The Land of the Rising Sun

Before arriving in Japan I had already spent $560 on a 21 day Japan Rail pass, which is nearly 80% of what I spent during an entire month in Laos.  To say I fear going bankrupt in Japan is an understatement.  I flew into Osaka and immediately set out to find a 7/11, because their ATMs accept foreign cards, unlike the ones at the airport.  After loading up on cash, I somehow stumbled into the red light district, making it the third country in the past four that I've accomplished that feat within my first hour of exploring; It's like a super power, apparently GigaLowe's are drawn to whores.   

The district is modeled after Amsterdam, with young women in windows dressed up like nurses, cowgirls, and any other slutty outfit you can think of that puts their ass...ets on display, while an older woman sitting nearby acts as her pimp.  Not gonna lie, they were the hottest girls I've ever seen.  Seriously, picture the sexiest woman you've ever seen, if she's not already Asian, make her Asian.  Then imagine 400 women hotter than her, being spread out in every direction.  Luckily the good looking girls aren't restricted to just the red light district, the women in Japan...woo hoo!  So many gorgeous women here and, on the whole, they age a lot better than the women in other countries I've visited (no offense, #RespectForWomen).  

Osaka was way different than what I expected, for instance a lot of taxi drivers wear bow ties, there are slot machine gambling halls lining alleyways, and gigantic underground shopping districts.  Heck, you can even get a tailored suit in the subway!  Of course, no sightseeing trip is complete without staggering past the legendary Japanese vending machines, which are stocked with beer, cigarettes, and saki!  The easiest way to get around is definitely the subway, which has lines running everywhere.  In order to purchase a ticket, you have to scan a pricing sheet and then purchase your ticket not based on destination, but on price.  I'm pretty sure it took me seven minutes to buy my first ticket.  Japan is absolutely amazing;  It was my destiny to come here, I felt it as soon as I started to explore.  I wasn't born here, but maybe I will be reborn here.

Saki, beer, shot glasses.  With booze and cigarette vending machines on every corner, how do Japanese kids stay out of trouble?

Each town seems to have their own special sewer covers

I spent my first full day in Japan wandering the shopping districts and trying to ease my way into the pricing.  For lunch I found a place with 5 dollar pizzas and an English menu, but the pizzas all had Italian names and no ingredient listed, so I just chose one I'd never heard of.  Turns out, I ordered a pizza that contained three ingredients: crust, sauce, sardines...no cheese.  Luckily I'm used to eating weird stuff, so I was able to overcome the smell of rotting fish and force it down.  In all fairness, it wasn't terrible, and being topped with over 500 sardines, it was probably a bargain.  The cheap pizza helped me accept the costs of riding the subway, $2.40 to go three stops, I ain't made of money.

My dinner was inevitably going to be better than my lunch, so I decided to just go for it and get something Japanese.  How does beef tendon simmered in miso sound?  I had absolutely no clue what to expect, but it was fucking delicious.  The tendon broke apart more easily than the beef in Carl Weather's stew and the miso had an incredible amount of flavor.  It was a reminder of why I gamble when I order food.  Sure you might get something that you don't like, but then again you might miss out on something amazing by ordering the same boring stuff over and over.  Live a little! For my midnight snack I got a random bun from Family Mart that somehow tasted exactly like Chef Boyardee Ravioli, which is absolutely a good thing.  I never used to think about it before, but I'm so thankful I have no allergies or food restrictions and can try all of these random things.  I never used to be grateful for anything, I'd just be pissed off if I couldn't do whatever I wanted.  Maybe I'm finally growing up :)....a little

For the first time in over a year, I have that Machu Picchu feeling

I usually prefer the wild to cities, but this is one concrete jungle I'm at peace with

Kyoto was the next stop on my journey, so I activated my Japan Rail Pass and went to temple town;  There must be thousands of them there.  The lady at my hostel was super friendly and as soon as I arrived she opened up a map and started giving me detailed instructions on how to get to each of the main temples.  This is why I decided to never purchase a Lonely Planet book ever again, they're unnecessary and often tell you the most mediocre places in the world are must see attractions or places to stay.  You're so much better off winging things, you get a more genuine experience.

The first place I visited was Kiyomizu-dera Temple, which was within 20 minutes of my hostel.  I knew Japan was a very crowded place, with one of the densest populations in the world, but you have no clue what it's like until you see it with your own eyes.  Every attraction you go to is packed, apparently temple hopping is the cool thing to do for school kids.  The temples in Japan are similar to the ones in Korea, in the sense that they have sprawling complexes, but the architecture is way different and there are often prominent displays of water.  

Japan = People Everywhere

I think like, the worst part of like, staying in Kyoto was like, the fact that there were like, a bunch of Americans that were, like staying there and like, they just couldn't, like stop sounding so stupid, like you know... I like, really don't miss home, like at all :p

Never take a day for granted...

Why does every Asian tourist step in front of my camera?

My next stop was Heian-jingu Shrine, which was also within 20 minutes of the hostel, but in the opposite direction.  So much cardio!  The shrine itself wasn't anything special, but for an extra $6 you could check out the gardens, which were actually pretty awesome and included a bunch of ponds full of coy fish and turtles.  The whole city is worth seeing in general, you really don't need a plan at all.  You can literally find a temple, shrine, or pagoda every 400 meters.  Most of the temples shut down at 5 PM, but a lot of the grounds stay open, so you can pretty much explore all night if you want to.

Orange is one of my most favoritest colors ever!!!

I found these hanging in an alleyway...
Then I ran

The next day I purchased an all day bus pass for $5, so I could visit the temples on the Western side of Kyoto, since I was staying on the Eastern side.  It's a pretty sweet deal since buses cost $2.30 every time you hop on, regardless of distance.  I think I rode the bus like 6 times, so it more than paid for itself.  I ended up visiting three different temples, with each temple costing $4 or $5, but none of the temple complexes were that large, so you could get through them in 30-40 minutes, while taking your time.  Therefore I decided to cap myself at three temples, because otherwise it was going to be way too expensive and let's be honest, once you've seen 5 temples in 2 days...That's more than enough. 


There's a really famous bridge in Kyoto called Togetsu-kyo, so I scoped that as well.  The river it overlooks is pretty cool, with the water being pseudo-dammed in.  I saw some ducks diving into the water and catching fish with some pretty insane success, one somehow caught four fish in a row, so much fun to watch!  It has a really peaceful setup, with benches lined up all across the river for anyone that wants to sit down and enjoy the view.   Japan definitely knows how to keep it zen.

There's always a temple house on the water...always

When the day comes that I finally own a house, I'm making it Japanese style... Geishas included

This is exactly the type of room I could start a cult in

They say the most beautiful things in life are also the deadliest. I suppose that makes me the most dangerous man to ever live

Togetsu-kyo bridge

In order to maximize my rail pass, I decided to take a day trip to Nara, which was less than an hour away via train.  The main tourist attractions are pretty much all in an area called Nara Park, so all you have to do is walk there from the train station and pop into anything that tickles your fancy.  Nara is also famous for their deer population, which roams around free.  There are vendors everywhere that will sell you cookies that you can feed to the deer.  I'm not sure how I feel about it, it's kind of cool I guess, but I'm not sure deer are meant to be domesticated and reliant on human support...And a diet of cookies can't be healthy for any creature.

A lot of the temple grounds in Nara Park are open, but you typically have to pay to go inside the temple, though a few are free.  There was only one that I really wanted to go to, Todai-ji, which houses a gigantic Buddha and seems to be the main tourist attraction.  Japan is super strict on the use of tripods, with most temples banning them.  I suppose I'll have to get creative (at bending the rules) to make some time lapses.  In addition to the temples, the park itself is quite stunning, so there's plenty to enjoy.

How bad am I at geography? I had no idea Nara was a city in Japan, I just knew it as a restaurant that sold me saki bombs and sushi

I like how the roofs of each story of  the pagoda are shaped like smiley faces, it makes me happy :)

You want to do what and where?!?!  Keep it down my deer, we're in public

Sometimes I'll just stare into the distance and  feel the shivers run down my spine.  I can't explain it, but I know I was meant to come here.

Todai-ji Temple was the largest wooden structure in the world until 1998, so it's now effectively the largest ancient wooden structure in the world.  This version of the building was finsihed in 1709, how crazy is that?

At 15 meters, this is the largest statue of the Buddha Vairocana in the world

I have a super ambitious plan for maximizing my 21 day rail pass, in which I'm going to attempt to see around 15 different cities, so after getting my fill of castles in Kyoto and Nara I decided to spend the next day visiting my first castle!  Himeji Castle is supposedly the most famous in Japan, but it's under construction until 2015, so you can't enter the main building, but you can still explore the surrounding complex.  To make up for this, the ticket is discounted by 200 yen.  I opted for the combo ticket which also gave me access to some gardens, (which I actually never found) so I didn't end up saving any money.

The design of the outer wall was quite impressive, they carved chutes below each window so they could drop rocks on any invaders that tried to scale the walls.  The castle also had a mini-museum that has some bad ass Samurai swords and armor in it.  I didn't see any signs restricting tripods either, so I made a pretty sweet time lapse of the construction on the castle, I cannot wait to actually put some of my time lapses into a video, they're gonna be sick!  Himeji wasn't my last stop for the day however, as I decided to take a Shinkansen train to Hiroshima.

I can't wait to compare this to some European castles!!!

How bad ass would I look in this armor?

I'm the king of the castle and you're the dirty rascal

The Shinkansen - Japan's bullet trains can travel between 240-320 kmh (150-200 mph), with experimental trains running even faster. 

Taking a bullet train in Japan is something everyone needs to experience, it's my favorite form of transportation by far.  It's so easy, you don't have to check your bags or go through security or any of that crap, you just walk up to the platform and wait until the train arrives exactly at the time it is scheduled.  Seriously, it's always on time.  Once you get onboard, you can stow your bags in a giant overhead compartment, sit down in your gigantic, cozy recliner and stretch your legs out, because you have spades of legroom.  Yao Ming could fit in these seats.  These Shinkansen are like 20 years old and are more advanced than any train I've ever been on.  The next set of Shinkansens are gong to use maglev technology... as in magnetic levitation.  Seriously!  There aren't going to be wheels, the trains will hover above the tracks through the power of magnetic fields.   Rumor has it there's a version that tops 500kmh (310 mph).

But anyways, before I go down the nerd vortex again... Hiroshima was the first city to ever be struck with an atomic bomb, but is now a self-proclaimed city of peace despite the devastation it faced from war. I despise war, I don't even like watching war movies, and get very uncomfortable around sad and depressing places, so I knew this was going to be a hard place for me to visit, but that's a story for another blog...

Random GoPros 

My first Japanese subway experience...and that's quite possibly armpit hair, not a shadow, protruding from my sleeve...I have a bit of a teen wolf situation going on at the moment

I love that there's a giant bunny holding a baton next to this dude

Kings of Leon - Molly's Hangover

If a fish came to me and told me he was going on a journey, I should say, "With what porpoise...No wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise." (Alice in Wonderland reference, drink!)

Some will bet against you, try even to prevent you.  But not many can stop you now, if you got a perfect plan.  Can they possibly try, I demand to know why they would doubt you.  In this hand, a thousand generations...

The Japanese love water, almost every temple you visit has a gigantic pond...or five

Bamboo Grove

Some things just look way cooler through the (fish) eye of a GoPro

Sika Deer are allowed to roam free throughout Nara and other parts of Japan.

The sky is so much cleaner in Japan than it was in Korea.  Look at those clouds, magnifico!

There are literally thousands of temples in the Nara/Osaka/Kyoto area and every one I caught even a minor glimpse of was packed with people...It's incredible

The Big Bad Buddha

I love Japanese architecture, I'm not sure there's anything about Japan I don't love.  I love it here...Can I stay?

I even like the museums!  This cartoon diorama of feudal Japan is ultra groovy

Who's this handsome devil?  I wouldn't mind kissing that man between the cheeks

New Years Eve....Thailand Full Moon Style

After Christmas I decided to make my way accross Thailand to get to the East coast islands.  My island of choice was Ko (Alternatively spelled Koh, it just means island) Tao, which is the most popular place in Thailand to get your scuba diving certification.  To get there I had to take a minibus from my hostel to the main bus station, then take a bus to Suratthani.  Once it Suratthani, I was supposed to be picked up from the bus stop and taken to an overnight boat that went to Ko Tao.  However, the lady I bought my ticket from forgot to contact them apparently, so they weren't expecting me.

Luckily their office was only a few blocks from the bus stop, but once I arrived the people working there didn't feel the need to help me as the main guy was playing an intense game of Chinese checkers on his computer...  His little girls did hook me up with a free water as I waited though, which was awfully sweet of them.  After 30 minutes he finally made a call and after another 30 minutes of talking to people, they were able to find my reservation and I finally got taken down to the boat.  Always an adventure :)

Boat Dorm

First time sleeping on a cargo ship!

The boat docked into Ko Tao at 7 am, so I had breakfast while waiting for the ticket shops to open and then booked a ticket to Ko Phangan for 3 in the afternoon, since you have to arrive a few days in advance of the full moon parties to procure a room.  It was the easiest haggle of my life, I asked the lady if I could get the ticket for 400 baht instead of 450 and she was just like ok, plus she let me store my big bag while I wandered the island.

I was able to wander to the main beach on the island and was amazed by the views and overall cleanliness of the place.  The water there is unbelievably clear and has the multiple hues of blue that I love so much.  I really wish I had more time there so I could do my open water diving certification.  You could do it for between $250-$280, which included accommodation and breakfast for 4 days.  Most other places it's around $370 and often doesn't include accommodation, Australia would be between $600-800.  I guess I'll just have to make my way back in the future!  I also had the most amazing chocolate banana fruit shake, it was life changing.  I got Garlic naan, Thai vegetarian red curry (which for some reason contained a 500 grams of chicken) and that shake for 165 baht.... Roughly $5.

Koh Tao!

The beach is clean because trash is dumped into this forest apparently...The entire back half is cardboard boxes

A little jealous of the rich bastards that can afford to stay in that hotel...

Definitely want to come back and do some diving here

Now this is the view you should expect from a bar!!!!

Once I took my boat over to Ko Pha Ngan (alternatively spelled Pha-ngan or Phangan), Peppe was waiting to pick me up with the scooter like a legit tuk-tuk driver.  He also found a pretty sweet hostel for 200 baht a night, which was crazy cheap because most places double or triple their prices before the big parties.  We checked out a makeshift market, which operates once a week by shutting down a few blocks in order to erect vendor stalls.  Then we grabbed dinner at the night market.  That place is amazing.  Sushi is 10 baht, so 3 pieces of sushi is less than a dollar...I ate it every day.  A plate of Pad Thai was 30-40 baht.  And the fruit shakes were only 30 baht each.  You could get up to four different pieces of fruit in them.  Fruit and ice, occasionally some milk.  Healthy and delicious, I drink one or two a day and love it.

That night we took the scooter up north and then ended up going to a bar near our hostel.  Upon learning I was American, the bar hostess immediately yelled at her girls, thus we were joined in our game of pool by a pair of prostitutes. Another thing I've been dying to check off my bucket list. I can't even make this stuff up, life is so random when you're a professional backpacker.

Day two involved taking the scooter out to some waterfalls, which we proceeded to climb down for fun.  We also witnessed some of the worst scooter injuries I've ever imagined.  One girl's leg was completely covered in blood, with giant chunks of flesh missing from both knees.  The look of pain and anguish on her face was like nothing I've ever seen, but luckily there was help on the scene and none of her injuries were life-threatening.  We also took a journey out to a bar called Amsterdam, where you could buy weed directly from the bar.  In a country where using drugs can lead to the death penalty, I find it strangely ironic how you can get drugs so easily.  After hanging out at Amsterdam bar for a little while, we headed back to the hostel for a few swigs of rum and then headed to the Jungle Experience, which was a massive party in the middle of the jungle.

Who can resist smiling when they see two dogs playing on the beach? Well I mean other than Kim Jong-un and Satan

Random lookout point

Waterfalls are normal for me now, just normal everyday bits of scenery

It was a little pricy to get in at 300 baht ($10), but we figured how often do you get to party in the jungle.  A huge space was cleared out, so there were bars set up in congruence with the DJs blaring techno music.  Getting a drink was a huge hassle as there were maybe ten bartenders to serve several thousand people, but that's why you buy buckets!  For reasons unknown as we were dancing amongst the crowd, some British girl couldn't stop staring at me.  I mean of course this is normal for me, seeing as I'm ridiculously good looking, but it was super weird because she was there with her boyfriend.

Into the mouth of the lion

After I stopped dancing with crazy eyes, an Italian girl we met was like yeah, that's super weird she's still staring at you, you should probably find another girl here, one that isn't here with her boyfriend.  A few moments later when I asked her where her boyfriend had went off to, she leaned in and whispered, "Oh, he's not my boyfriend".  I'm not sure if it's because I trimmed back my unibrow or wiped before pulling my underpants back up that day, but for a few brief moments I had game son!  When the buckets come out and the DJs start spinning, well tables they turn sometimes!  Peppe and I stayed out until 6 AM and then rolled back to our hostel to get a few hours of sleep before heading down to the main beach for the pre-full moon party.

The pre-party was built around competitions; Including sand volleyball, soccer, and of course a bikini contest.  There was also a sexy man contest, which got hijacked by a dude with a Santa thong.  He got interviewed by the host after coming on stage and said he was Frank de Tank, which was pretty damn funny. We also hit up one of the greatest buffets I've ever been to in my life.  For less than $10, you could eat unlimited grilled meats, fish, and prawns (shrimp).  In addition they had salad, potato salad, spring rolls, and a few other appetizers.  My only downfall was that my stomach has shrunken smaller than that of an anorexic gnat's, since I eat the minimum amount of food needed for survival.  Thus my ability to gorge was rather paltry.  After the buffet we roamed for a few hours, but then decided to have an early night back at the hostel since we were planning on getting crazy drunk the following night for New Year's Eve.

Bikini Contest

Since it was our last day on the island we decided to do a big tour.  Thus we ventured out to climb another waterfall and hike around the surrounding woods to get to a lookout point.  We also checked out some Buddhist temples and finally drove to one last lookout point before heading to a restaurant to get a fruit shake.  When we got to the restaurant, we noticed the tide was low and some people were hiking on a patch of sand that had risen out of the ocean , so we walked a hundred meters or so through the jellyfish laden waters to end up on the mini island.

Climbing Waterfalls

Watch your step...

They call it a full moon for a reason!!!

My gong song...Not quite as epic as Sisqo's Thong Song (We both know you're youtubing that song right now....)

Enter the Dragon

Maybe someday I'll follow this and be goody goody....but right now I'm feeling naughty naughty

This is so the creepiest statue ever, it's all skeletal and veiny, my god it's like looking into my future

This is where I want to have my fortress of solitude

View from a random pier

Lookout Point

Random patch of beach that rose from the ocean

I love islands...so flawless

Jelly!!!!!!!

After getting back to the hostel and showering, we got some M150 to mix with our bottle of vodka, which we proceeded to empty in 30 minutes...probably a terrible decision as we both went to an epic level of blackout drunk.  We were supposed to have a Gili Hostel reunion with Daphne at a bar that looked like a ship, but we couldn't find her in the midst of the huge crowd, well that and the fact we were both shitfaced beyond redemption.  I vaguely recall scaling the ship wall in our attempts to find her, but it's all a blur, so who knows if that memory is real or imagined.  Sometimes I'm not sure how I'm still alive.

At some point we ran into some Dutch girls that we also shared a room with at Gili Hostel...crazy small world.  In their drunken state of confusion, they found me attractive, oh beer goggles, how I love thee.  So my New Years started off by sharing a few kisses with a pretty Dutch girl, not too shabby eh!  I was so drunk, I don't remember meeting them, and I'm not sure I even realized they were the same girls from the hostel until the next day.  At one point, she started leaning into me really hard as we were kissing and I was so drunk I lost my balance and we went tumbling into the sand.   That's the risk you take ladies!!!!

The next thing I remember is roaming the beach by myself and realizing Peppe was gone and I should probably go find him.  I have no idea what happened to the Dutch girls, as I was blacked out during the part where they left me or I left them, who knows.  I wandered around for what seemed like forever, but was probably about twenty minutes, in the massive crowd of 50,000 people and couldn't find him.  Just when I was about to give up, I ran into him on the street.  We went back down to the beach to grab some egg rolls and then decided we should just head back to the hostel.

I was drunkenly asking cabbies if we could throw the scooter in the back of their truckbed, to which the universal answer was no.  However, at some point Peppe decided he could drive, so we hopped on the scooter, which was probably the scarriest/most dangerous thing I've done yet. The roads in Ko Phangan are insanely hilly and curvy, so with the combination of drunkenness, other drunk drivers, and taxis driving people all over the place, it was an accident waiting to happen... Our accident came when all of a sudden all the cars stopped while we were going uphill, so Peppe had to slam on the brakes and as we came to a stop, the moped fell over on him.  Having sobered slightly to the level of a highly functioning alcoholic, I was able to catch myself without falling to the ground.

The funniest moments came when we woke up the next morning and realized neither of us remembered what happened the night before, other than the Dutch girls and the scooter incident.  Then Peppe opened up his phone to see if he took any pictures and sure enough there were loads of us doing poses with random people, wandering the beach, and a video with Peppe screaming, "Happy New Year, I Love You" at every living creature and probably some imaginary ones that crossed his path.  At one point a girl just asks him if he's ok, it was awesome.

Peppe's iPhone Photos

Playing pool with some Thai hookers...yeahhhhh

I have mad game with prostitutes, they all want me...

Let's drink for this time we have earned :)

"Happy New Year Everyone, I Love You"

2 for me, 1 for you bro!!!

Between Peppe's hat and my Hello Kitty sunglasses, we were accessorizing like real badasses!!!

No clue who this dude is, but he's clearly pretty awesome

We apparently went to give some love to the people at the amazing buffet!

You should always be afraid of where your girl will be, cus who knows she could be alone with me.... :p

It was also around this time that I was informed that I was covered in body paint, though I have no recollection of that happening.  I also spent around 700 baht, which will remain a mystery.  After grabbing breakfast, we headed down to the docks because our boat to Ko Tao left at noon.  I wanted to go to Ko Samui, but the boats were all full, so I figured I might as well go to Ko Tao since I could get to Bangkok cheaper from there.  Once we arrived, we struggled, but eventually found a hostel as nearly everything was full.

We roamed the beaches for a while and then I went on a quest to find a boat to Chumpon so I could bus/train from there to Bangkok.  However it turned out that the train option was booked through the next 9 days and the bus for the next 3, so my only option was to go back south to Surratthani and then bus to Bangkok from there.  This option cost an extra 500 baht ($17), but it was the only way I would have enough time to see Bangkok before heading to the elephant sanctuary.  Effin tourist peak season!!!  The journey didn't exactly go as the itinerary stated, but that is a story for another blog....


Random GoPros

Ko Tao

Para Para Paradise...

How did mankind stare at the sun and moon, see they were both giant round balls and then assume the Earth was flat... For hundreds of years.  That's always struck me as odd

Just a friendly cat taking a nap in the grocery store...

Ko Pha Ngan

Someday this tree will stand in my shadow....

Waterfallin

Paths are for pansies, real men climb!!!!

The world's a jungle gym, play with it

Lookout Point

Some pics just look way cooler with a gopro

The Scooter

Back on Ko Tao

I'll be back again...someday

Happy New Year everyone!!! I hope 2014 finds you with everything you've been hoping for...

Jellyfish video