Saturday, April 05, 2008
Lost in Translation the sequel
Lost in Translation
Seen parked near the Pyramids in Giza.
Labels: photographs, travel
posted by Sal Towse at 6:59 PM|
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Monday, March 31, 2008
What I didn't know about the rose red city of Petra
I knew Petra would be stunning. I'd seen pictures.
And probably hot.
I didn't know much else about it.
I do now. (Oh, for the day when I'll travel with my handy-dandy Web and find answers to my questions as they pop up instead of waiting until I get home to research.)
When I write up my notes with my pictures (all 130+ of them), I'll weave the research into what I saw and what I was told.
What surprised me most about Petra and what was totally unexpected was how stunning Petra would've been in its own right, without the caves and carvings. The setting is amazing. The sandstone is swirls of color. As a natural wonder, Petra would've been on the map.
Alight at the parking lot and walk a ways to the crack in the wall and enter al Siq. ... or ride a horse or grab a two-wheeled cart ...
As the way in is down, we were encouraged to ride the horse on the way back, if ride a horse was on the agenda, and it seemed it was, by golly. We were told we'd already paid for a horse ride and might as well take it. (Tip the horse handler $2 or 3 Jordanian dinars, but tip him at the end of your ride, if you don't want to be dropped off prematurely, we were also advised.)
How did someone ever find that crack in the wall in the days before Petra was "built"? No aerial reconnaissance to give you a heads-up that there might be something interesting if you walked down this narrow path. ... A curious, wandering someone must have headed down the path to see what there was to see.
Find the crack in the sandstone cliffs and walk down the path, through the narrow gorge with steep walls, through al Siq. These days the path is worn and crazy Bedouin drivers in horse-drawn carriages careen down the track, in a hurry to drop off their passengers and turn around and pick up more.
Forty-five years ago a flash flood trapped and drowned folk in this narrow gorge. Since then work has been done -- a dam blocks a side gorge and diverts the water -- to avoid a repeat. Not a cloud in the sky, though, so no worries.
Look up and see the cracks through the walls caused by earthquakes. Take pictures of the small carvings in the walls and then round a bend and there it is: the Khazneh, the Treasury, the first seen and most photographed/pictured building of Petra, carved into the sandstone walls many many moons ago. Worn after all these years, damaged by man and by earthquake. Still spectacular. Beautiful
Walk further and you enter the Wadi Musa, the wide open area of Petra with more carved buildings and spaces, the marketplace, the amphitheatre, tombs, places to climb and, of course, opportunities to buy trinkets and postcards and water. Tea, sodas, even a buffet lunch are available to keep your strength up.
More pictures to follow. Yes, 130-plus.
Beautiful. What an amazing site to see.
posted by Sal Towse at 6:15 PM||
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And probably hot.
I didn't know much else about it.
I do now. (Oh, for the day when I'll travel with my handy-dandy Web and find answers to my questions as they pop up instead of waiting until I get home to research.)
When I write up my notes with my pictures (all 130+ of them), I'll weave the research into what I saw and what I was told.
What surprised me most about Petra and what was totally unexpected was how stunning Petra would've been in its own right, without the caves and carvings. The setting is amazing. The sandstone is swirls of color. As a natural wonder, Petra would've been on the map.
Alight at the parking lot and walk a ways to the crack in the wall and enter al Siq. ... or ride a horse or grab a two-wheeled cart ...
As the way in is down, we were encouraged to ride the horse on the way back, if ride a horse was on the agenda, and it seemed it was, by golly. We were told we'd already paid for a horse ride and might as well take it. (Tip the horse handler $2 or 3 Jordanian dinars, but tip him at the end of your ride, if you don't want to be dropped off prematurely, we were also advised.)
How did someone ever find that crack in the wall in the days before Petra was "built"? No aerial reconnaissance to give you a heads-up that there might be something interesting if you walked down this narrow path. ... A curious, wandering someone must have headed down the path to see what there was to see.
Find the crack in the sandstone cliffs and walk down the path, through the narrow gorge with steep walls, through al Siq. These days the path is worn and crazy Bedouin drivers in horse-drawn carriages careen down the track, in a hurry to drop off their passengers and turn around and pick up more.
Forty-five years ago a flash flood trapped and drowned folk in this narrow gorge. Since then work has been done -- a dam blocks a side gorge and diverts the water -- to avoid a repeat. Not a cloud in the sky, though, so no worries.
Look up and see the cracks through the walls caused by earthquakes. Take pictures of the small carvings in the walls and then round a bend and there it is: the Khazneh, the Treasury, the first seen and most photographed/pictured building of Petra, carved into the sandstone walls many many moons ago. Worn after all these years, damaged by man and by earthquake. Still spectacular. Beautiful
Walk further and you enter the Wadi Musa, the wide open area of Petra with more carved buildings and spaces, the marketplace, the amphitheatre, tombs, places to climb and, of course, opportunities to buy trinkets and postcards and water. Tea, sodas, even a buffet lunch are available to keep your strength up.
More pictures to follow. Yes, 130-plus.
Beautiful. What an amazing site to see.
Labels: photographs, travel
posted by Sal Towse at 6:15 PM|
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Bush is in Kyiv and so is the youngest.
Bush in in Kyiv and so is the youngest.
Received e-mail from the youngest this ayem. The younger younger guy has arrived safely in Ukraine and will get back in touch next chance he can.
wunderground says the temp in Kyiv is 43degF. Why are the POTUS and his arm candy so bundled up?
posted by Sal Towse at 3:42 PM||
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Received e-mail from the youngest this ayem. The younger younger guy has arrived safely in Ukraine and will get back in touch next chance he can.
wunderground says the temp in Kyiv is 43degF. Why are the POTUS and his arm candy so bundled up?
posted by Sal Towse at 3:42 PM|
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Thursday, March 27, 2008
Felucca on the Nile
So I asked him, why the Brazilian flag? (I have a little heart pull when I see the Brazilian flag for no reason except a five-to-seven-year-old's love of where she happened to be. ... It is a lovely flag, though, isn't it?)
Ordem e Progresso. The Auriverde. sigh
He answered (through a translator), "Why no questions about why there's no American flag flying?" and he had his young guy (the one who worried about unfurling sails and such) unfurl an American flag.
I explained the heart pull for the Brazilian flag and he said, "Someone who rode in my felucca gave it to me. I like to fly it."
More pics of him and his barefoot style of sailing later.
Feluccas are lovely under sail. These days it's not financial feasible to use feluccas for anything but tourist transport from the Aswan (or wherever) side of the Nile to whatever sight-seeing the tourist(s) want to see.
The feluccas are beautiful under sail. Really really divine.
Labels: photographs, travel
posted by Sal Towse at 1:03 AM|
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Our guide at the monastery: Dier Al Anba Bishoy
Dier Al Anba Bishoy at Wadi el-Natrun of Egypt on our way back from Alexandria to Cairo (for our flight home).
Charming guy. Well-spoken.
And! knew of which he spoke.
He'd been living at the monastery for twenty-seven years. He had the best voice, cadenced, mellow.
Does he believe that St. Bishoy's body (on view in the church) has really been preserved through the graces of Our Lord for the past seventeen hundred years because Our Lord promised St. Bishoy?
Tradition has it that ...
posted by Sal Towse at 12:18 AM||
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Charming guy. Well-spoken.
And! knew of which he spoke.
He'd been living at the monastery for twenty-seven years. He had the best voice, cadenced, mellow.
Does he believe that St. Bishoy's body (on view in the church) has really been preserved through the graces of Our Lord for the past seventeen hundred years because Our Lord promised St. Bishoy?
Tradition has it that ...
Labels: photographs, travel
posted by Sal Towse at 12:18 AM|
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Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Where in the world was Sal the Wanderer?
from comments:
No, it's not Corfu, which has a distinctive shape. Looks like Cephalonia lower down in the Ionians, which is where you'd be if you were coming from Cairo and were "past Greece". But you don't give anything specific, not even a bearing for the plane, so I'm going to go for Cephalonia/Zakinthos. But I could be wrong.
Bearing on a plane? Please.
I barely even knew where we were going. The "maps" airlines give in their mags or on their little maps on their screens of their route are rough at best.
I flew ... from Cairo over Greece then France/Belgium ... Normandy Coast (I think), White Cliffs, Ireland and then a lot of ice (LOTS of pics of ice forming and clumping and ice capping and thawing ...) and down through Nova Scotia and Maine and on to JFK.
I'll get the pictures set up and you can see Greek Islands and Mountains and then more and then Flatlands and then Normandy and then Ireland and maybe then you can tell me what I was seeing.
I wished I'd had a real map soze I could take sights on markers and figure out where I was at a given time.
Oh, lah. I had a whale of a time taking pictures of land masses and rivers and weird coastlines and such until I started to worry about the fact I was down to my last ten pics on my last SD card. I needed to save some pics for the JFK->SFO route!
But I'd forgotten that piece would be mainly in the dark and my camera wouldn't pick up lights on the dark plains easily. I could've taken eight more pics (what was then remaining on my SD card) of ice structures and frozen rivers and thawing lakes! If only I'd known ...
Still, 2311 pics: Petra, Jerash, Valley of the Kings (and Queens), Abu Simbel, Alexandria ... pictures of the guys with guns who hung out with us, camels, pyramids, the Coptic Monastery of St. Simeon, Philae, Haoeris/Horus (oh, I have stacks of pictures of Haoeris), piles of spices, trinkets, food, the Aswan Dam, loads of pics of feluccas and the Aga Khan's mausoleum. ... camels, donkeys, more guys with guns, pictures from the train window en route from Cairo to Alexandria, pictures of the library, pictures. ...
... and all of $65 spent on trinkets total including postcards, a galabea for me ($9) and for he ($10) for a see-and-be-seen galabea party (really!), a nice scarab painting on papyrus (we already had papyrus bits from a previous trip but the scarab painting was nice and "support the local economy" and all that), a set of David Roberts prints of Petra, more postcards, two $2 hematite necklaces, a $2 carved bone letter opener ...
Oh, spendthrifts are we. ...
Our biggest expense used to be developing and printing the pictures I took on trips. Now, with a digital camera and handy reusable SD memory cards, we spend next to nothing beyond the trip itself.
posted by Sal Towse at 11:33 PM||
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No, it's not Corfu, which has a distinctive shape. Looks like Cephalonia lower down in the Ionians, which is where you'd be if you were coming from Cairo and were "past Greece". But you don't give anything specific, not even a bearing for the plane, so I'm going to go for Cephalonia/Zakinthos. But I could be wrong.
Bearing on a plane? Please.
I barely even knew where we were going. The "maps" airlines give in their mags or on their little maps on their screens of their route are rough at best.
I flew ... from Cairo over Greece then France/Belgium ... Normandy Coast (I think), White Cliffs, Ireland and then a lot of ice (LOTS of pics of ice forming and clumping and ice capping and thawing ...) and down through Nova Scotia and Maine and on to JFK.
I'll get the pictures set up and you can see Greek Islands and Mountains and then more and then Flatlands and then Normandy and then Ireland and maybe then you can tell me what I was seeing.
I wished I'd had a real map soze I could take sights on markers and figure out where I was at a given time.
Oh, lah. I had a whale of a time taking pictures of land masses and rivers and weird coastlines and such until I started to worry about the fact I was down to my last ten pics on my last SD card. I needed to save some pics for the JFK->SFO route!
But I'd forgotten that piece would be mainly in the dark and my camera wouldn't pick up lights on the dark plains easily. I could've taken eight more pics (what was then remaining on my SD card) of ice structures and frozen rivers and thawing lakes! If only I'd known ...
Still, 2311 pics: Petra, Jerash, Valley of the Kings (and Queens), Abu Simbel, Alexandria ... pictures of the guys with guns who hung out with us, camels, pyramids, the Coptic Monastery of St. Simeon, Philae, Haoeris/Horus (oh, I have stacks of pictures of Haoeris), piles of spices, trinkets, food, the Aswan Dam, loads of pics of feluccas and the Aga Khan's mausoleum. ... camels, donkeys, more guys with guns, pictures from the train window en route from Cairo to Alexandria, pictures of the library, pictures. ...
... and all of $65 spent on trinkets total including postcards, a galabea for me ($9) and for he ($10) for a see-and-be-seen galabea party (really!), a nice scarab painting on papyrus (we already had papyrus bits from a previous trip but the scarab painting was nice and "support the local economy" and all that), a set of David Roberts prints of Petra, more postcards, two $2 hematite necklaces, a $2 carved bone letter opener ...
Oh, spendthrifts are we. ...
Our biggest expense used to be developing and printing the pictures I took on trips. Now, with a digital camera and handy reusable SD memory cards, we spend next to nothing beyond the trip itself.
posted by Sal Towse at 11:33 PM|
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Home again, home again, riggety jig
Up at 4A for a 5:40A ride to Cairo Airport for a 9:15A departure. Flight to JFK took twelve hours or so. Customs and immigration at JFK and a wait for a 6:40P departure for SFO. Arrival ~ 10:30P PDT. Elapsed time from wakeup to landing ~ twenty-seven hours. Ouch.
Egypt Air served two full meals and snacks during its twelve-hour flight. Delta's seven-hour flight to SFO included gratis soft drinks, coffee and/or tea with peanuts, cookies and/or crackers. Ah, welcome home.
Schmutz on airplane window. Weather was lovely for the most part but missed Belgium due to cloud cover and could barely see the White Cliffs of Dover through the mists.
This shot is just past Greece, I think. Is that Corfu down on the right? Anyone?
posted by Sal Towse at 5:56 PM||
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Egypt Air served two full meals and snacks during its twelve-hour flight. Delta's seven-hour flight to SFO included gratis soft drinks, coffee and/or tea with peanuts, cookies and/or crackers. Ah, welcome home.
Schmutz on airplane window. Weather was lovely for the most part but missed Belgium due to cloud cover and could barely see the White Cliffs of Dover through the mists.
This shot is just past Greece, I think. Is that Corfu down on the right? Anyone?
posted by Sal Towse at 5:56 PM|
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Sunday, January 20, 2008
Duende Travel
Duende Travel
Coming along, eh?
Pretty pictures. Content. Near to finished except for "useful information" and "links." The "booking form" is off to Peter for vetting.
Paying forward.
Personal blurb: Peter Watson and Duende Travel are like the best. The food and wine are always great. There's a lot of thought behind the itinerary.
There are gem moments: The hotel bar in Derry (North Ireland) -- just John Hume, his nibs and me. He'd sung Danny Boy to all of us during his lecture, but the others had gone back to rooms or whatever. Would you go back to your room while John Hume was hanging out? Or would you hang out too?
Drizzly picnic lunch in the ruins on Iona (Scotland).
Drying out from a soaking in the rain in a sheepherder's hut in Andalucia (Spain).
Petrarch's last home in Arquà Petrarca (Italy) and his cat's skeleton ... maybe ...
Walking in van Gogh's footsteps in Arles (France).
Hiking up the slopes of Vulcano (Sicily).
The Long Room at Trinity College, Dublin. (died and gone to Heaven)
... So many memories. So many good times.
Peter cares about where he takes you. He wants to make sure you understand the locale and the people. And the food. And the wine. And the history.
The walks are memorable. The views, the food, the wine, the settings, the memories are sublime.
'nough said? There's a reason I'm fussing over his Web site. ...
posted by Sal Towse at 10:34 PM||
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Coming along, eh?
Pretty pictures. Content. Near to finished except for "useful information" and "links." The "booking form" is off to Peter for vetting.
Paying forward.
Personal blurb: Peter Watson and Duende Travel are like the best. The food and wine are always great. There's a lot of thought behind the itinerary.
There are gem moments: The hotel bar in Derry (North Ireland) -- just John Hume, his nibs and me. He'd sung Danny Boy to all of us during his lecture, but the others had gone back to rooms or whatever. Would you go back to your room while John Hume was hanging out? Or would you hang out too?
Drizzly picnic lunch in the ruins on Iona (Scotland).
Drying out from a soaking in the rain in a sheepherder's hut in Andalucia (Spain).
Petrarch's last home in Arquà Petrarca (Italy) and his cat's skeleton ... maybe ...
Walking in van Gogh's footsteps in Arles (France).
Hiking up the slopes of Vulcano (Sicily).
The Long Room at Trinity College, Dublin. (died and gone to Heaven)
... So many memories. So many good times.
Peter cares about where he takes you. He wants to make sure you understand the locale and the people. And the food. And the wine. And the history.
The walks are memorable. The views, the food, the wine, the settings, the memories are sublime.
'nough said? There's a reason I'm fussing over his Web site. ...
Labels: design, travel, webstuff
posted by Sal Towse at 10:34 PM|
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Friday, January 11, 2008
The image cannot be displayed, because it contains errors
The image cannot be displayed, because it contains errors
Seems Firefox was complaining because some of the .jpgs Duende sent -- which I was trying to add to the site -- were in CMYK (print) instead of RGB (screen display). Makes sense. Duende'd sent the photos used in prior years' brochures.
Turns out 'tis simple enough to pull the .jpg into Photoshop. Go to the Image pulldown menu IMAGE->MODE and save the JPG as RGB instead of CMYK.
And Bob's your uncle.
Would that most of the world's problems were so easily handled.
posted by Sal Towse at 3:00 PM||
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Seems Firefox was complaining because some of the .jpgs Duende sent -- which I was trying to add to the site -- were in CMYK (print) instead of RGB (screen display). Makes sense. Duende'd sent the photos used in prior years' brochures.
Turns out 'tis simple enough to pull the .jpg into Photoshop. Go to the Image pulldown menu IMAGE->MODE and save the JPG as RGB instead of CMYK.
And Bob's your uncle.
Would that most of the world's problems were so easily handled.
Labels: app, design, photographs, travel, webstuff
posted by Sal Towse at 3:00 PM|
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Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Derry, Ireland (a wee bit of trip report)
Hands Across The Divide statue (by Maurice Harron) located in the middle of a roundabout west of Craigavon Bridge in Derry.
I shot the photograph through the window of a vehicle wheeling through the roundabout. There are much better ones to be found on the Web. The statue is supposed to portray a Catholic and a Protestant tentatively reaching out to each other in peace.
We had a few hours touring around Derry after our transport set us down close to the walls. John McNulty, the guy walking us about, covered Derry history far past (Siege of Derry, 1688) and new past (the Troubles and Bloody Sunday, 1972).
McNulty had been in Derry in 1972 -- although not in Bogside on that Sunday -- and had a lot to say about Bloody Sunday and the Troubles. He also told us that after much work and testimony, the results from the Saville Bloody Sunday Inquiry are due out some time soon-ish. Maybe early next year.
At great cost, I might add. According to Shaun Woodward, Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office, "The cash spend on the Bloody Sunday inquiry was £178.264 million at the end of April 2007." with more costs sure to be added as the report gets written. Yikes.
We took a walk along the walls of Derry, spent time inside the Apprentice Boys of Derry museum,
toured the murals by the Bogside artists
and the Bloody Sunday memorial
and visited the Guildhall before coming back to our hotel for a slightly drizzly picnic lunch on the grounds.
Later on in the afternoon, John Hume joined us and gave a free-wheeling talk about life, the peace process and the universe. He wrapped up his talk by telling us what a fantastic president Hillary would be and asking us to always call Derry "Derry" not "Londonderry."
Then Hume sang the song he claims should be the American Irish anthem, Danny Boy. He claims the song is a lament of an Irish mother to her emigrant son. Oh, but his is a lovely voice and he sang the song with heart. No dry eyes here as the song ended.
After the talk, he retreated to the Beech Hill sitting room/bar and his nibs and I order up some Smithwicks and spent an hour or so with him and other fellow travelers, chatting in too comfy chairs, helping him kill time before he and his wife, Pat, joined the gang for dinner at the hotel. Man, has that guy seen a lot of history.
Derry was an interesting place. We spent three nights at Beech Hill, but only a day in Derry. (The other full day we had was filled with an absolutely glorious walk along the Giants' Causeway and the headlands.)
I'm glad we saw the bits of Derry we did. Glad to have heard Hume talk on the subject. Derry isn't a place I'd return to again and again but I'm glad we stopped there for the time we did. What we experienced brought the history of the place a bit closer to heart.
The history of that region is a sad one. Here's to the future envisioned in Hands Across The Divide. Here's to reconciliation.
Labels: photographs, travel
posted by Sal Towse at 2:14 PM|
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Monday, September 17, 2007
Intellectual bling
In comments on "Stuff," SourGrapes wrote
TA with all that, but I'd include books too. What are ya keeping them for? In most cases it's not to refer to. They're intellectual bling. It's very very unusual to have a couple thousand books, but that guy forgot to say "in our class of people".
I keep books I want to look at again. And the rest go off to subsequent readers. Books are made to be read, not to be shelved.
Ouch, pal.
There's something about books and not just as intellectual bling. I'm happiest in a nest full of books, all that unrealized and unread or waiting to be reread potential.
Yesterday I was rummaging through my stash of travel books, looking for old books on London for someone who's working on the animation for (don't spew) A CHRISTMAS CAROL, due out in 2009. (Jim Carrey will be voicing Ebenezer Scrooge/Ghost of Christmas Past/Ghost of Christmas Present/Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come. I told you not to spew!)
Didn't find any, but found some early 20thc. Baedekers covering London and GB, found some old books covering places we'd been walking in N Wales, got sidetracked by a book on Mount Athos. ... All that roaming around and a very cozy afternoon reading wouldn't have happened if I gave away my stash of books. (I am giving away some of the books, ones I know I'll never need/read/want to see again. But ...)
I just love the potential of masses of books, love libraries. I was absolutely blissed out this trip by the Long Room at Trinity College, Dublin.
I was || this close to settling in to help them keep track of the 200K books they have stashed away there. (And Good Lord, they should join the 21st century and start scanning that collection. If that room goes up in flames, a world of knowledge will be lost. Maybe Bill Gates would subsidize the project. I'd volunteer. ...)
What a place.
Heaven.
posted by Sal Towse at 4:07 PM||
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TA with all that, but I'd include books too. What are ya keeping them for? In most cases it's not to refer to. They're intellectual bling. It's very very unusual to have a couple thousand books, but that guy forgot to say "in our class of people".
I keep books I want to look at again. And the rest go off to subsequent readers. Books are made to be read, not to be shelved.
Ouch, pal.
There's something about books and not just as intellectual bling. I'm happiest in a nest full of books, all that unrealized and unread or waiting to be reread potential.
Yesterday I was rummaging through my stash of travel books, looking for old books on London for someone who's working on the animation for (don't spew) A CHRISTMAS CAROL, due out in 2009. (Jim Carrey will be voicing Ebenezer Scrooge/Ghost of Christmas Past/Ghost of Christmas Present/Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come. I told you not to spew!)
Didn't find any, but found some early 20thc. Baedekers covering London and GB, found some old books covering places we'd been walking in N Wales, got sidetracked by a book on Mount Athos. ... All that roaming around and a very cozy afternoon reading wouldn't have happened if I gave away my stash of books. (I am giving away some of the books, ones I know I'll never need/read/want to see again. But ...)
I just love the potential of masses of books, love libraries. I was absolutely blissed out this trip by the Long Room at Trinity College, Dublin.
I was || this close to settling in to help them keep track of the 200K books they have stashed away there. (And Good Lord, they should join the 21st century and start scanning that collection. If that room goes up in flames, a world of knowledge will be lost. Maybe Bill Gates would subsidize the project. I'd volunteer. ...)
What a place.
Heaven.
Labels: books, libraries, travel
posted by Sal Towse at 4:07 PM|
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Friday, September 14, 2007
The wanderer returns
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Packed. Can you believe it?
His nibs is relieved that I'm not doing my usual last minute thing.
Everything's packed except the notebooks, pens and reading material. I always pack too many notebooks (well, I need a blank notebook for trip notes, one for note-notes, one for to-do thoughts and lists, one for what-will-I-do-with-myself-when-we-get-home plans).
And I tend to pack too many books 'cause I don't know if I'll be wanting to read mysteries or history or Middlemarch or self-awareness or Dalai Lama or ...
Auntie K shows up tomorrow afternoon and the plan is for his nibs to help her lug all her stuff down here and then for them to meet up with me and we'll swop tools for her boyz (picked up from my dad's workshop yesterday) from my Mini to her car trunk. Following that chore, she gets the grande tour of the book stacks. Then she comes back here and settles in.
A walk down hill to dinner at Firenze By Night (a first for all of us) and then we'll tuck under the covers while visions of sugar plums and all that.
Thursday morning we kiss the cat (if we can drag her out from under the bed), wave bye-bye and head off to the airport in the shuttle.
When we get back, The Book pops up to the top of the priority list.
My clear-the-house sort-the-books organize-the-bookmarks procrastinating projects will be hobbled and put out to pasture.
Onward and upward.
Really.
posted by Sal Towse at 5:23 PM||
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Everything's packed except the notebooks, pens and reading material. I always pack too many notebooks (well, I need a blank notebook for trip notes, one for note-notes, one for to-do thoughts and lists, one for what-will-I-do-with-myself-when-we-get-home plans).
And I tend to pack too many books 'cause I don't know if I'll be wanting to read mysteries or history or Middlemarch or self-awareness or Dalai Lama or ...
Auntie K shows up tomorrow afternoon and the plan is for his nibs to help her lug all her stuff down here and then for them to meet up with me and we'll swop tools for her boyz (picked up from my dad's workshop yesterday) from my Mini to her car trunk. Following that chore, she gets the grande tour of the book stacks. Then she comes back here and settles in.
A walk down hill to dinner at Firenze By Night (a first for all of us) and then we'll tuck under the covers while visions of sugar plums and all that.
Thursday morning we kiss the cat (if we can drag her out from under the bed), wave bye-bye and head off to the airport in the shuttle.
When we get back, The Book pops up to the top of the priority list.
My clear-the-house sort-the-books organize-the-bookmarks procrastinating projects will be hobbled and put out to pasture.
Onward and upward.
Really.
Labels: books, food, life, San Francisco, travel
posted by Sal Towse at 5:23 PM|
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Thursday, August 16, 2007
Off again off again riggetty jig
Laura doesn't talk anymore about her plans to be away since the time earlier this year that her home was busted into while she was away (after she'd mentioned her away trip on her blog).
But ... not only do I have a guard cat, I have my guard Auntie K who makes sure that the raccoons (and less vicious miscreants) don't DARE step foot inside the place while we're gone.
And we will be gone.
Off next week (Thursday to be exact) to visit a third cousin and her husband and the third cousin's mom (who is my second cousin once removed -- is that right? I can never get it straight without checking the genealogy sites.) in Harrogate, N Yorks.
In clearer terms, without the second cousin once removed terminology, we'll be visiting Jen, the granddaughter of the woman who was my grandfather's cousin, and her family and her mum, who also lives in Harrogate these days.
After Harrogate, we'll be off walking with the clan for a bit, then to London for a few days of respite before we head home. Three weeks in all.
I'm sure you're sobbing in your microbrew beer just thinking of the upcoming lack of Sal.
I've been telling Auntie K to make sure that (if she's having a huge sleepover) her guests know that the Bay Bridge will be closed Labor Day weekend.
I've also been telling her that there's a huge blowout planned for Barry Bonds (baseball player -- for the non-USAns -- someone who's alleged to have got his recent title record nefariously through use of steroids) at Justin Herman Plaza, just down the Hill and over thataway, at noon on Friday.
Sometimes I leave notes for Auntie K detailing in great and gory detail all the events that are happening while she's here. We'll see if I have the stamina to do so this time. Loads of stuff happening, but then, why the lists anyway? Auntie K has always been very sharp about finding her amusements while we're gone.
The trip? Well, after we hang with the relations in Harrogate, we meet up with our walkers in Manchester, then off to hills of Conwy and the Conwy valley and over to the Isle of Anglesey and off to the sod of Dublin and walking to Tara and from Derry into the Inishowen peninsula and up the next day to the Giants' Causeway. Well. You get the idea. We're in a rigid inflatable recreating the journey of St Columba from Derry to Crinan, across the Irish Sea (Iona, I've always wanted to set foot on Iona) and then Loch Lomond.
The walkers drop us off in Glasgow and we take the train down to London to putter around where we've been and where we've never been and then home again home again riggetty jig.
Loads to happen between now and then, though. The wedding of a lovely girl, whom we've known since she was a sprout, on Sunday. The older younger one is coming over with his partner on Saturday to sort through the SFF that I've put in boxes as up for grabs. I need to check to see if they're staying the night and make sure they know that we have a wedding celebration to get to Sunday afternoon up at Thomas Fogarty Winery & Vineyards in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Keb Mo at the Fillmore on Monday. Lunch with school chums from forty years ago down in the south bay on Monday as well. Maybe I'll stop by the 'rents place and do some packing and boxing as long as I'm down there.
When am I going to pack for the trip? That's the question, isn't it?
Checked the tread on my walking shoes, so that's good to go. Other than that? Oh. My. So much to do. So little done.
posted by Sal Towse at 11:43 PM||
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But ... not only do I have a guard cat, I have my guard Auntie K who makes sure that the raccoons (and less vicious miscreants) don't DARE step foot inside the place while we're gone.
And we will be gone.
Off next week (Thursday to be exact) to visit a third cousin and her husband and the third cousin's mom (who is my second cousin once removed -- is that right? I can never get it straight without checking the genealogy sites.) in Harrogate, N Yorks.
In clearer terms, without the second cousin once removed terminology, we'll be visiting Jen, the granddaughter of the woman who was my grandfather's cousin, and her family and her mum, who also lives in Harrogate these days.
After Harrogate, we'll be off walking with the clan for a bit, then to London for a few days of respite before we head home. Three weeks in all.
I'm sure you're sobbing in your microbrew beer just thinking of the upcoming lack of Sal.
I've been telling Auntie K to make sure that (if she's having a huge sleepover) her guests know that the Bay Bridge will be closed Labor Day weekend.
I've also been telling her that there's a huge blowout planned for Barry Bonds (baseball player -- for the non-USAns -- someone who's alleged to have got his recent title record nefariously through use of steroids) at Justin Herman Plaza, just down the Hill and over thataway, at noon on Friday.
Sometimes I leave notes for Auntie K detailing in great and gory detail all the events that are happening while she's here. We'll see if I have the stamina to do so this time. Loads of stuff happening, but then, why the lists anyway? Auntie K has always been very sharp about finding her amusements while we're gone.
The trip? Well, after we hang with the relations in Harrogate, we meet up with our walkers in Manchester, then off to hills of Conwy and the Conwy valley and over to the Isle of Anglesey and off to the sod of Dublin and walking to Tara and from Derry into the Inishowen peninsula and up the next day to the Giants' Causeway. Well. You get the idea. We're in a rigid inflatable recreating the journey of St Columba from Derry to Crinan, across the Irish Sea (Iona, I've always wanted to set foot on Iona) and then Loch Lomond.
The walkers drop us off in Glasgow and we take the train down to London to putter around where we've been and where we've never been and then home again home again riggetty jig.
Loads to happen between now and then, though. The wedding of a lovely girl, whom we've known since she was a sprout, on Sunday. The older younger one is coming over with his partner on Saturday to sort through the SFF that I've put in boxes as up for grabs. I need to check to see if they're staying the night and make sure they know that we have a wedding celebration to get to Sunday afternoon up at Thomas Fogarty Winery & Vineyards in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Keb Mo at the Fillmore on Monday. Lunch with school chums from forty years ago down in the south bay on Monday as well. Maybe I'll stop by the 'rents place and do some packing and boxing as long as I'm down there.
When am I going to pack for the trip? That's the question, isn't it?
Checked the tread on my walking shoes, so that's good to go. Other than that? Oh. My. So much to do. So little done.
Labels: life, San Francisco, Telegraph Hill, travel
posted by Sal Towse at 11:43 PM|
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Friday, May 18, 2007
[PAY MKT] Literary Traveler
Writers' Guidelines
Literary Traveler is seeking articles that capture the literary imagination. Is there an artist or writer that has inspired you? Have you taken a journey or pilgrimage that was inspired by a work of literature? We focus mainly on literary artists but we welcome articles about other artists: composers, painters, songwriters, story-tellers, etc.
Subject matter can be anything artistic or creative. Each one of our articles in some way, is about someone who creates. Some of our articles are subjective first person travel pieces. Some take a meditative slant on a visit somewhere, and reflect on a theme. Others are objective articles about places or writers, or artists. Please read some of our articles to see if your article is right for us.
PAYS: flat rate (but doesn't tell what that is)
posted by Sal Towse at 9:37 AM||
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Literary Traveler is seeking articles that capture the literary imagination. Is there an artist or writer that has inspired you? Have you taken a journey or pilgrimage that was inspired by a work of literature? We focus mainly on literary artists but we welcome articles about other artists: composers, painters, songwriters, story-tellers, etc.
Subject matter can be anything artistic or creative. Each one of our articles in some way, is about someone who creates. Some of our articles are subjective first person travel pieces. Some take a meditative slant on a visit somewhere, and reflect on a theme. Others are objective articles about places or writers, or artists. Please read some of our articles to see if your article is right for us.
PAYS: flat rate (but doesn't tell what that is)
Labels: travel, writing-market
posted by Sal Towse at 9:37 AM|
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Thursday, May 03, 2007
[URL] John Woram's Galápagos History & Cartography
The Encantadas: Galápagos History & Cartography
Wide-ranging collection of materials on the Galápagos Islands, Ecuador, collected by the author of CHARLES DARWIN SLEPT HERE.
Ephemera, maps, texts, factoids. Darwin's Journal. Darwin's Diary. H.M.S. Beagle logs. Eleanor Roosevelt "My Day" (her description of her trip to the Galápagos in 1944).
More.
posted by Sal Towse at 12:49 PM||
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Wide-ranging collection of materials on the Galápagos Islands, Ecuador, collected by the author of CHARLES DARWIN SLEPT HERE.
Ephemera, maps, texts, factoids. Darwin's Journal. Darwin's Diary. H.M.S. Beagle logs. Eleanor Roosevelt "My Day" (her description of her trip to the Galápagos in 1944).
More.
Labels: history, science, travel, URL
posted by Sal Towse at 12:49 PM|
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Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Conspiracy theories 'r' us
Read it and weep.
4/29truth.com
e.g. Did Arnold Know?
Here is a hypothetical timeline of events:
4:02 highway collapses
4:05 Governor receives phone call
4:20 Showered and dressed (assume 15 minutes and that he shaved in the car)
5:08 Arrive at site after 48 minute drive @ 100 mph
5:13 Press conference starts (assume 5 minutes to get it going)
5:33 Press conference ends and site tour begins (assume minimum 20 minute press conference. Note that Schwarzenegger, Newsom, and Dellums all talk and these are politicians talking.
5:48 Tour of site ends (assume 15 minutes).
Yet the photos clearly show it's still pitch black during the entire press conference and site tour, i.e. much earlier than the hypothetical timeline above. How could Schwarzenegger have arrived at the site any earlier? The answer is that the he knew what was planned.
Except, of course, that Gavin'd been down in San Diego at the state Democratic gathering and had to handle things at that end, get a briefing, make statements, give a speech and then return home.
The photographs of the scene that included Gavin and Schwarzenegger were taken during the tour that took place the evening of 4/29.
Another favorite?
"G-A-Y" is spelled "429" on a standard American telephone. The attacks occurred only 8.5 miles from the notorious Castro Street homosexual district. COINCIDENCE?
'nuff said. Has to be a spoof. Or some very dim bulbs.
posted by Sal Towse at 3:01 PM||
|
4/29truth.com
e.g. Did Arnold Know?
Here is a hypothetical timeline of events:
4:02 highway collapses
4:05 Governor receives phone call
4:20 Showered and dressed (assume 15 minutes and that he shaved in the car)
5:08 Arrive at site after 48 minute drive @ 100 mph
5:13 Press conference starts (assume 5 minutes to get it going)
5:33 Press conference ends and site tour begins (assume minimum 20 minute press conference. Note that Schwarzenegger, Newsom, and Dellums all talk and these are politicians talking.
5:48 Tour of site ends (assume 15 minutes).
Yet the photos clearly show it's still pitch black during the entire press conference and site tour, i.e. much earlier than the hypothetical timeline above. How could Schwarzenegger have arrived at the site any earlier? The answer is that the he knew what was planned.
Except, of course, that Gavin'd been down in San Diego at the state Democratic gathering and had to handle things at that end, get a briefing, make statements, give a speech and then return home.
The photographs of the scene that included Gavin and Schwarzenegger were taken during the tour that took place the evening of 4/29.
Another favorite?
"G-A-Y" is spelled "429" on a standard American telephone. The attacks occurred only 8.5 miles from the notorious Castro Street homosexual district. COINCIDENCE?
'nuff said. Has to be a spoof. Or some very dim bulbs.
Labels: BayBridge, San Francisco, travel, urban, woowoo
posted by Sal Towse at 3:01 PM|
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Sunday, April 29, 2007
The driver hailed a taxi which took him to Kaiser Hospital, Oakland
Had a note from our beast wrangler about "news" and how it would affect her drive over here the next time we went on a trip. She guessed she'd have to use 101.
News?
I checked online and found that 250 yds of the MacArthur maze interchange leading to the Bay Bridge collapsed this morning after a tanker truck loaded with 8600 gallons of unleaded gasoline on its way to a gas station in Oakland lost control and overturned at 3:40 a.m.
The driver got out of the truck under his own steam and walked to a nearby gas station where he grabbed a taxi which took him to Kaiser Hospital, Oakland. Kaiser later transferred him to the burn unit at St. Francis Hospital, here in San Francisco, where he's being treated for second degree burns. And that's it! That's the extent of injuries!
Alas for the roadway, though, the truck didn't do as well. After the driver got out, the truck exploded. The firemen got the fire out by 5:50 a.m. but by then the fireball had burned so hot (in excess of 2000 dF) for so long that the steel in the roadway softened and twisted, the bolts holding the concrete failed and the structure collapsed.
MAP
We keep wondering what will happen if something happens to that bridge. 270-280K people a day use the Bay Bridge to get from here to there or vice versa. Well, here goes. A wakeup call. It could've been worse, a lot worse.
Luckily, the bridge is intact. You can get across the bridge but once you get to the east end its roundabout detours to get where you want to go if you usually take the pieces of freeway that were damaged and getting onto the bridge to head west is also a problem. There are alternative routes that are usable. BART is adding more cars. ACTransit is advertising its bus service. Traffic will be hellacious.
Update: Will Kempton, CalTrans, says that the two roadways that are damaged carry approximately 30K vehicles a day each. Even if your route isn't compromised, you'll be stuck in traffic caused by those whose routes are.
Update2: Schwarzenegger sez free rides! tomorrow on all transit. BART sez FREE PARKING IN THE BART LOTS! His nibs sez, "Who's going to pay for all this?"
What a mess. It will be months before the busted parts and the parts that may have been weakened can be rebuilt and usable.
What a mess.
News. Pics. Video.
KCBS coverage
Chronicle coverage
NWZCHIK checks in
posted by Sal Towse at 2:46 PM||
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News?
I checked online and found that 250 yds of the MacArthur maze interchange leading to the Bay Bridge collapsed this morning after a tanker truck loaded with 8600 gallons of unleaded gasoline on its way to a gas station in Oakland lost control and overturned at 3:40 a.m.
The driver got out of the truck under his own steam and walked to a nearby gas station where he grabbed a taxi which took him to Kaiser Hospital, Oakland. Kaiser later transferred him to the burn unit at St. Francis Hospital, here in San Francisco, where he's being treated for second degree burns. And that's it! That's the extent of injuries!
Alas for the roadway, though, the truck didn't do as well. After the driver got out, the truck exploded. The firemen got the fire out by 5:50 a.m. but by then the fireball had burned so hot (in excess of 2000 dF) for so long that the steel in the roadway softened and twisted, the bolts holding the concrete failed and the structure collapsed.
MAP
We keep wondering what will happen if something happens to that bridge. 270-280K people a day use the Bay Bridge to get from here to there or vice versa. Well, here goes. A wakeup call. It could've been worse, a lot worse.
Luckily, the bridge is intact. You can get across the bridge but once you get to the east end its roundabout detours to get where you want to go if you usually take the pieces of freeway that were damaged and getting onto the bridge to head west is also a problem. There are alternative routes that are usable. BART is adding more cars. ACTransit is advertising its bus service. Traffic will be hellacious.
Update: Will Kempton, CalTrans, says that the two roadways that are damaged carry approximately 30K vehicles a day each. Even if your route isn't compromised, you'll be stuck in traffic caused by those whose routes are.
Update2: Schwarzenegger sez free rides! tomorrow on all transit. BART sez FREE PARKING IN THE BART LOTS! His nibs sez, "Who's going to pay for all this?"
What a mess. It will be months before the busted parts and the parts that may have been weakened can be rebuilt and usable.
What a mess.
News. Pics. Video.
KCBS coverage
Chronicle coverage
NWZCHIK checks in
Labels: BayBridge, San Francisco, travel, urban
posted by Sal Towse at 2:46 PM|
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Wednesday, April 11, 2007
I'll be with you in cherry blossom time ...
As luck would have it, that's when we arrived.
As luck would have it.
Hana-mi (cherry blossom viewing) is a BIG DEAL in Japan. The weather reports for weeks beforehand track and predict when the cherries will bloom and which weekend will be the "official" weekend for sakura viewing so that everyone can make their plans. (Typical plans: picnic in the park under the cherry trees with friends. Drink sake. Maybe to excess.)
All the usual sites were swarming with locals on holiday to see the cherry blossoms. Some of the sites were open free for the public in honor of the season. Several of our guides warbled the sakura song over the bus speakers for us. (Some better than others, but all with enthusiasm.)
***
A few years back, we decided to take the oldest grandchild on a trip with us, sans parents or siblings, after she turned twelve. My friend Susie had done this with her grandchildren and thought it was an excellent experience. Twelve is just old enough, she said, and not too far into the teen years. A perfect age.
"Anywhere in the world," we told W. (Disney* and USAn spots excepted. ...)
W. chose Japan because she likes sushi and octopus and squid and gardens and anime and manga. Could we arrange all that? We could.
We started planning long before she had her bday in January.
A woman on our trip last fall to Xingiang Province (China) and the Hunza Valley (Pakistan) said she'd made a trip with her grandchild at about that age and suggested we use the service she had, a service that arranges group tours for grandparents and their grandchildren.
Um. No.
The point wasn't just to go traveling with a grandchild. The point was to have adventures, to break out of your cocoon, to get lost and found again. We wanted to do this trip as a welcome-to-the-rest-of-the-world, not as a guided and safe tour with a batch of other twelve-year-olds and their grandparents.
We'd arrange for touring so we could get to and around the sights, but we would not be caught in a group with the same people for day after day. We'd be on our own -- with the safety net of tours booked and hotel rooms and transportation arranged.
We confab'd on a date with her mother. Which should it be, after school gets out in June (when it can horribly hot and sticky in Japan) or sometime in spring (when W'd have to miss some school for the trip)?
We settled on Spring Break which, when teamed up with a teacher-in-service day that the students got off, gave us enough time to fly W. out from the wilds of the back of beyond, layover one day in San Francisco (in case her flight out was delayed), fly to Japan and spend nine days or so poking around, fly back and layover one day in San Francisco, before sending her home in time for her family Easter. She'd only miss a few days of school.
We set up plane tickets on our own and arranged hotel rooms and transport and Sunrise tours with JTB, on the advice of a work mate of his nibs, who had successfully taken her own family groups to Japan using JTB's services. "Here's what we offer," JTB says. Choose the poshness of hotel you'd like. Tell us what you want to see. Abracadabra!
If we were taking a train from here to there to get to a hotel they'd booked or to hookup with a sight-see they'd arranged, a JTB staffer would make sure we had our tickets and didn't miss our rendezvous.
The trains in Japan run on time.
Schedule:
25 Mar W. arrives from the hinterlands, flying solo. Southwest allows twelve-year-olds to fly without requiring "unaccompanied minor" status. W's first adventure: flying on her own without an adult keeping tabs on her. We made sure the flight was non-stop; we didn't want her to have the adventure of missing a connecting flight. Southwest gave her mom a pass that allowed her past security so she could sit in the waiting area until W's flight boarded.
27 Mar Leave SFO before lunch.
28 Mar Arrive Narita. Airport bus to hotel in Shinagawa district.
29 Mar We grabbed a Sunrise Tours shuttle from our hotel that took us to the Hamamatsucho Bus Terminal next to the World Trade Center. We turned in our chits for tour tickets and boarded our Sunrise tour bus for a morning tour of Tokyo spots: Tokyo Tower, Imperial Palace,
drive through Ueno and the Akihabara on way to Asakusa Kannon Temple
and Nakamise Shopping Street. The tour ends (surprisingly, eh?) at the Tasaki Pearl Gallery which gave us an explanation of how cultured pearls are produced, gave us an opportunity to look at their wares (Shop! Shop! Shop!) and then, very nicely, drove us and the other scores of folk who had also been dropped off at Tasaki back to our hotels.
His nibs and W. went back to Akihabara by train to check out the manga offerings. Some buildings had five! six! floors of manga!
30 Mar The bus picked us up at the hotel again and took us to the Hamamatsucho Bus Terminal, again. We were starting to get a feel for how JTB worked. We caught the Sunrise tour to see Toshogu Shrine at Nikko,
Irohazaka zigzag drive up to Kegon Waterfall and Lake Chuzenji at the foot of Mt.Nantai. Irohazaka zigzag driveway down the mountains, and bus back to Tokyo with a drop-off in the Ginza district after dark when all the neon was blazing.
The bus had a problem getting to its usual stopping spot in the Ginza when the driver found the left lane of the street blocked off. When the guide tried to move the cones so we could pull up to the curb, a police officer came over and yelled at them.
"I've never seen this before," our guide said, as the bus circled around for ten minutes to find a spot to drop us off somewhere near the train station.
What's this? Turns out the left lane of the main drag had been blocked off for a political action march. Streams of people were marching down the main Ginza drag in the far left lane, making noise and waving signs. Multiple unions represented, hundreds of folks, signs.
The guide claimed she couldn't really tell what it was all about. She said she'd never seen anything like it before.
Man, I need to learn to be halfway proficient in kanji and kana. I wondered what the signs really said.
Had no grasp of the language this time. Oh,well. For sure before we go again. Caught the train back to the hotel.
31 Mar Leave Tokyo. Caught the shuttle bus at the hotel. Off to the bus station with our bags. Onto the Sunrise tour bus with our bags and on to Mt. Fuji. Up to the fifth stage for viewing. Snow. The bus continued on to Hakone and Lake Ashi. The winds were wicked up at the fifth stage and elsewhere. The cableride we were scheduled for at Hakone was swapped for a less gusty one as the cable we'd intended to ride had shut down for safety reasons.
01 Apr Our bags for Kyoto were whisked away and we bus'd to Odawara with minimum luggage to catch the Shinkansen to Nagoya where we picked up Kato-san, our guide for the next three days. Took the limited-express train to Takayama where we checked into hotel and walked about with Kato-san to the Yatai Kaikan Hall (festival floats) and the Kusakabe Folkcraft Museum and roamed the old town.
We stopped by a soy sauce manufacturer and had some delish miso soup and nuggets of sesame candy. I bought some tasty sesame candies for our beast sitter, who does not need any more trinkets.
Something to eat, I thought. That's the ticket. (Hi, Auntie K!)
Our hotel room's "third" bed this time was a tatami room instead of the sleeper sofa we were routinely given as our third bed. We let W. sleep in the authentic tatami room style.
02 Apr Miyagawa morning market in Takayama and shop! shop! shop! (I am such a shopper! as everyone knows ...) We took the bus toward Lake Miboro and along the Shokawa River. Folk museum of the old Toyama family. On to Shirakawago, a village under heritage protection.
(Nothing like the protections at St Cirq Lapopie in the Dordogne, France, but still strict enough that it's no cakewalk to make a living or live in Shirakawago. The younger population is moving away. ...)
On to Gokayama for a demo of Washi paper making, including making our own to take home as a souvenir. Continue to Kanazawa, singing Karaoke on the bus. No, really!
03 Apr Kanzawa tour. Kanazawa Castle's Kenroku-en Garden. Lovely.
Admission to the Kenroku-en Garden was free for the day in honor of sakura. Then we were off to Kutaniyaki Pottery kiln where we watched potters throw pots and poked our heads into the kiln building and elsewhere. I bought a very pretty little bowl made by the fifth generation potter/owner. On to Higashi-chaya street and the Eastern Pleasure Quarter with a tour of a geisha house then on to Farmer House "Shima".
Said "Sayonara" to Kato-san and off on a train to Kyoto. Dinner at a restaurant next door to the hotel and up a floor. The staff had no English, but they'd had their pictures out front, so his nibs put restaurant slippers on and went out with the purveyor to point out which dishes we wanted. I had tobiko sushi. His nibs had unagi. W. had grilled cuttlefish. We were all happy campers.
04 Apr Kyoto: Golden Pavilion,
Nijo Castle, Kyoto Imperial Palace. Lunch at Handicraft Center. The buffet was booked out for anyone without a reservation so if we'd shown up there without a ticket, we'd've been out of luck. The buffet was just so-so. Why so popular? Busy times, these cherry blossom days. Sanjusangendo, Heian Shrine, Kiyomizu Temple.
Popped on the bullet train and back to Tokyo. We wanted to get off at the Shinagawa station, where our hotel was, but the staff handing us our train tickets told us QUITE EXPLICITLY that we were to get off at the Tokyo station, that the JTB staff was expecting us at the Tokyo station and wanted to make sure we'd arrived before they popped us into a taxi back to our hotel in the Shinagawa area. OK. If you say so. Cost an extra 3000¥ and forty-five minutes, but they made sure we hadn't somehow got lost between getting on the Shinkansen and arriving.
05 Apr Hotel bus to Narita. Flight was to leave around 9:30a, but we had a three hour delay for "mechanical problems." Long line of people at the counter, rearranging connecting flights. Not us. We were back to SFO, through Customs some time after noon and home-again home-again riggety-jig.
Photos will get appropriate labels that reflect what they are better than DSCN6*** some time soon-ish.
For now, the batch of trip photos (sans labels) are here.
Added comment: Something we'd never had before on any trip we'd been on. We were the only Americans we encountered on the entire trip until we were in Narita waiting for a plane back to SFO. Throughout our Japanese adventures, we were always in English-language tours, but the tourists were from Finland, Wales, England, Australia (loads of Australians), a multi-generational family of eight from Singapore and tourists from other parts of the world eastwestnorthsouth.
No other Americans. How weird is that?
posted by Sal Towse at 4:29 PM||
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As luck would have it.
Hana-mi (cherry blossom viewing) is a BIG DEAL in Japan. The weather reports for weeks beforehand track and predict when the cherries will bloom and which weekend will be the "official" weekend for sakura viewing so that everyone can make their plans. (Typical plans: picnic in the park under the cherry trees with friends. Drink sake. Maybe to excess.)
All the usual sites were swarming with locals on holiday to see the cherry blossoms. Some of the sites were open free for the public in honor of the season. Several of our guides warbled the sakura song over the bus speakers for us. (Some better than others, but all with enthusiasm.)
***
A few years back, we decided to take the oldest grandchild on a trip with us, sans parents or siblings, after she turned twelve. My friend Susie had done this with her grandchildren and thought it was an excellent experience. Twelve is just old enough, she said, and not too far into the teen years. A perfect age.
"Anywhere in the world," we told W. (Disney* and USAn spots excepted. ...)
W. chose Japan because she likes sushi and octopus and squid and gardens and anime and manga. Could we arrange all that? We could.
We started planning long before she had her bday in January.
A woman on our trip last fall to Xingiang Province (China) and the Hunza Valley (Pakistan) said she'd made a trip with her grandchild at about that age and suggested we use the service she had, a service that arranges group tours for grandparents and their grandchildren.
Um. No.
The point wasn't just to go traveling with a grandchild. The point was to have adventures, to break out of your cocoon, to get lost and found again. We wanted to do this trip as a welcome-to-the-rest-of-the-world, not as a guided and safe tour with a batch of other twelve-year-olds and their grandparents.
We'd arrange for touring so we could get to and around the sights, but we would not be caught in a group with the same people for day after day. We'd be on our own -- with the safety net of tours booked and hotel rooms and transportation arranged.
We confab'd on a date with her mother. Which should it be, after school gets out in June (when it can horribly hot and sticky in Japan) or sometime in spring (when W'd have to miss some school for the trip)?
We settled on Spring Break which, when teamed up with a teacher-in-service day that the students got off, gave us enough time to fly W. out from the wilds of the back of beyond, layover one day in San Francisco (in case her flight out was delayed), fly to Japan and spend nine days or so poking around, fly back and layover one day in San Francisco, before sending her home in time for her family Easter. She'd only miss a few days of school.
We set up plane tickets on our own and arranged hotel rooms and transport and Sunrise tours with JTB, on the advice of a work mate of his nibs, who had successfully taken her own family groups to Japan using JTB's services. "Here's what we offer," JTB says. Choose the poshness of hotel you'd like. Tell us what you want to see. Abracadabra!
If we were taking a train from here to there to get to a hotel they'd booked or to hookup with a sight-see they'd arranged, a JTB staffer would make sure we had our tickets and didn't miss our rendezvous.
The trains in Japan run on time.
Schedule:
25 Mar W. arrives from the hinterlands, flying solo. Southwest allows twelve-year-olds to fly without requiring "unaccompanied minor" status. W's first adventure: flying on her own without an adult keeping tabs on her. We made sure the flight was non-stop; we didn't want her to have the adventure of missing a connecting flight. Southwest gave her mom a pass that allowed her past security so she could sit in the waiting area until W's flight boarded.
27 Mar Leave SFO before lunch.
28 Mar Arrive Narita. Airport bus to hotel in Shinagawa district.
29 Mar We grabbed a Sunrise Tours shuttle from our hotel that took us to the Hamamatsucho Bus Terminal next to the World Trade Center. We turned in our chits for tour tickets and boarded our Sunrise tour bus for a morning tour of Tokyo spots: Tokyo Tower, Imperial Palace,
drive through Ueno and the Akihabara on way to Asakusa Kannon Temple
and Nakamise Shopping Street. The tour ends (surprisingly, eh?) at the Tasaki Pearl Gallery which gave us an explanation of how cultured pearls are produced, gave us an opportunity to look at their wares (Shop! Shop! Shop!) and then, very nicely, drove us and the other scores of folk who had also been dropped off at Tasaki back to our hotels.
His nibs and W. went back to Akihabara by train to check out the manga offerings. Some buildings had five! six! floors of manga!
30 Mar The bus picked us up at the hotel again and took us to the Hamamatsucho Bus Terminal, again. We were starting to get a feel for how JTB worked. We caught the Sunrise tour to see Toshogu Shrine at Nikko,
Irohazaka zigzag drive up to Kegon Waterfall and Lake Chuzenji at the foot of Mt.Nantai. Irohazaka zigzag driveway down the mountains, and bus back to Tokyo with a drop-off in the Ginza district after dark when all the neon was blazing.
The bus had a problem getting to its usual stopping spot in the Ginza when the driver found the left lane of the street blocked off. When the guide tried to move the cones so we could pull up to the curb, a police officer came over and yelled at them.
"I've never seen this before," our guide said, as the bus circled around for ten minutes to find a spot to drop us off somewhere near the train station.
What's this? Turns out the left lane of the main drag had been blocked off for a political action march. Streams of people were marching down the main Ginza drag in the far left lane, making noise and waving signs. Multiple unions represented, hundreds of folks, signs.
The guide claimed she couldn't really tell what it was all about. She said she'd never seen anything like it before.
Man, I need to learn to be halfway proficient in kanji and kana. I wondered what the signs really said.
Had no grasp of the language this time. Oh,well. For sure before we go again. Caught the train back to the hotel.
31 Mar Leave Tokyo. Caught the shuttle bus at the hotel. Off to the bus station with our bags. Onto the Sunrise tour bus with our bags and on to Mt. Fuji. Up to the fifth stage for viewing. Snow. The bus continued on to Hakone and Lake Ashi. The winds were wicked up at the fifth stage and elsewhere. The cableride we were scheduled for at Hakone was swapped for a less gusty one as the cable we'd intended to ride had shut down for safety reasons.
01 Apr Our bags for Kyoto were whisked away and we bus'd to Odawara with minimum luggage to catch the Shinkansen to Nagoya where we picked up Kato-san, our guide for the next three days. Took the limited-express train to Takayama where we checked into hotel and walked about with Kato-san to the Yatai Kaikan Hall (festival floats) and the Kusakabe Folkcraft Museum and roamed the old town.
We stopped by a soy sauce manufacturer and had some delish miso soup and nuggets of sesame candy. I bought some tasty sesame candies for our beast sitter, who does not need any more trinkets.
Something to eat, I thought. That's the ticket. (Hi, Auntie K!)
Our hotel room's "third" bed this time was a tatami room instead of the sleeper sofa we were routinely given as our third bed. We let W. sleep in the authentic tatami room style.
02 Apr Miyagawa morning market in Takayama and shop! shop! shop! (I am such a shopper! as everyone knows ...) We took the bus toward Lake Miboro and along the Shokawa River. Folk museum of the old Toyama family. On to Shirakawago, a village under heritage protection.
(Nothing like the protections at St Cirq Lapopie in the Dordogne, France, but still strict enough that it's no cakewalk to make a living or live in Shirakawago. The younger population is moving away. ...)
On to Gokayama for a demo of Washi paper making, including making our own to take home as a souvenir. Continue to Kanazawa, singing Karaoke on the bus. No, really!
03 Apr Kanzawa tour. Kanazawa Castle's Kenroku-en Garden. Lovely.
Admission to the Kenroku-en Garden was free for the day in honor of sakura. Then we were off to Kutaniyaki Pottery kiln where we watched potters throw pots and poked our heads into the kiln building and elsewhere. I bought a very pretty little bowl made by the fifth generation potter/owner. On to Higashi-chaya street and the Eastern Pleasure Quarter with a tour of a geisha house then on to Farmer House "Shima".
Said "Sayonara" to Kato-san and off on a train to Kyoto. Dinner at a restaurant next door to the hotel and up a floor. The staff had no English, but they'd had their pictures out front, so his nibs put restaurant slippers on and went out with the purveyor to point out which dishes we wanted. I had tobiko sushi. His nibs had unagi. W. had grilled cuttlefish. We were all happy campers.
04 Apr Kyoto: Golden Pavilion,
Nijo Castle, Kyoto Imperial Palace. Lunch at Handicraft Center. The buffet was booked out for anyone without a reservation so if we'd shown up there without a ticket, we'd've been out of luck. The buffet was just so-so. Why so popular? Busy times, these cherry blossom days. Sanjusangendo, Heian Shrine, Kiyomizu Temple.
Popped on the bullet train and back to Tokyo. We wanted to get off at the Shinagawa station, where our hotel was, but the staff handing us our train tickets told us QUITE EXPLICITLY that we were to get off at the Tokyo station, that the JTB staff was expecting us at the Tokyo station and wanted to make sure we'd arrived before they popped us into a taxi back to our hotel in the Shinagawa area. OK. If you say so. Cost an extra 3000¥ and forty-five minutes, but they made sure we hadn't somehow got lost between getting on the Shinkansen and arriving.
05 Apr Hotel bus to Narita. Flight was to leave around 9:30a, but we had a three hour delay for "mechanical problems." Long line of people at the counter, rearranging connecting flights. Not us. We were back to SFO, through Customs some time after noon and home-again home-again riggety-jig.
Photos will get appropriate labels that reflect what they are better than DSCN6*** some time soon-ish.
For now, the batch of trip photos (sans labels) are here.
Added comment: Something we'd never had before on any trip we'd been on. We were the only Americans we encountered on the entire trip until we were in Narita waiting for a plane back to SFO. Throughout our Japanese adventures, we were always in English-language tours, but the tourists were from Finland, Wales, England, Australia (loads of Australians), a multi-generational family of eight from Singapore and tourists from other parts of the world eastwestnorthsouth.
No other Americans. How weird is that?
Labels: life, photographs, travel
posted by Sal Towse at 4:29 PM|
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Friday, May 13, 2005
PhotoFriday challenge: 'Space'
PhotoFriday challenge: 'Space'
The Greek theatre in Siracusa, Sicily.
Labels: photographs, travel
posted by Sal Towse at 12:47 PM|
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