Po prostu weszła w kadr...

Polkadots

     I’ve begun to judge the quality of my outfits based on how many people ask to take their photo with me. Yesterday, nothing, today, crowds were forming. I’m out of the muumuu, for the moment. I bargained a couple of shop girls down on some cuter numbers that weigh practically nothing and allow me to feel naked, while still being fully clothed. The more costly dress got way less attention. The cheaper one is polka dots. Maybe it gives off more of a welcoming, cute, hey come take my photo vibe. I finally have three wearable things that I don’t have to suffer from the heat in. I was wearing the muumuu at every moment, even to bed, and I was getting a little grossed out by it. It’s clean now. I’m clean now. Not for long. You sweat sitting still here, and I’m only comforted by the fact that everyone else is equally as drippy and disheveled.

I didn’t swim or bike today, but I did sleep until ten, watch The Hangover 2, and do laundry. Things are feeling happy. Bike ride tomorrow! There’s a cave here with hot springs and mud baths inside it. I’m gonna go get dirty next week.

This is the view I’m looking at right now as I type this on the rooftop of my hostel. Heck yes.

Yangshuo

Cosco Star

Cosco Star

       Here it is the Cosco Star, all dressed up like a disco. It shipped me from Keelung, Taiwan to Xiamen, China, even though everyone told me there was no direct boat to China, that I had to fly to some islands and then sail from there. Here’s something I learned very quickly; people all around the world don’t know what they’re talking about, but they love to have answers, so they just tell you any old thing. In this day and age of google, I say, if someone gives you an answer you don’t like, go looking for another one and almost always you’ll find what you’re looking for.

The Internet in China is ridiculous, so I’m already having a ton of problems posting stuff. Things might be patchy, but I think I’ve got some exciting stuff cooking, stay tuned…

Chiny ...ciąg dalszy

I went ahead and got myself a muumuu. I tried to make it look glamorous in this photo, but it’s really not.

Listen to the jungle noises in Taiwan. It’s nuts.

Tajwańska noc

Taiwan

It’s hello to Taiwan and bye bye to Japan. No more proper ladies and gentleman who go to great lengths to be considerate of everyone in their sights, and also friends and neighbors who may not be present but are thought to be equally as worthy of consideration regardless, people who make room for you on the sidewalk, move their bikes out of your way so you can pass freely, talk non-stop in singsong voices while making change for you in the Family Mart, and never hesitate to throw a bow or two in your direction. I’ve traded them all in for people who don’t give a damn if you’ve been waiting in line for an hour, they’re going to push and shove their way to the goddamn front anyway ‘cause they don’t give a fuuuuuuuuuck, and they want to be first even though they wouldn’t be able to tell you why. They want to be first so they can sit and wilt in the hot and sweaty steam of the dark, unventilated bus, secure in their smugness, knowing their elbows are the sharpest of the bunch and they made it in FIRST! FFFFFFFIIIIIIIIIRST!!!!!!!!! Oh yes.

I’m not sure how it happens, but sometimes, out of nowhere, I get so crabby I want to rent an apartment and buy dishes just so I can take them all out into the street and smash them. I was sitting on the bus from the airport to Taipei City, and the woman across the aisle was coughing, a perfectly reasonable thing to do. I felt like a four-year-old ready to explode into a tantrum. I had to continuously resist the urge to erupt into ludicrous suggestions, “Have a glass of water or a lozenge or something, bury your mouth in a hanky, stick your head out the window, just be quiet!” I cannot pinpoint any reason why I would be entertaining the notion of behaving in this fashion. I had a perfectly lovely day filled with complimentary snacks, beverages, and extra legroom… unless it was the pushing and shoving that sent me down the wrong path. I’m far too easily influenced by hoodlums and skullduggery. I managed to make it to the hostel without any fights breaking out. I suppose I better have a nap and work on waking up feeling cute and friendly. I’ve been having really lively dreams lately, with lots of cameo appearances from characters in my real life past.  I’m interested to see who turns up tonight… MmmK, nighty night. xo.

A dark cloud has descended upon the city of Taipei, and swallowed it whole. The weather is a match to my mood. I’m currently in the midst of a bad attitude. My body needs a rest. The constant movement is catching up with me. I need to sit in one place for three days straight and only move to pick up a remote so I can change the channel from HGTV home makeover shows to something else awesome, like Project Runway or Clean House. Sadly, I don’t think I will have the latter half of this wish fulfilled. I may be able to handle the first bit though; I just have to figure out where…

Today I got caught up in a thunderstorm so huge I wasn’t able to leave the temple I was in for an hour. The temples here are off the chain when it comes to glamour and mystique, it was a winning combination with the pouring rain and the giant claps of thunder. I was quite impressed with the whole scene. It had everyone out in the streets a bit discombobulated. I ordered a waffle cone and the ice cream girls were shrieking in terror as they made change for me. I watched a man fly off the hood of a yellow cab that plowed around a corner and straight into him. The cabby got out of the car and gave his victim a deep bow and a tissue, while smiling, then got back in the car and drove away with a cigarette in his mouth. It reminded me of a friend of mine. He was crossing the street with a smoke in his mouth and was hit by a car. He and the cigarette both bounced off the hood and onto the ground. Apparently unfazed by the accident, he immediately popped up, located the cigarette, and placed it back between his lips, just as he and the driver made eye contact and realized that they were friends of each other’s.

Enough about him, let’s talk about me. I’m weary. I had an onsen day with Heather in Japan, but I think I need more, in lieu of HGTV. It looks like it’s going to be raining all over Taiwan for the next week or so. Maybe I’ll see if there’s some awesome equivalent of a jimjilbang here, or try to use my powers of persuasion to talk some hostel goer into staying in and rubbing my feet instead of going to yet another temple. Wish me luck.

Tradycja

Hello,

                I have left Tokyo and I’m in Utsunomiya visiting my friend, Heather, whom I haven’t seen for about 11 years. We were roommates in Madison, along with her black cat, Shaft, who played fetch. She now has an adorable three-year old daughter, and we’ve already become good friends.

Utsunomiya is only 150 kilometers from the nuclear meltdown in Fukushima Prefecture. The levels of radiation are suppose to be safe, but obviously it is a constant source of stress for everyone that lives here. Heather said that when the news of the plant disaster first broke everyone, that could leave, fled. She watched every foreigner who had friends and family in other countries book tickets in a mass exodus. Heather’s husband is Japanese, and they live next door to his parents, their daughter, Nina, has lived in Japan since she was born, they have a home and jobs here, the decision to leave is not a simple one, but obviously something they’ve considered. It’s clear to me how much stress this has created in their lives. Heather said she was actually deleted by people on facebook who told her she should get out of Japan, and if she wouldn’t they weren’t going to watch her die. Whoa.

My sister was telling me that the government was having problems evacuating people from their homes, up in Fukushima, where they know for a fact that eventually you will die if you stay there. You can’t see the radiation. How do you know the truth? What they do know is that they live in one of the most beautiful Prefectures in Japan, in homes that have belonged to their families for generations. Heather said that rather than put their money in the hands of unknown people, the bank, Japanese families invest it in their homes and land to pass onto their children. If that disappears they literally have nothing. You can see, in light of that, how walking away from a home that’s still standing, that has blankets and beds, and all the memories of a lifetime, and promise of a future for your children, because of invisible mist, would be hard to convince some to do.

People up there are still working at the plant non-stop, trying to keep it under control, and that is the really sad part. The people working to contain it will certainly not survive the levels of radiation they’re encountering on a daily basis. How do they cope with that knowledge? I suppose they just focus on the task at hand and move forward, maybe thinking of the lives they are saving rather than their own.

This morning there was a magnitude 6.7 quake to the north, and a subsequent tsunami alert, which has been lifted. Everything in Utsunomiya is OK. People are playing tennis outside the window, school kids are out at recess, screaming happily in the distance, and Shaft the cat is snoozing on the couch.