5:51PM OST (Okayama Standard Time)
So, here I am chilling at an internet cafe in Okayama's omotecho shopping arcade. It's new. It certainly wasn't here while I was a teacher.
Today's project is kind of along those lines though: cataloging those things that are the same, and those things that are gone.
Hunters: gone
Desperado: Still there (not sure if it's in business though)
Belgian waffle place: gone
Maruzen bookstore: still the same
Bukkake Udon (um. seriously, it's food): gone
Radio Momo: can't seem to find it. will look around again
The shopping arcade itself is now prodigiously decorated in preparation for 7/7 day (Tanabata).
cloth banners are hanging from the ceiling, and paper strip 'wishes' are knotted on tree branches.
For some reason, I don't remember Tanabata being such a big deal while I was here.
But the most important difference I guess is the fact that most of the people I knew here are gone.
Hide is in India I hear, and his mom doesn't have his address. Most other people have made their way up to Osaka or Tokyo to live out their natural lives. . .
And Okayama feels. . . quiet.
--
But my last night in Sanya was quite interesting. During the day I popped into Tokyo (not difficult since Sanya-Minami Senju is on the hibiya line, and goes direct to ebisu and roppongi)
and met some former students: Naoko and Hiroko. Pretty funny girls. We spent some time calling up other former students, but no one picked up. Oh well. I may run into some more if I keep wandering the streets.
Then met up with a former colleague now working in Tokyo for food and drinks in Ebisu. Shibuya is starting to feel a bit young for me . . . Later ended up at a 'gaijin bar' where the brits were still angry at their euro2004 loss.
Back at Sanya, I closed out the local bar talking with the manager Nakamura Yuji about Murakami Haruki and Takahashi Gen'ichiro. Pretty cool chap. I think I learned a few things.
One of which was that 'Bison brand vodka' actually exists (freely drunk in the Chinese film 'Suzhou River'). Yuji claims its quite popular.
--
update updated
Hunters is still there. I was just on the wrong block, but that old sign needs a good wipe-down with a damp cloth
Radio Momo is definitely gone. Or at least not where it used to be located. The overpowering Okayama FM (located in the imposing NTT CREDO building) must have sent them to the ropes.
Free wireless internet in the lobby of the Okayama International Center rules, though I'm not sure how much longer they'll let me sit here. Looks about closing time (OST 7:48PM now)
Saturday, June 26, 2004
Thursday, June 24, 2004
searching for a home
6/24/2004 Hongo, in central Tokyo. I’m now sitting in another starbucks. In fact, I’ve already been here once in the morning when I was sorting out my thoughts before meeting with Prof. Yoshimi. Ok, it’s kind of excessive, and I’ll have to find some coffee houses with more character. But later. Now it’s good enough to escape the heat and humidity. I’m soaked, just like I was in Scotland, when I had to march around in the rain. But this time, it’s sweat, and think I’m getting dehydrated. Tokyo University is cool. Most of the students there are intimidatingly sharp, and I feel kind of autistic. You know? I can barely speak, but then come out with some crazy shit about nationalism, or cultural studies. Out of the blue. Like stutter, stutter, mumble, mumble, then zap, a moment of intelligence. Idiot Savant.
Prof. Yoshimi is pretty cool, and his seminars are quite unlike what I expected. He really tries to draw his students into a discussion, then gives his take on the material. The latter is in fact quite refreshing since most of the profs back in the states are kind of reticent about their own opinions. Today’s topic was ‘Bakhtin on Marxism and linguistics.” No, I didn’t get most of it.
Some random thoughts on Yoshimi and academics. I think there are two very important trends in the world of thought today: reducing the world to language, and reducing it to the operation of power. Bakhtin seems to combine these two by linking language and marxism. . . What I’m trying to figure out is a place for ethics. Tai and I had a long conversation about human rights and law, which made me realize how amoral history is as a discipline. We can say that it happened. We can even guess at why. But there’s also a strangely balanced view that nothing is ever unique. For example, Yoshimi has argued that American hegemony (economic, military) over East Asia is equivalent to Japanese hegemony over the same area before WWII. In terms of power, and the efforts of those in control to maintain their power, perhaps he’s right. The tendency is to ignore the justifications used by America and Japan, in particular, the differences between those justifications. The pervasive, and blasé attitude is that people will say anything to accomplish their aims, that for example, we should perceive the acceptance of the 1960s civil rights movement in terms of its propaganda benefits for the U.S. in the third world. The argument goes that the USSR and China were gaining too much propaganda mileage out of US segregation, and that US interests in Africa were being harmed by it. Disturbing thought isn’t it? Think also of democracy in Taiwan. If the PRC were not across the border, and if the PRC were not (ostensibly) communist, how much incentive would Taiwan have for introducing free elections? Basically, the trend is to regard these “advances” in the human spirit, not as universal, but as strategic actions, intended for particular interests.
> back to the amorality of history <
Japanese hegemony = American hegemony. (agree or disagree?)
If the power (hegemony) cannot be differentiated, and judged on a moral basis, what do we judge? I feel like we’re intellectually left with little option but to judge the specific application of force and coercion in that hegemony. This is where Tai’s perspective was interesting because he’s studying human rights law. Perhaps it’s the degree of coercion and domination, rather than the truth and moral value of ideologies like “The American Way” or (for the case of Japan) “The Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere” that we should judge. So, we return to our disillusionment with ideas. . . perhaps we need to accept that someone will be hegemon and get on with it. And on that point, I wish the American record of violence and coercion in East Asia were better (Noh Gun Ri, My Lai), to distinguish it from the Japanese (rape of Nanjing, genocide in Korea).
--
Bass Ale in Sanya? Yup. I’m back at a bar in Sanya where they have bass and internet access too. Weird how gentrification creeps into places like this. I mean, this place is clearly set up for a different socio-economic set than the traditional Sanya resident. But, can’t complain. Mark, an englishman staying at a nearby hotel (Shin Koyo, if you’re interested) was just in here badmouthing Americans. As if the English have any right. . . but then again I badmouth America from time to time too. It’s kind of like badmouthing yourself; it can be therapeutic at times.
Prof. Yoshimi is pretty cool, and his seminars are quite unlike what I expected. He really tries to draw his students into a discussion, then gives his take on the material. The latter is in fact quite refreshing since most of the profs back in the states are kind of reticent about their own opinions. Today’s topic was ‘Bakhtin on Marxism and linguistics.” No, I didn’t get most of it.
Some random thoughts on Yoshimi and academics. I think there are two very important trends in the world of thought today: reducing the world to language, and reducing it to the operation of power. Bakhtin seems to combine these two by linking language and marxism. . . What I’m trying to figure out is a place for ethics. Tai and I had a long conversation about human rights and law, which made me realize how amoral history is as a discipline. We can say that it happened. We can even guess at why. But there’s also a strangely balanced view that nothing is ever unique. For example, Yoshimi has argued that American hegemony (economic, military) over East Asia is equivalent to Japanese hegemony over the same area before WWII. In terms of power, and the efforts of those in control to maintain their power, perhaps he’s right. The tendency is to ignore the justifications used by America and Japan, in particular, the differences between those justifications. The pervasive, and blasé attitude is that people will say anything to accomplish their aims, that for example, we should perceive the acceptance of the 1960s civil rights movement in terms of its propaganda benefits for the U.S. in the third world. The argument goes that the USSR and China were gaining too much propaganda mileage out of US segregation, and that US interests in Africa were being harmed by it. Disturbing thought isn’t it? Think also of democracy in Taiwan. If the PRC were not across the border, and if the PRC were not (ostensibly) communist, how much incentive would Taiwan have for introducing free elections? Basically, the trend is to regard these “advances” in the human spirit, not as universal, but as strategic actions, intended for particular interests.
> back to the amorality of history <
Japanese hegemony = American hegemony. (agree or disagree?)
If the power (hegemony) cannot be differentiated, and judged on a moral basis, what do we judge? I feel like we’re intellectually left with little option but to judge the specific application of force and coercion in that hegemony. This is where Tai’s perspective was interesting because he’s studying human rights law. Perhaps it’s the degree of coercion and domination, rather than the truth and moral value of ideologies like “The American Way” or (for the case of Japan) “The Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere” that we should judge. So, we return to our disillusionment with ideas. . . perhaps we need to accept that someone will be hegemon and get on with it. And on that point, I wish the American record of violence and coercion in East Asia were better (Noh Gun Ri, My Lai), to distinguish it from the Japanese (rape of Nanjing, genocide in Korea).
--
Bass Ale in Sanya? Yup. I’m back at a bar in Sanya where they have bass and internet access too. Weird how gentrification creeps into places like this. I mean, this place is clearly set up for a different socio-economic set than the traditional Sanya resident. But, can’t complain. Mark, an englishman staying at a nearby hotel (Shin Koyo, if you’re interested) was just in here badmouthing Americans. As if the English have any right. . . but then again I badmouth America from time to time too. It’s kind of like badmouthing yourself; it can be therapeutic at times.
salt of the earth
6/23/2004 Sanya, Tokyo. I shouldn’t be here. I really shouldn’t. Maybe the name doesn’t mean anything to you, but most Japanese would recognize it. I really didn’t realize where the hotel was located when I made the reservation. An American scholar (Edward Fowler) wrote a book about this place a few years ago called ‘Sanya Blues’, because it was such a notorious place. This is where of Tokyo’s day-laborers ‘live’, either on the street or in ‘silkworm shelves’ meaning crowded bunks. It’s recently been trying to reinvent itself as a place for backpackers to stay, since these flophouses are CHEAP, but the homeless are still here, and the poverty is still wafting in the air. In fact, the place where I’m staying is only 2 blocks away from the “Iroha” shopping arcade where Fowler almost got into a fist fight with some off duty workers (for taking pictures. don’t expect any photos from me). The ‘bars’ in the area aren’t called ‘snack’ or ‘bar’ (in Japanese that is); they’re labeled differently than drinking establishments elsewhere in Tokyo. Here, they’re called 大衆酒場 basically meaning an alcohol dispensing place for the ‘masses’. That includes me, for now.
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
6/21/2004
Tired old Japan (Narita Express, grey payphones look worn, Landmark tower needs a good scrubbing) – everything looked so shiny when I first came in 1996. It really looks like a lot of the stuff I saw then hasn’t been replaced or refurbished.
100 yen stores are now called “One Coin Store”
difficulties with Japanese professor. not much to say about this, except that I’ll be working at Tokyo University next year instead of Japan Women’s University.
pointy shoes and the trashy look are in. Those shoes always look sadly ill-fitting. I wonder if they’re really made for human feet. I miss the clunky shoes and chucks.
Typhoon no. 6 passed through and made the day rather dramatic. I had to duck into Takashimaya in Shinjuku for most of the day. That’s fine, since I spent some time listening to Cds at HMV. Franz Ferdinand’s album sounds ok, but I was pleasantly surprised by Morrissey’s latest. Tim Booth (of James fame) had a CD out, but it kind of stunk. Sonic Youth’s disk wasn’t anything unexpected, but had a nice satisfying buzz to it. The Pixies best-of was there, and I spent a few minutes reliving memories with it. . .
6/22/2004 1:52PM Sitting in the starbucks under Landmark Tower. I passed through here twice a day for a year between 1999 and 2000. Some bitter memories, some sweet. Japan to me is a layered mess now. Not entirely exotic, but not home either. I want to be here, and I don’t. I’m alone, but I’m not. Just came back from the Ramen Museum near Shin-Yokohama Station. Bought some ramen (mysteriously and consistently transliterated as ‘raumen’ throughout the museum) for Satoko and her family, since I’m staying at their place. A few observations: the reconstructed ramen town in the two basement levels is kind of amazing. There weren’t that many people there today, but there are signs telling you things like “the wait for sumire ramen from this point is 60 minutes.” Some serious crowds must attack that place on weekends. I didn’t get in line for Sumire ramen (an old standby from hokkaido), but chose a bowl of Hachiya Ramen (from asahikawa, in hokkaido. I passed through there!) and then a mini-bowl at Shinasobaya (from Kanagawa). Amazing difference in noodle shape, and soup flavor. Another observation: many of the original Japanese ramen restaurants were founded in the late 1800s and early 1900s by Chinese immigrants. But the place isn’t just about ramen; it’s about nostalgia. They were selling cigarettes, candies, etc, in 1950s packaging, and the town itself was filled with memorabilia. There were old Kurosawa movie posters, fake subway signs, an old ramen-selling cart. . .
Tired old Japan (Narita Express, grey payphones look worn, Landmark tower needs a good scrubbing) – everything looked so shiny when I first came in 1996. It really looks like a lot of the stuff I saw then hasn’t been replaced or refurbished.
100 yen stores are now called “One Coin Store”
difficulties with Japanese professor. not much to say about this, except that I’ll be working at Tokyo University next year instead of Japan Women’s University.
pointy shoes and the trashy look are in. Those shoes always look sadly ill-fitting. I wonder if they’re really made for human feet. I miss the clunky shoes and chucks.
Typhoon no. 6 passed through and made the day rather dramatic. I had to duck into Takashimaya in Shinjuku for most of the day. That’s fine, since I spent some time listening to Cds at HMV. Franz Ferdinand’s album sounds ok, but I was pleasantly surprised by Morrissey’s latest. Tim Booth (of James fame) had a CD out, but it kind of stunk. Sonic Youth’s disk wasn’t anything unexpected, but had a nice satisfying buzz to it. The Pixies best-of was there, and I spent a few minutes reliving memories with it. . .
6/22/2004 1:52PM Sitting in the starbucks under Landmark Tower. I passed through here twice a day for a year between 1999 and 2000. Some bitter memories, some sweet. Japan to me is a layered mess now. Not entirely exotic, but not home either. I want to be here, and I don’t. I’m alone, but I’m not. Just came back from the Ramen Museum near Shin-Yokohama Station. Bought some ramen (mysteriously and consistently transliterated as ‘raumen’ throughout the museum) for Satoko and her family, since I’m staying at their place. A few observations: the reconstructed ramen town in the two basement levels is kind of amazing. There weren’t that many people there today, but there are signs telling you things like “the wait for sumire ramen from this point is 60 minutes.” Some serious crowds must attack that place on weekends. I didn’t get in line for Sumire ramen (an old standby from hokkaido), but chose a bowl of Hachiya Ramen (from asahikawa, in hokkaido. I passed through there!) and then a mini-bowl at Shinasobaya (from Kanagawa). Amazing difference in noodle shape, and soup flavor. Another observation: many of the original Japanese ramen restaurants were founded in the late 1800s and early 1900s by Chinese immigrants. But the place isn’t just about ramen; it’s about nostalgia. They were selling cigarettes, candies, etc, in 1950s packaging, and the town itself was filled with memorabilia. There were old Kurosawa movie posters, fake subway signs, an old ramen-selling cart. . .
6/20/2004 Japan, again. The air is humid, and heavy with memories. Long flight on Virgin Atlantic via Siberia. I’m adjusting my opinion of them. Good service, amazingly functional linux-driven entertainment system (yes, I saw it reboot twice and go through its startup sequence). I saw three movies (Starsky & Hutch – not really that funny; The Sea is Watching – serene Japanese period piece; American Splendor – made me want to kill myself, but was inspiring all the same). But the tradeoff was a big metal box under each seat that occupied part of my foot space.
Back to the sweaty present. It’s the smell of Japan that brings a vague wistful smile to my lips. Japan is surely the future, as the Matrix, Solaris (by Tarkovsky), and the Morning Musume remind us. For me though, it’s starting to feel like the past, because my life, my past emotions, and my friendships that have been so important to me feel so irretrievable now. But I also know that it’s time for a change. I’m almost 30. I’m at the transition from taking classes to teaching classes. I’m irredeemably irrevocably committed now to academics.
I never knew that traveling would be this tiring. I almost yearn for the quiet life, you know, no alarms and no surprises. Please. And when you travel alone you start talking to yourself. Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me. Sometimes I give myself the creeps. And sometimes I feel the unbearable unexpressibility of human experience. Can I even describe what I’m doing and seeing? And if I can’t, doesn’t it almost seem like none of this EVER HAPPENED?
Back to the sweaty present. It’s the smell of Japan that brings a vague wistful smile to my lips. Japan is surely the future, as the Matrix, Solaris (by Tarkovsky), and the Morning Musume remind us. For me though, it’s starting to feel like the past, because my life, my past emotions, and my friendships that have been so important to me feel so irretrievable now. But I also know that it’s time for a change. I’m almost 30. I’m at the transition from taking classes to teaching classes. I’m irredeemably irrevocably committed now to academics.
I never knew that traveling would be this tiring. I almost yearn for the quiet life, you know, no alarms and no surprises. Please. And when you travel alone you start talking to yourself. Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me. Sometimes I give myself the creeps. And sometimes I feel the unbearable unexpressibility of human experience. Can I even describe what I’m doing and seeing? And if I can’t, doesn’t it almost seem like none of this EVER HAPPENED?
6/18/2004 Friday. 5:35PM at a starbucks near Picadilly Circus. No elephants or acrobats here. Just broadway theater-style musicals all around, and a kind of Chinatown spill-over crowd. Lots of fashion-conscious brits lounging about. I don’t exactly fit in, with my pragmatically selected 5-day wardrobe. Froze my ass off visiting Stonehenge without my jacket. I took some pictures though, and I guess that makes the trip worth it. My eyes are still gummy and sticky from my allergic reaction to England. But one look at Stonehenge and I realize how much more elaborate it is than the standing stones up in the Orkneys. The audio-guide bored me though, with its constant evocation of Stonehenge’s ‘mysteriousness’. In fact, I’m pretty satisfied with the existing hypotheses of the monument’s origins.
Salisbury Cathedral, the highest spire in England is still a bustling, functioning church, with hourly prayers and enthusiastic elderly volunteer guides. Saw another copy of the magna carta. Interesting thing about the spire is that the original building was not designed to support its weight. The pillars inside are buckling, and additional supports were constructed.
Last night in London. I’ll be back in Japan soon.
Salisbury Cathedral, the highest spire in England is still a bustling, functioning church, with hourly prayers and enthusiastic elderly volunteer guides. Saw another copy of the magna carta. Interesting thing about the spire is that the original building was not designed to support its weight. The pillars inside are buckling, and additional supports were constructed.
Last night in London. I’ll be back in Japan soon.
6/16/2004 Sightseeing day around London, under a fabulously clear sky.
Tower of London, Tower Bridge, St. Andrews wharf, the Thames, Tate Modern, Big Ben, House of Commons, Chinatown (only one association sign visible above the restaurants and stores), watching Euro2004 (spain ties greece) at a pub and chatting with a Bangladesh MBA student, watching the white swans in Hyde Park.
I guess the highlight was the Tate Modern, and Jan Svankmajer’s video piece “Punch and Judy: The Coffin Factory” – lovely, macabre and sardonic. Puppet theater. Negotiations for the sale of a guinea pig (yup, no lie) dissolve into violence and the ultimate death of both protagonists (including a Kill Bill 2 – style ‘Texas burial’). Too damn funny. Also Yves Tanguy’s painting “Les Transparents”.
I must be allergic to London. My allergies are worse here than anywhere else in the world. My eyes are tearing up.
--
6/17/2004 Thursday. I now have four different allergy medications because I’m tired of having it ruin my days. I’ve got phenylephedrine, loratadine, oxymetazoline, and that stuff that’s in benedryl. I’m ready for anything.
3:45PM The Fog of War at the Prince Charles Theater in Leicester Square (rhymes with ‘chester’ and ‘molester’). Amazing film. Surprising number of people in the theater are like me, alone. At 3 pounds, it’s a good deal. At 5:00, the Switzerland-England Euro2004 match starts, and pubs are gearing up for it. One advertises 1 pound ‘stubbies’ until England scores. ‘Stubby’ = 1/2 pint? This place is like a college town at homecoming or something. It lives and breathes on the fortunes of its team.
No pictures today. I’m tired of sightseeing. Just wandering the streets like a ghost, not a tourist. I don’t really belong here, so there’s little to actually ‘do’. But it’s not so different that I feel like snapping pictures of everything. I’m l’etranger (or simply etrange). I just draw out trite generalizations from otherwise sensitive, thoughtful people about the differences between fairly equivalent cultures. I think I’ve had the same conversation a hundred times over.
Sat down in Trafalgar Square for the live broadcast of the Royal Ballet’s performance of Onegin. Kind offunny to be appreciating that while the rest of the town is running around drunk celebrating England’s victory.
Tower of London, Tower Bridge, St. Andrews wharf, the Thames, Tate Modern, Big Ben, House of Commons, Chinatown (only one association sign visible above the restaurants and stores), watching Euro2004 (spain ties greece) at a pub and chatting with a Bangladesh MBA student, watching the white swans in Hyde Park.
I guess the highlight was the Tate Modern, and Jan Svankmajer’s video piece “Punch and Judy: The Coffin Factory” – lovely, macabre and sardonic. Puppet theater. Negotiations for the sale of a guinea pig (yup, no lie) dissolve into violence and the ultimate death of both protagonists (including a Kill Bill 2 – style ‘Texas burial’). Too damn funny. Also Yves Tanguy’s painting “Les Transparents”.
I must be allergic to London. My allergies are worse here than anywhere else in the world. My eyes are tearing up.
--
6/17/2004 Thursday. I now have four different allergy medications because I’m tired of having it ruin my days. I’ve got phenylephedrine, loratadine, oxymetazoline, and that stuff that’s in benedryl. I’m ready for anything.
3:45PM The Fog of War at the Prince Charles Theater in Leicester Square (rhymes with ‘chester’ and ‘molester’). Amazing film. Surprising number of people in the theater are like me, alone. At 3 pounds, it’s a good deal. At 5:00, the Switzerland-England Euro2004 match starts, and pubs are gearing up for it. One advertises 1 pound ‘stubbies’ until England scores. ‘Stubby’ = 1/2 pint? This place is like a college town at homecoming or something. It lives and breathes on the fortunes of its team.
No pictures today. I’m tired of sightseeing. Just wandering the streets like a ghost, not a tourist. I don’t really belong here, so there’s little to actually ‘do’. But it’s not so different that I feel like snapping pictures of everything. I’m l’etranger (or simply etrange). I just draw out trite generalizations from otherwise sensitive, thoughtful people about the differences between fairly equivalent cultures. I think I’ve had the same conversation a hundred times over.
Sat down in Trafalgar Square for the live broadcast of the Royal Ballet’s performance of Onegin. Kind offunny to be appreciating that while the rest of the town is running around drunk celebrating England’s victory.
6/15/2004 7:55AM at Aberdeen station. This is going to be a long rail-day from the top of Scotland to the heart of England. Direct service to London King’s X (‘cross’). But I’m stopping off at York, “the most haunted city in England.” Paris has been quietly discarded from my itinerary.
Last night: had a fried slice of haggis for the first time. Described as a stuffed sheep’s stomach, it sounds kind of nasty. But it didn’t taste that bad; I’d say it’s like a spicy sausage, but soft and crumbly when you stick it with a fork. If it were not covered in batter and deep-fried, it would have fallen apart. . . Ah British comfort food: everything here is kind of greasy. As the McCain’s chips commercial says, “chin up.” Considering the weather they have here, that’s the sort of food that’s called for. Chips, bacon, sausages. . .
Last night, rode with Liz and Colin to the ferry port, 2 PhD’s up in the Orkneys for research who were also staying at the hostel. Didn’t get much sleep on the ferry, since the only place dark enough was the cinema lounge. Wasn’t much different from sleeping on a plane. Disembarking, and finally greeting the sun here in aberdeen. 2.5 weeks down, and 3.5 to go. Can’t believe how tired I feel.
11:00AM leaning back in the train and watching the sky, while listening to radiohead (like a cracked polystyrene man). I think it was about 10 years ago that Miyazaki’s films taught me to look at the sky again. I don’t think it’s a normal thing for a college student to (re)discover, since we tend to get caught up in all sorts of other things at school (academics, drinking, partying, relationships. Because of Nausicaa and Totoro I spent a lot of time looking at trees. . . because of Laputa and Porco Rosso, I stare at the sky. Of course I think I always had this sort of tendency. As a kid, I remember people remarking that I don’t talk much in cars, but instead tend to stare out the window. And at Chinese camp years and years ago, I only took pictures of clouds, not the people.
6:45PM on the express train from York to London, finally full circle. The sun is out, spreading its crisp light on the gaudy shopping streets. Besides the viking museum, Yorkminster (cathedral), and the ghost hunt tours, York is just a big set of tourist shops. Picturesque in its antique sort of way, but still buzzing with shoppers and cash. But I was buoyed up by the warm sunlight, the cool breeze, and the sudden realization that I was close to accomplishing my mission. So this is England? Bring it on. Four days until I board the plane to Tokyo. Yorkminster was grand beyond words (see pics). Winners and losers in history are clear to see. Consider in comparison with the Cathedral at Elgin. Anglican church versus Catholicism. 275 claustrophobic steps (and odor of sweat) to the top. Oddly, I was struck by the three nuclear power plants that are visible from the top along the horizon.
‘The shambles’ – an old shopping district with a compelling name, but ultimately a disappointment .
Didn’t know this, but an ‘iconoclast’ during the English reformation meant a smasher of catholic images.
‘Lunch’ was a sausage sandwich (2 pounds) with stuffing and ‘brown’ sauce. Strangely, the brits describe their sauces by color. ‘Red’ sauce is pretty much just ketchup. ‘Brown’ is like worcester sauce. ‘Dinner’ at Marks & Spencer – 2 pre-packaged salads plus a drink = 5 pounds.
Arriving at Kings Cross at 8:40PM, walking to Warren St. tube stop to meet Tai.
Last night: had a fried slice of haggis for the first time. Described as a stuffed sheep’s stomach, it sounds kind of nasty. But it didn’t taste that bad; I’d say it’s like a spicy sausage, but soft and crumbly when you stick it with a fork. If it were not covered in batter and deep-fried, it would have fallen apart. . . Ah British comfort food: everything here is kind of greasy. As the McCain’s chips commercial says, “chin up.” Considering the weather they have here, that’s the sort of food that’s called for. Chips, bacon, sausages. . .
Last night, rode with Liz and Colin to the ferry port, 2 PhD’s up in the Orkneys for research who were also staying at the hostel. Didn’t get much sleep on the ferry, since the only place dark enough was the cinema lounge. Wasn’t much different from sleeping on a plane. Disembarking, and finally greeting the sun here in aberdeen. 2.5 weeks down, and 3.5 to go. Can’t believe how tired I feel.
11:00AM leaning back in the train and watching the sky, while listening to radiohead (like a cracked polystyrene man). I think it was about 10 years ago that Miyazaki’s films taught me to look at the sky again. I don’t think it’s a normal thing for a college student to (re)discover, since we tend to get caught up in all sorts of other things at school (academics, drinking, partying, relationships. Because of Nausicaa and Totoro I spent a lot of time looking at trees. . . because of Laputa and Porco Rosso, I stare at the sky. Of course I think I always had this sort of tendency. As a kid, I remember people remarking that I don’t talk much in cars, but instead tend to stare out the window. And at Chinese camp years and years ago, I only took pictures of clouds, not the people.
6:45PM on the express train from York to London, finally full circle. The sun is out, spreading its crisp light on the gaudy shopping streets. Besides the viking museum, Yorkminster (cathedral), and the ghost hunt tours, York is just a big set of tourist shops. Picturesque in its antique sort of way, but still buzzing with shoppers and cash. But I was buoyed up by the warm sunlight, the cool breeze, and the sudden realization that I was close to accomplishing my mission. So this is England? Bring it on. Four days until I board the plane to Tokyo. Yorkminster was grand beyond words (see pics). Winners and losers in history are clear to see. Consider in comparison with the Cathedral at Elgin. Anglican church versus Catholicism. 275 claustrophobic steps (and odor of sweat) to the top. Oddly, I was struck by the three nuclear power plants that are visible from the top along the horizon.
‘The shambles’ – an old shopping district with a compelling name, but ultimately a disappointment .
Didn’t know this, but an ‘iconoclast’ during the English reformation meant a smasher of catholic images.
‘Lunch’ was a sausage sandwich (2 pounds) with stuffing and ‘brown’ sauce. Strangely, the brits describe their sauces by color. ‘Red’ sauce is pretty much just ketchup. ‘Brown’ is like worcester sauce. ‘Dinner’ at Marks & Spencer – 2 pre-packaged salads plus a drink = 5 pounds.
Arriving at Kings Cross at 8:40PM, walking to Warren St. tube stop to meet Tai.
6/14/2004 2:50PM in Trenabies Café. Last few hours in the Orkneys, since I’m catching the Northlink Ferry back to Aberdeen at 11:45PM (arrives at 7:00AM!). Cute mulletted girl had mentioned this cafe as the only place in Kirkwall to get coffee ‘like starbucks’. Yeah, well, everywhere else it’s instant coffee. She actually likes that stuff, especially ‘Kenco’. The scone with ‘clotted cream’ was actually quite good, and it’s good to finally sit down in a warm place. The wind-blown drizzle outside stings the face, though the sky is now marginally brighter than before. I can’t really afford to ‘take tea’ like this, but there’s not a lot to do in Kirkwall on a day like this. Last thing to try in Scotland: haggis.
* The many smells of Orkney: the briney odor of sea spray, the heavy reek of cow manure, the nostalgic acridness of fireplaces, and the spicy muddy (‘laphroigh’) smoke of peat fires. Today, the dominant flavor is cow dung.
* Only in Scotland: Safeway brand generic SINGLE MALT whiskey. About 15 pounds per bottle, which isn’t that cheap. Nothing really is here. On sale, the local distillery’s ‘Highland Park’ single malt goes for 20 pounds a bottle. (brings to mind a certain town in central jersey)
* Frustration in ‘paradise’: Kirkwall is a ‘friendly’ city, but also home to a quiet ambivalence and desperation. This is most visible in its garbage littering youth (AC/DC shirts are really popular here), and the heavy drinking. Residents apparently knocked down many of the standing stones at the Ring of Brodgar, and someone intentionally let their sheep into the fenced-off lot where the Stones of Stenness are. I consider it vandalism, or worse, sabotage.
* The many smells of Orkney: the briney odor of sea spray, the heavy reek of cow manure, the nostalgic acridness of fireplaces, and the spicy muddy (‘laphroigh’) smoke of peat fires. Today, the dominant flavor is cow dung.
* Only in Scotland: Safeway brand generic SINGLE MALT whiskey. About 15 pounds per bottle, which isn’t that cheap. Nothing really is here. On sale, the local distillery’s ‘Highland Park’ single malt goes for 20 pounds a bottle. (brings to mind a certain town in central jersey)
* Frustration in ‘paradise’: Kirkwall is a ‘friendly’ city, but also home to a quiet ambivalence and desperation. This is most visible in its garbage littering youth (AC/DC shirts are really popular here), and the heavy drinking. Residents apparently knocked down many of the standing stones at the Ring of Brodgar, and someone intentionally let their sheep into the fenced-off lot where the Stones of Stenness are. I consider it vandalism, or worse, sabotage.
6/13/2004 9:00AMOn the ferry to Stronsay (all the islands here are in pig latin) with stops on Eday, and Sanday. Cute local girl with mullet in the cafeteria recommends the Kenco coffee, and pulsing jellyfish off the starboard side.
5:10PM, on the ferry back to Kirkwall. OMG. I was lucky to make it back in time. These islands are so damn windy that scarcely any trees grow here. They occasionally get hurricane force winds WITHOUT a storm. Derelict houses all over Stronsay, crumbling, with collapsed roofs. After I got off the ferry I started walking south when a retired Englishman named Brian Crowe picked me up in his car and took me to the south end of the island. (says I can knock on his door if I don’t think I can make it back in time) It would be 10 miles and 4 hours to get back to the ferry port. Mr. Crowe apparently came to Stronsay to fix up a farmhouse and settle down. A subsidiary isle of a subsidiary isle of Britain. Ferries stop in the winter because of the roughness of the seas, so it must be extraordinarily lonely here when the sun goes down for the last time around December 20th.
The sky remained an angry grey throughout the day, and it drizzled on and off. I followed the cliffs around the south-east promontory, and birds followed me calling out a warning to the other animals. The island felt HOSTILE. I did see some seals though. They were out on a rocky bar in the bay, groaning and slapping the rocks with their tales. When I approached, gingerly balancing on slipper rocks, some plopped into the water and watched me from there. I wish I had a better zoom on my camera. At another point I spied some birds that resemble cormorants. Mental note to ask the PhD student studying birds back at the hostel. Sat down on the wall of the ruins of a Pictish house for some ‘lunch’. A can of sardines and some bread. Then time to get moving. . .
Back at the ferry port, it’s amazing how good fish and chips taste after my ordeal.
5:10PM, on the ferry back to Kirkwall. OMG. I was lucky to make it back in time. These islands are so damn windy that scarcely any trees grow here. They occasionally get hurricane force winds WITHOUT a storm. Derelict houses all over Stronsay, crumbling, with collapsed roofs. After I got off the ferry I started walking south when a retired Englishman named Brian Crowe picked me up in his car and took me to the south end of the island. (says I can knock on his door if I don’t think I can make it back in time) It would be 10 miles and 4 hours to get back to the ferry port. Mr. Crowe apparently came to Stronsay to fix up a farmhouse and settle down. A subsidiary isle of a subsidiary isle of Britain. Ferries stop in the winter because of the roughness of the seas, so it must be extraordinarily lonely here when the sun goes down for the last time around December 20th.
The sky remained an angry grey throughout the day, and it drizzled on and off. I followed the cliffs around the south-east promontory, and birds followed me calling out a warning to the other animals. The island felt HOSTILE. I did see some seals though. They were out on a rocky bar in the bay, groaning and slapping the rocks with their tales. When I approached, gingerly balancing on slipper rocks, some plopped into the water and watched me from there. I wish I had a better zoom on my camera. At another point I spied some birds that resemble cormorants. Mental note to ask the PhD student studying birds back at the hostel. Sat down on the wall of the ruins of a Pictish house for some ‘lunch’. A can of sardines and some bread. Then time to get moving. . .
Back at the ferry port, it’s amazing how good fish and chips taste after my ordeal.
6/11/2004 Friday: chill-out day in Kirkwall. Emailing at the public library, shopping at Safeway (Skullsplitter! pasta and pita bread, I won’t bore you with the prices). Ended the night drinking and playing cards in the youth hostel (the curfew is very loosely enforced) with a Scottish college student Neil (who actually was on the same tour of Maeshowe as I), and Clive. The UK version of ‘Asshole’ is bizarre, arbitrary and requires no skill whatsoever.
--
6/12/2004 Saturday, yet another chill-out day. I jogged down to Scapa Bay (not too far away, really) which is the final resting place of HMS Royal Oak, which was torpedoed by a German U-Boat during WWII. About 800 lives were lost, and there’s a memorial there. Out beyond the seaweed strewn beach are several buoys marking its grave. Had a desire for fish and chips, but ended up at ‘Buster’s Diner’, an American theme restaurant featuring license plates on the wall, and a working ‘walk/don’t walk’ sign. Oddly enough, some of the Michiganites were there, supping on pizza. Clive and Stuart left that night for the Shetlands. I briefly thought about going, but I was already so far over my budget, it just didn’t seem worth it. What would I see there anyway? Puffins?
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6/12/2004 Saturday, yet another chill-out day. I jogged down to Scapa Bay (not too far away, really) which is the final resting place of HMS Royal Oak, which was torpedoed by a German U-Boat during WWII. About 800 lives were lost, and there’s a memorial there. Out beyond the seaweed strewn beach are several buoys marking its grave. Had a desire for fish and chips, but ended up at ‘Buster’s Diner’, an American theme restaurant featuring license plates on the wall, and a working ‘walk/don’t walk’ sign. Oddly enough, some of the Michiganites were there, supping on pizza. Clive and Stuart left that night for the Shetlands. I briefly thought about going, but I was already so far over my budget, it just didn’t seem worth it. What would I see there anyway? Puffins?
6/10/2004 Last day in Stromness. Key words: caravan of Michiganites, Maeshowe burial mound, amusing runes, hitchhiking failure, storm clouds roll in, Kirkwall youth hostel, West End Pub with Clive, Martin & Stuart.
I guess I got up rather late, since I was in the Stromness Hotel bar until closing the night before, but I also wanted to enjoy the luxury as long as possible. Still it is annoying to have to check out at 10:00AM every day. It means that I have to dispose of my bags somewhere for the day, or hump them everywhere I go. I left them in the whiskey room. . . for safe keeping.
Maeshowe: the “finest neolithic chamber tomb in north europe” – I had passed it the previous day on my bike, but there was no way in hell I was going to do that again. My butt seriously ached from the un-soft seat. So . . . I took the bus. Sorry, no pics of the inside of the tomb (forbidden) but there were some interesting runes left there by visiting vikings, and ‘crusaders’ who broke into the tomb around 1000AD while they were on the way down to England to participate in the medieval crusades. Some left some bizarre and prosaic thoughts “Ingigerth is the most beautiful of women”, “Crusaders broke into Maeshowe,” etc. Yeah. Outside the gate I ran into a group of 15 Americans from Michigan. They were pretty funny, though the elders of the group had trouble entering the long passageway.
I had a little trouble getting back to Stromness afterwards though. I walked a few miles, but I couldn’t get any of the supposedly friendly islanders to pick me up in their car. I guess I looked a bit too threatening to the predominantly elderly drivers. The sky clouded up; it was amazing how clearly I could see the storm brewing. (I took a movie of it. Hopefully I’ll be able to put it online.) As the rain started, I found a bus shelter and waited (~1 hour). The day was shaping up to be very very soggy.
By the time I got to Kirkwall, the largest ‘city’ in the Orkneys, I was soaked. The youth hostel was even another 20 minutes up a hill, and it was miserable walking with all my bags in the wind and rain. The youth hostel itself was steeped in that wet-tatami-mat smell that I rather dislike. Perhaps you know what I mean. The proprietors were cool, and actually, big surprise, so were the residents. I met Clive (an Englishman), Martin (Welsh), and Stuart (Australian) and we ended the night over a few rounds at the West End Pub. ‘The Red MacGregor’ ale is pretty good. Try saying that with a Scottish accent.
A local (an Orkadian) told us the sad tale of Skullsplitter Ale. “It’s terrible. None of the pubs can sell more than three pints a night.” The Orkney Brewery is probably gonna stop making that shtuff. Too bad.
I guess I got up rather late, since I was in the Stromness Hotel bar until closing the night before, but I also wanted to enjoy the luxury as long as possible. Still it is annoying to have to check out at 10:00AM every day. It means that I have to dispose of my bags somewhere for the day, or hump them everywhere I go. I left them in the whiskey room. . . for safe keeping.
Maeshowe: the “finest neolithic chamber tomb in north europe” – I had passed it the previous day on my bike, but there was no way in hell I was going to do that again. My butt seriously ached from the un-soft seat. So . . . I took the bus. Sorry, no pics of the inside of the tomb (forbidden) but there were some interesting runes left there by visiting vikings, and ‘crusaders’ who broke into the tomb around 1000AD while they were on the way down to England to participate in the medieval crusades. Some left some bizarre and prosaic thoughts “Ingigerth is the most beautiful of women”, “Crusaders broke into Maeshowe,” etc. Yeah. Outside the gate I ran into a group of 15 Americans from Michigan. They were pretty funny, though the elders of the group had trouble entering the long passageway.
I had a little trouble getting back to Stromness afterwards though. I walked a few miles, but I couldn’t get any of the supposedly friendly islanders to pick me up in their car. I guess I looked a bit too threatening to the predominantly elderly drivers. The sky clouded up; it was amazing how clearly I could see the storm brewing. (I took a movie of it. Hopefully I’ll be able to put it online.) As the rain started, I found a bus shelter and waited (~1 hour). The day was shaping up to be very very soggy.
By the time I got to Kirkwall, the largest ‘city’ in the Orkneys, I was soaked. The youth hostel was even another 20 minutes up a hill, and it was miserable walking with all my bags in the wind and rain. The youth hostel itself was steeped in that wet-tatami-mat smell that I rather dislike. Perhaps you know what I mean. The proprietors were cool, and actually, big surprise, so were the residents. I met Clive (an Englishman), Martin (Welsh), and Stuart (Australian) and we ended the night over a few rounds at the West End Pub. ‘The Red MacGregor’ ale is pretty good. Try saying that with a Scottish accent.
A local (an Orkadian) told us the sad tale of Skullsplitter Ale. “It’s terrible. None of the pubs can sell more than three pints a night.” The Orkney Brewery is probably gonna stop making that shtuff. Too bad.
Monday, June 21, 2004
kichijoji
finally back in Japan. it`s been 3 years. still hate japanese keyboards. the space `bar` is about 2 keys wides. if you miss it, you hit the key to switch to japanese input, and then you have to mouse over and switch it back (no key to do go back to english!). I think I`ve done it about 3 times per sentence so far. ugh.
this internet cafe is creeeeepy. it`s classy and all, and you pay different amounts depending on the type of chair you want. I have a highback chair. the recliners cost more. and each unit is inside a dark cubicle with high walls so nobody can see what you`re doing. the whole place seems intentionally sleazy. still, it`s at least cheaper than what most places in london were asking. typed up reports on my previous days. will add them when I find a place to upload them.
this internet cafe is creeeeepy. it`s classy and all, and you pay different amounts depending on the type of chair you want. I have a highback chair. the recliners cost more. and each unit is inside a dark cubicle with high walls so nobody can see what you`re doing. the whole place seems intentionally sleazy. still, it`s at least cheaper than what most places in london were asking. typed up reports on my previous days. will add them when I find a place to upload them.
Thursday, June 17, 2004
Two more days in London
home of the brash, outrageous and free. I guess. It's a pretty nifty city, and I'll have more in-depth coverage when I type up my handwritten notes. For now, just a quick update. I had a bad allergy attack last night, which sort of ruined a pub night out at some place that George Orwell used to frequent. Now, I'm sitting in the British Library enjoying their free wireless. Quite nice to finally be able to use my ibook.
I'm tired to having to use grimey internet cafe machines. Tomorrow I'm going to try to see Stonehenge and Cambridge in the same day. Yes, I know that they're in opposite directions, but when you have a trainpass, these things seem possible. . .
Anyway, I'm off to a Chinese buffet for lunch. It costs 5 pounds (~$10) but you know, that's starting to sound like quite a bargain here. If I eat enough, I might even be able to skip dinner (not bloody likely).
Some London pictures are up, btw, documenting my 5 mile walk yesterday.
I'm tired to having to use grimey internet cafe machines. Tomorrow I'm going to try to see Stonehenge and Cambridge in the same day. Yes, I know that they're in opposite directions, but when you have a trainpass, these things seem possible. . .
Anyway, I'm off to a Chinese buffet for lunch. It costs 5 pounds (~$10) but you know, that's starting to sound like quite a bargain here. If I eat enough, I might even be able to skip dinner (not bloody likely).
Some London pictures are up, btw, documenting my 5 mile walk yesterday.
Saturday, June 12, 2004
let's take it back to . . . 6/9/2004 ("ALL PLAYERS OUT")
6/9/2004 9:45PM at Skara Brae. I’m here, finally. It was a very difficult 8 mile bike ride over three very difficult hills to get here, but now I’m trying to warm up and dry off in the café here. Yes, it has a ticket office and a café. I was slightly gratified to see several other mountain bikes parked out front; I guess I’m not the only idiot to try to ride in the rain. I tried to use the hand-driers in the loo to dry my pants, but they’re still clammy.
--
Last night I stayed at the Orca hotel. Unfortunately, they don’t have any vacancies tonight, so I’m not sure where I’m going to stay. No sheepman either, though there are sheep scattered all over the island. I won’t miss the Orca hotel, because breakfast cost me about 5 pounds, and wasn’t particularly good. Compared to safeway in Inverness, that’s exorbitant. I purchased some canned corned beef (which tastes like spam) for 68p each, a can of kippers for 48p, and a can of sardines for 44p. With bread and some brie, it was all under 6 pounds, and show allow me to eat for 2 days. This is probably the only way for me to rein in my budget.
--
Anyway, last night while it was still light out I strolled over to the posh Stromness Hotel, and had some beer in their mahogany dining room/bar. It was quite a cozy place to be, but the only young people were the bartenders. It’s not exactly a scene that attracts people like me. Nevertheless, I ended up about an hour later drinking whiskey, and playing dominoes and jenga (mysteriously misspelled ‘jenja’ on the box) with Justin, Mark, Elaine, and Vicky (all staff of the hotel). Funny things happen when you travel alone.
--
Today, I biked 40 miles. First I did a loop from Stromness, to Skara Brae (too crowded, I decided to put it off to another time), to the Orkney Brewery (Skullsplitter ale! but otherwise nothing to see. . . ), to Ring of Brodgar, to the Stones of Stenness (utterly fouled by a group of sheep who somehow were let into the enclosure, the dirty, unrepententant bastards), to Maes Howe (couldn’t book a tour this time), and back to Stromness.
Coming back, I realized that I really had no place to stay. The youth hostel was closed, and nobody seemed to notice. Or at least, no one decided to let me know until I went up there at 5:30PM. No choice, I had to stay at the posh Stromness Hotel. Ugh. That totally derailed my budget, and I won’t tell you how much it cost me. A shower and a nap later, I noticed that the sun was shining brilliantly outside. IT was about 9:00PM, and the skies were clear. Not wanting to waste the sunlight, and still renting the bike, I decided to make another trip over the hills to Skara Brae. My legs were sluggish, and my knees hurt, but the prospect of seeing a moongate at dusk. . .
--
9:45PM with the sun hovering over the sea to the west, and my long shadow stretching across the ancient ruins. The wind was groaning across the excavated pits, and ringing like it was blowing across the lip of a bottle. Somehow it reminded me of the Valley of Wind. A gigantic bull watched over me as I entered the site, but otherwise I was alone with the sun, sea, and the giant midden mounds.
--
Last night I stayed at the Orca hotel. Unfortunately, they don’t have any vacancies tonight, so I’m not sure where I’m going to stay. No sheepman either, though there are sheep scattered all over the island. I won’t miss the Orca hotel, because breakfast cost me about 5 pounds, and wasn’t particularly good. Compared to safeway in Inverness, that’s exorbitant. I purchased some canned corned beef (which tastes like spam) for 68p each, a can of kippers for 48p, and a can of sardines for 44p. With bread and some brie, it was all under 6 pounds, and show allow me to eat for 2 days. This is probably the only way for me to rein in my budget.
--
Anyway, last night while it was still light out I strolled over to the posh Stromness Hotel, and had some beer in their mahogany dining room/bar. It was quite a cozy place to be, but the only young people were the bartenders. It’s not exactly a scene that attracts people like me. Nevertheless, I ended up about an hour later drinking whiskey, and playing dominoes and jenga (mysteriously misspelled ‘jenja’ on the box) with Justin, Mark, Elaine, and Vicky (all staff of the hotel). Funny things happen when you travel alone.
--
Today, I biked 40 miles. First I did a loop from Stromness, to Skara Brae (too crowded, I decided to put it off to another time), to the Orkney Brewery (Skullsplitter ale! but otherwise nothing to see. . . ), to Ring of Brodgar, to the Stones of Stenness (utterly fouled by a group of sheep who somehow were let into the enclosure, the dirty, unrepententant bastards), to Maes Howe (couldn’t book a tour this time), and back to Stromness.
Coming back, I realized that I really had no place to stay. The youth hostel was closed, and nobody seemed to notice. Or at least, no one decided to let me know until I went up there at 5:30PM. No choice, I had to stay at the posh Stromness Hotel. Ugh. That totally derailed my budget, and I won’t tell you how much it cost me. A shower and a nap later, I noticed that the sun was shining brilliantly outside. IT was about 9:00PM, and the skies were clear. Not wanting to waste the sunlight, and still renting the bike, I decided to make another trip over the hills to Skara Brae. My legs were sluggish, and my knees hurt, but the prospect of seeing a moongate at dusk. . .
--
9:45PM with the sun hovering over the sea to the west, and my long shadow stretching across the ancient ruins. The wind was groaning across the excavated pits, and ringing like it was blowing across the lip of a bottle. Somehow it reminded me of the Valley of Wind. A gigantic bull watched over me as I entered the site, but otherwise I was alone with the sun, sea, and the giant midden mounds.
try to remember. . . 6/8/2004
6/8/2004 6:00PM at Scrabster Harbor. “Scrabster” comes from a Norse word and means “standing on the edge,” and the port is indeed the northern-most point in mainland Great Britain. The vikings first used it as a base, and the Scandinavian influence is still lingers in subtle ways. It was four hours by bus from Inverness, and now I’ll be boarding the ferry in about an hour.
--
Last night (the 7th) had a pretty good experience at the Inverness Tourist Hostel, which is run by a funky/cool South African named Keith. He joined a bunch of us hostelers at Blackfriar’s Pub down the street for some traditional Scottish music. Spent a relaxing evening drinking at da pub with Keith, Amy, Erin (both from Canada), Arturo (from Mexico). Had a cask ale called “Isle of Skye Red Cuillian,” which was hand-pumped and almost room temperature. It wasn’t bad at all. Strangely enough beers are more expensive than whiskeys here, perhaps due to the strict adherence to 25ml whiskey measures. I wonder if that’s less than what you’re served in the States? The Ben Braecke single malt was only 1.75 pounds while the ale was 2.40. My McDonalds salad cost me 3.50 in comparison. . . Anyway, I now know what a ‘jig’ sounds like. Inverness is a class place to be. In a somewhat off color observation, the bathroom had a vending machine that sells ‘whiskey flavored condoms.’ Only one quid for two! (No, I didn’t buy it)
--
Last night (the 7th) had a pretty good experience at the Inverness Tourist Hostel, which is run by a funky/cool South African named Keith. He joined a bunch of us hostelers at Blackfriar’s Pub down the street for some traditional Scottish music. Spent a relaxing evening drinking at da pub with Keith, Amy, Erin (both from Canada), Arturo (from Mexico). Had a cask ale called “Isle of Skye Red Cuillian,” which was hand-pumped and almost room temperature. It wasn’t bad at all. Strangely enough beers are more expensive than whiskeys here, perhaps due to the strict adherence to 25ml whiskey measures. I wonder if that’s less than what you’re served in the States? The Ben Braecke single malt was only 1.75 pounds while the ale was 2.40. My McDonalds salad cost me 3.50 in comparison. . . Anyway, I now know what a ‘jig’ sounds like. Inverness is a class place to be. In a somewhat off color observation, the bathroom had a vending machine that sells ‘whiskey flavored condoms.’ Only one quid for two! (No, I didn’t buy it)
reset your clock to . . . 6/7/2004
6/7/2004
Last night (the 6th), spent one more evening at the ‘bar’ in the Globetrotters Hostel with ‘KOSS’, Junhua, and Spiro, a Greek nurse who works for Medecins Sans Frontieres. Quite an interesting group to share a Tennents with (the Scottish equivalent of Bud?), but I’m realizing (with some satisfaction actually) that I’m pushing myself pretty hard. On less than three hours sleep I rode 5 hours of trains, walked 8-9 miles, saw 2 castles, and spent a hectic hour or so trying to straighten out my plans for the next two days. One beer and I’m starting to fade. I liked this hostel. Great bathrooms and showers, lockers in the room, and since it’s so spacious, I got a single room for the price of a dorm.
--
Another observation coming back through Edinburgh on a Sunday night. The city IS ghostly when the crowds aren’t around. One tour advertised it as the Jeckyl & Hyde city, and I can see why. Without the crowds and the traffic, you notice the DARKNESS and the QUIET, and the gothic skyline turns more sinister.
--
1:00PM Back to the ‘present’. I’m past Aberdeen now, heading toward Elgin, which is halfway to Inverness. The sky is growing cloudier and the sea is shadowy and grey.
--
4:00PM I’ve neglected to mention what I’ve been eating lately, but that’s mainly because it’s embarassing. Two words: iron rations. I try not to eat anything that costs more than two pounds. Sandwiches in the convenience store are usually in that range. A prepackaged salad (just bought one from ASDA, a branch of Walmart behind the Elgin train station). I also loaded up on peanuts and raisins (38p per bag). Breakfast at the hostel? They were charging 6 pounds = $12. Crazy. I never had any of it. Josie, an undergrad from North Carolina visiting Abbeys across Europe had the right idea. In the morning I saw her sitting in the dining room with a stack of pitas in front of her filling them one by one with hummus. I think I’m going to try that.
--
The train comes in 45 minutes. The Elgin Cathedra (ruin) [see the pictures!] was why I stopped here, baggage and all. The Let’s Go guide recommends it, but when you get here you realize that it’s not at all easy to get there as a backpacker. It’s not ‘awkward’ really, but since there’s no baggage storage anywhere in town, I had to hump both bags 20 minutes to the cathedral, and leave them behind the ticket counter. Luckily, Marta, the only one on duty, was quite accomodating. Apparently, the train station used to let you leave luggage there, but since the ‘trouble’ (their words, though I’m not sure specifically what they’re referring to) they canceled that policy. Now, the cathedral. Not much of it was still standing, since it had been burned down on several occasions, and sacked during the Reformation (16th century). The sandstone walls and columns weathered and crumbled after the lead was lifted from its roof. Amazingly, the grassy void in the center of the ruin used to be the site of the main steeple, 200 ft. tall. Summer grasses, all that is left. . .
Marta at the ticket counter was quite cool, and since I was the only one in the ruin on a monday afternoon, probably starved for conversation. That is, until her supervisor came back. But anyway, before that, she had somehow moved from explaining the grisly and particularly Scottish skull & bones carvings in the church, to discussing Scottish heritage in Canada (with me contributing my thoughts on Chinese heritage). Come to think of it, Nova SCOTia is pretty obvious, but for some reason it never occurred to me to consider the Scottish connection. Her theory is that the Canadian accent comes from the Scottish accent.
Last night (the 6th), spent one more evening at the ‘bar’ in the Globetrotters Hostel with ‘KOSS’, Junhua, and Spiro, a Greek nurse who works for Medecins Sans Frontieres. Quite an interesting group to share a Tennents with (the Scottish equivalent of Bud?), but I’m realizing (with some satisfaction actually) that I’m pushing myself pretty hard. On less than three hours sleep I rode 5 hours of trains, walked 8-9 miles, saw 2 castles, and spent a hectic hour or so trying to straighten out my plans for the next two days. One beer and I’m starting to fade. I liked this hostel. Great bathrooms and showers, lockers in the room, and since it’s so spacious, I got a single room for the price of a dorm.
--
Another observation coming back through Edinburgh on a Sunday night. The city IS ghostly when the crowds aren’t around. One tour advertised it as the Jeckyl & Hyde city, and I can see why. Without the crowds and the traffic, you notice the DARKNESS and the QUIET, and the gothic skyline turns more sinister.
--
1:00PM Back to the ‘present’. I’m past Aberdeen now, heading toward Elgin, which is halfway to Inverness. The sky is growing cloudier and the sea is shadowy and grey.
--
4:00PM I’ve neglected to mention what I’ve been eating lately, but that’s mainly because it’s embarassing. Two words: iron rations. I try not to eat anything that costs more than two pounds. Sandwiches in the convenience store are usually in that range. A prepackaged salad (just bought one from ASDA, a branch of Walmart behind the Elgin train station). I also loaded up on peanuts and raisins (38p per bag). Breakfast at the hostel? They were charging 6 pounds = $12. Crazy. I never had any of it. Josie, an undergrad from North Carolina visiting Abbeys across Europe had the right idea. In the morning I saw her sitting in the dining room with a stack of pitas in front of her filling them one by one with hummus. I think I’m going to try that.
--
The train comes in 45 minutes. The Elgin Cathedra (ruin) [see the pictures!] was why I stopped here, baggage and all. The Let’s Go guide recommends it, but when you get here you realize that it’s not at all easy to get there as a backpacker. It’s not ‘awkward’ really, but since there’s no baggage storage anywhere in town, I had to hump both bags 20 minutes to the cathedral, and leave them behind the ticket counter. Luckily, Marta, the only one on duty, was quite accomodating. Apparently, the train station used to let you leave luggage there, but since the ‘trouble’ (their words, though I’m not sure specifically what they’re referring to) they canceled that policy. Now, the cathedral. Not much of it was still standing, since it had been burned down on several occasions, and sacked during the Reformation (16th century). The sandstone walls and columns weathered and crumbled after the lead was lifted from its roof. Amazingly, the grassy void in the center of the ruin used to be the site of the main steeple, 200 ft. tall. Summer grasses, all that is left. . .
Marta at the ticket counter was quite cool, and since I was the only one in the ruin on a monday afternoon, probably starved for conversation. That is, until her supervisor came back. But anyway, before that, she had somehow moved from explaining the grisly and particularly Scottish skull & bones carvings in the church, to discussing Scottish heritage in Canada (with me contributing my thoughts on Chinese heritage). Come to think of it, Nova SCOTia is pretty obvious, but for some reason it never occurred to me to consider the Scottish connection. Her theory is that the Canadian accent comes from the Scottish accent.
Friday, June 11, 2004
back-dated posts 6/6
6/6/2004 Newspapers filled with D-Day commemorations. Heading north on a Virgin luxury train to Aberdeen. Random thoughts generated by reading the newspaper – what is the significance of movies/books/etc where the title character never appears? Is Lily Chou-Chou really Godot? Just read an amazing review of the Pixies’ reunion tour. I like how the author rejects the logic behind the statement: “If there were no Pixies, there would be no Nirvana.” His version is more similar to mine: “If there were no Pixies, then there would be no Pixies.” That would be the more significant tragedy. James Joyce’s estate is putting a damper on ‘Bloomsday’ commemoration planning this year, especially since it’s the 100 year anniversay of the events in Ulysses. Apparently they want to collect royalty payments on any public reading of any part of the novel. Organizers are scrambling to find ways to either pay it, or avoid quoting from the novel at all.
--
Yesterday (the 5th) summed up in a few phrases: Taiwanese guys, Edinburgh Castle crowds, “The Royal Mile,” angry Irish protestors (yes, in Scotland), “what makes a claymore a claymore?”, Three Sisters Bar (“because one is never enough”), the strange partying habits of British women (“hen parties”?) fag-hag, epiphany.
Perhaps it’s best to let these remain ambiguous.
--
10:20AM Stonehaven (one stop before Aberdeen) walking the three miles to Dunnottar Castle along the Grampian coast. And after the dreaming, the North Sea. This is what I came here for! Climbing up a steep trail over the ridge, the wind hits me in the face and I am face to face what appears to be the default WinXP desktop. In the distance the castle ruins appear like dark lumps on the horizon. There are no words to describe those 2 miles over the pasture. Look at the pictures.
On the way back, got a lift from a friendly English couple traveling up from Manchester. They dropped me off back at the trainstation, and away I went down to Stirling, the ancient seat of the Stewart kings. Two hours back on a crowded train, but I was asleep most of the time since the damn hostelers kept me up to about 3:00AM the night before with their buffoonery. Stirling is one of the most popular tourist destinations in southern Scotland, but I entered Stirling Castle right before closing time, and the staff was busy cleaning things up, and the other tourists were hurrying out the door. No one paid any attention to me, and I rather enjoyed that. The bustle was dying, and a ghostly quiet was settling in. Compared to Dunnottar, which was purposefully allowed to remain a ruin, Stirling demonstrated the opposite approach to preservation. Because the castle was used for many different purposes since the 1300s, as a fortress, a royal palace, an armoury, and most recently as a training base for the Royal Scottish Dragoons during WWII, the grounds are a patchwork of buildings from different periods, and several important areas had to be reexcavated to discover their purpose. The emphasis therefore lies in recreating how the castle functioned in its earlier incarnations, and to employ this as a living heritage for Scotland. There’s even an initiative to train a new generation of tapestry weavers. Their model? The unicorn series at the Cloisters in NYC. They’re already reproduced three of them. Much of the displays in the rest of the castle also focus on the living functions of the castle community: artisans, cooks, tailors, even jesters. And from the top, looking down, you can see the geometric sculpted lands of the royal garden which was first built in the early 1600s. Sublime, subtle and symmetrical. When I tired of the castle, I climbed down past sheep pastures and a graveyard in the forest, and walked the contours of the garden. Sitting down in the middle of the middle circle, two dogs came up to me, one wanted to be petted, the other wanted to bite me.
--
Yesterday (the 5th) summed up in a few phrases: Taiwanese guys, Edinburgh Castle crowds, “The Royal Mile,” angry Irish protestors (yes, in Scotland), “what makes a claymore a claymore?”, Three Sisters Bar (“because one is never enough”), the strange partying habits of British women (“hen parties”?) fag-hag, epiphany.
Perhaps it’s best to let these remain ambiguous.
--
10:20AM Stonehaven (one stop before Aberdeen) walking the three miles to Dunnottar Castle along the Grampian coast. And after the dreaming, the North Sea. This is what I came here for! Climbing up a steep trail over the ridge, the wind hits me in the face and I am face to face what appears to be the default WinXP desktop. In the distance the castle ruins appear like dark lumps on the horizon. There are no words to describe those 2 miles over the pasture. Look at the pictures.
On the way back, got a lift from a friendly English couple traveling up from Manchester. They dropped me off back at the trainstation, and away I went down to Stirling, the ancient seat of the Stewart kings. Two hours back on a crowded train, but I was asleep most of the time since the damn hostelers kept me up to about 3:00AM the night before with their buffoonery. Stirling is one of the most popular tourist destinations in southern Scotland, but I entered Stirling Castle right before closing time, and the staff was busy cleaning things up, and the other tourists were hurrying out the door. No one paid any attention to me, and I rather enjoyed that. The bustle was dying, and a ghostly quiet was settling in. Compared to Dunnottar, which was purposefully allowed to remain a ruin, Stirling demonstrated the opposite approach to preservation. Because the castle was used for many different purposes since the 1300s, as a fortress, a royal palace, an armoury, and most recently as a training base for the Royal Scottish Dragoons during WWII, the grounds are a patchwork of buildings from different periods, and several important areas had to be reexcavated to discover their purpose. The emphasis therefore lies in recreating how the castle functioned in its earlier incarnations, and to employ this as a living heritage for Scotland. There’s even an initiative to train a new generation of tapestry weavers. Their model? The unicorn series at the Cloisters in NYC. They’re already reproduced three of them. Much of the displays in the rest of the castle also focus on the living functions of the castle community: artisans, cooks, tailors, even jesters. And from the top, looking down, you can see the geometric sculpted lands of the royal garden which was first built in the early 1600s. Sublime, subtle and symmetrical. When I tired of the castle, I climbed down past sheep pastures and a graveyard in the forest, and walked the contours of the garden. Sitting down in the middle of the middle circle, two dogs came up to me, one wanted to be petted, the other wanted to bite me.
back-dated posts 6/4
6/4/2004 The fifteen-year anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre?
11:00AM I’m up later this morning. I intentionally tried to sleep as long as possible, and now I’m on the move again, trucking my stuff from Glasgow Central up to Buchanan Bus Station. I put my stuff in the lockers and head out for Glasgow Cathedral. Unfortunately, I locked up my jacket and now the sky is getting cloudy and the wind is picking up. It’s chilly, and I wonder if I’ll be able to stay outdoors for very long.
--
Glasgow Cathedral is beyond impressive. Princeton’s cathedral has nothing on this. The stone work is weathered to a deep hue, and the atmosphere inside is beyond words. I found the strangely garish stained-glass representation of Adam and Eve in purple in the west window. I also found that Glaswegians are extremely friendly.
--
And behind the Cathedral, occupying the highest point in town, and over the ‘Bridge of Sighs’ is the Necropolis: A city for the dead. An enormous, windswept cemetery that keeps watch over the city of the living.
--
Next, I went to GoMA. Yup, that’s what they call it. The Gallery of Modern Art. A neo-classical building with a hip and quirky collection of Scottish art since 1980s. My favorites: Roderick Fagan’s photographs of ‘weapons’, actually schoolroom implements of bullying, with wry descriptions modeled after descriptions of ancient weaponry. Rubber band slingshots, ‘pish balloons’ (piss water balloons!), the venerable lighter and aerosol ‘flamethrower’ etc, etc. Another interesting work was by Andrew Bick: multiple layers of painting and translucent wax which produce as hazy and 3-D look.
--
4:40PM Waiting at the Glasgow bus station, I shared a moment of consternation with a curly-haired Scottish woman waiting for her boyfriend because our bus didn’t show up on time.
--
Edinburgh: just checked into the Globetrotters Hostel, way way waaaay outside of the city center. It’s a huge dorm-like place. . . I just hope the showers are warm enough.
11:00AM I’m up later this morning. I intentionally tried to sleep as long as possible, and now I’m on the move again, trucking my stuff from Glasgow Central up to Buchanan Bus Station. I put my stuff in the lockers and head out for Glasgow Cathedral. Unfortunately, I locked up my jacket and now the sky is getting cloudy and the wind is picking up. It’s chilly, and I wonder if I’ll be able to stay outdoors for very long.
--
Glasgow Cathedral is beyond impressive. Princeton’s cathedral has nothing on this. The stone work is weathered to a deep hue, and the atmosphere inside is beyond words. I found the strangely garish stained-glass representation of Adam and Eve in purple in the west window. I also found that Glaswegians are extremely friendly.
--
And behind the Cathedral, occupying the highest point in town, and over the ‘Bridge of Sighs’ is the Necropolis: A city for the dead. An enormous, windswept cemetery that keeps watch over the city of the living.
--
Next, I went to GoMA. Yup, that’s what they call it. The Gallery of Modern Art. A neo-classical building with a hip and quirky collection of Scottish art since 1980s. My favorites: Roderick Fagan’s photographs of ‘weapons’, actually schoolroom implements of bullying, with wry descriptions modeled after descriptions of ancient weaponry. Rubber band slingshots, ‘pish balloons’ (piss water balloons!), the venerable lighter and aerosol ‘flamethrower’ etc, etc. Another interesting work was by Andrew Bick: multiple layers of painting and translucent wax which produce as hazy and 3-D look.
--
4:40PM Waiting at the Glasgow bus station, I shared a moment of consternation with a curly-haired Scottish woman waiting for her boyfriend because our bus didn’t show up on time.
--
Edinburgh: just checked into the Globetrotters Hostel, way way waaaay outside of the city center. It’s a huge dorm-like place. . . I just hope the showers are warm enough.
back-dated posts 6/3
I'm now sitting in the Kirkwall county library, on the main island of the Orkneys. This place is great. It's free, and they totally allow me to plug my drive in to upload pictures. I'm not up to date yet, but check out my yahoo acct for the new additions (photos.yahoo.com/gd1303).
6/3/2004
Early morning. Overcast, with a light drizzle. Back in Dublin if only for 30 minutes. The train from Cork to Dublin arrives at Heuston Station. I needed to transfer by bus from one side of town to the other in order to take the Belfast-bound train from Connolly Station. Kind of a pain, but it allowed me to relive some familiar sights: the Guinness storehouse, a wide-body truck painted black pulling a trailer full of kegs of Guinness, the River Liffey. . . Along the way, a tall wiry old man with deep liver-spots asked me if how to get to Connolly Station. As he descended from the upper deck of the two-story bus, I noticed how large his hands were compared to how thin his arms were. Was he on his way to Belfast as well? For the last time? On the platform at Connolly, a different sort of spectacle; I would have pegged her for a Russian prostitute. Sharp facial features (if somewhat attractive), white jacket with fur trim, and tall black boots fitted with spike heels and an absurd assortment of buckes and clasps. And me. All on the ‘Enterprise’ Dublin-Belfast express train.
--
Last night in Cork I finally made it down to the Shelbourne Pub. The hostel made a visit practically obligatory; they had a special price for hostelers there (3 euros for a pint) and even had an advertisement printed on the keycards they distributed to guests. There I met a young American by the name of R. J. whose father is currently serving in Iraq, and a bald Irishman (who reminds of some T.V. policeman whose name I can’t recall) with a Ph.D. in history. I guess we did the pub thing; over 3 rounds of beer, we discussed WWII, immigration, Iraq, Northern Ireland, and Israel. The old chap was a sharp one. He gave me the lowdown on the referendum on the Irish constitution. A vote ‘yes’ to amend it would stop the ‘abuse’ of the citizenship law in Ireland where parents of children born there are also granted citizenship. Under the proposed amendment, only children born in Ireland would gain citizenship, but not their parents. Supposedly, this will remove the incentive for visitors to bear children there, and drag down Ireland’s social welfare system. The old chap’s main point is that in America they don’t have the same degree of social welfare, so the debates are not comparable. Of course, I can’t totally agree with that, but then again I find it strangely hard to fault the Irish. Most countries in Europe are extremely stingy about granting citizenship. Germany for example has solved its labor-shortage problem with the gästarbeiter (guest-worker) program: workers are allowed in, but are not given citizenship rights. A lot of other countries are producing similar dual-structures in their populations.
Anyway, predictably the Labour party as well as marxists and socialists oppose the constitutional referendum, and equate ‘common-sense citizenship’ with thinly veiled racism.
--
Early bar closings, ‘The Brog’, Chinese chefs, and absinthe.
The rest of the evening must remain purposefully vague. But a few observations: bars tend to close early in Ireland, where they stop serving at 11:00PM, like Great Britain and Champaign-Urbana. However, some mysteriously are allowed to stay open, and these get ridiculously packed with people afterhours. Bartenders will direct you there in fact after they close up. “Go to the Brog, make a right, a right, a right, and look for the crowds.” Nowhere else to go, I guess. The music: The White Stripes, Stone Roses, Nirvana. The Beer: Murphy’s. The change encounter: a group of Cantonese and Malay-Chinese working in Cork’s Chinese restaurant (I think there’s only one?). Back at the hostel, joining a group of Canadians and Iowans for cards. Did I want a drink, they asked. Did you know that in Eastern Europe they still sell absinthe with the wormwood in it?
--
Back to the narrative present. Damn Belfast, and damn the Let’s Go™ guidebook. They say that you can take a ferry from Belfast to Scotland (a wee little port called Stranraer, pronounced Str-Ahn-nAR). Well, the LG map of Belfast doesn’t show the central trainstation. It’s simply indicated by a disembodied arrow pointing off the right edge. Neither is the ferry port on the map. When I asked the chipper but retrospectively quite insolent officer on duty at the trainstation, she replied that it was “awkward” to get to the ferry port. “Catch a taxi” she told me. Well, I walked. I carried my two backpacks along busy citystreets and highways, following the signs directing vehicular traffic toward the docks. I couldn’t a single taxi to stop for me. It took close to an hour, and I was soaked in sweat by the time I got there, dodging streams of cars and trucks the whole time. And according to the LG map, I went from terra incognita (where there be dragons) to the known world, and then back again.
--
5:10PM on the Stena Line ferry from Belfast to Stranraer. For one, it’s far less gaudy than the Irish Ferries ship I took to Dublin. It was decorated in more subdued greens and blues, though there still were gambling facilities on board (‘bandits’ they were labeled, for ‘one-arm bandits’ I suppose). I had a steak and guinness pie, which cost me the exorbitant sum six pounds. That’s close to $12.00! Now who’re the bandits? Tonight, I’m looking forward to staying in a real hotel in downtown Glasgow. I need to get a good night’s rest, and I don’t want to worry about waking other people from my coughing. Though I’m already feeling better. If I hadn’t thought that I had turned the corner, I would never have gone drinking the night before.
--
7:20PM Ah, but now Scotland. Rolling hills, cows, and blue skies. The sun doesn’t go down until 10:00PM here so there are a few more hours of light as I ride ScotRail to Glasgow Central.
--
Listening to Curve and watching the clouds and pastures roll by. I get chills the scenery is so beautiful.Black-faced sheep scampering in unison, rock strewn streams, the setting sun, a tan speckled falcon perched on a fence post.
--
Whoops! A drunk just got dragged back into the conductor’s cabin for starting a fight. I don’t quite get what the problem is, but they’re arguing quite animatedly about it still (in an accent so think it defies comprehension).
--
We’re stopped now at a tiny station in the fields, and he’s off the train. He storms back on and tries to batter down the conductor door. Now he’s stalking along the length of the train carrying a large rock. Moments later, he’s sitting down on the other side of the tracks. I don’t know exactly how that was resolved, but a few minutes later we’re on our way again. “I apologize for the delay” the conductor informs us.
--
10:30PM Glasgow Central station, and walking through the closed down shopping districts of downtown Glasgow. I’m staying at the Corus Hotel, which is amazingly luxurious compared to where I’ve been staying. The last place didn’t have consistently hot water in its showers. At the Corus, I took two showers and a long hot bath.
6/3/2004
Early morning. Overcast, with a light drizzle. Back in Dublin if only for 30 minutes. The train from Cork to Dublin arrives at Heuston Station. I needed to transfer by bus from one side of town to the other in order to take the Belfast-bound train from Connolly Station. Kind of a pain, but it allowed me to relive some familiar sights: the Guinness storehouse, a wide-body truck painted black pulling a trailer full of kegs of Guinness, the River Liffey. . . Along the way, a tall wiry old man with deep liver-spots asked me if how to get to Connolly Station. As he descended from the upper deck of the two-story bus, I noticed how large his hands were compared to how thin his arms were. Was he on his way to Belfast as well? For the last time? On the platform at Connolly, a different sort of spectacle; I would have pegged her for a Russian prostitute. Sharp facial features (if somewhat attractive), white jacket with fur trim, and tall black boots fitted with spike heels and an absurd assortment of buckes and clasps. And me. All on the ‘Enterprise’ Dublin-Belfast express train.
--
Last night in Cork I finally made it down to the Shelbourne Pub. The hostel made a visit practically obligatory; they had a special price for hostelers there (3 euros for a pint) and even had an advertisement printed on the keycards they distributed to guests. There I met a young American by the name of R. J. whose father is currently serving in Iraq, and a bald Irishman (who reminds of some T.V. policeman whose name I can’t recall) with a Ph.D. in history. I guess we did the pub thing; over 3 rounds of beer, we discussed WWII, immigration, Iraq, Northern Ireland, and Israel. The old chap was a sharp one. He gave me the lowdown on the referendum on the Irish constitution. A vote ‘yes’ to amend it would stop the ‘abuse’ of the citizenship law in Ireland where parents of children born there are also granted citizenship. Under the proposed amendment, only children born in Ireland would gain citizenship, but not their parents. Supposedly, this will remove the incentive for visitors to bear children there, and drag down Ireland’s social welfare system. The old chap’s main point is that in America they don’t have the same degree of social welfare, so the debates are not comparable. Of course, I can’t totally agree with that, but then again I find it strangely hard to fault the Irish. Most countries in Europe are extremely stingy about granting citizenship. Germany for example has solved its labor-shortage problem with the gästarbeiter (guest-worker) program: workers are allowed in, but are not given citizenship rights. A lot of other countries are producing similar dual-structures in their populations.
Anyway, predictably the Labour party as well as marxists and socialists oppose the constitutional referendum, and equate ‘common-sense citizenship’ with thinly veiled racism.
--
Early bar closings, ‘The Brog’, Chinese chefs, and absinthe.
The rest of the evening must remain purposefully vague. But a few observations: bars tend to close early in Ireland, where they stop serving at 11:00PM, like Great Britain and Champaign-Urbana. However, some mysteriously are allowed to stay open, and these get ridiculously packed with people afterhours. Bartenders will direct you there in fact after they close up. “Go to the Brog, make a right, a right, a right, and look for the crowds.” Nowhere else to go, I guess. The music: The White Stripes, Stone Roses, Nirvana. The Beer: Murphy’s. The change encounter: a group of Cantonese and Malay-Chinese working in Cork’s Chinese restaurant (I think there’s only one?). Back at the hostel, joining a group of Canadians and Iowans for cards. Did I want a drink, they asked. Did you know that in Eastern Europe they still sell absinthe with the wormwood in it?
--
Back to the narrative present. Damn Belfast, and damn the Let’s Go™ guidebook. They say that you can take a ferry from Belfast to Scotland (a wee little port called Stranraer, pronounced Str-Ahn-nAR). Well, the LG map of Belfast doesn’t show the central trainstation. It’s simply indicated by a disembodied arrow pointing off the right edge. Neither is the ferry port on the map. When I asked the chipper but retrospectively quite insolent officer on duty at the trainstation, she replied that it was “awkward” to get to the ferry port. “Catch a taxi” she told me. Well, I walked. I carried my two backpacks along busy citystreets and highways, following the signs directing vehicular traffic toward the docks. I couldn’t a single taxi to stop for me. It took close to an hour, and I was soaked in sweat by the time I got there, dodging streams of cars and trucks the whole time. And according to the LG map, I went from terra incognita (where there be dragons) to the known world, and then back again.
--
5:10PM on the Stena Line ferry from Belfast to Stranraer. For one, it’s far less gaudy than the Irish Ferries ship I took to Dublin. It was decorated in more subdued greens and blues, though there still were gambling facilities on board (‘bandits’ they were labeled, for ‘one-arm bandits’ I suppose). I had a steak and guinness pie, which cost me the exorbitant sum six pounds. That’s close to $12.00! Now who’re the bandits? Tonight, I’m looking forward to staying in a real hotel in downtown Glasgow. I need to get a good night’s rest, and I don’t want to worry about waking other people from my coughing. Though I’m already feeling better. If I hadn’t thought that I had turned the corner, I would never have gone drinking the night before.
--
7:20PM Ah, but now Scotland. Rolling hills, cows, and blue skies. The sun doesn’t go down until 10:00PM here so there are a few more hours of light as I ride ScotRail to Glasgow Central.
--
Listening to Curve and watching the clouds and pastures roll by. I get chills the scenery is so beautiful.Black-faced sheep scampering in unison, rock strewn streams, the setting sun, a tan speckled falcon perched on a fence post.
--
Whoops! A drunk just got dragged back into the conductor’s cabin for starting a fight. I don’t quite get what the problem is, but they’re arguing quite animatedly about it still (in an accent so think it defies comprehension).
--
We’re stopped now at a tiny station in the fields, and he’s off the train. He storms back on and tries to batter down the conductor door. Now he’s stalking along the length of the train carrying a large rock. Moments later, he’s sitting down on the other side of the tracks. I don’t know exactly how that was resolved, but a few minutes later we’re on our way again. “I apologize for the delay” the conductor informs us.
--
10:30PM Glasgow Central station, and walking through the closed down shopping districts of downtown Glasgow. I’m staying at the Corus Hotel, which is amazingly luxurious compared to where I’ve been staying. The last place didn’t have consistently hot water in its showers. At the Corus, I took two showers and a long hot bath.
Thursday, June 10, 2004
@SkaraBrae
I can't really get my full journal online yet, since the connection is so slow from here. Just want to let everyone know that I'm still alive. Barely. I biked about 40 miles yesterday, over hills and through the wind and rain. And I can hardly walk today. But hell, I got some decent photos. I'll show them to you when I get to a better connected place.
Saturday, June 05, 2004
short update
to say that I can't update the site yet. . . EasyInternet doesn't allow me to use my USB flash reader, so I can't get my new pictures up, or even upload my daily journal updates. I guess I could retype them up here, but I don't have the time. I'm going to tour a kilt factory here in Edinburgh. . . I'm hanging out with two taiwanese guys. One of them just got his masters from Columbia in architecture. Small world eh?
Hopefully the next city will let me upload these pictures.
-E
Hopefully the next city will let me upload these pictures.
-E
Wednesday, June 02, 2004
6/2/2004 Blarney and Cork
Second day in Cork. My throat hurts and I’m feeling feverish, but I’ve come all this way, and damned if I don’t kiss the Blarney Stone.
6:45AM up and getting ready, while trying to ignore the spreading pain in my lungs. I think I must have kept the other hostelers awake with my coughing and sniffling.
8:00AM on the street, talking to a garrulous Conan O’Brian clone in a yellow windbreaker who hailed me with the question, “are you Japanese?” I’m not. Nonetheless, he proceeded to tell me of his plans to go to America, “The Land of the Free.” Well, my appraisal of the USA was much less positive, and I told him so. But he says that he’s ready to try his luck. Ending the conversation, he briskly states “arigato.” Cork is a pretty friendly town . . .
9:30AM Arriving in Blarney, a town dominated by its tourist assets. The castle itself is wonderfully hollow; helpful signs indicate where the floors once were, and explain what the rooms once were used for. As it is, the signs are far off the ground, and you have to imagine the “kitchen” for example, way up there in the air, levitating. Lichen and grass clung to the weathered dark-gray stone of the Castle. Speaking of stones, the Blarney Stone is a roughly rectangular brick about 3 feet across which has been rubbed smooth by uncountable lips touching it, and hence is a recognizably lighter hue than the surrounding stone. It is attached to the bottom of the lip of the keep wall which is separated from the keep itself by a narrow gap. Thus, you need to lie on your back, grip two metal bars for support, and extend your head back and down to make contact with the Stone. Not particularly dangerous, but I’m not particularly fond of heights. ‘Smack’ and on my way, because there were about 20 people waiting behind me. I had asked an Ozzie to take my pic, but he missed the moment. Oh well. I would only have shown my legs sticking out from the wall.
--
Afternoon: feeling sicker, and feverish. I took a quick nap, and noticed that my bunkmate James was still sleeping. Wonder what happened to him. Is it time for me to move on? I’m weary, and rather unexcited about staying here. It could be the cold making me grumpy, but I’m not sure if there’s anything left for me to do in Cork. It’s a pretty enough town, but when you’re too sick to drink Guinness or Murphys, what point is there?
--
6:00PM Paid a visit to University College Cork. Isn’t that kind of redundant? The campus was rather quiet. I took a look at the campus map and briefly thought about visiting their history department. No sign of an East Asian department (or even a Dept. of Oriental Studies). They have a library named after Boole (originator of boolean logic?), but other than being somewhat picturesque, nothing much to write home about.
6:45AM up and getting ready, while trying to ignore the spreading pain in my lungs. I think I must have kept the other hostelers awake with my coughing and sniffling.
8:00AM on the street, talking to a garrulous Conan O’Brian clone in a yellow windbreaker who hailed me with the question, “are you Japanese?” I’m not. Nonetheless, he proceeded to tell me of his plans to go to America, “The Land of the Free.” Well, my appraisal of the USA was much less positive, and I told him so. But he says that he’s ready to try his luck. Ending the conversation, he briskly states “arigato.” Cork is a pretty friendly town . . .
9:30AM Arriving in Blarney, a town dominated by its tourist assets. The castle itself is wonderfully hollow; helpful signs indicate where the floors once were, and explain what the rooms once were used for. As it is, the signs are far off the ground, and you have to imagine the “kitchen” for example, way up there in the air, levitating. Lichen and grass clung to the weathered dark-gray stone of the Castle. Speaking of stones, the Blarney Stone is a roughly rectangular brick about 3 feet across which has been rubbed smooth by uncountable lips touching it, and hence is a recognizably lighter hue than the surrounding stone. It is attached to the bottom of the lip of the keep wall which is separated from the keep itself by a narrow gap. Thus, you need to lie on your back, grip two metal bars for support, and extend your head back and down to make contact with the Stone. Not particularly dangerous, but I’m not particularly fond of heights. ‘Smack’ and on my way, because there were about 20 people waiting behind me. I had asked an Ozzie to take my pic, but he missed the moment. Oh well. I would only have shown my legs sticking out from the wall.
--
Afternoon: feeling sicker, and feverish. I took a quick nap, and noticed that my bunkmate James was still sleeping. Wonder what happened to him. Is it time for me to move on? I’m weary, and rather unexcited about staying here. It could be the cold making me grumpy, but I’m not sure if there’s anything left for me to do in Cork. It’s a pretty enough town, but when you’re too sick to drink Guinness or Murphys, what point is there?
--
6:00PM Paid a visit to University College Cork. Isn’t that kind of redundant? The campus was rather quiet. I took a look at the campus map and briefly thought about visiting their history department. No sign of an East Asian department (or even a Dept. of Oriental Studies). They have a library named after Boole (originator of boolean logic?), but other than being somewhat picturesque, nothing much to write home about.
Tuesday, June 01, 2004
6/1/2004 Hill of Tara, and on to Cork
**For my pictures, go to http://photos.yahoo.com/gd1303.**
A new month begins today. I passed up the wheat bix this morning, because frankly, the stuff is about as tasty as sawdust. Come to think of it, I haven’t eaten anything except sandwiches and potatoes since I’ve been here. I made my way to the bus station (the Busárus, which sounds like a breed of dinosaur) to catch the commuter bus to the Hill of Tara. The Hill is the historic seat of the ancient Celtic kings, 55 minutes away. Actually, the bus stop is one mile away at the base of a long but gently ascending road. I started noticing how quiet the countryside is. Ever since I left NYC its been constant noise, and Dublin was noisy (and noisome) in its own way. (too “aggro” as a resident of Cork later described it) The quiet on the Hill of Tara however was punctuated by bird calls and cow moos. The site itself was subtle; there was but one exposed stone monument, the ‘Stone of Destiny’ which did not roar when I laid my hands on it (but reportedly did when the legitimate Irish king did the same). The rest of the historic remains are underground, beneath the grassy concentric circles, gentle swells, and narrow ditches. Some have been excavated apparently, and show that the Hill of Tara was used for a long time, starting in the neolithic period. Unfortunately, my photos don’t capture the experience of wandering over those grassy hills; the view over the surrounding pasture land was glorious, and clouds cast creeping shadows over the neatly divided fields.
--
Ireland is having an important election soon, and campaign posters are everywhere. There’s even supposed to be a referendum on the constitution. I still have no idea what the issues are, but they seem to be related to citizenship. One campaign poster caught my eye. I forget the candidates name, or which party he represents, but his platform was written across the poster in bold letters: “Stop the Paedophiles”
--
11:15AM Brunching on vegetable soup and a scone at the hilltop café/souvenir shop. It was very peaceful, but I felt a cold coming on. the walk back down the hill was thus much less pleasant. However, I did get one good photo pf some sleeping cows. Who says cows sleep standing up? You won’t get very far trying to tip these cattle. Moments later a minivan buzzed past at a dangerous speed and woke the bovine sleepers up.
--
4:00PM Four and a half hours on the bus from Dublin to Cork; stopped halfway there at a petrol station. There, I had my first ‘Wimpy burger’ (a Wimpy Quarterpounder with Cheese, to be exact). Tasteless. I’m not lovin’ it.
--
10:00PM Went to work at this enormous internet café, ‘Web Workhouse’ where they have a roomful of machines sporting dual P4@3.0Ghz. Ridiculous. Pretty much overkill for the emailing and websurfing that most customers where doing. One bloke was playing counterstrike, but hey, that ran perfectly fine on 400Mhz PII’s. I was flabbergasted at the completely misplaced priorities of that place. Do they rent the place for LAN parties or something, or is it all about being 1337?
A new month begins today. I passed up the wheat bix this morning, because frankly, the stuff is about as tasty as sawdust. Come to think of it, I haven’t eaten anything except sandwiches and potatoes since I’ve been here. I made my way to the bus station (the Busárus, which sounds like a breed of dinosaur) to catch the commuter bus to the Hill of Tara. The Hill is the historic seat of the ancient Celtic kings, 55 minutes away. Actually, the bus stop is one mile away at the base of a long but gently ascending road. I started noticing how quiet the countryside is. Ever since I left NYC its been constant noise, and Dublin was noisy (and noisome) in its own way. (too “aggro” as a resident of Cork later described it) The quiet on the Hill of Tara however was punctuated by bird calls and cow moos. The site itself was subtle; there was but one exposed stone monument, the ‘Stone of Destiny’ which did not roar when I laid my hands on it (but reportedly did when the legitimate Irish king did the same). The rest of the historic remains are underground, beneath the grassy concentric circles, gentle swells, and narrow ditches. Some have been excavated apparently, and show that the Hill of Tara was used for a long time, starting in the neolithic period. Unfortunately, my photos don’t capture the experience of wandering over those grassy hills; the view over the surrounding pasture land was glorious, and clouds cast creeping shadows over the neatly divided fields.
--
Ireland is having an important election soon, and campaign posters are everywhere. There’s even supposed to be a referendum on the constitution. I still have no idea what the issues are, but they seem to be related to citizenship. One campaign poster caught my eye. I forget the candidates name, or which party he represents, but his platform was written across the poster in bold letters: “Stop the Paedophiles”
--
11:15AM Brunching on vegetable soup and a scone at the hilltop café/souvenir shop. It was very peaceful, but I felt a cold coming on. the walk back down the hill was thus much less pleasant. However, I did get one good photo pf some sleeping cows. Who says cows sleep standing up? You won’t get very far trying to tip these cattle. Moments later a minivan buzzed past at a dangerous speed and woke the bovine sleepers up.
--
4:00PM Four and a half hours on the bus from Dublin to Cork; stopped halfway there at a petrol station. There, I had my first ‘Wimpy burger’ (a Wimpy Quarterpounder with Cheese, to be exact). Tasteless. I’m not lovin’ it.
--
10:00PM Went to work at this enormous internet café, ‘Web Workhouse’ where they have a roomful of machines sporting dual P4@3.0Ghz. Ridiculous. Pretty much overkill for the emailing and websurfing that most customers where doing. One bloke was playing counterstrike, but hey, that ran perfectly fine on 400Mhz PII’s. I was flabbergasted at the completely misplaced priorities of that place. Do they rent the place for LAN parties or something, or is it all about being 1337?
5/31/2004 Dublin at the Litton Lane Hostel
Breakfast of ‘wheat bix’, cornflakes, and toast. Conversation with two Ozzies transplanted to London. Lots of Ozzies and Italians staying here at the Litton Lane Hostel. Took a short job along the River Liffey, which would have been enjoyable without all the cars and smog. Something about the smells reminded me of jogging in Japan, of the damp smell beside canals and rivers. Took a walk across to the vicinity of Trinity College, and had a coffee in a sandwich place. Most of the workers there were Chinese, probably exchange students. I ended up buying a new backpack later on, and negotiated the price in mandarin. The seller quickly offered a five euro discount. According to him, there are many many Chinese in Ireland, which is fairly surprising to me. Is there a Chinatown here?
--
Trinity College: quite bustling, both from its students and tourists. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a college campus turned into such a state before. Certainly at Princeton, most of the visitors are highschool students and their families scouting out the University. Trinity was charging ten euros to see the Book of Kells, an early example of ancient Celtic writing, but I passed up the chance. Ten euros!
--
Saint Patrick’s Cathedral: dark and solemn on the interior. The final resting place of the acerbic Jonathon Swift, who acted as Dean there later in his life.
--
Guinness Storehouse: My, they sure know how to make some rather obvious facts look glamorous. Guinness (“black gold” we’re told over and over) is made from water, hops, and malted barley, plus ‘magic’. Add water fountains, videos, and moody blue lights, and you have six floors of entertainment, including a massive giftshop. Preaching to the converted I guess is pretty easy. We were all there to celebrate Guinness anyway, so why bother with surprises? One thing that I did learn though was that the Guinness Book of World Records was originally produced at the request of the manager of the Guinness Brewery in the 1950s to resolve barroom debates. I guess that also gives you some insight into the Irish pub culture.
--
Rain, rain rain. The weather returned to its ‘typical’ state. I’m concered that I may end up climbing hills in the rain tomorrow.
--
Trinity College: quite bustling, both from its students and tourists. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a college campus turned into such a state before. Certainly at Princeton, most of the visitors are highschool students and their families scouting out the University. Trinity was charging ten euros to see the Book of Kells, an early example of ancient Celtic writing, but I passed up the chance. Ten euros!
--
Saint Patrick’s Cathedral: dark and solemn on the interior. The final resting place of the acerbic Jonathon Swift, who acted as Dean there later in his life.
--
Guinness Storehouse: My, they sure know how to make some rather obvious facts look glamorous. Guinness (“black gold” we’re told over and over) is made from water, hops, and malted barley, plus ‘magic’. Add water fountains, videos, and moody blue lights, and you have six floors of entertainment, including a massive giftshop. Preaching to the converted I guess is pretty easy. We were all there to celebrate Guinness anyway, so why bother with surprises? One thing that I did learn though was that the Guinness Book of World Records was originally produced at the request of the manager of the Guinness Brewery in the 1950s to resolve barroom debates. I guess that also gives you some insight into the Irish pub culture.
--
Rain, rain rain. The weather returned to its ‘typical’ state. I’m concered that I may end up climbing hills in the rain tomorrow.
5/30/2004 Heathrow to Dublin
Customs at Heathrow: a rotund (as are most of the British!) matron with short bangs (she somehow brought to mind the female cleric portrait from Baldur’s Gate) trails behind me and gently asks to see my passport. I turn around and let her see the goods. . . “That’s not a lot of baggage for three weeks,” she asks suspiciously while examining my two small backpacks. I’m suddenly self-conscious. “Uh, yeah. I’m going to have to wash my clothes pretty often.” I’m on my way after she gives the barest of aknowledgments.
--
10:00AM @ St. Pancras (kind of a vile sounding name) drinking the same kind of thick coffee that I had in Amsterdam, brewed from espresso beans with a light brown film on top. Refreshingly chilly out. I’m pleased to think that I packed appropriately. I’ll be needing my jacket soon.
--
Names of stops on the Underground are strangely familiar: Earle’s Court, Hyde Park, Hammersmith, Vaux Hall. . .
--
10:30AM on the Midland Mainline to Sheffield, the cup of prickly caffeine churning in my stomach, thinking once again that “great ideas” never make any difference in this world. They never saved anyone, and this perhaps is the failure of our ‘history’ because ideas come and go but the logic of power and self-preservation operates just the same. Grandiose philosophy is merely a convenient tool to manipulate the more sensitive among us, to force us into compliance with Power and Capital. Is philosophy nothing more than ‘super-structure’?
--
Feeling like l’étranger. But I’m intriguied by the racial diversity of the UK.
Watching from the train I see tightly packed redbrick homes, each two or three stories tall. They remind me of the music video for ‘Our House’ (by Madness).
--
How long has it been since I last slept? I didn’t expect England to be this sunny. Are there 秘境の駅 fanatics in the UK as well? There are so many desolate train stations along the way to Derby. . .
--
I need a watch. I need to communicate. There’s something about a solitary journey that makes me want to exhaustively document every moment.
--
3:30PM, stuck at Crewe, and will be here for at least another hour. “bus left eight minutes early it did, but ‘ats alroight, it was full anyways,” says the sarcastic woman next to me on her cellphone. We’re stuck because the train line ends here due to construction and there are not enough shuttle buses to get us to the next station. So, I’m stuck in this rusted trainstation in a town I’ve never heard of. I need to get to Chester or I’m going to miss my ferry.
--
6:30PM, train at Chester came late lucky for us, because the shuttle bus didn’t get us there until five minutes after it was scheduled to depart. We’re finally speeding westward on the north coast of Wales along some spectacular salt-flats and pasture-land. Derelict ships and sheep . I just may make the ferry and get to Dublin tonight. Haven’t eaten anything since 11:00AM. . .
--
8:10PM on the Irish Ferry ( the M.V. Jonathon Swift, no less) with some young hooligans. Initial impression of the Irish: boors compared to the British. On the bus to the ferry terminal a band of young (but remarkably grizzled-looking) lads start razzing this greying gentleman traveling with a dog. “Hey! No dogs allowed in Ireland!” “What’s ‘is name? Rabies?” The old man only returned a smirk tinged with a grimace, and kept silent.
The Irish Ferry reminds me somewhat of a Carnival Cruise ship, especially its choice of interior colors and its slot-machines. The wind on deck was so strong that I had to hold on tight or be blown off.
--
10:00AM @ St. Pancras (kind of a vile sounding name) drinking the same kind of thick coffee that I had in Amsterdam, brewed from espresso beans with a light brown film on top. Refreshingly chilly out. I’m pleased to think that I packed appropriately. I’ll be needing my jacket soon.
--
Names of stops on the Underground are strangely familiar: Earle’s Court, Hyde Park, Hammersmith, Vaux Hall. . .
--
10:30AM on the Midland Mainline to Sheffield, the cup of prickly caffeine churning in my stomach, thinking once again that “great ideas” never make any difference in this world. They never saved anyone, and this perhaps is the failure of our ‘history’ because ideas come and go but the logic of power and self-preservation operates just the same. Grandiose philosophy is merely a convenient tool to manipulate the more sensitive among us, to force us into compliance with Power and Capital. Is philosophy nothing more than ‘super-structure’?
--
Feeling like l’étranger. But I’m intriguied by the racial diversity of the UK.
Watching from the train I see tightly packed redbrick homes, each two or three stories tall. They remind me of the music video for ‘Our House’ (by Madness).
--
How long has it been since I last slept? I didn’t expect England to be this sunny. Are there 秘境の駅 fanatics in the UK as well? There are so many desolate train stations along the way to Derby. . .
--
I need a watch. I need to communicate. There’s something about a solitary journey that makes me want to exhaustively document every moment.
--
3:30PM, stuck at Crewe, and will be here for at least another hour. “bus left eight minutes early it did, but ‘ats alroight, it was full anyways,” says the sarcastic woman next to me on her cellphone. We’re stuck because the train line ends here due to construction and there are not enough shuttle buses to get us to the next station. So, I’m stuck in this rusted trainstation in a town I’ve never heard of. I need to get to Chester or I’m going to miss my ferry.
--
6:30PM, train at Chester came late lucky for us, because the shuttle bus didn’t get us there until five minutes after it was scheduled to depart. We’re finally speeding westward on the north coast of Wales along some spectacular salt-flats and pasture-land. Derelict ships and sheep . I just may make the ferry and get to Dublin tonight. Haven’t eaten anything since 11:00AM. . .
--
8:10PM on the Irish Ferry ( the M.V. Jonathon Swift, no less) with some young hooligans. Initial impression of the Irish: boors compared to the British. On the bus to the ferry terminal a band of young (but remarkably grizzled-looking) lads start razzing this greying gentleman traveling with a dog. “Hey! No dogs allowed in Ireland!” “What’s ‘is name? Rabies?” The old man only returned a smirk tinged with a grimace, and kept silent.
The Irish Ferry reminds me somewhat of a Carnival Cruise ship, especially its choice of interior colors and its slot-machines. The wind on deck was so strong that I had to hold on tight or be blown off.
5/29/04 early snafus
forgot Dave’s NiMH battery charger in Lena’s living room. I guess I was overzealous about being prepared. I had it plugged into the wall to make sure the batteries were in tip-top charge before shipping out. . . unfortunately, they’re now uselessly attached to Lena’s power outlet.
It is really expensive to buy up last-minute gear at JFK. The passport pouch was $15, and the dodgy-looking battery charger I bought was $18. Then again, terminal 4 at JFK is now completely remodeled as a shiny shopping mall. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing, but it’s certainly better than the crowded, sweaty arrival terminal I remember from ’97-’98. Though its not cheap to ride the airtrain from the A train HowardsBeach/JFK stop ($5.00) it sure beats driving out here. I also have troubled memories of the 3 hour ride from NJ to JFK.
Random observation: you need to be at least 25 years old to be nostalgic for Ms. Pacman or Galaga. There are some pretty ‘old-skool’ video games placed by gate B24, for 50 cents a play. None of the guys playing (getting up there in age and weight, with their wives waiting nearby) looked younger than me. As for me, I only have a few more months before I turn 30 as well.
20 more minutes before boarding. 6:10PM, May 29th 2004.
It is really expensive to buy up last-minute gear at JFK. The passport pouch was $15, and the dodgy-looking battery charger I bought was $18. Then again, terminal 4 at JFK is now completely remodeled as a shiny shopping mall. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing, but it’s certainly better than the crowded, sweaty arrival terminal I remember from ’97-’98. Though its not cheap to ride the airtrain from the A train HowardsBeach/JFK stop ($5.00) it sure beats driving out here. I also have troubled memories of the 3 hour ride from NJ to JFK.
Random observation: you need to be at least 25 years old to be nostalgic for Ms. Pacman or Galaga. There are some pretty ‘old-skool’ video games placed by gate B24, for 50 cents a play. None of the guys playing (getting up there in age and weight, with their wives waiting nearby) looked younger than me. As for me, I only have a few more months before I turn 30 as well.
20 more minutes before boarding. 6:10PM, May 29th 2004.
The Plan. . . now in progress
5/30 London Heathrow -> Euston, St. Pancras station -> Derby -> Crewe -> bus to Chester -> Holyhead -> Irish Ferries to Dublin
6/1 Dublin to Cork
6/3 Cork to Belfast
6/4 Belfast to Edinburgh
6/6 Edinburgh to Aberdeen via Stirling
6/9 Edinburg to York via Holy Island
6/12 York to London
6/16 London to Paris via Eurostar
6/18 Paris return to London
6/19 Heathrow to Tokyo
6/1 Dublin to Cork
6/3 Cork to Belfast
6/4 Belfast to Edinburgh
6/6 Edinburgh to Aberdeen via Stirling
6/9 Edinburg to York via Holy Island
6/12 York to London
6/16 London to Paris via Eurostar
6/18 Paris return to London
6/19 Heathrow to Tokyo
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