Joined at the job

Ever wonder why your coworkers are so different than you? Often you find some people just seem to have fallen literally out of the sky into your office (or at least I think so). Sometimes it’s good, people coming from all walks of life, but other times it’s like joining limbs from several bodies together and expecting them to be able to not reject each other. I suppose it’s like pro-lifers and pro-choice people to suddenly become buddy buddy, but generally my expectations are not set that high.

But hobbies and interests can be so varied that it’s difficult to gauge what to talk about, at least in my sense of  the world. Also of course, I have a harder time getting to know these people as I work intermittedly at this particular job. Some of the people I only see a few times a month some months, if  at all. Kind of like drinking in a pub where you come somewhat regularly, but yet you aren’t seen as a regular.

Waiting to work

With one of the jobs I work, the waiting to work is often more tiring than the work itself. Well, at least that what my colleagues opine. Sometimes I’m not sure if that is completely true, but certainly workdays that are stretched out are longer. I don’t  know that these ‘long’ days are necessarily more tiring, suppose it depends on what you find to do with the time. Reading and blogging fit in nicely, and so does sometimes talking to your coworkers to get the latest dirt. Some colleagues even enjoy napping to ‘pass’ the time.  I guess it is all about using your time productively, if you can do something useful, it doesn’t seem so tiring.

Nothing like working

 

Yet, it might be a case of having to be in  place when we’d rather be somewhere else.

S. Korea trip

We came back from Korea (south of course) and it was a lot of fun.

We went to Pusan, Gwanjou, and Seoul of course. I enjoyed it a lot, the food, some of the cultural things, and just seeing different things outside of Japan.In Seoul, we went to Insadong again and drabk tea at a new place with songbirds. I noticed in my guide book and it took us a while to find it, but it was fun. In Insadong, getting to the teahouse is half the fun, the other half is choosing the tea. In Korea there are so many different teas, it’s sometimes hard to choose which one is best. Sometimes it depends on what flavor you’d like or what ails you. The Koreans  believe that all the teas have health benefits of some sort. But I really just enjoy drinking them, if there is any real health benefit, it’s just another bonus.!

Anyhow, hanging in Insadong is fun, even if it is touristy.  The little teashops are fun as well as some of the craft stuff that is displayed. Probably not the cheapest places to get it, but there is a lot of variety as well as better quality items here.

The other area that my wife really gets a kick out of is Myeondong. Lots of shopping, especially for cosmetics and clothes. Also some good restaurants as well as kick ass green tea shop. Literally everything in the shop is made with green tea, and it’ s a nice place to take a break. Not the quietest of places, but relaxing. Also this last time we went to spa place, but it was so so. I mean the massage part, anyway. A bit too rough for my tastes. They also had these saunas with really low doorways. Hot enough, with wooden blocks for pillows..right. Sounds as comfy as it is, not. If I wanted a wooden pillow I would have bought one, with a  cover to avoid the splinters!

Anyway, so it could be a nice way to soak away your blisters on your feet from over shopping.

We also went south to Pusan, and that was raw. Pusan was earthy, and seemed a bit uncosmopolitan after Seoul. There was construction going on, but it lacks the skyscrapers of the capital city.  We stayed at Hanunae Beah, probably the best area in the city. Had a beautiful view of the sea in a lovely hotel. The hotel also had a duty free shop mall, which my wife loved. With a lot of shops with last years’ goods  (or sometimes even 2 years ago), the prices were quite a bit lower for some items, but not for all.  So  of course my wife made short work of several areas, while I tried to find a place to just hang out and not kill my feet.

We also visited the fish market, which had restaurants that were overpriced and somewhat ordinary except for a view of the harbor. Oh well, hopefully the fish was fresh. it certainly talked enough going down.

We also visited the market near our hotel, but it was pretty ordinary. It was cheaper than the convenience stores scattered throughout Hanunae as well as the java shops (yes, there is a heaven in Korea). We enjoyed wandering into a pork soup place that had…pork soup. It was good, wtih the usual contingent of vegetables served a side dishes that can be mixed in or eaten separately, always a pleasure.

Winging by

Life recently seems to be on a rapid warp, as ideas come, but finding the time to do them raises its ugly head time and time again. I have to hand it to people who are successful, do they have better assistants, or do they really do things more efficiently.

Just winging it

Taiwan Rocks

My wife had liked going to Taipei the last time, and it rocked again, especially the food part. I lived in Taipei back in ‘95 and ‘96 and only moved because of the pollution at that time due to the public transit system being built. The roads were all a mess, making riding a motorbike to work more of an adventure.

But even with all that, I always enjoyed the food and the people.  One standout was the restaurant near the Riveria Hotel, a well known restaurant with good service and great food at reasonable prices. Very comfortable and a real dining delight.

We had a good time visiting a few things, the Taipei 101 building, as well as the Shilin market. This was on the same trip as Bali, so the contrast was extreme.

Also, I fulfilled a long time dream of visiting Hualien and seeing Tarako Gorge (Taiwan’s version of the Grand Canyon), well worth the time and taxi rental cost for the day. One  interesting encounter in the train station was the impatience of the people behind us as we tried to order tickets to go to Hualien. I didn’t remember that the end of the Western year was a holiday in Taiwan, so the station was pregnant with people. We finally resorted to getting help and using a ticket machine, thoughy this meant we had to use cash. Little did we know that Hualien is not very bank friendly. Hualien itself looked like it had time warped abck to the 50s in Japan. Of course, minus the bombed out shacks, instead it had rusting shacks and looked like it had missed a few baths in paint. The ride on through the city to the hotel wa smore of the same. The two males at the front desk were really welcoming, and even helped us out with trying to sort out a tour the next day. Turned out no one had read my email (or no one read it that understood it). Anyway, we found out with the tour the next day, they would return too late for us to make our scheduled train back to Taipei. So instead, they suggested that we renta  taxi for the day, which actually was almost the same price as the tour. That night we went to a famous dumpling soup place that was near the hotel. That was great and pretty cheap, even though we needed to order 2 bowls each as they were midget sized.

Afterwards we nosed on over to a market, which was very local with some aboriginal jewelry and mostly junk. We did buy some other snacks while we there, and then later walked back to the hotel. The next day the driver came, and we gave him a list of places we wanted to go, and off we went. Lots of  fun with some great tunnels and gorge settings. The taxi driver was very familar with the best places for pics and let us off a few times to pick us up later. The only big ‘mistake’ he made was bringing us to a touristy tea shop/restaurant instead of the regular Taiwanese restaurant. So after we got away from the tourist trap, we went to the other place. Of course more grungy, but crowded with Taiwanese touring the area and much cheaper . We had a relatively cheap lunch and went on with walking to a nearby resort hotel as well as looking around one of the bridges over the gorge. The hotel had a herb garden, which was nice with some carved stones here and there for decorations.

Then we headed out and saw the beach on the way back, with one stop at a jewelry store which the taxi driver thought we wanted for shopping for souvenirs. But since most of it was overpriced amber pieces, we weren’t exactly interested. He later made up for it swinging by a candy/food gift  store where my wife did pick up what she was looking for. We then headed back to the station, and we had an hour or so to kill. Tried the bank machine again, but seems only Taiwanese cards work in that one horse city. We bade farewell and arrived back in shiny Taipei with a department store and an atm right around the corner.

Lost a will to travel

Luggage in limbo

Gotta wonder, I’ve met two people in Japan, and they seem to have no or little urge to travel. One doesn’t even have a passport (or he has an expired one), and says he doesn’t like traveling. I don’t know about you, but not traveling outside of Japan for 8 years?  No thanx, I think by then I would move to at least a hospital or something.

Then again, I have friends back home that have only been to Canada or Mexico (or sometimes both). Maybe my wife and I have gotten the travel bug bad. I have to wonder though, when you start not wanting to travel, are you getting stuck?

I hope I never get to that stage in life, though I know people who are content to never get on a plane or boat (sometimes even a train). But to never consider leaving the country in a year multiplied by a few? I have heard of homebodies,

but ’nationbodies’? I suppose these people may travel ‘virtually’, but that really isn’t the same, is it?

Maybe it is a bit of a phobia, that people are concerned when they leave their country (or adopted country), they may find it’s not the best thing after ‘beans on toast’. Or perhaps it’s a control issue, because we all know how travel can often be so unpredictable in awful and delightful ways. And some people just can’t deal with that, being in a place where no one knows their name, and maybe no one gives a damn either about finding it out. Then again, I don’t have to leave my adopted home to find that situation sometimes.

Who knows, just have to wait and see if my passport stamps start dwindling and the time between stamps starts lengthening. But probably with the way the fuel tax is rising, maybe I won’t have long to wait until I too can’t travel very often. Wait, couldn’t I always get deported?

Just met another person who in his words ‘can’t be bothered to travel’. His bother, you might ask? He stated that packing was troublesome. Packing? I think sometimes ‘packing’ my briefcase, but of course I get paid for going to work, not for traveling (yet). So when I asked what he spends his money on, I got stony silence. Well maybe it’s retirement (he’s not that young) or he likes Japan that much!

Keeping up with your travel companion

Teacher vacation

Ever think about planning vacations and wonder where all that stress comes from? I guess part of it is doing it with a partner, who often has different ideas about what is enjoyable and how loaded  an itinerary should be. Often I want to relax and visit some historic sites and/or soak up the local buildings and scenery.

Yet this can be a problem with any people you travel with, as their idea of sightseeing may be far removed from your own. Ideally, if you build schedules where some time is given for each person to pursue his or her own interests and pace, things will probably bubble along okay, but often this might not be palatable to some of the traveling partners.

Compromising and balancing where you go and how many places you visit can greatly enhance your memories of your vacation. It also makes you less fatigued in dealing with trip tribulations.

Bali Bombs

persistent salespeople

My wife and I went to Bali over Christmas in 2008. My wife had high expectations, as many Japanese enthuse about Bali being a dream location. Unfortunately our dream seemed more like a nightmare.

What was not to like;

Selling militants

Aggressive sales people selling things on the street as well as in the stores where sometimes my wife opted no to buy to avoid being harassed. It got so bad near the volcano, that we almost couldn’t shoot pictures. Instead, we were ‘tricked’

nto going into a fruit stand to get away from some of the more militant touts, only to have the fruit stand seller try to rip us off by weighing all the fruit together.

Milling about taxi touts

Even in our hotel parking lot in Sanur, we had people hiding in the bushes offering taxis, whether we were remotely interested in one or not.

Food poisoning

For my wife, this trip was ultimately bad as she suffered food poisoning twice. She finally went to a clinic on our next to last day and was treated for an intestinal parasite.. Both times she fell ill after eating at local restaurants recommended in our guide books.

Run down hotel facilities Even within nicer hotels, some of the facilities were a bit shabby and looked as if the hotel had avoided spending money on necessary repairs.

Good things

Cheap beer

I’m guessing the bacteria in my stomach and the generous amounts of Bintang I drank helped me battle the parasites my wife fell victim to. The beer helped me to cool off, and overlook some of the continual disappointments (at the time).

Relatively cheap massages

I say relatively cheap as the quality of the massages varied greatly. We tended to go to a middle of the road place, and we were pretty happy there, paying 9-11 dollars for a 90 minute massage.

Sorry, those two good things above are not enough to warrant me revisiting Bali.

Shredding ties

A nice retort came back to me when I joked with a coworker about shredding some of his ties. He suggested starting with his ‘company name’ ties first, something I didn’t get at first.

I often feel the same, and wonder why I do work there. The farewell party for a Japanese-American reminded me of why sometimes I think i have been there too long. I arrived early (after a shopping detour) to discover only the staff there, in a world of their own. That world wasn’t interrupted until later when some people popped in, people who had told me earlier they wouldn’t probably be coming.

I made the mistake of talking briefly with an odd couple at work, in the same clique. That and being parked in front of the screen where a rugby match was going on contributed to a feeling of isolation. Though I suppose some of that is my fault, as I drank steadily and the amount of food served under our ‘party plan’ was minimal a best. My wife wondered why I came home and was still so hungary.

Sometimes work just places people together, people who really have no reason for interacting, or very little anyway. So sometimes conversations bounce around that don’t seem to be pointless, but..you have to wonder why are we together at this place of business. Just another point in time, and all those ships keep passing day and night, often with little in common beyond wasting time until the next encounter.

Ravaged senses

Yesterday at work, I had the weirdest light flash in front of my eye. I literally was seeing spots and wondering, “What happened?” I suppose having this happen while deeply intoxicated (or after such a night) would be less alarming, but I was stone sober and had just arrived at work. Almost think it was a combination of tiredness and the bright sunlight outside overloading my optic nerves before being confronted by the fluorescent and artificial environment of an office. Makes you stop and wonder, how much of a toll the city takes on your senses, what with all the forms of pollution bombarding you so much that you can’t divine the real from the unnatural.

Of course, some of that unnaturalness is the city itself, its economic activity keeping it alive. People do have to live somewhere, but you have to wonder why people crowd themselves into boxes in close proximity and then complain about the resulting noise and the bad air. Living in the city is becoming a bad habit for me over the last 16 years, one I which I wish I could relinquish for more open spaces and less people. People often talk about moving to the countryside when they retire, but I’m wondering if the bodies (and souls) can survive until then.