Expectations and Surprises
The vending machines here are great. They have hot drinks as well as cold. Bottles of hot tea are 130 yen (118 yen per USD). The machines are everywhere, but nobody seems to drink anything on the street. I saw one young punk drinking tea on the subway. He must have been some kind of radical. I also saw one Japanese girl eating ice cream while walking down the sidewalk. I have not figured out what side of the sidewalk to walk on. It’s either chaos or beyond my understanding. There’s less order than I expected. There’s also a lot…
Tokyo: Day One
Today I went to the National Museum, which is closed on Mondays, along with everything else. This is the same reason that I have almost no photos of the inside of anything in Hanoi. I met a couple of Australians, Brian and Prue, who also failed to read their guidebook carefully. We ended up spending most of the day bumming around Tokyo together. They’ve lived in Scotland for five years and are taking the long way home over a few months. More than half the tourists I’ve met have been Australians. I’ve not met any Americans. Prue was looking for…
What time is it?
I just wanted to drop a quick note that I made it safely. The flight wasn’t as bad as I expected. The 747-400 that I was on had trouble with its Betamax player at first, but we eventually watched some movies. They apparently still make Beta tapes just for the airlines. We flew over northern Canada and Alaska overnight, but we followed the sun so it was light out all the way to Japan. Can someone tell me if that was the Yukon River that I saw out of the starboard window soon after we crossed the Alaska/Canada border, or…
Japan or Bust
I’ve decided to blow all of my vacation time at once, and I’m headed to Japan for a month from late November to late December. I’ll manage to be home for both holidays, but gone for most of the time in between. I’m pretty stoked. It looks like I’ll be able to spend quite a bit of time in Kyoto, including a few days at the Tekishinjuku international Zendo. Through a friend mine, I may also be able to visit the Shokoku-ji Zen Monastery in Kyoto. It sounds like an intense and amazing place. I’ll also be doing a bunch…
What Hurricane?
It looks like we’re done with this storm. There’s been some rain and gusts but nothing serious. We closed up the shelter about ten this morning, twenty-four hours after opening them yesterday. I drove a truck down to another shelter and brought back the unused supplies and food. A couple dozen volunteers showed up today after a two-day trip from the mid-west, but there was little to do by the time they got here. Had it been a bad storm, we sure would have been glad to see them. I’d much rather have over-reacted to this sort of thing than…
Spork
This morning we brought some supplies to eight shelters in Broward county. The food was already in place, but we brought some blankets, first-aid supplies, and toys and games for the kids. Since then I’ve been at a shelter at Arthur Ashe Middle School. I’m spending the night here to help out. There are not as many volunteers as they were hoping for. Fortunately it looks like this storm is fizzling out. We haven’t even had much rain yet. It looks like there’s going to be a bit more coming later tonight, but probably not any major wind. We’ve had…
Ernesto Who?
If this sort of thing continues I might have to rename this blog. I arrived here in sunny Fort Lauderdale last night for a class I had planned to take this week. Today at noon, after everyone else in the class bailed out and it was just the instructor and I, we decided to cancel the class. So here I am. My scheduled flight back Baltimore is on Saturday, and I don’t want to get out of here tomorrow if it means taking a seat away from some old lady, so I’ve decided to weather the storm here. I’ve volunteered…
Finally, Some Blue Ridge Photos
Alright so it’s been more than a month since I got back from the trip and I still hadn’t posted pictures. It was a great trip. My friend John joined me on his Valkerie, which has an engine only slightly smaller than my first car, and considerably more powerful. Here’s another picture from the camp out. Have you ever seen a 1200 GS with a sidecar? The ride was great again this year. Here’s a shot of the two bikes at Basin Cove Overlook. We hit great weather the whole time with the exception of a little bit of rain…
Blue Ridge Parkway: The Sequel
Tomorrow morning, a friend and I are headed down the Blue Ridge Parkway to the Horizon’s Unlimited meeting in Robbinsville, NC. It was a great trip last year, and I’m looking forward to the ride again this year. There are some great roads down in that part of the country. Last year I rode all 11 miles and 318 turns of Deal’s Gap. This year, we’re planning on riding the Cherohala Skyway, which twists through the mountain tops for thirty-six miles across the North Carolina-Tennessee border. The bike has been running well, and John is a great mechanic, so we…