Japanese Food

I loved Japanese food before we even set foot on Japanese soil. I love lots of food, hence why I now have a food blog. But Japanese food has long held a special place in my heart. I'm really glad that I waited until my Japanese food tastes matured to a point where I could enjoy a lot of what Japan had to offer (namely sushi and sashimi) before venturing across the great Pacific. I don't eat meat that isn't seafood (no beef, pork, chicken, etc.), so there was a certain amount of food in Japan that I didn't experience. I'm not really sad about it the same way I'm not sad about missing those foods in my own country. It doesn't work if you're always yearning for food you "can't" have; I like being veggie/fishie. Fortunately, the Japanese are very keen on their seafood, and so am I. We got along well.

The first thing I was wondering with three weeks of vacation ahead of me was if I was going to get sick of Japanese food. I tend to get sick of things quickly. Not only that, I tend to binge on one type of food for a while and then get so sick of it that I never want to see it again. It's sort of irritating - send your sympathy to poor Kane who has to deal with it. This is one reason that I love living in the Bay Area; great food of all different nationalities at my fingertips all the time. I never have to get sick of anything because I can constantly change it up.

In Japan, they eat Japanese food. They have other food, but they mostly have Japanese food. And since I love it so much, I was happy to have it for every meal every day. This is what I thought might kill the whole experience - too much too fast. But I found that I did not get sick of Japanese food. I loved it for every meal, every day. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner for three weeks straight did not curb my desire for this kind of food. Sure, I got a bit sick of all the deep fried stuff after a while, and the strictly protein/rice diet was starting to weigh on my system a bit, but I was far from sick of the food. In fact, the day after we got back, I was sad to have cereal for breakfast; I wanted my weird Japanese breakfast that I'd grown to love. So let's talk about some of the food we had and where we had it.

Breakfast
I'm not sure what people in Japan eat for breakfast, like, in the privacy of their homes. There were occasional bake shops, and things like pancakes and waffles could be found at certain restaurants, though they're usually for dessert. This is what we were served, generally, every morning at our hotel:

• Rice Balls: small triangular balls of cohesive rice, sometimes with something in the middle like tuna or pickles, sometimes with stuff sprinkled on the outside like seaweed flakes or sesame seeds.
• Pickles: pickles are everywhere in this country, they seem to pickle everything. I didn't always know what vegetable I was eating a pickle of, but they were offered with most breakfasts, and most meals for that matter.
• Bread: thick, white bread cut in half. There was a toaster and butter and jam packets. I don't know how this fits in with the rest of the Japanese stuff, but I ate it all.
• Rolls/Croissants: depending on the hotel, sometimes there was bread, sometimes rolls or croissants instead.
• Salad: Green salad with choice of ginger-oil or mayonnaise-based dressing.
• Macaroni or Potato Salad: we liked to call the macaroni salad "mayonnaise noodles" because that's what they were. Potato salad was consistently good, in my opinion.
• Mini Sausages: sometimes there were party wieners. Why? Not sure. I avoided them.
  
• Miso Soup: always delicious, see the picture below for a humorous sign (I wonder if they serve soup from soybean present?):

• Tea/Coffee/OJ (sometimes)/Milk (sometimes)

I typically had a breakfast of salad with ginger dressing, miso soup, rice balls, pickles, potato/macaroni salad, and toast or croissants. It was great. I love salad for breakfast, it's so refreshing. Miso soup should be at every meal in my opinion; it's light, salty, tasty, warm. I love this breakfast and I want it in my home. It's just not the same when I make it though...

Nomihodai
One of the more interesting things we encountered in Japan was nomihodai, pronounced, roughly and in my crappy American accent nom-ay-hoo-dye. This means "all you can drink". This is offered sometimes at bars (with a time limit) and you can get totally plastered for a less-than-standard fee, but we utilized this fabulous idea in a much more fun and coherent way. We found a coffee shop with an all-you-can-drink beverage bar. This particular coffee shop had no English menu, so we could not figure out what the deal was with the drinks, but Marc faithfully remembered the word for all you can drink and we were able to do it. The listed three different prices for the all you can drink bar, but we didn't know the difference (maybe one was for cold beverages only, one for hot, and one for both? we couldn't tell) and just had to hope they charged us accordingly.


It was awesome. There's the coffee machine to the far left - but we couldn't read the labels so we weren't sure exactly what we were getting each time. Trial and error is a good tactic at the all you can drink bar. Plus, Japanese coffee is terrible anyway, so it's pretty much just an exercise in how much sugar and milk you can physically fit into your coffee cup to make it palatable. Next to that is the hot tea area, then the iced tea jugs, then the wacky soda machine (see green soda below - not sure what flavor it was exactly), then the hot chocolate machine, which was the star of the show. We had a fabulous time getting all water-logged before a day of walking around.


Sushi Train
For lunch (and sometimes dinner) we often found ourselves being sucked into a sushi train restaurant. They have these kinds of restaurants in America (and Australia) too, but there's one on every block in a downtown area of Japan. A sushi train works like this: you are seated in a row at a counter, like in an old coffee shop. In front of the counter is a conveyor belt that winds around the restaurant in front of all the customers. On the conveyor belt are little plates, each with a type of sushi on it. The patrons view the plates as they pass by on the conveyor in front of them, and take whatever looks good. You take the whole plate off the conveyor, eat what's on it, and stack up all the plates you take so they can bill you at the end. In the middle of the sushi train, the area in the center of the big conveyor belt loop, are the sushi chefs. They make little plates of sushi and continuously refill the conveyor belt with these plates as they are taken by the patrons. It's a fabulous idea and I think all food should be served this way. It means you get a little bit of everything you want. It's fabulous!

Most places have about six different colors of plates, all corresponding to different prices, which are posted all around the restaurant for you to consult. Some sushi trains offer all the plates at the same price, which makes it easier for us cheapos, though the dishes don't get quite as fancy when they're cheap like that. Then you can also summon one of the chefs or a host/ess if you want to order something in particular, which they'll happily make and deliver to you. The ginger and soy sauce is unlimited and free and lives on the counter between every other seat where you can take it at your leisure to go with your sushi. There are some other variations of this arrangement, but those are the basics of the sushi train...and it's making me want some right now. Let's look at some of my sushi train pics (click to enlarge):


Izakaya
An izakaya (pronounced is-uh-kie-uh) is supposed to be a place where you get drinks and have some little foods to accompany the drinks, like tapas. We used this for full blown dinner probably a dozen times. And forget the drinks, we'll have tapas with tapas, thank you very much. Most of these places had an English menu (we had to share it between us) which we'd use to order many rounds of dishes during our stay. And the very best part? The button. To call the waiter over, you press a button at your table. Within seconds (usually) your waiter has arrived, ready to take your next order. It's fabulous. We really racked up quite a bill a few times (oh this is only $5, and this is only $3...and on and on), but had a pretty dang good time doing it. Here's some izakaya food that we enjoyed (click to enlarge):


And while there is a whole plethora of other things to talk about, I'll stop this entry now before your eyes become too weary. Needless to say, I fully enjoyed the food in Japan, and just writing about it is making my tummy rumble. Oh, I could go for some sashimi right about now...

Karaoke Part II

So, you're sick of reading about Japan. I don't care, I'm writing more anyway. I kept a log of possible blog topics the whole time I was there just so that I could make sure to touch on the most interesting (to me) aspects of our trip when I got home. And by George (whoever he is), I'm using that list. Today is a bit of a reprieve since I'm discussing a topic previously blogged upon, but I have in store (hopefully) stories of food, Engrish, hotels, Tokyo Rush Hour, and, of course, an obligatory budgetary pie chart and commentary.

You may recall that I previously discussed at length the merits of Japanese karaoke, describing our experience in Kyoto thoroughly. First karaoke was a great time, we really loved it.

For good measure, we decided to try it again on one of the last days of the trip, this time in Osaka. We found a karaoke establishment of the same chain as the first one we went to, but this one was not nearly as nice. It was smaller, the lobby was not nearly as grandiose, and the rooms were older and dingier. For some reason the "Premium" rooms here were far more expensive than the Standard ones, so we went with the Standard.

We were met with a less thrilling version of the previous experience. The room was smaller, the walls were wood paneled, and the tv was not a flat screen (see below). Borrrrring. It was ok, and we had a good time, but it was nothing like the first time in Kyoto. Ah, memorieeees.


This time we chose such hits as: Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da, The Rose, Summer of '69, Waterfalls (my personal favorite), Billie Jean, Ain't too Proud to Beg, Hit the Road Jack, Rocky Raccoon, with a finale of The Cars' You Might Think. We did also manage to appropriately fit in Styx with Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto, so don't worry your pretty head about that one going missing.

Since my videos from the original karaoke incident have been properly stored and labeled, Kane has so generously agreed to be featured on this blog, singing his rendition of Billy Idol's Eyes Without a Face. This is from our original karaoke expedition and also shows Marc and Alana faithfully fumbling with the music remote control (it's all in Japanese, we were still figuring it out) and messing up Kane's song. Take it away, Kane:

Travel Companions

Note: The final set of Japan pics is here (Japan III: Osaka (again) and Tokyo).

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When I tell people that Kane and I traveled with another couple for two weeks, I often get responses like,

"Did you guys drive each other nuts?"

"I don't think I would be happy to see that much of my friends."

"You guys hung out the whole time?"

Apparently it's quite a point of contention, even among the closest friends. How is it possible to be with another couple virtually non-stop for 15 days? I'm not sure, but it is. We did it.


Let's not ignore the fact that we had many a trial run with these particularly fine folks. We started hanging out at the beginning of 2008 and steadily ramped up our meet-up schedule for the following year and a half. Six months after we met them, we were seeing each other at least once a week. A year after we met, we were hanging out almost every weekend and at least once during the week. In March 2009 we geared up for our first trip together: a four day jaunt over to Alice Springs and Uluru in the hot, dry center of Australia. On that trip we were really attached at the hip, even staying in the same hotel room together. In June 2009 we put the pedal to the metal and moved our moochy-asses in with Marc and Alana, staying in their apartment for the few weeks until we left Australia permanently (sad face).

Making friends is a bit like dating. At first you know you like each other, but you're searching for things in common, looking to make some memories and establish some norms and inside jokes to work from. You get to know each other a bit better, and, assuming everything is still going well, you become more casual, make cruder jokes, and start to make memories together. You want to hang out more, but you don't want to impose; then you find out they feel the same way - joy! The best of friends remain friends even in the face of time and distance. Marc and Alana are those types of friends to us - we'd like to commit ourselves to a lifelong friendship with them. Did we friend-propose to Marc and Alana on this trip? No, but probably only to avoid the awkwardness.

It has always seemed plain, to me at least, that we're a group that gets along well. We work well together, we can make decisions, and we have a hierarchy for leadership already established (the boys are cool with whatever, Alana and I hash out the rest). None of us are drama queens (or kings). None of us are difficult or inflexible or overbearing. None of us are extremely different from the other three in what activities we'd like to partake during vacation*. None of us are easily offended or find it difficult to be relatively honest with each other. On this trip we each had our roles: Alana was the planner, I was backup planner and keeper of maps and directions, Kane told us which direction we were going/facing and was keeper of the guidebook and general carrier of stuff, Marc held the iPhone compass for when we came out of subway stops and had no idea which way we were facing. We all contributed to the "what do you want to do today?"s and the "what do you feel like eating for lunch"s. A well oiled machine; we were smooth.

It is these traits that seem to make good traveling buddies, for us at least. If at first they seem like good, solid people, test them out, then book a flight and enjoy. Or have a completely disastrous vacation, whichever happens first. For us, we had a great time together. I'll speak for myself (so as not to impose on my perhaps-politely-smiling-friends**) when I say that at no time was I peeved or dreading waking up to another day of sightseeing with Marc and Alana. As you know from my relationship with Kane, if it's the right person (or people), I am cool to hang out 24/7. Give me Marc and Alana any day (or all day every day) and I'll be happy.

*With the exception of Marc who likes to go drinking. For the most part, he didn't get his way, since the rest of us aren't as into it (mostly me). Sorry, Marc, I hope you can forgive.

**They're like, "What is she talking about? We're never booking a trip with those freaks again."

A Tale of Three Cities

On this trip we spent 20 days in Japan, mostly concentrated in the cities of Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo. Japan is a country with an area about 10% smaller than that of California with a population about 3.5 times more than my fair home state. 127 million people call Japan home, and 98.5% of them are of Japanese descent. Talk about not in Kansas anymore. The time we spent in this wonderful country was mostly divided between the major two cities in the Kansai region of the country, Osaka and Kyoto, shown on the map below.


On the map above you can see Tokyo (click to enlarge the map) marked in approximately the geographic middle on the eastern coast. The Kansai region is highlighted pink (and shown close-up on the map below), and Osaka, its largest city, is marked in tiny print. Kane, Marc and I flew into Tokyo on March 4 and spent one night near the airport. On the 5th, we three headed down to Osaka, via Tokyo, on the bullet train, which takes about 2.5 hours covering over 500km (about 310 miles). The bullet train (Shinkansen) is like a regular train, but in fast forward motion. It's awesome.


Our schedule was a bit weird because we wanted to meet Alana in Osaka (she flew in there), but we also wanted to be in Osaka for the sumo tournament in mid-late March, toward the end of our trip. We decided to spend three nights in Osaka, March 5, 6, 7, head over to Kyoto for eight days, then come back to Osaka at the end of the trip to see the sumo. A bit strange, but it worked.

So, on March 5, we trained to Osaka and met Alana. Her ability to find our hotel alone and unassisted was incredible. March 6 and 7 we poked around the Namba area of Osaka, a city with 2/3 the population of Los Angeles crammed into 1/5 the area, wandering the endless arcades and marveling at the flashy lights and plastic food displays. It was a good introduction for us since we could discover the culture and acclimate to everything at our own pace.

On March 8 we took the one hour train ride over to Kyoto, the nearby cultural capital of the country. For eight days we walked around the compact but plentiful downtown area, meandered the cobbled streets of the traditional (now touristy) avenues, and visited temples and shrines aplenty. This is also where we were able to do the geisha dress-up, which was one of the highlights of the trip for me. This was also the place Marc chose to propose to Alana in a fancy romantic (read: expensive) restaurant on the most famous traditional street in Kyoto overlooking a tiny, pretty creek.

Kyoto is a wonderful town that apparently boasts a massive population of 1.5 million, but has the charm and feel of a city much smaller. Apparently, much to my surprise, the Allies purposely refrained from bombing Kyoto in WWII in order to preserve the cultural significance that is so rich and concentrated in this area. Now some of the oldest and best preserved cultural artifacts are located in and around Kyoto for us to enjoy.

Eight days was a great amount of time for us to spend in Kyoto - we got to see most of the major sights, but we could do so at a leisurely pace. On March 16 we took the train back to Osaka and stayed there again, in our exact same hotel rooms no less, for another three nights. We took one day trip out to Himeji Castle (pictured below) in the nearby town of the same name to see the most visited castle in Japan. We took another brief day trip out to Nara, a city known for the deer that eat out of your hand in the central city park (pictured below Himeji). Finally, we did get to see a sumo match, which was extensively blogged about in a previous post.


On March 19 we said goodbye to Alana as she flew out of Osaka back to Melbourne. The three of us then trained up north that day, retracing our steps back to Tokyo. Marc spend the following half day with Kane and me in Tokyo walking around the electronics district and over to the massive famous crosswalk in the suburb of Shibuya (pictured below). That afternoon we said goodbye to Marc as he flew home, and Kane and I continued to explore Tokyo for another two and a half days. We were pretty tired by this point, but still managed to make it over to the major sightseeing districts before heading out on a flight on March 23.


We had a great trip. The people, the sights, the food - it was all fabulous. Kyoto was my favorite place that we visited, and I really hope we can make it back over there again someday.

Domo Arigato

Thank you, Japan, we hope to meet again someday. We arrived back home today and were faced with 10am when our brains felt like 3am. Jet-lag is a funny thing. We took a power nap/coma just before noon and are now wiiiide awake at midnight. So it goes. It will work itself out.

We loved our Japan trip. It was fabulous. I wasn't able to blog as much on this trip because we were actually out doing things so much, and we couldn't very well hold back our dynamic duo duo (two duos, get it?) by sitting in our room all day on the internet, no matter how much I may have wanted to. And because we did so much, I have that much more to say about our trip. Instead of furiously blogging during the trip, I did instead take scrupulous notes and have many a blog entry topic composed in my brain and my journal. Everything from taxi drivers, to food, to toilets will be discussed in the upcoming weeks, along with the highly anticipated pie charts on how we busted the budget. It seems we are far less discerning with our cash when we're with friends...

For now, feast your eyes on the latest pics from Kyoto. We were in Kyoto from March 9-16 and it was the place we stayed the longest and did the most activities. It also worked out to be my favorite place, fancy that. I have, like my blog, neglected to post many photos from the trip. I have not, however, neglected to take pictures. 15GB or so after leaving SFO, I have a few memories to post to the internet. Please stay tuned for more info and pics/videos on Japan even though we're not actually in Japan anymore. Maybe I'll try to go to sleep now...

Sumo

Thursday we attended the last few hours of the sumo wrestling tournament held in Osaka every year. Apparently there are 6 Grand Tournaments each year (3 in Tokyo, 1 each in Osaka, Nagoya, and Kyushu) and the same 800 or so professional sumo wrestlers compete in these tournaments, getting ranked and re-ranked each time. The basic idea is that the tournaments are 15 days long and each wrestler competes in one match per day against a different opponent. The person with the best record at the end (wins versus losses of those 15 matches) wins the tournament.

Upon entering the gymnasium, it took us a while to find our seats and figure out what was going on. Once we finally got seated in our cheap seats, we watched for about three hours of continuous wrestling matches, or “bouts”. The funny thing about the seating arrangement in the arena was that the cheapo seats in the back were regular flip up chairs like at a movie theater, with a pillow strapped to the top for added comfort. The expensive seats, closer to the wrestlers, were big pillows on the floor. The floor was tiered so that each row could see over the one below it, and the separate “boxes” of seats were separated by metal bars about 6” off the ground, so that you're not just bleeding over into your neighbors little seating area. Each “box” of seats held 4 people (hence had 4 pillows). I was glad we weren't sitting there, that seemed far more uncomfortable to me (here's a picture of the "expensive" seats).

When we went by the ticket checker on the way in, we received a little booklet containing some information about sumo wrestling as a tradition, its evolution into a modern sport, the rules and rankings, and about all the little intricacies and rituals they do during the bouts. It was all quite interesting and helped to understand what we were watching. The wiki article is also pretty comprehensive if you'd like more info. Here are a couple of the big boys waiting for a taxi after the match. The taxi was noticeably lower to the ground after they got in...

The layout of a match is this: a man with a fan announces the next two contenders in a weird singing voice. Then the two dudes get up onto the little 18' square x 2' tall platform and the ref, dressed in a big silk get-up, mediates a bow between them. Then they begin their ritualistic preparation for the actual fight. They each stand in a corner (adjacent corners, incidentally, rather than opposing corners) facing outward toward the audience, clap their hands in front of them once, and raise their legs up in the air one at a time and stomp them on the ground. This is the classic sumo move that you would imitate if you were a kid. They then take a little towel, wipe their face and sometimes their arms or body with it. From a little pouch on the floor, they grab a small handful of salt, turn toward the ring, and toss the salt onto the sandy floor of the ring. Then they enter the 15' circle in the center of the platform, face each other, crouch down on tip toes with their feet out 180 degrees apart and glare at each other for a second. Then they stand, move back a step, and crouch again with their feet flat and place their fists on the ground for a second.

They look at each other and stand up again, turn to face the audience, and saunter back to their respective corners while slapping their arms and bodies as they walk. They do the towel and salt thing again in their corners. They step into the ring again and do the crouching bit. They can do this over and over as much as they want as long as they keep it all under four minutes.

Apparently, before 1928, the wrestlers could continue this ritual preparation indefinitely. In 1928 a 10 minute time limit was imposed, which was later reduced to 7 minutes, then 5, and finally 4. We're getting less patient as time goes on, apparently. I don't blame them; there's only so many times that these repetitive motions are interesting to watch.

They usually do this prep a few times, during which the crowd gets more and more excited. People start yelling more, and sometimes a bit of a cheer goes off when the wrestlers finish glaring and start to walk back to their corners. When the contenders are finally ready to go, they get down in the steady crouch position, hesitate for a second, then run at each other full force. Most matches were over in a matter of seconds – you have to be careful not to look away during the less exciting part lest you miss the action. The “moves” are mostly executed by pulling or pushing on the opponent's waist bands, though a lot of face pushing and general man-handling seems to go on before then. Here's a quick video to show what happens:



The goal is to make your opponent either touch the ground with anything other than his feet, or push him out of the ring. If either of those happen, the match is over. Like I said, it usually goes pretty quickly; the longest match we watched was probably 30 seconds (they stopped to rest in a nice little hug for a bit, like ultimate fighters or boxers often do).

We all found it to be quite interesting to watch and were really happy that we went. It's such a strange and unique sport and the way each match was over so quickly was sort of refreshing. Alana and I agreed that we liked it better than any sporting event we've ever watched in our own countries (or any country, really). The matches start at like 8am and go all day – we didn't like it so much that we wanted to watch for 10 hours, but the last 3 hours were very cool. The order of the matches in a day goes worst ranked to best, so the last three hours have the biggest and best guys and the seats tend to fill up at that time. The very best guy was in the last match (he won) and I took a video of the last 3 minutes of that match. It's a bit long, but here it is if you're interested. Go sumo!!

Walk Like a Geisha*

It is estimated that only about 1,000 real geisha currently practice this traditional art in the entire country of Japan, and unless you have big bucks to spend, you're probably not ever going to get more than a glimpse of one. To summarize the wiki article (linked above, it's quite interesting): geisha are artists who are trained in dance, song, and other forms of entertainment to be able to entertain guests. The misconception about them being prostitutes comes from people making stuff up since the institution is so secretive.

The Gion district of Kyoto is apparently the most geisha-tastic area of Japan; the most prominent geisha can be found here. Geisha is plural for geisha, by the way, so work with that. We've seen a total of eight-ish geisha in our time here, and apparently they're all fake. The real geisha only come out at dusk and walk briskly to their destination. The many other geisha walking around are people who pay to dress up like geisha and take pictures. But since they're commonly Japanese girls, they look real to me. See? They look nice, I think:


The point is, we realized that you can pay to dress up like a geisha and take pictures; Alana and I thought that sounded like a fabulous idea. We found this really nice website for a place in Kyoto and went to stake it out. I figured they would be booked up since they have a reservation form that talks about reserving weeks in advance, but the lady said she could squeeze us in at 5pm that day! We were super excited.

Arriving back at 5pm to start or geisha journey, we spent the next two hours in a little house with very short doorways being primped and prepped as geisha. This is the tale of what happens behind fake geisha doors.

We were brought into a locker room and told, in broken English, to strip down to our undies and put on a little robe. There were lockers to store our stuff and they gave us a tiny cute wicker basket to put our camera and locker keys in to take with us. There were some other Japanese girls in the tiny room who were taking their makeup off; they had just finished their geisha experiences. Upon noting my confusion on how to strap the robe on (you had to put the rope through a hole in the side of the robe...more complex than necessary), one of the girls came over to help me secure my robe. When she wrapped the rope around me the right way it barely met again in the front. I could not tie a bow like I was supposed to and instead had to tie a tiny knot. Damn tiny clothing. Robed (or, partially robed for me), we proceeded across the hall to the makeup room.

We were each sat on a stool next to each other facing a mirrored wall. We each had a girl to make us up. They began by putting a little netting over our hair to secure the hair down. Next, some baby oil went on our faces and necks, followed by some wax which the girl said was makeup base. After that they used big, flat, semi-circular brushes to lather on white paint to our faces and necks. Back of the neck, chest, neck, chin, and bottom half of the face were covered in about 30 seconds. They they used a slightly pinker color on the forehead, eyes and cheeks, though the colors looked the same when I opened my eyes. Next they took a big puffy thing that looks like what you use to apply powder (like over your foundation makeup) and slapped our faces and necks with it to make a nice even look to get rid of the brush strokes.

We were ghost white and it was weird. They then used some pink blush on our eyelids and below our eyes. A lot of this is very subtle but ends up with a very nice look; I was surprised at how intricate it all was. Then came the red eyeliner along the bottom of our eyes, then red, brown and black eyebrow pencil, then black liquid eyeliner along the top of the lids. My girl asked me to smile (closed mouth smile) and painted on my bright red lips. Mascara on the top lashes and we were all geisha-faced.

Next came the hair. I had been wondering how they did this since all the hair in pictures seemed to look real. But it can't be real, and they certainly can't do that hair style with my blond wispy hair. They took some hair on the front of my head out of the hair net and put a huge, heavy black wig behind it. They use some thread to weave the wig into my hair on the top of my head so it was a bit more secure. The thing is heavy and uncomfortable, just for the record. But now we both had wigs on with our own mismatched hair sticking out the front. The girls put some wax in our front hair and started to comb it back over the wig behind it so that our hair blended with the wig. That's how they make it look real, good thinking. Here's a shot of me as the girl is doing this, I call it my Cruella Deville look:



After our hair was done they sprayed it black (for both of us, but I assume they had to use more on me) and we were sort of unrecognizable at that point. They then led us upstairs to another mirrored room where we picked our kimonos. I got there about two minutes before Alana and I thought the girl was just going to pick one for me. But she motioned me to choose so I pointed to a blue kimono. The girl made a face. I shrugged and told her to pick for me. She pointed to a red one and said it was nicer. I said ok and she started the process of putting it on me while I stood in front of the mirror. Alana came in shortly after and picked another red kimono; I felt a bit bad because I knew she had wanted red in the first place and now we both had red ones. Oh well. Now we're Best Geisha Forever.

The process of putting on a kimono is long and tedious and involves being wrapped in many, many layers and having many strips of fabric tied around you to hold each layer a certain way. It's sort of ridiculous how much fabric is used, how much the configuration covers the female form (I was just a cylindrical blob by the end), and how heavy the uniform is. I quickly rescinded on any previous desires I had to be a geisha; between the wig and the kimono I would not stand a chance. And they didn't even put us in the platform sandals that normal geisha wear, thank goodness.


When we were done with the kimono they added a few things to our hair (I sat on a stool so the girl could reach, as pictured above) and then we were taken into an adjacent room to take pictures. Kane and Marc arrived at this point and started taking pictures with their cameras as we posed for the professional pictures. A woman and a man handled posing the both of us; there were two rooms where the pictures were taken and we alternated taking pics in each. We each got four poses and were instructed where and how to stand for each of them. It was pretty cool. Marc and Kane got some pics while we did all this too, seen below (click to enlarge).


Next we were taken to a little tiny garden in the middle of the building and were told we could take our own pictures there for ten minutes, which was really awesome. We posed and the boys snapped pics for longer than the allotted time and we got some decent shots. Good geisha and goofy geisha pics were taken, see collage below and click to enlarge.


Then the boys were sent out to the waiting area and we went back into the kimono room where we were de-burritoed, then down to the makeup room where our wigs were removed. We then went back to the locker room to take off the makeup and wash out the hair dye. Note: they use baby oil to remove makeup here and I'm not a huge fan of that. My hair dye would not come out all the way, so I put in a ponytail and went back out to the waiting room (after getting dressed). In the waiting room they gave us a little booklet of our pics (4-5x7s each and 1-5x7 of the picture we took together) and we paid our moneys. For the dress up, the four picture poses, one pose of us together, and one of all four of us (they let the boys get in one also) it was US$140! Expensive, yes. Worth it, totally.


Most fun thing ever. I love fake geisha dress up.

*The title was originally meant to be a play on the song "Walk Like a Man" by the Four Seasons, but now that I look at it, it works more with "Walk Like an Egyptian" by the Bangles. Interpret as you wish.

Superstar

Geisha? Yeah, they're all right. They turn heads walking down the street; some people snap pictures. But what do the Japanese people really want? Who walks the streets like a real superstar, glittering with a constant barrage of camera flashes? Who do the hordes of schoolgirls squeal over and back into corners like a frightened fox? He is tall, he is white, he has the coveted ginger look that is so rare in these parts...the one, the only, the infamous Marc Fairbairn.

We, just mere mortals, are privileged enough to be allowed to walk with him around, in public. Alana is the lucky lady who gets to hold his arm walking down the street -- a position envied by thousands, perhaps millions. Marc Fairbairn: the man, the legend, the future.

---

Yesterday we took a trip out to Kinkaku-ji, or the Golden Pavilion, one of the premier sights in Kyoto. This attraction is flooded with visitors both native and foreign on pretty much any day of the year, says our guidebook. Yesterday was no exception, the path around the temple and through the gardens was pretty solid with people the whole time we were there. Surprisingly, most of the visitors appear to be Japanese, and a great many of them are school kids, assumed to be on field trips. It is these kids who seem to be intrigued by the four of us more than anyone else we've encountered so far.

Walking through the grounds of this pavilion took us maybe 30 minutes. During that time we received countless sly looks, stifled giggles, and many, many "hello"s from passing schoolkids. Maybe they just wanted to practice their English on the token whities around? Maybe they were from more rural areas where westerners aren't seen as much? Maybe the four of us are just the goofiest people they've ever seen? I'm not really sure. But what is certain is that they liked one of us far more than the rest. Marc Fairbairn was an instant celebrity.


Lots of the kids were eying Marc, but only one girl had the cajones to actually approach him and ask for a picture. She spoke little English aside from the words "hello" and "picture", so it was not clear what she wanted initially. She pointed to her camera and Marc thought maybe she wanted him to take a picture of her with her friends. As her group of giggling friends progressively surrounded him after the initial contact was made, it became clear what they wanted. They wanted him and him alone in as many photos as could be snapped before he ran away.


The three of us scattered like ducks from a gunshot, leaving Marc all alone to bear the brunt of his popularity. He stood there red-faced and laughing as they took his picture in a flood of camera flashes. He tried to escape but they insisted on more. The three of us were laughing so hard that I thought we might die. Then he pulled out the coveted move - he held up two of his fingers in a peace sign. A roar of glee erupted from the girls and the cameras flashed like he was Michael Jackson. What can I say, the man knows how to work a crowd. After he was sufficiently blinded by flashes and embarrassed enough to last a lifetime, the crowd finally calmed down and we were able to approach our superstar of a friend again. It was pretty much the funniest and best thing that's ever happened ever, I think. I love Japanese people almost as much as they love Marc Fairbairn.

Karaoke

First, please look at my Osaka pics that have been posted to Picasa, if you haven't already seen them from Facebook. Ok, now do continue.

We're in Kyoto now, in the south-west-ish of the country, and actually only about a 40 minute train ride from Osaka. The cultural capital of traditional Japan, Kyoto is a lot less fast paced than her hyped-up sisters Osaka and Tokyo. Or so they say. And I don't disagree, I just don't really care at the moment because we've discovered something more packed with culture than any puppet show, dance performance, or geisha dress-up booth. We found the karaoke.

What is karaoke in the States? It's a bar, often a crappy one, that hires a guy or gal to come in on Friday nights with a microphone/speaker setup and a teleprompter that scrolls song lyrics. The patron drunkards sign up to sing their songs of choice on said apparatus and the rest of the audience is subject to this abuse, responding in whatever way they see fit. Lots of people like it, but it's pretty much an exercise in embarrassment for me. I don't want that. I don't like strangers even being near me, much less listening to me pontificate my favorite B-52's hit and missing all the high notes. In my country, I keep the singing to myself in the privacy of my own car, thank you very much.

But what if you could just do karaoke with only your own friends? What if you could get rid of all those strangers and sing to your heart's content in the comfort of, say, your own living room? Well, it is nice having someone to bring you drinks and food while you hang around, and my living room isn't actually all that exciting. How about this: you can rent your own personal little room that's decked out with a sprawling leather booth, a big table, adjustable mood lighting and temperature, and you get your own personal flat screen with touch screen remote to choose your karaoke songs at will? Yes, this is what I want. And there are speakers and microphones set up so you can sing yourself hoarse with your own group of buddies while still in the privacy and comfort of your own little sequestered area, not bothering or being bothered by other people who want to sing songs and drink drinks all night too. This is not a made-up place, this is the karaoke house in Japan.


Let's not forget about the Little White Phone perched handily on the wall of your private room. The Phone is what makes this whole deal go down; you can pick up said phone at any time and order whatever it is that you want. There are extensive menus for drinks, appetizers and desserts, all of which you can request be delivered at your convenience, provided that the Japanese lady on the other end can decipher your foreign tongue and you can figure out the menu since it is mostly in Japanese. It is FABULOUS. It's the pinnacle in entertainment as far as I'm concerned: a private activity that's fun and unique which you can't do at home, all at a reasonable price.

We opted for the "Premium" karaoke room (oh yeah, that's how we roll) since there was no wait and it was only marginally more expensive than the "Standard" room. It costs about $8 per person per hour and you can buy in half hour blocks. You get one soda free and you can buy as much other stuff as you want (though it's not required). And, at this particular establishment, the entire building was karaoke rooms; it's like a hotel but for karaoke. Twelve spectacular floors of karaoke splendor. The first many floors are for the "Standard" rooms (scoff) and the last four floors or so are "Premium" rooms, though I'm not sure what the difference really is. All I know is that we were on the 8th floor away from all the riff-raff and in sweet karaoke heaven. Below is the hallway outside our room:


Most of the staff spoke English really well so we actually had no problem. And the one girl who didn't speak English called in another guy who painstakingly translated the entire free soda menu onto a piece of paper so that we could choose our free drinks in an educated manner. I. Love. These. People.


The hours flew by in our awesome karaoke lounge, we sang song after song with and without microphonic aid (we'd mostly end up all singing together). Bohemian Rhapsody. The Sweater Song. Superstitious. Love Shack. Devil Inside. Faith. We Built This City (on Rock and Roll). Sussudio. Sweet Caroline. The hits kept coming until about 2am when we called it a night and took a cab home. The cab experience here is an entirely other blog entry, but also fabulous, as expected. I think we might have to have another karaoke night before our time in Japan is up. Best idea ever. If I can stand the loss of dignity, videos hopefully will be up soon.

Arcades and Arcades

We've stayed in Osaka for two nights now, and have mostly been wandering around the nearby arcades during the day since it's awesome there. A clarification needs to be made for Americans: there are two different kinds of "arcades". The normal ones that we call arcades I will henceforth refer to as video arcades, or video game arcades. We all know what these are about; they're stocked with a bunch of stand up video games where you put your quarters in and control your little guy with a joy stick.

In Australia and the UK, and apparently Japan, they use the word arcade to describe a covered walkway that typically houses a shopping area. The wiki definition describes it more as an architectural term for the space, but I have always encountered it like a way to describe a retail zone: an enclosed passageway between buildings that house shops and restaurants. Sometimes they are one block, sometimes many. Maybe you already know the term, but I first figured it out when we were in Australia*.

The ones we've been hanging out in here in Osaka are a huge labyrinth** of passageways with a zillion shops, restaurants, slot machine arcades, and video game arcades. It's really fun to walk around and everyone is friendly and not threatening at all. You know how you're sort of always on guard for thieves or people trying to sell you stuff or troublesome kids when you walk in a large crowd in the States? Well, I am at least. And yes, I group those pushy people trying to sell me hand cream in with thieves; I hate them equally. Groups often make me nervous. I find that I don't feel that way here. And it's not because I'm way huger than everyone here (on the contrary, the Japanese are far taller than I had expected) or because there is no crime at all, but I think it's just a different feel here. Kane even mentioned how he isn't scared to have me out of his sight here like he is in every other country we have been in (isn't he cute?). There's just a really peaceful and calm vibe here. Everyone seems to respect everyone else and it makes a really comfortable atmosphere. I think that's my favorite part about it here, we'll see if I continue to experience Japan this way.

Anyway, back to the arcades. So, shopping arcades and video game arcades. They're both quite an experience. The shopping arcades can be described in photo format fairly well, so here's some pics of the shopping arcades that we've been walking around in:


They're wide and tall and have tons of neon signs, flashy lights, and things to tell you what's on sale where. People pass out fliers in some places, but they're not pushy and they often don't even offer them to us since we are fairly obviously foreigners (and I assume that they assume we don't know Japanese). They're fun to walk around in and there's plenty to look at (and buy/eat).

The video game arcades are a whole other experience. They have sliding glass doors and when you enter those doors, you're suddenly in a state of sensory overload. Every game screams it's song or ring or beeping and the sum of all the machines is deafening. It's hard to tell in the videos, but you sort of have to yell to hear each other in the video arcades. Please, watch a video or two:





The games in them are often strange and very involved - think of many different variations of the game Dance Dance Revolution. The craziest games we have originate here, and they really go to town in their own video arcades. There are also some "normal" games (note when I discover Super Mario Brothers in one of the videos), a bunch of gambling machines, and a whole lot of "claw" machines where you try to grab a prize with the claw. No idea why you would want to play that game (so frustrating!), much less why there would be 50 different choices of them, but maybe they're quite popular here. Some of the prizes are hilarious: I saw a two foot long beef jerky machine, a fondue set machine, and a cigarette machine! Marc and Alana's favorite game is the drum game:



Still having fun - hoping for a bit less rain in the coming week though. We head to Kyoto tomorrow which is only about a half hour train ride away, and we're looking forward to it!

*I remember the first "arcade" I ever saw; I made us run across traffic to get to it only to discover that it was full of stuffy shops instead of awesome video games. Damn you, British nomenclature, you got me again.

**Upon being corrected by spell check on the spelling of the word "labyrinth", I submit that the letter "y" in that word is entirely superfluous.

Welcome to Japan!!

And welcome to my 200th post on this blog! Yeay!! We arrived in Japan yesterday evening and are LOVING it so far. Everyone is so friendly and kind and courteous!! It's just so comfortable feeling here, I like it a lot so far.

Having said that, let's discuss the troubles encountered on the way over here. Really, there was only one problem though we're not entirely sure what the cause was. We've narrowed it down to either the in-flight meal or the motion of the airplane. You can probably guess what happened: I was once again hovered over a plethora of tiny baggies yacking my guts out on the airplane. Lord forbid a trip occur without this happening, I hope this met the trip qualifications and I'm in the clear from here on out. Always fun.

About two hours into the flight we were served our "dinner" (it was 2pm), and it was yummy. Kane and I got the vegetarian special which means that we get served first and we get delicious (as far as plane food goes) Indian food. We scarfed it up because we were hungry. I was fine for the following four hours or so of the flight, during which we watched The Blind Side (Saundra Bullock, it's a good movie, heartwarming, etc.) and This Is It (Michael Jackson movie, very boring, not nearly as cool as I thought it would be). About two-thirds the way through The Men Who Stare At Goats (George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Spacey: funny, strange, quirky) I started to not feel so well.

I had a bit of a headache and my stomach felt yucky. I tried to sleep it off, but it wasn't working. A couple hours later, I'm utilizing the sick baggie in the seat pocket in front of me as the bathrooms were full at that exact moment. I was hoping I'd feel better after the release, but no such luck. Two baggies later we've landed in Tokyo. Hooray.

I thought that being on the ground would make me snap out of it. But it didn't. We waited for about an hour and a half for Marc's flight to arrive and I didn't feel any better that whole time. Hence why we possibly suspect the food. Kane wasn't feeling great either, but his stomach is stronger than mine so he required no baggies, thank goodness. Unfortunately, the (literally) five minute bus ride to our hotel had me fumbling through my shoulder bag for any plastic container. I found a ziplock baggie (never thought I'd be so happy that the airport requires my 3oz. toothpaste to be in a baggie) just in time and quietly yacked my last yack just as we pulled up to the hotel. Sheesh.

The hotel was awesome, despite tripadvisor claims to the contrary. Spacious, well furnished, and free dinner and breakfast! Awesome. I just had miso soup for dinner, it soothed the achin' tummie.

Today we had another travel day, but this time it was leisurely and mostly on trains (or wandering hopelessly around train stations). We took the bullet train from Tokyo to Osaka, which is like riding a regular train but in fast forward motion (it goes about 100 mph). This evening we met up with Alana, who miraculously was able to find our hotel by herself with no assistance and limited map printouts. Kudos Alana, thank you for joining us.

The four of us now intend to bumble all around this area of Japan, eat tons of food, laugh at ridiculously translated English signs, and generally try to enjoy everything about Japanese people and the weird crap that they do. Here's to Japan, it's awesome here!

Bags Are Packed

My bag is indeed packed, and, as the song suggests, I'm ready to go. It's not every day that I wake up and fly to Japan, but tomorrow will be that day.

This is by far the least prepared we've ever been for a trip. No, we did not learn the language, not even a little bit. We don't really know what we're going to do there or what we'll see. I am aware that most Japanese people don't speak any English and, no, I'm not quite sure how we'll deal with this.

The things I do know are that 1) All of our hotel rooms offer hair dryers; 2) It's supposed to rain while we're there; and 3) The exchange rate is just under 90 Yen to the dollar. These things are important in that order.

Ok, I'm partially kidding, we have hotel reservations: Tokyo for one night, Osaka for three, Kyoto for eight nights, Osaka again for another three, then back to Tokyo for three nights. We also have travel insurance, a bunch of Yen (ordered from Wells Fargo, so fun!), and we made sure they actually do let Americans in without a visa. We have a guidebook and we know that it's improper to stab your chop sticks into your rice. I think these are enough to get us started.

We are packing light, despite the inclement weather we are faced with. I am actually almost entirely packed into a carry-on suitcase. You read correctly: I, a woman, am bringing only a carry-on bag to travel in Japan for three weeks. That's how I roll. Kane is taking my backpack (and graciously carrying my 2nd pair of shoes and our bathroom bag), which is to be our only piece of checked luggage. He will have a day backpack, while I have a shoulder bag and a camera. Oh, the joys of carrying all your crap around with you. Gee, I've missed traveling...

The 11.5 hour flight commences at 12.15pm tomorrow; we arrive in Tokyo some amount of hours and days later. The internet is promised to be plentiful in this foreign land, so I should hopefully have some bloggular tidbits along the way. Catch you on the flip side.

No Fruit in California

Last Thursday Kane and I made the six hour drive up to Ashland, Oregon to see Kane's mom. Rhonda was very happy to have us for three (and a half) days and provided us almost as much food as she did chores. We mostly relaxed around the house (with our computers, thank goodness), ate good food, watched movies, and did some things around the house that Rhonda needed help with. It was fun, and it was good to see Rhonda and help her out. After all, I have stolen her handyman, I suppose I can loan him back now and again. ;)

On the way into Oregon on Interstate 5, one is greeted with an inconspicuous "Welcome to Oregon" sign. Good. Sounds about right. I felt welcome.

On the way into California coming from Oregon, the "Welcome to California" sign comes with a bit of backup. A few miles down the road from the sign is a checkpoint. My first instinct is to roll my eyes and complain about useless government spending at this sort of thing, I'll be honest. I mean, they're checking for fruit, but the only way they check is to ask, "Do you have any fruit?".

No, I don't have any fruit. And if I did, I probably wouldn't tell you because I know you will take it and waste it. And because the fruit I might be carrying is undoubtedly from a grocery store in Ashland and is imported from the same South American country as the fruit at the grocery stores in California.

It just seems to me like a station such as this cannot possibly be effective against fruity intrusions into California (there's a joke about Jon in there, but I'll leave it alone). It's an "on your honor" system! Those don't work, not even for children! But alas, this article claims that this place does a good job.

Granted, the article is from 1997. Also granted that it's in the government's best interest to say that their programs are working, so who knows what's true. But the article points out that it's mostly certain exotic or rotting fruits that carry the critters that mess up our beloved California agriculture, and the "border patrol" can be relatively effective at catching these folks.

It states that the people who most often bring in the harmful stuff are those who have been traveling a while. People who are road tripping or truck driving or whatever and are coming from different states and have been on the road for some time. They can tell by the color of the dirt on your car, apparently, if you're a qualifying vagabond.

Whatever is going on at the California Fruit Border Patrol, I hope it's working to protect our crops, that it's not wasting our tax money, and that it continues to only waste but a minute of my time with each crossing. But they can keep their gloved hands off my Fujis, I'll tell you that.

The Bug Hath Bitten Again

News on the travel front hath decreed: we're going to Japan!

You may remember hearing (reading) the names Marc and Alana - our two awesomely awesome* friends from Australia (who, incidentally, aren't Australian) in previous posts. They had plans long ago to take their 2nd trip to Japan (they liked the first one a lot). We had wanted to go with them, but they were due to go just after we got back from Europe, so we figured it wouldn't work.

Then, they ended up with other plans and postponed their trip until March. We figured being the hard-working and dedicated contributes to society that we are, that we'd be gainfully employed by then and hence, it wouldn't work.

But since the time approaches for their trip and we find that we are neither as dedicated nor hard-working as we thought we were, we find ourselves with much free time and left over Australian money in our Aussie bank accounts. Money + free time + awesome friends = plane tickets to Japan.

Last week we finally made the official commitment and bought plane tickets. On March 3 we take a direct flight from SFO to Tokyo (eleven and a half hours of pure joy!) and on March 23 we return on a flight that is two hours shorter and has us arriving in San Fran approximately 6 hours before we leave Tokyo. Crazy jet stream madness can be held accountable for the large differences in flight times, and the date line can be held accountable for the time travel.

Since M & A have already done the Tokyo thing, they wanted to spend time in the south. Since we're mostly there to see them (though we did want to go to Japan too), we're going to plan most of our travels for Osaka and Kyoto, with day trips to other interesting nearby sights. At the end of the trip, M & A will go back home to Melbourne and Kane and I will spend three extra days seeing what Tokyo is all about.


Time to dust off the old backpack, but some travel insurance, and resurrect the blog for March! Prepare thyselves!

*That's how great they are; they require redundant adjectives.

My Only Souvenir

I realize that I did forget something in the post about spendings. During the entire trip, I bought one souvenir for myself, excluding magnets (I get a magnet from each city or country).

I’m not one for fancy clothes or elaborate jewelry (ok, I lied, I did buy a silver chain in Poland also), or useless trinkets. In fact, I actually hate nick knacks. If you haven’t noticed, I like getting rid of things and, on the flip side, I hate clutter. As cute as they may be, I don’t want random chotchkies filling every counter top and shelf in my house. I want everything bare and clean. Nothing useless, nothing just for show, no clutter.

In practice this isn’t as easy to abide as it sounds, I end up with little things that were gifts or things that I made or something from when I was a kid. But I try to avoid the clutter like they’re harboring buboes*. This trip around Europe was no exception to the rule, I did not purchase figurines, coin trays, scarves, photo frames, or anything that would end up sitting around my house unwanted but unable to be let go because it was Purchased In Europe. I followed this rule religiously, and, really, without effort…until I saw Sebastian.

He was at a tacky souvenir store in Dublin, Ireland. I was mostly just walking around and scoffing at the ridiculous-ness of the items for sale there – a whole store with Irish souvenirs of all types! Pencils, mugs, shirts, bookmarks, wallets, hats, towels, cheap jewelry, magnets, thimbles, photo frames, embroidered sweaters, flashlights, doormats, chocolates, and on and on and on. In the mess, on the bottom of a shelf in this hugely tacky store, I fell for Sebastian. He looked up at me with his googly little eyes and I held his tiny, green, spherical body in my hand, and I knew I could not put him down.

Sebastian is a green, rubber piggy bank shaped like a little portly pig. He has a removable snout so you can get all your money out**, and he’s got three little green clovers on each side of his bum. He’s the cutest thing ever and I took him home to my country to have a long and fruitful life with me. Now he holds my change in his belly and I see his cute face every day on my counter. I love him dearly and I’m happy that he’s the only souvenir that I have from our trip to Europe. See? How could I resist:


*Yeah, I made a bubonic plague joke, go 1300’s!
**This is beginning to sound like a nursery rhyme…and I like it.

On Coffee

C-O-F-F-E-E, coffee is not for me. That's a song we used to sing in 4th grade choir class (remember, Alicia?) and maybe I've been brainwashed.

I haven’t been drinking coffee. I had thought I might start since I was drinking quite a bit in Europe, and even a bit in Australia. I was having a cappuccino or mocha nearly every day toward the end of our trip; Italy is the place for coffee. It was delicious – a sweet treat for me in the morning, yum! And I was even growing to not hate the taste of the actual coffee that was thrown into my delicious hot milk and chocolate. So I thought I might be changing.

In New York I had a couple Starbucks’. But those are expensive and they always burn my mouth. Always. Why would I want to buy a beverage that I can only drink a half hour after I receive it? My first morning at mom’s house she made me a delicious mocha. And I thought, this is it, I’m going to start drinking coffee every morning.

But hearing her grind the beans this morning, I realize that I’ve only drank a few coffees in the last 2 months. It has not become a daily habit, even though I have plenty of time for it. I don’t crave it at all, and I don’t want to make the effort, even in lieu of not having to be anywhere at any time.

I still like a mocha every once in a while. But get rid of all that chocolate and cream and the coffee alone has nothing to offer me. And I’m glad for it – I don’t want any habits or foods that I “must” eat/drink every day. I guess coffee isn’t in the cards for met yet, and that’s just fine with me.

The Devils are Saved?

Since our visit to the island of Tasmania in December 2008, as documented on the website I made, I have been keeping my eyes peeled for any advances made on the plight of the Tasmanian Devils.


You may remember from my previous blog post about Tasmania that the Devils' population has been declining steadily since 1996 due to a horrific facial tumor disease that is spreading wildly throughout the population. Scientists estimate that over 60% of the devils on the island (the only place where they can be found in the world) have died since the disease was discovered.

The disease is relatively unusual in that it is a fatal cancer that is transferable to other members of the species via biting; they bite each other when fighting over food, territory, or females. When the disease is contracted, tumors begin to grow on the animals' faces until they (the tumors) become so large that the animal cannot eat or drink. They (the Devils) perish in less than a year via a slow and awful death of starvation from this disease, and until now, scientists have come no closer to finding a cause or cure.


This article that I saw the other day in the New York Times claims that scientists have now found the cause of the cancer and can begin to create vaccines which might save the species. Until now, scientists had estimated that the entire species would be decimated in the next 5-15 years, with full extinction to follow. The only effort that could be made was to sequester healthy groups of Devils in sanctuaries and facilitate breeding programs to keep the numbers of tumor-free animals diverse enough to sustain a healthy population.

This new research may be the key to the Devils' survival, though only time (and a heck of a lot of money/research/testing) will tell if these new findings are all they are hoped to be. In researching this a bit, I found that multiple other findings in the past few years had provided hope of a cure, but nothing to date has worked. Also, a few websites that discuss the Devil problem don't seem to mention these new findings yet - so I'm not sure exactly how promising they are.


Regardless, I'll still keep an eye out for my cute little native Australian marsupials, and am happy to see that a group of determined and concerned citizens and scientists are dedicating their time and resources to helping this worthy and unique species.

Prediction

Today I found my estimate for our Europe budget. Before we left Australia, we were trying to get an idea of how much $$ we would need for 3 months of travel in Europe. In Australian dollars, we had estimated this:

• $5000 for flights
• $4000 for car rental
• $1500 for diesel
• $9000 for accommodation ($100/night * 90 nights)
• $4500 for food ($50/day * 90 days)
• $1000 for rail passes
• $1500 for ferries and misc. transport
• $5000 miscellaneous
• =AUD$32,500 total (for both of us)
  

Using the exchange rate that we got when we bought our Travel Credit Card from Australia (AUD$1 = €0.55), we budgeted €17,875 for 90 days of travel. In reality (refer previous post), we spent €16,362 for 106 days of travel. Granted, we were trying to be conservative in our estimates, but kudos to us for actually being conservative and not spending more that we thought we would. And yes, my arm is hurting from patting myself on the back so hard.

Additionally, I'd like to point out how close we came on some of those figures. Here's a list of how much we budgeted (first in AUD, then in Euros), and how much we spent.

• Flights: Guessed $5000 = €2750, Spent €1880
• Transportation: Guessed $6500 = €3575, Spent €3560 (!) (including car rental, parking, EU rail passes, ferries, all subways/trams/etc)
  
• Diesel: Guessed $1500 = €825, Spent €600
• Accommodation: Guessed $9000 = €4950, Spent €4965 (!)
• Food: Guessed $4500 = €2475, Spent €3070 (oops)
• Misc: Guessed $5000 = €2750, Spent €2285 (including activities, other, and stuff)

And, mind you, we were estimating for 90 days and we actually traveled for 106 days. Booya. We win!

Europe: The Low Down

Clearly the last month of complete bloggular silence has been for a good reason. Obviously I've been doing research, manipulating numbers, and deriving complex equations, in order to provide you with the data analysis promised so many months ago regarding our three and a half month trip around Europe. Remember that? When we were in Europe? I do. We worked for a full year to save for it. And now it's all gone.

From the data analyzed, I conclude that traveling is not cheap. It is, in fact, heinously expensive, even on the tightest of budgets. Not that we didn't already know this, as we do have some experience in previous budget analyses from our Great Australian Road Trip. So, I ask you, are you ready for the information, the results of the complex analysis, the low down?? Of course you are.

And this time, I'm in 3-D - booya. Beginning on July 9, 2009 and ending on October 24, we had 106 days during which we spent €16,361. Using an approximate conversion rate, that's just over US$24,000. That's US$226 per day of travel (for both of us). And since that's approximately how much I make in a day of work, travel appears to be the opposite of working in more ways than one.

But really, how much money is this above and beyond the spendings of normal life at home? For example, we spent almost €5,000 (US$7300) on accommodation over 106 days of travel. That's an average of €46 (US$68) per night (counting all 18 nights of free accommodation at Jon's house toward that average). When we lived in SLO, our monthly rent was US$1650, which comes to about $55 per night to live there. So, in all our traveling, we were still only paying an equivalent of about US$2000/month rent - not unlike a decent apartment in any big city. Granted I wouldn't say that the places we were staying could all be considered "decent", but the fact remains that we weren't spending so much more than we would have on rent living anywhere else.

Unless you count living at my mom's house, in which case we were clearly wasting our money like fools. FOOLS!

As for food, the other major expense of (and best part of) living anywhere, we did end up spending a bit more than normal while we were on the go, as opposed to stationary living. Which makes sense; there are no trips to the grocery store to save money when you're in a hotel every night. You'll be happy to know that my meticulous record keeping for the past two years has given me a good idea of how much we do spend in our daily existence. From that data, I can tell you that we spent an average of AUD$30/day on food while living in Australia, just about half of which was spent on groceries, the other half on "out" food.

Now, because the exchange rate for Australian dollars to US dollars has been on the fritz for the last two years, this converts to a very subjective amount of US dollars per day spent on food. Since the conversion is about AUD$0.92 to every American dollar at the moment, let's say that AUD$30/day is about USD$28/day.

On our trip, however, we were racking up the receipts and spent a whopping €3,067 (USD$4,500) on food in 106 days. This averages to USD$42 spent per day of travel on food items, which is almost exactly 1.5 times the documented amount of money we spend on food living our "normal" lives. And I actually don't think that's doing too badly - see how good we were? I would have thought that eating out for every single meal of the day would jack up the food bill at least two or three times normal, but apparently we are that good.

It's worth mentioning also that we made an effort to stay at places that included breakfast in their accommodation deal. This saved us time in the morning since we didn't have to forage around the city to find an acceptable morning snack, and it saved money (in my opinion) because it didn't allow for us (me) to spend some exorbitant amount of money every morning on whatever I wanted just because it was the closest place or I got too hungry or I was just being a brat.

For the 106 nights we spent in Europe, 18 of these nights were spent at Jon's house (breakfast included, yeay!) and 42 nights were stayed at hotels with breakfast included. This meant that for only 46 nights, less than half of the mornings, were we required to start the day by looking for a restaurant or cafe. So, technically, our "food" budget owes our "accommodation" budget a few bucks for the savings provided by the beauty of the bed 'n breakfast.

Side note: this was the very best included breakfast on the whole trip, three cheers for the Full English Breakfast:


Food and accommodation accounted for about half of our total spendings, and both of those can actually be reasonably justified against normal living patterns. The real killer was the transportation. It's something that we spent a whole heck of a lot of time pouring over before the trip. Train Versus Car: The Ultimate Battle. I could post a blog entry on just that, I swear. And maybe I will, since I have a lot of info on that matter, but suffice it to say for now that our rental car, parking fees, road tolls, ferry rides, tram tickets, train, metro, and subway rides accounted for a total of €3,560, or USD$5,233, worth of costs (note that this does not include flights). That accounts for 22% of our total spendings, and made it possible for the rest of the money to be spent, yeay!

Let's see about real life. In Melbourne, we spent approximately (very approximate) AUD$6 per day on transportation. We took the tram to and from work every week day, and then again sometimes on the weekend. We rented cars a few times, and we paid for some of our friends' gas and parking fees when they took us out. I'm not including vacations in this tally; this is just regular day to day working life (without owning a car). Now, owning a car in the US, I have no idea what the daily average for transportation costs would be - including the cost of the car, maintenance, gas, registration, and insurance. I'm sure it's more than $6 a day to live with a car, but I'm pretty sure it's not $50 a day like it was for us to travel.

That's right, we spent an average of USD$50 (€34) per day on transportation for 106 days of travel around Europe. Would the train have been cheaper than a rental car? Maybe. But then we wouldn't have had the flexibility of travel, and in my opinion, would have had a lot more stress (I don't mind driving, but communicating at a train station can get sticky - not everyone agrees with me). So, transportation certainly turned out to be a formidable foe.

As for the remaining 30% or so of our spendings, a third was spent on flights (€1880 / US$2760), another third on activities (€1690 / US$2480) and the remaining third split between diesel (€600 / US$890), "stuff" (€480 / US$700), and "other" (€115 / US$170).

There were actually only 4 flights total: Melbourne to Munich, Munich to Rome, Munich to New York, and New York to California, and I think they were relatively reasonably priced (and way better than a round-the-world ticket). Activities were all the touristy things we saw/did on the road. While we were always trying to be frugal, these were some of the most fun and interesting things we did on the trip. "Stuff" was used to denote anything we bought for ourselves or as a gift along the way, and mostly consisted of magnets, pharmacy items, clothes and accessories (undies, hats, sunglasses), books, and gifts for our families. "Other" was used to mostly as a catch-all for things that didn't fit into any other category - prepaid cell phone, Skype charges, pay toilets, laundry, and mostly ATM fees.

You may notice that we only spent €600 on diesel on our trip. That's US$890 for 10,700 kilometers (6,650 miles) of driving. It cost us under $900 to drive the equivalent distance of across the United States and back - you can see that our car wasn't a Ford Explorer. In my Explorer, I pay about $0.18 or so per mile driven and a 6,000 mile trip would cost about $1,100. In our little Renault Clio III, we paid approximately $0.13 per mile, and that's considering that the price of a gallon of diesel would cost about two or three times more than a gallon of gas costs here. Diesel is more efficient, and we got a good number of miles to the gallon - yeay for fuel efficient cars.


And that's it. Now you know all about how much money we don't have anymore. And the bad news is that we haven't even been replenishing the supply so far. But that's a far less exciting story for a far less enthusiastic audience. Thanks for reading all about the financial side of our trip, this entry has been really fun for me at least. Now that you're at the end, can you think of anything I missed?