Western Thailand, Siem Reap, Battambang

I write this post from Battambang, Cambodia, having arrived in the country (Siem Reap, specifically) a few days ago, by bus from Bangkok. To be honest, I probably could have spent a slightly briefer total period in the south of Thailand, but I'm in no particular rush, the only real limit on my time being the mortality that, to a greater or lesser degree, usually looms on the horizon of my mind.

I did enjoy my remaining time for the most part; amongst other things I went for a day of rock climbing at Rai Leh beach in Krabi province, and went for a scuba diving daytrip around the Phi Phi islands. I don't know if I would go as far as to say that I was worse at climbing than I am at scuba diving, but suffice it to say that I was quite poor.

Overall, I found the south of Thailand a bit too resort-y for my tastes after a while, and Cambodia has been a welcome change in that respect - I've been enjoying the fact that it is somewhat less heavily developed here, which is in essence to say that the relative poverty translates into an enhanced backpacking experience for me. This makes me feel a bit guilty, but what else is new...

As I mentioned, I arrived in Siem Reap, gateway to Angkor Wat and associated temples, overland, by bus. I paid a little bit more for a direct bus, as opposed to switching buses at the border. This allowed me to leave my backpack on the bus while progressing through the various formalities, and also made it easier to avoid the numerous scams for which this crossing is notorious.

Siem Reap was really fun, I stayed at a great hostel with a pool, there's a great atmosphere in town and the free-flowing alcohol is cheaper than water (come to think of it, maybe that has something to do with the atmosphere). Obviously the highlight was visiting Angkor Wat et al, especially now that I've had some time to regain my appetite for temple-hopping. Even without knowing all that much about the history, a visit to these sites is an incredible, immersive, experience. One traverses steamy jungle vegetation, heavy with insects and birdsong, to encounter grand mossy towers, in various states of repair, often intertwined with the roots of ancient trees.

From Siem Reap, I took a boat to Battambang. The city, which is the country's second largest, can be reached by a 4-5 hour bus from Siem Reap, but I had heard fantastic things about the boat which takes a bit longer and is slightly pricier. The journey did not disappoint; we cruised along the river, scraping by trees and other vegetation submerged over the course of the long rainy season and passing countless floating villages, with children as young as four or five criss-crossing the river in small paddle boats. As the boat was full, a few of us had to sit up on top, where we were able to spread out and experience both the fierce tropical sun and the heavy, but thankfully brief, rains that are characteristic of this time of year.

Despite being the second largest Cambodian city, Battambang has a small-town feel and the riverside still boasts some picturesque colonial era French architecture. I took a great tuk tuk tour of the surrounding region with some other guests from the hostel, the highlight of which was a ride on the 'bamboo train'. After the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime, faced with an almost total lack of transportation infrastructure, locals of this area began transporting goods and people along the disused tracks of a an old French train line from the 1920s. They used small bamboo platforms mounted on wheels from old tanks, powered by tractor engines, which could travel at speeds of up to 40 km/h. Today, goods are transported by road, but the bamboo train remains as a tourist attraction, and one can ride a seven kilometre segment from near Battambang to the next station on the line,and back again. Hurtling along the warped track was a truly unique experience and one I highly recommend. Sadly however, the line is due to be closed down in 2017, as a new Phnom Penh - Thailand railway line is being built. That said, apparently they've been saying for years now that it's due to close soon, so that information can probably be taken with a pinch of salt.

In sum, I'm really enjoying Cambodia so far, and looking forward to seeing the other regions (hopefully some beaches and trekking are on the cards).

Before I leave you with some photos, here's a short vaudeville routine you can perform with a friend at birthday parties and funerals:

Performer 1: "how do you say temple in Khmer?"

Performer 2: "wat"

Performer 1: "I said, how do you say temple in Khmer"

Performer 2: "wat is the way to say temple in Khmer"

Performer 1: "that's what I'm asking you!"

and so on and so forth, until rapturous applause ensues.

Love David

Temple ruins near Angkor Wat 

Ta Prohm temple 

A floating village 

Famous Battambang monument, relating to local folklore 

At the bamboo railway, as we stopped to dismantle our carriage to let a carriage going the other way get by

A Phare circus show. This is a show performed by teenage students of a foundation which runs an art and performing arts school for Cambodian children 

The Islands

After two weeks had elapsed, I once again found myself on a bus, thus triggering the Pavlovian blog writing response. I've spent the past fortnight in the gulf Islands of Koh Tao, Koh Phangan and Koh Samui, and I will briefly detail my experiences in each.

Koh Tao, the smallest of the three, is fairly compact and filled to the brim with diving schools; as I mentioned in my previous post, the PADI course was my main reason for visiting. Truth be told, I didn't do much there apart from the course, as I was quite exhausted at the end of each day and didn't have much energy to explore. As for the course itself, I found it quite challenging. I'm a poor swimmer and rather out of my element in and under water, like a fish flying an airplane, or a squirrel flying an airplane, or a cream cheese bagel flying an airplane. My life priorities changed for the duration of the course as my vague, back-of-the-mind daily goal of not drowning took on a greater immediacy. I was probably among the worst students they ever encountered, but I completed the course by the skin of my teeth. Hopefully the skill will come in useful during the remainder of the trip.

After Koh Tao, I hopped to Koh Phangan (well, I hopped to the pier, and took a ferry from there). Koh Phangan is best known for the full moon party which takes place like once a month maybe? I gather that the island fills up considerably around the event, especially during the peak tourism season. By design, I was there in between parties, and it was ideal - there was no need to constantly fight the crowds, but there was a decent amount of people at the hostel to hang out with. After the relative hard work of the PADI course, I spent my five days on Koh Phangan relaxing intensively, mostly at the beach and the beautiful inland lookouts, and altogether it was my favourite of the three islands.

I moved on to Koh Samui, the most developed of the three islands, mostly to go to the Chabad house for Rosh Hashana (Jewish new year) though I stayed for a few days afterwards. I went there for some of the meals and a bit of shofar (detached ram's horn used for ritual purposes) blowing. It was a bit large and impersonal and though people weren't unfriendly, I didn't find the atmosphere particularly conducive to conversing with other guests. Part of the fun of traveling is engaging in armchair/deckchair sociology. It's interesting to speculate why certain countries have strong backpacking cultures and others don't, even when superficially they are highly similar (eg. Germany as compared to Austria, the Netherlands as compared to Belgium). In a similar vein, people from different countries travel differently. From what I've seen so far, Israeli backpackers are much more likely to be in couples or small groups, and prefer to stay in bungalows or guesthouses rather than in hostels. In any event, I was feeling a bit under the weather over Rosh Hashana and the following couple of days, which definitely (negatively) affected how sociable and outgoing I felt. For the same reason,  I didn't do too much on Koh Samui, except for a speedboat trip around the Angthong Marine National Park, which included snorkeling and sea kayaking, and was a lot of fun.

Based on what I had experienced in Bangkok, I had been worried about the weather. Luckily, I've had mostly sunshine and clear skies since then - it was completely dry over the past two weeks, save for an hour or so of rain, and I can only hope that my good luck continues in Krabi, on the Andaman coast.

The plan is to spend another week or so in the south of Thailand and then depart to Cambodia. Monday will mark the longest period of travel I've ever undertaken, and I feel like I'm heading into uncharted waters, but it's going well so far and I'm feeling good about it. I'll try and post again soon, and my next post may contain an explosive revelation in connection with the US presidential election.

Jews - have a happy new year, gentiles - continue the existing year happily.

Love David

A small representative sample of photos:

Bye (in Korean). Hello (in Thai)

Another bus ride, another blog post. When I posted last, ten days further removed from a Trump presidency (for those of you reading this in the distant future, the "Glorious Leader") I was still in Korea, more specifically, in Busan. From the date of that post I spent a further two days in that area of the country. As planned, one day was spent in Gyeongju, a former capital which has some pretty cool temples (for a change) and other historical buildings (see some pictures, below). On my final day in Busan I visited Yonggungsa temple, which is distinguished from other temples in Korea by its location on the beach, as opposed to atop a mountain. I really liked Busan and would have liked to spend more time there, but alas, I had already booked my train back to Seoul due to it being the busy Chuseok season (kind of like the Korean Thanksgiving).

Back in Seoul, I didn't do too much in the way of touristy activities, save for a mandatory trip to Gangnam, which was disappointingly dull (I'm not really sure what I was expecting), and I mainly just hung out with people from the hostel and stared wistfully out of windows and other openings.

I heralded a new chapter of my trip on Sunday, when I flew to Bangkok to begin a more free-form period of travel, of indeterminate length, in southeast Asia. I had booked a few nights in Bangkok during which time I intended to see the city and determine where to go next. I'm not committed to anything, but as a preliminary and high-level blueprint, I'm minded to do an anti-clockwise loop that takes in southern Thailand, followed by Cambodia, travelling up the coast of Vietnam, crossing into Laos and ending in northern Thailand. To that end I'm en route to Koh Tao, an island which is like a mecca for diving, in that Muslim people like to dive there. No, that would be silly; it's a non-denominational mecca for diving. The plan is to do a PADI qualification course and then be able to dive affordably throughout the trip.

Bangkok itself is pretty hectic. I stayed in the Khao San area, which is backpacker central, and which was quite reminiscent of Pahar Ganj in Delhi. It's still the rainy season here, and with the exception of today, there were intermittent thunder storms accompanied by torrential rain. On my first day, I went around with Israelis and dusted off my Hebrew, but after that I fraternised with people from my hostel, none of whom were Israeli - the shoresh count on the streets was high, but I'm not sure where all the Israelis were staying. In any case, the vibe here seems to be exceptionally friendly and social, fostered by the mainly solo travelers who aren't on tight schedules.

I did a bit of sightseeing in Bangkok, taking in the Grand Palace (beautiful, very pricey) and Wat Pho temple (beautiful, less pricey). I also rode the boat bus on the river that whisks one along an atmospheric route through the city, avoiding the congested streets. Mostly I just took it easy and giddily enjoyed my dramatically increased purchasing power and indulging in much-missed fresh fruit (enabled by the former).

I'm looking forward to getting away from large cities for a bit and I'm just hoping that the weather on the island is decent.

I hope to update next week. Meanwhile, I will part with some words of wisdom.

'If at first you don't succeed, Thai, Thai again'

'A high Thai raises all ships'

'Do or do not. There is no Thai'

'A stitch in Thai-m saves nine'

'It is better Thai have loved and lost than never Thai have loved at all'

'All I know is that I know nothing. Thai.'

Love David

Sunset over the ancient astronomical observatory in Gyeongju 

Wolji Pond at Gyeongju 

Yonggungsa Temple

Selfie on the bus boat in Bangkok 

The gigantic reclining Buddha at Wat Pho 

Sayonara/Annyong

At the time of my previous post I was about to make a brief trip to Nikko, before flying from Tokyo to Seoul. I'm writing this from Busan, South Korea's second largest metropolis, having traveled here from Seoul yesterday (Monday). Now that I've spent a full week in South Korea, I have an epistolary urge that can only be satisfied by a new post to cover my impressions and what I've been up to.

Before I delve into my peninsular adventures, I'll briefly sum up my day and a half in Nikko by saying that it's a nice place in the mountains, with temples and shrines that I'm happy I visited but didn't rate as highly as some guidebooks and travel websites do. One thing that's cool there is the Toshogu shrine, which is very different in style from most Shinto shrines, and contains the wood carving of the legendary three monkeys ('see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil'). In the course of a perfunctory Google on the matter, I discovered that the names of the monkeys in Japanese are actually a play on words, as the word for monkey - 'saru' sounds like the word for 'do not'.

I arrived in South Korea with a backpack full of dirty laundry and expectations, but few concrete plans. While I didn't formally plan out my time in Japan, there was definitely a rough checklist of things I wished to see or do; for South Korea, I just wanted to seize an opportune time to visit a place I'd be unlikely to reach otherwise, and I was quite happy to just land and discover the sights in real-time.

I had heard conflicting verdicts, both from westerners and Japanese people, regarding how similar South Korea is to Japan, so I wasn't really sure what to expect. For my money, the two countries are quite different in most respects - language, culture (Korea is pushier and less overly polite - I feel right at home), aesthetics of a basic street scene (more litter and fewer, though still many, vending machines, in Korea). The two countries are certainly more similar to one another than either of them are to a European country, but that's just like saying that Italy and the Netherlands are more similar to each other than either is to Japan - the statement omits more than it reveals. Having said that, coming from Japan to Seoul meant that there was far less culture shock than there would have been had Seoul been my first destination.

Seoul felt very young and it had a great energy. I went to visit one of the historic Joseon dynasty palaces and adjacent 'secret garden', and biked along the Han river, which is dotted with parks (in general they seem more into fitness and outdoorsy things here; it may have something to do with the fact that there is military conscription). I also swung by  the Korean War Memorial, which is not (only) a monument, but a museum of what the South Koreans could, but to the best of my knowledge don't, call 'the war of Northern aggression'. I rounded it all out by walking some choice segments of the old city wall. One segment passed through a cool hilly neighbourhood with murals painted on the staircases that led between the alleys. Hiking another one of the segments requires registration with the authorities, and the route has many military checkpoints, as the bottom of the hill is where the president's official residence is located and those dastardly North Koreans attempted to assassinate the South Korean president in this area, back in 1968.

On the subject of North Korea; I took a daytrip to the demilitarised zone (DMZ). We visited one of the infiltration tunnels dug by the North Koreans, a lookout where you could see well past the border, and a train station from which trains used to run to North Korea, specifically,  to a South Korean industrial area there for a brief few years during which the countries had some limited economic cooperation. The highlight of the tour was a visit to the Joint Security Area (JSA), manned by US and South Korean soldiers on the one hand, and North Korean soldiers (though I didn't see any up close) on the other, and where you can enter the huts that straddle the border, in which periodic diplomatic talks are held. I judiciously refrained from performing my famous 'North Koreans be all like... and South Koreans be all like...' bit, and escalating an already tense situation. Sadly in order to conform to the dress code for the JSA, I had to wear long trousers and closed shoes. This brought a close to a period of over a month without wearing socks, which, while not an achievement on par with decoding the human genome, was fulfilling nonetheless.

As I mentioned above, I've been in Busan since yesterday. It was raining when I arrived, so I went for what's known here as a 'schvitz' at a jimjilbang, Korea's answer to the onsen. It was very relaxing and made me realise that perhaps the answer to all my questions is simply a decadent life of hedonistic pleasures; I know it'll be tough, but I'm prepared to rise to the challenge. Ironically, after spending five weeks in earthquake prone Japan without feeling so much as a tremor, there was a wall-shaking 5.8 magnitude earthquake here yesterday, the strongest in the country's recorded history apparently. Oh well, I guess this is what we all signed up for when we went ahead and legalised gay marriage.

I spent most of today walking along a beautiful and scenic coastal walk and writing for this blog, and I plan to visit the former capital of Korea tomorrow -  apparently it's a smorgasbord of temples and palaces.

On Thursday I'll head back to Seoul until Sunday when I'm due to fly to Bangkok from which point I have literally planned nothing - I'll be sure to update.

May the South Korea of each man's heart always beat the North Korea, in the struggle for his soul.

Love David

Carving of the three monkeys 

Buddhas by the river in Nikko 

Farewell view of Japan from the plane 

At the secret garden 

Seoul city walls 

At the JSA 

The Busan coast 

The Heartland

It's been eleven days since I last posted, so as I enter my final two days in the country I feel an update is in order. The fact that I am currently waiting for a delayed train to depart, a rare event in Japan, affords me the time to provide one, without the availability of distracting activities allowing further procrastination.

The previous post covered a period up to, and including, the baseball game in Fukuoka. Since then, I've visited Nagoya, Tsumago and Magome (as a daytrip) Takayama, Shirakawago (also a side trip) and Kanazawa. I will mention a few highlights and then take the opportunity to share a few general observations from the past month, about travelling, particularly solo, and indeed about life in general.

I really liked Nagoya which, like Fukuoka, was a modern city with wide streets and park areas, large and dynamic, but not quite of the scale and frenetic activity level of a Tokyo or even an Osaka. There isn't a tremendous amount to see within the city limits, but Nagoya is a great base for some half day/full day jaunts.

The Aichi Prefecture in which Nagoya is located is home to the Toyota family of corporations including, most notably from a global perspective, the Toyota Motor Corporation (though in fact the original entity of the group was named Toyoda after the founder's surname, and was a loom manufacturing concern). With advance booking one is able to take a tour of certain of the car manufacturing plants, so I arranged a visit for when I knew I would be in the region. I'm not the most technically minded, but I DO enjoy free activities, so the tour and visit to the accompanying museum were a great way to spend a few hours. Jest aside though, it's a pretty serious operation they've got going there and one can understand the pervasive fear from the 80s that the Japanese were going to dominate the world economically. The tour also hammered home how endlessly complex almost every single facet of modern life is and how densely the threads that connect us are woven - 30,000 parts are used in every car.
The other trip I took from from Nagoya, this time a full day, was to Magome, a restored former postal station on one of the historic routes to Tokyo (then named Edo), from which there is a hike to Tsumago, another restored postal town, which one can, and I did, extend to another, more ordinary, town called Nagiso. The route was classic Japan as you imagine it, the Japan of famous wandering poet Basho,  with rice fields, wooden buildings and waterfalls, all nestled among and between green forested hills and hiking it was much of what I want out of travel, distilled into a daytrip. Incidentally, Basho sounds like a character from the British comics I read as a kid. Chortle.

After Nagoya, I travelled to Takayama, a calm and quite touristy mountain town, where the plan was to ease up a little on the sightseeing and once again spend a few slower-paced days re-energising. My time was mostly spent walking around the town and its rural surrounds, interspersed with copious amounts of coffee and the best in non-fiction that the Kindle store has to offer. I did make one side trip to the village of Shirakawago, a village containing a concentration of buildings in the unique 'Gasho' architectural style (the word means 'praying hands', see pictures below) that have been declared a World Heritage Site (all caps) by whomever it is that declares these things (the UN? The elders of Zion? Big Pharma?).

Finally, I visited Kanazawa, on the sea of Japan, where I enjoyed a couple of days cycling around the sites and checking some final items of the Japan to-do list (karaoke). A particular highlight was the misleadingly nicknamed ninja temple (it is a temple, but it has nothing to do with ninjas). The reason for the name is that the temple contains numerous trapdoors and hidden exits, designed to facilitate the protection of the the local feudal lord from the forces of the Shogunate.

Now for some thoughts and observations:

I tend to imagine that feelings and emotions have a certain linearity, i.e, if I feel this hungry/tired/happy/sad right now, then I'll feel all the better/worse, as applicable, in proportion to the passage of time. In reality, I err dramatically when I try to extrapolate future mental states from the sensations and experiences of a given moment, and this is all the more true when travelling, under circumstances of heightened uncertainty as to what lies over the next hill, in the next town.

The polarity involved in solo travel is dramatic, the highs are higher and the lows, while not necessarily qualitatively lower, are the harder to bear without the company of close friends and family.

There is a difficulty to just appreciating something beautiful or interesting or even funny without being able to turn to another to validate the feeling. I suspect that mastering this would be a valuable life skill across multiple contexts.

There is a certain paradox to the perception of time that links in to the distinction between the experiencing self and the remembering self (as elucidated in the work of Daniel Kahneman). While we generally say 'time flies when you're having fun' or describe the clock as stationary during a boring experience, I believe that this is true only on the level of the experiencing self. In contrast, when looked at retrospectively, the opposite is true; the sheer amount of memories from a month full of stimulating activities and peak experiences lead it to feel like a sizeable chunk of time, whereas entire years of drudgery can slide by in what seems like an instant, leaving only the barest of an impression in the memory.

Mistakes come up often in travel (a wrong turn, missing out on a site that would have been of interest, choosing a bad hostel) and this has led me to realise that, as a rule, I find it hard to let mistakes just be what they are instead of either (a) rationalising them away or (b) blowing them out of all proportion in an internal self loathing tantrum.

Well, I will leave you with that for now, as the train is finally leaving. I'm en route to Nikko (of three monkeys fame) where I plan to spend my last day or so in Japan, before I'm off to South Korea, from where I'll post next.


Alright, I'm gonna make like a Japanese banana and.... be really expensive.

Much love,

David

Trying out whatever this is at the Toyota musuem

Rice fields forever 

Tsumago main street 

Lookout at Shirakawago 

Thatched Gasho house at Shirakawago 

Hiroshima, Nagasaki

As I mentioned in my previous post, I stayed in Hiroshima for a couple of days. For most, the name Hiroshima calls to mind only the dropping of the first atomic bomb. In Japan however, mental associations are equally likely to include the wide boulevards of the rebuilt city, the popular local baseball team and Mazda cars. Nevertheless, the centerpiece of the city is the Peace Memorial Park including a museum, located in an area that was formerly the downtown business core and which contains the iconic atomic dome of the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, one of the few buildings to survive the blast and subsequent conflagrations.

According to the textbook version of history taught in the UK, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were unspeakably tragic but ultimately necessary evils, the tremendous destruction they wrought being the only means of avoiding an even more deathly invasion of the Japanese mainland. Over the years I've found that many things learnt in one's youth are not so much analysed and integrated into a coherent world view as they are neglected in a dusty corner of the mind, allowed to slumber undisturbed until they again bear relevance. From the reading I did on the subject prior to and during my visit to Hiroshima it seems like the issue is far from cut and dry, and it's hard to shake the conclusion that the bombs were dropped to justify the vast development expenses and to serve as powerfully demonstrative opening shots in the cold war. In my view, Hiroshima and Nagasaki attest in heartbreaking fashion to the fact that, with regard to measures proclaimed by governments as necessary in times of conflict, there is often room for heavy skepticism.

While I stayed two nights in the city, on the second day I took a daytrip with some folk from the hostel to the nearby island of Miyajima, famous for its shrine that appears to float at high tide and with a giant Torii (gate) that rises from the water until the waters recede, exposing its base. After checking out the shrine and a cool wooden temple, we climbed a mountain for some 340+ degree views crisper than a can of Asahi Super Dry beer™.

Pupils (somewhat worryingly) still dilated, I boarded a bullet train for the first, and likely last time, en route to Nagasaki, where I deliberately planned a slightly longer visit in order to relax a bit from shuttling between attractions. It's a pretty great way to travel. I'd say 'get on it Israel' but I recognise that it would be an overreach - I'll settle for literally even the most minimal improvement to the public transport infrastructure.

As with Hiroshima, Nagasaki is about far more than the devastation of August 1945. This is all the more so given that in Nagasaki's case the hypocentre of the bomb was relatively distant from the centre of town. This allowed the harbour town to retain much of its cosmopolitan charm, a legacy of the two centuries during which it was Japan's sole open port and conduit to the outside world.

I did take it a bit slower, but there was plenty to see: the fantastic views of the harbour from Mt. Inasa, the atomic bomb museum and memorial, Dejima (an historical artificial island, now connected to the mainland, to which Dutch traders were restricted). I also enjoyed just strolling around, particularly alongside the Nakashima river, under some of the oldest Western-style stone bridges in the country.

Perhaps the most interesting attraction in (or more accurately, near) Nagasaki is the island Hashima. Popularly known as Gunkanjima (battleship island), due to its appearance from a distance (see photo below) Hashima contained a coal mine and a population of some 5,000 (miners and their families) from the late 1800s until its closure in 1974.All that remains now are the ruins of the settlement, a looming concrete behemoth emerging from the choppy waters.

The tour I took included a landing on the derelict island on which dragonflies swarmed like dogfighting spitfires among the crumbling buildings. Unfortunately, due to safety concerns most of the island is off limits, which is a shame, because it would be a great place to play hide and seek, or better yet, paintball.

One of the items on my informal checklist for Japan was to watch a local baseball game. I've always enjoyed going to games in North America and wanted to see how the experience compares. The sport is extremely popular and sellout crowds are not uncommon, making it unwise to simply show up at the stadium expecting certain entry. Game tickets can be purchased in advance online and at convenience stores but the UI is exclusively Japanese. Knowing the above and with the help of a local hostel employee back in Osaka, I booked a ticket to see a Fukuoka Softbank Hawks, building a one night stopover in the city into my itinerary to this end. I took a train from Nagasaki to Fukuoka yesterday morning and had a few hours to explore before the game. The modern city is large and looks like it would be a nice place to live, but I can't honestly say I saw all that much of it before heading to the ballpark.

Interestingly the date yesterday was the 23rd of August, ten years to the date from the day I moved to Israel on what would become a permanent basis. I'm fairly sure that had you asked me where I thought I would be on the tenth anniversary of moving to Israel, I would have said 'Japanese baseball game, probably in Fukuoka'. Sigh. Life is so predictable.

The baseball game was an enjoyable experience. The familiar is speckled with incongruous reminders that one is not at the Skydome or Wrigley field - fans consuming rice balls and ramen alongside more traditional ballpark fare, crazy 'only in Japan' visuals on the big screen and between innings entertainment and people cleaning up after themselves at the end.

The quality of the game play itself wasn't spectacular. My beloved Softbank Hawks lost 3-2 in a dragged-out game with lacklustre batting. Even though as a rule I'm courageously outspoken on Japanese professional sports, I've kept my silence on this hot button issue for too long and now I'm going to give you all my two Yen. I'm taking a firm pro doping approach with respect to Japanese baseball - I want hits and I want lots of of hits - juice 'em all, I say.

In general:

1. The past week has been more social than the previous two. I'm not sure if it's connected to the cities and hostels in which I've been staying or maybe it just took some time to get back into the backpacking groove as I'm not naturally the most extraverted person.

2. Amazingly, each place I arrive feels like it's hotter yet and even more humid.

3. I discovered a new pocket in my backpack. I'm dizzy with all the possibilities this has opened. I'll be sure to update.

Anyway, as I write this, I'm on a flight to Nagoya, back in the centre of the country, from where I'll move on to Takayama in the Japan Alps. After that I have a few days I haven't planned yet before I'm due to fly to Seoul on the 6th of September.

For those of you commemorating, happy Wednesday.

Love David

The Atomic Bomb Dome 

The Torii at Miyajima 

The shrine at Miyajima 

The Torii at low tide

Stone bridges over the Nakashima river 

Gunkanjima 

Self explanatory 

Entertainment between innings. I don't think this counted points-wise... 

Kansai

As I write this, I'm at a hostel in Hiroshima. I arrived here yesterday evening and have already spent a full day here, but I'll write about that in my next post, for this post is about the previous week, spent in Kansai.

It's been said (by the good folk at Lonely Planet, in gushing prose) that if you had to choose but one region in Japan to visit, it should be Kansai, and I'm inclined to agree. If you seek the ultra-modern and sometimes bizarre urban experience, then Osaka more than fits the bill, while Kyoto and Nara contain some of the country's finest cultural treasures, thus collectively they provide the quintessence of the Japan most travelers are seeking. I stayed in both Osaka and Kyoto, and visited Nara as a daytrip.

Due to the region's valley location, the heat and the humidity are a step up even from Tokyo. Most of the time I felt like a sweaty mess of flesh with sunglasses. Undeterred, I pounded the pavements, blitzed the buses and, er, surfed the subways in an effort to make a nice sized dent into what was on offer.

Osaka is the second largest city in Japan, so it may seem strange to say that after Tokyo it felt a bit laid back. While Osakans(?) are known in Japan for being business minded and a little rough around the edges, compared to the immensity of Tokyo's endless chaos, spread as it is over a number of distinct downtown areas, Osaka was more manageable to navigate and generally easier to digest. Without detracting from the city, there aren't so many things to note here about Osaka. I was happy to roam around the city, but this blog has already touched on the more noteworthy elements of the Japanese metropolis. One cool attraction was a museum that contained a full size representation of a typical Osaka neighbourhood from the Edo period (more specifically the 1850s-60s), with an informative audio guide.

Perhaps my favourite day in the past week was the one I spent in Nara, which is a smaller city not far from both Kyoto and Osaka. The capital of Japan before being replaced by Kyoto (which was subsequently itself  replaced by Tokyo) due to religious clergy involving themselves excessively in matters of state to the emperor's chagrin (I guess some things are the same across time and distance...) Nara contains many temples, shrines and other historical and religious sites, most of which are located in a beautiful park through which tame deer roam freely, captured only by camera lens. Most notably the park is home to Tōdai-ji, a temple that is the home of the legendary Daibutsu, or 'big Buddha', the largest indoor Buddha I've seen in my 28 years by a country mile, and Kōfuku-ji (ji=temple) with its elaborate wood-carved statues and magnificent seven story pagoda (some pictures below). I spent the day contentedly exploring the extensive Park grounds, particularly the less heavily trafficked paths in between some of the busier areas. As a bonus, by chance I visited on one of the days of a 10 day festival in which, come nightfall, glasses containing candles are lit all over the park and the temples are illuminated, to beautiful effect. I felt like a child at a Japanese festival.

Kyoto, where I moved after Osaka, is chock full of historical buildings and monuments. These include some of the most famous Japanese tourist draws such as Kinkaku-ji (the 'golden pavilion') and Ginkaku-ji (the' silver pavilion'). Mentally I had pictured Kyoto as being something like Nara Park actually was, a concentrated area full of all the key places with an 'old city' kind of feel. In reality, Kyoto is much like a regular Japanese city (albeit a smaller, slower-paced city), with the sights dispersed broadly across the city, necessitating a certain amount of legwork.

While I couldn't help be struck by the beauty of the golden pavilion and the carefully manicured sand garden of the silver pavilion, Kyoto is blessed with many visitors (primarily Japanese tourists from other areas of the country) and there is a feeling of being herded through the prescribed route that somewhat diminishes the experience.

Whether I like it or not, my ability to appreciate beauty is affected by the level of solitude and space I have in which to encounter it and I suspect that the same is true of most people. Perhaps not coincidentally, my favourite places in Kyoto were the philosopher's walk and To-ji. The philosopher's walk is a 2km pathway abutting a canal from the late 19th century, and along which a professor from Kyoto University was accustomed to walking meditatively. The trail is appointed with small restaurants and boutiques and leads to many temples and shrines. To-ji posesses the tallest pagoda in the country and an incredible three dimensional mandala (representation of the cosmos) formed of statues, which one is unfortunately not permitted to photograph. These places were significantly less crowded than the golden and silver pavilions and allowed the space and quiet necessary for meaningful contemplation. Nara also had lots of empty nooks and crannies. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think that anything can be taken in isolation. Beyond the simple spec list of what's on offer at any given place, the total enjoyment I have tends to be derived from a complex mix of factors, from the highly subjective (what was my frame of mind that day, did I have a headache etc.) through prosaic but important objective considerations such as the weather conditions and whether there were throngs of other people.

I don't really think there's a simple solution to this issue. The fact is, we live in an era where there are enough people with sufficient discretionary income to visit places that are, understandably, major draws. Pricing could be used more extensively to regulate demand and keep admissions manageable, but that raises ethical quandaries about the desirability of letting markets encroach on every facet of life (for a far more in depth treatment of this, 'What Money Can't Buy' by Michael Sandel is highly recommended). That being the case, while I don't have a strong enough non-comformist streak to spurn the places I know will be bursting at the seams, if they are universally acclaimed as unmissable (and actually by no means regret visiting the pavilions), going forward on this trip I will definitely try to keep some kind of balance between A-list attractions and less crowded options.

Anyway, I'm not a religious person, at least in the commonly accepted sense of subscribing to the belief system of any particular religion, and obviously that includes the superstitious and dogmatic elements of Buddhism. Nonetheless, the temples I've visited succeed in creating an atmosphere that makes it near impossible to hurry which is no small feat and definitely furthers my own effete, liberal Tel Aviv excuse for spirituality.

Before I leave you with some pictures: At all the temples I've visited here there have been representations of different Buddhas, such as Buddhas for good health, livelihood etc. I've decided to start a new feature 'Buddhas for backpackers', in which I invent Buddha's for matters important to the low budget traveler. The first is 'the Buddha of finding electrical outlets in public places'.

Well, that's all the news that's fit to print. I'm heading down to Nagasaki soon, after which I hope to post again.

Wishing you air conditioning with the strength of one thousand oxen.

Love David

On the river in downtown Osaka 

 Deer roam in Nara Park. It's pretty cool, though, as the saying goes, you can't have free roaming deer without having deer shit everywhere 

Big Dave meets the big Buddha 

Japanese girls wearing kimonos at the festival in Nara. It seemed to be popular among Japanese tourists in Kansai to rent traditional clothing. It would be cool if you could rent full Hasidic garb on heritage trips to Eastern Europe 

The garden at To-ji with the pagoda in the background 

The philosopher's walk

The multitudinous orange gates of Fushimi Inara, and almost as multitudinous photographers 

I hear that the competition was particularly tough in 2014 in the category "2016 Japanese site popular with foreign tourists" 

Bamboo grove in Kyoto 

The golden pavilion