Backpacking, Day 1 – Kumamoto

After a week of unstable sleeping patterns, getting up at 7 wasn’t easy. I still managed to get up after 4 hrs of sleep (unstable sleeping patterns etc.), eat breakfast, and clean up the last remaining mess in my room, “checked out” from APH and asked them to fix my broken light while I was away. I was 10 min early for the bus and just in time for the train to Oita, and having planned enough time to be certain to reach the bus to Kumamoto I had to wait 45 min for it. Weather was nice so I sat waiting outdoors – became a bit cold after 40 min… The bus to Kumamoto took about 4 hrs so I caught up on some sleep, waking up at random moment during the bus ride trying to figure out what place we were at or had just passed. Got shocked when I woke up and there was snow outside the bus, but then I remembered that we were crossing a mountain…

In Kumamoto I walked around, trying to orient myself and get a feel of the place, and finally decided to go to a youth hostel some way outside the city centre. Finding the right tram stop was easy, but finding the hostel from there would have been a major pain if I hadn’t looked foreign and confused. Me being tall (in Japan at least), blond and fair-skinned, dressed in a bright red all-weather-jacket, carrying a big backpack and a copy of Lonely Planet Japan; makes me easily recognised as a tourist. A lady came up to me and said “yuusu hosuteru?” and kindly pointed me in a direction I’d never choose on my own. When I finally reached the hostel I came from the back side of it, passing it without realising until a purple haired lady came after med and asked “yuusu hosuteru?” She turned out to be the owner of the youth hostel, and seeing the obvious confused tourist from the window she came out to fetch me.

The hostel is nice, tatami rooms 2nd floor, and a recreation room right inside the entrance, next to the front desk. It’s nothing special, but there is a dining table and a small TV, and a water heater with tea and coffee. Had I planned to stay here longer I would have used it, but I was so tired today that I slept for two hours after checking in, and only went out to get dinner. Found a small local place just 2 blocks from the hostel and had Unagi Donburi – Eel and rice.

I’m staying here for a night, doing the touristy things tomorrow before moving on to Fukuoka. I was thinking of spending two nights here, but I understood that the youth hostel couldn’t house me tomorrow, so I decided to move on tomorrow after seeing the sights. Hopefully I can stay in Fukuoka for a couple of days or more.

Today’s received comments:
Youth Hostel Lady:
1) “You look very much like a tourist” (Freely translated from the memory of a half-understood sentence)
2) “You are good at speaking Japanese; I was surprised that you understood so much!” (But they don’t expect much of us westerners though..)
At the Unagi restaurant:
“You are very good at using chop sticks.” (But again, they don’t expect much of Westerners…)

Now it’s time for bed. Perhaps I’ll be able to turn my sleeping pattern around to normal. Oyasumi.

Wednesday, February 6th 2008

There’s a faint drizzle of snow in the air, but no snow on the ground. Downtown it was raining. the dormitories are empty, except for the scarce few that will be leaving soon – me among them. Many are travelling, more are moving out before the new batch of students arrives in March, and some are leaving for good. I have said goodbye to friends I might never see again, I’ve said goodbye to friends I’m going to miss sorely for two months before I’ll see them again, and I’ve introduced, and been introduced to, people only days before they left this place. I helped a friend moving her things to her new place downtown. “I can’t believe I’m moving downtown!” she said. “I can’t wait to get off this mountain!” said another. “I can’t wait to get home!” said someone else.

The wind is picking up again, hurling the frail snow crystals around in the air. I can’t wait to get off this mountain. I’m stuck here on campus another semester, but during the vacation I’m taking the opportunity to get off this mountain. I’m backpacking, through Japan, alone. I’m not too worried. I’m a quiet, but sociable girl with touristy interests, and my expected behaviour is not likely to attract trouble. The scariest part is walking out the door.

The plan is to travel in my own pace, and go where I feel like, when it suits my pace and my mood. I haven’t planned a thing. Not quite true, but close enough. This is an exercise in traversing the unknown, me allowing myself to be spontaneous, figuring out how to get around and how to find what I need and improvising when necessary. Improvising isn’t a new thing for me, but I’ve usually had a framework around it all. Now I don’t have that framework. My journey has a beginning and an end, but I have to fill in the blanks in between. That’s about a months worth of blanks.

I’m starting from Beppu early morning the day after tomorrow, taking the train to Oita to get my bus to Kumamoto. I plan to stay there a day or two, and then move on to Fukuoka, probably by bus again. From Fukuoka I want to go to Yamaguchi, making my way north-east from Kyushu to Honshu. After Yamaguchi I’m going by random until I have to be in Tokyo in the middle of March, meeting up with my family before travelling around Japan with them. They already have a set plan, so to avoid seeing the same places twice I’m seeing them with my family.

Doing all this, on my own and as much as possible in Japanese, will be fun, tiring, embarrassing and scary, perhaps alternating, perhaps all at once. But I’m looking forward to it. Japan has changed me a little already, but maybe this will change me even more. I don’t think I’ll be much different when I come back, but perhaps there will be more “me” in the person you thought you knew. Or maybe I’m deceiving myself and you’re the ones that knew me all along while I was wandering in the unknown.

It’s time to get out in the wind again, and through the whirling snowflakes and pick up the first ticket. The journey starts today, here and now. Perhaps I should start packing…

---

We're celebrating Chinese New Year tonight. I hope this will be a merrier goodbye than most.

Happy Birthday to Me! + generell update

På overtid med en liten oppdatering igjen ser jeg. Utenom eksamenstresset har det ikke skjedd så mye er på fjellet siden siste oppdatering, men nå har jeg endelig fått eksamensukene overstått. 5 eksamener og 2 Final Reports. + Lekser ETTER siste eksamen.

My desk, on the day of my last exams.

Jeg skulle ønske jeg kunne si at jeg har jobbet meg gjennom det, men siden nyttår har jeg slitt med særdeles dårlig motivasjon, så skolearbeid har det blitt heller lite av. (Noe selvfølgelig, men ikke mer enn høyst nødvendig.) Regner med å stå i de fleste fagene, og utover det så går det som det går, noe jeg forberedt på å ta konsekvensene av neste semester. Ironisk nok er jeg veldig motivert for å lære japansk, men ikke det minste motivert for skoletimene.

Siden nyttår har jeg jobbet mer med å finne den manglende motivasjonen, og med kunstneriske utfoldelser og eksperimentering. Jeg ble inspirert til å begynne en (manuell) Art Journal, og humøret ble betydelig bedre etter at jeg kjøpte art supplies.

Art supplies & (improvisert) Art Journal

Complete with cute Engrish:
"Keep your treasure with carefully"

Selvom det ikke har skjedd noe utenom eksamenstress og manglende motivasjon har det vært travelt nok. Dagene etter eksamen har jeg brukt til å ta igjen søvn og være sosial med alle de fantastiske menneskene som reiser sin vei, enten det er for 2 mnd eller for alltid. Onsdag kveld var det (en sårt etterlengtet) fest på pub'en; 90+ % internasjonale studenter og fantastisk morro fra ende til annen. Eneste nedturen var å komme hjem nedstinket av sigarettrøyk. Savner den gode norske røykeloven ja...

Bye-bye Party Crowd at Roots
(I know at least 7 people in this picture!)

Etter gårsdagens fest har jeg forsøkt å få orden på det kaoset som utgjør rommet mitt, som kort oppsummert ser rimelig bombet ut (fullstendig urelatert til festen, men heller meg generelt), vært "i-siste-liten-sosial" med folk som reiser sin vei, sagt hadde til folk for travle til sosialisering, og sett det ene rommet etter det andre tømmes og forlates.

On a much nicer note:
Jeg har allerede fått 2 kjempefine bursdagsgaver og en lang hyggelig bursdagsmail, og noen mindre bursdagshilsener til mobilen min:) Shannon gav meg en boks med fargestifter, og Tooch gav meg et nydelig sjal fra Kambodsja! Gleder meg til delvis improvisert bursdagsfeiring imorgen kveld, med alle de fantastiske menneskene -som i det minste skal være her et par dager til.

Nå som jeg har bedre tid kommer det nok flere oppdateringer litt oftere, men inntil videre får dere kose dere med disse bildene. :)

Random nice things about living on a mountain:

Sunset view from my room window

Foggy day in Beppu; fantastic cloud formations seen from APU

hvordan kommentere på bloggposter

"How to comment", instructions in Norwegian.

Her er en liten guide til hvordan man kommenterer på bloggen min. Det virker som deler av publikummet mitt kan være interessert i dette.

1. Les bloggposten.

2. Nederst, under bloggposten ser du teksten
" Lagt inn av Cecilie/Cecily på 20:04, 0 kommentarer,
Etiketter: folk, foto, Japan, " etc.
Klikk på "0 kommentarer" (eller "1 kommentar" el. "2 kommentarer" osv.)

3. Du kommer til en ny side med overskriften " Legg inn en kommentar på: A pinch of Cecily".
Til høyre på siden er det en boks med tittelen "Skriv en kommentar". Skriv i boksen.

4. Deretter går du til "Velg en identitet" og velger "kallenavn".
Skriv navn eller kallenavn alt etter hva du føler for å identifisere deg som, men velg gjerne noe slik at jeg lett kan kjenne deg igjen. (Onegaishimasu.)

5. Trykk på "publiser kommentaren din".
NB. Alle kan lese kommentarene jeg får, hele bloggen min er åpen for allmennheten, så det skader ikke å være bevisst på hva du skriver.

6. Kommentaren er publisert, og dukker opp på samme side.

For å lese en bloggposter med tilhørende kommentarer trykker du på den enkelte bloggpostens tittel (i oransj) og du får opp bloggposten på en egen side sammen med kommentarene til den valgte bloggposten.

Håper dette var informativt, og at jeg får se fler kommentarer i fremtiden;)

Welcome to 2008

Happy New Year!
I might be a little late, but it's still my first blog post of the new year. It seems I might have more English speaking (reading) audience so I'll try to write more in English to reach everyone. The occasional Norwegian post will occur, of course.

Last post left of evening December 30th, so I'll recount the rest of my New Year trip from New Years Eve, hopefully in shorter terms.

December 31st
Went shopping as planned, explored the popular shopping area Tenjin all day. No time or energy for touristy activities in between. In the evening we were hanging out at McD's (since everything else closed at 6pm), passing time until we thought it would be a good time to find a restaurant. We turned out to be wrong, the few restaurants that weren't closed already were full. So we ended up at another McD's.

Back at the hostel V* disappeared off to Skype* with her BF* and I was left alone for the saddest New Years Eve ever; Feeling a little lonely at midnight I logged onto MSN to say Happy New Year to whomever was online. Welcome to 2008.
(* V = Vanessa, Skype = Internet chat and/or telephone, BF = Boyfriend)

January 1st
Rose early to go shopping with V and her friend Tammy -both eager to get the popular New Year -surprise bags from the mall. I was mainly tagging along with them, observing the shopping frenzy of the New Year Sales, while the girls were shopping more seriously. Tammy even bought another suitcase for her shoppings. Throughout the day the girls started talking more and more in Chinese (they are both Chinese-Australian). I didn't mind at first, until they started making decisions, of where to go and what to do and such, in Chinese and then announce it to me in English, then continue in Chinese and changing their minds -not announcing the change of heart to me. When we split up that afternoon I was relieved to be on my own, not needing to guess what our next actions might be. (V had to return earlier than planned due to an unexpected HW*-deadline.) I returned to the hostel, slept, went out to get food, and then sat in the common room and chatted with random people (= random American, David or Adam...) before heading back to bed. (*HW = homework)

January 2nd
Slept in, slept off 3 days' worth of travel & shopping exhaustion. Finally managed to get out of the hostel at noon, heading for Dazaifu, not really knowing where it was, how to get there or how long it would take. A small map in my Lonely Planet revealed that I could get there via Tenjin station, so I went there first, and then followed the signs that took me to the right ticket counter and train platform. I had to transfer trains once, but the stations were clearly marked an announced. Met a lovely family on the packed trains, spent 10 min talking to the wife (in Japanese!) before we arrived in Dazaifu. Lost the nice family less than 30 sec after the train stopped because of the crowds -which were massive! People everywhere.

I decided to only take a short route through a small part of Dazaifu, seeing the closest temples/shrines and the Kyushu National Museum. At one point the crowd slowed to a syrupy pace, and when it slowly moved through the torii (temple/shrine gate) I realized that the crowd had become the queue to enter the shrine. I don't know if it really was to enter the shrine, because I left the queue as soon as I was able to and took a detour to the less crowded museum. Really good museum, spent a couple of hours there before heading back to the station and to Fukuoka. Passing the temple again (from the other side) on my way to the station I snapped a few pictures of the queue, which was still as long as when I'd passed there earlier.

Back in Hakata I decided to chill out at Starbucks with a coffee and writing travel notes for a few hours before returning to the hostel. In the common room I sat down in the couch to write, but ended up chatting with Kate from Australia for 2 1/2 hrs instead. I love meeting people this way.


January 3rd
Walked around Hakata and Canal City exploring the side streets (i.e. not the shopping malls)
and minor tourist spots. Ended up in an almost secret Japanese style garden and then in a Tea Ceremony house. I totally loved the garden and the tea ceremony-people, they were lovely, and apparently they adored me for stuttering as best I could in Japanese. Moving on, I passed by Canal City (the mall) again, walked by and through a temple area (and got a new calligraphy for my jinja-book! Ureshii!) and then I found Fukuoka Museum of Modern Asian art. Lucky for me they had huge posters, or I would never have found it; it's located on the 7th floor of a (random?) building. Having satisfied my culture-quota I returned to Hakata to find my bus back to Beppu.

It was nice and interesting to travel with Vanessa, and I had a few wonderful days on my own, but finally back at campus, I entered my room thinking "I can't remember it being this nice!".



...and then I'm almost up to date on my blogging. (^_^)v

(Pictures will be up shortly, both for this post and the previous one!)