We are in our gaijin house in Japan and there is already way to much to fit into a post. So I’ll just throw some random stuff in and you’ll have to be satisfied with that.
Left the island. Very sad. Also kind of nerve wracking just sitting out fron t hoping for a songthaew to cruise past. But we did eventually make it to the ferry and off the island. It was sad to leave. Spent the last couple of days just saying goodbye to friends. Last thing we saw while we were waiting for the ferry was Tony kiteboarding way down the beach.
From there to here everything went wrong. Wow. So much trouble with the traveling. Big props to Bangkok Air for saving our bacon though. Anything good that happened today was thanks to them.
It is really not Thailand here. Really not Thailand at all. The biggest thing is it’s freakin cold! For some reason every one of the 6 weather sites I just checked say it’s 17c right now but I’m sure it’s more like 8. Got off the plane at 7 inthe morning in board-shorts. That didn’t last long.
Another thing is that noone speaks english. Which is kinda cool because it means we will be motivated to learn some Japanese. Yay. Which is a language I like more than Thai only because I have a much better ear for it.
Actually the two languages kind of showcase the differences.
Japanese: orderly, simple, well designed, dour
Thai: adhoc, loud and adhoc and loud
We were sitting on a train (the wrong one) today and I just kept thinking “why are we not sitting in a pair of shorts watching the ocean drinking a chang while waiting on a curry?”. But I’m sure things will get better. Ooo in case I forget later: highlight of the train-hell = microsoft train. Everywhere you could stick a m$ add there was a m$ add. There were no other adds. Only m$ adds. On the whole train. They even had a tv replaying over and over the 6 tv spots that make up m$’s current japanese add campaign (white silhouettes, no joke). So you get an idea for the level of hell.
The place is totaly cool though. It’s a shared accomodation so there is one common room one kitchen and one(!) toilet and one shower between… 8 people!
Which would be insane if anyone else seemed to live here. Arrived to a note on the door saying come on in. Place is empty; nothing in the fridge but some condiments and booze (similar to what we left behind actually… didn’t quite make it through that last bottle of gin). No toothbrushes in the kitchen. We may be the only people staying here? To early to tell. I think we’d both like a few roomates to fill the place out a bit but 8 is rediculous and we’re probably all with the fewer the better right now.
Got in touch with Pierre via the home-pay-phone in the front hallway. Which initially cost us 20yen but I quickly reversed the trend by picking the combination lock guarding the cash tray. No just kidding. We didn’t take anything. I was initially going to put a small bill in there with ‘colin waz here: pWn3d’ scrawled over it but we don’t have any small bills (see that’s funny because the thing only has a coin slot). Mabey later.
Yes. Japan also apparently hates electrical grounding? Nothing here is grounded just like Thailand. I don’t know if this is country wide rediculousness or just this place. At any rate when the juice in this baby is gone I’m not entirely sure how my 3-plug-self is going to charge it again… ah well. I’ll make the best of it while I can because we are Back in the 22nd century with this smoking fucking wifi connection. I can watch things on Youtube without spending 20 minutes loading them! I can refresh livejournal more than twice a day!
yes so hopefully Pierre will hook up with us later in the day and he can kind of jump-start our competence. Must sign off. I think the clacking is bothering sleeping Sarah.
Chock dee
Colin
