Day 23 - Packing

Here's what a year's worth of supplies looks like.  Probably way too much, but trial and error is once of the best teachers.  Click on the album to see all the stuff and a cat.

2010-02-07

I'll get around to labeling the items in due time...

Day 22 - Back to Koenji in my climbing shoes

From 2010-02-06

The "night of mayhem" as I labeled in on Facebook finished up with Hisako, Cameron, Akira and me catching a cab back to Koenji, Akira planting a huge kiss on my neck as he dashed out of the cab near Koenji station (thanks Akira) and then the three amigos crashed hard at Cameron's place.  Some time around 11:30 in the morning I rolled out of couch and saw the "don't forget to get the meat out of the fridge" on my netbook from Hisako.  She took off 3 hours earlier to go to her last kimono lesson.  Where does she find the energy?!

From 2010-02-06

There was no other choice after a night of heavy drinking than to fill up on ramen.  Cameron finished up fixing some kind of end of the world emergency with work and then we sauntered out the door towards the station.  Just outside of Akira's place I gave him a call and he popped out on short notice to join us for a bowl full of noodles.  At first we thought we try out one of the four new ramen places underneath the train tracks, but the lines were long and I had an urge for Tabushi on nakadori.  The tsukemen is some of the best that I know in the area.  If you are a fan of thicker noodles and strong flavored broth then you're in for a treat with Tabushi.  Cameron also taught me that you can receive some of the broth for free after you've finished with the dipping sauce.  I've done this at soba joints before.  It was the first time for me to get the hot broth and pour it into my dipping sauce and was a great way to finish off the ramen.  Campedia wasn't finished though, he also told me about this great article in the New York Times which will give you a glimpse into ramen culture in Japan (Tokyo at least).  Needless to say, the ramen hit the spot and I highly recommend those who don't know good Japanese ramen to dive right in.  But then again, you don't have to take my word for it.

Probably the hardest goodbye came at that point when I had to part ways with Cameron and Akira.  Those two guys have been with me through a lot over the years and I want to say you guys were the best.  Going to miss you terribly.  In honor of you, here are pictures of you buying vegetables and eating ramen.  Wee!

From 2010-02-06

From 2010-02-06

It has been nearly 3 months or so since I went to the climbing wall and after finally finding a few spare moments in this hectic time I got back to B-Pump for one more climb.  It was a short one so my forearms are still strong enough to type this entry today.  At the wall I met up with a couple of my climbing buddies and swapped stories and marveled at how all of them have kept up their climbing gumption and
have gotten better.  I'm jealous.  Jealous enough that I packed my climbing shoes and plan on making it a theme for the trip where I can.  When I was back on the wall again, I realized how much I love the sport and the people that do it.  Patigonia here I come!

From 2010-02-06

The day finished up with, what else, but a bit more shopping in Harajuku as we dropped a few more yen on a few more items for the trip.  Our packing list is now complete and we'll be hitting the road before we know it.  Can't wait!

Day 21 - Party in the Juku

From 2010-02-04

Developments since my last post. Preparations are nearly there.  Have got a few loose ends to tie up, such as copying cards and important documents and telling the Japanese government that we'll no longer be residents for the coming year. Then it's finally time to go!

Yesterday we opened bank accounts at Shinsei bank because their cards are made the same day that you open the account and, more importantly, those cards are part of the Plus network.  To date, I've always had a Mizuho account, but their cash cards aren't affiliated with any networks outside of Japan, like Plus or Cirus, so we had to go looking for alternatives to make sure that we can still get money out of our bank accounts while abroad.  That said, it appears that the cash system on our credit cards will actually give us a better rate whenever we pull out cash.  Shensei charges 4% of the amount you pulled out and credit cards hover in the 3% to 3.5% range instead.  That extra 1% could really add up over the next 12 months. Any other recommendations for handling money while overseas are welcome.

From 2010-02-04

After reading a few different travel blogs, I've pretty much given up on the idea of traveler's cheques unless we are really strapped for something.  Seems like with the number of ATM's out there in the world and credit cards usable in some places, that we'll be better off just sticking to cash cards and credit cards.

On top of finally having cash cards that we can use outside of Japan, I found Shinsei a really easy bank to deal with.  Their service was quick and efficient and we opened an account with no money down. The account is also signature based rather than hanko (stamp) based like many of the other banks in Japan.  You can still choose to do the hanko style if that's your thing.  Since my signature won't be changing any time soon and I don't have any plans on forgetting it, a signature seems like the more logical choice as well.  A hanko does provide some extra security, much harder to copy a stamp than it is a signature. Only issue could be with the bank itself.  I heard from Hisako that it's on shaky ground right now. I'm not sure how shaky that ground is... I hope solid enough that it will see the year out.

Last night was a farewell party that we threw in Shinjuku and we had a great show of friends who I can't thank enough for coming out.  Billy Barew's Beer Bar turned out to be an excellent place to host the small event - not too loud, plenty of beer and enough space for everyone to mingle or sit in comfort.  Billy's offers up beers from 31 different countries, which I thought was fitting.  The beers run 800 to 1300 yen so it isn't a good deal by any means.  It was great seeing everyone and so hard saying goodbye.

From 2010-02-04

As I sit in another Starbucks typing this entry I'm reminded of the fact that Hisako and I are homeless and that idea doesn't come into my head without being accompanied by a certain level of anxiety.  Without a roof over my heads I miss being able to invite people over to hang out and just relax.  Always being outside or relying on the kindness of friends and strangers is an amazing new experience but a taxing one.  I've said it before, but I'm very blessed to be surrounded by such a great group of friends and family and leaving people behind is always the hardest part for me when changing locations.  Hisako will sometimes ask me what I miss about America and it always comes back to friends and family for me.

The party transitioned from Billy's to a nearby karaoke joint sometime around midnight. The party at Karoke 747 lasted until the wee hours of the morning and then it was time to bid farewell to the crew that came out to sing with us.  And farewell we bid them and then gave them a call right back when we found out that Hisako had left her cell phone at the karaoke bar.  What would I do with her?  The material just rights itself.  Several friends were still in the neighborhood and it wasn't long before I received a call from "hisako" on my phone signifying a succesfull rescue mission.

From 2010-02-05

To all our friends in Tokyo, please take care and thank you! We'll see you again in a year!

From 2010-02-05

From 2010-02-05

From 2010-02-05

From 2010-02-05

From 2010-02-05

From 2010-02-05

From 2010-02-05

From 2010-02-05

From 2010-02-05

And for those that made it this far... Hisako got a haircut!! (hopefully I'm allowed to say that now.)

Day 19 - Merhaba to T-Mark

From 2010-02-03

Went back to T-Mark to say hi to the gang once more and bid farewell.  Had lunch at the old Samrat on Sunroad with the starstudded Astrops.  Trinity is looking cuter each day. It was very surreal coming back into the office for a brief period of time knowing that I wasn't going to be there the next day.  As Suzanne asked me, how does it feel to come back from vacation and know that you aren't going back to work.  Still don't have a good answer for that, other than damn strange.

From 2010-02-03

From Kichijoji I went back to Shinjuku to try and do a bit more shopping.  Hisako and I met up briefly as she had just finished lunch with an old friend and was going to dinner with another set of coworkers for dinner.  We spent a few moments dawdling around an outdoors store looking for a few odds and ends.  I can't believe the number of things we've picked up at this point!  Going to lay it all out on the floor tomorrow to see where we can cut and stop buying.  It's so hard to know when to just "go".

Post juku, Cameron and I met up after I spent writing the ramblings above in a Starbucks near the station.  We headed to Asagaya to grab dinner at one of the best Turkish places I know in Tokyo.  It's a long and slender restaurant north of Asagaya station called Izmir and we had a hard time choosing amongst the many scrumptious looking dishes on the menu.  Our final answer consisted of a platter of humus, ispanak tarama, havuc tarama and then a couple of main dishes, doner kebab and manti.  All delicious and so full that I forgot about ordering dessert.  Didn't get too much advice on where to go in Turkey from the native Istanbulian other than Istanbul, but he did teach me merhaba which means "hello".  I asked him for the most convenient word to use in Turkey and I guess merhaba is it.  If you're coming to Japan, master the word "sumimasen".

From 2010-02-03

The cyborg tourist

Finished the book Vagabonding today.  Finished the book Blink last night.  Both books were excellent reads and are helping me prepare for the trip.  I didn't think Blink was going to have the kind of relevance that it did to my trip.  Vagabonding was straight up my alley with all kinds of useful advice on how to travel around the world.  The last few chapters stick it out in my mind, not because they were the last two chapters that I read (well, that might have something to do with it), but because he discusses the terminology of traveler and tourist.  After reading his definitions, I'm convinced that I've been a tourist most of my life.  The definition of a traveler versus a tourist has many facets according to Rolf Potts and the example quotations that he gives.  I liked this one by Pico Iyer, "Travelers are those who leave their assumptions at home, and [tourists are] those who don't.

I'm now half cyborg.  

My eyes are pixelated, my words digitized, and my hearing running at 128kb per second.  

Fortunately, I still have a sense of touch and smell... for how long?! Should I get all romantic and throw down these advances or embrace them and accept them as the direction that our culture is heading? In the naughties we have miniturized all the computer gadgets around us and as I get ready to go around the world, I realize that I'm lugging enough accessories (camera, computer, iPod, etc) that two people will be experiencing this trip. The first will be my flesh and blood, the good old fashioned kind of traveler.  The second will be my digitized extension.  Through the giant fabric of cloud computing and the internet my interactions in three out of the five senses will be transmitted to friends, family, and complete strangers giving us all the same communial knowledge.  Whereas the borg did this through some kind of ridgid, engineered framework, I am actively building my own through the frameworks provided by the likes of Google, Microsoft and Apple.  Is this scary or just a chance for our civilization to take a step in some completely different direction? I applaud the efforts of internet privacy groups and the like that are trying to keep all of this information from falling into the wrong hands, but we are already waaay beyond the point of personal privacy.  I look back at a conversation that I had with my dad in Hawaii on privacy and realize that things have been this way for some time.  Back in the early 80's he was with a colleague of his who was working in economics at that time. Someone how the coversation came around to housing and mortgages. It was at this time that the professor from a small liberal arts college in the midwest whipped out a chart showing the mortgages of ever single one of the houses on our street in podunk-ville Oberlin. 30 years ago an economic professor had access to this kind of private information. Now we have Google maps telling us which direction to turn, iTunes recommending which songs we should listen to, and a host of other services that are half human and half machine. 

The massive network of information allows me to scope out hostel deals in Santiago before I'm even on the ground and read about the flooding in Machu Pichu and I'm struggling to understand how I can make the most of this information and take the next step to becoming a person of the information age. It's no longer all that important for me to remember historical facts and figures because Wikipedia is going to answer what the most comfortable bed in Mongolia might be because someone's already blogged about it.  It is important to give my perspective and contribute my droplet of knowledge to the vast ocean of information as who knows how it will come in handy to someone else out there.  

Now that I've thought about it a bit more, the more relevant the writings of Rolf Potts in Vagabonding have become.  I can read all of the reviews, view all the pictures, and listen to all the podcasts that I want to, but only searching out adventure in the places that I've read about will provide anything that is meaningful to ME.  This kind of travel and adventure is for me only - in the end, although I have an amazing wife to accompany me on this journey who will be experiencing a completely different set of emotions even as we experience the same moments in time. The quotation at the beginning talked about preconceived notions that we carry with us when we travel.  The danger of all these digital senses will be to prevent them from reinforcing my presumptions as I'm on the road.  30 years ago when you set out on the road, telephones and postal mail could remind you of where you came from and the ideologies of those back home.  With Facebook, e-mail and a global roaming GSM phone, it must be a determined effort on my part to break from the ambilical cord back to my assumptions and find a way to, as Potts puts it, to "see" my surroundings.

Wow, so much philosophizing and soul searching and I haven't even hit the road yet. I guess this is partly what becoming a vagabond is all about. I'm curious as to how my digital senses are taking this all in.

Day 17 - Financial Update

Planning for the trip and taking care of taxes.  Been working on budgeting for the trip. Looked around at a number of RTW blogs and web sites and found that the general budget for a year of travel is going to run somewhere between $16,000 to $20,000 per person.  That includes just about everything - the plane tickets, gear, and day to day living expenses.  I've got our current budget working out to about $31 per day per person.  Most of the places we are going, I think that should be about accurate.  Of course, Spain, the US and other places are going to run higher than that and a few, like Peru and eastern Europe may run lower.  We'll see. Don't want to overplan of course, but certainly don't want to run short on cash while we are out there.

Going to finish up my US taxes tomorrow.

Netbookin

Shots of the Acer Aspire One netbook.



I've done a good job of fingerprinting it so far. It's a netbook, so this is common sense, but I love the light weight design (about one kilogram) and the proposed 4 hours of battery life.



It's just a 10 inch screen, but the resolution is enough to browse web pages and documents just fine. One of the reasons that I went with this model rather than many of the competitors (eePC, Sony, etc) was the more advanced multitouch capabilities of the trackpad. I'm so used to my MacBook Pro at this point, that I never want to go back to a machine that doesn't have two finger scroll. The implementation isn't nearly as sensitive or refined as the MBP, but I'll survive.



The power cable is a big improvement over the MPB, though. Lighweight and with an adjustable prong, have won me over. The prong at the end can be rotated to 0, 90, 270 degrees in relation to the transformer. Really like this feature. The MPB power adapter weighs a ton!