Time for bed. Good food and lots of not sleeping makes it come easily.

THoughts tonight are mostly of Koh Phangan. Looking at the pictures of Songkran I can’t believe that was two days ago. This place is so different.

I wonder when the idea that not living in the tropics is ‘rediculous’ will wear off. It’s so cold here and there is such a shocking lack of beaches. I assume in a while I’ll get used to living in temperate countries again. Or mabey I’ll just become one of those many many farangs who consider Phangan their second home. Or mabey I’ll want to be one of the farangs who makes it their first home. I’m surprised how much Phangan fit, or possibly defined, my view of the ideal life.

But then half of me has always pulled towards beach and sun and the other half has pulled towards gargoyledom (in the snow crash sense of the word). That’s why I’ll never be a really good geek. I spend too much time outside.

Mabey in Tokyo the gargoyle side will get a chance to shine. It better hurry up though before we move down south to the tropical islands that make up that southern bit of Japan noone pays any attention to.

In the mean time I’m left constantly marveling at the differences. Like no more spray hoses in the bathroom. Back to the barbary and waste of dry wiping.

At least as countries get colder the beer gets better.

update on malt’s: it’s mostly a kilkenny wannabe which is a guiness wannabe for the ‘guiness is too dark for me’ crowd. And I dislike guiness to begin with (they substitute ‘creaminess’ for flavor and advertising for aftertaste). Dark times when I find it easy to enjoy such a beer.

But then I had a Traquair Jackobite Ale (thanks mum and dad!) less than 24 hours ago so everything is bound to pale pale pale in comparison.

We crashed after we got in and slept most of the day.. seem to both be coming down with something – maybe you’ll see us donning white face masks soon. Didn’t manage to connect with Pierre but we met our landlord Mr Shrek, who is a nice guy and forgiving of our total lack of Japanese vocab. We’ve got him and one other couple for roommates right now, and two more people are moving in soon. After a nap we were thinking a little more clearly and…

I totally love this place!!! Our room in the Shrek Watta house is much larger than expected, with tatami floors, paper screen divider to the “semi-outside” area, then sliding door to a nice balcony. Two beds (soon to be one kingsize one), desk with two chairs, several low tables and a comfy beanbag chair. Every wall is sectioned into sliding storage areas; such a good design. The house itself is the 3rd and 4th floor of an apartment building and is kind of warren-like (a style I really like); a sort of mishmash of bits and angles with eight private rooms at various points. The shared livingroom is big and bright, with a library of anime and Kurasawa films from previous guests. Full kitchen and even a shared computer. Have I mentioned how incredibly good the wifi net connection is? All signs point to W00t.

We took a walk around the neighborhood. We’re right in the middle of a busy 2 block radius of restaurants, stores and real estate companies. There are coffee and drink vending machines on every corner, convienience store next door and a pachinko parlour just around the bend. NO CARS! The streets are narrow and filled with bikes and pedestrians. Yes, I could really live in this neighbourhood.

So we went for dinner which was also awesome. People have no hesitation at speaking Japanese to us which is so good, we’re totally going to learn the language in no time. So far we’ve got about as much as we knew in Thai, which is a good start at least. The food was so excellent, we were both rolling our eyes in constant total bliss. We’d really missed the subtle flavours, and this restaurant (just a minute’s walk away) was at least as good as any Japanese restaurant in Victoria. Also, about the same price – 4,000yen = $40cad to stuff ourselves full of (omg delish with fish) tempura, agedashi tofu, teriyaki fish, egg rolls and beer. Coupled with our $750 a month rent I think we could even afford to live here.

We stopped by the convienience store and bought some snacks and beer (Malt’s All Malt Beer). The beer came with a little package of nuts and the french consumme flavoured pringles came with a little keychain of the pringles guy in a french outfit. Gimicks YAY! Seems like the exact opposite of simple beach life but so far we’re grooving to the change.

PS: Malt’s is a good beer! We’ll let you know if we still think so after our beerbuds finish recovering from six months of Chang.

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

Things I won’t miss about Thailand:

water outages
being called a farang
conservative clothing
satelitte internet

We haven’t really fit in here perfectly… we still can’t speak Thai which is probably why people still think of us as “farang” (white foreigners). We have met some very nice friends here, but the people we seemed to have most in common with were usually short-term visitors. But this is a geek speaking; only 0.001% of humanity wants to talk about computers and movies and video games with me. I’m sure we’ll find more likeminded geeks in Tokyo than we did on this laidback little island.

Things I am going to miss about Thailand:

snorkling
laid-back attitudes
our neighbour Beeya
watching the ocean from our livingroom
the dogs
shopping at Thongsala market
Wan’s, Lipstick, Starbugs, Ando’s, etc
swimming in the warm ocean
geckos
drongo song
toilet sprayhoses
sangsom buckets
sleeping in to the sound of the surf
paying 1/3 as much for everything
noone worries about being sued
the bike

So the bike finally made my “good things” list! I was terrified of motorbikes to begin with, and when taking into account the road conditions and reckless drivers, I didn’t think we’d make it through six months intact. But the freedom of jumping on and being on the road in seconds is incredible. The size is just right: even narrow roads seem spacious, you can park it anywhere, and gas goes a long way further. And on Koh Phangan there is little traffic, no lights (well, there is one), and if you get a flat you can have it fixed for $4 and be back on your way in 30 minutes. It’s so… civilized.

There are so many other things that I love about this place. I love that most businesses are run out of people’s homes, and it isn’t uncommon to walk into a travel agency and see a child sleeping in a bed in the corner. People worry less about doing things “the proper” way and worry more about getting things done. Yeah, this leads to injuries and badly built houses, but I’ve seen a lot of innovation come out of it too. The real point is people here don’t care if their buildings are crooked or badly wired or whatever. You could spend your whole life fixing things, or just accept them and spend more time at the beach.

Living on the beach has been… well I can’t imagine a nicer place. The tides, the fish, the birds: nature is great. I wish I could go snorkling every day; walk on the beach every day.

Tokyo is going to be sooooo different!

Today is a bad day.

Kurt Vonnegut died today. He is still my favorite author. The articles he wrote about the world and his country were sharp right till the end.

Closer to home I think this was Brave’s last day on this earth as well. Early this-morning he came to the deck and hudled against our bedroom door. His intense shivering caught my attention while I was editing the most recent batch of pictures.

He was all wet from the ocean and scared and very sick. I held him and scratched him while he shook. He had diarea and wanted to go back to the ocean but could barely walk without falling over. I helped him to the water but he couldn’t stand upright and I made sure his head was above water. I tried to sooth him and make him comfortable.

He started to choke up white foam and decided he didn’t want to be in the water anymore. He crawled up into some bushes he and his siblings used to play in. I tried to keep with him and keep him from being afraid but I don’t think he wanted to be around me, or his mum, or his sister. He unsteadily lurched back to the house and to the bushes beside the house.

I went inside to find out how Sarah was doing looking up the illness and trying to contact the vet. When I came back with a bowl of water and some aspirine hidden in a clump of rice he was gone.

I searched for him up and down the road and the beach but I couldn’t find him.

The symptoms suggest he was poisoned. Something that happens to homeless beach dogs here.

We liked Brave so much. He was one of the greatest dogs I ever knew. We were sad having to say goodbye to him after 6 months of playing with him and watching him grow up but this is infinitely worse.

I wish he could have been born in Canada. I wish he could have been our dog. But now I have to be satisfied that he lived a happy, energetic life surrounded by siblings and friends, cut much too short.

We miss you Brave.