I came, I saw, I took photos

Japan 2011

I made it to Japan and back without dying or going broke. The second one is conditional until I make it out the the Holiday season but, still, that ain't bad. Because nobody requested them here are a few shots from the trip.

Survivorman, without the survive part

I was recently watching an episode of the television show Survivorman and came across the following line concerning the Sierra Nevada mountain range: "Every year, hundreds of thousands of hikers are drawn to the beauty of its peaks and waterways and many of them never make it out alive." Wow! So how big a percentage out of hundreds of thousands are we talking about here? Do they pick up the dead hikers on a daily basis or do they wait until spring and rake 'em up like they were fallen leaves? I don't know what's killing off hikers with the speed of a machine gun but it seems that Mother Nature isn't fooling around.

Rut-roh

If there's one problem with going on vacation it's that it's expensive. Really expensive. Sure, you can save your pennies and whatnot but everyday life costs more than you would expect and can often cut into your fun money.

At this point I think I've considered cancelling my vacation plans three times since I've made them. But even with my worrying I should be fine on my upcoming trip. I simply need not buy anything and quit eating until 2012. Luckily there's a creek near my place so I can go down there to wash my clothes. I just need to find a rock to beat the laundry against and I'm good to go.

Smoke on the Water

So the other day I was thinking about the water sloshing around in my toilet bowl.

Yeah, this is going to be a profound post.

Anyway, what got me thinking was how metallic blue the water was. I recently tossed a long lasting cleaning tablet into the reservoir that is supposed to clean the john whenever you flush it. For whatever reason the doo-dad dyes the water blue as well. This is probably to put one in mind of the endless blue of the ocean or a mountain lake. That, and when the color runs out you know it's time to buy a new breath mint for your toilet.

But what if you don't want blue water? I think the cleaner comes in some sort of wintergreen color as well. Neon green water is not exactly a color you see in nature outside of stagnant, algae filled ponds. But why not let the consumer decide on the color of water they want? Why not red? Every time you flush you could thrill to the sight of blood red water seeping out of the fixtures. It would be like a horror movie every time you flush. That would be quite the sight.

Nothing for Something

If there was one thing that I thought I might get out of this trip to Tokyo it would be a few frequent flyer miles. Silly, I know.

The on-line travel agency I booked this trip through recently started up their very own frequent user/sucker program. [Since I'm grumbling and not actually publicly calling out a problem here I won't name names concerning the company. It wouldn't be, uh, expedient on my part.] Anyway, I managed to get in on the ground floor of this new fan club and received 2,000 points for booking passage to the other side of the planet. That sounds nice, but to qualify for any sort of reduction on future airfare you need over 20,000 points. How far do you have to go to get that many points? Do I need to circle the world five to ten times to land a reduced rate to Albuquerque? Other people must travel a lot more than I do.

I know these programs are mainly used to create brand loyalty in people with the remote promise of possible free stuff. It's the same racket skeeball games use where you need to receive thousands of tickets just to win some greasy little beanbag bear. So while I'll play along with the free aspects of this frequent flyer thing I know the chances of me receiving any rewards are about as slim as me skipping the plane and swimming to Japan.

Aaand... they're off!

Most of the time I'm the sort of guy who likes to take it easy. You know those people who will push themselves to the limit who will try to climb a mountain with nothing more than the items they can carry in a backpack? That ain't me. I do, however, understand that urge to go out and see something new. The trill of excitement that comes from experiencing something new is a sensation like no other. When it comes to vacations my urge to explore can often trump my urge not to run myself ragged. But for my latest outing I may have outdone myself.

I decided to visit Tokyo.

Since I don't speak Japanese, know anything about Tokyo, or have the faintest idea how to get around this is going to be a bit of a challenge. It looks like my urge to be lazy is going to have to be shelved until I can figure out how what in the world I'm doing on this upcoming trip.

The reason I'm posting all this self-centered blather is that I'm hoping there might be some good anecdotes to be found in my preparation. What whacky misadventures am I going to get into next? Secondly, chronicling my preparation might help me in my planning. Third, it's a blog and you're supposed to go on about yourself on a blog.

So will this trip be a success? Will I become hoplesly lost and end up starving to death in some train terminal? Will I bother to update my blog on a regular basis? Stick around and find out!

Audrey Hepburn in Mixed Media

I recently came across a manga [a comic book from Japan, for those who aren't hip to the lingo] that was a biography of Audrey Hepburn. Or, at least, the beginning of a biography of Audrey Hepburn. The volume ended with a young Audrey Hepburn leaving her father behind when her parents divorced. This happened when she was, what, six years old? Considering how eventful a life Ms. Hepburn had I have no idea how many volumes this adaptation of her life could go for. There could be thousands of illustrated pages out there recounting her adventures.

I'm not bringing this up because I think the idea of a comic strip retelling of Audrey Hepburn's is odd. Far from it. Comics -that mix of literature and visuals- can and should be used to tell any story possible. Still, I do like the idea that two interests of mine came together in this rare intersection. How often do you see an Audrey Hepburn comic anyway? Perhaps the things I like will continue to come together in new and interesting ways. I'm looking forward to the Audrey Hepburn video game and the unearthing of the long-lost Audrey Hepburn kung-fu movie.