Hello all! and thanks for checking in to the first
installment of this travel blog I plan to keep for my month and a half trip
from Shanghai, China down through Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and then a final
jump up to India, where I will fly from Delhi back across the great blue ocean
to my next adventure, which will be studying poetry at New York University.
Today I'm going to include the journals I wrote on the ferry from Osaka to Shanghai. They are long. Quite long.
Quite a bit longer I should add than most of my blogs will be. But I was
on a boat and it was the middle of the night and I had had a few beers and I
could not sleep and I am a writer (because I am a writer I am allowed to use
that many "ands" in one sentence. Don't jump out of your
britches to go and call the MLA. Its ohhhhhhhh keeeeeeeh. Just sit
back, relax, and by all means keep reading.)
Obviously it has taken me a while to get these online, as
it is now the 14th and I left Japan on the 6th. I apologize for the
tardiness of said first blog, but on the boat there was no internet access and
since landing in Shanghai I have been moving pretty much nonstop, with no time
to sit down and write, much less figure out the inner workings of the travel
blog. But now it seems I have it all under control as well as a quiet
moment (it is overcast and rainy here in Kunming) so I will take an hour or two to try and
catch up with the journal. Funny that "catching up" really means
getting my lazy ass off the ground and taking that first step.
Overall, I had a wonderful experience on the ferry, and I
would recommend this trip to anyone with the time. Its a lot cheaper than
flying (especially during Golden Week when Japanese travel prices double or
triple) and beyond that, I made a lot of new friends, got to know people well
beyond the simple 2-4 hour plane trip conversation and it was nice to take the
time to be completely unplugged for a little while. Spent a lot of time
on the deck reading and played a lot of different card games, as well as some
travel scrabble with a couple of English girls travelling the world for 7
months. All in all, a total success. Heres what I wrote the first
night:
Day One: Slow boat to China
As much as I hate to admit weakness, I have to relinquish
the fact that I am writing this with a marshland of tears in my eyes; thinking
of all I am leaving has broken me down to the point where I could perhaps allow
a salty drop to roll down my cheek, only if a sudden wave were to rock the boat
and break this soggy meniscus of lonliness.
"Enough of this melodrama" I hear you
saying. "Get on with it fruitcake! Grrrgh Argh! Harumph,
Harrumph!!" But, alas, the reason for my sorrow lies in the fact
that I am leaving behind not only nearly four years of ups and downs, but also
a beautiful maiden who I have grown to love more than even the night sky which
glares down on me unblinkingly. Well, yes, of course the stars have been
said to "blink" from time to time, but the sky itself stares on,
eternally. Give me a break here guys.
What wonderful experiences I have had here in Japan ! What friends I have made! Oh
thousand undeserved kindnesses! Oh monsoon of unreturned favors! Oh
eternity of bills left unpaid! ... er... uhm... lets forget about that last one
shall we? Anyway, by now I'm sure you get the drift. I'm leaving a
lot behind to go into the great unknown, to travel the lands and tongues I no
knot. Ahem. Know not.
But in the here and now, Ben Harper is singing “Walk Away” on my Ipod, and on
the TV in the ship’s lobby a Chinese kung-fu movie is distracting me,
occasionally erupting with a fight scene or some easy slapstick humor. A
man steps on a pig. There is an explosion. And overneath all of it
(I know its not a real word, but you gotta admit its a pretty good mistake) Ben
Harper's sad, lonely voice sets the soundtrack. So it is under the most
inexplicable of emotional states that I give you my first blog. I’m on a
slow boat to China, and all around me the world goes on.
Somewhere in Japan, the girl I love is sleeping soundly,
dreaming of the day when we can be together again. And now I must go join
her in that sleep which brings us together across the ocean. Good night,
and thank you for reading.
