the trip

so ive finally completed these posts recapping the trip amanda and i took to southeast asia for our summer vacation. for two weeks we travelled to taiwan, cambodia, and thailand, having a great time and learning some things along the way.

i had an ambitious idea to record it all...write it chronologically backwards, so itd appear chronologically correct on the blog. unfortunately, i think i bit off more than i could chew, as it turned into a big project which left me writing it in parts with big breaks. its finished now, but if you were reading last week, or two weeks ago, you were probably left hanging and confused by some incomplete parts. sorry. hopefully it all makes sense now.

here was our itinerary:

saturday, august 5 - taipei, taiwan
sunday, august 6 - phnom penh, cambodia
monday, august 7 - siem riep, cambodia
tuesday, august 8 - siem riep, cambodia
wednesday, august 9 - siem riep, cambodia
thursday, august 10 - bangkok, thailand
friday, august 11 - bangkok, thailand
saturday, august 12 - ko samui, thailand
sunday, august 13 - ko samui, thailand
monday, august 14 - ko samui, thailand
tuesday, august 15 - ko samui, thailand
wednesday, august 16 - phnom penh, cambodia
thursday, august 17 - taipei, taiwan*

* because of stupid airport security, not really taipei, but the freezing transfer lounge of chiang kai shek airport!

saturday, august 5, 2006

finally, southeast asia, a place amanda and i have wanted to go to for a while but havent been able to until now.

we got a pretty early start and had some nice mcdonalds breakfast at nagoya station before heading to the airport. we took eva airlines, which operates out of taipei, and in order to get a cheaper flight, we needed a 1 night layover in taipei both on the way there and on the way back.

as soon as you get to taipei, you realize that even though the writing looks the same, nothing is the same. the language is harsh, the people rude, and the streets dirty. none of that legendary japanese politeness and clenliness here.

after the airport bus into the city we tried to find the youth hostel we reserved over the internet. when we finally found the place it was an absolute hole, worse than any place i stayed in europe. dirty showers, used sheets, mosquitos, paint peeling off the walls. even 20 bucks seemed like a ripoff. but it had a convenient location so we decided to check out what taipei had to offer.

unfortunately, not much. the main station area had little shopping, so after dark we went to check out one of taipeis famous night markets, known for lots of food and shopping. but it was a blisteringly hot and humid night and the market was just one big sweatbox. there were lots of people eating disgusting food like animal organs, feet, and brains, and the market was so hot you could literally see the cooks sweat drop into the broths they were cooking. we left rather quickly to the shopping arcades but realized that taipei is not where shopping is at...the clothes are ugly and overpriced.

we went back to the station area around the hostel to recover and get some dinner. we tried to find a taiwanese restaurant, but the images from the night market couldnt escape our heads so we passed. instead, we found a mcdonalds, basically the only thing we thought we could stomach at that point.

thats because around 9pm the stench in the city became unbearable. ive never smelled anything so foul. i guess the humidity was getting all of the sewage and trash into the air and circulating it...it was like walking around in a porta potty. after dinner we couldnt stand it so we went to the hostel and had an early night as we had an early flight to phnom penh the next morning.

hopefully i wont have to go back to taipei again. if youre thinking of going there, dont.

sunday, august 6, 2006

boy were we happy to get out of taipei. what a hole...

we took a flight to phnom penh, the capital city of cambodia. first impressions of the city are that its a different world from traditional tourist centers. first, right out of the airport, several aggressive taxi drivers approach you to drive you into the city and stay at their guesthouse. we needed a taxi but no accomodation as we already had reservations, so we got one that would just drive into the city.

once you start the drive, the world looks very different on this side. no paved roads, poverty everywhere, crumbling infrastructure with bullet holes all over it, no traffic lights and motorcycles galore...its definately not japan. once we got to the road of the guesthouse, we got touted endlessly for just about everything, from tuk tuk rides to drugs to "massages". but once we got to the guesthouse, everything was alright. the place was a cheap, nice, quiet two floor setup right on the lake, quite beautiful setting actually.

we bargained for a tuk tuk driver to take us sightseeing. first, in cambodia and thailand, you have to bargain for everything. at first its cool, trying to see how cheap you can get things. after a while, though, it gets grating, as you just wanna buy a 50 cent bottle of water and not spend 1 minute arguing over the price. the tuk tuk is another cool thing, basically a carriage on the back of a motorcycle. pretty comfortable really, but you really inhale the fumes of the bike and the dirt of the road during the ride.

in phnom penh, the only real "sightseeing" is the stuff from the war, like the killing fields and the torture museum. so we went there and now were glad we dont have to go back. what horrific places. very important historically, but almost too morbid to pass as a must see tourist spot. ive been to auschwitz, dachau, hiroshima, so ive seen my fair share of horrific museums and monuments, but these ones were just so plain as day. the killing fields is nothing but a tower with 5000 skulls and locations of mass graves where they still find bones today...the torture museum honestly details what the khmer rouge did to people before they took them to the killing fields for slaughter. brutally honest stuff, with no velvet ropes or anything restraining you from seeing things. the kind of stuff thatll give you nightmares for years.

to take the emotional load off we went to the surprisingly developed riverside boulevard for happy hour. luckily in phnom penh, happy hour is basically dinner, as it goes from 4-10pm. we had some cheap drinks at the ritzy foreign correspondants club before going to a few more places on the riverside for some beers and food. cheap and good stuff.

we got back to the guesthouse pretty late so we couldnt watch what wouldve been a great view of the sunset on the lake, but no matter...we had to take the speedboat pretty early in the morning, so we went to bed relatively early.

monday, august 7, 2006

the best way to get from phnom penh to siem riep (the town where you stay to explore the temples of angkor wat) was by speedboat, so we had a really, really, early start in order to catch the speedboat by 8pm. once we got there, we found the ride pretty smooth...able to sleep no problem. the villages on the mekong river were just amazing, its like nothing has altered them in the past 300 years or so.

this was especially evident when we started slowing down towards the dock. whole villages were on stilt houses or boats with roofs constructed on them. all the children waved at the passing boat, some while swimming in the river. they have to literally swim to their friends house...all the huts were on water.

when we pulled up to dock somebody from the hotel had a sign with our names on it...convenient. what wasnt so convenient was the mode of transportation to the hotel...a moto. the tuk tuk had been ok, but the moto was nothing other than me on the back of one motorcycle and amanda on the back of another. no helmets, protection, nothing...just balance yourself and hold on. it didnt help that the road was terrible. all dirt, mud, full of potholes and skidmarks. when we finally arrived at the hotel after a 30 minute ride we were glad to still be standing, sore bottoms not withstanding.

the hotel was nicer than we expected...very close to the central market and restaurant area of siem riep, clean, and modern. but the moto drivers stuck to us like glue...they basically ordered us to go for lunch and then meet them back at the hotel at 4pm in order to see angkor wat at sunset. amanda and i arent good at saying no, so we said ok, went up to shower and then explore siem riep.

what a great town! cheap markets, tons of international restaurants, massage parlors, definately a boom town generated from tourism but a good one. we had great mexican for lunch, did some shopping, and then went back to meet the drivers to finally see the long awaited angkor wat.

what a place! the biggest religious site in the whole world and its just mindblowing. it must have taken hundreds of years and millions of people to build the place...its that big. the size of the moat alone boggles the mind, not to mention the outer walls, gates, staircases, and wats (triangular temple tops). we took as many pictures as we could as we walked further towards the center, along with a bunch of other tourists. you dont notice them, though...this place could handle 20 times more tourists and still be great.

the stairs you walk up to the main part are stairs only in the vague sense of the word...its more like climbing because theyre so steep. still, we climbed to the top and took more pictures. hard to describe how it looks, but i urge you to do an internet search on angkor and see some pictures if i cant figure out how to post them on this site.

after sunset, we went back into town to get a nice dinner and introduction to sweet and mild cambodian coconut curry. after that we got an hour full body massage that was great...id never had one before and now i dont wanna go without. they walk on your back and everything, the whole deal. after that we went to a bar for some beers. the local beer, conveniently named angkor, is quite good. this whole night was dirt cheap too. its easy to live like a king or queen in cambodia.

2 more days in this place...what could be better?

tuesday, august 8, 2006

our first full day in siem riep started with a bit of controversy. we really wanted to take out bicycles instead of riding motos, both for fun factor and safety reasons, but when we came down to the lobby of the hotel in the morning, the moto drivers were there with a schedule and a map. we tried to say that we didnt want to use them, but they kept saying that wed promised yesterday (which was true) and that it would be their only work for the week (which was probably true). plus, they just looked so sad when we said no.

we took pity and decided to work out a compromise...today, wed take the motos with them to explore the far away temples, and the next day wed take bicycles to explore the closer temples. good thing too...the first temple they took us to took about 1 hour by motorcycle to get to. that wouldve taken an eternity by bicycle. the drivers said it was beautiful and it was...much smaller than angkor wat, but much more well preserved and with very few tourists. we even had some cocunut curry and cocunut milk (served in actual coconuts) after viewing it.

in the next few hours they took us to several temples, the names of which are blending together but the images staying apart. one was a former giant swimming pool with a massive fountain at its core...another was on a high terrace with a good view of the city or possible invading troops...another had its back door completely envoloped by a giant tree. just fantastic sightseeing, i could write about it but pictures would be so much better.

at the end of the afternoon, they took us to a mountain temple that you can either hike up to or take an elephant ride up. since the elephant was 15 bucks we decided to take the hike. a bunch of tourists gathered at the top waiting to glimpse the sunset. after an hour up there, though, clouds obscured any possible view (with memories of mt. fuji last summer still in our heads). we headed down and got to the motos just as a torrential downpour started. the drivers were kind enough to pull over under a tree and give us rain ponchos but it did little to prevent us from getting soaked on the way back to the hotel. its rainy season, so its going to rain every late afternoon from the building humidity...what can you do?

we had a really nice dinner and for the second straight night went to a place called the buddha bar for drinks after. we met another couple and talked to them about cambodia as well as an older british man whod spent alot of time on ko samui...he got us pretty excited for the beach vacation that awaited us in thailand. before that, though, one more day at angkor was in the cards.

wednesday, august 9, 2006

a final day in angkor wat...a great opportunity to wrap things up in what is probably one of the best sightseeing spots in the world, period.

we woke up earlier because we really wanted to take out bikes for the final day. the map suggested a route that could take us to all of the really important and big temples close by, so we thought a bike would be perfect. getting a rental, though, was a bit of a hassle...i found a sort-of mountain bike, while the guy tried to give amanda a shopping bike with no working brakes and flat tires. we kindly said no thank you and got a bike for her somewhere else. still, our bikes seemed to have no juice. wed pedal hard and get nowhere. add to that the chaos of traffic that is siem riep and after 10 minutes of getting accustomed to the bikes we wondered what wed got ourselves into.

so we did what anybody should do in moments of doubt...go for a nice breakfast. pancakes and maple syrup did the trick, and after that we were ready to tackle angkor. by the time we got to the front gate, about 5km away, i was literally drenched in sweat. it was white hot that day, little breeze and having to cycle through the humidity was going to be a challenge.

still, we went on and started to see what we wanted to see...including the bayon, with its 218 hideously smiling faces of the king etched in stone, and the elephant terrace, where the king would make his speeches about building more temples or whatever. by about 3 pm were getting tired. we were both disgustingly sweatlogged and sunburnt...i think i went through about 5 litres of water in 4 hours and still didnt need to take a slash yet.

the final temple was probably my favorite...ta prohm, aka the jungle temple because the jungle is literally devouring the temple as we speak. trees share the same space as doorways and the roots of trees rise higher than the outer walls. its amazing, and the shadows created by the late afternoon made the place even more spectactular. i took almost a whole roll of film at that place alone...i think i took around 50 pictures this day, which for a point-and-click camera is alot.

but yet again it rained hard around 5pm. we were smart and bought rain ponchos to protect our bags and backs but we still got soaked biking back into town. after returning the bikes, getting a well deserved shower and rest, we did the usual thing to do in siem riep at night...go for dinner, then go for a massage, and then go to the bar. for dinner we went to a place called the red piano...its famous here because its where the crew for the film tomb raider stayed while shooting the movie in 2001. angelina jolie pictures are everywhere...she liked the place and the country so much she adopted a cambodian kid before she left.

we loved the place too, and for all the hard work the bikes gave us, it was much more rewarding than the motos. but wed seen all the temples and it was time for a new country.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

it was sad to leave siem riep because it had been the highlight of the trip so far (and for me, one of the highlights if not THE highlight of my travels) but thailand awaited, and thailand is thailand, so we hopped on the plane with dreams of cheap pirated software and knockoff designer clothing.

we took an airport bus into the main backpacker area, khao san road, but it took forever to get there. bangkok is an urban developers worst nightmare. gridlocks at every turn, motos and tuk tuks cutting off cars and buses, little public transportation to speak of, and heavy air pollution...not exactly the clean wide streets of nagoya anymore.

when we finally got to the hotel we were amazed by what we were getting for what we paid...in a good way. the buddy lodge hotel was a "boutique hotel", and while im not still sure what that means, it means that its a shoppers, eaters, and drinkers utopia. the room was excellent and the entertainment and shopping was literally just out the door.

after exploring the rooftop swimming pool (which was terrific), we did some shopping and bought some clothes. at night, we went to the patpong area by tuk tuk, which is bangkoks notorious red light area. only its not really as notorious as its reputation leads you to believe...tourists are everywhere, restaurants and shopping stalls are just around the corner, and theres no sense of danger or debauchery.

we looked forward to another day in bangkok after getting back to the hotel and having a good sleep.

Friday, August 11, 2006

our first full day in bangkok was a good one. after breakfast in the hotel we decided to try to see some sights around the city. we walked down to one of the main temples but since thai laws are so strict we couldnt enter in only sandals and shorts. you could rent clothes but how disgusting is that? so we took pictures of the exterior along with the signs restricting access.

we tried to head to the main shopping area by tuk tuk, which proved painful to both our patience and our lungs. once there, though, there was just an outpouring of everything youd ever want or need to buy. we found a gourmet food court that gives you a credit card to buy anything in the court and then tallies up your tab when you leave. i think i had a creme brule sampler...amanda had ice cream and crepes. good stuff.

when we got back to khao san road, we wandered for any last minute clothing items before having some great italian for dinner. bangkok was nice, but i think we were both looking forward to ko samui the next day.

Saturday, August 12, 2006

finally got out of bangkok and the traffic in the morning was significantly better than the afternoon. we were on our way to what, for me, i was looking forward to the most...4 days on a tropical island with nothing but sun, ocean, massages, beer, and food. in other words, paradise.

we made it into ko samui around noon and a hotel staff member kindly picked us up from the airport. as we drove into the island, the first place you pass is chaweng beach, the main drag. more developed than youd like, filled with banks, fast food joints, tourist agents, bars, and clubs. not exactly getting away from it all...until we got to our resort, which was thankfully on chaweng noi, away from the main action but close enough to share the awesome scenery and go to the main area at night.

the resort was wonderful, the room was bright and clean, the beach impeccible. the sand was silky white, and the water was like heated mineral water...it was that good. there was a shell or rock under your foot in the ocean either, just a perfect place to go swimming. so after a quick rest thats what we did. the routine was thus: go swimming, get out and rest on the beachchair, apply sunscreen, get a beer, repeat. perfect.

for dinner we headed into chaweng and found a great seafood restaurant that had live thai dancing (no, not the naughty kind). afterwards we walked down further and found a pub that had aussie rules football on, a game between brisbane and richmond which turned into a blowout by the end of 2 quarters. still, she got to show me what aussie rules was all about...and its a pretty spectactular sport.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

our first full day on ko samui! couldnt believe we were really here when we woke up, the place was just postcard perfect.

we had a lazy sleep in and almost missed breakfast...we were rather rushed because we were so late. before going to the beach we decided to have a relax in the room and watch the movie channel...everyday in the afternoon here they showed some pretty random tv movies...one was even a christmas movie. finally we got down to the beach and it was as wonderful as the day before. later that day we went for a massage on the beach that was just wonderful. unfortunately by this time my back was a little sunburnt so the lady gave me pity along with some aloe gel.

at night we ventured into chaweng to find a place to eat. we went to a place called the three monkees, a pretty good pub with pretty good food. we wondered around the street stalls for clothes and booked our snorkeling trip for the next day.

we decided to walk back to the hotel, which was a bad move. while we were walking on the shoulder of the road 2 guys on a moto made a grab for amandas handbag. to her credit she hung on tight and let out a scream, so they didnt make off with it. still, after that we decided to take taxis going home from then on.

Monday, August 14, 2006

we woke up early today to go on a snorkeling trip to the islands of ko yuan ngan and ko tao. a driver picked us up from our hotel around 730 and drove us to a dock where alot of other people had also signed up...must have been close to 80 people there. they divided us into groups and we went on a speedboat for a ride to the first island.

well, the trip was a little rocky. the weather had turned a bit from the beautiful day before and the boat was rocking. we were ok but some people were either getting seriously wet or seriously seasick. the mood on the boat started jubilant with a bunch of brazilian men chanting and singing songs...at around the hour mark, those songs had stopped to be replaced by relative silence with occasional chatter. amanda and i were among the only ones not to be effected by the choppy waters, most of the others were having some problems.

when we got to the island we started snorkeling almost immediately and it was beautiful. all kinds of fish, coral, and vegetation was around in crystal clear water for us to see. the water was warm and shallow enough to make it comfortable swimming. we went for about an hour until we had to be on the boat again, at which point the rain really started coming down. the tropical downpour lasted until we got to ko tao and had a thai lunch.

when we got to the second snorkeling spot, some people on the boat were so sick and wet that they just wanted the boat to turn around and go home. i was against that...we all were promised snorkeling, so we were going to get some snorkeling. a vote was held and a compromise where wed go snorkeling for only 30 minutes instead of an hour was arranged. again, fantastic stuff lay under the waters for us to see.

we finally got back to the resort around 530, rather exhausted. instead of resting, though, we went for a swim in the rain which cleaned us up. after showers and some pre dinner beers we went for a great dinner on the beach. it was so windy that we were the only ones brave enough to actually stay on the beach and eat instead of flee indoors for more comfortable tables. the waiter was nice enough to set up two patio umbrellas at opposite ends of the table to act as sheilds against the rain and wind blowing off the ocean.

we were rather exhausted from the days events so we decided to hang out around our part of the beach instead of heading into central chaweng. luckily we still had one more day to go on the island paradise.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

our last day in ko samui so we decided to make it a relaxing one. it was our third time eating breakfast but the first one that wasnt rushed, so we got to relax and have a bunch of french toast and omelettes. the weather continued its nasty spat from the previous day so we layed on the beach while it sprinkled overhead. it didnt matter for the ocean, though...it was still warm, clean, and clear, still the best ocean water ive ever been in.

we relaxed most of the day on the beach but didnt go for a massage...my back was still sore from sunburn. instead, we decided to have an early dinner on the beach again of steak and seafood. beautiful stuff.

there was an irish pub in chaweng that was having a pub quiz night so we decided to head there after dinner. it was a great pub...there was an actual irish band playing actual irish music and the table quiz lasted for about an hour and a half. amanda and i didnt win, but we didnt lose either, with her proving much more adept than me at unscrambling anagrams and naming that tune. the pub had a special on guiness draught during the quiz so i probably gouged myself with too much beer during the quiz...after the band came on again but i couldnt focus on it so we made an early exit and took a taxi back to the resort.

Wednesday, August 16 and Thursday, August 17, 2006

we woke up to an early alarm clock to have one last great tropical fruit basket on the ocean. the wind was still howling and the rain was still pelting but at this point neither of us cared. it was still quite beautiful out and the food was still good.

unfortunately (well, it was mostly my fault truth be told) we were a bit behind schedule and had problems finding a taxi that would take us to the airport...must of taken us about 20 minutes to find one. coupled with the fact that our driver took his leisurely sweet time, and we got to the airport at 8:15 for an 8:45 flight. suffice to say that the employees werent entirely happy with us, warning us that "you shouldnt do this again." we werent the only late ones, though, so they quick checked all the late people through (after paying yet another airport departure tax...) and we got on the plane no problem.

we got into phnom penh and the city for some reason looked much better this time around. we decided to just stay at the area around the guesthouse (the same guesthouse as the last time) and relax. that meant having a shower, wandering around the deck on the water, having some beer, and going for dinner at the flying elephant. we met a canadian couple there that was staying at our guesthouse and talked to them that night...they were teachers in korea so we had similar experiences to share. it was a good night.

in the morning the plane didnt leave until 12 so we could have a relaxing breakfast before taking a tuk tuk to the airport. the only thing i remember from phnom penh airport was the security dog. usually they have big intimidating german shephards or dobermans, but here they had a cocker spaniel. he had big droopy eyes and i think he was less interested in finding any drugs in luggage than taking a break. i wanted to pet him but didnt think the security guard would be impressed.

the only problem was when we got to taipei. the immigration agent took a look at my passport and said i needed a visa...canadians dont need a visa, but apparently while we were on ko samui my passport went under 6 months to expiry. so they didnt let me into taipei. usually this would be a disaster, but considering how early the flight was in the morning and how much we hated the city the first time around, it wasnt a huge blow, just an annoying one. we had to stay in the transfer terminal for the night, we were told.

some airports have great terminals, others not so great, some big, some small. chiang kai shek's airport was somewhere in the middle. it was certainly big, lots of space to explore. but it was short on restaurants...only the subway for dinner and the starbucks for breakfast would be feasible. and at night, when we tried to sleep on couches, we had two problems. one, they use the nighttime to do all of their construction, so we had nice background music full of jackhammers and buzzsaws. the second was the full blast of the air conditioner which made all areas of the terminal unreasonably chilly.

i think we started sleeping around 2 in the morning or so, not much time until we had to get up.

Friday, August 18, 2006

i think this should be connected to thursday as neither amanda nor i got much sleep. i think i got a few more zzzs than her because i can sleep basically anywhere. we got up at the bright hour of 6am simply because it was uncomfortable to sleep any longer and thats when the starbucks opened.

finally boarded the plane bound for nagoya around noon, but before we boarded the staff called amanda to the counter. apparently the flight was full so they had to move her up to business class while i was stuck in economy. karma for the passport fiasco i guess. she had a pick of 4 international meals, a massaging recliner, heated handtowels, all you can eat/all you can drink, and a flight attendant that always refered to her as 'ms. lamb.' i was stuck next to a japanese guy in tight quarters who zonked out the moment the plane took off.

we got back to japan around 3. the first thing we noticed was how polite and well dressed the japanese acted and looked in comparison with the rest of asia. we missed alot of things about japan...the convenience store rice balls, the tofu, the big wide streets, the clean and ok smelling air, the clean trains that run on time, and so on. it wasnt much of a curse to be back after a whirlwind of a holiday.

Quick Update

Heres something rare...a quick blog update. Its Monday, a rainy day off, and Amanda is away for a day trip to Kyoto to meet a school friend. Which means Im on my own here today to do the usual things...go to the gym, finally clean the bathroom and unclog the sink, do some internet surfing, listen to some music, play some super famicom, do some grocery shopping, watch the news, and finally update the blog. Have a great day!

Buckets of Rain

Last summer we had a normal rainy season in Japan. From late June to early July it rained about every other day, enough to make some plans cancelled but not enough to detract us from doing things.

This year the amount of rain were getting is truly ridiculous. As I write its still coming down in buckets and has been consistently for about the past month. I remember it being nice on Saturday afternoon while we were working...and thats the only time I remember it being nice recently. Even on Saturday night it rained with such a ferocity that it started flooding and mudslides in parts of Nagano.

Its too bad because this is usually an excellent time of year in Japan...the time of summer festivals. Almost every small community in Japan has some sort of summer festival in late July or early August, which usually includes some combination or all of the following: fireworks, big lanterns, parades, dances, lots of girls in yukatas (summer kimonos), and lots of traditional Japanese summer food like yaki soba (fried noodles), okonomiyaki (japanese cabbage pancake) and takoyaki (fried octopus balls).

We wanted to go to a big festival at Nagoya Port last Monday but it rained so hard that we had to forget the idea. Its shocking because last year on that very same weekend I remember going to the festival and it being beautiful weather. I also remember going to Utsumi Beach that day in the afternoon and it being basically the hottest and most humid day of my life up to that point...40 degrees and sweltering humidity. Now its just wet and sweaty.

Hopefully the rain doesnt follow us to Cambodia and Thailand where its rainy season there too.

The Killing Fields

Since Amanda and I are going to Cambodia next month and spend a few days in Phnom Penh, we decided to rent the 1984 movie The Killing Fields, about the American bombing of Cambodia in the early 1970s and the subsequent Khmer Rouge revolution in the late 1970s.

If you are like me you have a passing knowledge of this conflict but not any in depth knowledge. After all, Cambodia is a tiny insignificant country in comparison to where other atrocities have taken place in, say, Asia and Eastern Europe in World War II or the Balkans and Iraq/Afghanistan in recent years.

After learning a bit more about the horrors of the rule under the Khmer Rouge I think I can say now that it was probably the worst genocide in modern human history. The regime put the clock back to year 0, transformed the country to an agrarian collective, brainwashed all children to believe they had no parents and only loyalty to the party, and most famously of all killed almost all the countries intellectuals after forcing them to work in the killing fields and then subsequently blugoning them to death and burying them in mass graves. You cant make stuff that terrible up, and it really has no equal. In Germany during World War II you had a regime try to eliminate a group of people that were for the majority foreigners...In Cambodia you had a regime try to eliminate its own people.

So yeah, it doesnt exactly make positive material for a movie or a fun summer trip. But the movie was excellent, many of you have probably seen it but if you havent its probably one of the best movies about war ive ever seen, and balances the seemingly endless amounts of movies that are produced about World War II and Vietnam.

Were still trying to decide whether to actually go visit the Killing Fields and the matching Torture Museum once we get to Phnom Penh...theyre generally among the only tourist sites in Phnom Penh. Ive already been to some pretty terrible places: Aushwitz, Dachau, and Hiroshima to name a few. But the image from the movie of the main character running away from the Khmer Rouge only to find himself in an abandoned killing field with nothing but skeletons and skulls was pretty morbid and maybe well just take their word for the horrors and skip it.

i me ipod

about 3 weeks ago i finally caved in and bought an ipod. i considered getting one for the longest time (maybe over a year if memory serves me correctly) but since i never had a computer i would never have a chance to take advantage of it. now since we have a computer i finally decided to take the plunge...and not just for the teeny weeny 2 gig nano sized one, im talking the gargantuan king of the ipods 60 gig model. its hard drive is 3 times the size of our new computer so i could basically try to fill the thing up for a year and not finish.

or so i thought. after 3 weeks of hard work transferring my fair sized cd collection ive already filled up 10 gigs. ive got about 10 more gigs to go, and after that maybe put some videos and pictures on the thing...i hope i never lose the thing because theres gonna be alot of stuff stored on there.

the actual machine is cool. very easy to use, good sound, no problems thus far.

and if anybody is interested to what ive been listening to recently, the following 12 groups/artists have released excellent albums since 2005 up till now: Band of Horses, Bloc Party, Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah, The Flaming Lips, Guster, Johnny Cash, Kayne West, My Morning Jacket, Pearl Jam, Sleater-Kinney, Spoon, and Sufjan Stevens. If you dont know some of these groups you should definately check them out (but who hasnt heard of Johnny Cash???)

on this update

this is the biggest blog update ive ever done. it should be since its been 3 months to the day that ive updated the stupid thing.

it also might be close to 3 months since ive sent some people emails, ie; karsten, marc, and joanna. please forgive me if i use this update temporarily as an email while my fingers recover from 3 hours of typing and i get my thoughts together to send you much better written emails individually.

ive talked about getting a new computer and its coming, just at the end of the month as i bought it off a guy from a sayonara sale. i have to wait until july 30 when he leaves japan for southeast asia to pick it up.

so please read and please check again in the future.

on the second parents visit

from saturday, may 20 to tuesday, may 30, my parents made the very wise decision to visit japan. the strict itinerary was to visit nagoya, kyoto, nara, hiroshima, and tokyo. amanda and i both took a bunch of paid days off work to travel with them.

the short story is that it was a great time. everybody involved had a blast. my dad had the time of his life. he travelled to europe for 4 months when he graduated university and we still hear stories about greece or yugoslavia or italy to this day. im suspecting well get stories about tokyo or hiroshima or nagoya for at least another 25 years after this, which is great. my mom also had a great time, as she did very well walking everywhere with us on what was admittingly an ambitious schedule. amanda had a great time meeting mom and dad and got along with them very well. and i had a great vacation. ive toured japan quite a few times up to that point and theyve all been very fun, and this time was no different.

we started with 3 days in nagoya. i originally thought that it was too long, but my dad insisted that he must see our "daily life." having no idea what our daily life consisted of, i was at a loss of things to do, but we ended up filling 3 days quite comfortably. amanda and i got off work saturday night and headed straight to the airport to pick them up, who were surprisingly not jetlagged. dad thus presented amanda with a bag of canadian beaver droppings. after that, we took the train into nagoya station and dropped everything off at the hotels quite cozy double room. amanda had prepared a nice dinner for us all so they came to see our apartment and were shocked that it wasnt a dump.

the next day we had breakfast at the hotel (which was conveniently only 2 minutes away from our apartment on foot) and set off to see nagoyas main sites...nagoya castle, atsuta shrine, osu kannon temple. dad loved atsuta shrine due to the japanese weddings being held there...it was a good example he said of japanese "daily life"...i was relieved. for dinner we went to yamachan, a japanese izakaya where i think jetlag finally hit mom.

on monday, we went to inuyama in the morning to see the castle. it was my 3rd time to the tiny castle but its still the oldest standing castle in japan so it was worth it. mom and dad got to see a working ecc so that was good too. amanda had to teach a 2 hour afternoon class so mom had a rest while dad and i went for some beers in nagoya station. for dinner, we met amanda in kanayama and had a great dinner at one of our favourite nagoya restaurants...great except for the disgusting seaweed tea the friendly owner always kindly serves us after were finished eating.

the next day we took the shinkanses to kyoto and went to the traditional sites...kiyomizu shrine, nijo castle, and sanjusangendo temple. the real highlight though was the hotel...dad mistakenly booked into an expensive hotel, so we had flash rooms and maybe the best dinner buffet money can buy 2 nights in a row. seriously, thats maybe the highest quality all you can eat all you can drink buffet ive ever seen. tempura, filet steak, and lobster bars? sashimi and crab crepes and tons of other fish? great dessert bar? beer and sake and wine all right there too.

on wednesday we spent forever getting to the golden temple, kinkakuji, before heading to nara in the afternoon where it proceeded to rain. home to the hotel for another buffet after.

the next day amanda had to leave the tour to go back to nagoya to work for 2 days, so mom, dad and i headed off for hiroshima. after seeing the a bomb dome we decided to head for miyajima, the famous water temple youve probably seen on japanese postcards. it was nice weather and there was a beautiful view that day. at night, mom went to bed while dad and i had drinks.

on friday we went to the somber peace park museum where its tough after seeing that to justify the use or even production of nuclear weapons. unfortunately it rained hard that day so we couldnt really walk through the peace park too much. we did drink some more beer at hiroshima station before taking the shinkansen back to nagoya for my parents second tour of duty at the hotel sunroute nagoya. we met amanda and unsuccessfully tried to find a restaurant on a busy friday night before settling on our favorite ramen restaurant.

on saturday morning we took the shinkansen to tokyo for a great day...ueno, tokyo national museum, asakusa, and our favourite place in tokyo, the donki restaurant. an all you can eat all you can drink barbeque establishment where we all got stupid. i had way too much beer and sake (theres a beer fountain for crying out loud) and mom had way too much ballantines scotch...so much so that the walk into ginza subway station was one i wont forget but one im sure she has.

the next day we made the excellent choice of forgetting about sightseeing and about shrines and temples and castles. instead we went to tokyo disneyland for a day of fun. awesome rides, awesome dinner at the blue bayou restaurant, great day.

on monday we saw some of "new" tokyo...ie ikebukuro and shibuya, but the highlight was finding a cinnabon and eating a great cinnamon bun after a long absence of doing so. i think it was amandas highlight having never tried a sugary cinnabon before. we took the shinkansen back to nagoya for the third tour of duty at the sunroute nagoya before going to our favorite izakaya, watami, for even more japanese food, beer, and sake. by that time i think dad convinced himself that hed like to live in japan for the rest of his life.

sadly the next day amanda and i had to drive them to the airport. they provided us with such a great trip that we really didnt want it to end and go back to work. i havent got my pictures developed yet...i think dad took about 400 on his new digital camera so those should be developed soon. it was a really great vacation and one were all still recovering from i think.

on the first parents visit

from wednesday, april 26 to sunday, may 7, amandas parent lois and jeff visited japan from perth, australia. the itinerary was to spend a few days in nagoya, then head off to visit tokyo, hiroshima, kobe, himeji, and nagoya during the japanese golden week period.

the short story is that it was a great time. i think amandas parents had a great time and it was really nice meeting them. amanda organized the trip wonderfully so there wasnt much problem with trying to figure out where to go.

tokyo was fun. we took an early morning shinkansen on saturday morning and stayed at a place called the sunright hotel (which i jokingly referred to as the sunwrong due to it being less than what a 3 star hotel should be). we took a pretty boring cruise down the sumida river where i saw a beautiful straight bridge, went to asakusa to do some shopping, went to shinjuku to the notorious district of kabukicho which is essentially tokyos red light district for some seedy people watching, and then went to our favorite restaurant, the donki, for some all you can eat all you can drink good times. the next day was busy...ueno park, ginza, roppongi, shibuya, then to an izakaya for dinner. we saw alot.

on monday amanda and her parents took the shinkansen to hiroshima while i stayed in tokyo an extra day to save the first time experience of hiroshima for my parents. i basically went to akihabara to do some video game shopping and then went to harajuku just so i could eat wendys and then get a mcflurry from mcdicks for dessert. i took a cheap night bus from tokyo to kobe to meet them there.

the first thing i did in kobe was go to the internet cafe since it was the only thing open at 630 in the morning when the bus dropped me off at shin kobe station. at 10 i went to the hmv and bought pearl jams new cd, then listened to it about 5 straight times while walking around the european style old buildings of kobe before meeting amanda and her parents at the shinkansen station in the afternoon. i had some trouble getting a hotel...amanda and her parents booked a triple room in advance, while i decided to just get there and get a single. dumb idea during golden week...i had to walk around abit to find a cheap hotel.

after 2 good days in kobe we went to himeji to the site of japans best castle. at night we took a cable car up a mountain in kobe where you have no idea how there was ever a devastating earthquake here only 10 years ago. the next day was back to nagoya for some recovery and relaxation.

on the friday, amandas japanese friend ichiro drove us around abit...to inuyama castle, to a boring outdoor museum, and then finally to his house for an awesome dinner that his wife cooked. ive never seen so much food and beer in my life. we didnt even come close to finishing it all.

the saturday was back to work, which was promptly followed by a gigantic dinner at the outback steakhouse, which i still consider to be one of the best restaurants in nagoya. on the sunday, we unfortunately drove amandas parents to the airport. they were on their way to kuala lumpur to spend 3 days but they were clearly sad to be leaving amanda and leaving japan. we all had a great time and it was a great way to spend golden week.

on the new school year

in the middle of april, we started the new ecc school year. that means every teacher gets a new schedule, new schools, new types of classes, ect. for some, that means a change for the better, for others, a change for the worse, and for others, no change at all.

for me, it luckily meant a change for the better. heres what i mean...

sunday - off
monday - off
tuesday - nishiharu school, about a 10 minute train ride, 2 kids classes, 1 regular 80 minute adult lesson
wednesday - meieki school, about a 10 minute bike ride from my apartment, 0 kids, 0 regular lessons, all drop in/no prep classes
thursday - sakae minami school, about a 20 minute bike ride from my apartment, 0 kids, 2 regular adult lessons
friday - nishiharu school, again about a 10 minute train ride, 1 kids class, 1 regular adult lesson
saturday - obu school, about a 15 minute train ride, 0 kids classes, 1 regular adult lesson

so lets add that up...only 3 kids classes (which really require the most preparation and the most energy) when last year i had 5. 5 regular adult lessons (which require prep time but are much more fun than drop in free time lessons) when last year i had 0. and the rest is just free time drop in lessons which require no prep.

plus, the schools...nishiharu and obu are close on the train, while meieki and sakae minami are accessible by bike only. extremely convenient.

to sum up, i was quite lucky and have one of the easiest yet most rewarding schedules of anybody i know of. so the long and short of it is that my working life is going much better this year than last year. plus, im just much more comfortable with the task of teaching in general, so from the start of the year i actually know what im doing instead of just pretending that i actually know what im doing.

on the apartment

i think ive mentioned this thru emails but to be honest its been so long that ive kind of lost track. but i still live in the same apartment with 3 people, its just much cleaner and neater now because my roommate mike moved back to canada at the end of the ecc contract period (end of march) and amanda moved in to take his place. mike plans to come back to japan at the end of august, but hell live in a different place (but hopefully still in the same apartment building, freebell).

but so far the new living arangement has been working out really well. amanda and i take the big room, while paul still stays in the small room. we are all paying the same rent now, i think. since amanda has moved in the place gets cleaned much more frequently...dishes are washed, floors are dusted, bathrooms are scrubbed, sheets are cleaned, and the toilet is, uh, aired out.

before the move, amanda and i would spend a ton of time travelling back and forth to each others place to see each other. now, with us living in the same place, we are dumbfounded by the amount of free time that we each have. its great, really. no more rushing around to get to work, no more subway rides, no more freezing cold bike rides in the winter or blisteringly sweaty bike rides in the summer. instead of using our time for transportation we can use our time just to hang out and have fun, which is a big relief.

some comments on sports i care about

first on the nhl...

good to see edmonton in the finals. i was worried they were going to be swept but they came back with a good effort in game 3. to see tampa come from behind to beat calgary two years ago, and then maybe see carolina beat edmonton this year...that would be an insult to a true hockey fan as everybody knows that calgary and edmonton are true hockey cities. hockey might be the number 12 sport in raleigh-durham and tampa bay, right behind horse racing and bowling.

the canucks crumbled yet again, that wasnt surprising...what was surprising is that they did it before the playoffs even began. and to anybody who said who cares, who wants eighth place to get whipped by detroit in the first round, well, tell that to any edmonton oiler fan. they rightly fired marc crawford, who the players had obviously tuned out even before the lockout began and who treated the team facilities like a country club. next on the agenda is to unload bertuzzi to an eastern conference team, resign ed jovanovski, and finally, finally find a goalie either thru a trade or through free agency. its clear cloutier cant stay healthy and that auld is simply good at being mediocre.

and onto that other sport i care about...soccer...its just huge over here. even people that care nothing about sports (ie; high school girls, housewives, ect...) know the japanese soccer team and are going to watch the japanese soccer games. in fact, the first japanese game is tonight, versus of all countries, australia. i predict a japan victory. the teams im going for are england for heritage purposes, the czech republic and japan for solidarity purposes. the teams i think will get near the finals, in this order, are argentina, england, and the netherlands. luckily (and unluckily for amanda), every game is on tv, which means a night of soccer every night for the next month. woohoo!

hanami

around the beginning of april is the annual cherry blossom season in japan, where japanese people go to parks, celebrate the new seasonal change, and get absolutely trashed with ridiculous amounts of beer and sake. so on the weekend of april 9 me, amanda, and a bunch of our friends headed to tsurumai park in nagoya to have a big party.

we got there around noon, and about half of the people at the park were already drunk, or hadnt stopped drinking from the night before. it sounds extreme but its really par for the course for this time of year in japan. companies dont even mind if some of their employees come into work after lunch with a little alcohol on their breath after taking a break at a hanami party for an hour.

it, as to be expected, was a good time. some of our friends got a little too drunk, but nothing bad happened...everybody to my knowledge was generally happy. the cherry blossoms were beautiful and so were the copious amounts of beer.

osaka

on vernal equinox day (one of the many national holidays in japan), amanda and i decided to take a trip down to the 3rd biggest city in japan, osaka. as an fyi, the 4 biggest cities in japan are as follows...tokyo, yokohama, osaka, and nagoya. it was a tuesday and ecc was closed for the holiday, so it seemed like a good idea for a day trip.

we took the shinkansen which conveniently was only about 30 mins from nagoya, arrived in osaka, and immediately went to work. we visited shinsaibashi, home of a famous shopping arcade and where japanese line up by the bucketfull to eat fresh takoyaki, essentially battered octopus balls which i love and my dad heroically tried during his visit here. we visited namba, home of the trendy shopping mall zep five and where osakas high school students flock to after schools done. we visited americamura, translated the american village, to eat some more takoyaki and to see what fashion disasters had appeared in the past ten years. at night we went back to shinsaibashi to check out how much neon there really is in a japanese big city.

one of my personal highlights was a visit to dotomburi, the home of den den town, translated electric town, which is where you go if you wanna buy cheap electronics. right out of the subway exit i found a vintage video game shop called super potato which had more classic video game systems and games than id ever seen in my life. if it existed in a video game format, you could find it in that store. aside from the massive collection of nintendo, super nintendo, genesis, and game boy games, they had rare stuff for systems like the sega 32x, atari 2600, 3d0, atari jaguar, neo geo, and even the virtual boy. i did something i had wanted to do for a long time...buy an old japanese super nintendo and about 12 classic games with it, including everything from super mario world to super metroid to contra to nhl 94. all for under 10000 yen, or under 100 dollars. i feel like i stole from the place legally.

yoshinoya and the dangers thereof

so one of the best japanese fast food joints (or so i had previously thought) is a "gyudon" joint (basically beef or pork on a rice bowl) called yoshinoya. for about 500 yen you can eat a pretty hearty lunch or dinner and its really popular with cash-strapped university students, time-strapped salarymen, food-strapped foreigners, and lots of other groups of people.

i used to visit the place on a ratio of about once a week until about the middle of april. then one sunday night i decided to take a stroll down to the local yoshinoya and munch down a quick dinner of beef, rice, miso soup and green tea. tasted a bit funny at the time...thats because i dont think either a) it wasnt cooked properly, or b) was just meat gone bad. in any case, about 5 hours later i was in the john with a powerful punch of food poisoning.

luckily, monday was my day off work so for i was able to throw up all day on my day off instead of having to use a paid sick day or an unpaid day off. that said, i havent been back there since and have done my best to educate my students on the inherent health risks taken by visiting whats been called the most popular fast food chain in japan.

tidbits

some other things that require comment before i sign off...

the new pearl jam record is their best work since vitalogy and some of their best work period. if any of you havent picked it up yet then i strongly suggest you get to your local record store and buy this masterpiece. songs like severed hand and marker in the sand are rock songs that just dont get made that often anymore. and i read from the internet that they really are having a great tour so if you can see them this summer (especially going from vancouver to the gorge ampitheatre in washington state in july) you should seize the opportunity and go for it.

i rented walk the line the other day on dvd and watched it for the first time since watching it in the theatre in december. its still the best movie ive seen in a while and i also wholeheartedly recommend going down to your local video rental shop and spending a night with joaquim phoenix as johnny cash and reese witherspoon as june carter cash.

thanks

so again, thanks so much for reading this long overdue update. im again sorry to everybody i havent contacted in the past few months...ill do my best in the future but even my worst would probably be better than the lack of communication ive given out since the beginning of march. thanks for hanging in there and even reading this thing when it looked like a relic of times gone by.

so yeah, go england, czech republic, or japan! im off to go watch japan play australia tonight as amanda and i fight as to where our loyalties lie. ill update in less than 3 months, i promise this time!

a new logo

sorry for the lack of updates on this neglected blog, sometimes time passes and you forget about updating the thing. no good excuses.

i changed the logo from the hockey canada logo to the vancouver canucks logo. the mens hockey team sure did the country proud, didnt they? i watched the swiss, fin, czech, and russian games and the canadians didnt deserve to win any of them, not even close. how could a team with so many superstars only score in 1 out of 12 periods??? thats pathetic. the strange thing is that canada had its best olympics ever, over 20 medals, right there with the americans and the russians, but they blew the mens hockey tournament, so people dont know how to feel. yet the japanese did terrible in the games, only one medal, but that medal was won by shizuka anakawa in womans figure skating, probably the most prestigious event in the games, so the entire nation was happy and proud.

so ive switched to the canucks, who are pulling a canadian mens hockey team and are tanking it right now. at least they made some bold moves at the trading deadline and are now going to take over detroit, dallas, calgary and colorado with the brand new intimidating defensive pair of...um...keith carney and eric weinrich. uh, yeah. i remember when i really followed the chicago blackhawks that they were a good pair of d-men, but that was back in 1996, not 2006.

customer service

its occurred to me that ill never be able to go back to north american standards of customer service after being in japan so long.

2 examples:

when i went back to vancouver for the winter holidays i went into eb games to look at some video games. the 2 employees were this one guy who looked to be in his mid 30s with some rock band tshirt on, unkempt hair, bad facial hair, and spent more time talking to his coworker than helping the customers. i waited 15 seconds at the counter for him to help me while he was lecturing his buddy about the advantages of final fantasy over some other useless role playing game. the other guy was probably just out of high school and just sat on his stool either talking to the older guy or being rude to the customers. if i wasnt in such a hurry i wouldve asked them what they thought they were doing.

whereas here in japan, i go today to the immigration office for my work visa renewal, a government place where service is supposed to be notoriously bad. yet the people at the counter, even though they were very busy, asked kindly if i spoke english or japanese and then led me step by step through the process, no problem. always said please, always said thank you, always used polite words like could or may or kindly.

you could multiply this situaiton thousands of times over thoroughout places in north america and japan and the results would come out the same. some criticize the japanese over being too polite to the point of being fake. still, id rather take that than being overly honest and carefree to the point of being rude in my customer service experiences.