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 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. 

Hokkaido diary: Mount Moiwa, the Sapporo Beer Museum, and Susukino

2/4:

• 12:45 p.m. After I finished last night's entry, I spoke with Miss H on the phone. Turns out Adam—the friend I was supposed to meet in Busan, got his dates mixed up. He will be in Seoul on the 7, 8, and 9. Darn. Oh well.
  
  I turned on the TV and Cool Runnings was on. Yay! I left it on and took a glorious hot bath that washed away the aches and travel grime. Then I read a few more chapters of The Terror, turned out the light and slept like the dead.
  
  I awoke to bright sunshine, feeling amazingly refreshed. I washed up, dressed, ate the rest of my snacks, and strode into the cold air, bound south for Odori Park and the streetcar station.

• I was crossing over the pedestrian bridge by Sapporo Bus Terminal when I looked over and spotted a scruffy, tanned foreigner emerge from its Stygian gloom. The first thing I noticed was his huge grin. He raised both his hands into the air in a gesture of triumph. Then he spotted me.
  
  
  Far from being embarrassed, his grin grew wider.
  
  "Good morning!" I called.
  
  "Morning!" he called back.
  
  
  "It's cold, mate!"
  
  His accent was Australian.
  
  "Yeah, I love it," I crooned.
  
  "I love it too," he said.
  
  "I could have gone to Thailand," I said, "but not me."
  
  He laughed. "Why go to Thailand when you can come here and do this—" he pounded his thickly-swathed hands together—"with your gloves?"
  
  "I forgot mine," I said, showing him my bare hands. "Pockets."
  
  He laughed again. "Want one?"
  
  With his left hand he removed his right glove (revealing another glove beneath that one) and made a mock-throwing gesture. I raised my arms. 
  
  "No, no, that's all right." 
  
  He laughed a final time. 
  
  "Take care," I said.
  
  "You too."
  
  His grin never faded. 

• I made it to Odori Park, turned west (past a bunch of impressive snow sculptures which shall be unveiled tomorrow) and alighted at the streetcar stop. An old, clanking trolley car (just like those in Kyoto and Kumamoto) pulled me to Ropeway Iriguchi Station. 

• I took two cable cars (regular and mini) to the top of Mount Moiwa and had a look at the knee-deep drifts, bare trees, cawing crows, blue skies, and the whole massive sprawl of Sapporo below. 

I would have been able to see the whole valley (and the mountains and Sea of Japan beyond) but a huge snowstorm was rolling off it and blanketing the town in a sea of gray obscurity.

• I made it back down to Earth and took the tram to Susukino (the fun district) when the storm struck in earnest—huge wet flakes sticking to my clothes and socking me in the eyes. It drove me off the street and into a curry house, where I am now munching on a delicious seafood curry and thinking about hitting the Sapporo beer museum next.
   
  
• 2:45 p.m. Best idea I've ever had. The snow is still bucketing down. This beats everything I ever saw. Sapporo is just getting dumped on. Good thing I switched to indoor activities. 

• I'm sitting in the big 1st-floor beer hall at the Sapporo Beer Museum, sampling their classic brew, their black label (also a favorite of mine) and the KAITAKUSHI beer, made to the original recipe of the brewery, back in the late 1860s and early 70s when it was still a government enterprise. There isn't really much to the museum at all—some blurbs about Hisanari Murahashi, the original project leader, and Seibei Nakagawa, the brewmaster, the first Japanese man to learn brewing in Germany, and the history of the company and the idealness of Hokkaido for good beer-making, etc., etc. The real highlight is this tasting you can do afterward. You order your beer (or a sampler of all three for just ¥500, or $5) and sit around and drink 'em in peace. The nuts are excellent. I have no idea what to do after this—catch the 747 Chuo bus back to Sapporo Station and walk, head down and blinking, back to the hotel. Maybe I'll stop by Hokkaido University on the way and check out Clark's bust. 
  P.S. There's a French couple sitting near me, sampling beer. The dude, a slim, gaunt fellow with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair, is wearing a GoPro on his head. THAT IS SO STUPID.
  

• 8:40 p.m. Went back to my hotel and read for a couple hours, then began to think about dinner. I researched a couple of seafood places (Hokkaido's famous for it, especially sushi and crab) but found they were hideously expensive—a good crab dinner will run you $200. So I rode 3 stops down the green (Tozai?) line to Susukino and found TK6 in a big shopping arcade. Brant (who was here in December) recommended it to me. Amazing burgers, loads of great beers and a thrilling selection of cocktails. They had a good choice of odd liqueurs (Frangelico, Pimm's, and others whose names I didn't even recognize, plus ouzo). As I ate and drank, a 27-year-old Japanese fellow named Dai (Japanese for "big") started talking to me. He works in translation here in Sapporo, and speaks English, Italian, and Spanish. He asked what I thought of Korean girls (whiny, childish) and I asked him what the best and worst parts of his job were (meeting famous people and pretending to care about what they think, respectively).
  
  I left and rode the Ferris wheel at Norbesu entertainment center, and got a line on eats for tomorrow (Sushizanmai in Susukino and a yakitori place around the corner).
  

Some footnotes: what I referred to as "nuts" above were actually Sapporo Beer Crackers, which are fantastic with any kind of beer.

The Kitaikushi was the name of the committee in charge of setting up a working government after the end of the Boshin War and the beginning of the Meiji Era. The brewery in Sapporo was founded to stimulate agricultural growth in the area, and the brew claims to use only water, malt, hops, and yeast—no fancy additives. It was delicious, and even gave the Black (my favorite Sapporo brew) a run for its money. I bought a pack of Beer Crackers for ¥500 and a souvenir T-shirt for ¥1600.

Yakitori means "fire chicken." Yaki- is the Japanese prefix used to denote that something's been flame-broiled or grilled or barbecued, much like bul- is in Korean. Yakiniku, bulgogi...it all means "fire meat." Yakitori is barbecued chicken on a stick. I was willing to bet it went well with beer, so I staked a place out just around the corner from the Sapporo Clark.

W.S. Clark, or William Smith Clark for short, was...well, you can just read about him here. That's your homework until the next post.