(no subject)
and i'm back in the ring...
so i'm back from japan. the trip itself was great. the odyssey from tokyo to sacramento. ... that's another story, though. i'll get to that later.
anyway, i had a really really great time there. it was just a cool experience to be somewhere i've never been. ... this was the first time i was out of north america. but it was weird in the sense that i didn't even feel like i was in japan. i think it was because i was always accompanied by austin and kai, so i felt like i was still back in the states, just hanging out or something. so although i didn't feel any different in japan, it was still great being there. but it didn't even matter where i was, as long as i was with my friends. if i were in finland, it wouldn't matter, as long as i'm with the people i love ... and i think that's the most important thing.
anyway, there were a whole bunch of things i really loved about japan, and some i didn't care much for ... but for the most part, the good definitely outweighed the bad.
japanese people, as a whole, are so polite and respectful to one another that it's hard to envision ever living somewhere that's not as welcoming as japan is. merchants and restaurant owners are soooooo nice; they welcome you when you come in, and they thank you when you leave. and after you leave, they keep going with the thank yous and what not for like five seconds. whether or not they are sincere is neither here nor there; all that matters is that they show you respect. americans don't even go that far. ... they don't even fake sincerity or respect. it's just like "eh." at least in japan, they act like they care about you every minute you're in their presence. it was awesome. and not just merchants and patrons, but the people are respectful of each other, as well. people who are sick put surgical masks on when in public, making sure they don't get anybody else sick. it's called respect, america, learn what it means, haha. i also liked the weather in japan, as well as the efficiency of transportation, especially the cars and vespas and bikes. i'd say about half the people in kyoto drove cars, and the rest was made up of vespa riders, bicyclists and walkers. and the cars were very economical and efficient. me and austin rented a car and we drove it all across the kansao for three days before we even needed to refill it with gas. so i thought that was really cool.
but there were some parts about japan i didn't like so much, a lot of them inconsequential, though. everybody was so concerned with fashion there, it seemed like. everybody had a label, or one of those stupid 150 dollar purses. and all of the materialism was perpetuated by the myriad of ads that were everywhere, promoting all of this. but i liked some of the fashion there that wasn't so commercial, like the crazy (to me) hair-dos, the torn shirts, the shirts with the silly, ungrammatical english on it. also, things are WAY to expensive there. i didn't think the food was that expensive. i mean, you're going to spend 8 bucks on dinner here or there. but it was just little stuff, like the train from austin's train station to the airport: 30 bucks! OK, the train from sacramento to san francisco is 20 bucks. so that was a little silly. and all the tolls on the freeway. i ended up paying about 50 bucks in tolls just to ride on the freeway!
but tokyo, man ... that place is nuts. it's so congested there. the trains to and fro' tokyo are just jam-packed with everybody. i witnessed everything from a salary man drunk, swaying side-to-side with eyes closed, stretching all the while looking into the subway doors, to some kid throwing up, to an old women falling asleep on the train beside me, curling up into a sitting-down fetal position. being in congested cities just make me want to be a country boy more and more.
i'll post pics later on, and get more in-detail about the things i did while there.
so onto my trip back from japan. ok, so me and austin woke up at about 9:30am in tokyo on monday morning, and i needed to catch a plane in kansai at 3:25pm. so at about 10am, we took the local train to the train station, where we took the outrageously expensive bullet train (12000 yen, 120 US). then, at about 1:45, i took the train to the airport. i knew i was cutting it close, but i thought i'd still make the flight. austin said goodbye, and as i was approaching the airport in train, i knew it was a bad situation. i got to the airport at about 3:02, 20 minutes before the plane left. i got to the ticket counter and the women told me i couldn't get on the plane, that my ticket was cancelled. i was in shock, seriously, because it's no fun being stuck in an airport in a foreign country. so i started pleading and begging the lady to let me on, to call the pilot and have him open the doors. i begged and begged and still, nothing. i told her that the people on the plane wouldn't mind waiting 10 minutes, because the pilot can always make up the time in the air, but she wouldn't budge. why did this women care if she gave me a ticket? it's not like she would've lost her job. giving me a chance to run to the terminal was all she had to do; from there, it was up to the people at the gate. but she wouldn't do it. it's not fair that sometimes you have to wait two hours for a flight you pay hundreds of dollars for, but when you're 10 minutes late, will the plane wait for you? nope. i should've been earlier, but still. i had 20 minutes to get on the plane. all they had to do was open the doors. so anyway, the lady gave me a new ticket, one that connected in honolulu, then went to san francisco. she gave me the ticket, then i went and sat down and looked at it, and i realized that by the time i got into sf, it'd be too late to get on the last train that headed for sac. i seriously almost had a mental breakdown at this point. i realized that i was so screwed, that'd i'd have to spend two nights in a row traveling. man. so anyway, i got into honolulu the next morning after a three hour wait. before my flight to sf, i had about five hours, so i walked for about 45 minutes and found a marina. there were no beaches near, but this marina was great anyway. so i just set my stuff down, got undressed and bathed in the water. it was so cleansing and liberating. man, i was a dirty joshy before that bathy. that marina was nothing compared to the other beaches in hawai'i, and it was still awesome. at that point, i felt homeless. i had no home at the moment, and it felt really cool. i felt so free. if i were to ever be homeless, i'd save up all my money, buy a ticket to hawai'i and be homeless there. it's gorgeous there. so then i just lyed down, finished sartre's nausea and hung out and enjoyed the scenery. then i walked back, hopped on a flight to sf and got in seven hours later, at 9:30pm, after the last train had left back for sac. so i was pretty much fucked. i could've called a friend from bonanza, andrew smith, who i could've stayed with, but that would've been a pain. i made a hitchhiker sign, saying simply "sacramento," but i didn't know to to get to the freeway. so then i walked around sf for three hours trying to find a 24-hour bar that i could just rest at, but i couldn't find even one because it was memorial day. so i walked all around the embarcadero and throughout the city, and finally i found a place to rest. ... i didn't want to be on the streets, man. to my extreme delight, i found a 24-hour donut store. haha. i just sat there, eating donuts and drinking coffee, reading moby-dick, for three hours, until my train came. thank god i found that place. then i got to the train, and met this guy Nelson, who was an english professor at san francisco state. we started talking about english and how i wanted to go grad school for an english degree or get my teaching credential in english, and he gave me answers to every question i've ever had on the subject. the logistics of getting a degree in college are overwhelming, but he helped me figure everything out. then i realized, man, i just lived monday, may 30th twice: day 1) half in japan, half in flight to honolulu. day 2) half in honolulu, half in flight to san francisco. i fucking lived a day twice. but after my crazy adventure, it seemed kind of worth it. it sucked ass, but it was kind of fun being such a vagabond. then right after i got off the train, i hopped on a bus and went straight to my 8am class, environmental studies. so all in all, i traveled for 38 straight hours, from tokyo to sacramento. all in all, out of 12 nights on the road, i slept about 9 of them in bed with friends, one on an overnight bus from kyoyo to tokyo, one on a plane, and one on the streets of san fran, haha.
man, that was a long-winded story.
in other news:
*i got the paid writing tutor position in the writing center, so that's cool.
*summer school is stupid.
*i found out moby-dick is one of the texts in my romanticism class next semester, so i'm just going to put off reading it for now. i'm only 1/10th of the way through it, anyway.
*i'm going to try and get a summer job at the dining commons, but we'll see, haha.
*i've listened to "gold mine gutted" off DIGITAL ASH IN A DIGITAL URN abount 56 times in the past two days.
man, my sleeping pattern is WAY OFF. i went to sleep from 8pm til 2am last night, and i've been up ever since. strange.
...and that's it for now.
so i'm back from japan. the trip itself was great. the odyssey from tokyo to sacramento. ... that's another story, though. i'll get to that later.
anyway, i had a really really great time there. it was just a cool experience to be somewhere i've never been. ... this was the first time i was out of north america. but it was weird in the sense that i didn't even feel like i was in japan. i think it was because i was always accompanied by austin and kai, so i felt like i was still back in the states, just hanging out or something. so although i didn't feel any different in japan, it was still great being there. but it didn't even matter where i was, as long as i was with my friends. if i were in finland, it wouldn't matter, as long as i'm with the people i love ... and i think that's the most important thing.
anyway, there were a whole bunch of things i really loved about japan, and some i didn't care much for ... but for the most part, the good definitely outweighed the bad.
japanese people, as a whole, are so polite and respectful to one another that it's hard to envision ever living somewhere that's not as welcoming as japan is. merchants and restaurant owners are soooooo nice; they welcome you when you come in, and they thank you when you leave. and after you leave, they keep going with the thank yous and what not for like five seconds. whether or not they are sincere is neither here nor there; all that matters is that they show you respect. americans don't even go that far. ... they don't even fake sincerity or respect. it's just like "eh." at least in japan, they act like they care about you every minute you're in their presence. it was awesome. and not just merchants and patrons, but the people are respectful of each other, as well. people who are sick put surgical masks on when in public, making sure they don't get anybody else sick. it's called respect, america, learn what it means, haha. i also liked the weather in japan, as well as the efficiency of transportation, especially the cars and vespas and bikes. i'd say about half the people in kyoto drove cars, and the rest was made up of vespa riders, bicyclists and walkers. and the cars were very economical and efficient. me and austin rented a car and we drove it all across the kansao for three days before we even needed to refill it with gas. so i thought that was really cool.
but there were some parts about japan i didn't like so much, a lot of them inconsequential, though. everybody was so concerned with fashion there, it seemed like. everybody had a label, or one of those stupid 150 dollar purses. and all of the materialism was perpetuated by the myriad of ads that were everywhere, promoting all of this. but i liked some of the fashion there that wasn't so commercial, like the crazy (to me) hair-dos, the torn shirts, the shirts with the silly, ungrammatical english on it. also, things are WAY to expensive there. i didn't think the food was that expensive. i mean, you're going to spend 8 bucks on dinner here or there. but it was just little stuff, like the train from austin's train station to the airport: 30 bucks! OK, the train from sacramento to san francisco is 20 bucks. so that was a little silly. and all the tolls on the freeway. i ended up paying about 50 bucks in tolls just to ride on the freeway!
but tokyo, man ... that place is nuts. it's so congested there. the trains to and fro' tokyo are just jam-packed with everybody. i witnessed everything from a salary man drunk, swaying side-to-side with eyes closed, stretching all the while looking into the subway doors, to some kid throwing up, to an old women falling asleep on the train beside me, curling up into a sitting-down fetal position. being in congested cities just make me want to be a country boy more and more.
i'll post pics later on, and get more in-detail about the things i did while there.
so onto my trip back from japan. ok, so me and austin woke up at about 9:30am in tokyo on monday morning, and i needed to catch a plane in kansai at 3:25pm. so at about 10am, we took the local train to the train station, where we took the outrageously expensive bullet train (12000 yen, 120 US). then, at about 1:45, i took the train to the airport. i knew i was cutting it close, but i thought i'd still make the flight. austin said goodbye, and as i was approaching the airport in train, i knew it was a bad situation. i got to the airport at about 3:02, 20 minutes before the plane left. i got to the ticket counter and the women told me i couldn't get on the plane, that my ticket was cancelled. i was in shock, seriously, because it's no fun being stuck in an airport in a foreign country. so i started pleading and begging the lady to let me on, to call the pilot and have him open the doors. i begged and begged and still, nothing. i told her that the people on the plane wouldn't mind waiting 10 minutes, because the pilot can always make up the time in the air, but she wouldn't budge. why did this women care if she gave me a ticket? it's not like she would've lost her job. giving me a chance to run to the terminal was all she had to do; from there, it was up to the people at the gate. but she wouldn't do it. it's not fair that sometimes you have to wait two hours for a flight you pay hundreds of dollars for, but when you're 10 minutes late, will the plane wait for you? nope. i should've been earlier, but still. i had 20 minutes to get on the plane. all they had to do was open the doors. so anyway, the lady gave me a new ticket, one that connected in honolulu, then went to san francisco. she gave me the ticket, then i went and sat down and looked at it, and i realized that by the time i got into sf, it'd be too late to get on the last train that headed for sac. i seriously almost had a mental breakdown at this point. i realized that i was so screwed, that'd i'd have to spend two nights in a row traveling. man. so anyway, i got into honolulu the next morning after a three hour wait. before my flight to sf, i had about five hours, so i walked for about 45 minutes and found a marina. there were no beaches near, but this marina was great anyway. so i just set my stuff down, got undressed and bathed in the water. it was so cleansing and liberating. man, i was a dirty joshy before that bathy. that marina was nothing compared to the other beaches in hawai'i, and it was still awesome. at that point, i felt homeless. i had no home at the moment, and it felt really cool. i felt so free. if i were to ever be homeless, i'd save up all my money, buy a ticket to hawai'i and be homeless there. it's gorgeous there. so then i just lyed down, finished sartre's nausea and hung out and enjoyed the scenery. then i walked back, hopped on a flight to sf and got in seven hours later, at 9:30pm, after the last train had left back for sac. so i was pretty much fucked. i could've called a friend from bonanza, andrew smith, who i could've stayed with, but that would've been a pain. i made a hitchhiker sign, saying simply "sacramento," but i didn't know to to get to the freeway. so then i walked around sf for three hours trying to find a 24-hour bar that i could just rest at, but i couldn't find even one because it was memorial day. so i walked all around the embarcadero and throughout the city, and finally i found a place to rest. ... i didn't want to be on the streets, man. to my extreme delight, i found a 24-hour donut store. haha. i just sat there, eating donuts and drinking coffee, reading moby-dick, for three hours, until my train came. thank god i found that place. then i got to the train, and met this guy Nelson, who was an english professor at san francisco state. we started talking about english and how i wanted to go grad school for an english degree or get my teaching credential in english, and he gave me answers to every question i've ever had on the subject. the logistics of getting a degree in college are overwhelming, but he helped me figure everything out. then i realized, man, i just lived monday, may 30th twice: day 1) half in japan, half in flight to honolulu. day 2) half in honolulu, half in flight to san francisco. i fucking lived a day twice. but after my crazy adventure, it seemed kind of worth it. it sucked ass, but it was kind of fun being such a vagabond. then right after i got off the train, i hopped on a bus and went straight to my 8am class, environmental studies. so all in all, i traveled for 38 straight hours, from tokyo to sacramento. all in all, out of 12 nights on the road, i slept about 9 of them in bed with friends, one on an overnight bus from kyoyo to tokyo, one on a plane, and one on the streets of san fran, haha.
man, that was a long-winded story.
in other news:
*i got the paid writing tutor position in the writing center, so that's cool.
*summer school is stupid.
*i found out moby-dick is one of the texts in my romanticism class next semester, so i'm just going to put off reading it for now. i'm only 1/10th of the way through it, anyway.
*i'm going to try and get a summer job at the dining commons, but we'll see, haha.
*i've listened to "gold mine gutted" off DIGITAL ASH IN A DIGITAL URN abount 56 times in the past two days.
man, my sleeping pattern is WAY OFF. i went to sleep from 8pm til 2am last night, and i've been up ever since. strange.
...and that's it for now.