Shibuya

Hey folks. It's been a lovely day. I am whiling away the hours editing the latest Short Journeys here at the Shibuya City Lounge in the Loft building, which is just perfect! It's got the perfect sort of space for working with a drink and good service! Very nice. Shibuya is the funky 'in' part of Tokyo, or if it isn't that's because I'm too old and mouldy to know what's what. Here are some pics I took when the sun was shining. Next blog on Wednesday!

Meanwhile, there's my ebook - Short Journeys: Japan

You can still find a small Ramen shop in amongst Shibuya, hiding not far from a big hot dog!

Culture Shock Part One: India

Much of India is beautiful, such as Jaipur, but there's a lot that, at first, can be challenging for the visitor.

I’ve been working on Short Journeys: India lately (on Amazon here) and thinking of some of the experiences I’ve had there and thought that ‘Culture Shock’ would be a good topic to write a blog on. This will be a three part article over three weeks (check on Sundays for the next part!) with Part One on India, part two will be Africa and part three will talk about the dreaded reverse culture shock – coming home!

What is culture shock exactly? Well, shock can be a medical condition. Culture shock might be arriving in a place and the country and culture shock you to the point of well, being lost, afraid of leaving your hotel room, worried that you simply will not be able to cope in the country you’re in and end up in a ditch or something else along those lines. For those who travel and have never experienced culture shock… I think you might be missing something! Honestly! Experiencing culture shock allows you to learn about yourself and discover your limits, and then improve them.

The Delhi streets can be averwhelming.

So, I have visited India three times in my life, firstly in 1999. Let me paint the picture for you. Oh crap, I don’t have a scanner! I’ll need to use words. Well, my first solo trip, I had just had an adventuresome start to my backpacking life when I took two weeks in Thailand. I coped pretty well with any culture shock I think, despite getting incredibly drunk on the first night!

I flew to India, and upon landing it was pretty much immediate culture shock. Delhi airport has since been remodelled I am sure, but in 1999 the place was simply a DUMP. No offence to the good people of airports India, but the roof had partitions removed left right and centre for repairs I guess and I could see all the wiring which believe you me was NOT confidence inspiring.

I have never seen so much checked luggage on a plane too. Waiting to collect the bag I remember as being one of the longest waits as the number of giant cardboard boxes was surely a world record. Through customs, and out into the real India. BANG! There was a two-metre high fence in front of me and some friends I had made on the plane, and behind it seemed hundreds of thousands (although in reality it was probably just thousands) of people, pushed up hard against the fence looking at all who came through the doors. They were waiting for their loved ones no doubt, but one could be forgiven into thinking they were waiting for a Bollywood star sighting or news of a disaster!

Well, luckily our group went to the pre-paid taxi booth and was soon in a taxi to Delhi. Despite having already paid, many taxi drivers approached us as we walked with our driver to the taxi. We sped into Delhi to our requested guesthouse despite the driver desperately wanting to take us elsewhere. We settled into our rooms and desperate for some water, we set off in the middle of the night to find some. Walking down the street at 2am we found the footpaths (that’s sidewalks for those in the US!) difficult to traverse because ever few metres we had to step around homeless people sleeping on the streets. Literally hundreds on that street alone!

Golden Temple at Amritsar - this can be mind blowing!

My first time in India, boy was that a culture shock and a half. Also on my first time in India I got very sick for around 2 weeks, struggled to find food that wasn’t overly spicy, got stuck at a guesthouse I didn’t want to stay at because my rickshaw wallah refused to take me where I wanted to go, had a hotel room with actually more than a hundred mosquitoes sharing it with me, endured an earthquake and a car accident within 12 hours of each other, had a man almost kidnap me and try to make me sell his gemstones in Europe and was NEVER happier to leave a place, with the exception of Burkina Faso in 2006 after I had had malaria.

Culture shock can hit you hard, and if you can’t overcome it you will be miserable. As it turned out, even on that journey I had plenty of good days. Days in Udaipur by the lake, staying with a family in Jalandhar, experiencing a Bollywood movie for the first time and seeing the Taj up close. I met a couple of others who were struggling far more than I with India too, but when I left, I swore I would never, EVER return.

Scenes like this one on the banks of the Ganges can be difficult to deal with.

Well, I’ve been back twice since and would happily go again as soon as someone buys me a ticket! India is a country that teaches you about yourself, and shows you the extremes of poverty and riches. I remember arriving in Delhi later after an overnight bus trip to a bus station next to miles of tents, barely standing up. Home to thousands and thousands. Do I wish I had taken a route or tour as to avoid such sights? Not in a million years. Culture shock in fact is an important part of travel. It’s about realisation and adjustment.

I went back to India not for the challenge strangely enough, but because I realised what an amazing, unforgettable place I had been and that there was so much more to see. In my return trips I managed to ‘go with the flow’ a lot more, and relax and appreciate what was going on around me. I paced myself a lot better too – India is better enjoyed more slowly than some places. Two days here and one day there, it is very taxing on the traveller, the transport is not fast, and you are dealing with so much.

Thanks to India I was able to deal with culture shock a lot better almost every place I went. Except for one – tune in in seven days to find out how I found my first experiences of West Africa.

The Classic Overnight Bus Journey

I have been on many overnight bus journeys in my travels, and last night was another. I have crossed the Baluchistan Desert from Pakistan to Iran overnight, which is perhaps my most memorable for good and bad reasons. Bad - Hot beyond belief and very little sleep, the Good, nay AMAZING - waking up at 5am as the sun rose to stop in the middle of the desert for a break. Stunning. Those photos are sadly lost :(

One bad thing that is constant with me on overnight bus trips is the lack of sleep. I swear I can sleep better on day journeys!
Yesterday I spent my time with a fellow English Teacher and good friend to my wife and I whilst we lived in Ichinoseki, Maxime. I checked out of the Toyoko Inn in Ichinoseki by 10am and got my car, which had been 'parked' in one of these amazing car parks that stack cars via a mechanical lift in a tall but not so wide building. Sorry that the picture looks a bit translucent!

I spent the day eating too well and at the Ichinoseki SuperSports Park, where you can play tennis, or on the play equipment and there's a track and field ground as well as a baseball stadium. After a delicious and meaty dinner, Maxime took my wife and I to the East Exit of the train station where the buses leave from.

After posing for a picture, I got talking to a nice guy who was with a group - possibly a couple of families it seemed, taking the bus to Tokyo Disneyland. They were actually heading down on the night bus, Disneyland opens at 8am, they would spend the day there and then catch the overnight bus back to Ichinoseki without spending a night in Tokyo! I joked that they'd sleep through all the rides. I probably would!

So we slowly got onto the bus and moved on out. Ichinoseki, suddenly, was in the past. The first few hours (the bus left at 9.15pm) were a bit torturous. The lights stayed on, not a problem for some people though who fell asleep instantly! I will always admire the ability of Japanese people to fall asleep at the drop of a hat pretty much anywhere, any time. The heater also was up just too much, and before I knew it I was just in a T-shirt! (don't panic, and trousers!)

We made our first toilet stop. The bus would stop, on average, every couple of hours for a toilet break at the expressway stops which had toilets, restaurants, vending machines and enough spots for a lot of vehicles. I saw a lot of trucks stopped with curtains drawn as the driver got some sleep. As is the custom in Japan, the drivers would keep running the engines which I thought was a bit strange... and wasteful...

The bus stops also have these stamps which are really popular in Japan. The ink kind which tell you where you've been, so I took one and then another to discover they are all the same! The night wore on, and after Sendai the lights went out and the heater was turned down a couple of notches, and for the journey I probably managed 3 hours sleep which I guess is better than nothing at all!

Trucks asleep at the toilet stop.

We pulled into Tokyo just after 6AM. It's been windy all day, and nice and warm. In fact, a week ago Ichinoseki had snow and sub-zero temperatures as I had my going-away dinner, but for since Monday has been sunny and over 16 degrees, which for Inchinoseki is unseasonably warm for March! LOL. Here in Yokohama, well, it was about 18 today and would have been pleasant but for the wind. Didn't matter so much I slept a good portion of the day and am still in a daze as I write!

And... Tokyo at last!

It was a long train ride of an hour to Shin-Sugita, near my wife's parents' house where we will be staying in Yokohama. My bag must have been 30kgs and boy was it tough to drag around! But, we had made it safely and in one piece, and it seems the Iwate story is over now! Stay tuned for more from the blogsphere.



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Sayonara Apartment!

Well, today I said 'Goodbye' to my apartment where I have lived the past two years. If moving to Japan was tricky, leaving is not only difficult but also quite slow and frustrating.
Still, even though the apartment wasn't quite as comfortable as I might have liked, I'll have fond memories. Not so much of sleeping on a futon or the earthquakes - actually the whole building shook when a train went past or there was a strong breeze! But it has been the first home for my wife and myself and will be special because of that fact before anything else.
Last night we had the Yamato shipping/transportation company take away no less than 12 boxes from the apartment! For around $55 too so I was impressed with that. I woke this morning with multiple things on my schedule.

The walk to my front door.

My name in Katakana on my door. But, no more!

1/ We rented the fridge, washing machine and a few other things. The company was coming to take those away. They told us nine, they arrived at twenty to, thankfully it was all ready to go.

2/ Sell the last of our stuff to the 2nd Hand stores. This didn't go so well, I didn't even get 3 bucks and 3/4 of the stuff was rejected outright!

3/ Get back to the house for the gas man. He came and turned the gas and water off, which is quite a procedure especially considering it's just a small apartment.

4/ Meet the landlord who would look over the flat. He came a little late and I was just waiting for what seemed like forever in a practically empty flat. Actually he was only 10 minutes late, and five of those minutes were spent climbing the stairs. It is just one flight of steps but my landlord of the last two years is an elderly gentleman of (at a guess) 85 years, and it takes him longer than use youngsters!

Well, this took a good fifty or more minutes. He examined everything up close, especially the spot that was left on one of the tatami mats from an ill-advised use of incense in the bedroom. We knew it had to be replaced, small though it was, but he got down on his knees and stared at it for what seemed like ten minutes.
He turned every light one and off a number of times, checked the air conditioner worked and was annoyed that the water had been turned off as he wanted to try every single tap in the house too. Then we sat down on the tatami mats and he wrote on a piece of paper, circling things in Japanese pertaining to every aspect of the apartment. This took an age and then he phoned my company and spoke to them for 10 minutes, the upshot of which was, as before, he would need to get estimates before he could say how much we needed (if anything) to pay.

See, the renters are really responsible for everything here, including light bulbs that die. Fortunately in two years none did for use. One half centimetre spot on the tatami mats means the entire room with six mats will probably have to have them all replaced.
It's like that. Plus, tenants need to pay for cleaning, although the apartment is now cleaner than when I arrived in my opinion. I wouldn't mind so much but for 21,000 yen  or $210 US, you'd expect them to be able to clean more than one apartment. There's very little to do but regardless of how clean you leave it, you pay for everything to be cleaned. Apparently, I've been told, the cleaning is 'special' and includes the pipes. I guess I will never know. Here they take it out of your security deposit, unless the total is more which it may well be in our case. Here is the apartment after almost everything was taken out:

Finally, I today I recorded my fifth interview for the upcoming World Journeys podcast. I have now conducted five interviews with people who live in Japan, one a local and four English teachers like myself capturing their thoughts and opinions on this life that we lead here! I hope to record a couple more when I am in Yokohama.

Tonight I am at the Toyoko Inn in Ichinoseki, tomorrow night it is another overnight bus adventure. Stay tuned everyone, more coming soon to a blog near you!

Living in Japan Survival Guide Point One - Second Hand Stores

Hello! Today I am starting a series of points that will form a sort of informal 'Survival Guide' for those thinking of living in Japan. My time in Ichinoseki is almost up as I type - tomorrow I say goodbye to my apartment, Friday night I am off to Yokohama via night bus, so things are coming to a close here, so I hope I can depart some information.

Hard-Off : best for big things.

A lot of people come to Japan to teach English, and probably half if not more stay just the one year. If you are coming or going from Japan, you either need to buy a lot of stuff for your apartment, or you need to sell a lot of stuff as it doesn't make a lot of sense to post it back to your home country. Especially things like shelves, irons, printers or whatever.


So one thing to start with, which ever way you are using the second stores in Japan, and there are a LOT which is good news, you are not going to be a massive winner here. To be honest, when I arrived I didn't buy anything from the stores, but I have sold quite a bit building up to the leaving. Simply, in my opinion, the stores sell at pretty much the same sort of price that you could buy something new for. For example, 'Doki-Doki' was selling a Lenovo computer, very similar to the one I have now, for 39,000 yen. I paid 42,000 yes for mine new, and it has double the memory.

Don Don Down Wednesdays for clothes...

Your main stores are Doki-Doki, which sells all manner of things, Hard Off, which sells most things too but seems to specialise in big stuff - like tables, sofas and the like. Then there is Book-Off, the main line there is books, don't get too excited you'll have a lot of trouble selling English books there though, Japanese books you have a chance, and finally Don-Don Down Wednesdays. Yes, it's a truly bizarre name - I think there are special deals on Wednesdays. This store is only really looking to buy and sell clothes, and will give you a decent deal on name brands, otherwise they might not take what you've got or give you much for it.

I've found that Hard-Off gives the best payout when selling, but that are also more choosy. Yesterday I had to sell the bread maker that I paid around 5000 yen for ($50). Hard-Off wouldn't take it, and I got 100 yen only from Doki-Doki - yes one lousy buck.

..and Doki-Doki for the rest.

On the other hand, last week I sadly had to sell my guitar. I received over 3000 yen for that. And here's the thing - I was just in Hard Off again where my guitar is now on sale, and the price it had was 12,960 yen! Yes, they make a BIG profit on what you sell. And to go back to my point about buying stuff from these places - I paid, in Tokyo, 9,980 yen for this guitar, bashed it around and used it in classes for 2 years, and here in Ichinoseki, they have added 30% to the price of it brand new! It is true that these second hand shops offer better prices in the big cities, we are in the sticks here, but still!

You may feel miffed sometimes - especially with what Doki-Doki offers you for your items. I suggest that if you're looking to sell, leave Doki-Doki until last.
For books you'll be lucky to get 20 yen for a small Japanese novel. It's a mixture of surprise and mostly disappointment I must admit, with the occasional happy surprise.


Here are some examples from Hard Off of prices -

Here we have the oil/electric heaters. Second hand priced at over $100! In Australia they retail for around $30-$40.

This is a plastic container we sold to Hard Off. They are charging over $8 for it, they gave us 20 cents. It's old and warn and dull, and I paid less for nicer ones brand new when I first arrived.

An old, faded, couch second hand - asking price over $300. Just insane in my opinion! Might get $20 in Australia for the same couch. If you were lucky. Most of them end up on the nature strip awaiting the hard rubbish collection!

So. When you're leaving these places are your only choice really. There's no room for negotiation as you would have in Australia, it's what they offer you or nothing. One positive from Hard-Off is if they won't buy it they will often get rid of it for you, which can be tricky in Japan.
For new arrivals, you might as well buy your stuff brand new. Look for a 100 yen shop for stuff like plastic drawers/containers, they will be cheaper and shinier than the stuff at a second hand store.
Thus endeth today's lesson - more survival tips are coming in a week or so amongst budget recommendations, photos, life postings and more! Please stayed tuned!

My Short Jounreys: Japan is available on Amazon here!

Five awesome places I’ve seen

Every blog needs a hook right? Okay so I thought I would sit down and think of five awesome places I have been, chuck in some photos and blab on a little about them.

5. The Pyramids, Egypt.

When I first headed overseas to backpack about, I knew there were a couple of things I simply had to see such as Niagara Falls, the Empire State building and the Pyramids in Egypt. I mean to be honest I was so green I have thought Egypt was just a myth or something from a movie! Well, I did get to Egypt and I did see the Pyramids. They are bloody impressive! They are as amazing as you’d think.

I even took public transport to get there from central Cairo. Once I alighted from the bus with my best mate we were hounded by people trying to get us onto camels. We declined repetitively. Our favourite quote became ‘my brother has a camel’ which was tried on us dozens of times that day. We morphed it into ‘my brother IS a camel’.

We heard about one guy who took the offer up to go on a camel ride around the pyramids. He left his bag, wallet and camera with the camel guy as he went inside one of the pyramids. He came back outside to find no trace of either the camel or his handler!

4. The Taj Mahal, Agra, India

So when in India you simply must visit the Taj, the world’s greatest monument to love. The Emperor Shah Jahan built it for his wife and it took 21 years to build, with construction beginning in 1632. She is buried there in a quiet mausoleum inside the building itself, and so is he. I heard a tour guide say that Shah Jahan had plans to build a black replica as his own tomb, however the internet tells me this is merely a myth.

As a tourist you pay 750 rupees to get in (around $13US), but if you are Indian it’s just 20 rupees. Some might consider this discrimination, but if you consider the relative wages it’s not so outrageous. I found the place to be blissfully peaceful in manic India, the gardens and adjoining buildings are really beautiful too and part of the attraction.

3. The Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia.

Exterior facing the square

The inside of the Hermitage is pretty darned grand!

Another place with a two-tier pricing system – it’s far cheaper to get in for Russians than non-Russians. Still, if you can act Russian (re-pout a lot lol) and have a Russian friend like I did, well, you might just be able to fool them at the entrance.

The Hermitage is a palace, no wait many palaces, and a museum in one, located in Senate Square. The façade is very famous, but inside it one of the world’s greatest museums with artefacts pilfered from all over the world.

2. Registan, Samarkand, Uzbekistan

On the Silk Road, the ancient trading route from China to Europe, there are many fascinating cities and places. Samarkand is definitely one of the most amazing, with its Registan – three big medressas I ever saw. In fact the whole city is full of history and amazing Islamic architecture, but the Registan is three medressas that face into each other beautifully decorated with a blue mosaic work.

From ‘Short Journeys: Kyrgyzstan & Uzbekistan’

As you approach the Registan from the open side, the Ulugbek Medressa is to your left, the Tilla-Kari Medressa is in front of you between the other two and on the right is the Sher Dor or Lion Medressa. They are all impressive, but the Ulugbek Medressa, dating from the 15^th century and the oldest of the Medressas, is the most impressive of all three. It’s also the largest.

Your entrance ticket gets you into all three, and when I was there I bought it from an old lady on a small table outside the Ulugbek Medressa. I must admit, it didn’t seem all that official. It cost just under 12,000 som, and that included a camera, which as always in Uzbekistan was extra. Inside there are many different rooms you can visit, a sculpture of some wise-looking men looking at a globe, souvenir stalls, arches, beautiful blue tiling, and plenty of things to snap your camera at.

1660 saw the building of the Tilla Kari Medressa, inside which there seemed to be much less happening. However, it had a wonderful, peaceful courtyard and some of the paint work under the blue dome was really beautiful.

The final Medressa, Sher Dor or the Lion Medressa, appeared to be missing a bit of tile work, but was still pretty impressive. It was built in 1636. It was hot and I was a bit ill so I sat down inside on one of the seats and relaxed a bit. If you get yourself a tour it would probably be worth it, there are a lot of stories behind these impressive, beautiful buildings.

Ulugbek Medressa

For more information on Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, please do check out my ebook, Short Journeys: Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

1. Dogon Escarpment, Mali

Hiking the escarpment

It's hard work!

Finally, one place that really blew my mind, and the undisputed highlight of any journey to West Africa (as long as the journey includes Mali of course) is the Dogon Escarpment, a long ridge in western Mali which is visually stunning, and a popular place to trek. I trekked along the bottom of the ridge for a day and a half, and then ascended to the top.

I stayed a night in a village at the bottom, where we met the locals and saw life continuing mostly as it has for centuries. However they do have car batteries which provide basic lighting in the evening. There was a cultural show as well, and for the sleeping element I was (with three friends) on the roof of a mudbrick building, sleeping under the stars. It was a perfect spot to sleep!

A Dogon Mosque, made from mud-brick.

The next day after the climb to the top we stayed at another village, and visited another meeting school children, craftsmen and a holy man. It was a completely unique experience and one I will always treasure and remember.

Dogon school room

For more information on Mali and the Dogon Escarpment, Please see my Chapter for Mali in the Dhaka to Dakar: Across Africa book.

Dhaka to Dakar: Chapter 19 - Mali

These are just five amazing things I have seen. They are not necessarily my top five, or in a specific order, but I wanted to take the chance to blog about some of the brilliant things I’ve been so fortunate to see – and experience, in my travels. What are some of the brilliant places you’ve seen or visited?

One Last Onsen

Yesterday I finally had the chance to visit the most renowned onsen in Ichinoseki, the Kanpo Onsen. A beautiful setting, a little way out of town on top of a hill, the onsen is fed by reputedly 14 different hot springs. It is regarded as the best onsen in the immediate area and one of the best in all of Iwate. As you can see from the photos, the location is simply stunning.

High on the hill - Kanpo Onsen near Ichinoseki

Left - men; right - women.

I found the water to be a bit hot again. Of the three onsens I have visited in Japan, I preferred the water in the onsen at Hachimantai. Nevertheless, it was an interesting and eventful experience at the Kanpo onsen. Unfortunately it was really busy, so I couldn’t sneak a photo inside. As I said, it’s a very popular onsen and there is a hotel attached. People come to stay a couple of nights there as a getaway. There are shops and restaurants and it was certainly the biggest onsen I have visited.

The onsen area had six separate pools. Five were inside, and one was outside in a kind of fenced off area, high above the surrounding countryside. I did feel someone might be able to see the naked men if they walked in the wrong spot, but I guess they would be a long way away so it wouldn’t matter. The outdoor pool was a rock pool, and was the best of the six as you could breath in the (very) fresh air whilst submerged in the hot spring water.

Inside, the air was stuffy and humid and made breathing more difficult. There were some bubbles in one pool, and in another a sort of machine that sent out electric waves, at a guess. The temperature across the pools felt over 40 – maybe 42 degrees. They didn’t advertise the temperature that I saw unlike the others I had been to. The men all ran around holding little towels over their bits, trying to prevent someone inadvertently seeing them! All the other places people have been less modest! It was kinda funny actually.

There was a young boy of 10 or less as well, and he ran from pool to pool jumping in and out and generally negating some of the relaxing properties of the spring water. Then his father (or maybe grandfather) caught up to him and whacked him across the head!

Done in a short time, I showered and changed and went to the loo. I was in there 30 seconds or less, when I came out there was a man collapsed lying on a cane bench with a bunch of naked men trying to bring him round. Well, I have to say every time I’ve used an.  onsen I have felt dizzy at some point. He came round and was chatting to the staff thankfully, but nevertheless an ambulance came and he was treated inside. I imagine it happens reasonably regularly, as one gets a bit dehydrated in their and many of the patrons are older than 70.

I think that may be my last onsen. They don’t seem to agree with me very well, and I woke this morning with a bad migraine – not the first time that’s happened. Actually, I make it three from three. This was the worst though, the others weren’t so bad. Still, for many people in Japan they are an essential part of life!

For more writings on Japan, my ebook –

Short Journeys: Japan.