walking to Oksu

Hey there, blogsphere.

I'm going to start posting on this here blog more regularly. One of my Facebook friends put me on to Young Adventuress, and I tell you: it's hard to find a cooler travel blog. I've visited lots and they were all pretty insipid, or were glorified travel brochures, or spent way too much time trying to look cool instead of focusing on the important stuff like quality writing. YA doesn't bother too much about that crap. And she belongs to the same philosophical school of blogging that I do: nice, long, wordy, florid, descriptive, opinion-driven posts with scads of luscious photos, breezy language, profound ideas and whatnot. So hey, follow along. She's gotten some intense recognition for her blog 'cause she works darn hard at it. 

Anyway, she also offers advice for wannabe travel bloggers, and part of it is to blog frequently and build a platform (Instagram, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest...everything). Awful similar to the advice I keep reading for wannabe novelists, too. Build that platform, build that platform. Create ways to get seen and get contacted. 

So I decided to get serious. I now have a Twitter account, and I went through and revamped my Google+ pages (both my writer's page and my blog's page). As soon as I get home and get a smartphone I'll update my Instagram account and start posting photos regularly there and let you folks know how to find me. I've updated my contact info on this page, too—see the about me page just underneath the big title up top. 

So...what to post? I don't believe I've shown you nearly enough of South Korea or Seoul. So here's some pics from another long walk I took on Saturday, November 8. All told it was about 7.3 kilometers, or 4.5 miles, on a grey, misty day that couldn't really decide what it wanted to be and just sort of hung there like it was waiting for its ship to come in.

I love walking around this town. Since I started doing all these long walks last month, I've discovered so many strange and wonderful things hiding just around the corner. A couple of weeks ago I saw a guy sitting on a bench by the Jungang Stream with a big blue macaw on his wrist. No explanation, no signage, nothing. Just a guy and his parrot. This particular Wednesday, as I walked from my oneroomtel to my new favorite burger joint in Oksu-dong, Seongdong-gu (near Oksu Station on Line 3), I saw this—some kind of dredging operation going on near the northern bank of the Han River, about level with Seongsu-dong, not far from Seoul Forest. 

Looking east along the bicycle path on the northern shore. You can baaaaaarely see the incomplete Lotte World Tower in the misty distance, in Jamsil.

Looking west, downriver toward the Seongsu Bridge.

Han River Park beneath Gangbyeonbuk-ro (North Riverside Road) in Oksu-dong.

Now I simply must tell you about this burger place, kids. It's called Bartwo. It's a beer-and-burger pub, and one of the absolute finest places in Seoul to get a goddamn good burger. It's right at the interesection of Deoksodang-ro and Hallimmal 3-gil, just a few steps up a hill from Oksu Station (go out Exit 4, turn right, pass the Paris Baguette on the left, and walk up the hill; it'll be on the right at the T-junction). I've been there a few times and have never been let down. The owner, Jeremy, is a gyopo and speaks really good English. He's a friendly dude and he keeps his bar stocked with excellent West Coast craft beers like Ballast Point and North Coast, and some I'd never seen in Korea before (Widmer Brothers anyone?). The Bartwo draft beer is only ₩2,500 a pop and tastes surprisingly good. The extensive menu includes stuffed peppers, tortilla pizza, chips and salsa, hot dogs, burgers, sandwiches, and salads. Also these, the fried mandu (Korean dumplings) with homemade salsa, three for ₩7,000: 

One word: INCREDIBLE.

The crowning glory is the Oksu Burger, ₩9,000. Beef patty cooked to perfection before your eyes, fresh red onion, lettuce, dill pickle (not sweet), tomato, melted cheese, fresh bun, a pile of fries, and all the ketchup and mustard you want. Add in the seasonal import beer (Sam Adams OctoberFest, ₩8,000) and the pickles I got as a side order (₩2,000) and my total bill came to ₩27,000 for one evening's debauch. 

  

How's that for a slice of fried gold?

Hong Kong, day two

Did I say that we had a fantastic view from Room 2504 of the ibis North Point Hotel? I was whistling Dixie. As we peered outside on the wet morning of Monday, August 4, we saw two rusty brown hawks circling each other as they rode a thermal updraft up the side of the hotel building; barges, junks, yachts, cruise ships, and ferries scudding across the iron waters of Victoria Harbor; rain pounding down in Kowloon; the hoary cloud-swept peak of Tai Mo Shan; and jets descending toward Lantau Island. What a view to wake up to. 

We were lazy most of the day, waiting for the spectacular thunder showers to pass and the heat to subside. In the early evening, we took the tram (the streetcar, not the subway) west to Hong Kong Station.

Then we rode the Star Ferry from Pier 7 across Victoria Harbor to Tsim Sha Tsui.

 

  

There was one thing I knew I HAD to do in HK: the Avenue of the Stars, specifically the Bruce Lee statue. I admired the man's physical prowess and wanted to pay my respects to satisfy my rampant, querulous, needy, domineering inner geek. I also got to mack on some grilled cuttlefish. 

Heather returned to the hotel and I rode one stop north to Jordan to meet Jeff, my old Canuck friend from Geoje, whom I'd last seen in Ho Chi Minh City. He and his fiancée Jenn had taken the Reunification Express in the opposite direction I had—up to Hoi An and the beaches there. He was in Hong Kong on a long layover to Seoul to pick up the wedding ring, and she'd already gone back to England. We thought we'd meet up in Kowloon for dinner and a drink. I nabbed some postcards at the Temple Street Night Market and we located a restaurant. It was down a shifty-looking side-street, swathed in plastic awnings but with plentiful light, electric fans, and TVs showing period dramas. The menu was in English and 640-ml bottles of Tsingtao were only HK$15 apiece. We feasted on fried rice, a satay beef bowl, and fried pork ribs—suspiciously similar in taste and appearance to any Californian Chinese buffet, and therefore likely loaded with MSG. 

For drinks we rode the subway back under the harbor to Hong Kong/Central. We popped out of Exit C, turned left up a hill, went right, traversed a staircase, followed a sinuous skyway for a few hundred yards, and found ourselves in SoHo, a favorite haunt of Jeff's and a great many other hungry, thirsty expats. the place was full to bursting with trendy, overpriced foreign restaurants catering to affluent residents of the Mid-Levels and accessed by a unique system of tiered, slow-moving escalators. One has merely to stand and browse as one is lifted up the steep hill, and disembark at one's leisure. 

Having already stuffed ourselves in Kowloon, Jeff and I were only interested in beverages. We had a nightcap at Yorkshire Pudding, a British pub. We sipped Tetley's beer and Magners cider, watched Australian rugby, overheard rugby-loving Americans nearby exchanging ribald badinage, and eyed the exotic fish darting to and fro in the big aquarium tank behind the booth. 

Then we went home. And that was day two.

a day in Singapore

I woke up at eight o'clock.

I passed a bundle of laundry to the desk clerk.

I asked for a towel and got one.

I showered and shaved. 

I marched down Kitchener and Serangoon Roads to the Mustafa Centre, where I exchanged 220 Thai baht, 10 U.S. dollars, and 361 Malaysian ringgit for 161 Singapore dollars. 

While I was there, I bought a padlock for my defunct locker back at Tresor Tavern.

All this I accomplished before eleven o'clock. 

I went back to the hostel and sat in the lobby, sweating, updating my journals and letting my parents know I was still alive. I also spent some time writing down the addresses of everything I wanted to see and eat in this town today (Thursday, July 31). 

I went to Chinatown to check out the Heritage Centre and was told it cost $10 SGD to get in. 

I said "Screw that with a pitchfork." 

I went to the foodie street and had some laksa, a spicy noodle soup in greasy orange broth which is central to Peranakan (Chinese-Malay) cuisine and Malaysia's national dish. It consists of rice vermicelli (though this touristy dump used spaghetti) in coconut milk and curry broth. My bowl included hard-boiled eggs, cockles, bean curd puffs, and bean sprouts, and cost $4.50 SGD.

I did not take a food selfie. Too hungry. 

On an impulse I walked across South Bridge Street and caught the open-top sightseeing bus for $25 SGD. We swung out west, down shady, tree-lined Havelock and Zion Roads, curving up to the Botanical Gardens (the one thing in Singapore that I didn't see and wish I had). Then we went dead east on Orchard Road. As clean, bright, and shiny as this city was, dazzlingly clear as it dried from the previous night's rain, there wasn't much to it besides shopping, eating, and authoritarianism. "HAPPY 49th BIRTHDAY, SINGAPORE!" squawked loud orange banners on every lamppost, but on the subway trains were stern admonishments to the citizens to be polite when boarding or exiting, to move to the back or offer your seat to an invalid. Public service announcements printed starkly in black, white, and red urged citizens to perform the vital five-step method to eradicate dengue fever (promptly emptying every container on your property of standing water). 

What was most jarring was seeing so many Occidental franchises. Malaysia and even Cambodia had KFC and Starbucks, and Seoul has Burger King and McDonalds and Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, but Singapore was just mad—Long John Silver's, California Pizza Kitchen, Coldstone Creamery, Quizno's Subs, and everything else British or American. I was disappointed. Foreign excursions are supposed to be...well, foreign. And I hated to think that the average Singaporean's idea of western culture was a soggy McDonald's sandwich, some limp fries and a syrupy soft drink. 

The Singapore River. Really takes your breath away, doesn't it? 

After a short foray north and east to Sungei Road, the sightseeing bus dumped us out at the Singapore Flyer. Think the London Eye, but bigger—"the world's tallest observation wheel," proclaimed the posters and brochures. That was a blatant falsehood, as the High Roller in Las Vegas is actually taller, but I'm not the quibbling type—not when sweat's soaking my collar and the red bandanna I'd tied around my right hand and wrist for mopping and sopping purposes. 

Pro tip, kids: this is more fashionable than wrapping it around your forehead and more sanitary than sticking it back in your pocket after every wipe. Just be prepared for lots of concerned fellow travelers to ask you how you hurt your wrist. 

I caught the next bus to Clarke Quay and switched to the metro. I went back to the hostel, rested, rehydrated, and wrote some postcards (the fifth of seven batches). At 6:45, a time I judged with a pilot's careful precision, I caught a taxicab back to the Flyer to see the sunset from on high. 

The Flyer isn't very popular with the locals. According to TIME, they gripe that it's too far away from everything and costs too much. I didn't sympathize with the former sentiment but certainly the latter: tickets were $33 SGD. Concordantly, there wasn't much of a crowd. I rolled up at seven o'clock, bought a ticket, hustled through all the supplementary bullshit they put up to make waiting in line more interesting—planetariums and historical placards and whatnot—and got some fantastic views of the downtown area and Marina Bay. 

Then, of course, I went to O'Leary's Sports Bar & Grill—foreigner-owned and foreigner-run, looking like it had sprung from any broad boulevard in the Inland Empire—for a nightcap. What else but a Singapore sling? 

It was weak and sickly-sweet and cost $17 SGD, but what the hell. I can say I've had a Singapore sling in Singapore. 

I'd meant to sample the best that Little India could offer me in the way of eats, but my internal compass was taking a much-deserved rest. I couldn't find my intended destination, Bali Nasi Lemak in Geylang. So I went back to the neighborhood of my hostel and sat down in the same little halal Sri Lankan/Thai cafeteria where that snaggle-toothed Samaritan Singaporean had bought me a bottle of water the previous evening. I had some iced lychee juice and a plate of nasi goreng thai for just $4.50 SGD. For afters I had some sort of fried fish dumpling, also delectable. I couldn't discern the waiter's thick Tamil accent when I asked what it was. Sounded like "kampop." 

I got an A&W root beer for dessert (you don't see those every day in Asia) and returned to the hostel to update my journals. My time in Singapore was at an end. The next morning I would mail postcards, check out of the Tresor Tavern at noon, and catch the metro for Changi Airport. 

If you'd like to find out why I hate Singapore, come back tomorrow. 

an evening in George Town, Penang

Travel Truth #7: Holidays and festivals can throw some delightful zest into your trip. Or a monkey wrench.

Things began to go seriously wrong the moment I stepped off the International Express train in Butterworth, Malaysia, fresh off the overnight ride from Bangkok. While the other passengers took the long walk up a series of elevated ramps to the ferry jetty, I turned right, crossed the tracks, and went to the station office to check on train tickets to Singapore. 

There weren't any. As in, none. Zero. Zip. Nada. 

I didn't realize that Ramadan leaped around so much. I thought it was pretty much a winter holiday, and that's that. I didn't comprehend that the vagaries of the Islamic calendar could place Ramadan, say, in the midst of summer, but so it had. It seems that I had arrived in Malaysia right at the beginning of Hari Raya Puasa, the "Day of Celebrating the End of Fasting." Today and tomorrow (July 28-29), every Mohammedan in Malaysia (and Singapore and Brunei and the Philippines) would be home with their family, stuffing themselves silly and giving thanks to Allah. All the train tickets back to Singapore were booked up through the end of the week. 

Shoot. 

Resolving to worry about all this later, I hefted by backpack, sauntered out into the broiling sunshine, and traipsed my way along the elevated walkways to the ferry jetty. 

The line was about 50 miles long. Twin rows of Malays (mostly young men, I noticed) stood upon the cracked concrete of the shady walkway, arms folded, talking amongst themselves as they waited their turn for a ride to Penang, a medium-sized island just a kilometer or two off the coast, its humped green back just visible in the hazy distance. There were a couple of portly, black-uniformed policeman patrolling the crowd, casting disapproving eyes at the loud and boisterous, their keen eyes seeking out any women and hustling them to the front of the line. One of these policemen spotted me. His eyes swept over me, taking in my misshapen hat, sweat-soaked clothes, lumpy backpack, and ridiculous flip-flop tan, and then darted away like a startled fish.

A second policeman with dark sunglasses came along a few minutes later and motioned me out of line and to the front. Gratefully, I humped my backpack another 200 yards, past a line that would surely have meant two or three hours of waiting, paid my fare, rode across the strait, and spent about a 30 fruitless minutes searching for my hotel (and nearly melting in the process) before a kindly cabbie picked me up and took me there.  

I checked into the Red Inn Court, which wasn't as new or modern or large as Boxpackers in Bangkok but nonetheless clean and serviceable. Thereupon I took three hours to cool off, both literally and figuratively. I also had to wait until after 6:00, when the noodle joints opened up. Then I sauntered into the gentler but still sultry evening, found an open-air greasy spoon crowded with locals (always a good sign) and ordered a plate of delicious, savory char koay teow, noodles stir-fried in rich dark sauce. This particular variety had chicken and shrimp. I sat across the table from a Brazilian fellow named Gabriel who lived and worked in Singapore, and found it horribly boring. We talked, mostly of the shittiness of Asian beer and the emergence of craft brew. 

I sloped a few feet west down Lebuh Chulia to the Hong Kong Bar, a cramped closet of a place with an eclectic mix of rustic decorations, Chinese paper lanterns and WWII British Army jungle hats being the most prominent. Best bar in Asia, bar none. I sat at one of the tables out in front, right next to a pillar, and had seven Tiger beers (for a total of 77 ringgit, or about $23.50). The sun set beyond Penang Hill, lighting the low, glowering clouds a lambent yellow ochre overhead and a fulgent papaya nearer the horizon. Drag queens, ladyboys, tourists, and benighted foreigners strode past and kit cars and scooters zoomed by at ridiculous speeds. I chatted with the Chinese-Malaysian proprietress, an English man and his articulate Chinese wife at the next table, and a youngish Russian woman named Eugenya. She was a scuba diving instructor and was living in Thailand, but was down in Malaysia doing a visa run. She and I were united by literature—both of us were quite well-read, and we discussed our favorite works, Russian and otherwise. One of the most controversial topics we discussed was the plus side and perks of racism—yes, we thought of several good ones. We shared a few off-color jokes between us, including ones at Russians' and Americans' expense. 

All in all, it was a magical evening. As I sat there with a bellyful of horrid Malay beer and the fires of a glorious sunset still dying a slow death in the western sky, the Chinese-Malaysian proprietress laughing at my jokes and slapping me on the shoulder, I could see myself happily moving to George Town and sitting in the Hong Kong Bar and doing some of my best writing. And living. 

Bangkok, day two: the Chao Phraya River cruise

I woke up on the morning of Friday, July 25, "had a good gap and a stretch" as Mark Twain would say, ate breakfast, and chatted with my cubicle neighbor, a lovely 20-year-old woman from Kent whom I shall call Emilia. I'd never met anybody from Kent before. Then I lazed around in bed until noon reading Dune, and when I got hungry I went out for some lunch. Whom should bump into but Emilia, returning from her sweaty morning forays into Bangkok? 

We went for lunch together at the same little Thai-Sri Lankan greasy spoon off Phetchaburi Road that I'd been eating at every day, and had us a good long chinwag. She was fascinating to talk to: she was about to start university in the fall (studying journalism, no less!), and had worked as a waitress in a pub. She knew all about pulling pints. We talked a fair bit about journalism's slow but steady transition from print to Internet and how that would affect our respective careers. ("Career" is a pretty loose term to use about the lazy, indolent stuff I've been doing since I graduated in 2007, and I said as much.) Even though I was nearly eight years her senior, I did my level best not to be patronizing or offer unwanted advice; I remembered how I'd felt as a twenty-year-old green buck and I used to hate it when people tried to counsel me. Just let me do my own thing, will you, you old codgers? 

Then I took the BTS Skytrain south and west to the Chao Phraya River (the Saphan Taksin stop on the Silom line), strode a few hundred meters to the Sathorn waterbus stop, bought a ticket for 40 baht, and boarded a boat heading upriver. 

Wat Arun, the Temple of Dawn, on the western bank of the Chao Phraya.

It was a delightful ride. This is one of the best ways to get around in Bangkok, as a lot of the sights and activities are clustered along the eastern bank of the river. Here's a printable route map of the particular waterbus line that I used, and here's an itemized list of the stops. 

During the voyage I spoke to an elderly, rotund, balding Oregonian man who'd been stationed in Thailand in 1967 and was now visiting with his freckly, frizzy-haired granddaughter. He said he was most impressed with the high-rise hotels: Bangkok had become a "very modern city" since he'd seen it last. They hadn't a building over three or four stories in '67. He'd been stationed somewhere in the north of Thailand to monitor Communist air traffic in Laos, I believe, but he and his comrades would sneak south into Bangkok whenever they could and have a bit of fun. I can only imagine what a rough-and-tumble place the city was back then, before it was civilized, digitized, modernized, and gentrified. Saddens me I never saw it, and I told the Oregonian so. 

I got off at the No. 8 stop, Tha Tien. I weaved through the dockside throng, ignored all the souvenir sellers and noodle joints clinging perilously to stilts along the waterfront, and dove headfirst into Wat Pho,  the Temple of the Reclining Buddha. But I'll show you that in the next post. 

moving to Gangnam

This is my first official post from our new three-bedroom apartment in Gangnam!

Okay, I'm sorry. I had to. 

Anyway, it was a heck of a move—much more difficult than last time. The mover was a great guy named Jho whom I found on Craigslist and he showed up on time and was very chatty and told me what the name Jamsil means (magnanery) and discussed his favorite dish daegutang (codfish stew) and was just generally helpful. 

No, the complications arose when we arrived at our new high-rise apartment complex in Gaepo-dong, Gangnam-gu. The building security officer came out of his little cave-like office and promptly informed Jho and me that I'd have to stump up ₩50,000 if I wanted to use the elevator to take the thirty-odd boxes up to the 13th floor. Jeez. Apartment complex policy or something like that. So I paid the man and Joseph (the friend from Sejong that I brew with) helped me move everything off the truck. I tipped Jho ₩20,000 on top of his ₩100,000 fee and he left, all smiles. Then Joseph and I began the backbreaking hour-long process of moving everything Miss H and I own in the world from the sidewalk to the elevator and from the elevator to our apartment. 

Whoof. 

Anyway, the work was soon finished, and Joseph departed. I now owe him the biggest dang samgyeopsal dinner ever. 

Then I went back to the Gwangnaru apartment to clean it, and discovered that there was a whole freaking pile of stuff under the bed that I'd forgotten. Miss H was done with her new job training by now, and joined me in Gwangnaru for a moment of panic. The poor woman who was set to take over our apartment was currently sitting in the other new girl's apartment one floor above, waiting to take possession. In a frenzied flurry, Miss H and I cleaned, called two taxicabs, loaded our remaining truck into the trunks and backseats, and then hared off for Gangnam after handing over the keys. We traveled through the gathering dusk and the rush-hour traffic, the whole city cloaked in a broiling fume of Chinese yellow dust, gagging and coughing and cursing the day we were born, and moved the final two loads up the slow-ass elevator and into our new home. 

Move accomplished. 

This apartment is five rooms: three bedrooms, a bathroom and a dining room/kitchen. Two single guys had been sharing it before we arrived. The place was an absolute wreck: stinking of unwashed bedding and dirty dishes, grime covering every surface, the bathroom clotted with mold, dust bunnies and grit and loose change littering the floor. We called up our old friend Miss J from Bucheon, and the three of us spent all Sunday cleaning. We bought her Papa John's pizza as compensation (thank goodness we live within range of their delivery service; that was the first thing we ascertained). 

The apartment has slowly become livable over the past four days. Every night Miss H and I clean and unpack some more, and by this weekend we have high hopes that it'll be fit for company. It'll be bare and spartan and rather sparse, but we plan on a few runs to Homeplus for area rugs and perhaps to Insadong for Korean-themed decorations. With any luck, the apartment will have become a home before another week is out. 

...which is good, 'cause my lady and I need a clean, comfy place to crash after work. I love my new schedule, but dang, my Tuesdays and Thursdays are intense: composition classes all day, and a 90-minute listening class at 9:00 in the morning. Yikes. Miss H's kids already have her on the hop, too. Both of us are looking forward to the first weekend when we can relax in Daejin Park or go for a craft beer at Hopscotch or the first preseason baseball game at Jamsil Stadium on March 22. 

Pictures will come as soon as we finish cleaning. Postie out. 

Hokkaido diary: the 65th Sapporo Snow Festival

In one of the many cut-rate sci-fi adventure stories I read as a youth and continue to read to this day (this one was On Earth As It Is In Hell, an officially-licensed Hellboy novel by Brian Hodge), a defeated villain defiantly tells the hero: "Do you know why you'll always lose, in the end? Because what you consider victories are such small things."

Going to the Sapporo Snow Festival reminded me of that quip, for some reason. It just impressed me how something that started so small—a pack of enterprising Hokkaido University students building modest snow sculptures in Odori Park in central Sapporo—blossomed into an annual world-famous festival that attracts over two million foreign tourists per year.

This year I was one of them. Here's my diary entry for that day: 

2/5:

10:32 a.m. Nice long sleep-in. At Kita-12 jo waiting for the train. Hardly anybody here. Is it because I'm used to Seoul, which is always a zoo, or because of the festival? The 65th Sapporo Snow Festival starts today, and I am heading first to Odori Park and then to Susukino to take in two-thirds of it (the other third is up in Tsudome, near Asaba, way up north, but I'm prioritizing). 

It's STILL snowing. Must have snowed all night. Light snow, heavy snow, light snow again. The only time it hasn't snowed was the bright sunny first morning. Wow. Not sure how easy it'll be trying to wrangle an umbrella AND a camera in this weather, but I'll try.

1:07 p.m. What I was praying for happened. At 11 or so, 30 minutes after I arrived at Odori Park, the sky cleared. The snow stopped.

Hokkaido scallop, ¥500. Good deal. 

Crab soup, also five hundred yen. Three kinds of crab!

I got some great pics and then strolled south to Susukino to see the ice sculptures.

 

That there may be no speculation...those are real fish.

Now they're just making me hungry...

Now I'm standing outside of Sushizanmai (which looks packed to the gills) and memorizing the menu. I want the Uruoi Sushimori Special, which has herring roe, boiled prawn, salmon roe, red tuna, white stuff that could be squid or flounder, red snapper, and six other things besides. Great place—the waitresses bustle and flit about in blue blouses, white aprons, black stockings and buckled shoes, while the chefs flay away at the fish, egg, and seaweed with their long, thin knives, shouting hearty hellos, goodbyes and thank-yous to the patrons coming and going. The tea is hot and the atmosphere warm in more ways than one.

You could immediately tell the difference between this and any other cut-rate sushi joint—fresh, tender ginger, moist rice and succulent seaweed. Eating the herring roe was an interesting experience—it had the color and texture of an orange slice. The miso soup with prawn heads was a lovely counterpoint. The sea urchin roe had the consistency of apple butter. There was also sardine, sea eel, and albacore tuna, plus shellfish. One of the red fish—either mackerel or red tuna—simply melted in my mouth. A feast. 

3:00 p.m. Sitting in the Hokkaido University Museum. Made a brief but futile stop at the gift shop for souvenirs. Pole Town (an underground mall between Odori and Susukino Stations) was a bust, too. Speaking of busts, I'm going to go see William Clark's now.
"Boys, be ambitious!" 

3:41 p.m. Just sent off the postcard to my folks at Sapporo's big blocky grey post office, east of the station. I'm lucky everything is so close together in this town. I think I'll hit the station on the way back to the hotel in one last-ditch effort to find souvenirs. 

5:32 p.m. Darkness has fallen. My last day in Sapporo is over. I'm ready to be gone, but I am a bit sad. I found no souvenirs—not in the station, nor Tokyu Department Store, nor anywhere else. All that's left is to get some chicken kebabs (yakitori) and beer for dinner, pack my bags and go to bed early. 

7:28 p.m. ADDENDUM. I had a peek in the yakitori place and discovered it was actually an izakaya—and the prices weren't nice. So I stumped a bit further south and found something that wasn't crowded, noisy, or overpriced—Beer & Coffee Venison. The name isn't poetic license—they serve deer meat. So I went on in. The light was low, coming from a line of glass globes over the wooden bar, every other one of which had the names of various Scotch whiskies written on it in multicolored marker. Lots of dark wood and white stucco-like walls, interspersed with tables and chairs with cross-shaped holes in the back (plus fully-antlered deer skulls on the walls and old coffee grinders and tea tins on the shelves) completed the rustic ambience [sic]. Behind the bar were two men: one elderly and thin, severe in demeanor, wearing a tie and black waistcoat and apron, with a beige wool-knit cap which clung to his bald pate like a yarmulke. The other man was likewise in a dark suit (with a fleece jacket flung over it) but was young, handsome, and energetic. He drummed his fingers on the bar in time to the jazz playing on the stereo (Colin Stranahan and Lloyd Miller), and buzzed about snipping labels or sterilizing glasses. The place had a bewildering collection of empty beer bottles in the window and quite a few in the fridge, Negra Modelo, Old Tom, Stone IPA and Löwenbräu among them. The Scotch selection, though extensive, tended to favor Islay and Highlands single malts, I noted. 

I sat down and ordered some venison sausage and a ¥500 glass of Heartland (a European pale lager made by Kirin, with a fine flavor and a delicious creamy head). I nibbled on Hokkaido potato salad and sliced pickles (and later the sausage and some fresh fruit) while the younger barkeep and I attempted a conversation. His name was Kei, and he loved jazz. It was he who manned the Toshiba laptop above the bar and chose tune after syncopated tune. I sensed rather than knew—for he spoke as little English as I did Japanese—that he was a student at Hokkaido University and that this was his part-time job, and that he longed to escape from pulling pints and pouring whiskey and escape to Tokyo (or perhaps even New York) and found a jazz trio. We talked as much as we were able. I sipped beer. The old proprietor washed up or stared into space. I felt the weight of my impending departure weigh heavily upon me. It was an introspective moment—the old man in his wool cap behind the bar, arms folded, staring at the empty room; Kei drumming his fingers, nodding his head and gazing at the computer screen; and me with a cleaned plate and a sweating beer glass in front of me, eyeing the collection of whiskey bottles in their glass cabinets, thinking about getting up at 4 a.m. tomorrow and feeling simultaneously warm and content yet lonely and restless. 

I got up, paid, snapped some photos of the bar and its stewards, bowed low, and left. I bought a crap-ton of food at the convenience store for tomorrow's 18-hour journey—onigiri, bento, salad, coffee, beer, apples, and even something which looked suspiciously like kimchi. All I have to do now is pack my bags and await the dawn.