Where the streets have no names...

I think Bono was talking about Korea (the streets really don't have names here). In fact, I think this song is about the frustration the singer felt as he wandered the unnamed streets of Seoul for hours looking for the Chinese Embassy, and how, once he finally found the embassy, read a sign that said "for Chinese Visa must to go to Chinese Consulate," and then how, after more wandering and eventually finding this consulate, he is told that the consulate no longer gives visas to foreigners so he must find a travel agent, and then, in the second verse the singer finds this travel agent who then informs him that as of July 1, 2010 it is impossible for foreigners in Korea to get a visa but luckily, the song's resolution comes in the last verse when the singer's former ticket to Beijing is rerouted to Hong Kong, where visitors don't need visas. This is the only correct interpretation of this song.

Interestingly enough, my travels have paralleled this song perfectly. Anyways, everything is all set now. I have a flight to Hong Kong on Monday where I should be able to get my visa for China without a problem. Oh, I also have a passport!

Page 51: a reminder not to be an idiot.

Two reasons for shortening the Korea portion of my trip. The main one is that I am not going to be able to get a job tutoring, which is what I had originally wanted to do as a way to replenish some of the money I spent in Japan. The second is that I am really excited for China, and want to go somewhere BIG where I can do some camping. So far my trip has been exclusively to islands and I'm ready for some mainland roaming (okay, Korea isn't really an island, but travel-wise it is. The North Koreans are stingy with visas).

But the place I'm staying in is cool. My couchsurfing host lives right on top of the US base here, which means wake up marches at 6am everyday.

The view from my host's balcony: US humvees and barbed wire.

This area of Seoul is an interesting little example of cultural positive feedback. What started (I'm guessing) as a small army base brought a small number of shops and restaurants catering to US citizens, which brought some tourists, which brought more shops... Now, anywhere within a 1-2 mile radius of this base you see as many white people as you do Koreans, even though only a very small percentage are with the army. From the little cultural seed of a small army base, a gigantic tree of whiteness has sprouted in the middle of Seoul. I don't know how I feel about this sort of cultural homogenization. Part of me wants to say its awful and we need to preserve all these cultural differences that make travel such an interesting thing to do, but I think I'm only saying that because I have the luxury to. For a Korean guy with a family, he is probably quite happy to open an English language bookstore if it means he and his family can live a bit more comfortably. I don't know, but it is still kinda sad, and it is this sort of thing that makes me prefer visiting the (so far) untouched smaller towns.

Anyways! My host is really into tattoos and I am going with her now to talk to the woman who has been named "The best tattoo artist in Korea" by some magazine that knows about tattoos. She is planning on spending $1000 on a custom-designed, full arm tattoo (called a sleeve, for those who are as unhip as I was yesterday).

Camping in Japan!

So my mom used to run the international club at Champlain College. When I was 9 or so I would go on trips with them to Boston and Montreal. Many of the students were Japanese, and they liked trying to talk to their advisor,s (I don,t know where the apostrophe is on this keyboard, so comma=apostrophe) shy son. 

Anyways, I got in touch with some of these students and, 14 years later, have spent the last week hanging out and staying with some of them.

There was something like 7 layers of mountains here.

Two days ago, a few of us hiked to the top of Mount Takao, where there were spectacular views and an all-you-can eat/drink beergarden. 

Cook your own octopi!

After the beergarden, we took the cable car down the mountain and hiked in the middle of the woods. We were the only people in miles from what I could tell. I taught the art of marshmallow toasting to Chiemi and Yoshiko.

Our campsite had a very nice bathroom.

SO, now the plan is:

1. Get new passport today. I hope it is ready.
2. Fly to Korea tomorrow.
3. Get Chinese visa, hang around Korea for a week or so. I was going to stay longer, but it looks like it would be really hard to find a job tutoring English. If anyone knows a Korean student who wants to give me money to talk to him, let me know.
4. Go to China. Stay for a long time.

Couchsurfing

Alright guys, couchsurfing is awesome.  This is how it works: I say "hey, I want to go to Kyoto tomorrow," I look up Kyoto on the couchsurfing website, ask someone to host me, then BOOM! Free lodging!

So far, I have been in Japan almost two weeks, and I've only paid for lodging once (and that was pretty cool, I stayed in a Buddhist temple in this tiny town called Takanawa).

Quick recap of my couchsurfing experiences sofar:

Tokyo: stayed with a girl from the Philippines named Cyril who hosted TEN people per night. It was pretty crazy with people coming and going all the time, but great way to meet other travelers. As I type this, there are two brothers sitting next to me, 15 and 13 years old, who are traveling around the world with their mom for a year. Awesome. 

Kanazawa: Stayed with an English teacher, went out at night with all her English teacher friends, somehow eyeball licking is popular in their crew. No, seriously.

Beppu- Stayed with 3 Vietnamese girls, they showed me around Beppu and at night took me out to Karaoke with all their Vietnamese friends. They could sing! I could not, but where I  lacked in talent I made up in volume.

Kyoto- Got to Kyoto at 10 PM, Russian guy name Abdullah says "you want hike mountain?" so Abdullah, his wife, and I climbed a mountain at midnight and then stayed up all night doing a late night tour of Kyoto. Walked around tiny serene temples as the sun came up. He told me his life story and it was crazy.He spent 4 years hitch hiking around russia, central asia, southeast asia, and china living off of 100 dollars per month. He camped on the side of the road to avoid paying for hostels.I said this was cool. He was excited that I was excited, so he gave me $500 worth of camping equipment! A new backpack, a sleeping bag, portable stove, insulated mat, food, stuff sacs, etc...Anyways, now I'm psyched to do some camping in China.

Okay, time to help clean the apartment I'm staying in now.

Bonus week in Japan!

Though not intentionally. I lost my passport. But no worries, all in all it will only cost me $200 to fix the problem and I should be on a plane to Korea next Tuesday. Now, as long as I can have one really awesome experience in the next week or so, I will always be glad that I lost my passport in Japan.

I promise, a long post is coming soon MAYBE TONIGHT STAY TUNED

The Most Important Thing to Happen to Humanity Ever

The toilets in Japan have remote controls. Oh, and other cool stuff has happened...

...but that is all irrelevant. THE TOILETS HAVE REMOTE CONTROLS!

Burning Man

Jeff and I were deep into a conversation about life and happiness and we were onto the idea of quantifying happiness on a scale of 1 - 10.  A score of one means you are utterly depressed and 10 means you are on the top of the world.

I asked Jeff, "if you had to choose between a life that fluctuated between 4 - 6 and one that fluctuated between 1 - 10, what would you choose?"

"Dude, of course the second one." I agreed, and I think that most people would. Burning man is the epitome of the second option.

At times, burning man is awful. During the day the temperature is well over 100 degrees and the sun never stops, but luckily the accumulated layer of sweat and dust that coats your skin offers you pretty good UV protection. You haven't showered since San Francisco and you can taste the dust that coats your tongue, throat, and alveoli.  Since you've been out until sunrise every day and the heat becomes unbearable by 10 am, you haven't gotten more than 3 hours of sleep since the festival began. Add to this the fact that you are living in a tiny two-person tent with only cold beans to eat and you can see how the low points factor into the BM experience (Speaking of BMs, the nearest toilet is half a mile away, which kinda sucks).

A dust storm. That guy was only like 20 feet away. 

But the high points make it worth it. And they come in two varieties. The first is the individual memories:

• Dancing as the sun comes up with hundreds of other burners beneath a geodesic sphere with flamethrowers at each vertex that created fire displays that synced with the very very loud music.
• Watching Mexican wrestling with a crowd of rowdy (and I mean free-tequila rowdy) onlookers.
• Delivering burning man newspapers to grateful recipients.  Burning man doesn't function without contributors, and this small contribution helped me feel like I at least gave something.
• Watching the water trucks (trucks that would periodically spray down the desert's "streets" to reduce dust). Each water truck inevitably had a small crowd of naked people chasing and trying to snag a free shower.

These are four that came to mind, but there are plenty more. (OK, this is as far as I got in Hawaii)

(In Japan now, continuing post...) The second type of high point came from a growing familiarity with being at burning man.  On day one, I was confused by the whole thing. Try as I might, I just did not feel comfortable talking to a 60 year old naked man.

As the week went on, I felt less like a spectator and more like a participant. By the end of the week I had completely converted. I was a burner. On the second-to-last night, me and 50,000 or so other burners gathered around the giant, illuminated, wooden man.  His arms raised.  Fireworks exploded around him. At this point he is looking pretty damn triumphant.

Then... a fireball engulfed the entire effigy and finally, after spending weeks as the focal point for tens of thousands of people, the man burned.  I found myself thinking about all the thought and effort and money that went into designing and building that man. And also that crazy cubical art display over there. And that cool sphere that shot fire in patterns which synced with booming electronica music. All of these installations, events, and art pieces took a TON of effort, and they were all enjoyed for exactly one week.  To me, the burning of the man (and I guess the whole festival) was a celebration of transience, the world's biggest party, and, really, the only appropriate way to end a festival named Burning Man.

Even Mother Nature is a burner. This is the double rainbow that kicked off the festival. Go here to learn all the awesome physics behind a double rainbow.

Right Now...

... it is 6:45 PM in Hawaii. I am sitting in my friend Mikey's house. Tonight is my last night in Hawaii. I haven't packed and tomorrow I'm flying to Tokyo. Naturally, Mikey and I are leaving soon for a proper last night in the US. The next 45 minutes or so will be spent powerblogging about my experiences so far.