Japan video

Forgive the poor quality, it looks really great on the computer, then you upload it and they transform it into shit.

And now something from out of left field...

My second magazine photo op! This time all the way from Namazu Japan!

And now for something completely different...

Yes, this is Noe Rae Bong. Yes, that is toilet paper wrapped around my waist.
Yes, it is fun!

Tokyo, Japan July 30-August 3

We arrived early enough in the day in Tokyo to hunt down our hostel in Ueno. This place was amusing, you had to step over the first single bed to get to the next one, that was how small the room was. so we made a point to not spend any time there at all. We went to Ropponggi Hills to look at a few of the art galleries that were in the area. The first stop was the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Institute. There was an exhibit of European still-life paintings, an amazing style of painting that often involved metaphor and symbolic imagery of death. The second stop was the Fujifilm building, which housed a small museum with amazing stereoscopic images, both old and new, as well as several galleries. Most of the photography wasn't very remarkable, however there was a black and white exhibit that struck me as very intimate and exposing of candid Japanese culture. So I purchased a book with all the photographs in it, I'll bring bit back to Canada and show you guys, have no fear. After that we wandered back to Ueno Park to see what it would be like, as we were bringing the family in there in a couple days, and since we were so close, we decided to have a glance. It was definitely nice, and we visited another gallery in a free gallery. It was cool to see some contemporary Japanese art, but I wish we could've seen more.

Early the next day we worked our way to Asakusa to find our Ryokan and check in early enough so that I could go to the airport and pick up Mom, Dad, and Kristen, and bring them straight to the bed, as they would be coming off a 9 hour flight and over 20 hours of traveling. I took the Skyliner train to the airport to meet their arrival. They were in good shape though, a little excited to be there, yet a little overwhelmed in the process of getting back to the hotel, a process involving negotiating trains, subway stations, and crowded sidewalks with luggage.

Many of the places we would visit in the next few days we had been to at least once already, such as Shibuya, Harajuku, Ueno Park, Ropponggi Hills, with the exception of the Asakusa shrine called Senso-ji, as well as a park in central Tokyo that used to be the Tokyo palace. So here I enclose some photos from those days. Mom wrote down a lot of information about the places and took lots of pics.

These pics are from Senso-ji:

At Ropponggi Hills, we went to the top of Mori tower to see the view and look at a strange aquarium show:

In Ueno Park, we saw several temples and interesting shrines. The zoo was notable as well, though not as impressive as the Seoul Zoo in size, the selection of animals was very diverse:

And finally, the Tokyo Imperial Palace in central Tokyo, it had one of the most beautiful gardens I have ever seen in my life.


Soon after we hopped on a plane back to Seoul and then Taebaek. More to come...

July 26-30, Mishima, Fujisan, Hakone, Numazu

As early as we could muster on saturday morning we worked our way to the Shinakansen (bullet train) station. However due to some miscommunication over which tickets we needed in order to board the train, and some rather unsuccessful arguing, we forked out around 30000yen ($300) for both of us to take the three hour train ride. But three hours and several hundred kilometres later, we arrived, still anxiously awaiting our first glimpse of the mountain we hoped to conquer the next day. However, the haze was in the air due to humidity and intense heat, so the enigmatic mountain was nowhere to be seen. Jon and Yuzu picked us up from the train station, prepared to feed and house us for the upcoming several days. Jon and Yuzu were fellow alumni from the vis.arts program at the UofR, and we had all spent many occasions back in the good ol' days having good times and chatting about art. Jon and Yuzu have been together for many years, and they were living with Yuzu's parents. We pulled up in front of a beautiful yellow house, and not even an hour later, we were being dressed up in Yukata to go to the summer festival in Numazu. We hopped on a bus and headed out to Numazu to meet up with some of Jon and Yuzu's friends. Numazu was packed with people, though not as many as the night before in Osaka, so it was a nice comfortable level. Even though we were dressed in what we felt to be as little as a bathrobe, it was still hot, but the air was filled with smells not too distant with the local fair in Canada, just with more octopus. Loud drums and a parade created the atmosphere of intense celebration. I dabbled in some octopus balls (delicious pastry/octopus/i-don't-know-what snacks) which are a delicacy usually limited to festivals. We enjoyed the fireworks for a little while, but soon headed back to Mishima to prepare for our climb to Fuji, as we were planning on leaving at 3:30am in order to be hiking by 5:30, as Fuji is a long hike, and we hoped to miss the cold and dangerous nightfall.


3:30am comes round. We rouse our selves from bed and grudgingly pack up the Jeep and head on our way to climb the mountain. Little was I to know how much I would be suffering by midday. Fuji is a mountain that is 3775m (12.366 feet), a height which takes well over fifteen minutes of ascending in an airplane to reach. We drove up to around 2400m as a starting point, and even at that height, you can look downwards on most of the clouds. It was a good day for climbing, sunny and cloudy, a beautiful temperature compared to the intense heat we'd been experience in the previous week. The first 500m went by very quickly, taking around 4 hours reach the various reststops along the way. Fuji is an active volcano, and the most recent eruption, though well over a hundred years ago, was still apparent on the sides, a desolate landscape with the odd strange looking yellow flower here and there that grew in amongst the lava rocks that was our path up. The clouds were stunning, we watched them form and smash into the side of the mountain, causing the temperature to drop 10 degrees in just a few seconds. However, around 3100m or so, I started feeling kinda funny. My pack went from 50lbs to 500, in a very short distance i was so exhausted that I was starting to feel very dizzy. I thought, I just have to sit down, I'll be fine. To no avail, instead of feeling better, I started feeling worse, MUCH worse. My head started to hurt and nausea was creeping over me like a dark shadow. At this moment I had the panicky thoughts of, Omigod, I'm easily four hours from medical help, shy of a helicopter rescue, which is not something I'd like to experience from the receiving end. It is absolutely terrifying to be sick on the side of a mountain with no idea what's wrong and what to do about it. So at 3200m, we turned back. I felt really bad, as I was the only one in the group to be struck with this strange illness. After another hour of hiking downwards, with many impromptu rest stops (volcanic rock is not comfortable to lay down on), I was feeling worse and worse. A hiker ahead of me who was on her way down was vomiting, and I was glad I hadn't progressed that far. A Canadian couple who was returning from the top saw me suffering and asked if I was okay. A short discussion concluded that I had altitude sickness, and that I should try some of their canned oxygen. I felt better right away, not cured, but better. I find it a nice comforting thought that the Good Samaritans that stopped to help us were Canadians, and I'm not surprised. Eventually we found a reststop that sold oxygen (at over $15/can) and I sat down for a therapeutic fifteen minutes, feeling no trace of the sickness that I had felt for the previous two hours. But we were already too far down to go back up, as it would have been another nearly 2-3 hours from the point where we'd turned back to reach the top. So our battle with Fuji was over, and I got my ass kicked. Next time, I guess.

Needless to say, we slept well that night after nothing short of a feast at Yuzu's parents' house. Our destination the following day would be to a beach not too distant with an excellent place to go snorkeling. Neither Kat nor I had ever tried snorkeling before, so we were excited. It was unbelievable how easy it was, and the amazing fish that you could see from less than 100 yards from the shore. Although Yuzu took a lot of photos, most of the ones I took with their waterproof camera turned out really bad, so you'll just have to imagine. We saw Moray Eels, Sea Urchins, Jellyfish, iridescent blue and yellow fish, butterfly fish, starfish, Box Pufferfish, etc. It was very exciting and inspires me to try the same thing in Korea. Mt. Fuji was visible from the beach we were at, and we could finally get some perspective of its size and height, considering that we were nearly 100kms away, it still towered in the distance.

The day was supplemented with some delicious Tempura and Sashimi at a local restaurant, a visit to an Onsen(a gorgeous public bath from natural hot springs), and a barbecue that evening with enough food to feed a village, thanks again to Yuzu and her mother. The next day was a slow trek to Hakone park, filled with temples and beautiful landscapes. One Koi pond looked like it was writhing from all these massive fish. That night would be the last, so we went and got drunk at the Okinawa restaurant, eating sea grapes and other fancy dishes. I even tried jamming on a Japanese styled string instrument that reminded me of a banjo, except it used snakeskin as the drum instead of canvas. All in all, an incredible experience and an unforgettable one, a chance to go and stay with a Japanese family and people who actually know what there is to do and see that's a little off the touristy path. After a glorious exchange of gifts, emotional goodbyes and quick posing for pictures with Geisha, we hopped on a train to head back into Tokyo, one day before my parents were to arrive.

New Waygukins and a video that sums up my life in Korea.

Happy news for lonely waygukins in Taebaek. 15 new English speakers arrived in Taebaek last friday! YAY! I think I may have scared some of them a little bit, but I was so excited to see English speakers. I just had to go and say hello, what's your name, where are you from, do you have a phone number, here have mine, let's get together for some beer and noe rae bong... in the span of about a minute.

I'm so ronery, Misuhtuh Ronery...

This video Kickin' It in Geumchon pretty much sums up life in South Korea. Just switch Taebaek for Geumchon. Let's see...
phrasebook...check
pig faces and 2 for 1 squid...check
all the restaurants? no... well we just got a new Dunkin' Donuts... that's about it.
movie theatre with no subtitles... check. Been there once, saw Indiana Jones.
Bowling alley... why, we just went the other day. fun fun!
Family Mart, Bibimbap, painfully spicy food, and Kimchi. yes, yes, yes, and every freaking day. (Kimchi cures SARS don't you know?)
Cass, Hite and fruit loop balls...yes yes yes.
Noe Rae Bong with random unrelated videos... YES!

Intro:
This song goes out to all the waygooks lookin’ for the place to be

Chorus:
Kickin’ it in Geumchon, Oh, Oh
Komsomnida, Annyong Haseyo

Kickin’ It, Where? In Geumchon Where?
In Geumchon. Where? In Geumchon Where?
Kickin’ it in Geumchon, Oh, Oh

Verse 1:
South Korea’s got Jeju, South Korea’s got Seoul
Busan and Ilsan if that’s how you roll
But when you work at EV, and live in Paju
Then the town to get down is 15 minutes from you, How do I get there?
Hop on the 900 bus
I use my T-money card so there’s never no fuss
Jump off at the station, or shall I say “yuk”
Are you fluent in Korean? No I got a phrasebook
Pang Pang, now we’re off to the races
To the backstreet market checkin’ out pig faces
Octupus on sale, squid 2 for 1
Let’s hit the waterpark for fun in the sun, I got my swimcap!
Baskin Robbins and Pizza Hut
Knock Domino’s down then slam Dunkin’ Donuts
Geumchon rocks, then it rocks some more
The street meat is sweet and corndogs galore

Verse 2:
Sometimes it’s spelled with a G, I’ve seen it spelled with a K
Sometimes it’s spelled with an E, I’ve seen the E go away
But regardless of spelling, pronunciation’s the same
The town’s so explosive, Boomchon could be it’s name
The movie theater keeps it real with no subtitles
But we never go cuz there’s no subtitles
But birthday party time it’s so simple to rally
We alls grab our balls at the bowling alley
Then to the Sky Golf hittin’ nothin’ but net
The locals wanna wager but it’s illegal to bet
If your mouth is dry, or if your throat’s got a tickle
Part for the Family Mart, to lick a popsicle
Hungry for bibim bop? The choices never stop
The spice is so nice could make a tear drop
We dedicate the bridge, but not in haste
To the cabbage that we ravage with the chili paste taste

Bridge:
Kimchi, Kimchi, it is good for you and me
Kimchi, Kimchi, it is good for you and me
Kimchi, Kimchi, it is good for you and me
Kimchi, Kimchi, it is good for you and me

Pre-Verse 3:
Kickin’ it
In Boomchon
Kickin’ it
in Boomchon

Verse 3:
When I go to Geumchon, I look at all the hotties
Those ahgashis, they got the hottest bodies
The padded bras, the high heeled shoes
Hey ladies? Can I buy you some brews?
Drinkin’ Cass-uh, drinkin’ Hite-uh
Feelin’ alright-uh, drinkin’ all night-uh
La festa’s no longer the best
Ride your scooter to Guemchon and head over to Zest
The barman’s got flair, flippin’ bottles in the air
Tom Cruise in Cocktail can’t even compare
Upstairs at Posse yogurt soju’s flowin’
Plus Froot Loop balls and the roofdeck’s blowin’
Nature videos while I’m singin’ my song
Number six one three seven at the local Noraebong
Want a night on the town? Wanna spend some won?
Come kick it with us, come kick it in Gumcheon

Chorus

(Written by Christian Zonts. The EV Boyz are Christian Zonts, Mike Nance, and Brian Peterson)