Photos!

Pics from the last two weeks.  

http://picasaweb.google.com/lapert/NortheastWhirlwind#

Nature 3, Alperts 0

Maine day one was beautiful.  Blue skies, clear ocean, scenic mountains, and hot dogs at our campsite.  What else is there in life?  Day two is when my dad bothered to mention "Yeah, that's why we stopped vacationing in Maine.  It always rains."  The rain came overnight, so that didn't bother us.  But the wet rocks that couldn't dry under cloudy skies, the thick fog that covered the island all day Friday, and the choppy seas in advance of the hurricane pretty much nixed any of our nature plans.  No rock climbing, no hiking up steep trails, no kayaking, and no diving.  Score one for weather.  Instead we walked around a pond we couldn't see despite standing 12 feet away from (though the picture we saw later did look nice) and drove to the top of the "mountain" (1500 feet?  come on)  in the park to watch the fog swirl around us.  Still pretty, just not in the conventional way.  For Shabbat we grilled our chicken, put an entire bundle of logs into the fire and watched them burn until we fell asleep.  In the true spirit of our vacation we rested most of the day on Saturday, playing cards, reading, napping, and making fun of Adina for reading silly vampire books.  Saturday night we really did the camping thing right, grilling our hot dogs on skewers over the fire then making fresh smores for dessert.  Then we hunkered down the tent to get ready for Hurricane Bill, what we hope will be this vacation's last bout with bizarre natural phenomenon.

Some of you may have seen my facebook status the other day minimizing the power of nature.  The hurricane was a bit farther out to sea than originally feared and passed by overnight and early Sunday morning giving us some rain but not much else (at first).  Gone before we even woke up, so naturally I made fun of it a little.  As it turns out, that was a bad idea.  You'd think I'd have learned a thing or two about karma this summer, but I'm actually kind of slow.  First the hurricane showed its true force by crashing enormous waves onto the island.  It was all well and good from our vantage point near our campsite early in the morning watching the huge swells break into the rocky shore.  We only got splashed from head to toe once.  But then we headed into the park itself to check out the main surf gazing spot on the island, a little group of rocks on the shore called thunder hole where strong waves supposedly crash, splash, and echo loudly when the seas are stormy.  On our way we decided to stop at the farmers market in town, then Adina decided it would be nice to walk through the town for a little while and check out some of the shops.  I told her I was ready to go very quickly, but she insisted we walk all the way down Main Street and back, setting us back about 35 minutes.  During this delay, right exactly at the time I had planned on standing at thunder hole watching the waves, an oversized wave crashed into the viewing area at the site and dragged 20 people into the ocean.  We were on our way over by this point and were passed by the emergency vehicles going to and from the spot where it happened.  By the time we got there the road had been closed and we were sent back into town.  A little scary that if the day had gone as I had planned, we would have been there, too.  Knowing me, I'd also have been about as far out on the rocks as I could have been, as is my way.  Weather strikes again.

With our plans yet again scrapped, we decided to head back towards the mainland and find something to do.  We tried a movie theater, but seeing as we couldn't get through two sentences of the synopsis of The Time Travelers Wife without cracking up we decided that trying to watch the whole thing was a bad idea.  Friendy's was of course delicious, but only lasted a few minutes.  After a failed attempt to get Adina to join in I took a ride in a glider, an engineless aircraft that is towed behind a single engine plane until about 4500 feet where we cut the chord and glide around for half an hour until gravity finally wins.  Apparently she learned her lesson after the hang gliding incident in Wyoming and the helicopter fiasco in Hawaii.  It was totally cool, and the pilot even said I wasn't the worst on the controls he's ever seen.  Turns out it's not so easy to turn without it becoming a headfirst dive.  Though he possibly could have given better directions than "steer it like a ship, not a fighter plane."  Thanks, bucko.  He pulled us out of it just fine, and I'm sure I'll get better next time.

Mother nature had already shown us all that the hurricane was not something to laugh about, but apparently she was still upset about the facebook thing so she came back Sunday night and decided just to make life suck for a bit.  See, on Thursday and Saturday nights it had rained while we slept, and that is all well and good.  Yes, it wakes you up a bit in the middle of the night, but the rain fly is over the tent so we stay dry, and it's pretty much gone by the time we're up in the morning.  It's a whole different story when the downpour starts before you actually get ready for bed.  Because now it means you're wet, and you've climbed into the tent making it wet, too, and you have no chance of really getting dry until the sun comes up.  There are no space heaters in camping, even when there is wifi.  As an added bonus, it was our last night at the site so we had to pack up a wet tent in the morning on the still muddy ground.  Nature 3, Alperts 0.  So we were a bit cranky heading out of Maine today.  A bit of sunshine and some antiquing (I wish I had a garage full of old junk I could call antiques and slap a price tag on) later, not to mention a slightly scenic detour for lunch, we were in better spirits.  Just in time for it to pour again, but this time we were safely in our car on the Maine turnpike.  Though I'm not sure you can really call it "safely" when the rain is so heavy you cannot see the lane markers or the car in front of you.  There was also some slow going in MA, since every 20 feet there was another road construction project funded by stimulus money.  Even though it did get annoying, I guess it is perfect timing since so few people are on the roads commuting nowadays.  Eventually we did make it safe and sound to Boston, where we'll be until heading to Albany (three state capitals in three days, baby!) on Wednesday.  Appetizer at Ta'am China, check.  Dinner at Ruben's, check.  What else is there to do in this town?

Less than a week until I'm back at work and Adina is back on the couch.  We are really starting to feel the end of summer. 

Camping in Maine: Call-Waiting of the Wild, or Return of the Mozzies

Today's post comes from the wild backcountry of Desert Island, Maine.  Adina is sleeping next to me in our tent, and I'm here on her Mac wondering why there was no wi-fi at the campgrounds we went to when I was a kid.  We arrived at Acadia National Park this afternoon and did some drive by sightseeing around the park before pitching our tent, grilling our hot dogs, and heading out to play mini-golf.  I guess some things are still just like the old Alpert family vacations.  I think Saturday night we'll hit up the Friendly's to make it official.  There is tons to do here, but we're not sure what we're going to be able to get to in an entire weekend of rain.  After the bizarre rains in Chiang Mai, the earthquake, the tornado, and the typhoon, we kind of thought coming back to the states would ease up the weather a bit.  We weren't counting on the first hurricane to threaten New England in Buddha knows how long.  They say they're expecting wave swells of up to 24 feet for coastal New England, so maybe sea kayaking isn't a great idea.  Does any one know if rock climbing in a thunderstorm tends to have good results?  Right now we're assuming our little tent can withstand the wind and rain, but we'll let you know if we could use a life preserver or something.  Luckily we enjoyed the super pretty scenery in beautiful weather today (nice break from the heat in NY), and we're not spoiled enough to expect much more than that.  We also hope the rain will scare away some of the mozzies, who are far more vicious here than anywhere in SE Asia.  We stepped out of the car for two minutes and had half a dozen bites on our arms.  Though I suppose not carrying Malaria is considerate of them.  

Since our last update we've been hopping around NY, NJ, and even RI seeing some friends and their new apartments and/or babies.  If we missed you the first time around don't worry, we'll be back next week.  We're especially excited to return to Tova and Steve's, who always deserve special mention.  On an unrelated note, I met an old student of mine who works in Hollisters on Broadway and Houston.  If you happen to be around there, it is worth peeking in to witness the absolute absurdity that is their store.  I can't even describe it well enough, I'll let the boys dressed as lifeguards outside the store or the teenagers in bikini greeting you inside do that all on their own.  Suffice it to say that the only way I could explain it to Adina was that the place was ridiculous to the point of being stupid.

Aside from catching up with a parade of friends, and playing softball in central park for the first time in 2 years, the big activity in NY was a trip to Citi Field to see the Buffalo Bisons play in Mets jerseys.  We didn't mind that the entire roster is on the DL because really we were there just to check out the new field, which I thought was fine but did not stand out above the other new generation parks of been to.  It's lower concourse level is great (except for the section behind the plate where you are removed from the field because of the luxury suites - something that also pisses me off about Nationals Park), the food we can't eat seemed creative and plentiful, and I kind of like the quirky dimensions and large field.  My problem though is with the upper concourse.  You can't see the field well while walking around, it is a VERY steep view to the field because of the vertical middle levels, and it's not so easy to get up and down between there and the main concourse.  Oh, and ALL FOUR kosher stands were out of hot dogs by the seventh inning.  Since they still had dozens of buns, I'm pretty sure they still had hot dogs in there somewhere, they just wanted to be able to shut down and start cleaning up early.  Jerks.  Overall it really didn't measure up to Citizen's Bank Field, which is still my favorite.

On tap for the next few days could be hiking, climbing, whale watching, perhaps scuba diving (we found a dive shop and really want to know where they dive here), or maybe a slew of backup indoor plans.  We'll see.  

Then it's off to Boston, Albany, back to the city and home.  Only 10 more days!!!  

Sunrise is going to wake me up in a few hours (ah the great outdoors), so I better get some sleep.  Plus the laptop battery is running low and I wouldn't want it to run out before we check the weather forecast in the morning.  Ah, the great outdoors?  

Tokyo Photos

Here are our pics from Tokyo. 

 

http://picasaweb.google.com/lapert/Tokyo#

 

 

I'm also putting up a couple of the diving pictures on the Koh Tao album.  They didn't come out that great, but what are you gonna do?

 

 

Tokyo Day 2 and 3: Too much to do, not enough time to do it

**Note - This one seems to be kind of long.  Here's the summary of our days in Tokyo.  This way if you see us soon you can at least pretend to have read parts of it.  Temple, shops, park, museum, electronics on Tuesday.  Fancy stores, super modern buildings and a baseball game on Wednesday.  Fish market, a flight, and a burger on Thursday.**

 

 

Woke up today, to everything gray.  Again.   Tuesday morning was just as dreary as Monday, but once again we were not going to let that stop us from doing everything we planned on doing.  Except our first planned stop, the Ryogoku Sumo district.  We found out it was pretty unlikely to be able see any sumo practice, and wandering the streets in the rain hoping to catch a glimpse of some fat guy in a dress (if we're lucky) didn't really seem as exciting.  Instead we headed out to the Senso-Ji temple complex.  The story goes that some time in the 7th century two dudes fished a gold statue out of the river.  Naturally, they though "Woah, this must be holy.  Let's build a massive shrine in its honor."  So they did.  There is nothing wrong with this temple, and perhaps we'd even be impressed if it was one of the first few dozen we have seen over the last month and a half.  Unfortunately, it turns out we've hit our temple saturation point.  Other than the massive gate in front guarded by two of the most buff statues you'll ever see, we tired of it quickly.  Oh well.  Luckily the whole street leading up to the temple is a massive crafts/souvenir shopping district, so we kept ourselves entertained for a while.  It was around this time that we saw our first sunlight of the week and realized we probably should have put on sunscreen.  Oops.

 

Our next stop was Kappabashi Dori, a street lined with cookware, knives, restaurant wholesale shops, and ceramic serving pieces, but most of all fake food!  This little district is the city's headquarters for unbelievably realistic plastic food that the restaurants all use to display their dishes.  Both the detail work to make the food look real and the specialization to make each piece look exactly like the food served in the restaurant is amazing.  Our favorite was the gravity defying spaghetti plates with a forkful hanging in midair with a few strands of past connecting it to the plate.

 

We then head over to Ueno Park and explored for a bit.  When I say explored I mean walk from one map to the next one 40 meters away, checking each time to make sure we were still on the same straight path.  I do love that there are maps EVERYWHERE in this city, and that each one has a very helpful "you are here" marking which even shows which direction the map is facing.  What I can't stand is that most maps don't face the same way!  On one map north can be up, but on the next map they've turned everything around and north faces diagonally down and a little to the right.  I think this inconsistency is why so few of the Japanese people who tried to help us by looking at a map (which was a pretty sizable sample of the population by the time we left town) had so much trouble using it.  I blame the school teachers.  By now there were actually patches of blue in the sky, which made us very happy.  We walked to the zoo and were told the giant panda exhibit was closed, which made us very sad.  Instead we learned about various forms of Japanese art at the national museum. 

 

Our next stop was the bustling neon Akihabara electronic district, including the massive 7 story electronics store in the Akiba building (go cougars).  Definitely some cool toys to play with, though we probably would have gotten more out of it if we a) knew more about electronics or b) could read Japanese.  We still had fun playing with the cameras, ooo-ing and ahh-ing over both the gorgeous massive LCD monitors and the tiniest little laptops you've ever seen, walking through row after row of stalls of shops selling electronic pieces I'll never be able to identify, and trying out the new wii controller (which, as it turns out, has been released in the states since we left, making me feel much less special). 

 

Tuesday night was not fun.  We will not go into detail, but let's just say that many of the aforementioned helpful but map-illiterate Japanese passersby and convenience store clerks were involved, as was a restaurant called Thanks Nature that was not vegetarian, super sore legs, and some very steep hills.  Also an actual vegan place kind of in the middle of nowhere and the best pumpkin salad we've ever had.

 

The original plan was to wake up around dawn to go to the fish market on Wednesday.  After a very tiring day Tuesday, we scrapped that plan and slept all the way until 8!  Our first stop was the Ginza district, which is most comparable to 5th Avenue in New York.  Block after block of trendy shops and huge fancy department stores.  Since they don't open until 10, we had a few minutes to walk around and watch the crowds form at the door.  The store opening was surprisingly quite a site to see.  First the clerks unlocked and opened the doors, but no one went in, which I thought was a bit odd.  It turns out they were all waiting for the clock tower to ring at exactly 10 oclock.  At the very last chime of the bell, all the clerks in the door bowed and the very orderly mad rush began.  What was really cool about this was walking through the first floor (cosmetics and perfume), the girls at every counter were waiting along the main aisle, waiting to bow as each shopper passed them by.  It was sort of like a backwards stadium wave, and it certainly felt like I was getting more respect in those 45 seconds than a week in the classroom.  This store had some terrific kimonos which we thought about buying, but were sort of turned off by the $850 price tag.  On the sale rack.  It's crazy how quickly we went from being the rich guys in town in SE Asia to looking at price tags and being caught somewhere between laughter and tears in Tokyo.  It's all relative, I suppose.  It really is amazing how our own habits from home determine what we think of a place we visit.  We go to Thailand and wonder how people deal with running water they can't drink their whole lives and toilets that don't flush.  I wonder if Japanese tourists come to America and think, "What type of subhuman barbarian would want to use a toilet without an electronic seat warmer and bidet?"

 

Lunch was over at the fish market for some of the freshest sushi in the world.  I'm not such a sushi person (I'll eat it, I just prefer stronger flavors, i guess), but Adina enjoyed her $6 bite of tuna.  We then took the monorail (what's that word?) across the bay to Odaiba, a super modern and very touristy neighborhood with some crazy architecture and futuristic museums.  They're very big into buildings with large holes cut out of the middle over there.  They also have a huge Ferris wheel (just like the Millennium Eye) next to a Roman style indoor mall whose ceilings replicate the sky at different points of the day (ahem, Caesar's?), a replica statue of liberty, and good views of the Tokyo Tower, a bigger and redder version of the Eiffel Tower.  For a city filled with ingenuity and creativity, they sure like to copy other people, too.  Apparently there was some kid oriented anime festival going on in Odaiba, which made the area super crowded and really hard to get around.  Despite that, some of the design and technology was really cool, as was some of the stuff in the giant Toyota showroom.  Since we didn't have 3 hours to wait on line, we decided to skip the automatically steered electric car system they were letting people test ride.  Maybe next time.

 

Then, we headed back to town to catch a baseball game.  The mighty Tokyo Yakult Swallows were hosting the Yokohama BayStars in a true clash of the titans.  Or not.  It turns out the Swallows are Tokyo's version of the Mets.  Every one knows and most people love the crosstown Giants (If you've ever heard of a Japanese baseball team, I'm sure it was the Yomiuri Giants) who play in the famous stadium (Tokyo Dome), have won more championships than any one else in the league, and always manage to lure the big names.  The Swallows, on the other hand, exist in the Giants' shadow as they struggle to fill their much smaller and dinkier park, are not televised every day like the Giants are, and do not have the big names.  Though one former Swallow is Charlie Manuel, World Series winning manager (that's for you, Tali), and Babe Ruth played an exhibition game here.  The game was just as exciting as any other baseball game (I'll let each of you interpret that as you see fit), but what makes it totally different are the fans.  Constant cheering from the bleachers, and each batter gets their own chant (which were hard to join in on seeing as we don't know the words they were singing.  We tried yelling English words that kind of sounded like the Japanese we hear.  The best we came up with was "Goya, Goya, Makes me Fart!")  the Canadian on the team gets dozens of Canadian flags around the stands for each at bad, as well as Oh Canada once or twice.  If only he wasn't 0-3 with RISP and two outs.  There are also some great rituals, like the fifth inning fireworks show, the 7th inning "cheerleader" dance, the pre--game fight song singalong (we'll have that video up on facebook eventually), and thousands of umbrellas popping up and being waved in the stands after each home team run.  According to the Google, this is meant as a sign to the opposing pitcher that it is time to hit the showers.  Also, the visiting team also had a huge section of fans in the left field bleachers, but I couldn't tell if that was always the case or just because the BayStars happen to be from nearby.  There's also a pep band in the fans, just like a college basketball game.  Sadly, there was no kosher concession stand but we did find perfectly spherical pre-packaged baskin robbins cones.  And, of course, the big news of the night was for the first time in our lives we made it onto the jumbotron (a super crisp and super big HD screen)!!  It pays to be the only whiteys in the joint.  The Swallows lost (so sad), but luckily not until the 12th inning, after we were long gone and eating one more veggie Indian dinner.  Seriously, I can promise you our little food tour of NYC will NOT include Curry Hill. 

 

Wednesday night #1 we only got a couple of hours of sleep before waking up at the crack of ass on Thursday morning #1 to make it to the actual market part of the morning fish market (not just the sushi lunch section).  It really was a crazy scene.  Evetry one was in a rush, there were little refrigerated trucks and fisherman on these motorized carts zooming in all directions.  There were men running up and down the aisles looking for what they need and the tourists in rolled up pants were taking pictures while trying not to be run over by a speeding vehicle or splashed by a fluttering fish.  And all over the place there were fish, shrimp, prawns, crab, octopi, squid, and many others I can't even identify being butchered and sold at breakneck speed.  We found one large room that looked like a giant morgue of huge (probably 6 foot long and super fat) fish lined up in rows and tagged with numbers from the auction.  The efficiency with which these guys could grab a live fish out of the tub, plop it on the table, slice off the head at just the right angle to cut it perfectly (which must be tough when the fish is still twitching), then take a good whack at the tail, wait for the fish to give one last shudder and throw it on the pile with the rest. 

 

After hauling ass to the airport, we were ready for a click of the ruby slippers and a little time travel.  A quick negative 25 minutes (and about 6 movies on our individual screens) later, we were in JFK looking for meat.  One cool moment on the flight was when I realized it was midnight (local time) and we could still see the sunlight out of the left side of the plane.  I suppose this still doesn't count as having visited the land of the midnight sun, but it's as close as we're going to get for now.  We took a bus to town which conveniently stopped at grand central, leaving us enough time to grab the most anticipated burger of our lives.  The staff at Mendy's didn't understand why we were crying and thanking Buddha for his bounty.  We knew we were home when, about a minute and a half off the bus, we run into our old roommate Ari waiting in line to buy a hot dog.  It took a minute before we realized that we were back in the real world and that sort of thing isn't so crazy anymore.  <Sigh>

 

This weekend is Shabbat at Adam's and then Amy's wedding, followed by the Met's game with Mike and Rebecca on Monday and probably heading up north on Tuesday or Wednesday.  Seriously, if you're in the area and want to hang out, give us a call.  We'll also be back in NY in 2 weeks.

 

****Note Again  -     Wednesday morning we woke up at 8 to start the day.   Wednesday night number 1 we woke up super early to get to the fish market.  3 hours of sleep.  Wednesday night # 2 I managed about 45 minutes on the plane.  It is now 11:30 AM Tokyo time on Friday.  So in the last 51 and a half hours, I've gotten less than 4 hours of sleep.  This is just a means of explanation of any unusually high level of length and incoherence of this post.  *******

Holy Crap, We're Flying Home Tomorrow

Where has seven weeks gone? 

 

More on the last two very busy days in Tokyo once we're back in the states.  I'm a little confused about the date line, but I think that will be either tomorrow night or yesterday. 

 

Our destinations over the next couple of weeks are NJ, NY, Boston, Albany, and Maine.  If you will also be in any of those places, let us know if you want to spend a few hours looking at pictures OR eating meat.  That's pretty much our plan for the next two weeks. 

 

L'hitraot Asia!!

Tokyo Day 1: Two Country Yokels Marveling at Modern Technology

The day began with an existential crisis.  Actually, it began with Coco Krispies (we owe so much to Choice Hotels).  But then, we walked out onto the street and nearly into oncoming traffic AGAIN, because we find ourselves in yet another country that drives on the wrong side of the road.  But then it occurred to me - maybe we drive on the wrong side!  I used to think it was Britain vs. the rest of the world on this one, but we've spent weeks in more places this summer that are afflicted with the same disease.  If the car capital of the world chooses the left side to drive on, maybe it's the way to go.  Then I remembered exactly who dropped the bomb on whom, so I guess to the victor go the spoils.  We're right, they're strange.  I know I feel better about myself.

 

Our first destination on the day was Shinjuku train station, the busiest in the world (according to Eyewitness Travel, which we believe simply because it is not Lonely Planet).  We were sad to discover that the automated voice on the subway did not introduce it as the real crossroads of the universe, but we both informed every one on the train that they could, in fact, transfer here for everything.  Voices on the subway aren't that new for us, but that is just the beginning.  Everything here talks to you.  The elevator tells you when the door is closing, the train doors warn you to step back, we even came across an alarmingly vigilant "Do Not Enter" sign.  The station itself wasn't as busy as we would have expected because we luckily came a bit after rush hour, but the food court had some of the coolest desserts we've ever seen / been scolded at for photographing.  I can't tell you if they were good or not, but they managed to make a cake look like a cup of fresh squeezed mango juice, complete with a straw and gelatin ice cubes.  Genius.

 

After hunting down a Citibank (very tired of ATM fees) we strolled in the rain through one of the main business centers in town.  We were politely told that no, we could not just sit for a while in the 52nd story restaurant atop the Grand Hyatt (as seen on Lost in Translation) without ordering a $65 brunch, but that's ok since the view was completely grayed out by clouds.  We know because we went to the free observatory three blocks away and the view was, in fact, completely grayed out by clouds.  We were satisfied just imagining what Mt. Fuji would look like in the distance.

 

As it turns out, Tokyo in the rain is less interesting than one might think.  I don't know if it's because people can get whatever they need in the malls at the bottom (or top) of every office building and therefor stays indoors, or because this week is some sort of holiday (kind of like Easter, except more about death, less about rebirth), but we were just about the only suckers out there.  Good thing the fine people of Comfort Inn lent us an umbrella in the morning.  We wandered aimlessly until it stopped raining, then checked out a shrine and its surrounding park.  We weren't overwhelmed by either one, but that might have been just rain related crankiness talking. 

 

Tonight we paid $50 dollars to eat brown rice and seitan (any one in NY want to meat us for lunch at Kasbah on Friday (the typo was deliberate)), then walked around what turned out to be a bit of a Japanese teeny-bopper hangout.  Cafes, bars, and Pachinko parlors with neon lights lined both sides of the street for an entire neighborhood.  Major sensory overload.  If some one can read that link and explain it to me, that'd be great.  If any one can get me my 10 bucks back, that'd be even better. 

 

Tomorrow is a busy day of Sumo wrestling (who thinks I can take them?), templing and museuming, and shopping for electronics and elaborately designed fake food.  More on all that later (free internet in the lobby!!).  

 

Goodnight! 

If the building is a rockin...

For those who have read about it, yes we did feel the earthquake yesterday, not long after we got to our hotel.  We shook, we rattled, we rolled, then we waited for the building to stop swaying back and forth.  Good times were had by all, except perhaps Adina who has still not quite gotten over the "many earthquakes of her youth."   She made me take out my next comment.

 

Off to town!  Goodnight America.

Arriving in Tokyo

It didn't take long to figure out some key differences between Bangkok and Tokyo.  First is the airports.  While Narita airport (the closest international airport to Tokyo) is not the nicest or newest airport, it at least makes a mild amount of sense, which puts it head and shoulders above Bangkok.  Considering all the hard sale techniques we encountered in Thailand, we were sort of under the impression that they like when we give them our money.  That being the case, we were quite confused when we discovered that the duty free shops are ALL before the security check heading towards the gates, which means you can:t buy any liquor or perfume because it won't make it through security.  Perhaps other airlines allow it to be delivered to the plane, but not United.  It was bad enough that Adina lost her nail scissors to the guards (oops), we weren't about to buy some scotch only to lose that, too.  The other part we couldn't figure out is why they have two security checks leading up to the gate, and why they are separated by a sterile bathroom free zone with far too few seats.  First you go through the standard x-ray and metal detectors, then you wait for 50 minutes on an empty concourse for them to open the ramp to a second checkpoint where they actually empty your bag and check all the contents, then wand you (a bit too thoroughly).  They did this for every passenger on the plane.  I just don't get it. 

 

Narita, on the other hand, was fast and efficient, just like everything else here.  The lines moved quickly, our bags were coming out just as we got there, there were plenty of carts, and transportation to town was simple (though far from fast.  You'd think they could build an airport less than 80 minutes away by train.)  Our hotel is nice and conveniently located right in front of a train station on the same line as the airport.  Sadly, the tracks were washed out today and we had to take a different company's line to a different place.  The best contrast to Bangkok was when the woman by the ticket machines of the first company told us the train wasn't running, she sent us to the right place without trying to sell me a suit!  I'd forgotten that that could happen sometimes. 

 

One of my favorite things about Bangkok was their fast and clean metro system.  But it doesn't compare to the well oiled machine that is the Tokyo Metro.  For starters the service here goes everywhere, while in Bangkok they conveniently leave out the touristy areas so suckers like us are forced to take cabs or tuk-tuks.  (Speaking of cabs, did you know that in some cities cabs don't honk at every pedestrian they pass by?  Brilliant!)   After getting off our train from the airport we had to connect to a subway line, which was very reminiscent of the 14th street transfer from the 2-3 to the F.  Except replace the smell of urine, pirated CD hawkers, loud banging drummers, and the homeless guys and replace them with some potted plants. 

 

Our hotel is exactly what we were told a Tokyo hotel would be, but that doesn't stop it from being amazing.  It's　both extremely cramped and luxuriously high tech, sort of giving the impression of a prison cell on a very fancy cruise ship.  The TV is flat screen, the bed has a built in alarm clock and light switches for the whole room, and the toilet has a soothing seat warmer and refreshing bidet (calling to mind the age old question of which is worse - a dirty butt or a wet one?).  It's a little sad to have a gecko free wall, but we're quite glad to be rid of the goddam mozzies. 

 

Our neighborhood gets a bit deserted at night, as we discovered on our nightly quest for food we can eat.  Unlike Bangkok, the people who know English here know it very well.  But most people don:t, and almost none of the restaurants around here have English anywhere.  We decided to play it safe and have 2 tuna maki rolls and a couple of pieces of salmon nigiri.  Safe, but also more expensive than the fanciest meal we ate in all of Thailand.  Good thing we still have more Oreos. 

 

Tomorrow we start exploring the city.  We'll try our best to fit in, but since we pretty much still just have our Thailand clothes, I don' know how well that is going to work out in this uber trendy town.  We plan to go to the big neighborhoods and be wowed by how busy it is, all the while making sure to appreciate how incredibly high tech every little detail is.  Like the wireless pdf ordering system the sushi place had.  The waitress pressed a couple of buttons on her handheld pad and before she even left the table the grey haired sushi-chef that I'm pretty sure I heard call me Daniel-son had started rolling our tuna.  Hopefully we'll manage to take in a national sporting event.  There are no sumo tournaments this month, so we're planning on catching their other big ticket here.  It's this funny version of cricket I'm pretty sure they call baseball.  These countries come up with the darndest ideas.  Our first attempts to buy tickets online were thwarted by a lack of an English website, but I'm sure if we just show up at the stadium it'll all work out.  There are also a couple of big Buddhist temples in town, which will be a nice new experience for us.  Maybe tomorrow night we'll go to the entertainment district and check out some empty orchestras.  I hear they are hauntingly beautiful. 

 

Our schedule is filling up fast, we'll be sure to let you know how it all goes. 

 

By the way, is anybody in NY free around noon on Thursday?  Dov? 

Photos

Photos from Tao -  Hopefully we can put up the diving pics when we develop the film.  Gotta get one of those underwater digital cameras.

 

http://picasaweb.google.com/lapert/KoTao#

 

 

Bangkok is a whole different place when you're actually trying to spend money.  And when you're taken around by a local.  I really wish I knew what it is that is different about us now, but we're approached differently by the touts this time around.  Do we really look that much more impatient now?  Or did we really look that clueless back then?  I'm guessing a bit more of the latter.  Not to say they completely leave us alone - we should be so lucky.  There are just fewer that bother with us and they seem to give up a bit earlier.  Whatever it is, I'm not going to complain.

 

Shabbat in Bangkok seemed to explode since the last time we were here.  There were hundred more people this time and they even ran out of challah rolls by lunch!  We never did quite figure out why that one Israeli backpacker was walking the halls in just his boxers, but it didn't seem to phase the staff too much.  Perhaps it was not his first time. We ran into some nice Israelis (seriously) that we had met in Chiang Mai and compared stories for the rest of Shabbat.  More importantly, we finally had ourselves some meat!!  Vegetarians claim they feel so much better than when they ate meat.  I don't see it.  Now we're just counting down the days until we can eat some good meat.  Seriously, Adam.

 

Flight leaves at 6:30 AM for Tokyo, so I'm waiting around while Adina naps.  I may go back and fix up/add captions to some of the older albums on picasa, so give it a look.  Or at least pretend you did when we ask.

 

We've got three days to explore Tokyo before heading back to the states on Thursday (and traveling back in time as we do.  Take off at 11, land at 10:45 -  amazing!!)  Don't worry though, we've still got two more weeks of fun after that before heading home.  Do they have internet cafes in Acadia?

 

 

Full Moon Party

We're up late tonight.

 

For those of you that are not aware of this phenomenon, some places in Thailand have what is called a full moon party.  Each month, masses of people gather to party all night long, try out new kinds of music and drugs, stumble home semi-conscious at 7 AM and start figuring out what happened to their pants.  The biggest of these parties takes place on Koh Phangan, one of the three islands in the Samui archipelego where we have been for the last 10 days.  So as the hordes of people left our beach on Koh Tao to be ferried over to the party, what else were we to do but pack up our bags and bust ass in the opposite direction?  Tempting as the party may have been (which, as it turns out, was not all that tempting), we had to get back to Bangkok before Shabbat in order to catch our flight at dawn on Sunday.  So while the boats heading south were busting at the seams, we took a nice empty ferry and overnight bus back up north.  Well, it was supposed to be an overnight bus, but when it arrives in Bangkok at 3:20 in the morning, it should probably call itself a middle of the night bus.  Since the guest houses will charge us an extra night if we check in before 5 (because some one else may show up in the next hour and pay them for the empty room.  Really.) , we've got some time to kill. 

 

Our last 24 hours on Koh Tao were eventful.  We started with our first night dive, which exactly half of us really liked.  I liked the feeling of floating in the dark and watching the fish come in and out of the light from our torch, but Adina got a bit frustrated because she kept missing the cool things floating around us.  I saw a couple of spotted rays, some skittish shrimp, a HUGE crab, and when we shut off our lights and ran our hands through the water we churned up tons of neon green glow in the dark plankton.  The full moon shining through the waves above us was also pretty cool, as was the boat engine passing overhead in the dark.  Even though you know your 45 feet underwater, it's a bit weird to suddenly hear a loud roar encompass the space all around you.  Despite the fact that I'm pretty sure our guide was doped up on something, we managed to come out of the water alive.

 

Thursday we spent our time back in the water, albeit at the surface this time.  We went to Koh Nangyuan, a privately owned mini-island just of the coast (privately owned by jackasses who like to overcharge for everything) and climbed a small lookout point, then snorkeled in the water.  The island was gorgeous and the snorkeling was terrific.  Not the same as being under the water, but close enough.  After leaving the island (then discovering we were on the wrong boat, heading back to the island, finding the right boat, and leaving the island again) we packed up our bags, bought the requisite magnet, and caught our ferry.  After 10 days in the islands we've relaxed a bunch, taken in the beautiful scenery, learned to dive, and downgraded ourselves from blindingly white to startlingly pasty.  All in all, I'd call it a pretty successful leg of our trip.

 

Now if only the minutes would tick away a bit faster so we could get into Chabbad and get ourselves some meat.........

 

 

1800 Centimeters Under the Sea

Congratulations are in order -- Adina and I are now certified open water divers!!  (All that's left now is a pilot's license.  What are the odds that Adina lets that happen?)  We finished our four day class today with two more dives in the ocean.  Tomorrow we're doing our fist adventure dive, the next step towards and advanced open water license.  We'll try out a night dive where we get to see rays, glow in the dark plankton, and more cool stuff that doesn't come out much during the day.  We're also hoping the weather gets better so we can go to the west side of the island where the diving is a bit more interesting.  So far choppy waters have kept us on the east.  Not that we're complaining, we've been blown away and especially since we have no basis for comparison we think it's been amazing.  Our first two dives I did have a bit of  trouble equalizing my ears (getting them to not feel like they're being squeezed into my head), but today I woke up with a funny feeling in my ears.  It turns out that funny feeling was the feeling of being clear of congestion, something I really haven't experienced in about 10 years.  Since it's the congestion that gets in the way of clearing the pressure, today was a breeze and we got as deep as 18 meters (we really need to pick up the metric system back home) which is as much as we're allowed to until we get deep water certification.  Some highlights of the dive include triggerfish (which we avoided because they have a funny way of snapping at fingers when they feel threatened), sea cucumbers, (holy) barracudas, fully grown hammerhead sharks (only kidding), juvenile sweetlips (not kidding), boxfish, some cool dude with a beak whose name I don't know but assume involves the word beak, pointy sea urchins, and coral.  Lots of coral. 

 

In other news.....there is no other news on this island.  It is all diving, all the time.  Other activities include swimming in the ocean, snorkeling, or sitting on a pier watching people dive, snorkel, or swim.  Of course there is also hiking to a dive site, renting an ATV and driving to a dive site, or riding in a boat to a dive site.  And bowling.  We did finish up our free stint in the bungalow/sauna, so we moved into the attached hotel with gorgeous AC rooms, albeit slightly strangely arranged,  Adina keeps asking why they bother having a door to the bathroom if the wall separating it from the bedroom has a giant square cut out of it.  Hopefully Borne Supremacy will be on HBO again tonight so we can really enjoy it.  The rest of our time here has been spent hunting an elusive veggie restaurant which apparently used to stand in that spot where all the cinderblocks are now.  D'oh.

 

After tomorrow's night dive we may do one more Thursday morning before another overnight journey, this time back to Bangkok.  There it's Shabbat at chabbad, shopping till we drop (or run out of money), then head to the airport in the middle of the night for our flight to Tokyo.  We're trying to prepare ourselves for a giant culture shock, but then again maybe the busiest and fastest city on the planet won't be all that different from Thai beach island paradise that we've gotten used to.  Here's hoping.

 

Oh, and in case it hasn't become apparent yet, we were not on the Thai airplane that crashed today. 

 

Till next time...we'll say hello to Nemo for you.

 

 

Photos!!

We've had some time to update photos (mostly courtesy of nothing better to do on a fast day), so by all means, enjoy!

 

Siem Reap

http://picasaweb.google.com/lapert/SiemReap#

 

Phnom Phen

http://picasaweb.google.com/lapert/PhnomPhen

 

Ko Samui

http://picasaweb.google.com/lapert/KoSamui

 

 

We spent Shabbat this week at a nice new resort connected to our dive place.  The resort has beautiful rooms with great air conditioning and LCD HDTV.  Sadly, we're in the bungalows nearby without tv (or hot water, but it's pretty hot here anyway so perhaps we'll get used to that).  They are called fan rooms, which is the nice way of saying there's no AC, but a weak fan that blows hot air around the room and squeaks all night.  The ambient noises of the garden and nearby beach are pretty soothing, though kind of broken up by the dueling Australians coming home from a pleasant night out at 6 AM.  I'm not sure what they were arguing over (Adina thinks it was a girl), but I did get a good idea of exactly what each one felt the other can fucking do to himself.  It was like getting caught between Danny and Tali Stein, circa 2001.  The price of the room is right, though, since we get the room for free with the diving course.  Since we couldn't bear to stay in the room all day, we had a much more active shabbat than usual, we managed to walk up and down the beach.  A lot.  And we finished our reading assignment for the diving course, making us perhaps the first people ever to do so.

 

We head back to the classroom, then to the pool tomorrow for more learning.  Then Monday and Tuesday it's into the ocean we go!!  Wish us luck!

 

 

 

PS - I fogot to mention one of the coolest things we've ever seen on my last post.  On our second night on  Samui we were sitting on our beach waiting for a non-existent sunset (turns out the beach faces the wrong way) but we did see a tornado form over water a few miles off shore.  Apparently this is called a waterspout (thanks, wikipedia) and was pretty harmless because it moves really slowly and stays offshore.  Though I'm pretty sure if I were captain of the idiot yachts that were getting really close I would have stepped back a bit.  Pictures are in the gallery.