air from Gili Meno, taken during an island-hopping snorkelling trip.
Indonesians are so playful!
My wonderful hosts on Gili Air, Amadea and Ari
Today I find myself back in Ubud, Bali, after 8 days in the glorious Gili Islands of Lombok.
India, in a convoluted nutshell….
On the eve of my flight to Bali, I feel compelled to put India to bed in a blog sense – yet I feel as if I have barely scratched the surface in my sparse literary attempts here on the blog. Not only have I become a poor e-mail correspondent (as all my friends can corroborate), it seems I have become a poor blogger too (and yet a rabid facebook-er and Flickr-er: I put it down to a poor attention span from too much net-time)…
In order to try to encompass all of my experiences in a not-too-wordy manner, I’ve decided to make a list. So, here goes….
Things I have done and seen since I left Tokyo on July 15th 2007:
Mr Sharma’s 8 things you didn’t know about me…
I’ve been invited to participate in numerous tell-all blog meme’s over the years and have always delicately refused participation. There’s really quite enough about me on the net (via this blog) already rendering me quite transparent, and in hindsight, possibly dangerously exposed should I be forced to suffer the whole horrible fresh job-application process in a world that now googles every applicant for anything….
But in Jodhpur, Ryosuke and I enjoyed a 15 minute sitting with the charmingly dry, eccentric, nonchalant “world-famous” Merangarh Fort astrologer and palmist, Mr S.L. Sharma, and I thought I’d share some of the things he told me about…. well, me.
So. Here are 8 things you didn’t know about me, as according to Mr Sharma. I’ll let you guess which points may be vaguely correct or completely wrong or bleedingly obvious….:
Flickr Action
Another short one, I’m afraid. Too hot to sit in this place to write the nice long thoughtful blog post I would like to, on top of everything else that needs to be done here today… I leave India on Thursday morning, and hopefully tomorrow – my last day here – I will be able to photograph what will hopefully be the biggest Tibetan rights march seen in India, to bring to worldwide attention the ongoing appalling situation taking place in – not just Tibet – but the Tibetan community as a whole. However, seems the Indian Gov’t have firm ideas that the demo will NOT take place so… the atmosphere here in Majnu Ka Tilla is heavy and tense and frentic. People have come from all over, and I was lucky to get a room – monks and nuns, mountain folk and young people some in traditional dress and some wearing converse sneakers… it’s exciting.
I have posted the last of my Rajasthan pic’s at flickr. Here is a link-guide:
The entire India 2007 collection
Delhi (first days)
Jaipur
Pushkar
The local bus from Pushkar to Jodhpur
Jodhpur
Jaisalmer and the desert (absolutely magnificent!)
Udaipur
Agra
*update* – links are fixed and I added a link to the Agra set too….
Let me just say (again, again, again) that Rajasthan is a wonderful place and that we had a fantastic time there. So much so that we canceled all other locations – apart from hideous Agra (to see the Taj Mahal) – so we could really soak it all up.
Back in Delhi
Just a quick note to let you know that I’m back in Delhi, Ryosuke is back in Japan so I’m traveling solo again, and that I hope to have some new pics up on flickr in a few days, and a couple of longer blog posts too.
In the mean time, if you haven’t already taken a look – here is the India 2007 Photo album as it stands so far….
Jaipur (Days 3 – 5)
Jaipur – the pink city – was as hassle-filled as we had heard. The place itself was gorgeous but dear god, we couldn’t move a foot without being hassled by street kids, touts, shop owners, rickshaw drivers and dodgy dudes wanting to be guides.
A week in India, generally speaking….
Many more pic’s at Flickr… (click on the link in the left column)
Day 8: July 22, 2007.
We are staying in very cool guest house in Jodhpur (central Rajastan), called Durag Niwas. It’s a family run business, and the owner is a fabulous, flamboyantly theatrical 24 year old named Govind. Such a character! And his family are sweet, gentle, efficient and most welcoming. So far the best place we’ve stayed by a long way.
Pushkar
Sitting in a very dusty internet cafe – with a very dusty, faded keyboard – in very dusty Pushkar with a very patchy internet connection, looking out at the passing parade of colour and noise. Su-san and I are in love with spectacular Rajastan and have cancelled the planned Himalayan leg of the journey so we can spend more time here. We’ve been absolutely going hard since we arrived but after todays morning-tea(actually mango lassi) meeting in a breezy lake-side cafe, and the subsequent Himalayan cancellation, we have decided to slow way down so we have time to write & blog and well… just think, and process and relax.
Oh, the photo’s. Just you wait. This place is so special.
More soon.
First days: Delhi
I was in India 7 years ago – my first time out of Australia, and I remember I found Delhi utterly daunting. I couldn’t believe the numbers of people sleeping in the streets and the abject poverty everywhere. 7 years later, older and wiser, Delhi was a much more pleasant experience. The number of homeless seems to have dropped some, there were nowhere near as many beggars and touts (but make no mistake, they are still all-too-plentiful) and there is now a major metro system, provided on credit by the Mitsubushi corporation. The project should have paid itself off in another year or two, and the Indian government plans to reduce ticket fares to more affordable prices then, so more people can use it. I was astonished by how many people were using it. It was packed. It was also clean, air-conditioned and patrolled by the army. You have to go through metal detectors and bag-searches to get in.
The distance calls
“10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
Listen can you hear the distance calling
Far away but will be with you soon”
Well, here I am. 2 a.m. and *finally* ready to go. Just this quick blog post and I’m off to bed for 4 hours….. I’m sure I’ve forgotten some annoyingly important things but they’ll just have to wait. I’m out of time now. I’ve been quite nervous but now that everything is as ready as it can be, I feel a sense of calm and relief. It’s nice.
Budget-travelling through India is going to be a challenge after all the comforts of my cushy little life here in Tokyo but challenges are totally what makes life liveable and exciting and goddamn I need a good dose of reality. Living in Tokyo can be a little like living in a dream world sometimes. It’s so surreal in all its manifest consumerism and convenience. I heard that the average life-expectancy of a mobile phone here is 4 months (a lot of people have 2 phones – one for work, one personal). That’s a pretty good indication of how out of control consumerism is here. Somewhere in the world there is a pile of unloved mobile phones as big as Fuji-san. Gads. Anyways…. I digress. I will miss my room, and my house, and my garden. Especially my comfy futon.
I guess I should introduce my travel buddy, Suzan since he will, no doubt, feature heavily in the weeks to come. His full name is Ryosuke Suzuki, and in the Japanese way, his friends take the first syllable of his (sur)name then add -san to it (or -chan, or -kun, or -chin) – and so, he becomes Su-san or Suzan.
He is a sweet, pure soul – an art teacher and photographer who embraces most things in his life with a fabulous sense of wonder and gusto and complete focus – to the point where he can be an utter space cadet about basic mundane stuff. I’m really looking forward to travelling with him because we’ll no doubt make each other see things the other would probably never notice. He’s usually a very calm man which will help keep me grounded when I have the urge to smack people in the face – we’ve been practising Japanese phrases for tense/tricky/difficult situations a bit so we don’t have to use English in front of English speakers. That’ll be fun.
Suzan and I arrive in Delhi at 5 p.m. local time this evening, to be greeted by Tenzin Sonam – my great friend Tenzin Choegyal’s nephew. He’s Tibetan so we will be greeted with a white silk scarf around our necks and a small prayer. Then we’re off to Majnu-ka-tilla, the Tibetan camp in Delhi where I stayed 7 years ago. I’m curious to see how much India has changed. No doubt it’s still a complete head-fuck. Hope so, anyway.
The itinerary so far looks something like this: Delhi – Rajastan – Agra – Khajuraho – Varanasi – Manali – Spiti Valley – Delhi. We have to try to do that in 3 weeks and I don’t really think it’s feasible but we’ll see how we go. After India, Suzan returns to Tokyo and I’m off to Thailand where I’ll be taking the train from Bangkok to Singapore over 3 nights, then spending 2 weeks in Bali where I intend to find a cool beach hut and just chill.
I’m taking my canon DSLR with my 2 fave lenses, and the holga and 6 rolls of B&W film and no doubt will come back with a motherload of images. Not sure how much posting I’ll be doing – depends on internet access, but I hope it’ll be pretty regular. I always get all verbose and poetic and shit when I travel.
Talk to you from India….
Technorati Tags: travel
Yamanakako
Please slip on over to my Flickr photostream to see some photos from my fabulous trip out to Yamanakako on Sunday to Tuesday. Thanks so much to my old mate Stephen for his kindness and hospitality! We had a great time just hangin’ out and drinking and watching anime.
On Monday, I took a solitary walk around the lake – 14 km’s, stopping every so often at deserted cafes to warm up and drink bad coffee. This lake sits quite literally at the absolute foot of Mt Fuji (see this old picture here to get an idea) and is surrounded by forests and mountains so it’s quite picturesque. If you go in mid-winter, you may even get a chance to do some ice-fishing when the lake freezes over. On Monday it was totally overcast and cold and windswept and Fuji-san was nowhere to be seen.
There is something very eerily soulful and wild about the shabby old tourist traps in country Japan in the off-season. I don’t miss living out there too much, but I do feel its pull every so often. I think I’ll go again soon.
Technorati Tags: flickr, japan, photography, travelphotography
A smooth transition
My last evening in Phuket was spent at Nikita’s Bar in lovely, laid back Rawai, with the teaching team from the course: Pete, Greg, Clare, Simon, Mark and their respective partners. A lovely way to go out. Didn’t plan to drink for 7 hours straight but hey, when in Rome 
…. Anyway, this was the view at sunset…. The other photo’s below were all taken the next day as I left Phuket: I hired a TukTuk to take me around to the more Northern beaches I hadn’t visited yet, on my way to the airport. A great way to farewell that beautiful island.
And now, after 6 weeks away, I’m back in Tokyo.
Technorati Tags: japan, photography, teachingenglish, thailand, tokyo, travel, travelphotography
Phuket: present perfect continuous
Yo. I got 98% for my test and have passed the two assignments I’ve had back and all my observed teaching sessions…. a couple of assignments to be handed back, one more assignment (just making a game, actually) to do and *! – I’ll be done, with that dirty little piece of card parchment in my hot little trembling hand. The ceremony is being held tomorrow morning even though we all have to spend 22 minutes playing our game with real students tomorrow evening. There were plans for a celebratory beach bonfire for tomorrow night, but it seems the rains have set in again. Damn wet season.
6 sleeps till I return to the big smoke. I know it’s gonna fly. Plans for the weekend include a last minute shopping spree for presents, another island boat trip, some Muay Thai boxing and as much beach time as the rains will allow. I’ll be spending Monday night in Bangkok, and flying out next Tuesday morning.
Must run, have to hand in my second last paper and book my trip to Bangkok 
(noooooooooooo!)
Technorati Tags: photography, teachingenglish, thailand, travel, travelphotography
a present perfect, so perfect I don’t want it to end.
Warning: superlative and adjective-laden post ahead!
Last weekend I went on a 2 day tour with some friends from the course. It was an amazing time, we had such adventures that I’m quite sure none of us will ever forget it. Utterly exhilerating. The photo above is of the floating huts in Khao Sok national park. We stayed here overnight. The water is all fresh, so our morning wash was just a jump off the back deck.
Our jungle trek guide, Wun, after reaching our destination: this lovely series of waterfalls. We walked for 4 hours through the jungle after heavy rains, so the river crossing (on foot, clinging on to overhanging vines or each others hands in a human chain) were perilous and shoes were pointless – we took them off and tied them around our waists using a vine. It was incredible, wonderful and utterly exhausting.
Yes. I rode an elephant through the jungle. Their sheer enormity stunned me.
This was taken from the car as we approached the elephant jungle trekking station. Their handlers just rode on their heads calling out commands. Just like that. I almost peed myself with excitement.
Technorati Tags: photography, thailand, travel, trouble
Episode 721, in which the protagonist makes the river crossing across the Thai-Myanmar border….
With some huge percentage of Thailand’s income coming from tourism, they turn quite the blind eye to the big business of ‚ÄúVISA RUNS‚Äù, in which tourists who are on the verge of overstaying their 30 day holiday visa get transported to the border of their choice to get their passports re-stamped with a fresh 30 day visa.
My visa was due to expire on the 22nd of August, but with lots of homework and the memorising of grammar and phonetic forms and structures required for the final test on the 25th I really didn’t want to have to do the visa run that far into the course. My friend Paul and I decided to do our visa runs yesterday, and we decided on the Myanmar border crossing because we had heard it involved crossing a big river…
Technorati Tags: photography, myanmar, thailand, travel, travelphotography
The student reports…
A different kind of TV in a Phuket Restaurant
Technorati Tags: teachingenglish, thailand, travel
Puke-it
Prayer Offerings on the streets
Phuket townhouses
Phuket streets
Technorati Tags: thailand, travel, travelphotography, trouble
Sunset net fishing
Sunset on Ao Nang beach yesterday. Some local fella’s were dragging nets through the shallows and a small crowd of kids and women gathered to help them clear them once they were up on the sand. Mostly small fish and crabs and a few jellyfish.
The only downer about Ao Nang is that you can’t really swim at this beach – the shallows are full of stinging jellyfish. You have to head over to Rai Leh or Phranang or find a local pool to swim. Regardless, it’s a beautiful beach and a beautiful place. My fave place is definitely the massage huts down the end of the beach with their buzz of activity and generosity, and the nearby Last Stand Bar on the beach. Nothing beats sitting by a spectacular tropical beach, listening to cool music and drinking beer or cocktails as the sun goes down.
Technorati Tags: photography, thailand, travel, travelphotography
The wet season strikes up a conversation
My plans for a 2 day motorbike trek up to Phang Nga with my new young Swiss friend Laurent have been cruelly thwarted by rain. And what rain it is. Torrential rain since sometime during the night (it’s almost lunch now). And better still, it’s knocked out the power to the town. So no fans, light, TV’s, music (which means no James Blunt for a few hours ), internet… the streets are completely empty and most shops shut.
Luckily the ipod and computer are all charged up, I can play on my fave toys a while.
Technorati Tags: photography, thailand, travel, travelphotography
What day is it again?
Someone tells me it’s Saturday….
Life’s a beach… and coral reefs and snorkelling … and long boats and speed boats and film sets… and delicious food and fruit… and long slow walks… and one hour Thai massages followed by beers at the sunset bar with new found friends.
And sunburn. My nose is peeling already.
Oh… and a late night visit from a *massive* preying mantis in my bed, on my pillow. THAT was funny. NOT.
A few more pics at my flickr Thai Holiday photostream. But not many – I’m on holidays people!
Technorati Tags: flickr, photography, travelphotography, thailand, travel
Ao Nang
15.5 hours of transit hell but hey, I’m in paradise now.
yesterday (erm, transit hell):
left my house in tokyo 5.45 a.m. in pouring rain
arrived narita airport 8.30 a.m.
my plane left for bangkok 11 a.m.
arrived bangkok international 3 p.m.-ish
got to bangkok domestic airport around 4 p.m.-ish to find my local connecting flight to krabi had been delayed. and then delayed again. oh, and then once more. and the damn place was crawling with damn loud australians.
flight FINALLY departed bangkok for krabi at 7.30 p.m. – it was frikken cold on the plane and pouring outside.
arrived krabi international airport 8.30 p.m.
a driver from my hotel picked me and drove me the 40 minutes to the place where I’m staying. he couldn’t speak any English. he had the aircon on way too cold. i finally got him to turn it off and let me open the windows to soak up the fresh air just as we pulled in to ao nang beach at about 9.15 p.m.
checked into my lovely room and washed the plane grime off me.
10 a.m. I ate a masaman curry and drank a glass of white wine at the hotels restaurant. it was divine.
11 a.m. (1 a.m. Tokyo time) head on pillow deeply asleep.
total time in transit: 15.5 hrs.
today:
aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
free breakfast at the hotel restaurant
walk along the gorgeous beach (well, mostly gorgeous if you pretend it’s clean)
massage in a hut by the beach for 200 baht (that’s about ¬•600)
lunch of fresh fruit from road stall for 30 baht (that’s about ¬•90)
swim in the hotel pool (er, the ocean is full of stingers)
afternoon nap
yoga
sit in hotel bar overlooking the main street of ao nang drinking beer and blogging using the hotels wireless internet, listening to some cool reggae and watching the passing parade of tourists and locals on their scooters, bikes, and taxi trucks.
everyone is friendly and happy and relaxed
I’m happier than a pig in…. aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Technorati Tags: photography, thailand, travel
