Japan (ii): Shinjuku, Shibuya, & Ginza (Day 1)

I landed at Narita at around 6pm. One of the first things I realized was that no one was going to be speaking much English to me. Not even the customs agents knew more than a few words. After making it through immigration, I found my way to the JR ticket office where I exchanged my JR pass exchange order for the actual pass. I then bought what I hoped was the right train ticket for a ride into Tokyo (Narita is a 90 minute train ride from the city). It's always a little disorienting coming into a foreign city for the first time. I wasn't going to be able to orient myself until I got to the hotel. There was going to be a lot of hoping I was on the right train or walking the right way during this trip. I followed signs for the Narita Express and waited for a gleaming, white train that arrived exactly when it was scheduled to. The doors were roped off for several minutes while each car was cleaned by uniformed attendants in matching hats before I was allowed on. I stepped on and was whisked off to Tokyo.

Once at Shinjuku Station (where my hotel was), I walked around outside for a bit trying to match my map up with what I was seeing, but after about 20 minutes of not knowing where the hell I was going, I just hailed a cab and gave them my map and was taken on a cab ride for about 5 blocks. After dropping my bags in my room at the Hotel Tateshina, it was roughly 8:30pm. I stretched and headed back out to grab dinner at a ramen shop nearby in the Golden Gai neighborhood.

Golden Gai is a network of narrow back alleys lined with tiny one room bars where salarymen come to drink after work. Above one of these spots is Nagi Ramen, a shop known for its shoyu (soy) ramen flavored with niboshi (dried baby sardines). I climbed the super narrow and steep stairs to Nagi and had my first encounter with a ramen vending machine. Unfamiliar with the protocol, I had to stumble my way through a broken conversation in the tiny space, disrupting everyone's meal, to learn that I had to pay into the machine first and select what I wanted, get my ticket, then go wait outside. Unfortunately, I hadn't had a chance to get to an ATM yet, but a young couple that was finishing their ramen recognized my predicament and offered to lead me to an ATM at a nearby convenience store. The guy didn't know any English, but the girl knew a bit; enough to tell me she'd been to Hawaii and Vegas before. They led me to a Lawson's (which I soon found to be ubiquitous) and I thanked them. I found, however, that the ATM only accepted Japanese cards. I then wandered around a bit looking for a 7-11 because I knew it took international cards. I ran into a black guy that turned out to be a Nigerian that I thought was staying at a nearby hotel. He spoke English and led me to a 7-11. When I came out and thanked him, he offered to show me to "his place" for a drink. I thought he meant his hotel, but I quickly realized as he led me into a tiny back room in a gaudy lobby that he was the proprietor of a hostess club. He opened the door to the tiny, black-lit space and revealed a pair of heavily made up Japanese women and told me it was 3000 Yen for a half-hour of "all I can drink and all I can touch." Stunned for a second, I politely declined and backed my way out of there, but not before being propositioned by a few other Nigerians. I shook my head and ran back to Nagi.

Cash in hand, I waited in an adjacent alley to Nagi that was barely wide enough for me to extend my shoulders. The chef called out the next customer from a tube in the kitchen that led out of the window. When I was finally seated, I was served my beer, a plate of chicken skins, and my ramen. It was probably the most filling thing I've ever eaten. The noodles were extra thick and chewy and the broth rich and fishy. I told people I'd be eating ramen non-stop, but that bowl really made me question my ability to eat as much as I thought I could. I finished what I could and walked the few blocks back to my hotel to crash after a long day of traveling.



The next morning I had planned on going to the Studio Ghibli Museum in Mikata, but I found all of the entry times to be sold out for the entire time I was in Japan. I was extremely disappointed. I tried a few Loppi kiosks in different Lawson's (where you buy museum and show tickets in Tokyo) to make doubly sure, but eventually I conceded and decided to walk through some nearby parks. I made my way to Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden and wandered through the pristine lawns with Tokyo skylines all around. There were bird and insect calls that I didn't recognize. Instead of pigeons and song birds, crows cawed constantly and fluttered heavy wings. After a while, I found myself on the other side of the park and wandered a bit through the alleys toward the Meji Shrine in Yoyogi Park.



The streets in Tokyo couldn't be more different from cities in the States. There is zero litter. There are vending machines on every corner. There are more bikes than cars. There's also very little to suggest any form of poverty, save for the occasional rundown shack sandwiched among high rises. Cats often flitted lightly on their paws across the street.

I eventually found myself at the entrance to the Meji Shrine where I found a stone fountain with bamboo ladle and washed my hands there. Just outside the grounds there were souvenir shops, as with everywhere in Japan, and at the bottom of some steps I found a wallet. I opened it and saw it belonged a Caucasian man named George Thomas. I made a few attempts to ask random white guys if it was theres, but that obviously failed. Inside the Shrine on Sundays, there are often ceremonial wedding processions. Wedding parties in traditional garb march slowly across the grounds while tourists stick cameras in their faces. It's an interesting example of how Japanese tradition is preserved, but in such a way that it's just spectacle for a large portion of the population. I'd find this to be the case in many other places.



After the Shrine, I took the train down to Harajuku Station. Before checking out the mobbed areas full of curiously dressed youths, I made by way into the side-streets to find another ramen spot, Afuri. What's interesting about Afuri is that 1) it specializes in adding a slight citrus flavor to its broth and 2) most of the workers are women (ramen is predominantly a male thing in Japan). I had a bowl of shio (salt) ramen with a couple slices of fatty, smoky pork that they grill on a tiny charcoal grill. Afuri is also considered "cafe ramen", meaning it's light and in smaller portions. It made a great lunch. Afterward, I walked a few blocks to Be A Good Neighbor coffee. A fantastic, tiny shop on a corner that's just big enough for an espresso machine and a drip bar. It's designed impeccably with brushed metal and wood everywhere. Interesting looking design magazines lined the counter and a 3rd gen. iPod played music softly over an Apple Hi-Fi (two of my favorite Apple product designs). I ordered a drip coffee that was hand dripped fastidiously. They offered me a tiny glass of chilled grapes with my cup. A subtle, but sublime touch that made the experience so much better. The shop was manned by a charming couple that gave me some recommendations for thing to do in Tokyo in halting English. Mostly museums and art related things. They were more American hipsters than Japanese hipsters.



Speaking of Japanese hipsters, Harajuku is full of exactly what you would envision when hearing that word. There's one particular street lined with shops and is mobbed with young people, mostly girls, dressed in outlandish costumes and with large, bleached hair. They ranged from almost normal looking to completely ridiculous. A lot of the costumes are like what you'd find at Halloween costume store selling slutty versions of everything. There were groups of girls wearing the exact same costume. The last girl pictured takes the cake for just being dressed as a pumpkin that's only slutty because of how short she's wearing it. This is something I noticed among women's fashion in Japan. Everything is extremely short and gives off the impression of wanting to look provocative, but it's an afterthought here with the rest of the outfit being super cutesy. This was also where I first encountered the maddening chorus of intensely nasal, high pitched shop girls calling for people to come in to their shops. For me it was like going to a toy store, finding a shelf of toys with voices, and pressing all of their buttons and listening to 50 toys repeat their prerecorded message. I don't know how those voices make anyone want to buy anything from them.



After a short break back at my hotel, I went out to Ginza. Ginza is the high end shopping district and home to the flagship Uniqlo store, which is 12 stories tall. Yeah. 12 stories. Even more astounding is the Abercrombie & Fitch next door that's even taller. One thing I found interesting, which continues the sentiment of many Harajuku girls wearing the exact same outfits, was that the two Abercrombie models manning the doors were dressed identically in the same plaid shirt and distressed jeans. I mentioned this in my initial post, but it really just kind of makes it feel like even the mentality of counter-culture in Japan is subject to a rigid subconscious drive to control every aspect of oneself.

Before dinner, I went to another coffee shop. Open since 1948, Café de l'Ambre in Ginza is a classic Japanese "kissaten" (coffee shop) and emphasizes mood and the quality of the cup. The sign outside proudly proclaims that they serve "Only Coffee" and that's exactly what you find. There's no food, other drinks, or even milk or sugar to speak of. Select the size of your cup and watch as each is dripped through a cotton filter from a copper kettle into a small copper pot and then transferred to a pre-warmed cup. It's a hypnotic process. I don't think I'm well versed enough in coffee to be able to appreciate the intricacies of the flavors I should have been tasting, but it was terribly fascinating just to watch the man execute his craft.

Afterward, I wandered through the Uniqlo a bit and actually found a few nice pieces, but realized I don't really have the proportions for clothes designed for skinny Asian guys. I then went to get dinner at Yakitori Ton Ton, which sits underneath the train tracks at the end of a long narrow corridor of bars and restaurants. The archway captures all the smoke and echoes all the noise back into the space. It's a crowded, raucous, smoky spot, but the food is great and if I knew more Japanese, I'm sure I'd have had better, longer conversations. I had pork, pork gizzard, chicken, and chicken meatballs. The chicken meatballs were amazing. I ordered 3 more skewers after my first one. I finished my beers and headed back to Shinjuku to crash after the first packed day of many more.



So this ended up being a lot longer and took a lot longer than I had anticipated. Each day in Japan was so packed though, that I don't really know how I can condense or speed it up. I might just have to do 8 more similarly massive posts. I've also not really had a lot of time to rest and recover after my trip, so I'm not sure at what pace I can keep this up. I'll do my best to keep these coming before I forget everything though.

I really just need one or two solid days to just do nothing, but I don't know when that'll happen. Where's all my free time these days?!

Japan (i): Cultural Observations

I got back from Japan at around 6pm this evening. I'm exhausted, my shoulders are killing me, and I picked up a sore throat on the plane somehow, but it was a fun 9 days. I'm not going to be able to get through my notes or near-1,900 photos today, so I thought I'd begin my Japan reflections (like I did after my trip to Spain) with a collection of random observations I made about Japan and my experience there:

Almost no one speaks English. I imagine how stupid I sounded just repeating "Thank You!", "Sorry!" There are hardly any trashcans. I'd find myself carrying around garbage for hours. There are bathrooms everywhere. Maps are drawn to a much larger scale than I first anticipated. The time it took to walk from place to place was much shorter than I would have thought. People always talk and write about the "pursuit of perfection" in craft in Japan and it really is true. From ramen to coffee to cocktails, there is such attention to detail. I take back everything I've ever said about Korean sounding annoying. The unending chorus of shop girls down an avenue of shops eventually made me want to shove chopsticks in my ears and swirl my brains around. There are crows everywhere. As a counterpoint to a culture so meticulous about presentation and craft, they totally miss the point when it comes to things like fashion. I walked by an Abercrombie & Fitch in Ginza and the two models out front were dressed identically in the same distressed jeans, maroon plaid shirts, and flip flops. Their hair identically bleached and swept haphazardly to the side. The idea of a unified sense of aesthetic for a brand notwithstanding, that struck me as representative of how restrained and structured even counter-culture is in Japan. Ramen in Japan is like pizza in New York. It's everywhere and even the bad places are better than those in other countries. Dancing is illegal in Fukuoka. I need to look up why.



So here's a shot that my table mates at the outdoor food stands (yatai) in Fukuoka along the canal offered to take for me after they watched me take pictures of my food. It's out of focus, I'm sweaty and gross. A pretty accurate depiction of the trip as a whole. I'll be getting to all my photos and thoughts in the coming weeks here. Now I need to go crash because I am running on fumes.

Great Smoky Mountains (ii): Cherohala & Maple Springs

The next morning, after a few hours of unrestful sleep in my car in a deserted lot, I set off on the Cherohala Skyway. At just before dawn, the light was very faint and there was a dense fog as I reached higher elevations. The Skyway is, like Shenandoah's Skyline Drive, one of the many national parks' scenic byways and, I believe, the most costly in Great Smoky Mountains Park. As I drove over and around the peaks, the sun disappeared alternately behind trees, clouds, fogs, and mountains. As I rounded certain bends, I'd find myself at the perfect vantage point to view the sunrise. Overlooking a valley or framing the sun between mountains, the clouds filtering the morning sun into individual shafts of light.

I turned off into Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest, where there is a short trail leading to the Maple Springs Observation Point. After passing through a short stretch of dense forest, I arrived at a wooden platform that extends from a narrow formation and juts out from the rock. From there I watched the sun complete its ascent over the shrouded valleys below. It was quiet and peaceful.



After the sun rose higher in the sky and the temperature became uncomfortable, I passed through the rest of the park and started my drive back home. I drank a lot of caffeine on this trip and I don't normally. I think I'm getting caffeine headaches.

Great Smoky Mountains (i): Gatlinburg, Charlie, & Rocks

This has become kind of my de-stress formula: drive somewhere alone, hike, listen to a lot of This American Life. I've found its effectiveness lies in exhaustion and diversion. Long drives and strenuous hikes are draining to the point where my ability to concentrate is reduced to single subjects - staying awake at the wheel or my next step. During stretches of drives without the threat of spontaneous naps, TAL is so thoroughly immersive that my own thoughts and feelings are replaced by those of the people in each episode. In recent years, it's become a good way to clear my head. I've been in need of some decompression, so I undertook a quick and dirty road trip this weekend. The first for my new car, perhaps of many.



On Friday night, I took a nap for a few hours after work and left my house at around 1am. I was heading to Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee. I drove through the night and arrived at the outskirts of the park just before noon. Before I go into anything else, I need to point out that Gatlinburg (the town just outside one of the main entrances to the park) is utterly repulsive. Imagine a trashy beach boardwalk mixed with a county fair and spread it out over a 10 mile stretch of road and you'll have an idea of what this town is like. Kitschy amusements and rides, arcades, novelty attractions, souvenir shops, untold numbers of KFCs, every manner of mini-golf courses - all rendered in oppressively bright, garish primary colors. I couldn't fathom what the hordes of tank-top clad, overweight white families were doing in this nightmare of uncultured consumer purgatory right in the shadow of the Smokies. The only redeeming thing about this place was the abundance of Chik-fil-As.

When I finally passed through Gatlinburg and entered the park, the byways were still pretty clogged with families milling about. It wasn't until I got to the section of the Appalachian Trail that I was headed to that the crowds thinned. I was hiking a 10 mile section to a place called Charlie's Bunion. So named for some historical guy and a foot injury or something. The bunion in question is a rocky outcropping along a high headland a couple of miles off from the AT. This section runs along the peaks such that it feels like walking atop the spine of the Appalachians at around 5-6000 feet and there are views of both sides of the range. Like I mentioned before, part of what I enjoy about hiking is the opportunity to tire myself out to the point of no longer thinking about everything. The other part is the sheer silence and solitude one can achieve sometimes. Nothing but the sound of gravel crunching underfoot, the Doppler buzzing of flying insects, the twittering of birds, the glug-glug of the water in my backpack, my labored breathing. Only the occasional and faint echo of voices of fellow hikers to dispel the illusion of isolation.



I'm not sure if this is unusual or not, but I really enjoy the sound of rocks against rocks. On particularly rocky portions of trails I'll deliberately drag my feet to push rocks into one another just to hear them clink and clack. There's just something so gratifyingly tactile about it. I guess it might be similar to how people love to pop bubble wrap, but less about the feel so much as the sound of it.



I'm going to leave the rest of this post for tomorrow. While my body has always proven to be extraordinarily resilient - in that I slept 3 hours Friday night, drove 9 hours, hiked for 7 hours, slept 2 hours, hiked again, then drove another 9 hours back home, all while eating only one real meal, and am still conscious - I'm reaching a point where I'm going to crash in spectacular fashion. I'm having trouble focusing my vision and my depth perception is getting very unreliable. Tomorrow will be tiring, but this weekend was a good opportunity to clear some cobwebs.

Monday awaits.

this hushed and mazy sunday

He crossed the cabin and stretched himself out on the cot. Closing his eyes. A faint breeze from the window stirring his hair. The shantyboat trembled slightly in the river and one of the steel drums beneath the floor expanded in the heat with a melancholy bong. Eyes resting. This hushed and mazy Sunday. The heart beneath the breastbone pumping. The blood on its appointed rounds. Life in small places, narrow crannies. In the leaves, the toad's pulse. The delicate cellular warfare in a waterdrop. A dextrocardiac, said the smiling doctor. Your heart's in the right place. Weathershrunk and loveless. The skin drawn and split like an overripe fruit.

Suttree, Cormac McCarthy

Nova Scotia (v): Halifax, Cape Breton, & Irene

From Peggys Cove, Halifax is less than an hour drive away. While following the coastal route was straightforward and more or less devoid of any opportunities to get lost, making my way into the city was a little trickier. Without my phone or a detailed map, I aimed myself toward Halifax and hoped for the best. I took a couple of wrong turns, but I made it to downtown Halifax before too long. Halifax is pretty small and actually not that interesting. I've been to cooler cities. I checked out a few major tourist sites, including a large fort-topped hill in the center of the town. I then went down to the boardwalk to grab something to eat. You can see the two snack shacks: beaver tails (?!) and fish and chips. Silly Canadians. I had previously considered spending more time in Halifax, but I didn't feel compelled to. After lunch, I got back in my car and headed out for Cape Breton.



Up until then I had been on the coastal route, but the road to Cape Breton crossed the interior of Nova Scotia. Most of the population seemed concentrated in the outer edges of Nova Scotia and the interior was mostly empty and pock marked by lakes. I didn't make any stops and got to the island a little before sunset. I got on the Cabot Trail, which is the road that loops around the park, and headed counter-clockwise. It was too late to attempt any hikes, so the next series is just views of the winding, cliff-top coastal roads and the sky and ocean in different stages of the sunset.



At the northern tip of the park, there is a small town with a couple of restaurants and an inn. I ate dinner there, which consisted of fish that had been caught that day, and then doubled back to where the trail hit some of the highest points in the park. I attempted to do some astrophotography, but my poor 40D is showing its age. It doesn't seem up to super long exposures anymore and was never really able to handle very high ISOs. I got a handful of too-noisy shots of the Milky Way and a couple of star trails, but they're not really usable. If you want to contribute to the "Buy Brian A New Camera" fund, please let me know.

After a couple of hours of wandering around in the dark, I made my way back to the mini-town and parked my car and slept until just before sunrise. I woke up and immediately made my way to the eastern coast to catch the sunrise. After a little while of making my way down the eastern loop, I turned off into a small fishing village that was just beginning to stir and the fishermen were preparing their boats for the day. At this point I'd accumulated more than enough pictures of lighthouses, but at the of the road was another lighthouse atop a low headland overlooking the water. The clouds and morning sun created a backdrop I couldn't leave unphotographed.

I continued south from the village for a bit and turned off again to follow a beach trail on foot. It led to a rocky outcropping that jutted out into the water. I went up onto the rocks and stood at the edge as the waves crashed violently on the darkened stones below me. The sun was climbing steadily in the sky and the clouds broke the fledgling sun-rays into light and dark, blue and red. The coast arced forward on either side of me and I wondered at what motivates me to drive thousands of miles just to be alone, surrounded by rocks, trees, and water.



From there I made my way to the trailhead of a hike I had planned on doing. Unfortunately, as soon as I parked my car, Irene crashed the party. The rain began lightly - a light mist that was almost imperceptible enough for me to still consider doing the hike - but Irene soon extinguished the clean light of the new day and cast it into the murky darkness of late evening. Storm clouds rolled in thick and unforgiving and the rain became hard and pelting. I had originally planned on staying the entire day in the park, but knowing that the rain wouldn't stop until Irene had passed, I decided to just start the drive back to Boston. There wouldn't be any point in staying. So, I dialed in and drove the 15 hours back to Boston straight, passing through the entirety of Hurricane Irene.

The return journey was pretty uninteresting - nothing but black skies, wiper blades, and the barely visible tail lights of the cars ahead of me. Just as I made it back into the city, the sky cleared. I got back to my apartment, plugged myself back into the internet and found out what had happened in the world in the previous five days, and passed out. Another road trip over, but as a bonus, here's a shot of what my passenger seat looks like during these things:

Nova Scotia (iv): Lunenburg, Mahone Bay, & Peggys Cove

I woke up in my car in Lunenburg right before sunrise. I rubbed the grogginess out of my eyes and the stiffness out of my neck and made my way down to the docks. Lunenburg is an historic port town and is known for its jewel-toned buildings. The brightly colored homes, sailboats, and the warm, yellow light of dawn made for a very painterly scene.



Before the sun rose too far above the horizon, I got back into my car and continued along the coast. Just down the road was Mahone Bay. Another small historic town, Mahone Bay is mostly known for its three prominent churches from the 1800's: Trinity United, Saint John's Lutheran, and Saint James Anglican. The churches are often seen on postcards and travel ads for Nova Scotia.



The third in this succession of Nova Scotia landmarks was Peggys Cove. A small fishing village, with a population of less than 50, that is home to the "most photographed lighthouse in North America." After you turn into the village and pass the small wooden houses, stacks of lobster cages, and grounded rowboats, the road ends in a small gravel turn off. Over a small grassy hill is an expansive rocky plateau that leads to the ocean. At the edge of the plateau overlooking the powerful, crashing waves is Peggys Point Lighthouse. As I approached it, the fog was still dense and I could only make out the dark outline of the monolith. The mist began to dissipate and the lighthouse and shore began to resolve and flush with color. It's easy to see why it's so prolifically photographed. Peggys Point is as iconic as a lighthouse can get.



I passed through these three scenes in only a couple of hours. In the remainder of the day I passed through Halifax and drove north to Cape Breton. I'll get to those next time.

On another note: I've completed my first week of the semester. It's been rainy and cold all week and I've been somewhat distracted for various reasons. Fortunately, it's supposed to clear up tomorrow and, hopefully, so will my disposition. I will use the weekend to recharge and brace myself for the prospect of doing school work again.

Nova Scotia (iii): South Shore

Upon arriving at the ferry at Saint John, I found it suspiciously empty. It was then that I learned that Canada is actually one hour ahead of the United States. I thought I had made it to the ferry an hour early, but I actually arrived five minutes late and watched as the Princess of Acadia sailed out into the Bay of Fundy in the murky, overcast dusk. So that evening I found a hotel room and grabbed dinner at a local bar and got my last full night's rest and shower for the rest of the trip.

As it turns out, it was fortunate that I missed the ferry the previous evening. The clouds had dissipated and the next morning was clear and sunny. I arrived at the ferry extra early to avoid any complications and boarded the Princess at 11am and sailed at noon.



After making landfall in Digby, I set off along the coastal road going counter clockwise. The coast is peppered with countless turnoff loops, tracing the contours of the shoreline, that weave in and out of fishing villages and tourist watering holes. I made my way through many of them, but the more interesting ones weren't until the next day closer to Halifax. I did find a nice secluded lighthouse over a rock strewn beach covered in wildflowers. It was near sunset and the beach was shrouded in mist and the light was diffuse and ghostly. If you look closely, you can see the light refracting in the mist and creating a small, faint rainbow around the lighthouse in the first shot. As I explored the beach the lighthouse let out a deafening blast every 30 seconds. It took me several minutes to stop flinching at it.



As night fell, I drove for as long as I could without falling asleep. I made it all the way to Lunenburg, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and parked my car on a secluded side street and got a few hours of sleep. I'll pick up here in the next post, but now I have to go to my last first day of class. For now, here are some shots of the sunset over the bay:

Nova Scotia (ii): Precipice Trail

The Precipice Trail is actually in Acadia National Park in Maine not Nova Scotia. I read about this particular trail while looking into Acadia National Park and was drawn by the descriptions of ascending the sheer, vertical face of Champlain Mountain. It's billed as a "non-technical climb" and ominous signs warned off the height-phobic.

The trail begins with a straightforward rock scramble, but once it reaches the base of the mountain it becomes extremely vertical. While normal trails ascend in switchbacks of more forgiving grades, Precipice immediately launches into a series of climbs and ladder-like portions that zig-zag up the 1,000 foot cliff. The trail itself is only a little over a mile long, but it was pretty strenuous. Not having worked out much this summer, I reached the summit with quivering quads and calves on the verge of cramping.



I left Boston a little before Hurricane Irene arrived and essentially raced it up the coast. I beat it to Nova Scotia by a few days, but I'll talk about that later. In Maine, I think I got the very tip of it. There was partial cloud cover that got heavier as the day wore on, but, while on the hike, the sun came in and out. The summit was, at regular intervals, enveloped by passing clouds - the thin sliver of the forested shoreline and ocean intermittently obscured like different stages of a Hiroshi Sugimoto seascape series. The ocean, of course, is also what made this hike so different from the others I've been on. It's quite a difference to see an endless expanse of water from height instead of mountains and forests. Descending was considerably more unnerving. Lowering yourself over a rock ledge trying to find the first foothold then looking down to see 1,000 feet of nothing below you is not something you can quite get used to.

I had to hurry down, against the protests of my worn out legs, because I had scheduled my visit to Acadia to leave me enough time to get to Saint John, New Brunswick in time for the last ferry of the day to Digby, Nova Scotia. I returned to my car exactly on schedule and the drive to Saint John went smoothly, but I missed the ferry for a very stupid reason. I'll explain why in the next post. In the meantime, I'm driving home tomorrow to drop off the car and will be hanging out for a few days before flying back to Boston to begin my last semester of school, hopefully ever.

Nova Scotia (i): 2,641, 750, 37, 512*

I got back from Nova Scotia a couple of hours ago. I headed home a day early because Hurricane Irene decided to make her appearance. The numbers in the title are thus: 2,641 miles driven (that's from MD->Boston->NS->Boston), 750 pictures taken, 37 episodes of This American Life listened to, and what seems like 512 bug bites (maybe an exaggeration). I just took my first shower since Thursday and am now going to go sleep in a bed for the first time in three nights.

Stay tuned for more. For now, enjoy this super posed shot of a sunset over the Atlantic from Cape Breton.

Yukon Ho!

Well, I'm going to the opposite end of Canada from the Yukon. Tomorrow I'll be packing the car and heading up to Nova Scotia. I'll be making a stop in Boston to drop off my stuff at my apartment and then continuing north. I'm going to try to fit in the Precipice Trail in Acadia National Park if I have time before making the 8pm ferry from Saint John, New Brunswick to Digby, Nova Scotia. From Digby I'll be looping around the southern tip of NS and making my way to Halifax and then to Cape Breton Highlands National Park. I'm looking forward to the open road, ocean, horizon, forests, and hours of This American Life.

Stay tuned for pictures/stories.

Pig Racing, 80 Pound Pumpkins, & Demolition Derbies

I went by the Montgomery County Agricultural Fair today. In addition to the titular attractions, it was full of novel things like a bunny barn, amateur dog shows, tractor pulls, camels, and all the usual rides and fried foods you'd expect. It was kind of alarming to see how overweight (and white) the majority of the people there were. Although, it probably shouldn't have come as a surprise considering the words "FRIED DOUGH" are prominently displayed in flashing lights everywhere.

While taking a picture of a cooking demonstration, the instructor looks at me and suggests I should send the picture to his mother. After a brief pause and a chuckle he adds, "Oh, never mind. She's dead." What kind of joke is that?!

Summer's End

Summer's coming to an end. I finished my internship last week. I've had a week to do absolutely nothing except sleep and eat. I'll be going back up to Boston for my last semester in a couple of weeks. Before that, I'll be taking a week long road trip to Nova Scotia to check out the coast, Halifax, and Cape Breton National Park. It'll be nice to be out in the open air again. For all those that haven't visited me in Boston yet, I'll only be there until Christmas!

It's been a good summer. It'll be my last summer vacation ever. To commemorate, here's some gratuitous puppy action:

Bancroft, Brandywine, Black & White

A friend and I went by the abandoned Bancroft Mills factory complex on the banks of Brandywine Creek in Wilmington, DE. It's a row of 100+ year old textile facilities and are just begging to be explored. If I'd had more time, I'd have tried to find a way inside them. Unfortunately, they're currently in the process of being renovated into upscale condos. The cost of progress.

Spain (v): Barcelona

My train pulled in to Barcelona at around 9:30 in the evening. Thanks to the efficient and immediately comprehensible metro system, I was able to find my way into the city to join the others easily. When I arrived at the apartment, it had been over 24 hours since I'd been doused in Sangria in the madness that was Pamplona. I dropped my bags and ran for the shower to scrub away the now hard shell of sugar, sweat, and dirt that encased every inch of exposed skin. Afterward, I'd never felt so clean in my life.

Barcelona is the most normal city I visited in Spain. Certainly very different from any city I've been to in America, but it seemed the most real. There was still beautiful architecture and sun-soaked beaches, but it also had contrast. It had dirt. There was poverty. There were areas that weren't absurdly pristine. It felt more lived in.

That evening, the group decided to go to a club. Having traveled all day and not having had any real rest for two days, I opted to roam the city on my own for a while and get some sleep. I walked to a street known as La Rambla, which is a major tourist area. It extends into the city from the harbor and is lined with tourist shops, street vendors, and restaurants. It was brightly lit and even at 1am it was densely packed. As I headed back to the apartment around 2am, all the cafes and restaurants I passed were still filled with customers. Nothing showed any signs of slowing down.



After a few hours of sleep, I woke up to go catch the sunrise at the beach while everyone else was recovering from their adventures that evening. I left the apartment at around 5:30am and, as I made my way to the beach, the clubs and bars were just emptying out. Young people stumbled out of dark, now silent halls of soon to be forgotten bacchanalian revelry. They emerged in various states of disarray and disheveled-ness and hobbled haltingly, supported by each other, down sidewalks in the half-light of predawn. When I arrived at the beach, a 20 minute walk away, I discovered a mass of spent and happily exhausted partiers sprawled on the sand. I overheard multiple guys breathlessly and emphatically avowing to their friends that that was, in fact, the best night of his life.

On my way back from the beach, the city had almost emptied of its evening denizens. Streets and squares I had just passed through that were crowded and filled with slurred speech and uninhibited laughter were deserted and blanketed in silence. It was almost unsettling - I felt almost like I was the victim of some kind of reverse flashmob.



After returning to the apartment and waiting for the others to wake up, we took the metro to the Gaudi cathedral. I don't know enough about it to say anything meaningful about its history or Antoni Gaudi himself, you can look that up easily yourself, but it was a pretty imposing structure. Still unfinished, it kind of reminded me of the undersea palace in "The Little Mermaid's" Atlantis. The exterior has an organic mass of figures and details. The interior was cavernous and extravagant. It was teeming with tourists and hardly felt like it could ever serve as a place of worship.



After some other general sightseeing, that evening we went to Montjuïc - translated in medieval Catalan as "Hill of the Jews." It's a large hill on the south side of Barcelona with gardens and a large castle at its summit. Unfortunately, I had only brought my 50mm because I was tired of carrying around my camera bag. I was not expecting the spectacular views from the top of the hill, but I did what I could. I was also so focused on the panorama from there and the sun setting (as seen in the shot at the top of the post) that I neglected to take any picture of the castle. 



After we finished being awed by the view of Barcelona, we set out to find the cafe that someone had read was supposed to be located behind the castle on the opposite side of the hill. We walked along a dirt path that stretched out along the eastern hill face overlooking the Mediterranean. Not really knowing what we were looking for and with the light fading quickly, the walk around the hill seemed to stretch on. When we finally made it there, we were relieved and pleasantly surprised to find a charming open air cafe with another fantastic view, this time of the Mediterranean. It's called "La Caseta del Migdia" and I definitely recommend trying to make your way out here if you're in Barcelona. It's off the beaten path and it was a refreshing change from the tourist heavy sites we'd been to that day. We sat in canvas chairs at wooden picnic tables sipping whiskey, wine, Coke, and vodka Fantas.



Soon after we arrived and began enjoying drinks and plates of meat, cheese, and bread (which seemed to be all we ate in Spain), a Flamenco band and dancers began performing. I went to take some shots of the small stage where the dancers spun and stomped along with a guitarist and an older woman who sang/spoke rhythmic phrases and shouts (like a caller at a square dance...?). I moved around to the rear of the stage to get some shots with a rim light, but the older woman turned around, pointed at me, and yelled "El paparazzi!" She pulled me on stage and made me take pictures of all of them. It was pretty awesome and only reinforced the theory that everyone in Spain loves me. After that incident, they continued to perform. The main pair, if I had to describe them, were probably as stereotypically Spanish and sexy as you could be. I don't really know how else to say it. The rest of the time there I sat sipping whiskey out of a plastic cup, watching the dancers move hypnotically, and just soaking in the warmth and other-ness of that experience. It was a great evening.



We made our way back down the hill in the dark and back to the apartment. After a short rest, we went to a club by the beach for a little while. There wasn't anything particularly memorable about that. I left early to shower, pack, and go to the airport to catch my 8am flight. I successfully navigated more trains, shuttles, and confusing Spanish airports and made it back to America (not without spending the rest of my euros to buy crispy M&Ms at Duty Free) after eight great, mostly memorable days.

As good a time as I had in Spain, the first thing I did when I landed in Philly for a short layover was eat Chik-fil-a and it was glorious.

"The world was not wheeling any more. It was just very clear and bright, and inclined to blur at the edges."

The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway

Spain (iv): Pamplona

"Then we crossed a wide plain, and there was a big river off on the right shining in the sun from between the line of trees, and away off you could see the plateau of Pamplona rising out of the plain, and the walls of the city, and the great brown cathedral, and the broken skyline of the other churches. In back of the plateau were the mountains, and every way you looked there were other mountains, and ahead the road stretched out white across the plain going toward Pamplona."

Of course, modern day Pamplona bears little resemblance to the one described in "The Sun Also Rises" (few things do resemble their Hemingway counterpart). As we arrived in Pamplona after the hour-long bus ride from San Sebastian, we passed first through a modern downtown urban center. High rises, office buildings, a modern bus station. If not for the sea of white clothes dotted by red bandanas like flecks of blood, Pamplona seemed terribly ordinary (that is, for Spain). As we made our way out of the bus station and to the historic district, the crowds grew thicker and the tall, utilitarian architecture gave way to the elaborate and detailed. Throughout the town, I noticed that a blue cartoon bull cutout watched down from certain balconies. This is the mascot of the company kukuxmusu, ostensibly the official souvenir purveyor for the Festival of San Fermin. Their t-shirts and other paraphernalia depict cartoon bulls (with giant balls) in the running, often in surprisingly violent circumstances. I somehow neglected to pick anything up at one of their kiosks. I also wonder how their sales do the other 51 weeks in the year.



We weren't planning on finding lodging for the night (nor could we have given how many people were there), instead we checked our bags at a municipal luggage storage service, targeted at tourists like us, and gave ourselves into the mercy of the festival crowd. The Festival of San Fermin is a week long celebration of Spanish folklore and centers around the running of the bulls and bullfights. It attracts over a million people a year and it is absolutely ridiculous. Partying begins in the late afternoon and lasts until the bull run at 8am the next day. The city cleans the apocalypse of a mess each day until it happens again. When we first began wandering the town it was pleasant and seemed well maintained. Little did we know of the disaster that would befall this place in a matter of hours.



Like I mentioned before, every where I went in Spain, people would grab me and talk to me and then ask me to take their picture. You'll notice the guys in the second picture from the bottom and how they are casually lugging around bottles of sangria. That would come into play in a big way at the bullfight.

We made our way to the arena and did a lap getting a feel for how much the scalpers were asking for tickets to that afternoon's bullfight. We found an old man seated under a tree that offered a reasonable price and bought our tickets. We headed inside while the air hummed with anticipation as before a college football game between rivals. We found our seats among the concrete steps that filled the circular tiers above the dirt stage at the center and waited for the fight to begin, happily oblivious to what we had just gotten ourselves into.



As people steadily packed themselves into the arena, the stands turned albino with chicken pox. I started to feel something dripping on me. My first thought was to look up to see if it were raining or if there were a leak. It was sunny and there was no roof over me. The dripping continued sporadically, but more and more frequently. Having given up trying to locate the source of the drip, I ignored it. That is, until a group took their seats in the row above ours carrying a giant bucket with its lid taped on with clear masking tape. My curiosity was promptly satisfied when the tape was ripped off and the reservoir of sangria inside began filling the plastic cups that were dunked vigorously into its murky, purple depths. It was then that I recalled the pink and purple stained people we saw in San Sebastian. I finally located the source of the dripping. It was a squirt gun. Filled with sangria. A portly bearded man several rows back in the adjacent section was joyously spraying his fruity, fuchsia payload indiscriminately around his general area. As revelers filed in, so too did the number of similar sangria buckets increase. More squirt guns appeared. Spray bottles, toilet brushes (dipped in buckets and waved), or just hurled cups fueled a sustained deluge of sangria for the entire two-hour duration of the bullfight. Needless to say, I have almost no pictures of this lest my camera get a cup of sangria in the face.

My seat neighbors, two guys named Innaki and Innaru, knew we were tourists and as an apology for pouring cups of sangria down my back, offered us cups of it out of their own personal bucket. I passed the first batch of it down the line to the group, but throughout the rest of the fight I think I consumed enough sangria to last me a lifetime.

"Outside the ring, after the bull-fight was over, you could not move in the crowd. We could not make our way through but had to be moved with the whole thing, slowly, as a glacier, back to town. We had that disturbed emotional feeling that always comes after a bull-fight, and the feeling of elation that comes after a good bull-fight. The fiesta was going on."

As memorable as it was to endure the storm of sangria and celebrate with my newfound Spanish friends, the bullfight itself was a little upsetting. Like the city itself, the fight conveyed little of the bravery or romance I envisioned. It was not the spectacle of honor or physical artistry I had hoped for, instead I felt repulsed by the slow, ritualistic slaughter of a strong, proud animal by the small, fearful men in flamboyant outfits. Each bull (of six) reduced to fatigued, confused shells of themselves until they are put out of their misery by the matador and unceremoniously dragged out of the arena by a pair of yoked horses.

"There was much wine, an ignored tension, and a feeling of things coming that you could not prevent happening. Under the wine I lost the disgusted feeling and was happy. It seemed they were all such nice people."

The remainder of the evening passed in a happy, sangria induced haze among the crowds in the now riot of a city that bore little resemblance to itself only hours before. We passed the night in a quiet corner of the town away from the still raging festivities and rested for a few hours before attempting to find somewhere to watch the running of the bulls. As we made our way there, we waded through throngs of still energetic partiers at 6am. I should note that every open cup of sangria I saw made me flinch as if it were about to be emptied over my head. We arrived at the route for the run, but underestimated how early to arrive. Without any clear vantage points, I pushed and squeezed my way to the barrier. I waited there the remaining hour while being pressed against the wooden planks of the fence by the undulating tides of the ocean of the now drunk and dingy, pink stained whites, all wanting to catch a glimpse of the bulls.



When it actually happened, it was silent and over before I knew it started. If you look closely in the last shot you can see the black coat of the bull, but that's as much as I saw. It was somewhat anticlimactic, but damned if the preceding 16 hours weren't some of the most memorable of my life.

"In the morning it was all over. The fiesta was finished... The square was empty and there were no people on the streets. A few children were picking up rocket-sticks in the square. The cafes were just opening and the waiters were carrying out the comfortable white wicker chairs and arranging them around the marble-topped tables in the shade of the arcade. They were sweeping the streets and sprinkling them with a hose."

The streets weren't so much being sprinkled with a hose that morning as being pressure blasted by fire hoses mounted on street sweepers. We had to jump over literal rivers of runoff and garbage. We retrieved our luggage and the rest of the group made their way to the Avis to take a car to Barcelona. Having joined the trip later in the planning process, I was to take a train. Delirious from the chaos of the festival and lack of sleep, I tried to hail a cab to the train station that lay just outside the town. Failing to do so, I decided to walk the two miles there. Not exactly sure how to get there, I blearily followed signs and walkways in what I hoped was the general direction of the Renfe station. Thankfully I found myself there after an hour or so. It was small and quaint. There was a little cafe and a sunbathed courtyard. I regret not taking any pictures of it, but I spent the following 4-5 hours passed out in a chair until my train to Barcelona arrived.

Spain (iii): San Sebastian

"Even on a hot day San Sebastian has a certain early-morning quality. The trees seem as though their leaves had just been sprinkled. It is always cool and shady on certain streets on the hottest day."

When we arrived in San Sebastian, it was overcast and much cooler than it had been in Madrid. We wore light jackets as we crossed the town to our hostel by the beach. San Sebastian, like Madrid, is almost unbelievably picturesque. The streets are lined with Parisian apartments dotted with intricate wrought iron balconies. The atmosphere had the tranquility of a place perpetually on holiday. As we emerged on the other side of the town from the train station the street opened up to the small, crescent shaped enclosed beach. An inlet from the Bay of Biscay bottlenecked by two large hills, one topped by a castle and the other by a large statue of Jesus. Even under the clouds, the beauty of this place was almost hypnotic in its ability to make the outside world seem very far away.

"I looked around at the bay, the old town, the casino, the line of trees along the promenade, and the big hotels with their white porches and gold-lettered names. Off on the right, almost closing the harbor, was a green hill with a castle... On the other side of the narrow gap that led into the open sea was another high headland."

We strolled along the harbor for a while admiring the place until dinner. We made our way to the back alleys at the east end of town for our first pintxos crawl (pronounced pinchos - the Basque variation of Spanish uses a lot of X's). Pintxos is tapas, more or less. The main difference is that, unlike tapas, pintxos are traditionally skewered to a piece of bread. The cultural intricacies are beyond me, but pinxtos bars are a lot of fun. Both nights there we made our way to several different pintxos bars and procured a smattering of small dishes accompanied by wine. If you ask me, I couldn't tell you the name of any of the dishes, but most ranged from very good to delicious. Everything is very casual and the crowd usually spills out into the street. The quarters are close and conversations blend into one another. The nightlife ends much earlier than it did in Madrid (12-1am as opposed to 3-4am), but it's a thoroughly enjoyable way to spend an evening.



We began the following day by hiking up the eastern hill to the Jesus statue. It didn't take as long as I had thought it would, but the view from the summit was breathtaking. After taking in the view and taking pictures, we made our way down and stopped at a small hillside cafe overlooking the bay. It was run out of a small hut by a middle aged man and his 3 or 4 dogs. The dogs were calm and socially aloof in the way that only dogs that aren't doted upon and are simply treated as members of a social group can be. Not pleading or unctuous, they regarded us indifferently as we maneuvered about them. As I stopped to take a few shots of them, the owner of the cafe handed me a strip of paper with his email address. He motioned to my camera and then his dogs and, through one of the spanish speaking members of our group, asked me to email him some of the pictures of them. I nodded vigorously, happy to oblige such a genuine request for a simple service that I hope will brighten his day.

While we were enjoying some ice-cold Cokes and Fantas (made with real sugar, as I mentioned before - I drank so much soda on this trip to take advantage of this as much as possible) enjoying another fantastic view of the town and bay, the sun made its first appearance. As the clouds burned off and pillars of light filtered through, color slowly began to creep back into San Sebastian. The sky and water regained their azure clarity. The green in the hills grew lush and verdant. The clay tiled rooftops burned fire red. As we watched the sun warm the town, we grew eager to return to the beach that was so lukewarm the day before. We rushed down the rest of the way and back to the hostel to change. The next few hours were spent sunbathing out on the sand and getting pummeled by powerful, 10 foot waves.



One thing I always hope for is to catch the edge of a weather system during sunrise/sunset. This results in solid cloud cover or empty, featureless skies more often than not, but with the clouds rolling out of San Sebastian, I knew that the sunset would be spectacular. That evening after the beach, we walked around the town for a bit. We found ourselves at a church atop a small hill overlooking the rooftops. From there I could see the water and the clouds that had parted just enough to provide room for the light to play off of them at different elevations producing a wide range of reds and oranges. We made our way down back to the beach, admittedly at my insistence so I could capture the sunset over the water, and I spent the hour there taking it in while the others went to a shop and returned just as the sun dipped below the horizon.



The following morning we caught a bus to Pamplona, this time making sure to leave enough room so as not to repeat the harrowing dash to the train in Madrid. I was sad to leave San Sebastian. It was tranquil and rejuvenating. I don't think I could stay there for longer than a brief time, but it's certainly a place where I'd like to vacation again. At the bus station, we encountered numerous groups of people arriving from Pamplona. Many wore the all-white garb of San Fermin and many of those were covered in splashes of red and pink - an ominous signal of what we could expect in Pamplona. I fully expected Pamplona to be a very different experience than it was in San Sebastian - not relaxing so much as frenetic and chaotic. It turned out to be a bit crazier than I had imagined, for reasons that will become clear in the next installment.

"We drove out along the coast road. There was the green of the headlands, the white, red-roofed villas, patches of forest, and the ocean very blue with the tide out and the water curling far out along the beach... Back of the rolling country we were going through we saw the mountains we had come over from Pamplona."

Spain (ii): Madrid

The first city of the trip was Madrid. I'll begin this by saying that Madrid was the least interesting of the four cities. Not that it was unenjoyable, but Madrid is surreally pristine and uniformly beautiful as to render it almost boring. Of course, it wasn't boring. Walking around the city was like a crash course in European architecture. A good portion of my pictures is comprised of bottom-up, street level views of stunning buildings and monuments that were littered generously across the city.

Our first meal was lunch in an open air courtyard at the Plaza de Santa Ana. We sat under a canvas shade and I had a pork shoulder and chorizo sandwich while we drank wine and basked in the warmth of the Spanish afternoon. As we lingered there, my mind couldn't help but find itself envisioning Hemingway's characters idling their days away in the same manner. While the setting may have evoked the imagery, I knew in my heart that there's no real connection with the tragic-romance of Hemingway's tortured protagonists. I was a tourist, not only in place but in literary spirit. My generation's listlessness holds little of the gravity of his. And I knew it. In the same way that my friends will sometimes debate which "Friend" we are (am I Ross, Chandler, or Joey?), our conversation turned to facetiously determining which of us was Jake Barnes or Robert Cohn or Lady Ashley. I don't think I honestly want to identify with a wounded, impotent bullfighting aficionado, but the allure of the romance of that era still instills a subtle ache of nostalgia, but, being there, it was enough to exist in the vestigial illusion of common experience, if but for a moment - slumming in the footsteps and suffering of a lonely Jake Barnes.



I say that Madrid was the least interesting because most of our time there was spent doing conventionally tourist activities. Walking around, looking at things, eating and drinking. While this is ostensibly what we did in the other cities, there were moments that definitely stood out as unique to those places that Madrid seemed to lack. Nevertheless, Madrid is still beautiful. The Plaza Mayor was unlike any place I've been to before (which isn't saying a whole hell of a lot). The Main Post Office was the coolest post office I've ever seen. We also caught a cable car to the outskirts of the city. This took us across an arid plains that resembled something you'd find in Africa. It was interesting to see how concentrated Madrid really is and how empty the surrounding area is. We visited the Prado Museum. It's collection was impressive, especially the Goya exhibit. Not a whole lot of pictures from inside this place, what with the old Spanish lady guards running and throwing themselves bodily infront of my camera to prevent me from taking a picture of Goya's "The Drowning Dog." Which is just as well, since I've never really understood the purpose of taking pictures of art. Like pretending to be a Hemingway character, it's a facsimile simply representing a further decay in meaning.



Our last night there we got drinks at a rooftop penthouse back at the Plaza de Santa Ana. We were there at about sunset (which is at around 10pm in Spain) and there was a cool breeze. I stood leaning on the railing with a glass of Macallan and watched as the city lights blinked on one by one and the evening glow enveloped the square below. Conversations, laughter, and soft music from the restaurants drifted upwards unintelligibly cutting through the quiet on the roof. We lingered there for a while enjoying the calm and warmth of wine and the evening.



The following morning consisted of a mad rush to the train station and just barely making the Renfe to San Sebastian. We made it, literally, with seconds to spare. And, as I've mentioned, with Madrid being my least favorite city of the week, I'm looking forward to revisiting the rest of the week. San Sebastian is next and among the most beautiful places I've ever been.