One of the dilemmas I created for myself when I started this blog and gave it the title The Walking Fool was what to do during those extended periods when I was not only not walking, but also not thinking much about walking. Back when I'd completed the Nakasendo walk and was really into running, I even considered starting up a completely new blog called…The Running Fool.
As you can see from the list of labels at left, I have written on quite a few different topics over the years. However, many of these topics are either directly or indirectly related to walking, and as I've mentioned previously, a lot of my posts (including this one) are composed at least partly in my head while I'm out walking (in this case to the supermarket and back). In the end, it just doesn’t feel right to write in this blog about things not related to walking in some form or another.
Which is all a roundabout way of saying that since I got back from walking the Tokaido nearly two months ago, I've hardly done any walking at all. So what have I been up to?
One thing I've been doing is refining my cooking skills. I'm working on perfecting recipes for a couple of things I've always wanted to have in my culinary repertoire: one a good vegetarian curry, and the other a good dahl. Judging by Mrs Fool's reaction, I'm definitely making progress on both.
I've also been reading quite a lot. I finally got around to reading Edmund White's The Flâneur, which is one of the books I bought in Wellington when I was up there for the Wellington Jazz Festival. It's a quirky and well-written volume, more a personal guide to and history of Paris than a book about walking per se. The Paris Commune was mentioned a couple of times, but there was no mention of the Situationists, surprising given the similarities (superficial though they may be) between the "drifting" of the Situationists and the favourite activity of the flaneur, described on the back cover as "someone who ambles without apparent purpose but is secretly attuned to the history of the street he walks - and is in covert search of adventure, aesthetic or erotic."
I've also read a couple more John Rain thrillers (including one I bought in Tokyo at the end of the Tokaido walk), which means I've now read all but one in the series. Incidentally, on my last day in Tokyo I'd intended to have lunch at one of the real-life restaurants frequented by John Rain, Las Chicas. I spent ages roaming the backstreets of Aoyama searching for it (I'd checked its location on the restaurant's website before leaving New Zealand and was pretty sure I knew where it was) but to no avail. Next time I'll take a map.
With my pile of unread books severely depleted and the New Zealand dollar the strongest it's been for many months, yesterday I logged onto Amazon and ordered three items from my Wish List. The first is Werner Herzog's Of Walking in Ice, the account of the film director's journey on foot from Munich to Paris to which I've previously referred. The second is Rain Storm by Barry Eisler (yes, it's the one John Rain novel I haven't read). And the third is Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties by Ian MacDonald.
That third item probably demands some explanation. Well, I was a serious Beatles fan in my teens, and I've recently started listening to their music again and watching some of their live performances on YouTube, a medium that wasn't around when I was at high school (this was back in the days of vinyl). I read about this book, which is a song-by-song analysis of every song ever released by the group, in a discussion in the comments section of Russell Brown's blog, Hard News, and thought it sounded really interesting. Coincidentally, another post on the same blog made just a few days earlier led to an equally fascinating discussion about food, with dahl featuring prominently.
Showing posts with label John Rain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Rain. Show all posts
Thursday, 6 August 2009
Monday, 18 May 2009
Auckland - Osaka
I'd asked reception to give me a wake-up call at 5am. However, I was awake by 4.30 and decided to get up to give me plenty of time to buy and eat breakfast before heading to the airport. I showered, dressed and packed, and then sat by the phone waiting for it to ring, but the wake-up call never came.
I went out and got coffee and a large apple crumble muffin, which was delicious. I then checked out and walked down to the bus stop on Queen Street to catch the 6.05am bus. A few minutes before the bus was due to arrive, a shuttle pulled up at the bus stop offering to take people to the airport for the same price as the Airbus. I considered taking up the offer, but I'd bought a return bus ticket the previous day and naturally the driver wouldn’t accept it.
The flight to Kansai airport just outside of Osaka was one of the least unpleasant long flights I've endured in recent years. The seat next to me was vacant, so I was able to stretch out a bit. I watched three movies (Gran Torino, Valkyrie, and Taken) and read quite a bit of my book, Barry Eisler's One Last Kill. For lunch I had a rather soggy crumbed fish dish, and for dinner I chose the chicken dish. I don’t eat chicken or red meat, but I never bother to order special meals on planes, as there's usually a fish option and if not, whatever vegetables and other things (bread roll, salad, dessert, etc.) that happen to be on the tray are usually enough to satisfy me. I used to drink a glass of wine or two to help me sleep on long flights. These days, however, I stay off the wine and coffee and try to drink as much water as possible to prevent dehydration, and usually feel a lot better as a result.
After over eleven hours in the air, it was a relief to touch down at Kansai airport at just after 6pm local time. I'd been worried about being held up at the airport due to the swine flu scare, but apart from having to fill in a form on the plane and hand it in at a quarantine desk before going through immigration, the process at the airport was no different than usual. Immigration was actually quicker than normal (there was hardly any queue at all), and customs was a breeze. I was out in time to catch the 7.05pm bus to Herbis Plaza near Osaka Station, from where it was just a two-minute walk to my hotel.
At check in I was greeted by a row of receptionists in white facemasks. Also, there were posters in the lobby detailing the measures the hotel was taking to prevent the spread of the flu. I headed to the elevator, surprised at the precautions the hotel was taking, for my understanding was there were only one or two cases in Japan. An Asian woman in a bright floral dress got in the elevator ahead of me. "Which floor?" she asked in English. "Eight," I replied. As we were going up, she turned to me and said, "Ten dollars?" I'd already gathered she was a lady of the night, but I was still rather taken aback by the proposal. "What do you mean?" I asked in Japanese. "Only joking," she said, herself switching to Japanese. "You didn't think it was funny?"
I got to my room and turned on the TV. The news was on, and I soon understood the reason for the precautions in the hotel. Between the time I left Christchurch and the time I arrived in Osaka, swine flu had hit the Kansai area in a big way, with over 150 cases confirmed in Kobe and Osaka.
On the personal health front, my toe felt fine all day. My groin, on the other, hurt whenever I stood up or sat down on the plane.
This wasn't the only thing worrying me. At the hotel I'd picked up the mobile phone a Japanese friend had sent me to use while in the country. I charged the phone and tried to turn it on, but it didn’t respond. I couldn’t get it to work. Although there was no manual with it, I'd used the same phone before and thought I remembered how it worked. I was convinced that it was broken. I was quite worried, as I was relying on the phone to update my blog and keep in touch with people in Japan during my stay. I was determined not to let it bother me too much, but I was in a pretty gloomy frame of mind when I got to sleep at about 9.15pm.
I went out and got coffee and a large apple crumble muffin, which was delicious. I then checked out and walked down to the bus stop on Queen Street to catch the 6.05am bus. A few minutes before the bus was due to arrive, a shuttle pulled up at the bus stop offering to take people to the airport for the same price as the Airbus. I considered taking up the offer, but I'd bought a return bus ticket the previous day and naturally the driver wouldn’t accept it.
The flight to Kansai airport just outside of Osaka was one of the least unpleasant long flights I've endured in recent years. The seat next to me was vacant, so I was able to stretch out a bit. I watched three movies (Gran Torino, Valkyrie, and Taken) and read quite a bit of my book, Barry Eisler's One Last Kill. For lunch I had a rather soggy crumbed fish dish, and for dinner I chose the chicken dish. I don’t eat chicken or red meat, but I never bother to order special meals on planes, as there's usually a fish option and if not, whatever vegetables and other things (bread roll, salad, dessert, etc.) that happen to be on the tray are usually enough to satisfy me. I used to drink a glass of wine or two to help me sleep on long flights. These days, however, I stay off the wine and coffee and try to drink as much water as possible to prevent dehydration, and usually feel a lot better as a result.
After over eleven hours in the air, it was a relief to touch down at Kansai airport at just after 6pm local time. I'd been worried about being held up at the airport due to the swine flu scare, but apart from having to fill in a form on the plane and hand it in at a quarantine desk before going through immigration, the process at the airport was no different than usual. Immigration was actually quicker than normal (there was hardly any queue at all), and customs was a breeze. I was out in time to catch the 7.05pm bus to Herbis Plaza near Osaka Station, from where it was just a two-minute walk to my hotel.
At check in I was greeted by a row of receptionists in white facemasks. Also, there were posters in the lobby detailing the measures the hotel was taking to prevent the spread of the flu. I headed to the elevator, surprised at the precautions the hotel was taking, for my understanding was there were only one or two cases in Japan. An Asian woman in a bright floral dress got in the elevator ahead of me. "Which floor?" she asked in English. "Eight," I replied. As we were going up, she turned to me and said, "Ten dollars?" I'd already gathered she was a lady of the night, but I was still rather taken aback by the proposal. "What do you mean?" I asked in Japanese. "Only joking," she said, herself switching to Japanese. "You didn't think it was funny?"
I got to my room and turned on the TV. The news was on, and I soon understood the reason for the precautions in the hotel. Between the time I left Christchurch and the time I arrived in Osaka, swine flu had hit the Kansai area in a big way, with over 150 cases confirmed in Kobe and Osaka.
On the personal health front, my toe felt fine all day. My groin, on the other, hurt whenever I stood up or sat down on the plane.
This wasn't the only thing worrying me. At the hotel I'd picked up the mobile phone a Japanese friend had sent me to use while in the country. I charged the phone and tried to turn it on, but it didn’t respond. I couldn’t get it to work. Although there was no manual with it, I'd used the same phone before and thought I remembered how it worked. I was convinced that it was broken. I was quite worried, as I was relying on the phone to update my blog and keep in touch with people in Japan during my stay. I was determined not to let it bother me too much, but I was in a pretty gloomy frame of mind when I got to sleep at about 9.15pm.
Tuesday, 12 May 2009
Every gram counts
This morning I got out the fancy kitchen scales to help me make some final decisions about what to take and what to leave behind when I walk the Tokaido. The results are as follows:
Total distance walked since Tokaido training began: 337.7km
Days left until departure: 5
iPod and adapter: 352gDistance walked today: 3km
Noise-canceling headphones (including batteries): 256g
Deluxe illustrated map of Tokaido: 134g
One Last Kill by Barry Eisler: 234g
The Flaneur by Edmund White: 166g
400g bag of Scrummy Mix: 408g
Total distance walked since Tokaido training began: 337.7km
Days left until departure: 5
Saturday, 2 May 2009
That's more like it
Bento.com is a great website if you're after information about restaurants in Tokyo. I usually check it out whenever I'm heading to a part of the city I'm not familiar with to see if there are any restaurants I might enjoy.
Recently they posted a special article on jazz cafes, which made for interesting reading in light of my own recent series of posts on the topic. But the weird thing is that right after I'd checked the full list of jazz bars and cafes at bento.com, I went to bed and picked up the novel I happened to be in the middle of (The Last Assassin by Barry Eisler), and the first thing I came across was a detailed description of one of the jazz bars I'd just been reading about, Volontaire.
The very next day, I stumbled upon this profile of Eisler at Japan Today. As well as being an ex-CIA operative, it seems Eisler loves listening to jazz, has a black belt in a martial art, and spends a lot of time at hostess bars (in the name of research, of course). So that's at least two things we have in common!
Bonus bento.com link: cat cafes in Tokyo
Distance walked today: 26.6km
Total distance walked since Tokaido training began: 289.6km
Days left until departure: 15
Recently they posted a special article on jazz cafes, which made for interesting reading in light of my own recent series of posts on the topic. But the weird thing is that right after I'd checked the full list of jazz bars and cafes at bento.com, I went to bed and picked up the novel I happened to be in the middle of (The Last Assassin by Barry Eisler), and the first thing I came across was a detailed description of one of the jazz bars I'd just been reading about, Volontaire.
The very next day, I stumbled upon this profile of Eisler at Japan Today. As well as being an ex-CIA operative, it seems Eisler loves listening to jazz, has a black belt in a martial art, and spends a lot of time at hostess bars (in the name of research, of course). So that's at least two things we have in common!
Bonus bento.com link: cat cafes in Tokyo
Distance walked today: 26.6km
Total distance walked since Tokaido training began: 289.6km
Days left until departure: 15
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
