Hong Kong, day three

As of Tuesday, August 5, I'd built up an impressive store of alcohol in Room 2504 of the ibis North Point Hotel. I nabbed a small bottle of White Horse blended Scotch the first night, and there was a bottle of Gambler's Gold (the Hong Kong Brewing Company's golden ale) and some Magners cider in our mini-fridge also.

I was sitting pretty.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. 

We awoke quite late and had a languorous breakfast at the hotel buffet: Danishes, toast, noodles, baked beans, runny scrambled eggs, hard-boiled eggs, sausage, pancakes, bacon, potatoes, fruit, yogurt, congee (rice porridge), cereal, tea, coffee, orange juice...everything but blood pudding. Miss H and I had were pigging out on it every morning. It cost about HK$66 ($8 US), so we had to get our money's worth. 

We were foiled in most our plans today. We wanted to ride the cable car or trolley or whatever up to Victoria Peak, but last night Jeff had warned me that it would be crowded as hell up there, and the lines would be ridiculous. We thought next of taking the open-top bus tour, but upon arriving at the terminus at Central Piers we discovered that it cost HK$400—fifty U.S. dollars a pop. No way, Jose. We briefly considered the Star Ferry harbor tour, but that was eighty-three U.S. dollars. Rather dejected, we went back to the hotel to regroup. I polished off the cider and the Scotch and felt mighty fine.  

We dined at 6:00 p.m. at a marvelous little Sapporo ramen restaurant a couple of doors down from the hotel. For just a couple hundred HK dollars we had dumplings, beef tongue, tonkatsu curry with rice (Miss H), and a big heaping bowl of Hokkaido ramen with pork (me). Great guns—I'd heard Hokkaido ramen and its light brown miso-laden broth was the shiz, but but the reality blew me away. Best ramen these lips have been privileged to taste. Can't wait to get back to Sapporo and have the real deal.  

Not my photo.

To keep the Japanese theme going, Miss H and I boarded the streetcar and rode to Burrows Street to visit the Hokkaido Dairy Farm "Milk Restaurant." Not sure what their gimmick was—I guess all their dairy products came from Hokkaido, and all their food was cooked with it. I'd read that Hokkaido ice cream was a delicacy in Hong Kong, and unlike most "delicacies" which interest me, this was something Miss H could sample too. We had a vanilla sundae with chocolate and adzuki bean sauce—superb. 

For kicks, we stepped across the road and into the Wellcome supermarket to get a look at what Hong Kongers mow down on. There was a staggering array of western foods, including Cadbury's chocolate—nearly impossible to find in other Asian countries and nonexistent in Korea, much to all my English friends' chagrin. I bought one of the Cadbury's bars, a Double Decker bar ('cause I'd never tried one), and a bottle of Laoshan, Tsingtao's upscale brand.

Then we rode the tramway home, dumped everything in our room (and I drank my Gambler's Gold), and went back out and around the corner to a gaming arcade we'd spotted on the second floor of a high-rise. We played at racing games and basketball tosses and a couple of rail shooters, burning through HK$35 in an hour. Then we came home, showered, and collapsed into bed. A fantastic thunderstorm hit just as we turned out the lights, and we laid there, tangled up with each other, watching the flashes and counting the seconds, until we drifted off to sleep.  

big trouble in little Thailand

Paul Theroux was right. We have a tendency to judge every place we go by whether we could stand living there or not. There are few places on my list, believe it or not. One of them, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is Sapporo, Japan. Fascinating spot. Beautiful in summer (I hear) and absolutely enchanting in winter. I finally found a place that gets the epic, biblical, phantasmagorical amounts of snow that everybody who lives in a wintry place always brags about to newcomers and out-of-towners. Something to do with the moist winds from Siberia meeting the frigid Sea of Okhotsk...or the frigid winds from Siberia meeting the moist Sea of Okhotsk, or something. I dunno. But it's a pretty town in a pretty valley with pretty mountains and pretty dang fun to spend a few days in, the more I think back on it. I sure wish I could live there for a year (at least) and get to the bottom of its charms. 

...not to mention all the world-class sushi, beer, and venison I'd consume, or the skiing I'd do, or the ban'ei events I'd watch, or all the Russia I could see from my house. 

Anyway, I find that Hokkaido and its legendary snows are crossing my mind more and more as the Korean weather heats up. It's getting warm and muggy out there. Every day I step outside my door, give my best Charlton Heston squint, and then walk to the subway through a hot, bright, hazy city that would do the film Soylent Green proud.

I can only imagine how it's going to be in Southeast Asia as I trip through Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong during the peak of summer. 

Well...maybe not Thailand. 

Have you been keeping track of what's going on down there? 

Source: The Times. 

That's right, it's a military coup. Another one. Thailand seems to have a yen for coups. The last one was in 2006, I believe. I'll spare you all the details, because that shit is readily available online, including the link under that picture of all them stern-lookin' Thai military dudes up there. You can get the rundown from somebody else. All I want you to do is sit right there in that chair and listen to my First World Problems. 

Did they have to have a bloody coup in Thailand just two months before I'm slated to travel by train through it?  

I think it's about time I shared with you the itinerary for this big Southeast Asia train trip I've been yapping about for weeks. It'll make this bitchfest easier. Plus it'll make my mum quit worrying about exactly when and where I'll be. So here you go:

 Saturday, 7/12: Gimpo to Shanghai by plane (there to spend the night partying)

 Sunday, 7/13: Shanghai - Kunming - Nanning - Hanoi by plane

 Monday, 7/14: explore Hanoi, catch the 11:00 p.m. night train to Ho Chi Minh City

 Tuesday, 7/15: slow train through Vietnam (pass Huế at 10:30 a.m.)

 Wednesday, 7/16: arrive in Ho Chi Minh City at 4:30 p.m. 

 Thursday, 7/17: HCMC

 Friday, 7/18: HCMC

 Saturday, 7/19: HCMC to Phnom Penh by bus

 Sunday, 7/20: Phnom Penh

 Monday, 7/21: Phnom Penh to Siem Reap by speedboat

 Tuesday, 7/22: Angkor Wat

 Wednesday, 7/23: Siem Reap to Paoy Paet by bus (Cambodian-Thai border); Aranyaprathet to Bangkok by train

 Thursday, 7/24: Bangkok 

 Friday, 7/25: Bangkok

 Saturday, 7/26: Bangkok

 Sunday, 7/27: Bangkok to Butterworth by night train

 Monday, 7/28: arrive in Butterworth; ferry to Penang; explore George Town

 Tuesday, 7/29: George Town

 Wednesday, 7/30: Butterworth to Singapore (train departs 8:00 a.m., arrives same day)

 Thursday, 7/31: Singapore

 Friday, 8/1: Singapore 

 Saturday, 8/2: fly to Hong Kong at 1:30 a.m. 

 Saturday, 8/2 - Thursday, 8/7: Hong Kong with Miss H

I planned this minutely. The timing has to be just right. It's a journey of nearly 9,000 kilometers, and I have social engagements in Ho Chi Minh City and Hong Kong which I need to arrive on time for. I haven't reserved my train tickets yet, but a few days ago—before the news of the coup broke, back when this was all just a bunch of Thais in red shirts rioting—I finished booking my hotels. All of them. Even the one in Bangkok. Argh.

I don't know what to do now. Should I cancel my hotel reservation in Bangkok and reserve a flight ticket from Cambodia to Malaysia? Fly from Phnom Penh to Kuala Lumpur, take the train north to Butterworth and do my Penang thang, and then go back down to Singapore by train and meet Miss H in Hong Kong for her week-long summer vacation? Or do I stick with the original plan and hope things cool down in Thailand between now and late July? As I've previously pointed out, coups are nothing new down there. Last week the BBC pointed out that Thailand has seen 12 coups since 1932. I'd venture to suggest that, compared to places like Libya or Somalia, Thailand is remarkably stable despite such frequent upheavals. On the other hand, dire warnings from the U.S. State Department (and, I anticipate, my own parents) will urge me to reconsider my travel plans and skirt the country altogether. 

Grmf. I don't know what to do, and I don't like it. Guess I'll just have to use the Polaroid approach: keep an eye on the situation and see what develops. 

Postie out. 

Hokkaido diary: the Camellia Line to Busan

2/7:

6:54 a.m. The Kodama 857 leaves at 7:11 a.m. for Hakata. I didn't even bother getting a ticket this time. I'll just sit in one of the non-reserved cars (1-4, 7, or 8). The only thing a ticket would have told me is what time the train arrives in Hakata. 

Last night was certainly the low point of the trip. Just before midnight I stepped out of Shin-Yamaguchi Station. I noticed three things. One, everything was slick and spit-shiny with recent rain. Two, there were hotels everywhere. Three, it was COLD—not the relentless 0-degree chill of Sapporo, but something worse—a creeping, drafty, moist cold that seeped through my clothes—every layer—and into my bones. 

The station was closed from midnight to 4:40 a.m. (4:40 - 0:00, the sign said, showing the Japanese trend of reading right-to-left and the NE Asian one of using military time.) There were no Internet cafés. There was one izakaya, but it was only open until the three and you had to take your shoes off. The first train to Hakata didn't leave until 6:27 a.m. So I started checking hotels. The Hotel Active, Hotel Amuze and Toyoko Inn were all full. I didn't even bother with Yamaguchi Station Grand Hotel—looked way too rich for my blood. I walked a bit further west and saw a familiar sign blinking at me in the distance—McDonald's! Lame to spend six-and-a-half hours there in a foreign country but any port in a storm. Stepping through puddles I made my way up to the door. It was locked. A sign on the door said something about the place being closed between midnight and 5 a.m., despite the big garish sign out front advertising "24H OPEN." 

I made a semicircle about the southern entrance of the station, looking for an Internet café or a comfy place to park my ass and finding none. I wandered the silent, dark, empty streets. I had just finished reading Theroux's Ghost Train in which, as the title suggests, he compares himself to a ghost, traveling unseen. I now felt the same way, like a lonely ghost seeking a warm building to haunt. I settled on a convenience store with tables and chairs inside—no wi-fi but at least light, warmth, and nourishment—but when I'd finished buying snacks I saw that a chain barrier had been strung around the tables and chairs, invisible from outside. Demoralized, I sat on the steps of the dark Japanese restaurant next to the Hotel Active and ate, watching a lone cab sit fruitlessly in front of the station. It was cold and the frigid tiles beneath me wicked all the heat away from my body. I drank the warm coffee I'd bought (not knowing why I'd bought it) and was on the point of heading into the izakaya when I saw a pedestrian bridge sneaking under the tracks. I took it. It was stark and bleak with high chain-link fences acting as suicide prevention. It could have been the setting for any hard-boiled Japanese crime novel or film, especially on this cold, damp night, steam flying from the actor's mouths whenever the [sic] speak. Beyond the bridge were three more hotels. I picked the shabbiest, oldest-looking of them all and got a quote—¥5,500 yen. A bit steep, but worth getting out of the weather. I paid up and went to my single smoke-scented room, tearing off my clothes and collapsing into bed. It was one-fifteen in the morning. 

Here's where that hot can of coffee I'd drunk began to bite me in the ass. 

In the end I was SO tired and So desperate for a rest that my brain overrode the buzzing caffeine and went to sleep anyway. The bed was the softest, most comfortable one I'd slept in (apart from the Karasuma Hotel in Kyoto). 

I woke up at 6:30 (let myself sleep in a bit), washed my hair, threw on my clothes and skipped out. The sky was dark purple, illuminating the jagged, silver-edged, pine-clad hills surrounding the town, as well as more of its ugly buildings and jumbled streets and alleys—rather like Korea, especially under overcast. I could see my breath. The hills had received a light dusting of snow. The damp spots on the pavement had turned to black ice. I hurried to the station, flashed my pass at the agent, and arrived on platform 12 in time to see the 6:49 for Hakata pulling away from me. I felt a bit mad at myself. I had a ship to catch. Dawn was coming and this ghost needed to flee. Should have woken up earlier. 

Oh well. The time is now 7:35 and we've passed Asa and Shimonoseki. I'll be there in time. I think we just entered the tunnel to Kyushu. 

7:50 a.m. Definitely on Kyushu now. Next stop is Hakata. I'd forgotten how pretty this place was, even under gray skies—lofty green mountains wreathed in fluffy cloud boas, everything looking moist and damp, even the people and their tiny houses with multicolored tile roofs. Like Jeju Island, but roomier. 

8:26 a.m. Eating another breakfast sandwich in another McDonald's in Japan. Excessive? Well, you can't beat the availability—or the price. I don't much feel like paying ¥500 for a bowl of ramen this morning. 

The train pulled into Hakata just before 8. I crossed the road and headed to the bus stop to check what bus I need—88, it seems. That rings a bell. I'll just stop at a combini (convenience store) to grab supplies for the six-hour Camellia Line ferry ride and then I'll head for the port. 

9:26 a.m. At the ferry terminal. I must be getting tired. I put my ¥500 coin into the change slot (instead of the fare hopper) and thought I'd paid. The bus driver had to hold me up and pluck the coins (¥220) from my open and clueless hand. 

I decided to skip buying snacks. The terminal has shops, and the ferry I'm taking is so huge that they'll have convenience stores and even a few noodle shops aboard. I'll probably be sleeping the whole time anyway. Already bought my ¥500 terminal use ticket (what a racket) and my ferry fare is prepaid ($90) so now I'll just have to pay the fuel surcharge at the check-in desk and head upstairs to the departure lounge...when the check-in desk opens at 11:00, that is. 

10:32 a.m. Checked in. Much smoother this time now that I know what to do. Fuel surcharge was only ¥1,200—barely more than $11.40! (Check my math.) The Camellia Line is six hours in duration but man, the price is right. I'm now sitting in the exact same terminal (2F) on the exact same gate (11) which I took last time. Only difference is that I took the JR Beetle, a Boeing 929 Jetfoil that reaches Busan in 2.5 hours, and it was summer and the weather was hot, muggy and sunny. Now it's cold and rainy and I'm eating the last of my Sapporo Beer Crackers and am anxious to be away. Exchanged money and got ₩188,000 back. 

The New Camellia car ferry. From Wikimedia Commons.

11:46 a.m. 24 kilometers per hour, 522 people and 20,000 tonnes. That's how much this vessel steams, holds, and weighs. The whole damn ship smells like piss, except the lavatories—they're fresh and clean. I'm in Room 439 on Deck 4. This being a ferry between Korea and Japan, there are no berths—just 10 alcoves with space to stick small bags, valuables, and hang coats. We'll lay out pads, lay our heads on the brick-shaped green vinyl pillows, pull a thin comforter over us, and snooze the crossing away on the brown-carpeted floor. Our shoes are in the requisite compartmentalized shoe-cubby seen in all the more civilized restaurants, bars and houses. Looks like there's six of us so far. I'm the only foreigner. The deck and rail are visible outside the porthole, and the roof of the ferry terminal with its enormous trombone-shaped glass canopies, and the dreary town of Fukuoka sitting sullen under the wind and drizzle. My iPod is charging. I trust Koreans enough not to molest it in my presence (it's 3 cubbies away from me). Almost 12 now and we'll be leaving in 30 minutes. I hope I sleep the whole way. 

 

 

Final glimpse of Japan.

  1:32 p.m. Trying to sleep, but I can only manage a light doze. It's hard to believe those whitecaps out there could make this big ol' boat rock 'n' roll so much. I'm not sick—never been seasick except that one time in 2008—but I just can't get used to the swaying, rollicking motion. It's like trying to sleep on a camel's back—moving and yawing and pitching and rolling on 3 axes. It doesn't help that the lights in here are all on, the TV is blaring softly (inexplicably showing the 2010 Olympics on SBS) and this ship is warping and twisting so much that the portholes and bulkheads are making clicking, snapping, creaking noises. I tried the light switch, but it either doesn't work or it isn't a light switch. I'd put in earplugs but I want to hear an abandon ship order if there is one. Best I can do is pull my hoodie over my eyes, pretend I'm in a howdah on an elephant's back in India, and pray the next 4 hours fly by like the howling wind outside. 

3:00 p.m. No such luck. Still can't get to sleep. My iPod is charged though, so I sneaked off to one of the lounges—by the staircase on Deck 5—to watch the rollers and troughs and crests. The sea is gunmetal grey as far as the eye can see, with streaks and flashes of white everywhere. The sky looks like old snow. Hard to believe wind and temperature and currents can create such force. This is like being in a big honking Winnebago going up and down hummocky hills. Still not sick, but I think my stomach believes I should be by rights, and is making inroads. We'll hit a big hillocky wave and go up, up, up...but what goes up must come down, and down we go with a gut-wrenching drop and what must surely be a huge gout of white spray. That in itself wouldn't be too bad, except that the waves are coming at us on the perpendicular, so as we rise and fall, we're also rocking from side to side (why I compared it to a camel's gait, actually). The fun part is—apart from staggering drunkenly down corridors, floating down staircases, and watching the great swells rise and fall as over the backs of unseen Leviathans—is that it's still drizzling outside and there are several pearlescent drips clinging to the railings just beyond my porthole. As the ship rises and falls, these droplets slide back and forth on the undersides of the rails, looking for all the world like bubbles in a carpenter's level. 

I think I'll step outside, get a breath of fresh air, and try to find the observation deck (up top somewhere, probably). 

3:39 p.m. As I figured—the doors to the outside deck are locked tight. Makes sense. They wouldn't let anybody go outside in these seas. No more of these rough winter crossings for me. Can see land to the west—must be Tsushima. Means we're getting there. 

5:07 p.m. Land ho!

I went back to my cabin and slept for a while. That beat back the impending nausea. I woke to see several cargo ships and the gray-green mountainous shores of K-Land in the distance. I also saw the JR Beetle passing us. He left two hours after we did—no surprise the little hydrofoil caught up—but he must have had to slow down due to the conditions. Looks like he's getting jounced around out there plenty. 

And so ends February 7th. There's one correction I should like to make: the New Camellia did indeed have berths with bunks, but they were in the first-class cabins. My paltry second-class cabin had the accommodations depicted above. 

Tune in tomorrow for the final chapter of my Hokkaido diary. 

Hokkaido diary: Tokyo to Sapporo

A quick aside before we begin: this is the Sententious Vaunter's 600th post. A big thank-you to all you lovely followers who've hung with me for even half that time.

2/3: 

• woke up at 4:30 a.m.; back hurts
• got some H2O
• packed up and left at 5:30
• walked a few blocks to Tokyo Station, mumbling to myself
• found out I can't exchange my voucher for a Rail Pass until 7:30
• went to McDonald's and ate a breakfast sandwich with coffee and watched the light creep into the sky
• allergies are giving me the business this morning—must be the capsule bedding
• Not content to sit in Mickey D's for 90 minutes, I stashed my stuff in a station locker. My rabbit fur hat, strapped to my backpack, was shedding all over it like a living animal
• I stuck my hands in my pockets and walked south to Ginza. The city came awake as I had—slowly, groggily, gray and uncertain. I tried to capture the freshness of the morning, but couldn't. A slimy haze, like last night's hangover, lay over all. I reveled in the cool and calmness, deliberately going against the grain by walking slow and looking happy—the opposite, as Theroux wrote, of most Tokyoites, hurried and worried. This is where I should stick some platitude about "the city was all mine in the predawn light" but that'd just be doggerel. I bought some sandwiches, mikan (tangerines) and water and fruit juices (plus my trusty traveler's fifth of Suntory whisky) at Lawson Station and got my JR Pass. Then I cracked my stuff out of my locker and threaded my way through the labyrinthine passages (flashing my pass at every guard at every turnstile) to the Tohoku platform 22 and the 8:20 Hayabusa to Shin-Aomori:
                 
                       8:20 - 11:19                Tokyo - Shin-Aomori
                        (179 min.)                   (Hayabusa Shinkansen)
                        15 min. transfer
  
                       11:34 - 1:44                Shin-Aomori - Hakodate
                        (130 min)                  (Super Hakucho)
                        29 min. transfer
  
                       2:13 - 6:14                  Hakodate - Sapporo
                       (241 min.)                   (Hokuto)
  

8:00 a.m. So, Steely Dan says you can't buy a thrill, eh? Try pulling out of Tokyo Station on a bullet train. Nothing else like it.

Hung my fur hat on a hook and used it for a pouch to hold things in (finally managed to put on some deodorant, too)

• Everyone else eating their breakfasts—bread or bento (boxed, compartmentalized meals)
• I ate one of my sandwiches (supposedly a BLT, bu really a BLEPT—bacon, lettuce, egg, pickle and tomato—and tried some perfectly awful vegetable fruit juice
• 8:35 a.m. Tokyo still had that slimy film on it that I'd noticed earlier
• 8:45 a.m. Brief stop at Omiya; sure is nice having 3 seats to myself.
• 9:45 a.m. Napped for an hour and woke up to Sendai
• 9:52 a.m. Stop at Sendai
• 10:08 a.m. Passed acres of farmland mysteriously steaming—at first I thought, panicked, of Fukushima and insidious, invisible radiation—then I saw the men burning brush and weeds, scouring the fields clean well ahead of planting season
• 10:15 a.m. Popped out of a tunnel and there was snow on the ground. Always happens like that on bullet trains. Rivers still running like iron bands across the white landscape
• 10:27 a.m. Sky beginning to clear
• Bluish mountains dusted with white rearing their heads in the distance; stopping soon at Morioka
• 11:00 a.m. Flatter now. No snow, just slush, tired-looking rail yards, clusters of houses and brown fields. Too many damn tunnels to see much. Read the Sapporo and Wakkanai chapters of Theroux's book.
• 11:06 a.m. Snowy again, from what I can see. Next stop is Shin-Aomori, the end of the line for the Shinkansen.
  
  Writers are snobs. We're just snobby about different stuff. Theroux is snobby about airplanes, manga, cellphones, computers, and people who walk and eat at the same time. I'm snobby about movies (at best a liberal brainwashing, at worst a cheap shell game, intended to bully, browbeat, shock, desensitize and amuse the populace into acquiescence) and music (hip-hop, created to make both the performer and the listeners think they're cool)
• 11:15 a.m. Will these tunnels never end? Sky's getting grayer. Shin-Aomori should be just minutes away.
• 11:30 a.m. Well, perfect. I suppose I should have expected this. Made a successful transfer to the Super-Hakucho 15 only to find the platform crowded with fatuous-looking foreigners—Americans in a tour group, all wearing name-brand coats and hefting fancy luggage and backpacks with names like "Arcteryx." Here for the snow festival, like me, and the ski slopes too, most of them. When did the outdoors become a penis-measuring contest? I suppose it has always been since the days of rich dentists and newspaper editors going on safari. At least brand names weren't so abundant and intrusive back then. God, there's nothing I hate worse than seeing knock-kneed, buck-toothed jackanapes with bulging eyes and protuberant Adam's apples taking pictures of an oncoming train with a smartphone. Ugh. I'm glad I'm only hear [sic] for the first day of the festival.
  
  Wow, speaking of snobby...
• 11:37 a.m. On the move, heading for Aomori proper. Lots of snow, heaped against buildings and on rooftops in spongy, sagging layers like week-old frosting on an angel food cake. 
• 11:52 a.m. For reasons which I would understand if I spoke Japanese, the train sat for an interminable age at Aomori, then started back the way it came—toward Shin-Aomori. Maybe we need to go back and switch tracks or something, or perhaps Aomori proper was just a branch stop. Ate another of my sandwiches. I have some tangerines, one apple juice and a full bottle of whiskey left. Morale is high. 
• 11:58 a.m. Yeah, we're on a different track now, passing white snow-clad fields with wisps of brown grass sticking up and crossing viscous gray-green streams. 
• I have an interesting map in front of me on the underside of my folding tray. It's a cross-section of the Seikan Tunnel under Tsugaru Strait, which this train will take to reach Hakodate on Hokkaido. According to the map, the tunnel curves at an obtuse angle beneath 140 m of water and 100 m of seabed, for a total length of 53.85 km, 23.3 of which is water (the rest seems impassibly mountainous). It will take us 24 minutes to traverse it. 
• We're just sitting again, this time in the middle of nowhere .I hope I don't miss my connection at Hakodate. I'm getting into Sapporo late enough tonight as it is. 
• 12:19 p.m. Rolling into Kanita, and BAM—there's the ocean off to the right—rolling, windblown, reflecting the gray sky. Snowy mountains across the water—my first glimpse of Hokkaido perhaps?
• 12:56 p.m. Nodding off and drowsing in my sleep. We've been in the tunnel for ages. The map shows some sort of station—Tappi, it's called—1/3 of the way along, just before water. We must have shot right by it. 
• 1:02 p.m. And we're out—still overcast but the snow is blinding after all that darkness. We must be on Hokkaido by now. Deep snow everywhere, piled high by doorways, just as Theroux described
• 1:09 p.m. Brief stop at Kikonai. Next stop, Hakodate. Much colder now. All the snow makes the plows and cottages look like cupcakes. Clumps of wet snow nest in the dead branches of skeletal trees like weird fruit.

2:05 p.m. Easiest transfer ever. The blocky, angular Hokuto 91 was directly across from us, engines rumbling. I bought some more snacks (plus beer) and now we're just waiting around 'til the darn thing leaves at 2:13 p.m. for the four-hour drive to Sapporo. I've got my Nook, my iPod and everything else I need for the journey. All the chuckleheads who got on at Aomori are in my car this time. Bummer. I don't have a window seat, but at least my seatmate (the first since leaving Tokyo) is a shy, retiring Japanese girl, maybe a university student. Okay, beer time. And snacks. I bought Yebisu Malt, some nuts in a small plastic bottle, more water and onigiri—a rice ball wrapped in seaweed and filled with salty tuna. The Koreans would surely think it Gimbap.

2:31 p.m. Somewhat distracted by my book, The Terror by Dan Simmons—getting good only 14 pages in—but must remember to look out the window. Real scenic out here, plains and woods and lofty mountains and the distant gray sea. Can't write too much, though. This contraption is the rockiest, shakiest, bounciest ride yet—worse than the Super Express with its wheezy, whistling brakes, worse than rattling, banging Amtrak. It's like being in a truck on a dirt road, and going through tunnels is even worse.

• 2:38 p.m. Brief stop at Onumakoen—foresty and drenched in thick snow, layered and crusty and flaky like pastry crust. 
• 2:57 p.m. Brief stop at Mori; sea and fog-strewn mountains to the right. This damned car is roasting hot—Why???
• 3:21 p.m. Brief stop at Yakumo
• 3:43 p.m. Brief stop at Oshamambe; young foreign couple got off here. The man had a Japanese sword stuck through the straps of his pack
• 3:47 p.m. Still following the sea around the arm of a great bay. Getting ridiculously snowy. Looks to be knee-deep in most places, and the mountaintops are simply caked with it. Sky and sea are leaden—a cheerless sight. How did the Ainu survive here?
• 4:11 p.m. Brief stop at Toya; Reading Simmons's book really makes you fearful of those cold northern wastes where ice and wind drive men mad and unknown terrors lurk.
• 4:24 p.m. Brief stop at Datemombetsu. Charming little station with a covered platform and a noodle shop.
• 4:44 p.m. Brief stop at Higashi-Muroran—rather big place compared to the others
• 4:53 p.m. Getting dark. Looks dang cold out there. Hard to believe I woke up in Tokyo this morning and it was 45 degrees. This ol' heap keeps wobbling and jerking back and forth and side-to-side. Wheels slipping on snow? Unsteady hand at the wheel? I don't know much about diesel trains but I'd swear this thing has a manual transmission. 
• 4:58 p.m. Brief stop at Noboribetsu. It's not just cold and wintery out there anymore—it's frozen. In the fading purple light I can see slush frozen into jagged ridges on the roads and icicles dangling from the eaves of the houses, which look hunched over against the cold. It's colder in the car, too—have they turned the heaters off, or is it just that nippy out?
• 5:40 p.m. Totally missed the last station. Coming up on Chitose now. I've read 160 pages of this book without pause. 
• 7:18 p.m. FINALLY in my hotel room (as you can likely tell from my neater script). We were delayed 30 minutes getting into Sapporo due to another train having mechanical problems ahead. After a lot of starts and stops, we finally squoze by and sneaked into town like a teenager who's stayed out too late. 

I KNEW those chucklehead foreigners were trouble—Americans and Australians both. I'm beginning to see why my mother and my fiancée both claim to hate people in general, and why Paul Theroux wrote that meeting another traveler is his (and every traveler's) greatest fear. What I should I see [sic] when I get off the train than this same stupid-looking bunch of people forming a gabby, impenetrable knot right at the top of the platform staircase. Fed up (and a bit travel-fatigued, I'll admit) I shoved right through them, gleefully relishing their bemused stares. Halfway to my hotel, however, I had a horrible thought. I remembered that, two months ago, I had by some miracle snagged the last vacant room at the Sapporo Clark. Upon rounding a corner and looking in through the lobby windows, my worst fears were confirmed: that same knot of gabby foreigners had beaten me to the punch. They were all standing in the lobby, yapping as they checked in. I kicked the two-foot-deep snowbank next to me and waited around for 15 minutes until they cleared out.

Now I'm in my room, cramped and lonely and with an iron-hard East Asian mattress. But THERE IS A BATHTUB. I'm going to go find something delicious and decadent to eat, come back, peel off my grimy clothes and stinking socks, and have the most gorgeous bath ever.

Next time, I won't come here when there's a festival on. 

Hokkaido itinerary

I'm starting this post at 12:50 a.m. on what is technically a Saturday morning. My flight to Tokyo leaves early on Sunday afternoon. Before that, though, I need to fill you in on my itinerary. So here 'tis:

Sunday, February 2

•    depart Incheon Airport at 1:20 p.m.
• arrive Narita Airport at 3:30 p.m.
• take the Skyliner to Ueno Station, then ride down the Ginza Line to Kanda
• leave the station and head a few meters south to Capsule Value Kanda
• eat some dinner and read that Tokyo chapter in Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

Monday, February 3

•    at 7:00 a.m., head to Tokyo Station and activate my Japan Rail Pass
• hop the JR Tohoku Shinkansen for Shin-Aomori (3.5 hours)
• transfer to the JR Hakucho limited express to Hakodate (2 hours)
• transfer to the JR Hokuto limited express to Sapporo (3.5 hours) 
• don't forget to read all the relevant chapters of Ghost Train as you do this
•   walk a block west and six blocks north from Sapporo Station 
• find the Sapporo Clark Hotel (check in 3 PM, check out 10 AM)

Tuesday, February 4

•    wake up, get breakfast
• head to Sapporo Station and catch the express to Asahikawa
• take bus 41, 42 or 47 from the station to Asahikawa Zoo (40 minutes, 400 yen) 
• come back and get some Asahikawa ramen near the station
• catch the train back to Sapporo

Wednesday, February 5

•    wake up, get breakfast
• take in the Sapporo Snow Festival in Odori Park
• go up the Sapporo TV Tower and take some pics
• walk south a block to Sapporo Tram (Nishi 8 Chome Station)
• ride nine stops to Ropeway Iriguchi Station and then west to the Sanroku cable car station
• take the cable car up to Mt. Moiwa
• come back down and go back to Ropeway Iriguchi Station; ride 13 stops to Susukino
• get some eats and drinks; take in the Snow Festival some more
• walk back to Odori Park and get some shots of the Sapporo TV Tower at night
• hit the sack

Thursday, February 6

•    check out of the Sapporo Clark Hotel at five o'clock or so
• head to Sapporo Station and catch the 6:00 AM limited express
• do the whole trip again in reverse, except ask for Hakata at Shin-Aomori
• arrive in Hakata at 12:00 AM...

Friday, February 7

•    find something to do with yourself for a few hours...perhaps an izakaya
• catch Bus 11, 19 or 50 to Hakata Ferry Terminal
• check in at the Camellia Line desk at 11:00 AM
• ferry departs at 12:30 PM; arrives in Busan at 6:00 PM

And there you have it. I'll arrive in Busan, tired and hungry perhaps, but ready for Adam's going-away party. Then it'll be the KTX back up to Seoul on Sunday, February 9. Then it'll be barely two weeks until the staff meeting at Sejong University, and then the new semester begins in March.

Wow.

What a jolly life I've got. 

30 Days to a Better Man, Day 30: get a straight razor shave

This post is pulling double-duty. It will simultaneously be the final 30 Days to a Better Man post, and also my last beardly update (for obvious reasons).

The first thing you should know is that the full beard I've been growing for five months is already gone. I shaved it off on Day 20 or Day 21, or something. Maybe Day 22, I'm not sure. Here's what it looked like the night before:

 

I shaved it off because (a) I didn't like the way my sideburns get all swirly when they grow out, and (b) I wanted my barber to give me a shave, not clear-cut a forest. Thought I'd help him out a little and revel in being clean and smooth for a few extra days. Then I'd go in on Day 30 and have the gentleman shave off the pathetic stubble I'd managed to grow in one week, and nobody would be the wiser. 

But here's the problem. I mentioned before that I shouldn't have done this challenge in winter. That goes double in Korea. Today begins the four-day Korean holiday of Seolnar (Chinese New Year, essentially, but for Pete's sake don't call it that here). Everybody and their mother has closed up shop and gone home for the holidays. I was at the grocery store last night and it was a madhouse, everyone buying last-minute gift packs for relatives and stocking up on supplies for the four-day dry spell. The Cheonho Bridge was backed up with traffic, choked with frantic motorists trying to get on the Gyeongbu Expressway and head south to the provinces.

There are two unpleasant and unforeseen consequences to this holiday that I didn't see coming:

Number One, I have failed today's challenge, because the barber and his wife shut their doors and went haring off for Gyeongsang Province or who-knows-where. Oh well. I can at least say that I have had a straight razor shave before. My old barber down on Geoje Island gave me one once.

Number Two, my winter coat is still at the dry cleaner's. I forgot to pick it up yesterday before everything closed. I leave for Hokkaido on Sunday. I'm going to have to make do with a crap-ton of layers and thermal underwear, I guess. Whoops.

So...that's it. 

The Art of Manliness's 30 Days to a Better Man Challenge...finished. Thirty days of hurdles, tasks and challenges, completed.

Am I a better man? I think so. I'm glad I took this challenge. It highlighted all of the areas in which I was deficient (clutter, finances, budgets, posture, manual skills, volunteering, and oh dear lord, physical fitness). But it also showed me all the things I was doing right (love letters, debt reduction, testosterone, dream-chasing, journal-keeping, reading, socializing, and adventurousness). Thanks to this challenge, my shoes are shined, my résumé is up to date, I've connected with old friends, found a mentor, reaffirmed my commitment to my dreams and my loved ones, and have tangible financial and fitness goals.

Nothing I couldn't have accomplished on my own, maybe; but it sure was nice to accomplish it all in a single month and look back on it with pride.

The only thing I didn't do right (besides getting a shave) was that dang Kipling poem. I shall make it my business to memorize it on the train through Japan. 

Tune in tomorrow for my itemized itinerary. A better man, signing off. 

30 Days to a Better Man, Day 19: schedule a physical exam

I've been so wrapped up in this challenge that I've neglected to tell you about the other noteworthy happenings in my life. There've been a few. I still have to explain my Hokkaido itinerary. My beard's thickening up nicely. I may have a new line on finding the location of the army base where my grandpa was stationed during the Korean War. Most importantly, I've decided to take the bull by the horns and find a literary agent for Novel #1. I'm a third of the way into the final edit/proofread; when I finish I'll start sending query letters. "Exciting" simply does not describe it.

But I'll explain all that later. Let's get back to the subject of manliness.

I can't remember the last time I had a complete physical checkup. I think it was after I got back from Korea in 2009. That was almost five years ago, and according to The Art of Manliness, it's time for me to go back and get another one.

But there's a problem.

It's not that I don't trust Korean doctors. Far from it. They've helped me out a lot. They saved my life in September. I had tonsillitis and a 104-degree fever, and the capable folks at Asan Medical Center in Songpa-gu put me to rights.

But there are minute differences in the medical practices between East and West. Korean doctors believe some things that American practitioners don't, and vice-versa. There's also the language barrier to consider. Most Korean physicians are at least halfway fluent in English, but some of them have accents as thick as cold butter. I want to understand the diagnosis when it's given to me. Completely.

So I think, in spite of the interminable wait and the added cost (thanks, Obamacare), that I'll wait until I get home to the States to have a physical.

I'm still meeting the parameters of the challenge, never fear. Today's goal is to schedule a physical exam. That's precisely what I'm doing. I'm just scheduling it for March 2015. It's going down on my invisible calendar. [scribble] There. All done.

What I will do as soon as possible is schedule appointments with a dentist and an optometrist. I haven't had my teeth looked at or professionally cleaned in ages. And it's been a year since I got this latest pair of glasses, so I suspect it's time to get my subscription updated. I'm going to be staring at screens a lot this winter: editing manuscripts, typing up novels and short stories, reading other peoples' work (sorry, Olivia, I'm going to finish that dang story of yours if it kills me) and blogging about Japan. So I'd better make sure my spectacles are up to the challenge.

Pull up a stump for Day 20...  

30 Days to a Better Man, Day 14: write a letter to your father

Father and Son II by Ismo Hölttö. Silver gelatin print, 1966. 

The directions say write, not send. Sending is optional. As it happens, though, I already (and inadvertently) did both those things.

Late on the evening of Day 4, realizing that Day 5's task would be to "cultivate your gratitude," I decided to get a bit of early practice in. Cheating? No. This was more personal. It was something I'd had half a mind to do for ages, but had never done, and this was a perfect excuse to do it, and get the ball rolling on wholesale gratitude-cultivation in the process.

I wrote a lengthy e-mail to my parents.

Within it, in separate paragraphs, I thanked my mother and father for all they'd done for me in childhood and beyond. Each of them has taught me so much in their own inimitable way, shared their knowledge and experience with me, made sacrifices for me, and just generally done their darnedest to make my life as easy and comfortable and interesting as possible. So I took the time to thank them properly for it. Separately. Individually. Respectively.

Cheating? No. Their paragraphs were as long as a single-page letter would have been. The only difference was that it was electronic instead of written by hand on wood pulp. But it's the thought that counts, right?

I spent all day in Itaewon and Yangcheon-gu, picking up brewing supplies and bottling an American pale ale. I was especially grateful to ol' Dad today, as the book he sent me for Christmas — How to Brew by John J. Palmer — came in dang handy. It should prove useful for the porter the boys and I are brewing next week — the last beer we'll craft before I jet off to Hokkaido in early February.

But that's a story for another day. Not Day 15, though. That's tomorrow. 

30 Days to a Better Man, Day 4: increase your testosterone

The article on The Art of Manliness website has two lists: the first tells you why low T is bad for us dudes, and the benefits of having good loose testosterone floating through our systems. The second list is what we can do to increase it. The challenge is to pick three of those things and do them today. 

Not smoking was kind of a cop-out. I don't smoke anything but pipes and cigars anyway, and then only on a biweekly or semi-monthly basis. Therefore, the three things I decided to do today were: 

• get at least 8 hours of sleep tonight (easy)
• eat a serving of good fat (as if I needed an excuse to eat olives and nuts)
• meditate for 10 minutes

I started going back to the gym recently, and I happen to be going today. I'll probably do some resistance training while I'm there. I took the liberty of looking ahead at the upcoming challenges and I noticed that Day 26 is "Take the Marine Corps Fitness Test." Part of that test is doing pull-ups, so I'm going to try to get in shape for those. (Maybe I'll finally be able to do more than one stinking pull-up by the time this is over.) So I'll do some resistance training at the gym, including pull-ups (or attempted pull-ups).

So there you go! Five things I'm doing today to increase my testosterone. I expect that, by the end of the day, I'll be ready to go deep-sea fishing or run with the bulls. More likely I'll have the energy and pep and pickup to add five thousand more words to Novel #3 (which I'm trying to finish before Miss H gets home on Sunday, so she can read it). At the very least, more T should help me grow this dang beard out before I head to Hokkaido in February.

Wish me luck...