im-roberto

Osaka jo Cohen and Osaka Castle

On our way from Nara to Osaka we came across an old man that randomly started speaking to us. He had a pretty bad English but still somewhat understandable. While in the trip I notice that while he was talking to us he would mutter things in some incomprehensible language that not even the local Osaka people that were on the train didn’t seem to understand what he was saying either. I thought it was kind of funny because he would randomly circle his finger around and say “Okini.” When he would do that he would ask us to repeat it. Unfortunately I was unable to really explore Osaka as much as I would have liked to. I only had a chance to visit the castle and explore through some of the streets. Hopefully next time I will try to spend a few more days in that city.

From Osaka we took off to Kyoto, we stayed there for one and a half days there. This was the city that I least liked. It might have been mainly because we traveled to the old Emperors castle and really didn’t get to see it, along with that we didn’t get much of a chance to travel to any of the other many sites. We wanted to go to the manga museum but it was closed.

Kyoto

I learned tons of different things while in this short trip. It really is worth every penny taking a short vacation to a country that is completely different to what you are accustomed to.

The Imperial gardens

The time was nearing to my trip, and I decided it was time to quit my job. Fed up as I was I still miss some of the great people that worked with me. Then out of nowhere my brother and his friend decided to come along. Right then I was far more excited though I was forced to change a lot of my plans and reservations that I had already made at the various different Hostels. I think planning a vacation is sometimes just as great as going on them. In order to get accustomed to the different time zone in Japan my brother and I started staying up late and waking up late, though that didn’t help much it did make a difference. I didn’t suffer much from jetlag when we got there. The flight was nearly 13 hours long and the plane was really crammed with near to no legroom to sit comfortably.

Tokyo Tower

Our first destination was Tokyo, and I enjoyed every moment I was there with the exception of the cramming in the Tokyo metros during rush hour. The people there were extremely kind and most were willing to help even if they didn’t speak English. We took 3 different tours while we were there to get to know some of the more tourist spots in Tokyo. During the late hours we would go on our own to explore the various different locations of the big city. I must say that there were various different things that were rather odd to absorb such as the beer vending machines just standing around at random locations, or the bicycle parking spots at the shopping areas. Out of the 3 different tours that we took I would say that the one that is really worth taking is the one that takes you to Mt. Fuji since its a pretty long tour and it takes you to various different locations besides the top of the mountain. We unfortunately were not able to explore much of the mountain due to the inclemeting weather at the time. It began to snow at that altitude and weren’t either dressed or willing to take the hike up there. The other two tours that we took weren’t as exciting since at some parts it overlapped with the other therefore making us visit the same location twice, and always ending at some pearl shop that really pull any of my interest.

Home of the World's largest Buddha

Leaving from Tokyo we went straight to Nara, which is a considerably smaller town a few hours outside of Tokyo if taking the bullet train. This town was really interesting in the way that I got to see a lot of the countryside of Japan and saw some really amazing sights while on the train and on the metro going to the small bed and breakfast location that we stayed at. I really wish I could have taken some more time to get to know that small town a little better though we only spent a total of about a day there. The B&B that we stayed at was an old Japanese house converted into a bed and breakfast that was ran by a British guy and his Japanese wife. They had a small bar outside of the house where the owner served various different kinds of beers on tap and liquors. Aside from the spirits he also served various different kinds of great tasting Mediterranean dishes. In there we met a Brazilian that was living in Osaka who spoke to us about his various different adventures while exploring the city. We all joked and laughed and had a really great time there.

On top of Tokyo Tower

About a year ago I came across a wonderful blog about an Australian (unfortunately his site is no longer available) blogger who packed his backpack and decided to hit the road. He traveled through parts of Europe and Asia. When I read through his travels it had sparked an idea and an insane need for me to travel to a foreign country. Fed up and stressed out with my job at the time, and getting over the loss of my aunt I decided to take the risk and leave. Originally I wanted to go to Europe, but seeing the exchange rate from the Dollar to the Euro I figured that I’d better save that trip for another day, and decided on Japan. During the early months of 2008 I did a lot of research as to what to do while I was there, and hopefully learn the very basics of the language as well. After a weeks of watching the market for tickets go up and down at Expedia I finally bought my ticket. Right after I bought my ticket I felt this crazy feeling in my gut. It was that scared, uncertain, yet excited gut feeling. I knew then that there was absolutely no turning back.  From then on I worked hard everyday after work on planning my trip as well as studying a little of the language, I even purchased a few books on amazon to help me out. My trip was my only driving thing at the time because everyday it just got worse and worse at work, with the constant lay offs, and threats. I so motivated that I even looked foward to working overtime in that hell hole of a stressed out enviroment. Everyday I looked up culture differences, language, and places to go. I even purchased a J-Rail in order to get from one city to another. I was in a great positive mental state of mind during that period of time.

I’m an avid listener of various podcasts ranging from mostly tech news to political news. One of my favorite podcasts to listen to is Democracy Now! a podcast that covers mostly political news from national to international. Sometimes I don’t have a chance to listen through the full hour long show and just breeze through the first few minutes which covers small excerpts of whats going on around the globe. A few weeks ago I listened to in my opinion a special episode because it featured a speech done by Howard Zinn a celebrated man in the U.S history community. Though in pure honesty I had never heard of Proffesor Zinn I found something unique and very intriguing about his speech. He reminded me of what government really is, and the importance of being a citizen. I have to admit that my interest in politics has never been a big as it has recently with the election of soon to be President Barack Obama. In all its history making election let us hope he lives up to his promises, and accomplishes all his goals for the people.

I share with all the link to the video:

Democracy Now!: War and Social Justice
Youtube Version

Yesterday Google officially announced that it will discontinue development of some of its online webapps. Of the items on their list I was somewhat shocked and hurt to see that there are no more new things being added to it. Seeing how much momentum Evernote has picked up I’m considering a complete switch over to their services. I’ve always held an account there though just never used as heavily as Google Notebook. The Google blog does hold a good point though, a whole slew of new features in some of their other apps make Notebook somewhat useless, but I always liked notebook as sort of a sticky, save for later memo kind of deal.