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Tag: Travel (Page 4 of 7)

Looking Glass Series, part 4

January 16, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Of Public Bathing and Barriers Unbroken

Travel Journal, 47

The watch on my wrist said 11:40 p.m. They lock the hotel doors at midnight.

“I have time,” I thought as I hurried off the Keikyu train at Heiwajima station in Tokyo, Japan. The hour was so late that the Tokyo Monorail was no longer running. The commuter train got me to my station, but barely in time. It was late and I was tired. The only thing that I wanted was to wash away some of the travel funk and flop ungracefully onto bed.

The bed I procured for my one-night stay in Japan was located in a Capsule Hotel. Japan captured my heart upon my first visit. It’s everything you think of and more. Between the iconic aspects of traditional countryside and the energetic throes of downtown Tokyo, Japan leaves the traveler wanting more. One iconic hotel experience is the Capsule Hotel.

And it is what it sounds like.

A capsule. A friend describes it as a coffin. Rows and rows of coffin-like spaces are built into the wall. Each has its own TV, air controls, and privacy curtain. And at around 2700 yen per night ($26), it makes for a great option traveling on the cheap.

I weaved in and out of smallish alleys and under neon glow promising pachinko and ramen. Finally, I stepped into the doorway with five minutes to spare. Immediately, I knew that I may have a bit of trouble. The hotel was clearly not ideal for English-speaking travelers. Everything here oozed Japanese. It was clearly a place for the Japanese salaryman.

I took my shoes off and put on a pair of sandals at the door. The man at the counter was very gracious and patient, though he spoke no English. I placed my shoes in a locker in the entryway and collected my complementary PJs, which made me look like a really disheveled, poorly trained, and pasty-white ninja.

The elevator took me to the fifth floor and I found capsule 2027. Exhausted, all I wanted was shower and sleep. The facilities were on the next floor up. So, I collected my things and made the journey.

But as I walked up to what I thought was the shower room, my attention was drawn to a sign that said, “大浴場.”

Enter Google translate.

I actually knew one of the characters, and I was worried. And my memory was right. In essence, it was a bath. Then it hit me.

This hotel has no shower.

It has an Onsen.

A public bath.

“Well, it’s late,” I told myself, “who could possibly be up and using the public bath.”

I entered the room to find a minimum of seven naked, sprawling Japanese men soaking in all the luxury of a quiet bath.

Japan is famous for public baths. It’s a part of the culture that will never go away. The locals swear by soaking in the natural hot springs that bubble forth from the ground. I’m told that once you start using an Onsen, you just can’t stop. But something like this suddenly makes the traveler feel very foreign. Public bathing are two words Americans never use together.

But I’m a pro, right?

I can do this.

I took a big gulp, trying to swallow my midwestern pride.

Heads began to turn my direction.

I felt my heart thump.

Then I turned and walked away.

“Chicken,” I said to my prudish self.

Not every wall easily falls. I still have a few barriers of my own. And one day, I will step into the looking glass and conquer each of them. And the reward will be great.

Maybe one day when I’m on another jaunt into Japan with a group of friends, we’ll brace ourselves with camaraderie and gently slip into a hot Onsen. And perhaps all of our concerns and preconceptions will float away.

But until then, I bathe by myself, thank you very much.

anthony forrest

For those of you interested in exploring a crazy website, here is the link to the hotel. Try using your browser’s translate feature. http://www.mizho.net/

Other Looking Glass Stories:

Part 1, Of Blood and Barriers 

Part 2, Of Strong Hands and Reservations 

Part 3, Of Cats and Coffee

Looking Glass Series, part 3

January 9, 2020 / / 1 Comment

Of Cats and Coffee

Travel Journal, 46

Terengganu, Malaysia

Early morning

 I rubbed the bleary look out of my eyes and walked into the living area. My flight back to the States was in a couple of hours. Chris entered the room, cup of coffee in his hand.

“Here you go.”

I took a sip. Neurons fired, senses awoke, and life slowly entered my body.

“This,” I muttered, “Is probably the best cup of coffee I have ever had.”

A few moments later, Chris produced a bag and I gleefully stuffed it into my backpack. I finished that cup of coffee in the car ride to Sultan Mahmud Airport. I jotted these words into my journal as the rain hit the car window.

Malaysia ends in monsoon rains

Another flight

Another cup

Another road traveled

Golden riches gained

For the soul

Poetry-inducing coffee: the best kind of coffee.

Two days later

“Any food with you today?”

Well, I thought, you don’t eat coffee.

“Nope.”

The US Customs agent handed back my passport. I walked over to the connecting flights TSA checkpoint and threw my bag on the counter.

The beat-up backpack gently rolled into the scanner. The red and black bag smelled of curry and too many nights away. It’s been with me for nearly 15 years. It’s carried me through a spectrum of circumstances, each crazier than the last. And half the time, it’s covered in mud, blood, ramen, or coffee. In fact, I was a little worried about the coffee buried in the bottom of my bag. As the rollers paused, I guessed in my mind what would happen next. Sure enough, the TSA agent pulled me aside. I made it easy for him and pulled out a one-pound bag of coffee. I had already been a little less than truthful with the Border Patrol and Customs agent. But I doubted the coffee would be an issue with TSA.

“Just a bag of coffee,” I said.

“Oh yeah? Is it any good?”

“The best in the world,” I said slowly, hoping not to sound snobbish or condescending.

“This is coffee from Sumatra,” I glowed, “It’s 50% Kopi Luwak, 25% red wine cured, and 25% natural bean. It’s open. You can smell it if you’d like.”

The agent popped open the seal and took a sniff. He seemed pleased. But then he said the sentence that I hoped he wouldn’t say; a sentence I hear a couple times a year.

“Luwak? Isn’t that the cat-poop coffee?

I hung my head and sighed.

“Yeah”

Whenever I hear this sentence, the entire conversation become unredeemable. I could explain that the Asian Palm Civet is not a cat, but a cute little mammal called a viverrid. I could also explain that it eats the coffee cherry, in which resides the green coffee bean. The cherry passes through the civet because it cannot break it down. I could then conclude in saying that farmers retrieve the cherry, clean it, and harvest the bean, and use it to make the world’s most expensive and delicious coffee.

But it’s no use. He’s still hung up on poop.

And it’s true. Kopi Luwak may forever be the butt of jokes (apologies for the pun). However, most coffee drinkers may never have the opportunity to try it. Kopi Luwak is far too expensive and unavailable in the States, though prevalent in southeast Asia.

“Cat-poop” coffee may be a barrier that many people never cross. But what about other strange food items. Nobody thinks twice about eating an egg, produced directly from the back end of a chicken. And don’t get me started on hot dogs.

A good cup of coffee can vitalize your day, bring a smile to your face, warm you up, and bring friends together. And if a good cup of coffee can do that, what happens when you try the world’s best coffee?

You’ll just have to break down the “cat-poop” barrier to find out.

anthony forrest

 

Other Looking Glass Stories:

Part 1, Of Blood and Barriers 

Part 2, Of Strong Hands and Reservations 

Holy Night

December 19, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Travel Journal, 43

I slung my well-worn backpack over my shoulder and stepped onto the escalator that leads down to the baggage claim and public transportation area of the Minneapolis/St Paul Airport. The good news was that my flight had arrived early. The bad news was that my next flight wasn’t for another six hours. An early arrival was far from helpful today.

Last step of the escalator glided to the bottom floor of the airport. I walked off and into the direction of the light rail train stop. If I ever have a long layover at MSP, I’ll typically take the train to the Mall of America and Ikea. But let’s be honest. The only reason I go to the mall is because the train terminates there. I walk through it on my way to Ikea and those tasty little meatballs and stunning pre-fab furniture. It’s a great way to blow an afternoon before the final leg of a trip.

But as I strode past the luggage claim carrousels, a man pulling a roller-bag caught my eye. He wore a black overcoat and halted at a baby grand piano not far in front of me. Certain airports strive for interesting and fun ways to create atmosphere and culture. And MSP has several pianos. Sometimes a busker sits and plays, attempting to sell albums, and sometimes the pianos lie vacant. Such was not the case today.

I walked past him, not wanting to become the audience and, to be honest, not really caring too much about whether I heard him play. But I soon froze where I stood as he struck out the first notes of “O Holy Night.”

I turned and found a seat. He clearly knew what he was doing with the piano. He played and improvised on the old, old tune and extracted from it every ounce of Christmas. No sheet music sat in front of him. But off to his left side stood a phone, recording a video.

His music warmed the soul of this weary traveler. So when he finished, I clapped and walked over to introduce myself. He was an expat living in Quito, Ecuador. The medical work he did kept him busy in South America doing pro bono surgeries for children in need. This, the very embodiment of the post-haunting Scrooge, was on his way to Colorado for Christmas with his family. His adult daughter was on the other end of that video call, listening to her father play her favorite Christmas hymn.

Not every person celebrates Christmas. And not every person confesses Christianity. But for those of us that do both, Christmas gives us an opportunity to come together in common purpose: to live in kindness, love others, and spread a song of hope found in a Savior born to save. For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn and each soul captured by the appearance of the Christ has felt its worth. That leaves us with nothing to do but to fall on our knees in awe of such a holy night.

Merry Christmas,

anthony forrest

Fall Backward

December 9, 2019 / / 0 Comments

I fall backward

From walks

And talks

And laughing with friends

From seeing new things

I fall to the end

Of a day well-traveled

And company shared

With former strangers

And lovers of life

Beyond compare

So

Backward I fall

From a day well-led

I welcome this night

And fall back onto bed

 

anthony forrest

Seamless

December 5, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Travel Journal, 41

Both my wife and I grew up in small towns, I in the west and she in the north. We both remember dirt roads, corner stores, small communities, smaller buildings, and limited diversity. Though we live in a small town now, our lives are heavily peppered with city influences.

Traveling to cities over the years has grown on us. And though they may have their similarities, each city is different.

Our faces hit the sunlight as we climbed up and out of the hole in the ground. With subway stations every quarter mile or so, getting around is easy. All around us rose sky-scraping towers. And the streets were paved with the purest of golds—street food. At first blush, it looks like any other city, until, right in the middle of it all, a clearing in the concrete jungle reveals the Kabuki-za Theater.

No, this is not New York, Chicago, London, or Paris.

This is Tokyo.

Some cities claim to mix old and new. But no place achieves such a pure blend as Tokyo. To your left: Yodobashi Camera, selling technology that most Americans won’t see for years. To your right: a Shinto shrine that is older than most sovereign nations.

And the blend is seamless.

From the subway station we step onto the famous Ginza and up to the old theater. We wait in line to buy our tickets, just for one act. Our attention spans are far too short for five hours of theater. Nearly a hundred of us filed into the doors and up the elevator, onto the fourth-floor mezzanine of the theater.

A curtain hangs below. It depicts Mount Fuji—the Rising Sun in the background. The play begins; the curtain is drawn. The actors below dance and portray an ancient story from the olden-time, the time of the Samurai. Their movements are lavishly exaggerated. And the milky-white face paint can be seen easily from my seat in the balcony. Drums beat. Three-stringed tones of the shamisen call. The audience shouts strange encouragements to their entertainers on the stage.

Yet not too far away, on the busy street below, taxis take businessmen to airports. Women walk into Louis Vuitton Stores. And sitters in booths try to convince passersby to change their cell phone plan.

Seamless and new.

Timeless and old.

This is Tokyo.

 

anthony forrest

 

Meditation on an Airplane Ride

December 2, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Blue light hue rains gently as fog

Heavy with dew

Ambient warm light

Not bright

Glows down on sitters reading books and screens

Forward gazing faces

Of wanderers going paces

Await their arrival

Before nightfall

They’ll be in far distant lands

 

anthony forrest 

Friendsgiving

November 28, 2019 / / 0 Comments
Photo courtesy of J. Jones at Epic Pathways, click above to check out his work.

Travel Journal, 40

This is not a story about traveling. It could be. I have a lot of stories (as by now I’m sure you can tell). Each one of them burst from my mind, begging me to tell them. This story, by all rights, should be a travel story. It should be; but it’s not.

As much as my heart races when I pack my backpack, as much as it thrills me to talk to people about travel, as much as I absolutely adore a group text about going someplace new, and as much as the thought of figuring out yet another foreign train system keeps me up at night, another aspect of travel gives me far more joy.

We sat around a table set for feasting. The table was laid with trimmings of a Thanksgiving Day. Though still a month away, we met together to celebrate one of the most important parts of travel: the friends that go with you.

This small group is niche and knit together by various ages of people from differing walks of life. It’s an uncanny collective, a peculiar mix, a match only made in heaven by a God who could see the dots that needed connecting. And connect them, he did.

The six of us have traveled to the far reaches of the globe in each other’s shadows. But this isn’t a travel story. This is a Thanksgiving story. (Friends-giving?)

We sat around a table in North-Central Minnesota, celebrating togetherness. Some of us live here. Some of us live across the world. But each of us belonged at this table. Travel has meant so much to us; seeing places and people and sights and scenery. But travel would have so little value had we done so alone. We’ve walked together, rode elephants together, driven cars on the other sides of roads together, and eaten ridiculous amounts of ramen together. When it’s over we go back to our respective lives. But we somehow find ourselves meeting, once again, in another part of the world, ready to take it all on, together.

The world was created for union.

It was meant to be experienced together.

So we held hands around a table of thanksgiving for friends and time spent together. Tears gushed as freely as laughter. We talked of the wide world that lay before us, and the memories behind.

Happy Thanksgiving,

anthony forrest

Frogs

November 25, 2019 / / 0 Comments

Friends walk at night

and talk of life;

kicking stones,

far from home.

Like little boys they laugh and stutter,

looking for frogs that sing in gutters

that run down a dusty street.

They walk now upon beach,

near an ocean

far from their past.

Yet friendship lasts

if fueled by coffee

and dreams.

 

anthony forrest

Travel Journal, 39

November 21, 2019 / / 1 Comment

Is There a Doctor on Board? -part 2-

Read part 1 here

I looked at the scene before me. The flight purser was rushing around in a panic. A pale woman lay at his feet. Two other flight attendants hovered over her. And literally everybody else on the flight slept as if nothing was abnormal. And to make matters worse, there was a distinct possibility that we were going to have to divert the aircraft to Madrid, Spain to get this ill passenger to definitive medical care.

However, the everyday passenger may not know that a flight of this capacity and distance is more equipped to handle such an emergency than one might expect. The crew carries oxygen, a full medical bag (complete with medications and intravenous supplies), and a cardiac monitor and defibrillator. In essence they are loaded for bear.

But there’s a catch: nobody has a clue what to do. Sure, they are all trained in basic first aid and CPR, but their job is to be flight attendants, not medical professionals.

I leaned over and assessed the woman on the floor. She was clammy and complained of chest pain. Her heart rate was irregular and she was nauseous. However, her blood pressure was normal. We connected the electrocardiogram machine (because why wouldn’t a flight from South Africa to England have one of those?) and discovered that she was clearly experiencing a common heart problem called atrial fibrillation. In the simplest of terms, the top part of her heart was not cooperating.

Just then I realized that the purser had been breathing into my ear. I turned and saw his sweaty bald head uncomfortably close to my face.

“Do you want to talk to the doctor?” he asked.

“There’s a doctor here?” I was confused. I thought I was the only one helping.

“No,” he said, “but we can call him.”

The purser pulled me aside to the first-class cabin to the front of the aircraft. There sat a small desk. He picked up a phone and dialed a number.

“Hello?” A fellow American answered the phone. At this point, I was very impressed with everything that was happening. I explained to the physician all that had transpired. He hummed and thought and then asked me, “well, do you think that they should land the aircraft in Spain.”

This was not a decision I was expecting to make. I was hoping my responsibilities on this flight were going to be limited to whether or not I should watch Dances with Wolves again.

I swallowed hard and squeaked, “no.”

“Okay, well, keep an eye on her and if anything changes, call me back.”

Click.

The line went dead.

The purser was glad to hear we would continue on to London. “It costs the company over £200,000 to divert. Not to mention a scheduling nightmare for everybody. If she’s going to be okay, it’s better to just continue on!”

As I went back to our makeshift clinic, the purser asked if he could get me a drink.

“Coffee would be great, thank you”

I was shocked when he fired up an espresso machine and produced a porcelain cappuccino cup and platter. This scenario was getting ethereal.

When we finally landed, NHS London Ambulance Service pulled alongside the aircraft. I spoke to the British paramedic and they transferred the patient onto their ambulance, unceremoniously.

The crew was all smiles as my wife and I gathered our things. They thanked us over and over. This could have gone differently. We could have been getting off the plane in Madrid. But London was a welcomed sight.

anthony forrest

Travel Journal, 38

November 14, 2019 / / 1 Comment
Sedgefield, on the western Cape of South Africa

Is There a Doctor on Board? -part 1-

Through an unforeseen line of events, we now had to fly to London. Originally, we were scheduled to fly home from Johannesburg, South Africa on a direct flight to the US. That flight is nearly 17 hours long and spans from Atlanta to Johannesburg. And it is as long as it sounds. We were devastated that our already long trip home was now going to take even longer. We were able to reroute through London on Virgin Atlantic. There was a bit of good news, though. We’d have a small break between flying. Nobody wants to be on a plane for 17 hours.

I walked into the far aisle of our Boeing 767 aircraft and began glancing down at my ticket and up at the seat numbers. My seat was in the upper 30s. I must have looked like I was nodding—up and down, like a fool. My wife and I found our seats. And they were terrible. At some point in a large plane, the width of the aircraft shrinks. This means that a plane with seven seats across may dwindle down to five. And when it does, the seats in that row have rigid arm-rests in which tray tables are stored. If there is a way to make an airplane seat feel smaller, this is how.

Throughout the flight we dozed, watched movies, read, and I did a little writing. But even though this flight was shorter, it felt just as long as the one we were supposed to be on. Finally, with a pair of earplugs embedded in my scull, I fell asleep in an awkward position.

A faint donging noise sounded overhead. I pulled the eyeshade up and blinked. An announcement cracked but nobody moved. I pulled out an earplug just in time to hear, “…doctor on board?”

This piqued my interest, though I’m nobody’s surgeon. I am, however, a lowly ol’ paramedic who wanders the streets at night, lifting the sick-and-injured (and not-so-sick-and-injured) from the depths of the unhealthy darkness. I looked around at my fellow passengers. Nobody moved. In fact, everybody was asleep. My watch read 2 a.m. But I’m not sure which time zone. I took another glance around and made the decision to go to the front of the aircraft.

“I’m not a doctor, but I can help.” I said this to the small group of attendants huddled around a woman on the floor. She was laying in the middle of the floor in the bar area. And yes, this plane had a bar. “

I’m Terrence,” said a British man in a uniform, “the purser on this flight.”

I introduced myself and said that I was a paramedic. He looked scared and balked, “oh I’m glad you’re here. I think we may have to divert to Spain!”

anthony forrest

Part 2 to be published next Thursday, the 21st of November

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