Living In Japan. What Now?

Angkor Wat And Other Temples

2013/06/07 by showa55

Angkor Wat translates to “City of Temples.” It was built during the height of the Khmer Empire in the 12th century and it’s the largest religious (Hinduism) monument in the world, as well as being a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This place is important to Cambodia, historically and economically. To put it in perspective, Angkor Wat is as Cambodian as sushi is Japanese, as apple pie is American, as body odor is French. The temples are on their money, on their flag, on everything. You don’t come to Cambodia without going to Angkor Wat.

Also, I was lucky to have some good company while I was in Siem Reap. A friend from Japan was traveling around different parts of S.E. Asia, and coincidentally, we both had plans to be here at the same time. Thank you Kaori.

We heard sunrises at the temple aren’t to be missed, so a 5:30am departure it was. Worth it. Especially since by about 10am you felt like you were in an oven.

The way this place usually works is you see some temples for a few hours, go to another bunch of temples, eat lunch, go to the hotel, back to temples at night. And sunsets were another “can’t miss” recommendation. Phnom Bakheng is the famous spot for this. It’s a temple high up on a hill with views of Angkor Wat and the surrounding jungle. Only problem was that it was cloudy that day and we couldn’t really see any sunset. However, the view from the hilltop was still great. One thing to note, you can’t be in a tank top or shorts/skirts above the knees. They won’t let you in here. Shoulders have to be covered and shawls don’t count, ladies.

Another, and I think my favorite, group of temples was Angkor Thom. Massive faces were carved into the stone. It was pretty amazing.

That was is it. On the 21st of April my adventure ended. Kaori went to Bangkok, I went to a jungle party, and then I woke up the next day in Japan. Good times, good times.

Tags: Angkor Thom, Angkor Wat, Cambodia, Culture, Friends, Hinduism, Phnom Bakheng, S.E. Asia, Siem Reap, Sunrise, Sunset, Temples, Travel, UNESCO World Heritage Site

Posted in Photography |

Siem Reap, Cambodia 4/17 – 4/21, 2013

2013/06/06 by showa55

It’s been a while since I posted … I’ve been busy … being lazy and not wanting to sift through all these goddamn photos.
Plus the weather has finally been nice so I’ve been outside.
But I’m not dead … yet.

Anyway, we left off with a second 6.5 hour bus ride to Siem Reap. It’s another poor town in Cambodia. The Vietnam War which spilled over into Cambodia, the subsequent US bombing of Cambodia (US dropped more bombs here than in all of WWII combined), followed by the Khmer Rouge, all played a big part in Cambodia’s current economic state. Most work for a few dollars a day. Many giving rides to tourists on the back of their scooters for $1. A lot of kids selling water bottles for fifty cents. Also begging. But, I witnessed some crafty begging techniques.
This conversation took place while I was sitting at a table eating lunch. She was about a 7 years old. She spoke with a slight accent but also in the most polite and formal English I’ve ever heard memorized.

Girl: Hello, where are you from?
Me: Japan.
Girl: [tilts head and gives me a confused look]
Me: [smiles]
Girl: I believe that you are from another country but you happen to live in Japan.
Me: That’s very good, I’m from America.
Girl: America became independent in 1776, there are 50 states, the capital is Washington DC, your president is Obama, and the population is over 300 million people. What state are you from?
Me: [slightly shocked] New York.
Girl: If I tell you the governor, the capital, and the population will you give me a dollar?
Me: No, but that’s great. You’re very smart.
Girl: [walks away with a scowl]

Before you call me heartless, this was the 900th child beggar I had dealt with that day. Picture this situation: you get hard sold into buying a water, you pay, and then the same kid, still clutching your money tells you to buy more water. Huh? Kid, I just bought water from you 1/2 a second ago. They say “buy more” or “can I have another dollar then?” This. A thousand times.
But despite the poverty, Cambodians are probably the most friendly and smiley people I’ve ever met in my life. Really.

The town of Siem Reap is nothing really too special. The famous temples, which are 20 minutes away, bring in millions of tourists a year, and Siem Reap has been developed into this touristy place in order to give us temple crawlers a place to rest our weary bones. It does it with loud clubs, bright lights, cheap gift shops, 100 massage parlors per square inch, hookers, drugs, and enough cheap beer to drown a fish. But it still has it’s charm. Wander around some alley ways, or down a dirt road, just get off the main street and you’ll quickly lose the touristy feel and the sound of Australian accents. One thing to note, if you ever have a chance to eat durian, do it. The green, spiky fruit which I’ve heard nothing but horror stories about, is absolutely delicious.

This trip was about seeing new things and new cultures. I did that. I did that and I took it all back with me on 10.0 Gigabytes worth of memory cards. Cambodia has a lot of nature. Cambodia also has a lot of cows. Not so many dogs, but a lot of cows. And elephants. There were also bats. Bats that I could only see when I fired my camera’s flash at them. There’s also some cool looking rivers that give me the impression that if you decide to go for a swim that you’re going to die from some weird parasite crawling into your urethra.

Getting out of Siem Reap to do sight seeing was again done by tuk-tuk. There were a lot of tuk-tuks in Phnom Penh, but I feel like there were a ton more in Siem Reap. I’m probably wrong though. In Siem Reap every 1.2 seconds someone will ask you if you need a tuk-tuk ride somewhere, and it’s not really a pain-in-the-ass because the guys are all friendly. You can hire a tuk-tuk driver for the day, the week, indefinitely, I’m not sure how long, but they’ll take you everywhere, and then wait for you outside while you eat/sight-see/shop/sleep with a prostitute (I heard). I’m always skeptical about dudes being pushy about selling stuff, friendly or not, so when I struck up a random conversation with a nice guy in a restaurant eating next to me, and then found out he was a tuk-tuk driver I knew I had my driver for the week. Guy was awesome. Kroch, you are the man. Plus, on the last day, after 4 days of asking, he let me drive his tuk-tuk. I caught some interesting looks from the locals as I drove through a little village. He’s also the reason for this post.
If anybody reads this and needs a tuk-tuk driver in Cambodia, I have his number. そして彼は日本語を少し話せる。
I call this next series of photos “Cambodia from the back of a tuk-tuk.”

This trip was supposed to be Bali, Saigon, and Bangkok. Everyone I know who has been to S.E. Asia said “YOU MUST GO TO CAMBODIA! YOU MUST SEE ANGKOR WAT!” Angkor What? Yes. No, what? So Bangkok got sidelined and I came to Cambodia instead, I’m happy I did. Angkor Wat aside, Cambodia is a pretty interesting place. Angkor Wat is the biggest religious monument in the world, built in the 12th century, and you get to see all 43 photos from there tomorrow. Don’t worry, you sat through 54 photos from today’s post.

Tags: Angkor Wat, Animals, Bats, Cambodia, Cows, Dogs, Durian, Elephants, S.E. Asia, Scooters, Shopping, Siem Reap, Swimming Pool, Temples, Tourists, Travel, Tuk-tuk

Posted in Photography |

Phnom Penh, Cambodia 4/16 – 4/17, 2013

2013/05/12 by showa55

From Saigon, my next and last stop on this trip was going to be Siem Reap, Cambodia. Siem Reap is home to the famous Angkor Wat temples and is a quick one hour flight from Vietnam.

One hour flight, psshh, how unromantic, it’s a 13 hour bus ride for this one, plus it only costs $23. For a cramped, ass-numbing seat, free water and breakfast, it was the deal of a lifetime. They played movies, I had a nice person sitting next to me, it was pretty alright. And what a great way to see the Cambodian countryside, which it was. But rather than do that trip in one sitting, I decided to stop in Cambodia’s capital city, Phnom Penh, for a night, and split the trip into two 6.5 hour sessions.
The first thing you’ll notice is that Cambodia is dirt poor. Sitting in the bus I got to see lots of houses and country living. Lots and lots of street-side markets on the country roads, and then outdoor markets in the more “bustling” towns. Lots of people just outside, sitting on hammocks in the shade, lounging in the insane heat.
It happened to also be the last day of the Cambodian, or Khmer, New Year so lots of people were either traveling into or out of the countryside to see family. I’ve learned that when it comes to packing people into cars, the Cambodians beat the Mexicans hands down. I think I saw a mini van with 470 people sitting inside, 3 houses worth of furniture strapped to the back, and a motorcycle tied to the top. Also being the Khmer New Year, and everyone being out in the country, when I finally arrived in the city it was pretty quiet. I felt like I had the city to myself.

Tuk-Tuks are one the main modes of transportation for tourists and locals alike. Unless you’ve got a long journey somewhere, it’s usually a $1 for a hotel-to-town one-way trip. So immediately after getting off the bus the swarm of tuk-tuk drivers hawking their services begins. (This doesn’t end until you’re on your plane on the way out of Cambodia.) I find my tuk-tuk driver, hop in the back, and say I want to do three things during my 20-hour Phnom Penh layover: 1. Killing Fields, 2. Eat local food, and 3. Shoot guns(again).
Probably the most famous tourist attraction in Phnom Penh is a genocide museum called The Killing Fields.

A bit of history: The Cambodians are also known as Khmer, the language can either be called Cambodian or Khmer, and from the 9th to 13th centuries the Khmer Kingdom ruled shit over there and named the place Kampuchea, or Cambodia. This was their golden age and it’s when they built some massive and beautiful temples.
On the flip side of Khmer history, we have the Khmer Rouge. Assholes, the lot of them. They wanted communism to spread so in the mid-to-late seventies they killed between 2-3 million of their own people. 2-3 million out of a population of around 8 million. Up to now they’ve found 20,000 mass grave sites around Cambodia, the Killing Fields in Phnom Penh being one of them, as well as being the main memorial and museum for the genocide. The graves have all been excavated so it resembles a park with giant holes along the ground. Skulls, teeth, and bones are on display, as well as fragments of clothes still scattered all over the place. Probably the most disturbing bit of history there was a tree that was next to a small grave for children’s bodies. I assumed most of the people killed there were shot first, I was incorrect, most were beaten with some type of blunt object, some buried alive. However, many small children were picked up by the ankles, and smashed against the tree, then bodies tossed into the adjacent grave. Like I said, Khmer Rouge = assholes. Being spring though, there were lots of baby chickens, little lizards, plants and flowers, basically a whole bunch of new life going on at the Killing Fields. Interesting.

So I did my three things, I saw The Killing Fields, I ate some Fish Amok, a Cambodian curry dish, and of course, spent another almost $200 shooting machine guns.

After all the excitement I decided I needed a nap and shower before heading out and seeing Phnom Penh at night. 12 hours later, at 6am, I woke up from that “nap” and had to catch my next 6.5 hour bus ride to Siem Reap. The second leg of this bus journey wasn’t as fun. I saw some more beautiful countryside, but I had a rather portly, mouth-breathing creature encroaching on my personal space for the majority of time. (Photo above.) Also instead of movies this time they had a Cambodian karaoke DVD playing … on repeat.

Tags: Bus, Cambodia, Country, Fish Amok, Genocide, Guns, Khmer, Khmer Rouge, Killing Fields, New Year's, Travel, Tuk-tuk

Posted in Photography, Video |

Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam 4/14 – 4/16, 2013

2013/05/06 by showa55

Back while you were still crapping in your diapers I was crawling through the jungle in ‘Nam, man.
I’ve always wanted to say that to someone and now I can. Really though, I crawled in those tunnels (Cu Chi Tunnels). It was damn hot and I hadn’t slept in about 36 hours, crouching into a ball and shuffling along in there is not so easy. Doing that for a few years, during a war, no thank you, I can’t imagine.
It was interesting to see how they lived, making booby traps, making new weapons from unexploded American bombs, as well as simple things like rice paper for eating or sandals from rubber. They made some soles on the sandals face backwards so when you walked the foot prints showed that you were going in the other direction. Also the way the Vietnamese talk about the war is quite a bit different than what I learned growing up. For one, it’s not the Vietnam war, it’s called the American war.
Whatever you call it, they had guns, machine guns, and for the low low price of US$70 I got to shoot 10 bullets out of an AK47 and an M60.
On the way to the Cu Chi Tunnels we passed a monument on a busy street where a Buddhist monk burned himself alive in 1963 in order to protest the unfair treatment of Buddhist by the then Roman Catholic leader of South Vietnam.

Ho Chi Minh, or Saigon as it’s still called, is a very cool city. Very colorful, very alive. And scooters, lots and lots of scooters. When crossing the street you have to put full faith that the motorists will not kill you in order to make it to the other side. If you don’t, you’ll be waiting on the sidewalk for a long time. And the way they carry things, babies included, on their tiny scooters is amazing; families of 5 on a 50cc motor bike. Just one complaint about Ho Chi Minh,though, their toothpaste is terrible.

I arrived in Ho Chi Minh at night, dropped off my luggage at my guesthouse which was down a long dark alley and just about the shadiest shit I’ve encountered, and started walking around.

Actually, my introduction to the hotel is worth mentioning. I had the guesthouse arrange a pick-up from the airport for me because I didn’t feel like ripped off and lost in a new city at 10 o’clock at night. A guy picks me up and we navigate some side streets before he stops in front of a small, very dark alleyway, and says “see that guy? He’ll take you to hotel.” So now here’s some new guy standing in the street and talking on his cell phone. With a wave of his hand he beckons me to come over and follow him. And without ever uttering a word to me, or looking back at me to see if I was behind him, he starts down the alley with me in tow, and with my brain ready to fight to the death. In this alley are a series of sliding doors which looked into people’s living rooms/bedrooms/kitchens. There were ladies cooking, naked kids running around and playing, old guys in their underwear laying on the floor watching 13″ TVs, garbage, dogs, and a white dude with a backpack(me) following some guy who is oblivious to my existence. Finally after walking for what felt like 800 years, but was probably closer to 45 seconds, the guy on the cell phone turns to me and points to a big gated entrance, then again without a word, because this entire time he was talking on the phone, he just walks away into the darkness. I look up and see a lighted sign that says “MAI,” and since that was the name of my hotel I walk in. After that everything was peachy.

So anyway, there are street food carts everywhere and this country smells delicious. I happened to meet an Australian guy taking his 16 and 19 year old sons on their first trip out of Australia, a Vietnamese girl who sold flowers in the street and could speak Vietnamese, English, Japanese, Gaelic, French, and who knows what else, and an Irish guy who is an English teacher in Japan. All great people, and we had a lot of fun. I was introduced to trứng vịt lộn. I have no idea how to pronounce that, but it’s a fertilized duck embryo that you eat out of the shell. It was surprisingly good, as you can hear me say in the video.

Tags: American War, Balut, Beer, Cu Chi Tunnels, Food, Guns, Ho Chi Minh, Pho, Saigon, Scooters, SE Asia, Street Food, trứng vịt lộn, Vietnam, Vietnam War

Posted in Photography, Video |

Bali, Indonesia 4/10 – 4/14, 2013

2013/04/30 by showa55

Last week I returned from a little tour of S.E. Asia. First up was Bali, Indonesia for friend’s wedding. Very big change of pace from Japan, just hanging out by the pool and relaxing for a few days. The wedding was on a cliff and had great views of the ocean and sunset, it was beautiful. Congratulations again to Aaron and Yumi. It was a New Zealand/Japanese wedding, so obviously there had to be sheep there.

But we really spent a lot of time lounging, eating some good food, and also some not so good food; Lay’s Rasa Salmon Teriaki Potato chips … no thanks. Had a nice dinner on the beach one night and there was some dancing gypsy girls.

My last day we went to see a traditional Balinese dance. We were driven up to some cliffs, made to wear purple dresses, and then led into a little stage area. The dance was pretty interesting. I think it was about some old guy sexually molesting a goddess princess, maybe, I don’t know. But there were about 30 guys sitting in a circle chanting and growling for 1 and half hours straight, hardcore. And there were monkeys. Don’t fuck with the monkeys. Also, here’s a little PSA for you all: If you want to use your iPad or whatever tablet computer you use as a camera … don’t. No one behind you wants to have a 13″ computer screen thrust in their face blocking their view, plus you look like an idiot. You’re welcome.

We stayed in Kuta, which is a little surf/tourist area of Bali. Lot’s of little shops selling 100% Genuine Fake things. The shopkeepers drive a hard bargain too, 10 minutes just to get my $4.50 tee shirt reduced to $3.10. The only reason I had to pay that extra ten-cents was because when I said I was out of money, an extra $5 fell out of my pocket when I was taking out my wallet. Bali also has a lot of interesting street art, most of it being pornographic in nature. They also have the most violet sounding bumper stickers in the planet. According to them I’m gay, but so is Jarrod, and Ben is a cunt. They sold them everywhere and pretty much had every name covered.

That was it for Bali. After that, a plane ride to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam.
Had a layover in Singapore for a few hours, though. Now how many people can say they had a Singapore Sling in Singapore?

Tags: Bali, Balinese Dancing, Beach, Crabs, Dance, Food, Indonesia, Monkeys, Pool, Shopping, Singapore, Singapore Sling, Sunset, Wedding

Posted in Photography |

Shopping In Japan

2013/04/28 by showa55

For around $13 you can be the proud owner of a “Face Stretch for Training” thing.
While I was shopping for a new beard trimmer, because plugging a cheap 120V appliance into a 220V outlet makes said appliance a worthless piece of metal, I saw this product hanging on the display rack. Surprisingly enough, I wasn’t in a sex shop, it was a normal department store, so you can imagine my astonishment when I found out that they sold products that turned real people into blow-up sex dolls. I really have no idea what this is for or why someone needs to do stretch training (yoga?) for their face.

Tags: Face Stretcher, Funny, Perverted, Shopping, Weird

Posted in Snapshots |

The Cambodian Jungle

2013/04/22 by showa55

It’s 9:40pm, Cambodian time, and I get woken up by the sound of my name being called and the rattle of the chain lock on the door.
I sit up on the hotel bed and open the door. It’s my tuk-tuk (motorcycle scooter taxi) driver that was coming at 9pm to pick me up after I quickly showered so I could go to the airport.

He says, “are you drunk?”

“No,” I chuckled back as I look at my watch, “it’s only 6:40 why are you here so early?”

“It’s 9:40,” he said as I slowly realized that yes, I was drunk-ish.

“Eureka!” I didn’t say, “my alarm didn’t go off, let me get dressed,” I said.
(P.S. Alarms only go off if you remember to set them.)

At this point I still haven’t showered, but I stuff my clothes in my bag, hop in the tuk-tuk, and speed off to the airport drenched in a days worth of sweat and Cambodian jungle stuff.

After almost missing the flight, not for being late, but because I was sitting in the wrong gate area, I made it.

I’m now sitting in the Korean airport, after a 5 hour flight, head pounding, smelling like shit, sure as hell I left something important in the hotel , and wondering how I got so drunk.

If I had to take a wild guess, it could be the 4 liters of Cambodian moonshine I drank under a house made of sticks in the jungle with a bunch of Cambodians with their shirts off.

Mostly, I answered questions about how much a western wife would cost. I also ate a duck that they just killed for me after I said “yes” when they asked if I liked duck. And then there was the “gin” as they called it, which came out in ziplock bags, poured into a 2 liter soda bottle, which the bark from a cashew tree was then added to for it’s medicinal properties. We also drank out of the cut out bottoms of small soda bottles. (Well, not me. I had a dirty shot glass because I was the guest of honor.)

So there’s a lesson to be learned here kids. When your tuk-tuk driver asks if you want to go a party in the jungle, just say “yes.”
Otherwise, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.

Tags: Cambodia, Cambodian Gin, Funny, Khmer, Khmer Rogue, Moonshine, South East Asia

Posted in Snapshots |

Muscles

2013/04/07 by showa55

So this happened …

A few friends and I went to a Japanese Viking Restaurant, that’s an all-you-can-eat place, and around the same time we walk in, a group of about 5 or 6 young people walk in. They don’t fit the typical Japanese High-Schooler mold, they looked like they all probably dropped out actually, and they were a bit rowdy.

Anyway, we sat down and and begin our 90-minute foray into cheap sushi, pounds and pounds of BBQ-at-the-table meat, fried stuffs, spaghetti dishes, and from what I can recall the most cake and ice cream I have ever seen a group of women eat.
At one point I go up to the food area and as I’m loading up my plate I hear someone speak to me. I turn and it’s one of the guys from the juvenile delinquent’s table. He’s got about 5 inches on me, and he’s jacked.
It went something like this: (Except in all Japanese)

Guy: “Amazing.”
To which I look at my plate and it’s filled with nothing but corn-on-the-cob, carrots, green peppers, and mushrooms. Being known as a meat and BBQ restaurant, I think, this guy is definitely calling me a bitch. But I look at him, look at my plate, look back at him and say:

Me: “What?”

Guy: “Amazing.”

Me: “What’s amazing?”

At this time I realize he’s looking at my chest where there’s a picture of a 1920′s American comedian.
Me: “You know this guy?” Obviously bewildered.

Guy: “Muscles.”

At this point he reaches forward and lightly touches my chest and exclaims:
Guy: “WOW!”

Now his friend comes over and he says to his friend:
Guy: “His muscles are amazing!”

Then, and this is the best part, he says to me:
Guy: “Touch mine.”

Mind you, I weigh 70 kilos, which is a hell of a lot of cocaine, 154.3 pounds of it to be exact, but as far as grown men go, at 5’11″, it’s not a lot of person at all.
So here’s me, in the middle of a restaurant, standing in front of this guy. I’m half his size, almost twice his age, hung-over, wearing the same dirty clothes from the night before, smelling like tequila, cigarettes, and regret, sporting a 3 day old beard, and holding a plate of vegetables.

So I touch his chest.

Me: “Amazing!”

Another one of their friends comes over and we all smile at each other and in my mind I’m thinking, “are they sizing me up?”

The conversation continues:
Guy: “Where are you from?”

Me: “America.”

Guy: “Where in America?”

Me: “New York.”

Guy1, Guy2, Guy3: “COOL!!”

Guy2: “Your Japanese is great, why?”

Me: “I study.”

Guy1, Guy2, Guy3: “Ahhhh, study.”

Guy1 (now trying to speak in English): “You very, very, very … ”

Guy1 (in Japanese) to Guy2: “What is it?”

Guy2 (in English): “You very, very, very … speak.”

Me (while laughing): “Close enough, good job.”

That was my Sunday.

Tags: Funny, Japan, Muscles, Only In Japan, Viking Restaurant

Posted in Text |

The Family Comes – A Reunion Of Sorts

2013/03/28 by showa55

On February 22nd the father and the brother came to Japan for the first time. Some of us skied (all of us), some of us (one of us) got lost, some of us (one of us) got tired of raw fish after the first day, some of us (all of us) froze to death, some of us (one of us) can’t climb mountains. But most importantly, all of us had a great time.

You know it’s going to be a great trip when you see this smiling face greeting you in the airport baggage claim window. Everyone is pretty enthusiastic. It’s been over a year since we’ve seen each other.

If you ask the average person, “where is the best seafood in the world?” a lot of them would answer “Japan.”
If you ask the average Japanese person, “where is the best seafood in the world?” a lot of them would answer “Hokkaido.”
If you ask the average Hokkaido-ite, “where is the best seafood in the world?” a lot of them would answer “Otaru.”
So Day 1, Otaru we went.

We ate some awesome seafood, drank some awesome local beer, then ate some more awesome seafood.
It was also awesomely goddamn cold.

Day 2. I forgot how slow some people are at getting ready, but after a slow start we head out for some sightseeing. Sapporo TV Tower and a little Sapporo Beer Museum. Also late night Ramen.

For the next couple of days we went skiing. We stayed in a Japanese-style tatami room, and wore these traditional robes (yukata), and did a lot of skiing. Also, between the hours of 2pm and 6pm, on February 25th, one of us got lost in the woods and had to be rescued by ski patrol in the darkness. I won’t mention names.

But after we found him everyone was relieved and happy. And only 1/3 of us had frostbitten fingers, so that’s good.

After that we head to another ski area for a few more days and did some guided backcountry skiing. There was us 3, a nice German couple that lives in Tokyo, a guide from New Zealand that spends his winters in Japan, and another guide from Japan that spends his summers in New Zealand.