Bootstrappin’

Although all Japanese people spend years studying English in school, that doesn’t mean they understand it one bit. Sure, they have rather extensive vocabularies (most of the people I’ve met here know the English words for every fruit from peach to pomegranite) — but Japanese people can’t string together a grammatical English sentence to save […]

Sometimes I get bored when I spend the day on tropical islands in the Pacific…

This was on the deck of a ferry in Okinawa. I guess they had problems with people stripping on the boat? Or something?

AFOOT and light-hearted I take to the open road, Healthy, free, the world before me, The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose. Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune, Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing, Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms, Strong and content I […]

The amount of unnecessary signage in Japan is a constant source of amusement for me. And in the new Osaka train station, I came across a stunning example.

Pete has been singing “I Think I’m Turning Japanese” by the Vapors ad infinitum, so it should probably be posted here, eh? And maybe it’s true, a little bit. I mean, I don’t even think twice about changing my shoes three times to walk through a house anymore.

Japan has a lot of rules, and there are signs like this posted everywhere. I don’t know what half of these pictures even mean, but I have some guesses (from left to right, top to bottom): 1. No smoking. 2. No black dogs with white ears. 3. No calculating of the air speed velocity of […]

The Japanese are very thorough people, especially when it comes to signs. That’s why the put SEVEN (count ’em, SEVEN!) signs warning of “Falling Rocks” within twenty feet of each other on this slope on the way down from Mt. Fuji. This, of course, is just a small selection of the hundreds of warning signs […]

Pete and I arrived in Tokyo yesterday. Here we are on our first full day in the city: So…now what?

From my understanding, this is what a typical chap brings when he goes hitchhiking: Bindle. Pack of Smokes and/or large block of chewin’ tobacky. Harmonica. Can of beans. Knife. Anything beyond that is probably unnecessary. Then again, we’re traveling around the world for months, to first world and developing nations. We’ll be staying anywhere from […]