Rocking in Hakata

Hey - check it out - I actually delivered! The video clip opens up in the Samudra Restaurant of the Gem Island Resort. We’re finishing a weird “American breakfast” which includes cold baked beans, fruit, and an egg or two. With bread. The scenery is beautiful. Then you see a crab hiding in the rocks during a slightly overcast post breakfast drizzle.

You’ll see an aircraft fly by between the islands - some rich people were playing tag in them or something. They just followed each other in circles joyriding. I filmed it because the last pass by was made really really low to the water, and it looked sweet. Anyhoo. You’ll see a swimming baby sea turtle next. He was hatched in safety in the conservation center’s hatchery, and is being kept and fed until his future release into the wild.

What you’ll see next is beach shot after beach shot after beach shot. That is, if you don’t press stop. And I suggest you don’t, because I forgot one clip from yesterday and included it at the end today. Forgive my beach-happy video. It’s a shot of every beach on the island. Then you’ll see some tropical fish swarming over some hunks of bread we threw in the water. Gorgeous.

After that you’ll a rooster tail off the back of a motorboat taking us back to shore. Booo. Bye bye, paradise. Then, the inside of our flight as people get on board. The temperature differential is so high, you can actually see the air conditioning - like when you open your freezer and you see the mist tumble out. Wild. And lastly, you can see the forgotten clip - me swinging on an actual jungle vine, like Tarzan. Am I cool or what? (After you see it, you’ll know the answer is NO.)

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Ok. So this video opens up at the Petronas Towers, obviously. You get two views of the towers at night. Then you see me riding the bus from Kuala Lumpur to Kuala Tembeling. At Kuala Tembeling, we hopped off of the bus we’d ridden for 2 hours and got on a boat for 3 hours. It headed upstream into the heart of the rainforest to Taman Negara. You see Kathy and me on the boat with the boatman.

Suddenly we’re in a Jeep-like SUV riding on a dirt road. That’s part of the 8 minute journey from Kuala Tahan to the lodge we stayed in. Just before eating dinner, our newly made friend Sonja spotted a Hornbill in the tree just outside. We watched it making its unique call a few times before being summoned down to dinner.

The next morning sees another boat ride, far heavier this time, across the river to the national park. We did the canopy walk first and then trekked up into the jungle for 2 views. We spotted a few different columns of ants marching frantically through the underbrush. You can see a view of Kuala Tahan from the rainforest side of things at this point in the video. That night, we went on a night safari through some palm plantations and spotted wild pigs, a leopard cat, a flying squirrel, and probably 3 or 4 run of the mill house cats.

Again, we start the day by riding on a boat, past the floating restaurants on the bank of the village. We’re headed to Gua Telinga - “Ear Cave” - for some casual spelunking. We know there are bats. We didn’t realize how much guano there’d be. Afterwards we pulled back up and docked with the same restaurant and headed back inland. We did so just in time, because it started to rain for the first time during our visit to the rainforest. We spent that afternoon planning our departure for Pulau Gemia and the beach…which will be posted tomorrow, if everything goes according to plan.

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I just bought tickets to see Disney’s 「美女と野獣」 (Beauty and the Beast) in live musical form in Hiroshima in 2 weeks. Yay! This video is a promotional / commercial video for the Shiki (Four Seasons) Theatre Company, which I’ll be seeing. See if you recognize the characters and songs. I’ve always been a sucker for musicals, and it might be my favorite Disney film to start with. It’ll be really interesting to see it in Japanese, too. Kind of jarring to see a familiar song reworked into Japanese, actually. Ha ha. Easier than going to a different play, since I know the story and some of the music already. Maybe I’ll pick up the soundtrack in Japanese just for giggles. Who knows?

Also - side note - I am splitting the Malaysia video into two and posting it to close this week out. Next week is Golden Week. Enjoy it!

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I was doing some unsupervised surfing through Japanese political message boards, and found something that delighted me. There is an inclination to turn various candidates names into puns. I love it! Here are some that I found.

Hillary Clinton → Hillary → ヒラリ → ひらり
Hirari means “nimbly” or “lightly” according to Rikaichan.

Barack Obama →　Obama → オバマ → 小浜
This is the same old story about the town in Fukui Prefecture called Obama (English).

John McCain →　McCain → マケイン → 負けいん
Makein is a really rough, colloquial way to say “I will not lose!” Lucky match for a candidate, no? Ok, maybe it’s a little shoehorned, but still. Ha ha.

Mitt Romney →　Romney → ロムニー →　ロム兄さん
Yes, I know Romney is out. But the pun was too good. They shortened his name a bit and turned it into Romuniisan or “Older Brother Rom.” (It’s cute in Japanese, because it also sounds like “Mister Romney.” Trust me.)

On a related note, something that bugs me here is that people walk up and ask me, “Hey, who are you voting for, Hillary or Obama?” My response is usually “Those are just the choices for the Democrat nomination at the moment. One of them will run in the general election in November as the Democrat candidate. You do realize that, right?” They’ve usually already glazed over at this point - and who can blame them? Ha ha. Politics. Anyway, I searched around using the katakana approximations of the big three names at the moment, and dredged the bottom of the web. Without further ado, here’s a quote I turned up, which has been altered to remove a reference to women reducing them to their reproductive organs (too common a problem in the scary, roughly-hewn, back room discussion boards I stumbled blindly through, I’m afraid).

2008/03/21(金)
「ぶっちゃけ、米国はまだ黒人と[女]が大統領に指名するほど
成熟した国家ではない。

よってマイケンが当確。

日本のマスゴミは偏向してるから、オバマとヒラリーの
一騎打ちと報じているだけよ。」

March 21, 2008 (Friday)
“Frankly speaking, America is still not a country mature enough to elect a black person or woman as president.

McCain’s got it in the bag.

It’s just that the propensity of the Japanese mass media** is to report on the subject as though it is a one-on-one contest between Hillary and Obama.”

**Pun alert!
マスコミ = Mass Communications (mass media)
マスゴミ = Mass Garbage (mainstream pap and chaff, tabloid journalism)

This fascinates me. I mean, I like the pun, for one thing. I find the depth of the mass media reports to be lacking, for sure. And the result seems to be a misunderstanding that the race is between Obama and Hillary only. However, I completely understand the tendency to report on the Obama and Hillary side of things - it is way more exciting historically speaking even if it is for superficial reasons like race and gender. (Which is not to say that I am putting either of them down due to this; I am simply not inclined to think that they’d do a better job than anyone else because of race or gender. That’s pretty fair, I think.) Also, the anonymous commenter seems to think that America’s not mature enough to elect a black person or a woman. I disagree there, too. I think it’s pretty obvious that America’s ready. And I find it ironic that the tone is (in my poor Japanese reading) slightly condescending or disappointed in America’s supposed lack of maturity while at the same time using a pretty sexist slur. I obviously need to refine my searching skills and find some more reputable sources. But it was kind of interesting.　Also, I prerecorded a phone call for the Dennis Miller Show last Saturday morning about the pun-nicknames - it might air this coming Friday, if you’re interested.

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So, I definitely crashed on my scooter this morning. Blah. Stupid rain. I was driving (at a reasonable, safe speed, despite having played Mario Kart a bit recently) through the constant drizzle this morning, and I got to a snaking portion of coastal road on Oshima, and I hydroplaned through a hard right into a skid. I separated from the scooter as I went down on my right side, and it spun out ahead of me as I slid after it mostly on my right side and then on my face. As in previous experiences, the weirdest crap went through my mind. I remember worrying that the friction would give me burns and being thankful that I’d warn a full face helmet today. Luckily, I was covered head to toe in my rainsuit and had gloves on. They took the brunt of the damage. Both the rainsuit and suit are ruined, though. My slacks were torn through in 3 or 4 places.

I collected broken pieces of my scooter, my belongings that had been strewn about, and checked myself over for substantial injury. When I was sure I was gonna make it to the city, I said thanks to the kind soul who stopped for me. He told me to be careful, and I said I would be. I put my jacket back on and kept going. I stopped at a convenience store. That was preplanned, actually. I needed the 200 yen for the bridge, so I was going to buy a drink to break my 1000 yen bill. But instead, I bought gauze and a towel. I just wanted to prevent myself from bleeding onto my clothes. I finished the drive in the cold all the way to school and walked in looking pretty bad. Despite my crash, I made it in just after morning meeting.

A teacher I’m friends with walked me to the nurses’ office, and they disinfected my cuts, put patches on my bruises to help with swelling, and arranged a change of clothes. I am wearing black track sweats. Ha ha. With a tie. It’s a weird combination. But that’s life. They treated me really well. So now I just have to deal with classes today and then I’ll be free to head to the store. I need to buy a new rainsuit, a haircut, a new suit eventually, and try to accept the damage done to my scooter and my pride. Ha ha. But thank goodness I’m ok. As they say here, 不幸中の幸いだ。 A bit of happiness in misfortune.

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