Oh hell yeah!!!

"Dear Beth,
Thank you for your mail. You can stay with us in November. We would prefer you to stay more than 2 weeks. Please let us know when you decided the date. We are looking forward to meeting you.
Katsura Shimoyamada"

It's called Himorogi-an.

Run down of the place...

1. They wrote back about an hour after I wrote to them.
2. It's a clinic using holistic medicine, acupuncture, chiropractic, homeopathy, flower essnce, food treatment, fasting, etc.
3. The couple who run it are in their 30s and have a 5 year old daughter! And the wife, Katsura, speaks English.
4. It's 70 minutes from Tokyo.

Awesome!

Some more info from the host:
"We run a clinic and we use natural treatment for our clients. We work to heal their body and soul. The vegetables and rice we grow using an organic method are just for our family. We grow organic grains, potatoes, beans, tomatoes, corn, carrots, herbs, daikons, etc. Jobs you'll be expected to do are general farming, looking after the child, cooking, washing the dishes, cleaning, helping clinic work, etc. You should bring work clothes, music instruments, swimsuit, healthy body and honest heart."

My mom is really jealous.

Beth + Sushi = SUCCESS!!!!

Some excerpts from the WWOOFing handbook...

Are WWOOFers expected to understand Japanese?:
- No need to speak much
- Only if they are Japanese =)
- No, the hosts do not speak English
- We do accept WWOOFers who cannot speak Japanese sometimes.

(Go... grammar!!! I'm hoping they mean they sometimes accept WWOOFers who can't speak Japanese and not they accept WWOOFer who usually can speak Japanese and but sometimes can't speak Japanese.)

Any special conditions at this host:
Bright and healthy WWOOFers (who says, "eh, that's not really me"?)
WWOOFers have to be enthusiastic about everything (everything? really?)

Info on pets or livestock kept:
3 dogs, 1 cat, 500 chickens, 40 aigamo ducks, 6 sheep, 1 goat, 3 emu, 2 pigs, etc.

Jobs WWOOFers will be expected to do:
making Japanese cookies. (I'll be emailing them, no worries)

"...located where water and air is pure and delicious."
"Our farm is in the middle of the mountains, so we park our car at the foot of the mountains and then we walk about 1 and a half hours to get to our house." (Eeek!)

I got bored, but there are a lot more.

AND THE EXCITING NEWS ABOUT ME AND SUSHI!!!!

Today I went to the Ossining Public Library and borrowed 2 travel guides about Japan, 2 guides about Thailand, and a Learn Japanese cassette tape set. I put the tape in and was speaking Japan, and felt inspired to stop at the good ol' Food Emporium and try that whole sushi thing again.

And it worked!!!! I bought two variety packs. One had raw fish in it and one didn't. I went for what looked like the California roll and I totally ate it. No puking feeling! It's not like I would choose it over, let's say, ice cream or cookies, but I ate it easily. I ended up eating 2 more pieces of the California Roll, and then I even tried one with some brown stuff in it. I don't even know what it was. Hey, baby steps, right? FOUR PIECES, that's like a 66%, which is a D! Quite an improvement from an F!

I realized that going to a sushi place in Briarcliff was probably too fancy. It had some nasty little orange fish eggs on the outside. That's what was making me grossed out. But I'm totally cool with eating the cheap stuff from the supermarket!

Still no word from Earth Embassy. I just emailed two more places. One hotel way up north and then an alternative healing place kind of near Tokyo. One place looked neat, but I ended up skipping it. It was a place that did sea kayaking tours, but it's on an island that you have to take a boat 25 hours to get to. Woah, no thank you.

I also found out that Chase and Citibank charge 3% for international transactions and Capital One doesn't charge anything. But, as the woman on the phone told me, Capital One is going to be changing that soon. She doesn't know when, and she doesn't know what they're changing it to. So applied for a Capital One credit card. And then they told me it would take about 4 weeks to process. Cool. I leave in 4 weeks. Hmm...

That will go in the file of... "Things I should have thought about earlier." Oops.

TODAY IS SEPTEMBER 27TH.

I LEAVE OCTOBER 27TH.

WOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH

I'm really going to miss Reno 911.

Prokofiev, handbooks and the future!

Romeo And Juliet (Ten Pieces), Op. 75: The Montagues And Capulets - S. Prokofiev - Prokofiev: Piano Sonatas Nos. 1, 3 And 4 is totally awesome. If an angry drunk trying to walk down a creepy street was ever turned into a piece played by piano, this would be it. The orchestral version is pretty good too, but I've got a thing for solo piano.

Earth Embassy still hasn't written back. I've done my polite, give-them-a-week-to-respond thing, so now tomorrow I'm going to email more places.

I got the handbook (168 pages I printed out myself) bound today. So it's like a real handbook! With all the pages about speaking Japanese taken out!!

Tomorrow I'll report on some of the funny things I've read in the handbook. There are a lot of them.

Lastly, just had a chat with my friend Scott and we got talking about "the futre."

me: THE FUTURE SUCKS!
me: nothing makes sense there.
scott: very true
me: in asia, however, everything makes sense.
me: just kidding. i won't be able to read anything.
me: but i'll be too confused with daily life to even think about future life.
scott: that'll be nice.

Yes. That'll be nice.

Updates

1) GOOD - My friend Teresa IS NOT DEAD! Awesome. She's in India and she hadn't responded to my 500 emails in like over 2 months so I thought maybe she had died. SHE HADN'T!!!! She's totally alive.

2) GOOD - Danny and I are definitely going to Seoul to see Brian. Or outside Seoul. It's a 40 minute bus ride, that's cool with me.

3) BAD - EarthEmbassy.org hasn't responded to my WWOOFing email yet. Grrrrr....

4) NEUTRAL - Alki said she'd seriously look into doing the whole SE Asia thing with me.

5) BAD - Brian doesn't know when his break is yet.

6) GOOD - I watched Globe Trekker on WLIW today and it was this episode on Central America and I got really psyched to go to Asia. Not that Central America wasn't awesome, it is, it just got me all excited about traveling in general. Running around knowing nothing, trying to find someone who speaks English, waiting in lines for hours to get your visa stamped, meeting people, seeing nature! I'm really excited.

6) GOOD - I didn't get my inter-asia plane tickets yet, but today I found the Discovery Airpass from Bangkok Airways so I don't feel so bad. It's only $80 for Hong Kong - Bangkok with them. The other "pass" I was looking at was with OneWorld Alliance and it's a lot more, and I have to buy it before I go. Bangkok Air I don't! Woo hoo!

Advice from some friends....

Advice from some friends on Thailand...

From Brendan:

About elephants - "So the north of Thailand is the place to do the caring for elephants thing. I am not 100% on the name of the place but I know it is very near Chiang Mai. It was the best one that I heard of, I'm not sure that you can stay there, but the people I was speaking with went and bought food for the elephants with the carers, then fed them, then spent the whole day hanging out with them until very late and all seemed immensely moved by the experience." (Brendan and I figured out that this is the one I had found and applied to a few days earlier.)

About the language - "...a really good one to learn early is "Mai, khop kuhn maak ka". Which means "No, thank you very much". (replace ka with khap for a guy in case you want to tell someone else this little gem of info... otherwise the locals will think they are a ladyboy hehehe) When people harass you a lot, if you spit Thai back, they normally say ok, seeya."

About the locals -
"The best thing to do when you arrive is tell the "helpful" locals/touts that you have been there 5 times already and you don’t want a ride around the city of Bangkok for only 40 baht or one dollar American via the tailors, gem shops and back alleys of the city. If you do want to do this one day, go with someone who knows what is going on. It can be a cheap way to see some of the sites, but you have to know what is open when, as they are always telling you that what you want to see is closed today for some bullshit reason even if you are standing out the front of it and people are walking in and out. A good one they say is that it is only for the Thai people that day which is a load of shit also except during Song Kran."

I've never been in a place where people were trying to rip me off left and right. Not that I was aware of at least. This is going to be fun.


From Acorn:

"stay at koa san road and at the top end of
the street go down an alley way (small) and just ask
around. dont drink on koa san go up turn right then ur next
left (its cheaper)

so then go up to chang mai for a jungle trip (this is where my elephant place is) ,
then go to koh pan ngan and go to had rin beach and stay at
paradise bungalows (get there a week before full moon)
and stay at d10 (i don't know what that means) ,
ask for yao (yow), say you know mik and acorn.
also a couple of days in koh tao wont go a miss.

fuck phucket (that'sconvenientt to say) and
koh samui- prostitutes and mcdonalds!"

So the Full Moon Party is this huge party that happens once a month on this island every time there's a, you guessed it, full moon. Check it out, even Wikipedia knows about it.

The funny thing is, that because of the success of the "full moon parties" some companies started throwing "half moon parties" and "black moon parties". Apparently, they're more underground, so have better DJs for people who care about that stuff, but they also have a cover charge, and less people (as in the annoying, backpacker, came-here-cause-they-heard-you're-supposed-to people, like me I guess.)

Anyway, the island also has massages, spas, motorbikes for rent, Thai boxing gyms and all that stuff. And you can get your own bungalow for like $14 a night (that's for a room with 2 beds)! This place is nuts.

But what good is a room with two beds if I'm by myself? Staying in some place with dorm beds by yourself is one thing, but on a huge party island? I think I want a friend with me. Alki got accepted to her conference in Hawaii, so now I'm just waiting to see if she can get time off from her lab. I think Danny will have to be back in the States by then (January 14th, 2006 is my date, yup yup.) Maybe Brian will come if he ever gets back to me. Or maybe I'll meet someone in my travels (hopefully they're not a serial killer, JUST KIDDING MOM!!)

Some other websites I've been looking at are...

www.passplanet.com/Asia - recommended from a book I bought.

www.travelindependent.info - got in during a google search, but it's working out well.

That's all for now. I guess I should go to sleep.

Beth + Sushi = Not going to happen???

I went to a Japanese restaurant with my mom and brother the other day.

I saw it as training for going to Japan.

I ordered a chicken teriyaki box lunch. (Don't be fooled, it comes in a sectioned tray, not an actual box.)

The sections were...

1) Miso Soup (in a bowl, not one of the sections) - loved the spoon, and the soup's not bad either.
2) Chicken Teriyaki - tasted like chicken teriyaki.
3) White Sticky Rice (or Sticky White Rice? Is there an official order?) - totally cool with me.
4) Salad - asked for it without the orange dressing, worked out great. (How do you say, "dressing on the side," in Japanese?)
5) California roll - GGRRRRRRRRR....

When I was ten I decided that sushi was gross, and I wasn't going to eat it (California rolls included).

When I got to high school, this rule made me unpopular with my cool, sushi eating friends, whose usual responses were something like, "Wait, you don't eat sushi?" (No) "Oh my god, but it's so good. Have you even tried it?" (No) "Well, I bet if you just tried it you'd like it. Or at least you'd like California rolls, they don't even have raw fish in them."

Yeah right, sushi is gross, no thank you.

But when I was ten I also thought tea, beans, spinach and sex were all pretty gross too. And they've all worked out just great since then.

So the tray is placed in front of me and I think, "Ok, decisions you make when you're ten do not have to dictate the rest of your life. I'm mature, I'm an adult, and I'm going to Japan, so I'm going to eat this California roll right here, right now. Cause everyone said that I'd probably like it if I ever tried it anyway."

So for the first time, at Yama Sushi, in the Chilmark Shopping Center, with my mom and brother by my side, I set out on a mission to eat the California roll that came with the box lunch. I mean, California rolls are like sushi with training wheels, right?

It didn't work out. I put the first piece in my mouth, took a bite, and wanted to spit it out immediately. Yuck. It felt kind of like the first time I took a shot, but I knew that the end result wasn't going to be nearly as exciting. The piece sat in my mouth for a while because I didn't want to keep chewing, but I was too "mature" to spit it out. Damn maturity. But then breathing started tasting like California roll. Not cool. So I clenched my firsts, closed my eyes, chewed fast and swallowed, hoping my esophagus wasn't going to veto that decision. So while that first piece wasn't exactly tragic, it was definitely unpleasant enough for me to abort the mission.

The other 5 pieces remained untouched. I failed. If it was an exam, I would have gotten a 16%. That's totally an F.

I'M GOING TO BE LIVING IN JAPAN FOR AT LEAST A MONTH AND I CAN'T EAT SUSHI.

Is this going to be a problem?

Any ideas how I can trick myself into eating sushi? Or at least California rolls?

I think the next time I try sushi I should be really drunk from several shots of sake. Pre-Japan (New York, Madison, Boston, Hong Kong, Korea) would be ideal for this.

Give me a call if you want to help the cause (i.e. drink sake and get sushi with me).

First WWOOFing Email

soiufhaioasfjksdhfklajdhgoieusrgnsdufoi!!!!!!!

Woah.

I just spent an hour composing my first email to a WWOOF host.

It was to Earth Embassy.

It was probably too long, too confusing, and too cheesy. They're going to hate me.

Ok, just kidding. It's probably fine.

I'll let you know how it goes.

a new source of money

GAMBLING!!!!!!!!!!!

DUH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fast, easy and fun!

Like today, I walked in Mighty M Casino (a huge room with 1,800 slot machines in Monticello, NY) with a mere $5 and walked out with whopping $32!!!!!!!!

Fuck youth hostels, at this pace only 5-star hotels for this girl!

They have casinos in Asia, right?

airline tickets are a funny thing

There is no logic in this world...

MISSION DAD: get a flight - roundtrip, new york to arkansas, 10/24 - 10/26, non-stop.
option 1: 3 hr flight, 1:50pm dep outbound, 4:30pm dep inbound, $984.
option 2: 3 hr flight, 1:50pm dep outbound, 6:30pm dep inbound, $505.

2 hour difference, $500 difference, woah.

MISSION BETH: get a flight - roundtrip, new york - hong kong, 10/27 - 2/1, 0 or 1 stop.
options: non-stop 16 hr flight, for almost $200 less than if my dad had to take the 4:30pm.

SO I GOT TICKETS FINALLY. I just have to buy the tickets around Asia now. Not a problem. Things are looking good.

So far I have confirmed....
Oct. 27 - leave NYC
Oct. 28 - get to Hong Kong
Nov. 4 - allowed to start WWOOFing in Japan
Dec. 5 - elephants begin
Dec. 18 - elephants over
Feb 1 - leave Hong Kong, get to NY

I'M SCARED AS FUCK. WHO HAS ADVICE?

How I know it's time to go

Hey that rhymed!

So my phone (version 3.0 now) is starting to break. Not surprising. I bought it from a super sketchy dude who had it on his desk and was probably going to throw it out. It was used. Someone else had messed it up and sold it to this guy so he could rip off some poor soul who was in desperate need of a new phone, preferably one similar to her old one.
So sometimes when I press the numbers they don't know they're being pressed. Kind of annoying.

Second, my computer's been acting weird. About every 4 minutes it just pauses for about 45 seconds and everything stops, and then makes weird noises then starts again and tries to pretend everything cool.

Grrrrrrrrrrrr....

So obviously it's the electronical god telling me to leave my material possessions behind and go to Asia. Right?

Today i was looking into different places where I can go WWOOFing. VERY EXCITING.

One place looked cool, so I went to the website and it looked similar to this site.

That's actually has more English than the one I went to. I can't find the other one I went to. Hmm... what do I do with this information? What do you think made them think, "Ok, English headings, but that's it! No more!"...????


Here's another one that looked cool. It's an English house and they teach people English but they also have an environmental education center. Hmm....

Then I found this one. The write up was really nice so I checked out the link and it made sense! Like the entire website made sense!


I'll definitely contact them, cause this place looks awesome, but I think I should probably go to one of those places that just don't speak English and try to figure it out. One host said, "We do not speak English, but it it ok if you do not speak Japanese. We can rely on body language." Wow, that place is just 2 old people running a farm. That could be interesting. In the host listings it asks if the WWOOFer will be expected to understand Japanese and the answers range from, "No" to, "Not necessary much" to, "No, you do not have to speak Japanese much" to "Yes, to some extent" to, "Yes, Very Important". I don't exactly know what "no, you do not have to speak Japanese much" really means. Without the word "much" it's a completely different sentence. And I feel that the "Not necessary" didn't really mean to have that much in there. So maybe they're just "much" happy and add it to everything. So during my first round of looking through the book I kept the places that said "no", "not necessary much" and "no,... much" and crossed out the rest.

Round 2 tomorrow. Getting rid of all of the places that have cats.

Oh, and don't worry. I'll make sure that whoever I go to work for understands that I don't speak Japanese. At all.

I've start a blog, that means it's official, right?

So I've decided to go to Asia for a couple of months. I'm really excited. I will feel so unbelievably dumb when I get off that plane. Oh man, I can't wait.

This is what I've got planned so far.

Oct. 26 - leave NYC
Oct. 27 - arrive in Hong Kong, say what's up to Danny, "I'm going home, I hate it here. Oh wait, I just made a friend named Bono, fine I'll stay" Tenebaum
Oct. 28 - go with him to a town outside of Seoul, South Korea to visit Brian "Someone should really tell them to stop playing into the Asian stereotypes so much" Jenks (said about the use of "Happy Happy, Fun Fun!!!" everywhere)

Oct. 31 - say peace out to the boys, go to Seoul, then travel around Korea
Soon after that - go to Japan.

Exciting stuff here. I'm going to be WWOOFing. It stands for Willing Worker On Organic Farms. The link has some example host posts so you can see the stuff I'll be able to do. Pretty much it started with hippies on organic farms needing the help and travelers pitching in and getting room and board in exchange. In Japan in the winter there are still a ton of things to do. There are healing centers, food classes, natural health clinics, all that hippie shit! I love it. Some schools have positions open where you hang out with kids. For 4 hours a day? No problem! So I just got my membership and I've been spending time checking out cool sites to talk to.

After that - go back to Hong Kong.
After that - go to Thailand
Dec. 5 - clean up elephant shit for 2 weeks!

Ok, Part II of the trip is a 2 week elephant conservation volunteer program at the Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai, Thailand. I don't know anything about elephants except that they're pretty big and they smell bad. But I think elephants are one of the raddest animals out there and I'll definitely learn a ton (ha ha, ton, like elephants, cause they're big).

My mom was cool with everything until she read this...
"Health Care: You will be visiting area's where, although rare, there have been isolated reported cases of malaria. Be prepared. Good quality, inexpensive medicinal drugs can be easily purchased in Thailand."

Aw mom. I promised her I wouldn't get malaria and die. So she's alright with it now. I pinky-sweared. I was serious.

Dec. 18 - stop smelling like elephants and check out the rest of Thailand.

After that - things get tricky...

Possibility....
#1a - Dec. 21st - Mr. Tenebaum gets done with classes, meets me down in Bangkok, we travel around S.E. Asia till he goes home to the States for that thing people call... college? Check out Laos with their little boy carrying AK-47 checkpoints.
#1b - Ms. Alki "I submitted an abstract to a conference in Hawaii and I'll come to Asia if it gets accepted" Delichatsios joins me for a bit before going to Hawaii. We get cheap Malay massages on beaches and swim with huge green sea turtles.
#1c - Mr. Jenks wants to hang out in South East Asia after his New Years celebration, Seoul style.
#2 - I go back up to Japan and do some more hippie stuff
#3 - I go back up to Hong Kong and then go to China and check out that big wall they've got.
#4 - I'm totally sick of Asia and/or Erica gets really close to having a baby and I go home.

So that's that.

Right now I am...

1) waiting to hear from Alki about her fate as my travel buddy.
2) trying to figure out a phone situation. If you think you know about SIM cards and 850/900/1800/1900mHz frequencies, let me know!
3) figuring out if I have enough money to do all of this
4) working out so I'll look super hot on those Thai beaches! In December! Woo hoo!
5) trying to decide what to do in each place. If you have ideas or suggestions, let me know!

And if you're thinking, wait, Beth, weren't you going to go to NZ for a year? What happened to that? Why are you going to Asia for three months?
Here's your answer...

1) Yeah, I was planning on going to New Zealand for with a one-year work visa and I was totally content with that. I already have the visa ready.
2) However, my sister got pregnant and is going to be having a baby in February and I really want to come home for that.
3) Danny is studying in Hong Kong. Woah, never been there. He'll be there until December.
4) Brian is teaching English in South Korea. Woah, never been there either. He'll be there until next August.

So I had to figure out a way to see Danny and Brian and get home for the baby and go back and I didn't want to spend a bazillion hours on a plane. And while looking at prices I saw the All Asia Pass by Cathay Pacific and you pay a flat fee for roundtrip airfare NYC - Hong Kong and then you can add up to 18 Asian cities to the pass at no additional charge. So then my imagination starting going nuts. And now I'm going to Asia for three months. Wish me luck.