Rice, Stone and Woeless Groans

Aug 28th
Long ass flight of which I am still recoverin from as I slowly strech out. Also my mom's near emotional breakdown of me leaving. Luckily my step-dad prevailed in semi-attempts of calming her. Saw a zen monk on the plane to Tokyo, though never got the balls (I lack them on ocassion) to talk to him. So it was a quiet plane rideover.

Aug. 29th
Got into Tokyo almost went through customs and imigratio before realizing I was going the wrong way and proceeded to my flight to Osaka. Met some interesting people, who I have not seen since then. Though I swear I saw a kid that looked just like Aaron. Talked the whole ride to Osaka with Anthony, whom I met on the plane. He seemed decent, bio major with interest in anthropology and getting drunk. At immigration I was fingerprinted, my photo was taken and they checked me for a strain of the flu. I checked out clear, though now my fingerprints are on record. Took a 1hr and 30min bus into Hirakata, which seems to be a suburb area. Lots of housing, not much to do within walkin distance. Still great scenery with gardens, plants and rice growing amidst the city. Met 4 of my roommates for Orientation week, a little UN seems to be growing inside the rooms of this place. It seems lke a bad joe onsome level, a Canadian, an American, a Brazialian, an Austrian and a guy from England walk into a bar. Granted there is no bar, but rather a dorm, but you get the point. Ayways came in, put my stuff down and slept.

Aug. 30th
Bathrooms are nice and cozy in Japan, well in the dorms at least. So woke up, showered and headedout to explore the town in pursuit off food. Which at this point seems like it should be a new survival travel show, "In Pursuit of Food." Why? Cause we are not allowed to cook with anything except a teapot, microwave, fridge and stovetop. And the campus eatery is closed on Sunday Aug 30th. The no cooking utensils issue is only during orientation, they get them once us homestay people leave. So that aside, Jeff ( the man from Canada who has told me interesting things like dollar coins are "loons" cause of a loon being on them an most Americans refer to Canadian money as monopoly money due to each dollar amount being a different color. Which he brought up the point that when drunk, it is easier to distinguish Canadian money than American, so you don't tip the stripper a $10 when you meant a $1.) Anyway, explored the streets, found a grocery storeand a 100 Yen Store to which I am happy to say that going to the Asian Market at home helps alot. Left the store with nothing, just exploring and found a small cafe. While there Jeff not remembering his Japanese that well these days, pointed at the image of the food he wanted as did I, but more out of not knowing any Japanese at all really. Got a paninii sandwich with hardboiled egg inside, a salad and yogurt, that being a breakfast meal. Food being food, it was good. Really I should take pictures of what I eat, seems like a smart idea. Managed to work through an issue of telling the lady we wanted to pay seperately, then exchanged change with each other being that we got charged for each others meal. Came back to the dorms, met up with Ben and Pedro and headed towards the University. Long long walk in the heat and huimidity, punctuated by vending machines selling drink, beer and cigarettes. Nice university, really nice compared to what I've seen of universities in the US. Went back to the dorms, stopped at a 7/11, to which Jeff debated the issue of buying a beer and walking in the streets with it (fearing fines by the law). Small nudges of enabling aside, he did buy it and walked in the streets drinking it. Came back, it was 5pm when we got back, to which we all soon after passed out. I woke up later at 11pm, and being that the dorms lock down at 11pm and reopen at 7am, I was trapped with no food. See the "In Pursuit of Food" title is rather suiting. Remembered some delicious chunky peanut butter stashed in my suitcase, took a couple bites, drank some water and passed out once more.

Post Zero

Rawr!

Not the introduction expected of a blog that aims to showcase, report back and in general bring into light my travels. Actually it is travel, as in singular, as in one travel but with multiple destinations in mind and many more no where close to bordering on the realm of a conscious thought. So let me layout the general idea of this blog, no goals or purpose just an idea of what this might be. Because I at this moment have no idea where this blog will be in a month, granted a year. So the shelf life of this blog maybe that of milk or garlic.

In general this blog is to document travel. This blogspot was brought on by the fact of a study abroad office wanting to know what I am up to abroad lest they search you out across the web through email and bother like the recently dead suffering of heartburn and it so happened that I was holding the figurative mint tea ( or Tums) to ease their indignant indigestion. But it also serves as a great tool in fielding the cumbersome question of "What have you been up to?" by more ghosts, though more friendlier but still suffering the same indignant indigestion.

But the blog has a broader implication than explaining a journey to Japan, or else the blog would be titled "In Japan," "Japan a Day," etc., though such titles probably have already been taken by other individuals. Besides what of the travels outside Japan or a semester elsewhere in the Spring. So then "A Journey to the East, " a suiting title and a reflection on the great work "Journey to the West" though without traveling companions, the Monkey-King (Sūn Wùkōng) and all other hosts of characters. But with a taken title, I mused upon the name, title and meaning of "Edward Bound" though like the previous title, it too was a reflection of homewardbound not just the movie with the 3 dogs and the terrible sequel, but the idea of being homeward bound as well. Well those and Edward rhymes with homeward. So then Edward bound would be journeying to myself, not in the arrogant center-of-the-universe kind of way, but the introspective sorts. Traveling being the meditation in motion of centering oneself. When one travels, they get a sense of who they are and their place. The effect of travel varies, but the effect is still there.

So this has been post zero. Post zero, taken from episode zero from the podcasting community where the function of episode zero is to test the medium of podcasting (or blogging in this case) and state the nature of the podcast.