Vacation time

[Bob Schroeck]

I probably should have mentioned this earlier in the week, but Peg and I are heading down to Florida for a week tomorrow.  (If you actually look at the board calendar, then you know that, as it's been scheduled for some months now.)

Unlike our last few trips, we're actually going to our home timeshare resort, the Vistana Beach Club.  We haven't been back there in almost twenty years, since we usually trade our week on the resort network we're part of to go elsewhere.

And while we're there, we'll be visiting one of our favorite spots in Florida, the Morikami Museum and Gardens.  We have tickets for the lantern festival on Saturday, although we missed our very narrow window to actually buy lanterns.

Anyway, I'll be taking my tablet (and of course my phone) so I won't be out of touch.  But I will probably be a bit scarcer than usual.

[classicdrogn]

Have fun on your trip!

[Dartz]

Enjoy-

I've just gotten an email from KLM reminding me that I've a flight in 2 weeks. That I booked 12 months ago.

[DHBirr]

Bob, and Dartz as well, I wish you each a good time.

[robkelk]

I probably should have mentioned this earlier in the week, but Peg and I are heading down to Florida for a week tomorrow.  (If you actually look at the board calendar, then you know that, as it's been scheduled for some months now.)

<Alexander Haig> I'm in control now. </Alexander Haig>

No, wait - my Al Haig impression is horrible. Scratch that.

Have fun on your trip, Bob and Peggy!

[Bob Schroeck]

So, we're halfway through our week in Florida and enjoying ourselves. The lantern festival at the Morikami was fun, but a bit hard to get through -- Florida's been having very unseasonable weather this week, 80s and 90s F and high humidity, which made the festival (held entirely outdoors) not as comfortable as it might have been. (The festival is a transplanted Obon -- normally held in August, but the Morikami holds it in October to avoid the high temperatures and humidity -- a point made several times as a joke by festival officials.)

Anyway, I've been taking photos and I'll post some when we get home. We return on Friday, so maybe on Saturday... we'll see.

[Star Ranger4]

Hang in there and don't melt Bob. If its any consolation, the thermometer on my patio has been reading 100 f the last three days on the left coast as well. So, at the very least you are not sweltering alone?

[hazard]

If my thermometer is reading 100 degrees I'd be very worried unless it's in a pot of boiling water, it's Celsius scaled.

That said, temperatures here are between 10-15C, with the lower end during the night and the higher end during the day, and rare glimpses of the sun plus a humidity that ranges from 'rather humid' to 'steady rain for hours on end'.

[Star Ranger4]

Give that we are talking just shy of 38c vs 15c?

Count yourself lucky Hazard. Especially since after my move it seems like I live in the warmest room in our house. 38c might actually be cooler than what it feels like right now?

[Bob Schroeck]

And we're back.

[Dartz]

And I fucking made it.

Tomorrow I get to go on holiday. Next time I login - if I bother to - I'll be in the Japan.

Which is amusing because the last time I wrote those words in a fic the character involved was killed in a plane crash on the way to Japan.

[DHBirr]

Avert the evil omen!

[Bob Schroeck]

You will get there safely. Have fun!

[Labster]

It was nice knowing you, Dartz.

[robkelk]

And I fucking made it.

Tomorrow I get to go on holiday. Next time I login - if I bother to - I'll be in the Japan.

No! Not the Japan!

Save yourself - just go to a Japan instead.



There - that should have dispelled the omen.

[Terrenceknight]

Of course now that you say 'a' Japan he's naturally going to get transported to an alternate earth and go to their japan lol.

Also Welcome back Bob, hope the trip did you good!

[Bob Schroeck]

It did, thanks.

[DHBirr]

Of course now that you say 'a' Japan he's naturally going to get transported to an alternate earth and go to their japan lol.

For Dartz's sake, I hope it's a more appealing Earth than our own.  I mean, if I got stranded in Is the Order a Rabbit?, to name just one, I wouldn't want to come back here.

[Dartz]

Sitting on Hikari 473

It's 24 hours since I woke up yesterday morning. 24 hours spent on aircraft, in sweaty airports and waiting in customs. I need a shower, a shave and a sleep

A gentleman has had the misfortune of booking a seat beside me on the train and is making an effort to eat his lunch in peace.

It is quite obvious that he is aware of all if this nonetheless

[classicdrogn]

Good to hear you made it safely, just watch out for Truck-kun on the last stretch there.

[Dartz]

Still two hours to go on a Sakura full of schoolkids

[Dartz]

Japan is not a country I would want to live in.

There, I said it. I get it - but at the same time I get it enough to realise there is no place for me here. It's a great country to visit - fascinating, beautiful, entertaining, relaxing and exhilirating, but at the same time the charms that apply to a vistor would probably wear off. As a vacation, it feels like there'snever enough time to see anything and that more would always be needed.

But I think that's the best way to leave a place.

I'm writing in a hotel in Shinjuku, the only hotel on the entire street that offers a nightly rate. Of course, I probably should've checked that a hotel with 'Shinjuku' in the name was actually a little closer to the epnymous station and not down a seedy back-street where most hotels charge rooms by the hour. It's a proper hotel mind - but the questions that've been raised.

I've still another three days to go before heading for home on Wednesday, but I've some quiet time at least to think.

This is my second time here, and it mostly mirrors my first - adding an extra day or two or a new location to fill out the time. The first occasion was very much a 'fuck you' sort of trip - just doing it because I was told to wait. We came, we saw, we learned we knew what to do different the next time - or do better.

The travelling companion's are different. My brother was here with me the last time. The Oulfella is the strag coming along to see the World Cup Final - booked back when Ireland actually lookedlike theyd scraped together the competence, and the fourth companion in the party is a friend of mine who's an Otaku's otaku - and who's spent the last year scratching the funds together on the scratcher to pay for the trip.

From our household door in Dublin, to the hotel door in Hiroshima, it takes 27 hours to arrive. Driving, flying, flying a lot more, then hours on the bullet train followed by a local bus in Hiroshima filled with Halloween parygoers. In Japan you have a few people in costume. In Ireland you've scumbags firing at cop cars using roman candles and setting multiple cars on fire to block the fire-brigade from a housing estate. I think I prefer the Japanese take meself.

Our Hotel in Hiroshima is dead centre to the city, overlooking the Peace Park museum. Out the window, is the A-Bomb dome. By coincidence, I walk under the exact hypocentre of the blast at the instant I read a thread on a forum entitled 'Modern Japan ISOT to 1945 at the moment the bomb is dropped'. For some reason that leaves an unsettled taste in the mouth.

The Peace museum has changed a great deal since we last visited. It's split into two areas - the individual effects of the bomb ad the artifacts of those it affected - and then the actual weapon itself and what nuclear weapons are. It personalises the incineration of thousands in an indescribable way. Few of the exhibits retain the ominous and unsettling phrase 'exposed to the bomb'. I think they've changed the translation - but the original just made the atomic bomb seem that much more sinister. There is that moment where you see a schoolgirl's bag, with its badges and emblems and there's a schoolgirl on a trip standing beside you with a satchel over her shoulder with a very similar array of badges and it just sort of hits you in an indescribably way.

That said Hiroshima today, is much more than a moment in history 80 years ago. You could visit Hiroshima and never set foot in the peace museam and it would be a fulfilling visit.

After the peace museum, we walked on up to Hiroshima castle - destroyed by the bomb and rebuilt out of concrete as a museum. 'Something' was happening in the castle shrine, with cars regularly driving up with children dressed in fancy Yutaka for blessing by the Shrine maidens, but I never worked up the courage to ask what. I also sat and watched while a brand new car was blessed thoroughly, inside and out.

For our second day we took a ride on a nice boat out to Itsukishima island. The famous Tori gate was hidden under scaffolding for repair. The rest of the island isforest - dense, impentrable forest, and deer that will eat the shirt off your back if you give them the chance. It's a tourist hotspot, 45 minutes ride by fast ferry from Hiroshima. We take the 8:30am boat and it's already milling with tourists, feeding the deer inspite of signs warning to do the opposite. There is an aquarium on the island - and the best that can be said about it is that it has some examples of extremely thick glass and that it was visited. We spend the day instead getting ourselves up to the top of the local Mt.Misen - which, even with the held of a ropeway cutting out the easier lower part of the climb - proved to be a proper hard slog. I actually asked an American tourist to take a photograph of me at the summit observatory because nobody would believe I made it up there.

Making it down was even harder. There is a trail, but it is steep. I went through about three litres of water making it up and down and we still barely made the last ferry back to Hiroshima. I meet an ex US Marine who is astonished that 20+stone of me made it up there, along with my mate.

The next stop after Hiroshima is Osaka. We arrive in time for Culture day on a Monday - where all the lucky people in the city get to take a day off work. Osaka castle is thronged with visitors taking advantage of the good weather and the time out. It's early November but it's as warm and comfortable as an Irish summer's day. After a walk around the castle grounds we find ourselves sitting in the Citizen's forest on a patch of grass, indulging in a spot of Irish culture - a big bag of cans in the summer sunshine. Just sitting and soaking while the city is alive around us.

Later in the day a major city street is closed to traffic for two hours for the Festival of Light. Walking on a major city road - six lanes wide - with thousands of other people, is an eerie and unsettling experience. Like entering the liminal space of the traffic world. People are sitting in the road having lunch, taking photographs, and waiting for the main event. At sunset, every tree for kilomteres in either direction is lit with strings of brightly coloured fairy-lights. A local newscrew may have caught me saying something to the effect of 'This is bleedin' rapid' in the background of a newscast on the event. After 2 hours, it's business as normal and the road is flooded with cars once more but the lights remain on.

Dinner is at a Yakinikuk place. a Wagyu Yakiniku place. Offering us platter of the finest A5 grade Wagyu beef to fry ourselves over a gas fire. It's something that'd never be possible in Ireland - some gobshite would poison himself and sue the place down to its foundations. It is expensive - and worth every penny. Food is ordered from a web tablet at each table - and then arrives on a small wooden timber cart running on a track down a dividing wall. It's a fascinating and effective system. The night is finished by us getting slammed drunk on 2000 yen shots of 12 year old whiskey. But it's okay, the measure's are generous - easily double - and the Whiskey is fucking glorious.

On the second day, food is provided by a Ramen bar. a basic, simple, filling feed.A day trip to Kyoto brings us to a trio of ancient temples - and the JR museum with the first Series-0 Shinkansen off the production line, and a full mechanical history of Japanese railways in the metal. The museum is huge - easy to get lost in and spend ours fiddling withlittle tidbits of railway paraphenalia and interactive exhibits. Railroad make even grown men revert to boys and it is wonderful. It's late in the day when we arrive and the museum staff are putting a working steam locomotive to bed for the evening. We arrive in time to watch it chuff its way to a well earned rest in the yard, smoking and steaming and rearing to do more than scooch a rake of tourist cars up and down a branch-line.

And, oh yes, the temples were pretty too.

From Osaka, the journey is next to Hakone. The region has been hit pretty hard by a recent Typhoon. The main Tozan rail line between Hakone-Yumoto and Gora is down due to a landslide. The same landslide has also taken out the roadway for the bus route we'd otherwise need to take. Replacement busses are run -but these are overcrowded at best. the Typhoon has also damaged the distribution system for the hot springs - most places are using stored water and running their indoors baths only. Many of the hotels in Sengokuhara are closed down - signs outside advising of Typhoon damage to the building.

Ours is fine. We've picked a local hot-spring Ryokan. I expect it to be a culture shock for the strag but he adapts to everything except the lack of a back-rest when sitting at the Kotetsu. But this place - in all seriousness, transcends culture shock. A Yukuta is provided for everyone but it is not a 'requirement'. I try wear it on the first night but it is clearly too small for me - I can't even tie the Obi properly. The landlady couldn't be kinder and the kitchen serves up sumptuous traditional Japanese breakfasta and dinners. Everything is fresh. Everything is clean. Everything is tasty. And more than that, it is beautiful to the point that it is almost a shame to eat it - but at the same time it wouldn't be beautiful for long if left. Three nights in this one inn account for half of our accommodation budget - but it is unanimously agreed that it was completely worth it. Everything is perfect

We spend a day doing a loop around Hakone, taking the Ropeway up over the top of Mt Hakone itself - to Owakudani which has been closed off due to volcanic gasses - and on down to Sounzan, then a cablecar to Gora, then a bus back down to Hakone-Yumoto and the Evangalion shop under the station. For some 'odd' reason, Evangelion is remarkably popular in Hakone. There're more than a few 'Asuka' vending machines floating around. I buy a bottle of local Whiskey in a Lawsons for 2600 and - on a whim - check the price back home. A local whiskey retailer is selling the same bottle for over €100.

The second Day in Hakone is a short visit back down to Odawara and the Pacific ocean. The sand on the beach has the consistency of ash - and timber is pilled up on the highway bridge piers from a recent storm. The castle is quiet compared to Osaka and has some excellent views of the mountains. The oulfella again succumbs to his inability to pass anything that looks like an Irish bar and leads us to pints in a cafe set up alongside the castle moat. We drink while we watch Koi snatch bugs from the surface of the water - then race back to the ryokan when we realise we're in danger of being late for scheduled dinner at the Ryokan.

After Hakone it is a short hop to Shinjuku and human chaos. I cannot ever remember seeing so many people in one place, at once. It's overwhelming and exhilarating. We're early for the hotel so I find some time to wander off and check out one or two second-hand camera places. In the backstreets of shinjuku there's a number of small bands playing smooth jazz live in the in the middle of the street while crowds throng around them. Somewhere in this I manage to make myself understood to the shop owner using the meagrest few words of Japanese I know and go home with a Canon P camera and an original Canon 50mm F1.8 lens. It's mechanically sound - albeit a little bit dirty with a dent in the case.

I spent too much on it.

Tomorrow, is the Emperor's coronation parade. We stille haven't figured out what's actually happening for the next few days - but we've a flight out on Wednesday morning and I'm programmed to be back in work Thursday.

I've realised that, after 18 months of planning, I wont have anything to look forward to anymore.

[classicdrogn]

Well, it sounds like you'll have getting the film developed to look forward to, unlike many modern tourists. Assuming you managed to take more snaps of actual sights rather than your thumb or mate-shaped blur in front of greenish blur #N+1, that should be something. Sounds like a fun trip!

[Dartz]

And I'm home.

The most telling thing is that the airplane seatbelts which were tight on the way out - weren't on the way back.

[Bob Schroeck]

If I can meaningfully say this from across the Atlantic, welcome home.