Lost In Translation Update : The Wrap Up

Now that I have finally got home, rested, partied at Australia Day then rested again I feel energised enough to wrap up my Lost In Translation posts.

In short, Japan is awesome. It is everything the world should be like: Quirky, friendly, fun loving and enjoyable. Everyone I met was friendly, everywhere I went was welcoming and everything I saw was amazing.

Japan is home to the friendliest people in the world. Not only towards other people, but the population is generally friendly towards their fellow man. There is an inherent respect for each other that doesn't seem to exist anywhere else I have experienced. It was off putting at first; no having to be "on guard" all the time, but I quickly got used to it.

I'll give the example of the bar. In Australia you tend to fight for a position in line at the bar, people push in, get agro, start fights and generally make the whole experience less fun. In Japan people respect each other, so you never need to fight about who is next in line, never get into blues with other pub goers etc.

I guess living in big cities where living on top of each other is norm means that people just have to get along, otherwise the whole system just falls apart.

Really, in the end, I loved Japan and can't wait to go back. I made so many friends, and learned so much, but I need to experience more.

Thank you Japan, you will see me again.

Rie

I made many friends in Japan. Here I am with Rie, who I met out during my last night of drinking in Osaka.

Lost In Translation Update : The Penultimate Post

This is my second last Lost In Translation update and it comes from the kitchen at home. Thats right. I made it home finally after a crazy mission that involved delayed flights, strange airport lounges and disrupted sleeping patterns.

After I have a rest I will upload the last of my photos and wrap up what ultimately was an awesome holiday. Stay tuned.

Lost In Translation Update : The Journey Home

After waiting a three hours at the airport for check-in's to open I have found that my flight has been delayed by nearly 10 hours. With me leaving now at 9pm.

This has the following consequences:

• My laptop will be flat by the time I get on the plane
• I have a booking at a hotel in KL that I wont meet (I was supposed to arrive in KL at 7pm today and leave 9am tomorrow, but thats shot now)
• I am knackered and I can't check into the complimentary hotel room at Nankai airport they are giving us until 2pm (it is now 20 past 10)

All in all a rough way to end what was a trouble free holiday.

Lost In Translation Update : Osaka Fun

Basically: I reckon I should have cut Kyoto out of my trip and just done Tokyo and Osaka. This place was just too awesome.

Osaka is everything I expected Japan to be. Friendly, Crazy, Zany. It's all here. On Monday I wandered around the area near my hotel and ended up walking about 6km in the day. I scoped out the location of a couple of the bars in the lonely planet, got some awesome sushi and headed back to the hotel.

Monday night I walked up to a place called "Cellar" in search of live music. Unfortunately there didn't seem to be anything on the go so I went to a little bar called "Mojo" where they were playing awesome 60's music. Here I met the bartender Himano (He-man) and I was the only person in the bar. I had a couple of drinks before a Pommy girl called Ann and a chick from Chicago (unfortunately I have forgotten her name) walked in. I had some more drinks with them and then their mate Ben from Melbourne walked in. All of them teach english, as do pretty much every westerner in Japan and Ben was marking papers. A few drinks later and an Irish bloke and a guy from America walked in on a Visa run from Korea. We all ended up doing some shots, cranking up the guitars and drumkit in the back and just having a blast.

I don't remember how, but I seemed to make it back to my hotel in one piece. I was pretty rough most of the day on Tuesday, but I ended up going to the Osaka Aquarium and Imax 3D in Osakako. The Aquarium was pretty cool, they had a whale shark 12meters long and these massive, scary looking spider crabs. Pretty Impressive.

Tuesday night I went back to Mojo where I met Ryo, the owner, and his girlfriend. I had a couple of beers, discussed music with Ryo, then wandered out to get something to eat. I then headed back to the pub, which had filled out more by this stage, and met a girl called Rie who had a reasonable handle on english, but was learning french and she kept slipping into speaking it while trying to understand me. I pulled out the french word for Red which impressed her. I played a couple of games connect four with people in the pub then headed home to try and get some sleep.

I think because I was nervous I had a terrible sleep, only managing to grab about an hour. I checked out at 5am thinking it would take a couple of hours to get to the airport. Unfortunately I arrived 30mins later and now I have to wait until about 9.30 before I can even check in. Thank sweet zombie jeebus for free wireless internet. Today I jump I plane to KL, where I have an overnight stay before the next leg, leaving Malaysia at 9am Thursday morning.

I got plenty of photos of my adventures at Mojo Bar and Osaka, but I will have to put them up on flickr when I get home, with a bit of a wrap up.

See ya soon.

Shrine Abstraction

Part of a shrine at the Ryoanji Temple

Lost In Translation Tidbit : Electronics

I was half expecting Japan to be way ahead on everything, but it's not really the case. Here are a few points regarding Japans love affair with Consumer Electronics

• Their mobile phones (Keitai) are, until recently, all CDMA. They are switching to 3G now, but all the phones are BRICKS. Noone uses Nokia, no Razor phones, hardly anyone uses Ericsson. They all use these random phones I have never seen. All clamshell style and huge.
• Their phones have awesome features provided by the network. Like GPS, Email (real email), Fast internet etc etc. They even have these little squares of black and white dots on billboards / posters that you can take a shot of with the phone and it automatically opens the website of the advert for you. Pretty neat.
• Wii is everywhere. They Love it. The ads are great too.
• PS3 is NOWHERE. They don't advertise it at all, and the stands at the stores are full of games / hardware but noone seems to be paying much attention. I was expecting saturation bombing of adverts for it and people just going crazy, but I looks like they can't give it away. It is PHYSICALLY HUGE by way. I am talking MASSIVE and it really isn't all that impressive in terms of the demos I have seen.
• As there is no room on the train you don't usually see people working on laptops, but Sharp laptops seem popular. Most people have these little clamshell PDAs which I think can do email.
• While there is heaps of electronic tech, its hard to tell what it does as its all in Japanese, including the markings and labels on buttons / the unit, pretty much rendering any purchase by westerners as useless.
• As I said in a post before, they love their in dash DVD and GPS units.

In general I am suprised that they really aren't that CRAZILY into their gadgets. They do love their phones though.

Lost In Translation Update : Hello and Goodbye to Kyoto

Sorry for the sudden drop in the frequency of updates but I was just too hungover and couldn't be stuffed writing yesterday or Saturday.

Kyoto was pretty lovely. It really does remind me of Melbourne. On Saturday I jumped on a Bus and went to two temples on the outskirts of Kyoto: The Rokuon-ji Temple and the Ryoan-ji Temple. Both were very beautiful and serene.

At the Rokuon-ji temple a local university was doing free guided tours so I was fortunate to have a guide describe all the features and give me a bit of history on the temple. It was great. At this temple is a massive Golden Pavilion that was built by Yoshimitsu (eheh Soul Calibur 2!!) entirely to demonstrate his superiority in Japan.

At the Ryoan-ji Temple was heaps of Moss and Rocks. It housed a wonderful rock garden and it is suprisingly peaceful to sit and look at it.

After getting all templed out, I wandered down the road to the Peace Museum. This is a museum dedicated to recognising the futitily of war and promoting peace through understanding. It mainly focus, quite interestingly, on the terrible things Japan did during the "15 year war" and why they should never happen again. Kinda like saying: yup, it happened: we're sorry, we're dealing with it.

That night I went to an Irish bar in Downtown Kyoto, then a traveller who had been in town for a while took me to this awesome tiny bar that you would have no idea existed and then from there we went to Sam And Daves, which was too western for my liking but decent fun. I got very pissed and caught a taxi home at 5am.

Sunday morning, still drunk I got my shit together at 10am and checked out of the Hotel. Luckily they had a little bus that dropped me to the station where I got a ticket to Osaka on the Shinkansen. That took me to Osaka-shin, where I had to switch trains to a metro line. At the switch I got very confused and standing around with my massive bag I was getting tired as buggery. Luckily a local helped me out, walking with me all the way to the right train I needed. They are all so lovely here.

Next it was trying to find the hotel from the station and after walking in completely the wrong direction for about half an hour, I managed to turn myself around and find it.

The swissotel is pretty fancy. The rooms are well appointed and the staff are nice. The facilities are great, though I am yet to check out the bars and restaraunts. I had a big rest in the hotel most of Sunday, before venturing out for some food. I found a hawaiian burger place and had a nice meal before returning to my room for some much needed sleep.

Today I am going to wander around Osaka. The people seem lovely here and I can't wait to get out and see whats going down.

Musical Intersections

I love the musical intersections of Japan. Too wicked.

Lost In Translation Update : First Night (and day) in Kyoto

As Futurama put it Kyoto is "The Anagram Lovers Tokyo". But it is slightly more than that: it is the real old japan. Having been the original capital of Japan but have lost that distinction to Tokyo, they are kinda resentful of foreigners. They are still friendly, but you kinda get the feeling they are just helping/serving you because they have to.

Kyoto is very beautiful though and I spent most of today walking around town, after having a quiet night in after a pretty full on day of bullet train adventures. Last night I just grabbed a pizza at Prontos before heading back to my hotel.

So far today I have seen a few temples, and walked through down town Kyoto. I went down a road called Kiyamachi-dori (Town of Lumber Traders - Street) Which was very beautiful and old.

Kyoto isn't all that dissimilar to Melbourne in my opinion and, while there is much to see in terms of history, its hard not to get a little tired of temples when you can't really learn much about them. Maybe next time I come I will tee up an English speaking tour guide.

Apart from that, my hotel has better facilities than the last, but the rooms are older and smaller, but still very nice. I am about to go for a relaxing swim in the pool before asking the staff about where I can go for a drink tonight.

I have posted a couple of photos on flickr of Kyoto from today, so don't forget to check them out.

Lost In Translation Tidbit : Eating

After having my first real Japanese "Boxed Set" lunch today I figured a little Tidbit update might be in order.

Eating is suprisingly difficult in Japan. Everyone is on the go, and only few places are sit down restuarants, and those that are are usually so busy you can't find a spot. Many places don't have English menus, and sometime they don't have pictures or window displays to be able to point out what you want.

While it can be exciting, the adventure of just picking randomly wears thin and, even when you can see what you are buying, you have only the slightest idea of what it is. "This kinda looks like noodles with mushrooms" you think. You get it and its freezing cold, the mushrooms are some other random ingredient that is indescribable and you've just wasted 8 bucks. Like I said, this is fun for the first couple of times, but when you haven't eaten anything all day its kinda harrowing.

That said most of my meals have been great so far. And Cheap. The best snacks are these little palm sized triangles of rice that you can get from any corner store. They are wrapped in this funny way that keeps the seaweed paper dry and in the middle is some mystery ingredient (if you could read japanese you'd probably know). Each that I have tried have tasted great, and are great to snack on waiting for a train, or in the middle of a walk. They cost about a dollar thirty.

Today I had a salmon sandwhich with a coffee for breakfast but as with most of their breads it was sweet and a bit of a struggle to get down. For lunch, after walking probably 6 kms I took a deep breath stepped into this tiny place and ordered a 30 dollar sushi boxed set. I could tell what probably three things on the plate were, but for the rest it all just looked beautiful. Everything was tasty, apart from two pieces of what I assume is Japanese fruit that was sweet but mealy. On the side it came with green tea which was waaay better than the shit we get in Australia, miso, rice and this weird cup of omelette that had prawn, this bit of fruit, grapes and mushrooms.

Overall I am glad to have got a real Japanese meal, but like I said, its hard to eat mystery foods all the time, so I think tomorrow night I might have something recognisable again.

Lost In Translation Tidbit : Automotive Transport

While there are a lot of cars in Tokyo, it is quite a small number compared to the population. It is quite expensive to own a car in town, and expensive to get your licence ($2000 dollars for lessons). Here are some observations I have gathered about cars in Tokyo.

• The "no cars older than 3 years" concept that I was lead to believe is false. I saw cars much older (80s - 90s) but I did not see any "beat up" cars.
• 99% of the cars have Widescreen indash DVD players and Sat Nav. Even the cheapest small cars have it built in, and older cars have add on units
• Hardly Any Riceboy cars. I was expecting to see heaps of them, like in Northbridge, but no. I have seen maybe 1 rice boy car, and a couple of hot cars (porche, lamborgini etc) but none done up stupidly like we see driving around Perth.
• Not many motor bikes. Lots of scooters though, and some are awesome massive scooters.
• Taxis are very nice, but expensive. Every taxi is beautiful, and they have automatic doors that open and close for you.
• Buses are popular, and there are "Highway" buses which are like coaches that go out to the suburbs
• Due to the high cost of ownership, most of the cars are VERY nice, BMW, High end Toyotas, Mercedes, Audi etc
• Alot of cars we haven't seen. Toyota and Nissan have some wicked cars out here that we haven't seen anything of yet. Mazda is about the only manufacturer that I recognised their whole lineup

Interesting stuff...

Final night of drinking

A couple of regulars Shoko and Hironi that I had a great time with at the Club House.

Lost In Translation Update : My Last Night in Tokyo

The Club House is where it’s at. I went back for a last night of drinking in Tokyo and drank with a few of the locals that I have had the pleasure of meeting in my time here. I did go home reasonably early though, as I had to be ready to check out today.

Rising early at 7am I read the paper, packed my bag (which is super heavy now, why did I buy so many books!) and checked out. I think had to jump a train to Tokyo Station, then buy a ticket to the Shinkansen (Bullet Train). I didn’t have to stand around long, thankfully, as the weight on my back was killing my legs and feet.

The Shinkansen is cool. Its pretty much just a big, slightly more classy commutor train. Its very comfortable, and it has wireless internet (that I couldn’t use as you needed an account with them). I got the super express which makes a couple of stops (meaning it doesn’t get up to the full 300 kilometer per hour speeds), but should get up to around 150km/h. They bring food and stuff up and down the train. Its pretty good service.

I met some French guy in line who is working in Tokyo and he asked me for computer help as soon as he found out I worked in IT. Typical.

Ooh, we’re going pretty fast now. Its actually kind of ridiculous. I wonder how fast it is. Anyways, I am going to sit back and relax as the world whisks by.

Domo Arigato Gasimus to all those at the Club House for showing me a great time!

Kampai!

Lost In Translation Update : SNOW BABY, SNOW!

It's been a couple of days since my last actual update and I have done a heap of things since Mondays entry.

Starting with Monday I did end up going to Ueno, and checked out a large park and temples there. I did manage to get to the Royal Museum, which was quite small, and they were showing a Calligraphy Exhibition. Check this wicked calligraphy of some lyrics from John Lennons "Imagine".

From there I tried to go to the National museum but unfortunately most things are closed on the Third Monday of the Month. I don't know why. I was standing there reading the sign when I heard an Aussie accent behind me. A couple was visiting from Melbourne, taking a three week trip around Japan, and they had just landed. Their names were Antony and Leanna. The informed me they had just been to the Imperial Palace and were off to Asakusa. They were kind enough to let me go along with them.

A FOOD UPDATE FOR SOPHIA! With Antony and Leanna we had lunch at a stand up diner thing under some train tracks, Leanna and I had a Udon noodle soup while Antony had something that was like a soup but ICE COLD. Weird. He said it was terrible.

In Asakusa I saw a massive shrine and it was pretty cool. Photos are on flickr. With the aussie couple I had a beer in the Asahi building. It was great.

After the beer we headed to Ginza and I showed Ant and Leanna some of the placed I had been a few days before, and helped them with the trains. We got dinner at a Curry place where we made Gaijin arses of ourselves and walked into the dining area with shoes on, which the Japanese found hilarious. We sat a low tables on the floor, but the legs went down into a hole in the ground. I had a "Black Curry" with pork. At the end of dinner I said goodbye to my new friends and headed home. I tried to find a pub to drink at in Shinjuku but with most things on Monday most of the places I wanted to go were closed, so I decided to have a quiet night in.

After a good sleep I headed out on Tuesday to get to Kawguchiko, which is at the base of Mt Fuji. After spending about an hour trying to find the bus port I got a seat on a coach and sat back for about an hour and a half into the mountains. It was beautiful seeing the suburbs of Japan roll past me.

As we got further away from Tokyo and when Mt Fuji suddenly loomed into sight I started noticing weird white stuff on the ground. IT WAS SNOOOOOOOOW!!! I was over joyed.

In Kawaguchiko I jumped the historical bus which did a round trip past the Lake and I got orientated. I then walked through town, checking out the snow and went up the Cable car to get some shots of Mt Fuji. It was soooo cold but beautiful. Very beautiful. I will definately be back there again.

After a burger from "MOS BURGER" I walked through the twilight back to the station and got a bus home. I decided to check out a pub I found in the morning called "MUB" which was supposedly an english pub. They had typical English stuff on the wall and the soccer on, but that was about as english as it got. I then made it back to the Club House, saw one of the guys I met the first night here and had a drink. One of the locals took me to another pub where I drank with them discussing Japan until about 12, then I had a drink with a guy from Melbourne who I also randomly saw in that Curry Place at Ginza. I then went home about 1am. It was a pretty big day and I slept pretty soundly.

Today I went to the Imperial Palace in Tokyo and it was just beautiful. Again: photos on flickr. I spent a couple of hours walking around the gardens. It was very relaxing. I would love to see it in spring, but it was very interesting seeing some very old bits of Japanese history.

Tonight I am packing my stuff and getting ready to check out tomorrow morning. Once done I am heading back to the club house where the guys there are buying me a farewell drink.

Don't forget to check out the photos.

Kusunoki-Masashige Statue

A statue at the beautiful Imperial Palace

People watching

Shibuya. Home to the Youth of Japan.

Lost In Translation Tidbit : Mt Fugi

Today I can see the Snow Covered peak of Mt Fugi rising high above Tokyo from my Hotel Room. Awesome. Tried to grab a couple of photos. So wicked.

Lost In Translation Update : Shibuya and Harajuku

If there are two places I want to visit again in Japan they would be Shibuya and Harajuku. They are the "Young" areas of Tokyo with the majority of people walking the streets aged between 12 and 28 by my guess. The vibe is just brilliant.

Everything feels "new" in Shibuya, new buildings, new stores, pop music blaring out. It is classy while still having the zaniness of Japan. Harajuku is pure Japanese zaniness but awesomely fun. Kids dress up, there are heaps of Happy Goths and street performers who are there to perform, not busk.

The people in this district are so nice, and everyone seems to be having a great time. Just pure fun, I couldn't wipe the smile off my face all day.

I spent most of the afternoon just people watching, but I got my times wrong and didn't make it into the park where all the cosplay kids go. I might try to head back there again this week as it is only a few stops away on the train, but I think they mostly come out on Sundays.

I also managed to find some "department" stores yesterday, negating one of the items on my "Tibits" entry.

Today I am going to head to Central Tokyo to try and check out the Imperial Palace and Ueno Museum. Tommorrow I am going to try and mission it to Mt Fugi, but it isn't looking promising due to being out of season.

I read one of the books I bought from the Anime Institute and it better than I though. It is the complete story boards from Fooly Cooly and, while it is all in Japanese, it is great to see the process that goes into making the show.

Just a note on my Itinerary: Thursday I will be checking out of this hotel, jumping a bullet train to Kyoto and checking in there, so most of Thursday will be travel.

Lost In Translation Tidbit : Interestingness

Just a quick post on some of the things I have found amusing / confusing / interesting here:

• People don't touch. Very seldom do they come in contact.
• Unspoken organisation at the train station. Instant orderly lines.
• Cold coffee everywhere. Heaps of it, especially in vending machines.
• Milk is hard to find.
• HEAPS of manga. It's everywhere, TV, Advertising, Noticeboards, Warnings: everything
• Shops are inside out. I have only found one shopping mall that had enclosed shops. Everything is on the outside of buildings, out to the street, or in massive tall buildings with multiple floors as one store. Never a bunch of stores under one roof.
• No pubs. Everything is small tiny bars or restaurants.
• People wait for everything. Almost every restaurant has a line of chairs out the front for waiting on.
• No graffiti. I am keeping my eye out for some cool graffiti but so far nothing.

More tidbits soon...

Lost In Translation Update : A few days of Zaniness

ATTENTION For those of you who have commented but don't see their message appearing please post again. I accidentally deleted some comments while Blogger was in "Japanese" mode.

It's been a couple of days now since my last post. This is mainly from the difficulty I was having with using the Japanese configured PCs. It's really hard to navigate when all the characters and keyboards are in squiggly.

Well, what have I been up to?

After the day of walking around Shinjuku I rested my weary feet and had a quiet night in. The following day I awoke rested and revived and decided to mission it to Akibara. This is the "Electronics Town". It was full of nerds and about a million electronic devices that I had no idea were ever invented. I have never seen so many knock off microsoft mice. I picked up a heap of anime books and general goodness. I even won a lucky dip (much to the delight of the attendant behind the counter, I had no idea what was going on) at the Anime Showcase winning a little set of goodies.

After wandering around Akibara I jumped on the train to Ginza. The adventure that was trying to get there was lessened by two expats who gave me a hand. Ginza is ritz central with all the fancy name brand stores you can imagine. It was a beautiful place all lit up, and very much the Tokyo you see in the movies. Here I bought a Macbook from the Apple Store and then hopped a train back to Shinjuku.

After a quick rest and play with the new lappy I headed back into Shinjuku to try and find the Club House again. I forgot my map and ended up finding a place called "The Dubliners" here I had a couple of beers and met a bunch of Americans teaching english and a japanese guy called Shogu. He was soooo maggot but having a great time. The guys (Eric, Tommy and Alex) took me out to Roppongi which is like Northbridge, but the size of a city. It was pretty seedy but we went to Gas Panic and 911. At 911 Eric and I secured a booth and did some people watching while Tommy and Alex went on the prowl. Tommy ended up hooking up with a big russian girl while I dragged a very drunk Eric and Alex back to the train station at 5am. It was a big night, but I had a great time. I wont be going back to Roppongi any time soon though.

Today I hope to go to Harajuku and check out the crazy Japanese teens doing Cosplay.

The weather has been pretty bloody cold, but I am coping alright. I think it got down to -1 degree last night while wandering the streets.

Stay tuned for more updates.

Champions

A great night of drinking in Shinjuku

Lost In Translation Update : The First Day

Shinjuku is a pretty crazy place. So much stuff going on it's insane.

I got lost reading the lonely planet map and spent ages trying to find a point on the map I could use as a reference. I ended up going into a tiny bar called "Jakes Bar" and the helped me orientate myself even though they spoke no english what so ever.

I ended up at a pub called The Club House and got talking to an American Ex-pat called Robert. He and his mates showed me some places to check out, and after the Club House closed we trundled off to a place called Champions bar, which was packed and tiny, and we did Kareoke and drank till 3am.

Today I walked all over the shop, checking out the surrounding area. I went to a park and a shrine, and got a look over shinjuku from one of the tallest buildings in the district.

Now I am off to get something to have a shower, get something to eat and have a rest. Tomorrow Robert is taking me to the nerd district Akihabara to check out all the geek toys, anime and manga.

Lost In Translation Update : Made it

Well I have made it to Tokyo, and not only that, managed to find my hotel. I had a limosine service from the Narita airport, but would have had to wait 6 hours till it came, so I bought an earlier ticket to Shinjuku station. It was about a hour or so from Narita to Shinjuku and the trip was nice. The landscapes are EXACTLY as depicted in all those Animes.

I managed to orientate myself in Shinjuku pretty easily based on my Lonely Planet map and found my hotel. Its pretty nice with good appointments but best of all it has awesome views over Tokyo and the surrounding regions. I can see Mount Fuji from my room.

Right now, having snatched a couple of hours sleep I am just heading out to find something to eat, and somewhere to have a drink in Shinjuku. Its pretty crazy, but everyone seems friendly enough.

Sayonarra for now... (lame)

Lost In Translation Issue #4 : Rocket man

After a pretty casual packing mission I am off to jump on the plane. Next post should be from Tokyo.

Catch you on the flip side.

Lost In Translation Issue #3 : Shopping is complete

Today was torturous. I really hate shopping, although I did manage to get some stuff organised. I got my bag adjusted to my shape and it's one hundred better. I managed to stock up on Undies and Socks (Lonely Planet suggested new socks because of all the taking off of the shoes). I got special thermals and gloves. I even managed to get a snow jacket.

If anyone doesn't know this yet, I live in Perth. Perth really isn't known for its snow. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a snow jacket in a city where most people have never left the state, let alone seen snow before? I went into every store I could think of that might sell skiing gear. I ended up trekking over to Osbourne Park Main Peak to get the jacket I wanted. Was a pain, but worth it.

Everything should be sorted now. I am stocked up for my Holiday now all I need is some tshirts and my tickets.

I hope everyone is ready for a rocking weekend at southbound. Party on.

Lost In Translation Issue #2 : More bloody shopping

I've bought myself a backpack. It's a Mont Astro 80 and it has more features than I can ever dream of using. One interesting thing is that it contains a liner bag that you can zip out and use as another carry on bag, if you run out of space. Pretty neat. Only thing is, as per my usual shopping jaunts, I didn't spend enough time deciding and got the wrong size harness for it, so today I have to take it back and see if I can get it changed.

Not to worry, I need to get a few other things as well such as the obligatory underpants and socks, as well as long johns, comfortable gloves, a snow jacket, blistex, shoe laces (the dog chewed through my current ones) and a few tshirts.

On a side note, Flight Centre still hasn't called about my tickets / bookings. I hope its all still sorted. It better be as they have taken my dollars.

Lost In Translation Issue #1 : Getting my sh*t together

With my trip fast approaching I have kicked my efforts to get ready into overdrive. Yesterday I took a trip to Hay Street to wander into Kathmandu, Main Peak and Paddy Pallins to ask about Backpacks.

I really hate buying things I have no idea about. I am used to having at least some knowledge of what I want and (perhaps more importantly) WHY I want it. In my efforts to acquire a pack I really am stumped.

While all the sales people were very helpful but I was presented with a bewildering array of backpacks, ruck sacks, travel bags, hybrid packs and every single tool of carrying around a bunch of shit you could imagine.

"Was I going to be walking with the pack" asked the sales man.
"I guess so, who wouldn't be" says I.
"Well you'd want this pack, but if you're going to be WALKING with the pack you'd want THIS pack." responds sales man.

Really helpful. The whole time I was looking I was conflicted. Would I buy a pack just to travel with, or should I buy one I could keep on my back for days at a time? Do I want a pack with a zip off day pack or a clip on? What is the difference? Why is this pack made out of hardcore material while this other is parachute silk? Do I need a million pockets or just one? Would my choice in colors offend some tribe in some random village in remote Africa? It's all just so confusing.

Today I will be heading back into town to check out the few packs I think I have whittled the selection down to and I will post on which I choose.

This is the first in a series of articles on my holiday. From now on keep an eye out for "Lost In Translation" articles to get a recap on major events. Look for the "Lost In Translation" tag to filter the site by these articles. I will still be writing other random articles in between these more focused entries.