Nikko

Wake up!

Cameras, spare batteries, some food, water, tickets…let’s go! Today we are going to visit Nikko and we want to beat the crowds. That’s why we leave so early and in such a hurry.

We admire the television tower against the dawn, that’s the only view that we are going to have of it. We enter the metro system and we have to find our way to the train station. Ioan is not feeling very well, sleeping on the floor will do that to someone who is not used to it. Then we wait in line to board the train. Ooops, not ours, better get out of the way. Two more minutes and our shinkansen stops exactly to the sign. We have less then an hour to eat. In Utsunomiya we change the trains and 40 minutes later we arrive in Nikko.

Hiraizumi

Another early morning for us, we wake up before the 5 am alarm. Still on jet-lag. We could waste time in the room, our train is later in the day, or we could go to the market and enjoy the show. Quietly we gather our belongings and tip-toe out of the hotel.

No, Ioan does not have a flower in his hair! It is a chrysanthemum from a vase that sits on the table hidden almost completly by him, but you can see it in the mirror. We are surrounded by those shapeless blue or red one size fits all slippery slippers (you can fall to your death if you're trying to climb those stairs wearing them) and if there is a large group, there are more in the bin. You can see how many people are in the hotel by counting the pairs of shoes in the cubby.

The sun is up, but the streets are deserted, with the exception of the dog-owners. Because everyone else is at the market buying or eating sea food. We look out-of-place, with our backpacks, still we’re oggling at the variety and the abundance, not in just one place, but repeated along the street.

Good bye Car, Hello Train

Time to pack and go! The best method to be sure I’m not forgetting anything is to clean. And being an ambassador of Romania and USA, I leave everything almost as I found them. The result is I have all my possessions and Mihai gets a good review on airbnb.

Through the Ainu Land (part 2)

While at home we were discussing what to visit in Hokkaido. Mihai wanted Shiretoko, I wasn’t too keen, because I understood it was just wilderness, something that you have to really like to stay for a few days at least to experience it. There were several things to do beside hiking Mount Rausu and that included visiting the Five Lakes. We could have squeezed in yesterday a hike to those lakes, but we were tired and considered we would have the time today. Late in the night Mihai checked the weather report and found that today is the only beautiful day. We have to choose: do we walk around on a planked pathway in and around five flat lakes or do we climb Kurodake (peak Kuro)? And the answer is….

In the right lower corner you can see a red and white striped pole and a little bit above a down-pointing arrow. The first one marks the height of the snow and the other one the driving lane. During the night time its leds turn on to mark its presence.

Through the Ainu Land (part 1)

I don’t remember exactly when I’ve heard for the first time about Ainu people, but I liked them instantly. Something about being oppressed. On the verge of disappearing.

It is a beautiful sunny, though cold morning. Too early for the tourists to be up and around. Early even for the Japanese people. We visit again the town, take some pictures at the lake, then in the village. Everything is closed, but there is a gay feeling.

Entrance of the village

First Days

It is so beautiful that it is breathtaking.

I’ll start with the beginning. Work. Restlessness. Ideas of trekking the Annapurna Circuit. And then the yen falls. Should we go to Japan? Yes. No. Why not? That’s a tricky question…What would we see? Something that we didn’t. We buy tickets.

Mihai works. Too many hours. I’m supposed to read the books, find places, rent rooms. To do what he did for the around the world trip. I start full of enthusiasm, and then I deflate: every page is a must see, extraordinary, interesting place. I find myself procrastinating. It is easier to brush up my Japanese, but even there I loose myself in grammar trying to understand the different expressions from Essential Expressions for Surviving in Japan.

I tell him I’m not doing my job. Goody, more work for him! Suddenly 4 weeks are not enough to see Japan. We need 6 months, or even move there so we can see everything. How do you decide how long you are going to stay in one place? Maybe you want to see more, or decide that you’ve already had enough. Better live every day. The only planned elements are the flights in and out, a JR-pass that is valid for two weeks after the first use, our first night in New Chitose and a car, rented for a week.

Bags done. Food done (we fly from Toronto and we need sustenance). We pray for a safe trip and a guardian angel. Mihai films us as we leave. We drive for 7 minutes and as I remember all our actions, I ask: “Where is the food?” We return, pick up the food, Japan 2015- take two.

Back on the Road

Interview with Ileana Ruxandra Dascalu

Here you are, after two and a half years after you finished your round the world trip, traveling again and writing in your blog. Why?

Because we like it and because there are many people in our lives that like to “travel” with us. I thought of starting a new blog just for our trips, but decided to continue to write in this one. We are still traveling around the world, though in small steps.

Why Japan?

Back from where we started

Really?

I doubt that!

We’ve been home for quite some time now. But you already know that.

The doors of the airport open and we stumble with our too many bags (our stay in Romania tripled or quadrupled our belongings). The first thing that I see is a big panel on which is written “Bun Venit” (Welcome in Romanian). My heart skips a beat as my adoptive country greets me with my own language. And then I notice the other ones: Malaysian, Russian, German… hey, we’ve been there too.

We take turns driving the rented car: instinctively the foot is searching for an inexistent

Which Was Your Favorite Country?

It is sad to hear about what's happening now in Egypt. I take no pleasure in reminding you that I predicted in my blog that it will be a long and tortuous road toward a decent society. Give credit to the people in power anywhere - they make reality much worse than the worst nightmare. We are so lucky to have made it there last November and so glad that we didn't listen to our doubts and outside advice and traveled there. Of all the countries that we visited it was the only one that we all liked in equal measure. We all rated it with an 8 out 10. Read on and you'd realize why this is as close to perfection as possible.

A graphic representation of our scoring results from February 2013

Numbers and Money

My favorite saying is "a statistician drowned in a river with the average depth of 2 cm." Many people don't get it, but I use this in different situations, asking somebody to look at things from a different angle, or just not to take numbers or statistics too seriously. Anyhow, for reference, here are some numbers.

We visited 33 countries. One might argue rightly that I artificially inflated the number by including Tibet, Hong Kong and Macau, who some might consider part of China; Lesotho, which we visited on a day trip; France, where we spent a night in a motel across the Swiss border; Vatican, a tiny republic inside Rome; Saudi Arabia, where we only stayed 10 hours in the airport and it even includes Romania and United States (our home bases). I added all these places because they have different histories, cultures, currencies and/or borders and passport stamps. Even briefly, each experience was a special lesson for us. I think that the country model is way overrated, but unfortunately this is what we have in today's world.

North Camp of Mount Everest. China or Tibet?

We Did It

We did it or we made it. However you want to put it we went around the world and we are back home in five whole pieces. We left Bucharest on Sunday afternoon, in the end of January. A short flight to Vienna, a change of planes to Berlin. A little adventure, I booked a hotel at the wrong airport, I realized at the last moment thanks to Ina. Overnight in Berlin, a short encounter with our friend in the hallway of the airport and we got on our last flight. At JFK we got a car and drove a couple of hours toward our house. We left the children to spend the night with a friend in New Jersey and we spend the last night in a hotel. Tuesday morning we drove a few more hours, stopped at Sam's club and Aldi for groceries. We spent $500 on supplies, for the first time in ages we didn't have to calculate how much we needed to buy, we just got everything that we could think of to resupply our pantry and fill our fridge. In the afternoon, we did the last few miles toward our house. It was epic. Unplanned, Louis Armstrong started to sing on the car stereo "What a Wonderful World". We did the last few miles singing and naming all the landmarks that we've learned so well on our way home. When we entered the house there was a lot of screaming and jumping. It took a few minutes of going through the house to recognize our home. In the evening friends joined us for pizza and champagne. It was epic. We did it, or we made it, however you want to put it, we went around the world!

At the airport in Berlin, AirBerlin carousel 

Our Country

Welcome to my country! Bun venit! (boon veh-NEAT)

What happened? Did I blink and miss it? When did six weeks pass? Though we lived every day, time flew, moving from house to house, from tables laden with homemade traditional food to another one, from conversation to discussion and so forth.

Every day was a celebration!