Nippon (preamble)

**OK, Im in the midst of a crazy job, poster selling tour - a choice that has become one of the most stressful jobs I have ever had, and I've worked in busy restaurants. Im a bit frazzled, and I've only been working for a week. So, I will try to relay the magnificence of my travels in Japan, of which I am still in the afterglow, though it is hidden by stress and exhaustion. **



My trip was wonderful, much more than I imagined it would be. The country of Japan (Nippon in Japanese) is amazing to me in several respects:

The landscape is gorgeous, with sprawling flatlands, usually covered with rice fields, that will suddenly rift into a jutting mountainside. The stark contrast in elevation as the hillsides shoot up from the flats was quite breathtaking at places.

The flora and fauna are just different enough to give a nature buff something special. The different little flowers, and large flowers, the new bugs and birds and trees. And the moss, which was ubiquitous. The island vegetation and animal life was another welcome change of scenery for my vacation.

The people there are somewhat guarded and not very outwardly friendly, but almost everyone is extremely approachable. Some of them will react to a question or problem as if you had startled them out of a cat nap, but every time I asked someone to help me find something or whatever, they all seemed to take on my problem as their own, putting in an effort to communicate and solve it that I have not seen among strangers here in the states. And the children and elderly are so damn cute it really is ridiculous.

The food is so good, oh my god. Most people ( I assume) in the US think that Japanese food is limited to sushi, tempura and hibachi, but the cuisine there is so diverse and nutritious and delicious. I've learned how true it is that if you like a certain ethnic food, you really must experience the food in its home nation. I could go on so long just on the fun that I had in restaurants, trying all these small dishes, tasting food that utilized parts of seafood and vegetables that I had never heard of, much less thought of as palatable. Huge pair of thumbs way up for the food there.

Im sure I will come up with more as I progress through this recap of my trip. I am sad that it took me this long to post here, especially because now I will definitely miss out on some details of my incredibly rich and rewarding time in the land of the rising sun.

im tired

there will be incoming posts on this blog.

trust me.



oh, by the way, im back.

Platt's Clove

Zach and Ned and I took a drive out between Saugerties and Woodstock to this beautiful woods-trail that runs alongside a river. It was amazing, every 5 mins or so a new waterhole would come up in a different part of the river, each almost better than the last.

The drive itself was an adventure. Going on Ned's spider-sense of direction and his shady memory of past trips to the spot, we stopped and asked twice for the correct way, and still we drove on in uncertainty. Each new branch off of the main road was potentially our intended path. We soldiered on and finally came to park in the right place. It had already begun to rain. This was a trip for the three of us to go swimming at an awesome place, and it starts raining, and thundering. Undeterred, we hiked up the trail.

Zach and I would stop and marvel at each new waterfall and swimming hole, but Ned would goad us on saying, "it gets good up ahead," or "This shit is a dime a dozen here," and everytime we believed him.




We finally made it to a cove, an overhang of a cliff under which we were safe from the rain, and hopefully the lightning.







We set up camp, and scrambled for dry wood before the rain turned torrential. Lighting up some scraps of Birch bark, we quickly has a nice little fire going, a beacon of warmth in the dull gray of the rainsoaked forest. Now we could swim. We stripped down to the essentials and made our way to the water. Zach and I toe'd the water, both of us cringing and squealing like little princesses. It was cold, mad cold. We were no longer sure how much we wanted to swim, and I silently contemplated if the hour-long trip would be wasted if I didnt go in the damn water. Ned stepped up and emboldened us, taking me with him and leaving Zach to moan and stay dry and somewhat warm. Ned and I dove in on three and hoooweee, it was a shock. Not as bad as I had imagined from my big toe's report. We quickly got out, felt the now warm air on our near-deathly cold skin. We ran to the fire and warmed up, steam rising from our shorts and skin.






We whispered some covert treachery and I went over to ask the dry and cozy Zach what he thought about leaving, whether or not we should put more wood on the fire or leave it and take off when it was done. We discussed as Ned came up to us, staring right at Zach. Zach looked up, took one gander at Ned's expression and posture and cried out, "Oh no, guys, no!" We both took hold of his arms, he instinctively removed his glasses and set them down, giving us the sign that although he was not willing he would be overtaken. We got him in there no problem, and I think we helped him remove some future regret at not taking the plunge with the rest of the guys.

We all chilled out, warming up by the fire, smoking, eating, chatting. We set up a course of stacked cans that had been left in a fire pit, probably by some high school posse of assholes, and had a game of toss. After a period of chucking rocks of all sizes at the cans, we collected them up, put them all together on a large rock. I hiked up to the cliff overhang and got ready to drop a massive rock on the assembly of cans, Lord of the Flies style (poor piggy). After that landed, we took our empty water gallon and, filling it with river water, set it on the same stage. After several failed drops, a nice round monster of a stone landed perfectly square on the top of the jug, causing a triumphant explosion.

The blast heralded our departure, and before I even made it back down to the site the fire was out and all our things packed for the 10 minute hike back the road. The rain had eased, after being light to heavy to medium, then really heavy. We made it back to the Buick and had a casual ride home, Zach next to me in the navigator chair, Ned in the back hammering out some funky blues infused rock riffs. You had to be there.

a pretty uneventful pretty day

today i got up mad early. I did one of those early morning freak-outs where I think Im late for work and its actually 2hours
before I even have to get up. I finished a book i was reading, Philip K. Dick's UBIK, which was quite good. I fell back asleep for a little while as I waited for my alarm to go off to do anything. Then I ended up really being late for work, which got me all worried and anxious for no reason, because here is what work looked like most of the day:


and outside:


bummer: no money
non-bummer: farted around, ate cool food that nick in the kitchen invented, and made crazy drinks with all the ingredients I had available to me.

not too shabby, but a little mangy.

Got off work and came home, still working on cleaning it up. it looks pretty good as of now:





Then I called zach back about dinner, and he said it was game on for Indian. yess! He got a small posse together: Taka, Amanda, Ned, Susan, Zach, and I.


It was amazing. As always. $13 bucks for an all you can eat, which for me is two of these:


and dessert! jeeez

we were all so full after, it took us a little longer to get home and we all just laid out on the grass in front of amanda and zach's new place. There was a kegger in the adjacent house, which we attended, and after a brief part stint I rambled home, leaving amanda in the yard playing guitar and singing beautifully. Then I came up to my room, and typed this.

the end.

The Shaft

Zach and I took a drive out past Minnewaska to the waterfall at shaft 2a.

short drive, good tunes on the radio (surprise) cuz I can't find my iPod.

we started walking down the trail, spotted a cho-cho!



Then we made it to the river, beautiful landscape with river-hewn rocks, an early-summer stream (that is a post-winter, post-rainfall rapids!) Everything was just lush enough.



Some highlights:


the inside of a crazy dead tree


TOAD! AHH! (foreshadowing...)


step-waterfalls


zach sitting on the edge of the waterfall cliff that looks like this from the front:





the crazy thing was what zach stumbled upon while sitting and waiting for me to catch up. I was trying to get some shot, i think the dead tree shot above, when zach called out: "Andrew, man, get over here!! Quick!"

"What's going on?" I asked, partially excited at something cool to see, partially scared that something had gone wrong.

I put away the camera and quickly trudged up and over to him, skipping from jutting rock
to moss-patch
to fallen and decomposing tree,
then up to zach who was standing up on a high bridge made out of a newly fallen tree, which put him about 3ft above a small collection of water from the stream.
He pointed down and to my left: "Look at THAT dude!"

I strained my eyes towards a small pool, scanning for god-knew-what, "Look at what?"

"THAT!"









HOLY SHIT! snake ahhhh!

a friggin rattler, shakin its little tail away. we were staring death in the face.

or at least a terrible, terrible trip back down to the car and to the hospital.
still, there was something crazy about it, maybe mystical. something wise and majestic about this ancient
scapegoat and spiritual animal. it definitely had a presence to it.

so...we poked it with a long stick. it didn't really move much. it had either just eaten or it was old and dying. either way, we nudged it around respectfully and then left, asking it not to follow us. from then on we hiked with a bit more caution, and told every group what we saw. zach would say, before even saying "hi" or anything, "we saw a rattlesnake." it made us quite popular, they all wanted to see the pics. =)


then we drove home, i made some crazy veggie mac n cheese.
we ate, drank, had ice cream.
we were tired.

it was good.

First Day of the Experiment

So, here I am.  

I'm going to start blogging in a phototastic way, all (or nearly)of the events of my days.  This will most likely serve manifold purposes, only two of which I can actually think of:

 1.  archive my post-college life, making up for all the lost time that I never put in a diary. 

2. Allow others (especially Kay <3) to share some of my experiences with me =)

this is my first real attempt at making a valid blog, so I'll start slow and try to build it up to some fancy shit as time goes on.