Hello all--Kate here, I get to write first. Well after a hellish trip on the longest flight know to man we made it to Japan. Matt took too many anti-anxiety pills and I didn't get enough sleep so we were quite a combo getting off the plane. We figured out how to get to our friend`s home, had some grub and passed out in their traditional Japanese room (fit with tatami mats and all). Highlights so far: heated toilet seats (Matt will say more), heated floors, and lots of sushi and Raman. It`s been cold and rainy all day, but we toughed it out and saw two different temples (one Buddhist one Shinto). The Meiji (spelling?) temple was quite a sight, we saw the foremost sumo wrestler pray--a huge event that we just happened upon. Now, to Matt`s post, much more entertaining I`m sure.
Ok to say I took too many anti-anxiety pills is an understatement. I was up the entire night dreaming in japanamation, I have no idea if that was from exhaustion or drugs either way I pray to god it doesnt happen agian. I also read that long distance traveling does funny things to your "innards" I can assure you that this is certainly true. That is not the whole problam when you travel to Japan, while you are here the toilets in many restaurants are nothing more than a piece of ceramic thrown in a hole in the ground. I am told to just "balance", balance my ass you travel for 14 hours on nothing but booze tranqualizer and airplane food and lets see you "balance". Ok i would rather not write any more as I have no figgin idea as to what time it is or supposed to be, its something like 10pm here so I guess like 8am in ny. Ok so off to south east asia and some body surfing. Hope all is well with everyone. When I have time I will send photos of the various toilets they have here. The other one I tried had a heated seat. that was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to comfortable, I couldnt concentrate. enjoy the snow.
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On the road again...
About Me
- Kate Burlingham
- PhD Candidate Department of History, Rutgers University NJ, USA
4 comments:
Mom here, less bathroom commentary. More culture. How are the Atsumi's? We leave for Sancerre this afternoon. Pookie misses you.
Sorry for all the bathroom talk mom think we were too tired when we wrote it. Matt wrote out a long entry by hand that we:ll post asap. Have a safe trip to Sancerre...
dearest mother in law, so sorry to bother you with all of our bathroom babble. Tokyo was truely amazing a shoppers super mecca. Everyone is dressed to the nines for no apperant reason. We did see a sumo ceramony at a temple that we kind of wandered into. Let me also tell you that zanex is a horrible drug. kate is still telling me about the flight and the bus trip to the atsumis. Who by the way are very well we did not get to spend a lot of time with the parents but Eriko seems very well and the three of us had a wonderful but very short time together. We are now off to bankok and I can garuantee that there will be no amphtamines going into my body for this flight (well i may try ambien). Hope all is well with you and Bo. We will be in contact im sure once we get settled.
ok this was our first night in bankok. Not a bad evening met some really great people who gave great traveling advise (one of the great things about staying in a backpacker hostil). Today we book our over night train and our visa for our trip into lao.
we will be staying, as of now 4 days at sala hinboun eco-lodge. Our trek will be an over night train to the border, a bus through the mountains and either a shuttle, if there is one, or a two hour boat ride up the meakong river. This area is very remote and not heavily traveled but is said to have the most diverse flaura and fuana in all of south east asia. In Lao one day will be taking a 7k kayak trek into some very large caves. getting very excited about this one, I am quite over bankok. It is a wonderful city and the people couldnt be nicer. The problem about bankok is that it is a vey polluted city and stinks to high heaven. I do not have the words to explain how bad the smog is, it is truely amazing. Thank god for our little oasis the shanti lodge. Kate and I spent a good part of the day at a weekend market that was so massive we lost our way more than once. It reminded me of one of those puzzles that you do when you use a pencil to try and find your way to the center of the maze. There were something like 15,000 vendors selling everything under the sun. For those of you who have to slug through the rain and snow back home, it was something like 90 today and not a cloud in the sky (well there might have been but couldnt see any through the smog. Ok as you might be able to tell from the babble I am super tired just wanted to let people know what was going on. oh yeah eating tons of thai food. they sell anything and everything from little carts on the street and the food is absolutly amazing and cheap, something like .50 for a plate of pad thai absolut heaven.
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