Taipei, Taiwan

This past weekend I went to Taipei, Taiwan with a couple of guys from work. I have been meaning to get to Taiwan for a while now, so when I heard that they were making a trip, I invited myself along. While studying abroad in Beijing, I was able to take a few months to travel throughout the Chinese mainland. I made a point of going to every province. This trip to Taiwan was along those same lines. The whole question of whether or not Taiwan is part of China is still debated (heatedly by some), but I don’t care too much for the politics of the situation. For me, it was more along the lines of getting an introduction to all places Chinese.

Taipei was very similar to any big city in China (in the year 2000, China had over 200 cities with a population of 6 million or more. The number is probably higher by now, so when I say ‘big city,’ what I really mean to say is “big city that people outside of China have heard of.”). The people dressed the same way, ate the same things, and had the same sort of buildings (bathroom tile as an exterior) and sidewalks (broken, uneven, and with the lines and bumps built in for the blind in some parts).

The trip was decent, but not all that it could have been. The reason for that is because I have been very busy with work lately. I worked about 70 hours the week before the trip and I didn’t have time to prepare for it or even to look up things to do. I think that a big part of the problem was the lack of a guidebook. There is nothing wrong with avoiding tourist traps and seeking your own adventure, but we went into Taipei without any plans at all. On the one hand, I don’t like having too many plans when I travel. I like to do the planning on the train, plan, or bus ride to the destination, arrive, and take things as they come with only a skeleton of a plan. On the other hand, not even knowing the layout of a city before you grab a free map at the airport doesn’t translate to exciting and adventurous as much as confusing and frustrating.

The lack of a plan was apparent from the very beginning. Unfortunately, at midnight, after walking around for 4 hours looking for a place to sleep and not having any success, it’s easy to begin getting annoyed. At that point, it would be nice to be able to crack open the Lonely Planet and say, “we turn left out of Shilin subway station, walk two blocks, and a street of budget hotels will be on our right.” Nope. Instead we resorted to walking one way for a while, seeing that it wasn’t yielding any results, turning at a ninety degree angle and walking that way for a while.

We did find a strange hostel at around 11:00pm, but the lady running it was less than friendly. I think it was more of a long-term place. All of the guests were dressed for bed (think sweatpants and face creams) crowded around the TV in a dingy, poorly lit room. They looked at us with a sort of disbelief. The furniture was old and the walls yellow and stained. The scene was all together depressing and eerie. The only thing I could think was, “$9 a night? Sweet.”

The lady running the place was not friendly and claimed that she had no room, even though there was a board on the wall with three empty beds listed. She wouldn’t even let us make a local call to another place to see if they had any beds, despite my offer of cash. She made one of the guests give us his calling card, which I couldn’t get to work. The younger Chinese woman working at the place asked her, in Chinese, “why not just let them use the phone?” Her answer was, “because I don’t want to.”

Despite our best efforts and polite requests for help, we were no closer to finding a place to sleep than before we arrived at the run-down hostel. As we left, I said in English, “thanks for all of your help,” then in Chinese, “don’t worry about the phone call, we’ll just keep walking.” Granted, it wasn’t at all clever, but at least she understood that I understood Chinese and what she said about not wanting to let us use the phone. In Chinese that’s called diu lian: losing face.

Eventually, after midnight, we found a place.

On Saturday we started off with a dim sum breakfast. It wasn’t exactly what dim sum should be. There were no steaming carts with bamboo baskets, no pointing, no yelling, or crazy crowds. It was ordering off the menu and a half-full restaurant. The food was decent, but what’s dim sum without the ambiance?

We went to a couple of parks and a museum early in the day. The highlight was a bed of rocks that stimulated your body through pressure points on the feet. After the walking we did the night before (in sandals for me), it was a hurts-so-good barefoot walk up the stone path. None of us made it all the way to the bell (were we supposed to ring it in celebration if we made it?), but we all agreed that our feet felt very pleasant afterwards. Whether that was because they were rejuvenated or if they were just numb is beside the point.

After that it was off to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall (closed), a former “world’s tallest building” Taipei 101, and a night market (no men’s clothes). The day ended around midnight.

Day three started with some street food for breakfast and a trip north of the city to Dian Shui. While there we walked along the boardwalk, ate some squid on a stick and took part in some carney games. In the afternoon we headed to Taipei proper once more to visit some temples. The Long Dong (Dragon East) Temple was very crowed, but nicely maintained.

After that I struck out on my own. One of the guys wanted to go to a market before heading to a baseball game. I didn’t much feel like going anywhere in particular, so I decided to just start walking and see what I could find. I saw a lot of people burning spirit money and making offerings, but the fires were soon extinguished by a torrential downpour.

I waited under an overhang for about an hour, just watching people and the water. While waiting, I saw something that I had never seen before. People with umbrellas were escorting people without them from one overhang to another. People lined up at the edge of the overhang and waited for someone with an umbrella to walk by. The person with the umbrella would give a nod, and the two people would quickly cross the street, both partially protected from the rain. After that, they each went their separate ways after a short ‘thank you’ and good-bye.

The last day was spent at the National Palace Museum. It was not what I was expecting. For some reason, I thought there would be much more. Supposedly they have 600,000 pieces on display. I didn’t keep count, but it seemed that there was a lot less than that. There were a few sections with old government documents. Yes, that is as exciting as it sounds, which is not-at-all. Other than that, it was a lot of ink dishes, plates, and bronze pots.

After the museum, we made our way to the airport and back to Japan. Our plane didn’t explode, which is always a plus. The one that did explode a few weeks ago is still on display, though. It was a friendly reminder to read the emergency exit procedures carefully.

All in all, the trip was ok, but not the best I have ever taken. It’s hard to get to know a place in a weekend. Taiwan, at least the little I saw of it, was like an expensive version of China. What I learned: a guidebook is a must if you aren’t willing to pay for cabs and expensive hotels. If you have flat feet, don’t wear sandals and shoes without support. And, perhaps most importantly, you only enjoy things as much as you tell yourself you enjoy them. I went into this trip with the wrong mindset.

Churami Aquarium and Nago Castle Ruins Park

I made it up to the aquarium on Saturday. The major highlight was definitely the worlds largest acrylic fish tank. Most of the displays were pretty boring: a shrimp in one tank, a frog in another, etc. The giant tank, however, was a different story. There were probably about a dozen types of sea creatures in there. Everything from the giant whale sharks to manta rays to schools of small fish. They even had the same tuna I caught on the Molokai sailing trip last Labor Day. I sat and stared for about an hour and a half without knowing I was there so long.


One thing I couldn't help thinking about was how the schools of fish knew to hang out with the fish that looked like them. I don't imagine that they are smart enough to know what they look like and decide to swim with the fish that they recognize as similar. Yet I didn't see one instance of fish forming multi-species schools. The tank was fairly large, but as you can see from the photos, there were a lot of fish in there. Not only that, but the fish could move an entire school, minus one or two stragglers, on a moments notice. They would all turn at the same time and move the same speed and directions. I read somewhere (I possibly read it somewhere. I rarely know where I learned the things that I say) that there was an electrical current in schools of fish. That they, in essence, could share a collective brain by all becoming receivers and transmitters of the electrical impulses. I'm not sure if that is factual or not, but one thing for sure was that they somehow always knew what the other fish would do. There was no single leader. There was no domino effect. Just a perfectly timed movement of 100 fish. It was very interesting to watch, to say the least.


My day ended with me taking the wrong Hwy 71 three times on the way home. I have no idea why, but there are three different Hwy 71s on the north part of the island. Even if one is a city road, one a county, and one a state highway, it still doesn't seem very logical. Not to me, at least. On the bright side, I got to see a lot of the countryside that I wouldn't have seen otherwise.

My Sunday was also spent in the north part of the island. Last week a guy from work that has been helping me out a ton invited me to spend a day at the castle ruins (I didn't actually see any ruins). He cautioned me, with a raised eyebrow, "I'm gonna have the kids."

The park itself was pretty amazing. It had to have easily been over 100 acres, with dozens of trails and multiple parks with playground equipment "for the kids." Yeah, right. One of the parks had the craziest equipment I have ever seen: climbing nets, zip lines, a 50m slide with built in rollers (insanely fast), log walls, and more S.W.A.T. style training obstacles. It was like a baby ninja training camp.

While at the park, I spent about 30 minutes doing the adult thing of talking with the kids' dad (about work things, no less) and eating Pocky Sticks. After that I made up an excuse about how one of the kids might have been stuck half way a giant tube made of steel and net (that actually made a loop-de-loop) and that I should go help. Forty-five minutes, two games of monster, and one pair of stained and ripped shorts later, I had been on every ride at least twice and had made three small but energetic friends.



The rest of the day entailed walking some of the hiking trails and drinking lots of lemon iced tea. Later that evening, after having dinner at their house, I was completely drained. My hats off to all parents out there. Kids, especially at the ages of 3, 5 (and a half, don't forget), and almost 8, don't ever stop moving. I don't think I could have used more energy had I ran a marathon that day. I had a blast.

In other exciting news, a China Airlines plane burst into a ball of flame on the runway at Naha International Airport, about 30 miles from here. Interestingly enough, I am supposed to take that same flight in exactly two weeks from today. I really hope they have an extra plane in reserve for us. It's times like those that I really feel guilty that I often get the exit row, but rarely read the instructions on how to use the door. Everyone made it out alive, so it seems not everyone is unable to tear themselves away from the 36" baseball bat flashlight or inflatable travel Jacuzzis in Skymall during the safety demonstration like I am.

Adminstrator Not Required

We were able to get a non-networked laptop with a clean hard drive to allow us to install programs. From there I just move the pictures to my thumb drive. We bypassed the administrator roadblock.


Yesterday evening I got out of work fairly early. The first thing I noticed after leaving the confines of my office was that the sun was shining. It had been about a week of clouds and rain (and we have another super-typhoon on the way. When will it start affecting us? Friday or Saturday, of course.). Last weekend, driving along the coast, I picked out a couple of good spots for an evening such as last night. It wasn't the most spectacular sunset ever known to man, but just having the chance to go to the beach and watch the sky and water change is always worth it.

This was taken in wide angle mode.

This was taken in macro mode. I like this picture, despite it being a little dark. I had the flash off, so that didn't help. I am generally against using the flash, but according to the manual, the camera corrects for the flash and makes everything look natural. I'm a bit skeptical.

This is another wide angle shot. I took some pictures using the stitch assist, but I can't upload them to this website. It's unfortunate, because there is one that I really like. It is a 180 degree view of the mountains, beach, sky, and water.

Here is an example of the fine dining I have been having. Ramen and eggs cooking in my coffee pot. I have recently stepped it up to angel hair pasta and sauce.

Here is what driving looked like last Saturday. It made for a good time, but this picture was taken about an hour and a half into the drive. I was so close, yet so very far away. I didn't make it much farther than this.

Too Much Water, No Fish

This past weekend the plan was to go to the Churaumi Aquarium on the north part of the island. I recently bought a camera that my parents sent to me (thanks Mom and Dad!), so I was eager to try some of the features that I convinced myself that I needed (it has an aquarium setting, after all).

The trip was doomed before it even began. We had been getting some very heavy rains late last week. When I got to my car in the morning, I found the driver's side to be filled with about three inches of standing water. Nice. When I bought the car, the seller did mention a leak; however, he didn't let on to the magnitude of it. He said that they couldn't ever figure out where it came from. After doing a thorough inspection, I found that the leak was coming from two screw holes at the base of the driver's door frame. Of course, the screws were no where to be seen. I spent about twenty minutes bailing water with the ash tray that I pulled out of the console. All this in a torrential downpour.

After working up my appetite bailing water, I headed to MaxValu supermarket (in Japanese it is pronounced ma-ka-su-va-loo) and got two trays of sashimi and one of sushi. I figured I would just make it a fish themed day, plus I had over 1000 yen in change that I was tired of looking at. Incidentally, spoken language is not necessary when you drop two handfuls of change onto a cashier's counter in a busy supermarket. In that instance, her body language was enough to make me understand that counting 10 yen coins was not a favorite hobby of that particular cashier. Feeling relieved of my burden of coins, I sat in the parking lot eating tray after tray of fish while watching the rain fall and listening to Interpol. Admittedly, it was a fairly depressing sight and it made for some inquisitive looks from the locals. At that point, I was the fish in the aquarium, and the Japanese were me (except they were the ones getting wet, and I was dry; all but me feet, at least).

As I drove to the north side of the island, the rain did not let up. In fact, it started coming down harder. It is amazing how much soil an island can give up and not appear to be any smaller. For miles and miles driving along the coast there were rivers of orange water spewing into the ocean. In some places, the orange water's path to the ocean paid no regard to the roads. After about an hour into the drive I reached my first closed road. The water was about two feet deep on the main road. I followed some locals into cramped alley's and dirt roads passing by dozens of tombs the size of small house and by-passed the closed section. This was not the last time I would do so.

I never made it to my final destination. Too many road closures and heavy rains. After every closure, I would take to the side streets and mountain roads trying to find a way around. There were many dead ends and many U-turns on winding mountain lanes. It was quite comical the way all of us would go about finding roads. I would see the same car three or four times as each of us would try a different route, find it led to a dead end, go back to the main road and try another route. It was a bit like the old movies with a person going into a door only to come out on the opposite side of the hallway two doors down. All in all, I probably had more fun driving through the floods than I would have at the aquarium.

After I finally gave up, I came up with a plan B. I went to see the Bourne Ultimatum for a second time that weekend and went to an all-you-can-eat place with a couple of friends. It was one of those places with a gas flame in the middle of the table. You order raw meat and cook it yourself. My two friends were done after an hour of eating. I was trying to explain to them that if you are going to spend 2000 yen on a meal, it is in no way an "all you want to eat" dining experience. No no. All you can eat means that you may have to push yourself beyond your comfort zone and go ahead and order up some more sirloin and kimchee even though you aren't sure you can finish it. After watching me eat for another hour and a half I think they realized two things: 1. I wasn't joking about the can part, and 2. They don't want to go to an all you can eat place with me ever again.

Pics will be on the way, I just need to figure out how to upload them. My work computer claims that I need to be an administrator to plug my camera into it. So picky.

Jammin'

After only three short weeks of waiting, I got my Amazon order in. It is music. The past day or so I have been using my TV and DVD player to listen to my new music, but it seemed like such as waste of energy, not to mention bothersome, to listen that way. I just got done ripping the music to my MP3 players, so I should be all set for listening without the 27" TV blaring that blue screen at me from across the room.

I had never heard of Feist until I was reading one of the blogs to which Jim contributes. The review of her new CD was good enough that I bought both albums mentioned in the review ("The Reminder" and "Let It Die") without ever hearing her sing. It was as good purchase (click on the review link and you just may but it, too).

And, of course, you can never go wrong with Interpol. They are one of those bands who's music makes me remember where and when I heard them. The first time I ever heard them was in college. My TA for American History 1919-1945 was playing their album "Turn On the Bright Lights" before class. The song that specifically stuck with me was NYC, which was their biggest success off that album. Their next album, "Antics," I bought just before taking a trip. It was my theme music during my Christmas 2004 visit to New York to hang out with my grade school pen-pal (yeah, I said it. ), Kate. Whenever I hear that album, I am back in New York City. This last album, "Our Love to Admire" just may become associated with Japan. Time will tell.

Other than that, not too much new (obviously, when I write about getting CDs in the mail, there isn't "too much new" and definitely not anything exciting going on). Today is the day that I, armed with my new albums, will take to my car and explore the island. These past three weeks I have fallen into a very exciting Friday night pattern which has bled into the whole weekend. I get off of work around 6:30 on Friday, eat some Ramen, get a few movies, and do laundry. Somehow I look forward to those evenings. Something about fresh clothes, junk food, and movies is appealing. Then, I generally sleep 12 hours and spend the rest of the weekend reading. Not this weekend, though. Today I go out! (I just need to get off the computer...)

"New" Car

I still don't have a camera, but now I have a car. I bought a sweet ride. It's a 1994 Toyota Carib. For anyone who isn't familiar with the models sold on Japan, it is a station wagon. A compact station wagon. I really have to fold myself to get in and out. The steering wheel doesn't adjust up or down and nine times out of ten I hit my knee on the shifter as I pack my six-and-a-half foot frame into the cozy driver's seat. I need to put my left leg in the car on the far side of the steering wheel and simultaneously drop my body and pivot right while doing a sort of sideways backing-in to the vehicle. In the end, I got a reliable car for $800, so as long as I don't end up on fire or covered in flesh eating insects, I am really in no position to complain.

Speaking of insects, the cockroaches aren't getting any better around here. The last few mornings I have sacrificed precious breakfast time trying to kill the cockroaches coming out of my clothes. This morning was especially nice. The cockroach was inside my t-shirt. When I put on my shirt, the large and smooth bug climbed up my back, across my neck, and started it's way down my arm before I was able to swat it. For anyone who isn't familiar with cockroaches (I have never seen any in Wisconsin, so maybe some of you haven't seen any there either?), let me enlighten you: those things are tough. Even though I smacked it, the only damage it sustained was a broken wing. It fell onto my bed and made it's way into the covers. Perhaps there is something to be said for making your bed in the morning, which is something I don't do. There would be fewer places for roaches to hide, at least. Of course, you don't want to smash a cockroach in the place that you sleep, so I spent ten minutes trying to rid my bed of the intruder. I am convinced that that cockroach was a magician. It just plain disappeared. Somehow even after shaking out every sheet, blanket, pillow case, and comforter, I couldn't flush him out. In the end, my room still has too many cockroaches and they probably mock me when I'm not there. I haven't had success in killing any of them. Seemingly old age is the only thing that kills them. I will have to wait them out.

In other news, now that I have a car, I am able to get around. Last weekend I met up with some old friends from college. I hadn't seen them in four years. It's crazy how quickly the time goes by. I was also able to make it to the northern part of the island. Okinawa is a beautiful place. Unfortunately, there are huge power lines ruining almost every view, but I think I can look past/through/around that. I didn't get to do anything outdoors, but we drove around lost for a while and ended up at a nice, small restaurant. The menu was in Japanese and they had pictures of a lot of the food. One thing I learned this week was that having a menu in English isn't really a benefit for me. Danny and I went to a restaurant Sunday night and I had no characters to reference anything off of. I just pointed to a random dish that started with an 'M'. It ended up being slightly hairy pig feet. There was no meat, just skin, fat, and bone. It reminded me of my first meal in Hong Kong. Sheng ordered a "beef" dish for me. It was beef alright: beef intestine, stomach, and other ingredients that are best eaten when disguised in the form of a hot dog.

This coming weekend I am signed up for some softball. I don't have a glove, but I will make do. Even though I'm not a huge fan of diving, I think I will schedule a dive soon. Everyone tells me that Okinawa has the best scuba diving in the world. There are some underwater ruins around here somewhere that should be interesting.

Hopefully my (different) camera arrives soon. The one I originally ordered was on back order, so I canceled the shipment. I changed to a Canon SD800 IS. It still has the two must haves: wide angle lens (28mm) and image stabilization. I traded the 280mm zoom in the Panasonic for supposed better image quality. Hopefully I made the right choice.

After the Typhoon

I didn't get any pictures of the typhoon because I still don't have a camera. The storm was a pretty awesome display of power on behalf of Mother Nature, though. The winds were blowing at 110mph and the eye of the storm was only 4 miles away. The speed with which the sheets of rain blew across the fields and parking lots was almost hypnotizing. When I stared long enough (it's easy to do when you have nothing but time), my mind would make images of giant ghosts running down and enveloping buildings and trees. At times the rain was so thick you couldn't see 100m in front of you. The parking lot in front of our building would flood, with some of the water coming into the first floor of the building (I'm on the 2d floor). When the rain retreated, so did the water. The whole process happened two or three times. As far as I could tell, there was no real damage from the storm besides some downed trees and signs. Like I mentioned in the last post, the buildings here are designed to withstand the frequent storms.

Overall, the typhoon was a really good time. The whole ordeal was a lot like the time we had the big earthquake in Hawaii. Something I took away from being forced to stay inside is how rare it is to have a day of doing absolutely nothing. There were no appointments or deadlines from anyone. Even if there were, we wouldn't know about them because we had no communications and couldn't leave the building. With the power out, we had no computers, video games, TV, movies, or other distractions. We couldn't go outside and all we had to entertain ourselves were books, a deck of cards, a homemade chess set, and... get this: talking.

There is something to be said for being constantly connected to the outside world, but there is even more to be said for the isolation from the world at large that we so rarely get to experience. Danny is my roommate from Hawaii, but he has been living in Japan for the past 9 months. I hadn't talked to him in quite some time. It was good to be able to catch up.

Playing chess was also fun. The last time I played was in Physics class in high school with Mike (made famous in thehalblog). Neither Danny nor I remembered if the Rooks (aka castles) or Bishops were on the outside of the board, so we just switched their position every game. We also focused on horseys making the L. Yeah, we're that good.

In the end, the storm passed and it has been raining every day since. To be honest, I preferred the storm to the constant rain. At least we didn't have to go to work.

I did purchase a camera as well. I went with the Panasonic DMC TZ3K. The two "must haves" for the purchase were 1. wide angle lens, and 2. image stabilization. This one had both, plus a lot of other cool features. I have no idea how long it will take for it to reach me here in Japan, but I ordered it yesterday (the price dropped $50 today for some reason. Maybe because I bought mine yesterday.). Hopefully I will be posting pictures of Japan soon.

Konnichi Wa

Still no new camera.

Japan has been ok so far. I haven't really had much of a chance to go out and do anything. The weather here is unbelievably hot. The humidity is enough that I have a dehumidifier in my room with a 1.5 gallon tank and I have to empty it twice a day. My room isn't even that big and I have central air conditioning taking out some of the moisture already.

My roommate from Hawaii picked my up at the airport on Saturday. As we were driving back there was a strange explosion/thud in the van, followed by a lot of lights on the instrument panel lighting up. We pressed on, hoping we could make it home before the van died, but we only made it another ten minutes before the van gave up on itself. The headlights got very dim and eventually went out. We pulled over on an exit ramp and called a tow truck. After about two hours of waiting the tow truck showed up and took the vehicle away. Sayonara, van. It was nice knowing you, even if it was only for an incomplete drive.

I was looking forward to getting out and about this weekend, but there is a typhoon coming our way. It is expected to hit on Friday and last for three days. Talk about a ruined weekend. Hopefully I will have a camera by then so that I can get some sweet pictures. Rumor has it that the people here in Japan build their structures to withstand the frequent storms. The people of Florida should take note. I'm sure it would save a lot on insurance costs, even if the buildings aren't quite as visually appealing.

One really nice thing about Japan is that their "kanji" (system of writing, taken from the Chinese) is mostly readable to me. Even if I don't understand what people are saying, I can understand the signs and it is much easier for me to find my way around due to the Chinese. My education is no longer going to waste! I am actually pretty excited to brush up on my Chinese and maybe take some Japanese classes. About an hour ago I bumped into an old classmate and he was saying that some guys are planning on taking a trip to Taiwan over the Labor Day holiday. I promptly invited myself along and shamelessly threw my Chinese experience on the table. I'm in.

Go to Japan

It was good to make it back to Wisconsin. I saw my family for the first time in over a year, I met up with a lot of old friends, I relaxed and actually read a book, and I bought a condo in Madison. The only stressful part of the trip was that I didn't end up finding a renter for the condo before I left, despite my efforts. My parents were good enough to help me out with that and shortly after I left they got someone to sign on the dotted line (thanks Mom and Dad!), so I have a tenant for the next year and am officially a landlord.

(Me, lording over my land.)

(Miller Park)
(What relaxing/reading looked like for a few days)

(Eating raspberries and mulberries.)

Soon I will leave beautiful Hawaii for Japan. I am glad that I got a chance to go home first and I am also glad that I had some time back in Hawaii before my departure. Yesterday, for the 4th of July, we made one last trip out to the Sand Bar. The weather was a bit cloudy, but it was a good time despite that. No more sailing trips for me for a while. I did leave my boat with some friends, though, so hopefully I still get to hear all of the sailing stories.

I will do my best to continue to update the blog, although titling it "Come to Hawaii" may have been a bit short-sighted. Ah, well.

I am looking forward to my time in Japan. First things first, I need to start looking for a new camera. Originally I was planning on getting a Nikon, but they have very slow processors. I think I may go with a Canon instead. Does anyone have an opinions on cameras? I won't get a Kodak or Casio seeing as both of those brands were bad for me (the Casio broke in less than two months and they didn't even attempt to pretend to honor their warranty). Right now I am leaning towards Canon or Nikon. Maybe Olympus... I like the waterproof option.

At any rate, I should be back to Hawaii before Christmas. Until then, this will be less about sailing and more about... Asia.

(Wisconsin sunset.)

Come to Wisconsin

I have been back in Wisconsin since Tuesday morning. It has been fairly slow going these past few days, which is nice. Besides being home to see family and friends, I am closing on a condo in Madison, so that has been taking up some of my time as well.

While Wisconsin is no Hawaii, it is a nice place in its own right. I have been riding (and crashing… more on that in a bit) my brother’s motorcycle for the past few days. I have been trying to take the country roads as much as possible (the bumpy, uneven, and narrow-shouldered roads). Wisconsin is a beautiful and still fairly unpopulated place. The majority of the land around here is varied shades of green. The skies are blue and the clouds white. While it may not have the beaches and ocean, spending an afternoon walking around alone through the fields and woods, eating your fill of mulberries and raspberries, is just as pleasant.

The unfortunate excitement is that I crashed my brother’s motorcycle. This is less than ideal for a few reasons:

1. It’s not my bike. It’s one thing to ruin your own things, but it is especially bad when you borrow something and can’t return it in the same condition. On the somewhat bright side (in a weird way), my brother got his leg crushed by a semi-truck a couple of months ago so he wouldn’t be able to ride it too much anyway. Like I said, that’s not exactly good news, but at least I am not single-handedly killing his summer riding season.

2. It will cost a lot. The only big mechanical problem that I can see is the smashed radiator. I have to figure out how to get it to Madison and get some estimates on how much it will cost to fix. The radiator should only be a few hundred; however, all of the cracks and scratches on the body of the motorcycle are costly. I’m guessing this will be around $2000 for everything. So much for buying that dishwasher for the condo.

3. It’s the least important, and a bit selfish, but now I don’t have a ride for the next week. I think I may have to rent a car. Hopefully I don’t crash that, but if I did, at least the rental insurance would cover that cost.

On the bright side, I am not hurt. I got a couple of scratches on my legs from when I got tossed over the handle bars, but I did a nice front flip and landed on my helmet and riding jacket and safely slid into some shrubs. Luckily, I was wearing full riding gear: helmet, padded motorcycle jacket, leather gloves, long pants, and leather shoes. I may not have fared so well without that. The reason for the crash can be attributed to a multitude of factors. The first being driver error. I was on the very far right side of the road, staring at my surroundings. I was going too fast for that corner, although I wasn't really going all that fast (40mph?). The road was bumpy, uneven, and had some grass clippings on it. The bike's tires were bald and it is not a bike that I am accustomed to. All of these things added up to my having a bad day.

Something really interesting is how clear everything was heading into the crash. As soon as I lost control it was like I had hyper-clarity on what was going to happen and how I needed to react. When I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to recover in time to avoid crashing into the ditch, I slammed on the brakes until I started to slide, then I let off the brakes and steered into the ditch. When the bike dumped over and threw me, I tucked my chin and put my hands at my side at a forty-five degree angle. I did a front flip over the bike, spotted my landing, landed, slid, stood up, and was on my merry way. I scraped my shin, have a small gash on my ankle, and dirty clothes. The worst part of it all is how much it is going to cost to fix the bike. In the end, I am still alive and well, so I can’t complain too much.

Obviously, I wish none of this happened. Since I can’t change that, I have to accept it and deal with the consequences. I am glad it is only bad for the bike, and not my body. After all, it’s just money.

The Big Island Explained

We decided to go to the Big Island one evening over drinks at Jenna and Dani's place. We were talking about how we weren't taking advantage of the fact that we were at a time in our lives when we really didn't have any big commitments and that we live so close to so many cool things. We came to a group decision that we had all gone too long in our lives without seeing lava. We decided that it was high time to visit the Big Island.

We rented our mini-van (6 people... it made sense at the time), bought our tickets, and booked our hotel. That was all the planning we needed. We all got on the plane Saturday morning without any idea of what we would really do or where we would go. In fact, when we got to the airport, we didn't even know the exact time of our flight or the name of our hotel. In Hawaii, that's what we call "havin' the aloha spirit."

We got to Hilo, picked up the van and made our way to the hotel. I'm not very picky when it comes to living conditions (ask me the story about the "hotel" in China where they were "remodeling" the bathroom... aka no running water, just a big barrel against the wall, and piles of human waste covering the floor of what used to be the bathroom; a clean path to the water source made only by walking across bricks set on the piles of feces. Separately, the time in Cambodia when Sheng and I got more-or-less robbed by a driver who told us he would show us his gun if we didn't pay him even more money than we already did for a ride he ended up not giving us. We slept in a "guesthouse" in the middle of no where which was actually a barn with cardboard walls set up to block your view of the family. Safety first.)

I digress... Where was I? Ah, yes, Uncle Billy's Hotel. I'm not sure why I had such a low opinion of the place. Part of it was the excessive amount of urine in the elevator (still wet!). Part of it was the fact that I spent $24 on internet connections, printing, and faxing of documents (I might buy a condo!) only to have the receiving end tell me that they couldn't use them because they were too dark. (I still paid for it all, though!) Or my problem with the place could have been the cracked tile, running toilet, no parking lot, and smokey rooms. Who's to say what it was. All I know is that I wasn't digging it. The only reason I feel I can complain here is because it was $120/night and not $1.20 like in Asia. That was the point of these past two paragraphs. Back on topic.

We were very excited to see a Wal-Mart in Hilo. I'm not sure why, but Wal-Mart has such a strong attraction. In Hawaii, it's like an oasis of affordable everything. Milk is only $4/gallon, not $8. Parking is plentiful and the selection seemingly unlimited. We ended up buying a bunch of drinks and snacks there and went to Volcanoes National Park. Once we got there we say the steam vents, the lava tube, the old lava flows, blah, blah, blah. We all knew that we were there for one thing and one thing only: See the lava.

We started the hike at 5:15pm. It was much further than we expected, but we were surprisingly well prepared. We all had tennis shoes and enough water between us to hike there and back (or for two of us to stay overnight, but Dan and I got overruled). We shuffled along with the excited crowd and happily watched everyone thin out as the miles added up. Some people out there were pretty crazy. A Swedish couple actually passed us wearing swimwear and 'slippahs' (flip-flops). On the way home, about 6 hours later, we saw some 100 year old Japanese tourists shuffling by 4" at a time. I'm not sure they made it to the actual flows. To be honest, I'm not even sure how they overcame the smallest incline.

We reached the lava just as the last bit of sun drained from the sky. It was perfect; the glowing orange/red guided our last few hundred feet. From there we broke out the marshmallows and roasted away. You would think that lava would be unbearably hot, but it really wasn't. It was like being next to a big camp fire. You could even stir it with a stick (it was like putting a stick into dry wall mud or wet clay). I also learned, just today, that it is really rude to poke lava with a stick. Apparently the fire god Pele takes offense to things like that. In our defense, we didn't know any better and we poked only out of respect and admiration. We did know that we weren't supposed to take any lava rock, and we respected that rule, so hopefully bad luck doesn't follow us for our indiscretions.

After that section, we went on a bit further (which took a lot of coaxing) to where the lava was actually flowing into the ocean. We couldn't see too much, but what we could see was impressive: liquid rock hitting water, making an explosion of rock and steam. Of course, we ended up standing exactly where we weren't supposed to in order to get a good look. I think the reward may have been worth the risk. We saw the earth spewing it's fiery guts into an angry ocean, violently expanding itself into the unwilling sea.

The walk home was long. The hardened lava has a reflective, silvery tint to it. We were able to use the light from the moon shining off of that to guide our way home. No flashlights needed. It was a surreal, dream like experience. We were all tired and hungry, it was nearly midnight, and we were walking across a completely barren landscape which was glowing, yet dark at the same time.

We made it back to Hilo at 12:01am. Why is the time important? Everything closed at midnight. The only saving grace: Ken's Diner. Open 24/7. We all had some pancakes, lots of water, and were ready to pass out before we laid our heads down on our smokey pillows.

The rest of the weekend was pretty fun, but not as fun as the volcano. Other highlights include: breathing the worlds cleanest air off of Kapoho Kumakahi point, playing barefoot in a giant banyan tree, relaxing in lava tube heated pools (almost one-hundred degrees), Akaka Falls, demolishing a Sumo Burger at Ken's, and having two drinks and promptly falling asleep at 11:00pm on our crazy night out Sunday evening.

Next destination: Kauai.

Playing with Fire (Real Live Lava!)

I will write a bit later, but I just wanted to post some pictures from the lava flows on the Big Island. Five of us from work went over Memorial Day weekend and it was a good time. Lava is so cool. Marshmallows roasted over molten rock are way more delicious than the ones cooked over burning wood.



In case you are curious, the answer is, "yes, I am redirecting the flow of lava with a stick we carried 6 miles across a volcano floor just to roast marshmallows." Lava is awesome. End of story.

Mainland

I spent the past three weeks on the West and East coasts of the US Mainland. I love Hawaii and wouldn't trade my time here for the world, but sometimes it is nice to get away, especially when the get-away includes a week of learning how to live in the woods with nothing more than a poncho and knife.

Despite my love of the woods, I have never had the opportunity to actually learn how to "survive" in them. My time always included more than enough supplies to get me through. This time around I was out there for 6 days and didn't bring any food. The only thing given to us was a rabbit, which we had to split between 10 people. Happily I was not the one to kill and clean it, but I have killed a fish, so I don't think I would have been completely incapable. The nutrients I got, besides the rabbit broth (they ran out of meat before they got to me) came from the plants around me: raw acorns for protein (luckily my stomach is pretty strong- the tannic acid can pose problems for some people), Sugar Bush for vitamins (although just thinking about it causes me to gag. That was the worst tasting plant I have ever eaten.), and cactus when I was bored (the pricklies make it too much work for the return). In the end I didn't come out much worse for wear and I had a great time. Hopefully I can demonstrate some skills the next time we go to Lake Superior.

On a side note, I will admit without shame, that as soon as I got home I went to McDonalds for the first time in years. I destroyed the dollar menu. Even now I get a little emotional when I think of how happy those McChicken sandwiches made me.

After my time living outside, I met up with some old friends from college, Ross and Erin. I rowed with Ross (we were often in the same boat and he was my navigator on many many road trips; however, our roles were reversed in the picture below. Interesting, sort of.) and Erin played on the volleyball team. Erin is now playing professionally. On Saturday, Ross and I spent the day at the beach watching Erin and Paige win a local tournament. You can't argue with a day at the beach, especially when the people you at the beach to cheer on end up winning the tournament. It was great catching up with those guys. We even planned a whitewater rafting trip in Colorado in June. Hopefully we can make everything come together for that.

On the down side, about halfway through the day on the beach, I started shivering and got really tired. I came down with some sickness and a week later I am just starting to get over it. Not eating for six days could have been a contributing factor.

After that I made my way to Baltimore for some meetings. The meetings were actually pretty productive and there was very little PowerPoint. In the weakened condition I was in, I think PowerPoint may have killed me, so hooray for speaking directly face-to-face. While there I was able to spend some time in downtown Baltimore. Overall, the city is a bit old and tattered, but in a good way. If I ever move out to the DC area, I could definitely see myself living in Baltimore (I would never live in DC). I guess the old cliche about a rough place having "character" applies to Baltimore. There were some spots where I felt I could be jumped at any second, but I got over it.

At any rate, I am back in beautiful Hawaii and good news abounds. My friend Derek, who fell into the coma two months ago, began speaking again. Before he left Hawaii, the doctors gave a very grim outlook. His family has been at his side this whole time and has been so positive. It has been so amazing to see their strength throughout this whole ordeal. I will be able to make my way out there in June and can't wait to talk with Derek and see the progress!

No Work on Monday

This is what the Sand Bar looks like when you take a Monday off of work and it isn't a public holiday. I know I've said it before, but it bears repeating: I love Hawaii.

Kokua Festival

Today I went to the Kokua Festival with my temporary roommate, Henry. The concert is put on by Jack Johnson in support of conservation and being green. Ironically, they made me dump out my Nalgene bottle of water before letting me in. Apparently being able to charge me $3 for a bottle of water is more important than not generating plastic waste. Not to mention all of the plastic cups used for beer, the paper plates used for all of the food... basically it was a concert about Reducing, Reusing, and Recycling, but it looked just like any other concert when it came to concessions. The only difference was that they had recycling bags all over the place to make you feel better about it. I have a sneaking suspicion that they just threw that all away as well. There were three openings in order to sort your stuff on each container, but only one bag in the bottom. It was a bit suspect.

The show itself was amazing. I mean, the lead singer of Pearl Jam, Eddie Vedder, was there along with some other good artists and Jack Johnson himself. How could you go wrong? They all sounded great and performed well. It was a great evening. The whole scene was very Hawaii. The beautiful weather, palm trees swaying in the light breeze, and the stars shining. The music, as I said, was beautiful, and the sound itself was perfect. I usually don't like concerts because they are so loud that my ears want to bleed. At this concert, you could actually hold a conversation with the person next to you. The music was very crisp and near-sounding, but not loud. Perfect.

Tomorrow we have off work, so it will be another day on the Sand Bar. This life Hawaiian.

Over a Month

It has been quite a while since I have last written.

Since my last post, a close friend of mine, Derek (refer to any of my posts where I get injured... he was always there with me), has fallen into a coma. It came to such a shock to everyone. When it first happened, I thought that it would last a few days and he would snap out of it. It has been a month and progress has been very slow. He is currently in California, nearer to his family and his wife, Nicola.

Today we cleaned out his apartment. Since Nicola said she didn't want it shipped to California, and because it is so much fun, I took Derek's inflatable kayak. He and I had planned so many times to kayak out to Monkey Island, just on the ocean side of the Sand Bar in Kaneohe Bay. On Monday I hope to finally get out there to see what we have been missing. The actual island is a bird sanctuary, so we can't walk around, but I hope to at least take a lap in the kayak.

I have been doing a lot of sailing these last few weekends and some friends stayed with me this past week. I will write more on that tomorrow.

Magnum PI & Da Big Island

The Friday before last I was at a Magnum PI themed birthday party. It was a really good time. People turned 30, we drank some home brew, and dressed up like we were rockin' the 80s. When I found out about the party my only answer was, "I'm in: all in."

Note the mullet, painted mustache, pink shirt (tucked in, buttons half-way down), tight pants, and a brown belt. After a couple of home brews, Tara called me from Colorado and told me that I should visit her on the Big Island the following weekend. Great idea! She was my first roommate out here and we had a lot of fun.







This past weekend I flew to the Big Island to hang out with Tara and some of her family (Ohana to us Hawaiians) and old friends from work. We had some good times. We stayed in Kona the whole time. It just so happened to be Kona Brewing Company's Beer Festival that Saturday. The tickets were sold out, but we took the tour instead. Free mini beers. Can't go wrong.

It turns out that the Big Island has a huge Crytsal Meth problem. Add that to the beer festival, and you will have some issues. We actually go attacked by a skinhead girl named Beau. She was crazy. And hateful.

All in all it was a good weekend. Nothing too crazy happened (no blood from the ice-head), but there was a lot of eating, talking, and just bumming around. Sometimes, that's all a weekend should be.

By the way, the picture below is of my old roommate Tara and the 5 year old son of one of her friends. His name was Brennan and he loved turtles. Despite our efforts, we were not able to locate any turtles. We did find some geckos though. Those are fun as well.

Before They Are Gone

This is an example of three completely unrelated events being a "coincidence" because my brain skipped around a bit in the last few minutes.

Event 1: A few weeks ago I rode my motorcycle to a party on a beach front property on the North Shore.
Event 2: I have been thinking about buying waterfront property.
Event 3: "An Inconvenient Truth" won the Oscar for the best documentary today.

Here's how they are all related: I have been thinking about buying some waterfront property lately, especially after the great party on the beach a few weekends ago, and the fact that Mike's family cabin on Lake Superior is one of the greatest places I know.

I rode my motorcycle (the red one) to that party because I had been having some problems, but I made the decision to spend $800 to fix it rather than call it a lost cause. It still isn't fixed properly. The idling varies between 2 to 4 times faster than in the past. At any rate, I'm thinking that I may sell my motorcycle before I leave for Australia in June, so I want to use it as much as possible. However, it is the rainy season and I rarely ride anymore.

It may or may not be true, but after seeing "An Inconvenient Truth," I believe that water levels will rise and possibly inundate any waterfront property that I may buy, which would make it a big waste of money (not to mention all of the environmental issues, et cetera). Perhaps I should buy something a few meters above the current water level and just wait for it to become waterfront property. It would be cheaper...

Back on the Water

Today was a good day. I finally made it back on the water. I went to the Sand Bar (should that be capitalized? It's a place name, but also very general... Where are the English teachers out there? Mrs. Halberg?) with some family friends. A guy I rowed with in college used to live in Hawaii and his older brother is still out here. His dad has been out here visiting for the past week and a half and we were able to take out a still bruised, but functional, Madeline & Nine today. He told me that the last time he was sailing was when he was helping a friend sail a boat from through the Mediterranean from Greece to Turkey. They arrived to port on September 11th, 2001 and weren't allowed to leave for over a week. There were no major mishaps today except for the boom episode (next paragraph) and a near miss (definitely less than a foot) on a reef.

As for the condition of Madeline, she took a fair beating in the wind storm we had a few weeks ago. I kept forgetting to bring my camera during the storm, so I can't really prove it, but you'll just have to trust me when I say that the waves were over 4' at times and the winds howled up to 72 mph, averaging about 40 mph, for almost a full week, day and night. There was some damage all around. Note the concrete and wood dock in the picture. The entire marina looked like that. The above picture was taken after three weeks of ongoing repairs. The day after the storm subsided, it looked like a demolition crew had been through there.

I thought that I had fixed, or at least covered, the problems with my boat yesterday. I spent 9 hours fixing her, but as we were sailing back today, the boom (the long bar where the base (aka the foot) of the main sail slides into) fell off. That was just one of many injuries. I'm not sure if I already wrote about it, but the storm caused my tiller to break off, but not before it rubbed through about a quarter inch of fiberglass in all directions. The wind raised my front hatch from it's base and tore off the arm holding it in place, then snapped the frame and plexiglass into two pieces. It even caused half of the metal surface on one of the hinges to come off, somehow. Luckily the hatch was still attached by a screw when I went out to replace the mooring lines half-way through the storm. My chaffing gear in the front actually chaffed a hole through the fiberglass. Three of my mast stays came off, with one of them starting to fray (nothing a little duct tape won't hide). Everything on the inside made it's way to the floor and the six inches of standing water. Note the broken handle on my grill from when it fell to the floor. Also note the sweet U-bolts now holding it firmly in place (never-mind the peeling walls in the background. They are supposed to look like that, I swear.). No more flaming cheddar-wursts flying through the cabin. Bonus.

All in all, I'm glad to have a more-or-less functional boat again. The weekend was spent entirely on the boat, but it was not wasted. Fixing things is pretty fun, especially when you don't make it worse than when you started, which is what I usually do. Now that she is in 'ship shape' (but not really), I would really like to get back out in the ocean. Mike and Sheila, I hope Claire likes the water.

Lastly, on a completely separate note, you really need to see the picture from our last viewing of Arrested Development a week ago. All in all, it is probably the worst picture I have ever seen. That in itself makes it awesome.

Xin Nian Kuai Le?

"Happy New Year" is the title of this post; however, there wasn't really anything going on in Chinatown today. I was a bit disappointed. I was expecting to see the dragon rolling up and down the streets with fireworks, drums, and gongs. Nothing. It was a ghost town. So much for that idea. Maybe the big celebration won't start until this evening.

At any rate, we did get some dim sum, which is always good. And the restaurant FINALLY started making my favorite Chinese desert, dan ta, which is an egg custard in a flaky crust. As Derek described it, it's like flan inside of baklava, only less sweet.

Another fun part was that Dani came with us. She had never eaten dim sum before, so we had fun explaining all of the different dishes and how to order. For anyone who has never had dim sum, I would say that the best part is the wide variety of dishes. People just walk around with carts full of different foods. Some are steamed, some are pastries, some are roasted meats, many are wrapped in noodles or breads. All you have to do is point to what you want, they put it on your table, and they put a tic mark on your bill. All dishes cost the same, or different colored plates represent different prices. It keeps things simple.

In the end, our day of celebration consisted of dim sum in Chinatown and about an hour of walking around. The Year of the Boar did not start of so exciting. Fittingly, we did eat quite a bit though.

Check it out! Former Chinese President Jiang Ze Min got his green card! It must have been after his term ended in 2003.