Old Blog Entries

Probably Going Offline

[2006-02-07 11:48:44]

This blog is kaput.

Flash Vid

[2005-08-31 14:47:00]

This song reminds me of both last year in Eurotour and this summer in Japan. Over the summer I came across a funny Japanese video for it. here

Last Day

[2005-08-21 19:57:03]

Other than tomorrow morning, today is my last day in Japan. Yesterday I went to Eric's wedding, and had a blast. Thanks to the Petersons for a great time! I'll write about it later. In fact I'll write about alot of stuff later, since I still have about 10 things or more that never got finished and online. However, right now I need to pack, because I get kicked out of my dorm in a couple of hours.

Tanuki

[2005-08-19 12:47:27]

What is a Tanuki?

Tanuki are very common in Japanese folklore, and are regarded as tricksters which can change their shape and have supernatural powers. They often change their shape to play tricks on travellers. Tanuki are said to love sake, and often change into human form, paying for their drink with money that turns out to be tree leaves.

Here's where is gets good...

Their large testicles are a representation of fertility and good fortune, and are said to be the source of their magical powers. The tanuki's large testicles are associated with wealth because the Japanese colloquial word for testicle is kindama, which means golden ball. In Japanese mythology, the Tanuki's scrotum can be enlarged to as much as eight tatami mats (one tatami is about 6'x3') and they play them like a drum.

By the way, tanuki are not racoons, and are actually a member of the dog family. They are properly known as racoon dogs (Nyctereutes Procyonoides).

Here is a nice picture for all you ladies out there: tanuki!

Earthquake

[2005-08-16 09:52:41]

Big 7.2 earthquake today. It was pretty far away so no real danger to me. However, it was strong enough to make my building shake for a few minutes. Class stopped and some of the Japanese even started to take cover under their desks. Closer to the epicenter people were injured and building damage was sustained.

You've got to ask yourself if a 4 inch high tsunami even worth mentioning?

CNN's writeup

Hokkaido

[2005-08-14 06:20:30]

My plan to escape the rainy season was successful. Hokkaido had beautiful clear weather with a cool 75F degrees, and for the first time I saw stars in Japan.

The beer of choice up there is Sapporo, which takes it's name from the capital of the region. In fact, after checking into my hostel, the factory was my first stop.

There isn't much in the way of sight seeing in Sapporo, so I decided to make it a base camp and do day trips around Hokkaido. It was a wise choice, but initially only inspired by how awesome my hostel was. I stayed at Ino's Place, a small hostel on the outskirts of town. It was worth tons more than I payed. The decor was all homey, and reminded me a bit of a Colorado ski-town theme. The couple that owned the place were very friendly, and the wife cooked a really yummy breakfast for me one morning.

The first day trip was to Shiraoi, an Ainu village. The Ainu people are the indigenous culture of the northern islands. They suffered much of the same fate that American Indians endured during Manifest Destiny. The village I went to was one of the few operated and owned by Ainu, so it was less like a tourist trap than most. Still, it felt a bit over touristy, like going to the Mikosuki Indian reservation back home.

The people there loved me. I guess not a lot of gaijin make it that far north when in Japan, so I was the only white person in the entire place. They were constantly talking to me, and they taught me how to play their traditional mouth-harp like instrument. I also got to see a traditional dance and chant, amongst a few other random things.

That night I decided to go out on the town. I had only been out past 10 maybe twice before on the trip. Mostly because of the curfews at the hostels, but also because I had neither the money nor the energy. There is something about a place where people are locked up from cold 6 months a year, so that when summer hits nothing stops them from being out of the house as much as possible. Also, since Sapporo is the only big city in Hokkaido, the entire island comes into the city when they want to party. After hanging out in Sapporo, I can say that the Osaka people have a run for their money for being the friendliest. I started at a place where I met a bunch of gaijin, and then we just went from bar to bar, gaining new friends and loosing others. I ended up being out till five, when the bars closed.

The next day (a few hours later) I went to Noboribestu, a small hot springs town with a "hell area." Which is just a term for a place where the landscape turns desert -like and steam vents smoke while overly saturated mineral water flows in a variety of colors. It was a pretty neat experience, but it was a bit like a tourist trap. That night at the hostel, I met Chavic, a tall Spaniard from Barcelona. We hit it off, and then decided to go out on the town. Ended up seeing a bunch of people from the previous night, and then our new group when to a dance club till the sun came up. On the way home (a 2 hr walk) we passed a huge fire, which is in the flickr stream.

Three hours later I hopped a train for Furano to see the lavender fields and the mountain views. I rented a bike, which must have made me look hilariously large since it was a small granny-bike (the only type they ride around here). Rode past an onion and beer festival, but couldn't make any friends to join in. So I just continued my way towards the ice-milk and cheese factory. And by factory I mean 90% gift store. On the way back to the train I went to a Wine factory, which was interesting. The wine had heavy German influences, but it all tasted overly sweet horribly immature.

That night I took it easy so I could get up at the crack of dawn and make my way to Nikko for some more sight seeing. I added my picture to the owner's collection of travelers, and gave my hugs goodbye. It was the first hostel that felt more like a home.

Ojiisan

[2005-08-14 05:04:05]

Today is my birthday! Tanjoubi! To celebrate, earlier this week Kyle and Emi (my roommate and his girlfriend) cooked me a delicious birthday dinner of pesto and shrimp. Oishikatta... Also, Eric's birthday was quite recent, so last night a large group of us went to an izakaya for a nomihodai to celebrate our birthdays. Of course, in Japanese style, after the party were the after-parties... karaoke and the Hub! tanoshikatta dayo!

Katana

[2005-08-10 10:23:08]

I love the random weapons you see people carrying on the streets of Japan. I always try to make a point to ask if it is some new instrument of destruction lazily slung over a person's shoulder. Any given day I see at least one of the following: a large kyudo bow, staff, or even katanas. Even today I saw an old man walking with what looked like a simple long slender thing in a fabric pouch -- but if you'd look closely you'd see the hilt of a sword.

Homestay

[2005-08-04 19:02:24]

I'll be going on a three day homestay experience this weekend. Down in Kakegawa, about 2hr 45mins West of Tokyo. The family probably will not speak English, and I'll be the only student in the house. A little bit nerve-racking, but I'm still excited. Wish me luck.

Picture Tour With Robert

[2005-08-01 08:02:15]

In Tokyo, near Yoyogi Park is the NHK headquarters, NHK is like the Japanese ABC. It has an amazingly cheesy museum of television history and some live studios (Robert and I may have been on TV that morning). This shot is at a costume area, and this for a famous show that I see ads for all the time, but I have no clue what it is. Japanese people would probably smack me for saying that, oh well, they probably have no clue who Seinfeld is.

My friend Katie likens Geisha spotting to sighting rare exotic birds. Which is probably the most accurate description. Before I came over to Japan I thought that Kyoto was swarming with white faced women, but I found that it truly is only by luck you get a very very rare sight like this. Robert and I saw this not only while there was still daylight, but with three of them, and not only that, but they are walking into the Ichi Rikki Teahouse which is probably the most famous of all the Gion teahouses.

Neat shot of the imperial palace, just included for completeness. Those roofs are made of a cork that has to be replaced every 40 years or so.

This is a temple completely gilded in gold. Robert and I went there one day on a route that also included a zen rock garden and some other minor temples.

Nomihodai

[2005-07-29 05:28:01]

In the US, if you want to hangout on the cheap, you are accustomed to going to friends' places. In Japan this is a pretty elusive concept, mostly because it's not fun to cram 20 people into a 200 sq ft apartment (ahem room)... Also, if you go out to bars plan on destroying your perfectly calculated budget. The lowest price for a cheap beer is 500 yen and most places are 700 yen. Of course probably half of that 7 dollar Bud-Light- equivalent-beer goes towards paying the barkeep's rent. So then, how are college kids supposed to accomplish a little liquid bonding?

Instead of the American approach of bulk-rating items, Japan is willing to bulk-rate the space fee. Enter nomihodai, or all you can drink. In the States you only ever see these during Spring Break, and they are only horribly done in large dance areas with too many people falling over wasted, in a bad way. However, in Japan they are one of the nicest ways to drink. To Japanese, this is also one of the cheapest ways to drink, but more importantly it is the cheapest way to hang out with a large group of people. This makes the center of attention the social nature of the event, not the ethanol. (btw, I think 90% of group events in Japan involve some sort of drinking).

The method is simple; everyone puts in the same amount of money, you get a very large private room, they serve you delicious food, and they give you two hours to see what damage you can accomplish. All this for 20 dollars, and with the previously mentioned 5 dollars a beer baseline in consideration, it's very easy to make your money back, especially once you tally in the food. By far, these are my favorite type of places to hang out with people here. Actually, I'm on my way out the door to one right now...

Capsule Hotels

[2005-07-28 02:00:55]

Space is a big commodity in Japan's cities. For instance, most kids live with their parents into their mid to late twenties to avoid the outrageous rent. In Japan there is a large market for these cramped souls seeking privacy. From love hotels for couples, to 24hr manga and internet coffee shops with private sleeper rooms (for the younger single crowd), and even places where the salaryman in the dog house can escape having to sleep on the couch (or bar goers who missed the last train home). The last need is usually filled by business hotels or better yet, capsule hotels. In fact only two capsule hotels listed in the travel books even bother with accepting women, since the market just doesn't exist.

Everyone knows the Seinfeld episode where Kramer has the Japanese salarymen sleeping in his dresser drawers... Well, it's a parody on capsule hotels. They are designed for people who sincerely have no clue where they will end up on any given night, and just need a quick and cheap place to pass out. It's another steal-your-shoes experience, so you can show up with 3000 yen and be set for the night.

After I checked in at the vending machine, I changed into my crappy pj style yukata and took a quick ofuro (bath) before climbing into my cubby -- Fifth Element style. It was actually very cozy, and if the mattress were a tad thicker I'd imagine it'd be even more cocoon like. The capsules were about the size of a small but long twin and it was four feet tall, with a shelf and control panel on your right and coin slot operated TV at your feet (you can imagine what channels were available). I fell asleep thinking that I better rest, since tomorrow I'd have to go out on the hull and recalibrate the calidium reactors.

Earthquakes and a Typhoon

[2005-07-26 03:05:10]

Not to be dramatic since nothing bad has happened, but... Last night there was a small earthquake, Saturday afternoon there was a 6.1 earthquake, and right now there is a Typhoon blowing over us.

Kansai

[2005-07-25 09:25:57]

Went to kansai region with Steph. Kansai is the area south west of Tokyo that contains Kyoto, Nara, Osaka, and Kobe. Ume let us crash at his place. (much thanks Ume-san!) The next morning Ume took us around his area and we got some takoyaki for breakfast.

In Nara we harassed the overly tame deer, which were much like big horned pigeons. Then we hit up the temples. Nara is the original permanent capital of Japan, and since it was saved from the WWII bombings, to use the term "old" in Nara means at least 1,000 years old. After Nara we went back to Osaka and got some okonomiyaki, a regional specialty that is a really really yummy veggie pancake that is cooked in front of you.

The next day we headed off to Kyoto. While there, we did too many things to list, and the pictures do a better job anyways. One night we got the best kaiten zushi ever (conveyor belt sushi), near the intersection of Shijo and Karasuma called Musashi. While we were there we met a girl Katie, a English teacher in Kyoto, who we randomly saw in a train station a day or two later and exchanged numbers. I ended up meeting up with her and her boyfriend Chad twice since then. And this past weekend I crashed at their place for a night (shout-out to Katie and Chad!).

One of the other nights Steph and I caught geisha wandering around the streets of Gion, the historic entertainment district, near the Ichi Rikki Teahouse -- which has always been famous, but made more so with the book "Memoirs of a Geisha." That same night we learned an abbreviated green tea (maccha) ceremony. Very close to that area is the main river that runs through Kyoto, which has a river walk area that is beautifully romantic at night.

Kyoto is great for temple markets, and one day we caught a huge market in celebration of one of the previous Monks. I was able to get some cheap yukata things amongst some yummy market food.

A week later I went back to Kyoto with Robert and was able to do the things I had to skip before. Although it was mostly more temples, it was also some more time to try different kansai foods I had to skip the time before and catch more markets, including one market we spent the entire day at. My second time there made me realize that Kyoto is the type of city you can never run out of things to do in. With a lively downtown area, strong arts funding, and great markets, it's a formula that is not to be missed.

Lost in Translation

[2005-07-24 00:08:01]

So for fun I decided to have Google translate this email I wrote in Japanese.

This is the original:

みなさんへ、 明日は、エビスに 行きません。ごめんm(__)m。Workshop Level 2は 4時まで と エビスは 6時まで それから 時間 じゃありません。Maybe らいしゅうに？ でも、私たちは カレオケに 行きたい ですよ。5時に あいましょう。早稲田どりに、高田馬場の駅のとなり (2 blocks toward 早稲田の大学)、青いカラオケビル です。 じゃまた、 ライアン

Which, in reality, roughly means:

Everyone,

Tomorrow we won't be going to Ebisu [beer garden]. Workshop level 2 gets out at 4 and Ebisu closes at 6, so we won't have enough time. Maybe next week? But, we all want to go to karaoke! Let's meet at 5. On Waseda St. next to Takadanobaba station (2 blocks toward Waseda University). It's the blue building. Later,

Ryan

But here is the Google translation:

To everyone, tomorrow does not go to the エビス. The め it is m (the __) m. As for Workshop Level 2 to o'clock of 4 as for the エビス to o'clock of 6 then there is no time. Maybe leprosy palpus sea urchin? So, we would like to go in the mosquito rheo, is. It will meet o'clock of 5. In the Waseda ど り, it becomes the Takeda Baba station and (2 blocks toward Waseda university), it is the blue karaoke building. And, ライアン

Frapanese

[2005-07-23 22:22:29]

The other night I ended up at what's called a conversation lounge. These are places English speakers go to feel like a fish in an aquarium. Japanese speakers learning English go to these bars to practice English, and English speakers go for either the chance to meet new people or the insanely cheap drinks for English natives.

Towards the end of my short stint there I met some people at a table speaking French. It has been years since I was in French class, and I have retained about 0% of the language, but when I first came to Japan, I found myself slipping French words out all the time. I think it has something to do with the strong desire to speak not-English, which makes the brain pull out random phrases in French and Spanish. I've heard many other people say the same thing happens when they tinker with a third language.

So here I was, talking to some business man in English, but I kept hearing French around me at a level easy enough that I could understand. Soon the people noticed that I was kinda following the conversation, and they asked me if I spoke French. To which I said... "Iie, chotto. Je ne parle nai Francais."

To which they completely understood, but let's take a look at that embarrassment to the Sun-King's language. In proper French, it is "Non, Je ne parle pas Francais." So where did that iie, chotto, and nai come from? Iie is Japanese for no, chotto, means a little, and nai is added to the end of verbs to make them negative in informal speech, like "ne pas" in French.

As you can imagine, after that I didn't speak anymore French. I just let them talk to me in French and I would respond in our common language of Japanese...

Brain Slips

[2005-07-23 02:53:48]

I've found that in the process of my brain rewiring I've started to do some random things.

The first one that comes to mind is opening books on the wrong side. I've gotten so used to Japanese magazines reading right to left that I constantly open English textbooks the wrong way now...

Also, my spelling has gone downhill tremendously. Ever since learning katakana, I've been able to pick up on sounds in words that we skip over in English, like cake, which in English is pronounced like there is a random 'i' sound in there (caick). So now I have this urge to add in extra vowels between consonants. Can't think of my latest slip up, but it's more often than it should be.

Kobe Beef

[2005-07-22 01:39:26]

I thought that Japanese steakhouses were only an invention of the US, but I actually ate at one in Japan. Although this wasn't just any type of steakhouse, it was a Kobe beef place, much too fancy for shrimp into hat tricks. Kobe beef is stock raised with only the best of life. Grain fit enough for the farmer to eat, beer at their leisure, and massages for those stressful days of grazing. All in a Buddhist attempt to maintain good karmic value straight to the tummy. But at 8000-12000 yen per 100g, the stuff is not cheap (that is 80-120 dollars per less than quarter pound). To defray the cost Steph and I ordered a 1500 yen sea bass and split both.

Either they smelled backpacker one us, or they had ultimate professionalism, since they split both orders without even being asked. The fish was excellent, but was well out of league of the main course. The steak was legitimately the best steak I've ever had, freaking amazing. It was cooked rare, just seared on the outside with only salt and a dash of pepper. The perfectly distributed fat made for absolutely no strings and it felt as if it melted in your mouth, like you didn't even have to chew it. To be honest, after spending that much money, I don't think I chewed any piece of beef as long as I did then. Worth the one-time experience, but due to how expensive it is, not sure if it is worth trying any more times.

Dear Japan

[2005-07-21 02:49:30]

A little background. Footwear is really important in Japan (this displaces a bit into socks too, since whole stores are dedicated to socks). The key proof of this cultural facet is the use of various slippers for specific places.

Houses have a small area inside the front door for outside shoes to be taken off (usually with perfectly flat backs from people rushing into them as they run out the door). In fact, instead of in the West where front doors open inward to prevent thieves from being able to break the hinges, here front doors that do not slide always open outward to prevent hitting shoes all the time. Now, if you were to wear your shoes past this area, many Japanese grandmas would appear out of nowhere and bop you on the head. From that point you must wear house slippers. Most Japanese say that this is to keep the bamboo mats used in the flooring clean. Which makes sense, but they also do this in Western style places, so I think it's because they have no clue why, and they just do it "because." Then the bathroom area also has separate slippers that at all costs stay inside the bathroom. So now here's the gist.

Dear Japan,

If you view feet as one of the dirtiest parts of the body, then why do alot of places have grungy communal house sandals, and on top of that, why communal toilet sandals?

Quizzical Foreigner 5,173,846,412

Expo 2005

[2005-07-20 09:32:51]

I had no clue what I was getting into with this. I had heard about the Expo, and several of the exhibits there, but I had no clue it was a modern day World's Fair. Only one real way to describe it freggin humungoid. A bit like World's Fair meets Epcot, but with the longest lines you've ever seen. One section had demonstrations of future technology. Japan Rail showed off the new 500 Km/h Maglev bullet train and Toshiba showed a movie that took audiences' pictures and rendered them in to an anime (I didn't realize I could act or speak Japanese that well). Toyota had personal mobility devices, but also had a four hour wait.

The other sections were country showcases. We got dinner in the Middle East, but ended up the night in Australia. It was quite interesting to have a non-Disney-fied world showcase, especially when each country looked as if it was responsible for its own area. For instance, while Saudi Arabia had a huge ornate facade and fancy lighting, Yemen had a hand painted sign.

The Japanese area had an awesome garden with tea houses, performance areas, and a full scale replica of Mei's house from Tonari no Totoro. The pacific island area was outstanding, and Singapore wins for best creativity. New Zealand had an amazing touch screen plasma display to explore pictures and video. But Australia had the best atmosphere, with guitar players and the most people outside.

Onsen

[2005-07-19 19:12:05]

Met up with Eric and Yayoi in Nagano and headed to Nozawa onsen village. An onsen village is a small town that in winter is usually a ski resort, but has many hot springs flowing from the mountain year round. This means that there are tons of small buildings with various onsen types that are free to use anytime you want.

Yayoi used her native language skills to get us big-noses reservations at the ryokan (traditional Japanese inn). Actually Eric would have been a shoo-in because he is near fluent in Japanese but most places are wary of non-Japanese speakers like me. As if you could just show up without any bags or gear and be totally prepared, it was amazing. They took away my shoes as if to symbolically trade in my connection with a stressful life for a relaxing day. After you check into your room you are given bath yukata to wear for the rest of your stay.

Then after you've cleaned like you've never cleaned before you walk around in your geta (wooden sandals) to all the small onsen in the village and make ceremoniously loud noises as you get scorched in hot water. After a few hours you come back home and are fed an extravagant meal of local food. After the food settles, you can do another onsen or two before going to bed early.

In the morning you are woken to a feast of more local delicacies. Afterwards, usually the stay comes to an end when you return the yukata and find your shoes laid out at the front door, neatly labeled with your name.

Miyajima

[2005-07-19 05:43:46]

Absolutely breathtaking. This island is sacred to the Shinto religion, and until recently only priests could come ashore. Also, supposedly, no one is allowed to be born or die there. And since no tree can be cut, it is one of the few place in Japan with virgin forests not touched by the overly aggressive public works department. The torii at the shrine is one of the most photographed views in Japan. The main shrine itself sits in a cove with the torii at the mouth of the inlet.

Since I was there during a flood high tide, I got to see the water slowly fill up the cove. When I first arrived, the shrine, which is on a set of pilings, was completely on dry land, and the fiddler crabs darted about. When I left the water rushed in carrying small fugu and fishing herons. It was beyond amazing to just sit on the dock and watch the animals dart about, the priests clean the shrine, and the sun start to fade.

Hiroshima

[2005-07-19 04:50:51]

Having been to Hiroshima twice it's nice to have had the time to notice the small things about the city. The first thought that hits you as you leave the train station is that the city misses much of that old time charm you find outside of Tokyo. Then the obvious hits you. Nothing made in this city is more than 60 years old. I know that it is no revelation, but other than the Peace Park you would never know such a historically dramatic event happened here. Not to digress too much, but perhaps it is a true testament to the Japanese concept of progress. In a region constantly on the precipice of a national disaster from sky (typhoons), sea (tsunamis), or land (earthquakes and historically frequent fires) the ability to quickly rebuild and have an appearance of moving on prevents a wallowing of development.

Appropriately, a large portion of the city center is dedicated to the Atomic bomb memorials. In this peace park, there is a building called the A-bomb dome, which remained somewhat structurally intact because it was so close to the hypocenter (think eye-of-the-storm). There are also many small memorials to specific groups. For instance, there is a memorial to the Koreans who died due to the bomb. Of course, they are referred to as civilian employees. using this terminology you could say that there was a war in the US around 1861 over civilian employees (ahem).

In my opinion, the museum, while obviously receiving more funding than Nagasaki, did not maintain as high of quality of a "global" viewpoint. In my second visit to the museum, I was able to spot more references to Japanese atrocities and aggressions. If it takes a person who is actively seeking them two times to see examples, then I would have to say the displays were mostly J-centric. In fact the only reference to the huge Mitsubishi arms factory 200-500m North of the hypocenter was a map I found three quarters the way through the main museum building with no comments for explanation.

The other thing which really stood out to me was the stated American impetus for using the bomb (note, the commentary rarely said Allied). The stated reasoning was that the US government demanded justification for all the money spent on the Manhattan Project. While I am sure this is partially true, it portrayed the decision as a bureaucratic papershift that was signed in the manner of bull in a china shop. I'm not trying to state whether the bomb should have been used, because that is more than a can of worms, but I feel that the museum failed to acknowledge why any degree of large force was used.

Titles!

[2005-07-01 22:28:52]

Yay for actually titling the pictures in the flickr stream now.

En Route to Sapporo

[2005-06-30 09:04:48]

Yesterday, the sky over Tokyo loomed with a horrendous concrete color. There was no mistaking this harbinger of a belated rainy season.

I took this quiet before the storm as an appointment with the North. And so, after some quick tonkatsu dinner with Eric, I caught an overnight JR sleeper car to Hokkaido -- a place without monsoons.

As with most places to sleep in Japan, the train stole my shoes then gave me yukata and slippers. Later, my cabin mate was a salary man who hopped the train with a bottle of whiskey just as my jar of sake ran dry. It was a good arrangement.

And now here I am, water on one side, mountains on the other. I came from a NC parallel with 37C (98F) degree weather on the verge of nature's yearly exclamation point to arrive at a southern Nova Scotia parallel with soothing cool breezes.

This Fortnight's Fad in Japan

[2005-06-27 19:26:51]

These could have been around long before I got here (much like wearing as many crosses as possible, the mullet, and man purses) but lately there is a surge of groundhogs and Grateful Dead tshirts. TIJ

Slow For Pictures

[2005-06-22 11:41:18]

I know the pictures are really lagging behind, but if I put more than ten out every so often, then RSS readers might miss some. I've got about 73 photos in queue and will only get more this week.

The past couple weeks Steph was here and we covered alot of ground. Including Tokyo, Nagoya, Aichi World Expo 2005, Hiroshima, Himeji, Osaka, Nara, and Kyoto. Many posts in queue about that. Robert arrived yesterday and tomorrow we start a week together seeing Tokyo, Kyoto, and a third yet decided city.

Too Long

[2005-06-18 21:39:20]

It's been too long since I've put anything up. This is the first I've had internet in two weeks, and I'm about to run out the door. Will put up tons of posts and pictures gradually over the next few days.

Yay!

[2005-06-07 21:10:16]

Steph gets in today! We are going to the Expo and then we are doing a two week tour of Kansai.

Nagasaki

[2005-06-07 21:03:31]

Teamed up with a guy from the UK and checked out Nagasaki. First stop was the Glover gardens, an old foreigner annex during the isolationists period of Japan. The whole thing was on a slope of a hill and done very much like a mid 1800's British village. Because the Japanese love any reason to put people into costumes, there were girls in pre-Victorian dress and two Japanese bagpipers?!! The shop at the exit even sold "Souvenir of Scotland" pens and other UK things.

The rest of the day involved chinatown, temples, scenery, and the atomic bomb park. The park contains a black column to mark the location of the hypocenter of the bomb, the location directly below the explosion of the bomb. There were so many kids on field trips (unlike the US most field trips in Japan involve sites hours away). They were all in groups and would present a set of paper cranes in memory of the little girl who believed making paper cranes would save her from radiation side effects. After that each group would sing a song, take pictures and then the next group would approach. This was repeated at the nearby peace statue, which looks a lot like the Japanese prime minister's face on Arnold Schwarzenegger's body.

Bento!

[2005-06-07 20:57:59]

Another best-thing-ever post. Bento are the boxed lunches you can buy anywhere, but especially in train stations. These things are deeeelicious, I had my first one on my first shinkasen ride to complete the experience, bento. It was rice with a pickled plum to represent the Japanese flag, salmon, fried pork, pickled vegetables, beans, and seaweed salad. Oishi deshita!

Talking about bento reminds me of how Japan continues to amaze me for the dichotomy of its pricing. While the average quality things are really expensive the cheap things are abnormally cheap. For instance, it's about the same as the US for bus fares, but taxis are 3-4 times as much. The same goes for food, a full meal of ramen, udon, champon, will only cost you 500 yen, but just one step up in quality will cost you 1500 yen for a full meal.

Shinkasen

[2005-06-07 20:56:09]

Shinkasen are the lines of trains in Japan known to the rest of the world as the bullet trains. Unfortunately, the rail pass does not cover the fastest, Nozomi, but it does cover the second fastest, Hikari. The Hikari reaches 285Km/hr in the straight aways, which I believe is around the same as the TGV in France. Also, Japanese trains blow German trains, my previous favorite, out of the water for cleanliness, gadgetry, and sticking to schedules. Picture of the Hikari

A Note on Rail Passes

[2005-06-07 20:54:39]

JRail passes are the best things ever. It took forever to get it authorized but well worth any wait. Unlike EuroRail passes, JRail passes must be used in consecutive days, which makes them less flexible, but easier to use. There is no bickering with anyone about not getting your dates stamped correctly and that junk.

In fact, I think the whole philosophy falls into a theory I have about how the Japanese handle foreigners. Instead of fighting them to control their actions they provide an alternative with trade offs that they know the foreigners will choose. In this case we have cheap rail passes for all the best tracks in Japan, who wouldn't pass up that. But the trade off is that the company doesn't have to waste time handling non-Japanese speakers taking up spaces in lines to reserve seats or deal with massive complaints. Think of the money the company must save by not feeling an obligation to always have an English speaker on staff.

Uhoh

[2005-06-06 20:52:05]

Looks like I lost a post or two I sent by email over the week. That's ok since they were just there to let you know everything was still working, but I just hadn't had time to find internet access and type up the entries I had written out.

The past week I went to Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Miyajima, Kanazawa, Nagano, and a small onsen (hot springs) village. I have tons of pics and video from the past week, and will be putting it all up day by day to help space it out.

Shinkasen Views

[2005-05-30 22:47:11]

I'm riding my first bullet train! And I just saw Mt. Fuji for the first time.Unfortunately clouds were covering up too much for a photo.I can say that whatever impression you had about how big it is, you are surely underestimating.

Narration of Pictures

[2005-05-29 11:01:20]

Eric: Daijoubu desu ka? Want to go to Anna Miller's?

Ryan: What's there?

E: American food.

R: But that would break my streak of non-american food.

E: Oh, but the outfits they wear and yet they still qualify as a family restaurant make it eastern... (the outfits are reknown amongst the cosplay otaku)

R: Oh well, I could use a good burger, and a random photo with the help.

.... After we get to Yokohama (the place where Admiral Perry originally demanded free trade with Japan) ...

E: Hey Ryan, bet you can't open this bottle of kid's soda. *evil laugh*

R: Man, I'm dumb and I'm thirsty.

... miiiiinutes later ...

R: Oh, whew finally.

... in china town ...

E: Let's get some sesame and green tea flavored gelato and some meat muffins in china town.

R: MMMM. I really didn't think that meat muffin was a good idea, but you win, because it was freaking delicious, and since I really don't want to know what made it so delicious, just in case, let's just go to this temple and pray I don't get the trots.

... one subway ride and one adaruto (say it quickly) store later ...

E: Hey Ryan, why don't you lead us into this restaurant called "Lockdown." (turns out the entrance is a haunted house)

R: Why is this short-skirt cop handcuffing me, and why are there monsters trying to scare me??? B/c I don't think I'm going to complain...

R: Eric! Lookout that potion I just mixed created a monster that is trying to scare you! Good think that short-skirt cop came by and shot him. Whew, that was close. Now, let's go try to sneak pictures with the Budweiser girls.

Y: Crazy gaijin...

Nihon Choku

[2005-05-28 21:35:17]

I'm doing good in the food department so far -- nothing western yet. Although yesterday was pretty close. We went to dinner at a Japanese New York style bar, but the food was far from US bar food -- the after effects of eating chicken cartilage. After that we went to a Japanese British Pub, called Hub, where I got a 1 Liter drink of the bar's brew, which prompted me to pull a gaijin move and *ahem* add the glass to my souvenirs.

Hey, also check out pics: Pre and First Tokyo 045; Pre and First Tokyo 049; Pre and First Tokyo 044.

Engrish!

[2005-05-28 20:48:22]

Bought two engrish, funny bad english, t-shirts. The first has a picture of a cute elepant on it next to some grass and says "This Elephant (JOE), Under a Meal, Don't Disturb." The other one says "You choice good col." P.S. I've discovered (mostly by Eric telling me) that the leader of any pack of high school girls is the one with the shortest skirt... random, but apparently very true.

o-Sushi Tabemashita

[2005-05-28 20:35:20]

Had the best sushi ever. Eric and I went to Tsukiji, a large fish market in Tokyo. After checking out the booth wares we hit up one of the many auxiliary buildings and went to place that Eric said would change my perspective on sushi. Keep in mind that since these places are right next to the market, all the fish that they serve was alive hours ago. This is an opportunity to try the freshest of all fish, short of catching it myself. All of these places are only wide enough for a row of chefs and a row of seats, so we squeezed our way to the end and ordered a setto, a general term used to order a that day's special of a variety of fish. The meal went like this: sashimis of fatty belly tuna, shrimp, omelet, fatty tuna, mahi-mahi (katsuo), and eel; along with rolls of roe and regular tuna. I had never had mahi-mahi as sushi before, and I must say it was so good I ordered another. The eel however, was indescribably delicious, it felt as if it was literally just yummy tastes melting in my mouth.

whoaw

[2005-05-28 10:34:10]

OK so apparently I've only been here for about 2 days and my english has already suffered... I just updated a few silly tedious tense conditions and lack of pluralities in the previous post, sorry if any future posts seem like they are from a third grader. Use it or lose it...

First Day

[2005-05-27 23:45:56]

I've finally gotten settled in enough to have the time to write down everything that has happened. The flight was a lot easier than I thought it would have been, although the last two hours were a psychological challenge of mind over matter.

You know how when you are on a long flight and everyone keeps raising and closing the window shades? As if they have noting better to do than try to produce a strobe effect in the cabin... Well that didn't happen on this flight. I don't know if it was because nearly everyone on the flight was non-western, and there was some culturally innate subliminal collective mentality, or if every one was just the same amount of tired. Regardless, it was quite nice, 3 hrs into the flight everyone shut their blinds to watch movies and to be polite to others trying to sleep, and 3 hrs before we landed everyone raised them again. It allowed me to get some great sleep and made for a seamless time zone adjustment.

When I got through customs I was able to say my first Japanese in Japan, the anticlimactic "narita express-wa, dochira desu ka?" When I finally met up with Eric, it wasn't because I was able to figure out how to use the phone system, but instead because I gave up and discovered that I could see random a white guy in the crowd towering a foot over everyone around him. It was good to see him again, and we went over the day's agenda while drinking a frozen green tea (think frappuccino but with green tea).

The first order of business, was to find a keitai (cell phone). On the way through the subway to the phone place, I saw my first kogaru (cogals -- cool high school girls) wearing loose socks, my first old dude in traditional farmer clothes, monpe. And, while we waited for them to activate my phone we played video games, and then pachinko! Which was a lot like just holding a turn knob in the same place for as long as you can while balls fly at an wallet-alarming rate, but still fun.

I met Eric's fiance Yayoi and we headed home via the supermarket to a nice home cooked Japanese meal of baked salmon with vegetables and cheese, nato, pickled garlic, seaweed salad, rice, and barley tea.

Random

[2005-05-19 22:46:47]

Not like this was the culmination of my training or anything, but it hit me last night that I can finally read all of the Adult Swim anime ads... I imagine it'll be equivalent to the feeling that I will get when I can understand the opening to Mr. Roboto without Google's help...

Slight Updates

[2005-05-19 18:36:50]

I broke down and got a Flickr account. I knew I wouldn't have time to set up Gallery before I left and Flickr was the only substitute that looked easy. Flickr offers three ways of syndicating a picture stream (RSS, ATOM, Flickr Badge -- but the badge requires an iframe tag which is cross-browser incompatible). So, I opted to parse and redisplay the RSS, especially since I already had all the coding done from when the stream was from a Gallery server's RSS stream. Also, since Flickr allows me to email photos to be posted to my stream, this should make my picture odyssey in Japan a breeze.

Here come the goods: Flickr home, Flickr RSS feed.

The Worse the Accent, the Better the Pricetag

[2005-04-20 01:02:13]

Today I bought my plane tickets to Japan... Big step forward I guess. I've been procrastinating on it (aka getting overloaded with school endgame), but I finally buckled down last night and really did some price reseach. FYI, JAL just opened a new route from O'Hare to Nagoya, so the specials are out there. However, the cheapest one I found was with Delta through gatewaylax.com.

Now, in the course of finding cheap tickets I've talked to several agencies, and I've developed a rule of thumb: the thicker the Japanese accent is on the other end of the line, the better deal you're about to get on your flight. I don't know how these places do it, but they shaved nearly $200 off studentuniverse.com's lowest (btw, SU had the best flight search interface), and nearly $400 off the lowest fare on travelocity/orbitz.

I guess no lunch is free though. The first discount place I talked to, iace-usa.com, not only couldn't match studentuniverse's price, but also pulled a little bait-and-switch. They somehow managed to add nearly $200 of fees. GLAX only added about $125 of what they called "taxes."

As a funny (yet annoying) side note, it looks like I'll be repeating my last name alot while I'm over there... Farley seems to be hard for the Japanese ear to parse; I heard about 10 different spellings of it today. The Japanese don't really have a hard 'f' sound, and even the normal 'f' is natively pronounced more as an 'h.' The most common replacement was an 's,' and I'm not even going to touch the 'rl' in the middle. Apparently, Ume-san says that my engrishized last name is fuaari, 「ファーリ。」 I like how they draw out that 'a' to trick the ear into hearing more of that r/l sound...

The other obstacle was that the seats they gave me were in the far back of the plane -- a little too high of a number for comfort. I've been on an international flight with one of those seats against a bulkhead that redefine the meaning of recline to 10 degrees... and I didn't want to experience that again. Enter google: seatguru.com. What a savior. It turns out I was correct, they had me in the last row! Note seat 57C, sure it's an aisle seat... but there is a reason why it is marked yellow -- you have everyone and their brother flushing toilets right next to your ear for 20hrs while you're trying to sleep. So after a phone call later, and a few more mispellings of Farley, I got moved halfway up the plane on all my flights (and kept my aisle seats)! Boy, am glad that I asked, that would have been horrendous.

Virtual Printers, Bookmarks, and Backups

[2005-04-18 16:44:25]

This weekend, I finally got to implement three of the handiest tools around. The first is came about since I have no printer at home...

I looked around and found a free virtual printer driver, Go2PDF. Basically any WinXP program believes that it is printing to a physical device, but in reality all output is sent to a PDF file you specify. That way I can finally do things like print my Treo600 palm desktop calendar (which doesn't work on my linux machine at school). So now I just fake-print at home, and then print it out when I get to school.

The second is a Mozzie Firefox extension called Bookmarks Synchronizer. The gist is that if you have multiple computers this extension keeps all of their bookmarks in sync. It uses FTP to store your bookmarks file in central place that all your computers can get to. Every time you open firefox, it syncs to get the latest version, and every time you close firefox it syncs up to add new links to your file. A really cool feature is that since it is stored in XML, you can use a CSS and XLT file to view your bookmarks online [example].

The final tool is a WinXP hidden feature of sorts. By default Home edition doesn't install a builtin backup tool. Well, I really didn't want to shell out money for a backup program, or spend time scripting some cygwin/rsync solution. Turns out MS freaking includes a program, ntbackup.msi, on the CD. However, my Vaio only came with "Sony Restore CD's," not XP install CD's... Thankfully Google predicted my pain, the first result link was ntbackup.msi. Pretty handy program if you ask me, especially considering I haven't backed up that machine for a very very long time.

Jimmy likes Jack

[2005-02-24 11:36:19]

So then he gives a shoutout to Jack Johnson, probably my second favorite guitarist. Then he proceeds to play JJ's song "The Horizon's Been Defeated"/"Alien Casino."

You've gotta love that sort of stuff.

P.S. Something happened with my blog email script and this got left out of the postings last night... oh well, tis here now.

sac or me

[2005-02-23 21:24:48]

Picture056_23Feb05

Can you recognize Sac or me?

brett

[2005-02-23 21:19:43]

Picture058_23Feb05

___ sent from treo

Jimmy Buffett Concert

[2005-02-23 20:49:33]

Picture054_23Feb05

Not as if you could actually make out what this photo is, but I left my camera at home. Go treo! So enjoy the blur of lights because it's freaking Jimmy. This comes from the happiest part of my heart while "Come Monday" plays. Thank God for barefoot guitar players.

P.S. Jimmy says Hi!

Romaji to Kana

[2005-02-15 18:35:26]

In Japanese there are three main writing systems. The main one uses kanji, or chinese characters imported into Japan by Buddhist monks. As a really cool side note, this means that the two languages, while completely different when spoken, can loosely understand each other's written text. Personally I think that's amazing.

The other two systems are closely related, and are collectively called the kana. Both are simlified reductions of kanji of many strokes into 2-4 strokes. And while kanji represent entire words and concepts, kana are used with each character as one syllable of sound.

The two kana are the hiragana and katakana. Hiragana (nice and curvy) is used as endings to verbs, and in older times by women (who couldn't seek education). While Katakana (sharp and cutting) wasn't used frequently until recently. However, after the Meiji restoration and the influx of foriegners (gaijin), katakana began to be used to differentiate between Japanese words and foreign loan words.

The point of all of this is that its really annoying to type kana on a computer. And since I'm currently perfecting the kana (kanji is a bit out of my level yet), I'd like to be able to see and practice more examples. Not to mention that while I'm in Japan I'll undoubtedly need to type many strings of kana and I need a reliable method. Enter the fourth super-crazy writing system in Japan, romaji.

Romaji is what all those anime otaku like to use. It was first used by Jesuits in order to allow easy transcribing for priests who did not speak Japanese and only knew roman alphabet characters. But those crazy Portugeuse have different pronounciations than English and other languages, which makes for about 3 main systems of romaji. Annoying...

So back to the much delayed point. I made a script that accepts any romaji system, a given target kana, and returns the matching Japanese characters. I then integrated the script to allow myself to surround romaji with k tags for katakana or h tags for hirgana, and then when my blog is displayed the tags are autotranscribed. So, to say "thank you very much," in romaji is "domo arigato gozaimasu," which is properly written as 「ども ありがと ございます」

And in case I had to write any emails and such I also made it web accessible for direct transcriptions at: roma2kana.php. Feel free to use it, and let me know if you find any bugs in it.

I almost forgot, if you are using IE, you may get prompted to install the eastern languages pack, you might as well go ahead. I'm not sure about the rest of the Windows browsers. If you are Linux, it should just show up correctly. Also, if you are viewing this from the RSS feed, you will not get the Japanese characters, they are stored in the DB as romaji and only transcribed when displayed on my index.php page.

New Bike

[2005-01-28 09:33:40]

New Mongoose

So, this was supposed to be my birthday present (thanks Robert), but I finally just got around to getting it. It's my Wal-Mart special. Check out those rocking flames on the chasis... I picked it up two days ago, and rode it to school yesterday, pretty solid ride if you ask me. Sadly, I wasn't able to ride it home, because it got so cold by the time I was supposed to, that I had to hitch a ride. (Shoutout to Eddie's help).

P.S. If you want to hear a funny story that I can't put online, then ask me why I bought it now...

Udon Noodles

[2005-01-17 20:22:32]

I've always been a huge fan of Miso soup. It probably all started back when Steph and I made a regular eating place out of Japanese joints. But I've never tried making it, and at 2 key ingredients there is no excuse not to. So a couple months ago I started trying to track down the ingredients, but with very limited success. Disappointed I ended up buying the Kikkoman instant Miso packets to stave my desire.

Then it occured to me that I would be at Epcot over break, and that in the Japan section, they have a mini supermarket. But no luck... After being further beaten away from my dream of culinary independence I soothed the wounds with some Glico Pocky sticks. The big break came in Sarasota at a Korean supermarket, where I stocked up on the bonita (dried tuna) flake broth bouillon called Dashi.

Dashi is used in almost everything Japanese, especially soups and noodles. For instance to make Miso, you use Dashi, Red Miso (bean paste), Nori (seaweed strips), and Tofu, plus whatever else you feel like (scallions are nice). Unfortunately, I still haven't found a good miso paste, so tonight I skipped on the miso and made some Udon Noodles. Udon noodles are just wheat noodles, so I added dashi, broken straw mushrooms, tofu, watercrest, soy sauce, and rice vinegar. Now this was mostly inspired by my horrendous skill with chopsticks on noodle soups. I pretty much rock with chopsticks, but not when it comes to noodles. Plus, I figured that with the adventure at hand this summer I wanted to not embarass myself by leaving a noodle joint with my shirt looking like a wet dalmation from all the splash spots. So I accepted my challenge. Well, the soup turned out delicious. And by the end I was slurping safely with neither spill nor fear.

This Past Month

[2005-01-04 22:56:03]

Whew, I've been busy this past month. I met John Travolta, went to Snowmass/Aspen, met Chevy Chase, went to ATL for New Years, got a mail server kinda running, listened to my first podcast, and have mastered the Hiragana, not to mention thesis work amongst other things... Anyways.

It's official, I'm going to Japan! As Eric says "It's as far away from western culture you can get and still be in a first world nation." I guess the next step for the blog will be a way to accomadate Japanese characters, easily handle video entries, and possibly use a comment system. I'm hoping to to be there for 3 months, and attend Waseda University (kinda the Yale of Japan) for a 6 wk intense language course. The rest of the time will be split between Tokyo and traveling around. I've got two friends over there to show me the ropes, so things should go smoothly. I've also been studying Japanese almost everyday, and will hopefully find a tutor next semester. Nothing like a good solid challenge. I can hardly wait.

P.S. Ake-Ome! (Happy New Year!)

RSS Feed Intro

[2005-01-04 22:29:03]

I've made an RSS/XML feed for the blog. This is mostly for while I am in Japan over the summer. I wanted a way to do the moblogging like I did last summer, but without putting my parents through the hassle of not knowing when any new posts were made. Plus, this summer I expect to have videos and other media for fun. Which means that I may make separate feeds for personal messages, which would be unbearable for the recipients without RSS.

What is RSS? It has been out for a while, and is a way for you to not have to be actively checking a blog in order to find out if there are any new posts. Think my site pushing you information when you want, not you having to pull needlessly checking. How do I use RSS? You use an RSS Aggregator.

1.A standalone application, which no free good ones come to mind.

2.If you have Firefox, use Sage.

3.Thunderbird has it built right in.

Now you won't have to be annoyed by checking the blog inbetween a 3 month incommunicado stint like what just happened...

BrewGrass Festival

[2004-10-30 17:14:26]

Picture045_30Oct04

Up in Asheville with my cousins for the "BrewGrass Festival." It has bluegrass music and more importantly about 40 vendors of microbreweries from NC and beyond. Unlilmited pints after the entrance fee. We lucked out today, its was supposed to rain, but what a beauty of a day. Anyways... taking a breather after the 15th round... Whew that leaves 25 more. Can I make it? Updates to come...

Good Pic

[2004-10-14 13:36:21]

Picture042_03Oct04

I was waiting on a flight and decided to clean up my phone when I came across this pic of Kayla and I taken earlier this month.

Disposable Technology

[2004-10-14 13:34:21]

Picture044_10Oct04

I know this is not a revolutionary thought, but it interesting how technology has reached a stage that when electronics go bad we simply toss it away and buy another one. Take a look of this photo from ATL airport. Yeah that's an iPod -- in a vending machine. Sitting there amongst the other disposable technology like batteries and cameras in all its 300$ glory.

Ragin Cajun

[2004-10-10 21:22:25]

I think I just saw James Carville (the political debater called the "Ragin' Cajun")?! The restaurant was too dark for the treo-cam though, so no pics...

Jetsetting

[2004-10-03 18:22:56]

Picture039_03Oct04

Picture041_03Oct04

Yes, that's a 20M$ jet behind me, and in the distance you might see Travolta's place. Today I hopped a flight on that beauty up to Jumbolair in Ocala (where we built our new house) for brunch with the family. I guess I should take in all this luxury as much as possible before I catch my el cheapo flight back to NC tonight.

Pillars of Plato

[2004-08-12 15:10:16]

I made this game last semester and forgot to get around to posting the link for people outside of my Digital Media class. It's an out of print board game that (in summary) is a combo of tic-tac-toe and connect four. Personally I find this very addicting... All mine from the ground up: graphics, music, the whole sh-bang.

Finnegan's Awake

[2004-07-31 20:32:22]

Picture033_29Jul04

While packing for a weekend trip I had Finnegan up on my desk and gave him a paper roll tube to play with. From what I read hedgehogs can't get enough of getting their heads stuck in one end and running around wildly looking through it like a telescope... Well, it's true. Check out the photos. Later.

Real Live BuddyGopher

[2004-07-26 02:16:33]

radfordmanorgopher

Apparently there is a substanial amount of wildlife near the Radford Manor. Yesterday there was a doe a couple houses down munching on a garden, and last week I saw a gopher outside in the yard... Dors says that he's seen two at a time chowing on the grass. Who knew...

Ride the Rails

[2004-07-26 02:06:37]

buttcrack

Haaa, while visiting my little sister and catching some Sonic my mom spotted and properly documented this large need for shorts that use belts...

Latest Obsession: Aqua Teen Hunger Force

[2004-07-25 20:40:15]

Hedgehog?

[2004-07-12 22:07:21]

Picture030_12Jul04

Picture029_12Jul04

Yep, I got a hedgehog yesterday! He's been sleeping all day but just got up for a tad to roam around. I don't have a name for him yet, still thinking that one over.

Shhh... BG devel in progress...

[2004-07-12 11:24:08]

From showlast.php:

"There are currently 1 of 11,500 possible users signed up.

In the last 24 hours, we crawled 9 away messages."

BuddyGopher Strikes the News Again

[2004-07-09 01:05:54]

a beauty of an article just for you:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38036-2004Jul8?language=printer

While I was in Wales I recieved an email from a lady by the name of Laura Stepp at the Washington Post inquiring about BuddyGopher. Unfortunately, since I was in Europe and short on time I couldn't give her too much insight, but forwarded her to Nick. It should be in Friday's edition and BG gets a major shoutout. It's a little macabre in the begining, but makes you think. As Dorsey said: did he want his farewell to be as ephemeral as he felt his life was, or was he trying to say goodbye to as many people without giving the chance to stop him? What's the price when passive communication is too passive?

Goodbye Europe... :(

[2004-06-30 18:18:33]

After Ireland things were pretty much a wind-down. By the time we got into London it was midnight and time for repacking our multitude of stuff before bed -- never fly through Stansted, it's 70mins from town. For the first time in 40 days I had returned to a city that I had been at earlier in the trip, the sense of familiarity was still fleeting though. It was weird passing by Big Ben as it struck midnight tolls, almost as if my brain was denying that I had already been to this town and it was telling me by force that "No silly this is all new, stop trying to think now, for your own good." I felt as if I had gone against some unwritten rules of Eurotour.

Our flight the next morning was quite early and doing anything more was out of the question. It was time to accept that I was going home, time to steep back into reality. So we saddled up our bags and had our last free hotel breakfast before catching the express train to Gatwick and our cozy plane to the States. Nothing much more to mention, this chapter of my life seemed to come to a close piece by piece as each in-plane movie rolled its credits.

The Tart with the Cart a.k.a. The Dish with the Fish

[2004-06-29 05:19:11]

GuinnessDegree_27Jun04

GuinnessBar_27Jun04

RyanAir may be cheap, but they are so consistantly late I think they operate in their own time zone. We arrived to Dublin late in the afternoon, just in time for some local Porter (obviously). By a total stroke of luck our hotel, although working hard for its 2 stars, ended up right in the main bar district, Temple Bar -- a bar is a section of town near the river. We decided to pregame at The Porterhouse, a restaurant/brewhouse with 9 different in house micros, including an oyster porter (not suitable for vegetarians!?). Did you know that Dublin is a big Hen weekend (bachelorette party) city? We must have seen 15-20 gal packs that night. I found out later that Blackpool is the place for Stag weekends (B&B's come with included lapdances)...

The next day we checked out the castle, the Book of Kells at Trinity College Dublin, did a hop on hop off bus tour (saw Molly Malone with her cart), and went to the Guinness Storehouse. As Dublin's no. 1 tourist attraction (Guinness storehouse), the place packs them in, and after 6 floors of Disney style propaganda about ceol, craic, and the pint, you reach the Gravity Bar, with its 360 view of Dublin fair. I even earned a bar hand certificate for pouring the perfect pint, complete with a beauty of a shamrock (if I must say so myself). After taking the bus home and regrouping it was time to find some good Irish grub. We ended up at a place near the Ha'Penny Bridge called Arlington's. The dinner came with a ceileidh of traditional reels and gigs and plenty of dancing. Although it was probably the biggest tourist trap we had done the entire trip, I would definetly recommend it to anyone.

The next day was short, since most places where closed. We tried to see the National Museum for their Celtic treasures (I had seen them 5yrs ago), but they too were closed. So we ended up shopping and doing the Jameson Whiskey Distillery. I forgot to take pictures (with the treo for posting) of Steph when she volunteered and ended up winning the prize of taste testing 4 brands from Eire and comparing them to an American bourbon and a scotch. On the way home we went into Brazenhead Pub, founded in 1080-something, makes it the oldest pub in Ireland. Unfortunately we were out of time after that and had to say goodbye to Ireland.

Where is Sir Connery?

[2004-06-28 18:03:02]

Couldn't get GPRS in Dublin, so this post is tad late.

About 6am we woke up and stumbled out of the "Caledonian Sleeper" feeling highly befuddled and lost. As we slowly made our way out of the station the top of the Sir Walter Scott monument started to show itself. Suddenly the map of the city hit me like an epiphany, and we headed off for the Hilton Caledonian.

We did a standard first day in Edinburgh: the castle (ties with Tower of London for cool factor), the royal mile, bought some scotch, the HolyRood Palace, Princes St Gardens, and a hop on hop off bus tour. There wasn't much time in town and I think we did a bang up job for all we saw. In the evening we ordered in some food and did some scotch tasting. We had about 20 different distillers 5 each of lowlands, highlands, speyside, and islay malts aged between 10 and 31 years. We even took the time to note each and write comments so we could remember all of it later, so if you want a breakdown of some of the finest Scotch whiskeys let me know.

The next morning we went to my favorite museum for Celtic artifacts, the National Museum of Scotland. Without a doubt they have the best presentation and quality of pieces in Europe. Plus, this time the Lewis Chessmen were in... But alas our flight was quickly approaching and it was time to say goodbye, even if we hadn't seen Sir Connery yet.

Photos!

[2004-06-26 07:47:18]

cab1_26Jun04

cab2_26Jun04

On the cab ride to the Edinburgh Airport.

Where's the Yellow Fleece When You Need It?

[2004-06-24 16:13:13]

Yesterday we caught a 8am train for Salisbury, better put for Stonehenge, the largest henge you will ever see. But, what exactly is a henge?

Actually, it refers to hanging stones... But now that I've wrecked my Eddie Izzard reference let me tell you about Red Hot Chili Pepper. Yes, apparently they were having a concert the night we wanted to stay in Cardiff and all the hotels were booked. But since we were going to Bath anyways, we got a room there and toured some Roman ruins in the process.

We arrived in Cardiff early the next morning and beelined it for the castle. Wow, the Marquess Stuart of Bute was quite an eccentric. It had to have been in my top 3 castle tours ever. After a nice lunch of local "delicacies," we headed to the National Museum for the largest Impressionistic collection outside of France, not to mention a great celtic/nordic exhibit. And now here we are, on a train to Paddington station to catch our overnight to Edinburgh. Life rarely gets better than this. Oops except my battery may die. Gotta go.

Roooooney!

[2004-06-24 16:01:13]

The first day in London was laid back. We hit up Covent Gardens then headed to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre to see a production of "Much Ado About Nothing." To get the proper experience we bought the groundling tickets (the standing area right next to the stage for peasants). The next day we caught Tower of London and the British Museum (Rosetta Stone). That night was the UK vs Croatia football game, so we all nabbed some St George crosses on scarves, jackets, you name it, and headed down to the pubs. John sweet talked some bouncer and we got into a brilliant pub for the match. Three dudes at the bar clad in face paint and flag capes never stopped yelling "England" nor did they ever stop singing odes to Baby Rooney the entire night. In the end they must have sang to the Queen's content because the final score was 4-2.

The next day was spent arranging trains and hotels for the rest of our trip. Although we did make it back to the British Museum to see the Lewis Chessmen, Elgin Marbles, Sutton Hoo Horde. Afterwards we nabbed some Yo! Sushi and then caught some balcony seats for Les Mis before going out for the final night on the town with our Eurotour friends.

Mind the Gap

[2004-06-24 12:15:15]

OK, I know there's a huge blog gap, but I've been busy/lazy (if those two things can coexist). If I recall correctly, I left off at the train ride to Copenhaven.

D Bobs surprised us all with a ferry trip for our cross from Germany to Denmark over the Baltic Sea (I restrained myself from whipping out my new commie winter hat). Once we got to Copenhaven we realized that there was nothing to do and everything was really friggin expensive. So... The next day we took a day trip to Sweden's fourth largest city, Malmo. I would hesitate to call that a waste of time, but then I would be leading you astray. Let's put it this way, the tourist information booth only had pamphlets on Denmark. The second we left the train station an american told us how she had been here only an hour and was already bored. The most exciting thing we did in Malmo was feed a horde of ducks at the Japanese Gardens. Although we did see a viking ship cross the castle moat (if my viking ship you mean a duck and by castle you mean the place that looked like an old factory). I can only hope the larger cities in Sweden can live up to dreams in my head for the next time I return.

After a 20 min train ride, we were back in Kobenhavn. I can't say too much about the place. I explored it for two days, and mostly left with a feeling of being overcharged for everything. They had an awesome viking/celtic portion of their museum, complete with the cauldron that has the relief of the horned-god holding the torc and snake. The Tivoli Gardens had an amazing light and fountain show, plus a huge playground to pass away the time. Our hotel had 5 pools, but closed too early to use them. Oh! And I did catch the latest Harry Potter one night.

Please don't think I got depressed, it was a great place, but made more for living at than visiting. When we headed out on the 19th for London it was time to say Good Bye to Dorsey.

Please bow your head for the end of an epoch. And now dance to the beat of his drummer "doo ga doo da," or for your safety and those around you -- don't try to be the mystical wizard of rythm.

We were headed to the UK via an overnight ferry across the North Sea. After a night of cards and liberal use of duty-free libations we landed in Harwich on the 20th we were well rested to hit up London-town.

Swedish Train Sign

[2004-06-18 16:25:34]

Pickyournosezone_17Jun04

Please reserve all nose picking for this section of the train only. Thankyou.

OK, so there was a better version of this sign on a German train which had the finger at an angle and right under the nose, but I wasn't able to take a pic of it nor find another like it since.. Regardless it still makes me laugh..

Greetings From the Eastern Block

[2004-06-17 07:01:37]

tvtower_15Jun04

It was dark and the pic didn't turn out, but that is the TV tower deep in old Eastern Berlin. Way too much happened to write down quickly (about to get on a train bound for Sweden), but I'll try...

First day was relaxation, second was visiting Kritin and her fam (great convos on SS Cult, and Cold War Berlin) then Topography of Terror (remains of Hitler Strasse) Checkpoint Charlie Museum and some Imbiss (falafel) for dinner. That night we went to an artist squater's commune/bier garten and hung out (way cool - bar had a fire breathing dragon). The nextday was a whirl wind walk from Zoo station to TV tower that encompassed: Reichstag, Brandenburg Gate, Unter den Linden, Pergamon Temple and Gates of Ishtar, Marx memorial, Berlin Dom, and a pub crawl (which made for a rough train ride the next day).

Funny Sign

[2004-06-17 06:59:41]

attack_16Jun04

As part of our train ride yesterday we were on a huge North Sea ferry. While wandering around I came across this sign. You tell me what it means bc I have no clue. Possibly it means "Gather families into groups and prepare for stick figure ninjas attacking."

Random Pic

[2004-06-15 05:13:45]

Breakdancing zone_14Jun04

This S-Bahn is a breakdancing zone only please.

Yay For Kristin

[2004-06-13 15:03:49]

kristinishere_13Jun04

Kristin Smith (our private Berlin guide and most wonderful of friends) is here! yay for Kristin...

Happy Thought

[2004-06-13 11:25:48]

StephHorseRide_12Jun04

Happy Thought -- carraige ride in Cracow.

Drawing a Red Line like Indiana Jones

[2004-06-13 11:16:01]

AuschwitzIGate_12Jun04

AuschwitzIGate2_12Jun04

AuschwitzI_12Jun04

I've been on this train for an eternity and Poland is still bluring by my window. I'm not expecting to reach Berlin till 19.00. If Czech feels like the Arkansas/Alabama of the EU, then Poland must be the middle America of the EU. Cracow was wonderful, beautiful, and cheap (dinner is about 4$, and nights out on the town about 10$) but the sights were as sparse as present day Route 66.

We took the down time to check the local markets for souvenirs. To my surprise there was less commie stuff than Czech. However, there were tons of Nazi era items. I found several Nazi citizen ID papers and one or two authentic maltese crosses amongst the many replica SS daggers and pins, but that was the only place I saw such things. For a good reason too, Cracow is only 70Km from Auschwitz.

Personally I had no clue what to expect. The tour of the world's largest graveyard started at Auschwitz I. A sign in the main building read "No children under 14 allowed." I'm not even going to try to put into words the overwhelming feeling that built throughout the day. The tour continued to Auschwitz II/Birkenau -- built because the killing capacity of A-I was simply not efficient enough (with its dorm like housing and small "shower room" that was so close to the workers they had to turn on large truck engines to drown the screams). I must say that even though I've thought about the holocaust so many times before, the whole day just continually boggled my mind. A-II was visually more harrowing, you see the old stables built for 52 horses, but instead were used to house almost 1000 people each. You walk the same 500m path that those who failed selection did to the tree lined building where over 1,000,000 Russian, Polish, and Jewish people died. Although the SS tried to destroy the evidence while in retreat the exploded ruins of the cremators and the now water filled ash pits still stand testament and reminder to the horrors people are capable of.

Beer is cheaper than water

[2004-06-10 14:49:52]

I'm in eastern Europe now, on a train bt Prague and Krakow. I swear this th ing is only going about 30 mph. It's been a while since I've posted anythin g. Mostly bc I forgot to blog while in Munich, and now the phone system dat a rates are too high (that's why there is no picture attached). Works out kinda nice actually since I haven't really done anything overwhel mingly noteworthy. In fact the postings prob won't happen again until I get to Berlin on Sunday.

Till then I'm thoroughly enjoying this land where the beer (versus the wine ) is cheaper than the water. Muenchen was a nice break from the hustle of Italy. Not to mention a lot cheaper, which I was not expecting. The first n ight we hit up the Hofbrauhaus, and each had brats, kraut, and 3 mass while enjoying the oompah music.. Interesting to note: the orignal hofbrau or "royal court brew" was strictly only for the (you guessed it) royal cou rt of Bavaria. We capped the night with a dance club that had a Star Wars t hemed room playing house complete with a guy in a Darth Vader outfit tellin g everyong in german to dance. After a day of baroque palaces and art, the second night was a calm evening at the Augusteiner Biergarten with more bra ts and kraut and even some potato dumplings.

Then it was off to Prague, one of the newest EU countries for another coupl e days of relaxing. Every moment on the trains now is the deepest I've ever been in eastern Eur ope. The number of shops selling surplused commie mementos is on the rise. I have no clue where to even start with the language, it has been pure memo rization with funny words with no vowels and too many accents. As usual, it 's fun to take it all in and try to figure out a culture you've never seen before. Prague has been beyond interesting. (I'll save you the laundry list of sites, although I did have dinner in the room Titanic's dining hall was based off of) The juxtapositon of fading communistic ideals and capitalist ic markets makes for bubbles of tourist traps, like avoiding sour grapes in a bundle. In fact, the museum of Communism is next door to a McDonalds.

One thing I enjoyed was the beauty of the city itself more than the sights it holds. For instance, the architecture of the city. The best of example of this is Old Town square. One 360 spin and you see gothic, neogothic, art nouveau, and (especially if you look at the tops of the buildings as you w alk down any street) even some remnants of Stalin and communism with powerf ul statues of idealistic solidarity defined like the butresses of Gotham Ci ty.

p.s. I found the perfect way to spend your remainder czech crowns before yo u leave -- any of the hundreds of casinos. 25 korunas on Black 20 please.

Riots Possibly

[2004-06-04 03:57:41]

FlorenceRiotHandout_04Jun04

Today George Bush is in Rome to meet with the Italian head hancho. (Play suspenseful music) The radios in supermarkets blurs with murmurs of foreign languages and the occasional perceptible "Geeeorggg Bosh." Over the past week we've seen "PACE" or peace rainbow flags everywhere. Over the whole trip we've seen enough anti-bush spray paintings and handouts to fill a scrapbook (interesting to note the all seem to be sponsored by the socialist party of Italy). In Florence we actuallly walked through a peaceful protest and Italians passed us pamphlets about meeting in Rome Friday at Noon for a protest. In Venice as we boat taxi'ed to our dinner a huge flag announced the "Occupation of Iraq by the US" and again reminded people to protest today. No worries the center of it all is in Rome and I'm hundreds of miles away, so the action will be minimal and all shall be ok.. (Play dramatic music then denoument)

Vini Vidi Vici (and other misspelled latin phrases)

[2004-06-03 05:49:51]

popeprayer_02Jun04

campofiori_02Jun04

In case you didn't know my roommate, Dorsey, recently quit his job and decided to buy a oneway ticket to backpack Europe for (as most expats prob end up saying before they leave) as long as he feels like it.

Now, by this time we knew Dors was somewhere on the continent singing bad 80's music. We all had our theories about how and when he would show up. Would it be on the street, as we coincedentally catch him hitting on girls? Or would we be posting bail for him in Germany somewhere? So maybe it wasn't the exotic of stories, but we finally came to know our answer. As we got off the train in Florence there he was. He had taken a night train from Geneva and found a local hostel to crash at.

By the time we arrived in Florence on Sunday it was much too late to catch any museums, and since they were all closed Monday we took the evening to prepare for a day on the Italian Riviera. I spent a bit trying to get leads on a small Italian town called Santa Margherita. I wanted to track down where my Grandpa's brother had been buried for a while after WWII. Unfortunately nothing concrete came forth, so I decided join the group and head for Cinque Terre. The next morning and a short train ride later I was eating pesto pasta where it was invented and grilled swordfish on the Mediterranean. After some hiking and a good swim in the azur blue sea we headed back to Florence.

The next couple days were at a breakneck pace. We saw Mich.'s David, climbed the Duomo, traversed the Ponte Vecchio (but had no padlock keys to add to the river), and conquered the Uffizi on the first day. The second was an effort done with the fervor of Atlas. Yes my friends, I did Rome in 5 hours (not counting Vatican). Took polaroid pictures of it all just to look at when I finally slow down. In the morning I stood 6 feet from the Pope, was blessed, heard his prayers for the world, and discovered that the Pope-mobile is a Fiat. After that we saw the Vatican Museum, the Sistine Chapel and Mich.'s painting of God saying "pull my finger." After seeing St. Peter's Basilica we left Vatican city for Rome, did the Coliseum, Forum (the heart of ancient Rome), Capitol Hill, Trevi fountain, the Pantheon, Piazza Navona, and Campo Fiori. After a late train back to Florence to sleep and rest our worn feet we woke up this morning to catch an early train to Venice. Speaking of train travel, it's time for a nap. Ciao Ciao.

Bar Game

[2004-06-03 03:45:39]

Here's a new game brought to you by J,L,S and I. Its called Weiner (bc that's the name of the bar we made it up at in Amsterdam). Make sure you start with 3 or more players, a polished pub table, that each player has a nice local brew and plenty of spare flimsy drink coasters. Make a polygon with a side for each player. When you have 2 peeps make a square again. Every person puts a beer on one of their coaster corners. Put one of the cardboard coasters in in the middle as a puck while each player has one as a hitter thingmabob and let the multiplayer airhockey begin. Every time a point is scored against you do like bball horse and take a letter of WEINER. If you spell the word, you are out of the game. Last man standing gets a prize. Happy Weinering...

Oh duh

[2004-05-30 09:15:49]

One epiphany, one idea from Car 4:

CH comes from the swiss name schwitz...

Instead of selling spare camera memory cards in tourist kiosks, why not have burners that back up you memory card to cheap cd-rs. Who wants to fund the next international travel tool's infrastructure setup?

Taking a break in Interlaken, CH

[2004-05-30 09:09:53]

Picture008_30May04

Why is the abbreviation for Switzerland CH? You've got me... I guess Sweden beat them to the punch. After Paris a couple days ago we took a small break in Interlaken, a european version of Snowmass, CO. It was nice to hike mountains for a change from hiking museums. Even though nothing too much worth mentoning happened other than great vistas, and great snow sleding on 75 degree rock faces, it was a nice break before our trek to Florence. (I'm currently in a train station in Milan). Talk to you all soon.

Ryan == Fanta Addict

[2004-05-28 07:28:00]

Fanta_28May04

I, my friends, am a Fanta addict. Mostly since none of the vendors are offering Orangina :-(.

In reference to the photo, no worries it wasn't me who broke down and had the MickyD's, but I did have a fry...

Funny Door Sign

[2004-05-27 03:56:03]

Maid_Sign_26May04

Warning Armed Housewife Behind this Door! or... Maid's closet ;-)

Lunch with Neptune

[2004-05-25 08:30:08]

Picture005_25May04

In true moblog form I'm sending this from les Jardins de Versaille, near the fountain of Neptune.

Lindsay is up the hill interviewing some local kids for her class. The rest of us are bathing in the gorgeous weather digesting our jambon et fromage sandwiches with our Tartare brand cheese. And yes, the cheese and ham are both stolen from our hotel breakfast buffet... Well, off to see the private bed chambre de Louis and the private opera house. Tout bien.

Windows to Let

[2004-05-25 08:16:03]

Amsterdam has to be the first place I've ever been that truly believes in personal freedoms. You can do anything in imangination as long as your actions do not affect any one else. Don't know why, but I envisioned getting off the train in Centraal and be greated a fog of purple haze and free clear-eyes on Dam square. It was the complete opposite, the city was comfortable, safe, and the people were as friendly as Brits. Not to mention that unlike other cultures they almost want to show off their ability to speak other languages. I guess it makes sense after you consider it was the richest trade port for hundreds of year. P.S. Unfortunately I don't have any postable pics, as I left my camera home at nights.

Slowly getting a start...

[2004-05-20 10:38:21]

Picture004_20May04

Earning our karmic dues for a great int'l flight. yep that's right, no window and the very back row... ___ sent from treo

MoBlog Test

[2004-05-20 02:24:20]

Kayla with Rose

Just a quick test...

Grandpa's Email

[2004-03-29 23:27:48]

My Grandpa sent me a great email today about the WWII Memorial up in DC. He sent in information for himself (James) and his two brothers Tom and George to the Registry of Rememberance. Search it here. If noone in or close to your family served, look up the Farleys from Providence. If you do know of someone, why not submit their information and a photograph.

Made the USA Today

[2004-03-29 00:43:53]

Check out this great piece on the value of away messages. Yep, thats right, its all about BuddyGopher...

In The News...

[2004-03-25 01:19:53]

Shortening The Lists: an article about BuddyGopher. The past saturday there was another article in the GSO News-Record, and April 1st/2nd there will be an article in Triad Internet Connections... and the grand daddy of them all: USA Today sometime at the end of March!

An Oasis of Life (Backlog Thursday 26th)

[2003-06-27 14:09:30]

Although I had a blast last night with Lucente at Goodtimes, it made for a rough morning. Since we were pushing off so early I decided to crash on the boat for the night.

When I woke up on the captain's chair the next morning (?!) it was to a beautiful Florida sunrise. After a peanut butter and banana sandwich and ten billion gallons of water we kicked off with Nite Life and the sonar boat.

After staying up for a while to get all the stuff around the boat done for the trip the enticing lull of the big diesel and the calming offshore breeze put me out cold for the hour and a half trip.

Since yesterday was a lazy day, today was my first day working with Bud, an ex-deep sea welder, and Herman the captain of the boat. Wade, a native of Sarasota, and one of the organizers of the project was also with us. We made it out there and at first all we hit was flat bottom. We were around 3 of the 6 total coordinates we had for the day. On the last area we decided to use the sonar fish to scout the area, and shortly we found something amazing.

Out of the desolate bottom of sand dollars came some ridges and reliefs full of fish. We started doing some recon dives to check it out. We had hit a virtual oasis of life. There were coral, sponges, schools of snapper, grouper, you name it. There was color in the drap brown of the Gulf. The bottom too was exactly what we were looking for -- hard with crevaces. We did most of out dives in this area, and didn't even make it to the last three. It was amazing how much 100 ft matters when it comes to change out there. This was my first time diving in the Gulf with so much life around. I saw cleaning stations of crabs, conch caught in the cracks, wrasses, angelfish, stuff I would have not expected.

This was huge. Now we had a lead, we were close, and all it would take would be time to search this area and follow the old river path to where (probably one of the other 3 coords) the original site was.

With a huge smile on our faces we headed back to port. With more good news to arrive once we got back. The film crew that was following Carl had just recieved distrobution contracts with PBS. Not just the local station either, but national distrobution... Looks like its starting to pick up pace now, its only too bad I leave Monday, right when the fun starts.

P.S. Tomorrow I meet with the Chief Curator of the Ringling museum to ask questions about the wreck and other details.

Slow Day off Lido (Backlog Wednesday 25th)

[2003-06-27 13:46:33]

Today was another Ringling day. I met up with the crew on the shrimper to head out to Lido beach area to do some mag work. Carl was with his old partner Dennis, another old treasure hunter, on the Dive Master. John was out with his sonar boat scouting the area too.

Sadly, it was a pretty uneventful day. We searched some old leads with the mag we had found, and in the process we found a few more. The sonar work revealed the usually solid flat bottom of the gulf. Carl and Dennis plotted what was the next game plan.

After the day we made plans to leave the marina at 6 the next morning to go out to the bone yard.

First Sunny Day (Backlog Tues 24th)

[2003-06-27 13:34:56]

Finally, the sun broke through, and what a magnificient day. We decided to split the crew up. One of our boats, the old shrimper/work boat Nite Life, went to the Ringling area to use the magnetometer to check some coordinates. The other, a 20 ft fishing boat, called the Dive Master, went to the slave ship site. I opted for the Dive Master, since I would get more exciting bottom time on it. On the boat was the Carl, the leader of the project; John, the side scan sonar expert; Corrina, one of the TV crew; and of course me.

We took a WSW heading out of new pass for about 11 miles. We were using some coordinates converted from Loran-C to GPS. Carl was expecting a clear view of the few condo roofs you could still see from out there to draw some better positions. I did a couple dives with John to survey a view spots. There must have been a lot of information lost in the transcription of coordinates. It was nothing but desert sand bottom out there. The most life was the large assortment of sand dollars.

This was a huge let down since Carl was very confident about the locations. From the original video of the site (filmed 3-4 yrs ago) the bottom was a hard limestone with tons of coral, fish and other life. In the crevaces of the stone were blatant skeletons of prehistoric life covered in the film of muck. In this boneyard of ancient marine life were barely noticable pieces of a sunken boat. One of the most interesting things is that in the video you can see elephant tusks, probably used in bartering, still white...

But nothing was raised today. We headed back early in the day, regreting not bringing out a loran to double check the numbers. We made plans to do an early morning Thursday, take out both the side scan boat and the work boat to go after the site with full force.

Rain Delays (back log Monday 23rd)

[2003-06-27 13:12:20]

This will be short. In the past two weeks since I have been home there has been 20 inches of rain. Talk about bad timing. The seas have been too bad for sonar work and too rough for bounce diving. Just waiting for it to clear up...

Bad Weather and Change of Plans

[2003-06-20 22:54:01]

I've been dry locked for the past few days. Its been raining like crazy, never clear long enough to take the boats out. It's been ok since I've had time to hook up a wireless network here, and work on my NC projects. I'm itching to get back out there. Hopefully late tomorrow or the next day. Last time I talked to Carl he said the backers are putting pressure on doing the slave ship, so we may be doing that when things get moving again. Hope for sunshine...

Getting a Nitrogen Fix

[2003-06-17 22:58:44]

Today was another slow day, I went with some of the other people and made a dive off Longboat key for fun. The sonar boat was already full, and I wanted to explore my home area anyways... There was a group of five of us. We went about 7.5 mis out with a 235 heading out of New Pass looking for a ridge system. We hit the water and had some good old fun. My buddy and I separated from the group and went our own way. Nothing much special in the Gulf waters. Although this time I did see some small coral nubs and other larger fish than last time. After that we headed in. Tomorrow we won't be doing anything unless Carl finds some good stuff at the slave ship wreck down near the Old Peace River area.

Background: the coastal shelf off west coast florida extends much further out than the east coast -- in other words, the water is more shallow for father out. This is important when you consider the Ice Age, and the declination of water. Florida's surface area was much larger back then, and the barrier islands and rivers of past had much different paths. At the ancient mouth of one such river -- 12 miles west of where the Peace River currently flows into the Charlotte Harbour -- there is a square mile of marine mammal bones. They believe there could be an example of an dugong, which is a manatee like creature believed to only have existed in Africa. In this old delta of the Peace Rivers lies the remains of an 1800-1850 black market slave ship perhaps sank by the West Indies Brigade. This is another target for the trip. I know that I am leaving abruptly here, but I will add more as I find out more... plus Lucente is waiting for me at the five-o -- he's bartending. Later...

A Note from 27N 20' by 82W 37'

[2003-06-16 23:56:13]

Today was my first day on the boat, and I had a blast. We decided to change things up and try to search some locally known old fishing spots that were near the wreck site coordinates. Often times local fishing spots exist because there is garbage on the sea floor that allows fish protection. Most of the time this is denotes man made structures, usually from people throwing tires and golf buggies down, especially in the Gulf were there is no real reef or rock system in the shallow water. In rare occasions it can be old sunken ships. In fact the Atocia (Spanish galleon of 1622 and Mel Fisher fame) was on old nav charts as a "fish spot" long before they discovered the million dollar reason why.

We spent the day mowing the lawn again. It wasn't until the very end when we saw some bottom targets. The anticipation had been killing us all day, and the sonar guy and I went down to check it out. On the sonar screen it was an 100+ ft long object with the distinct shape of a bow line that was within 1/4 mile of the original Coast Guard coordinates of the wreck. It just so happened that it was a fishing spot also...

I should note that this was my first time doing a dive in the Gulf, not to mention my first dive in over 2 years. I think I was ready to be in the water before my dive buddy blinked. The water was 90 degrees warm, and the vis was an extraordinary 12 ft for the Gulf. Unfortunately, all I saw was some HUGE horse conch, some crabs, sea porcupines, and tons of sand dollars.

I can say what caused the fluke though. In case you were wondering Sonar gives information not necessarily by if it bounced off something, but how strong it bounces off something. For instance sound bounces off wood better than sand, letting us know what constitutes a raise in the sand. Further discernation is done with a magnetometer. In the Gulf, the coast is mostly surrounded by barrier islands, which makes for alot of sand that moves around constantly and quickly. At this site we were at the edge of the sand the comprises the barrier islands and the harder shelly bottom that comprises the next section. This area also had alot of red seaweed. These three densities (sand, shell, and seaweed) made the sonar believe that the hard reflection of the shells was a raise in the sand, and the sound absorbing seaweed was the trough of the otherside of the raise. This was paired with the low reflection of the soft sand, and made the appearance of a structure on the bottom.

A quick explaination of what the sonar output looks like: Put two flashlights on a string and have it shine out to the left and right of you right above the floor. Then take a video camera and put it facing the floor at the top of the string. Walk around a dark room and all you'd get on the tape is essentially the shapes and shadows of the objects that you passed by. If that makes sense...

On the way up a thunderhead was forming, so it was a race to beat the 3:30 showers. We made it to the intracostal aruond the downpour and took it easy to plan for tomorrow. Nonetheless -- apart from having a great time harassing the conchs on the dive -- I was hooked on the excitement and gamble of the search.

P.S. I also talked to the Ringling Museum Chief Curator who agreed to let us interview/grill him for some information some point this week. Also, I think those coords are wrong, it's what I wrote down, but doesn't match up. I'll fix them later.

Update of Sunday

[2003-06-16 22:00:12]

I was in Naples on Sunday for father's day, but while I was gone the crew was using side scan sonar to "mow the lawn" and map the grid of Gulf bottom. There were a couple of false leads but nothing was found.

Start Log

[2003-06-15 22:16:21]

This blog will contain information, stories, and pictures about the excavation of John Ringling's 120 ft yacht that wrecked off the coast of Sarasota in Feb 1930. In subsequent entries I will post pictures and background information on the topic.

First Post

[2003-06-15 20:20:00]

This is the first post to the blog, and is mainly a test.