Alrighty, friends and neighbors. It’s that time again. Lately, I’ve been chronicling weekend adventures. This weekend’s adventure was going to church! Going to church is an adventure? you ask incredulously. Well, yes. It’s an adventure when you’re in Korea and not religious, only vaguely spiritual, and you’re going with some 37 year old English guy you met when the trains stopped running one night and you caught the same cab because you were going in the same direction.
…However, that’s a story for next week. I’m not sure exactly how I felt about the church adventure, so I’ll need some time to process that one. Rather, this week, I’ll be talking about my brand spankin’ new SNES! Y’see, last weekend I went and bought myself a Super Nintendo. During the hike, I decided it was too cold to do things outside and I promised myself I would stay inside more for the next month or so. So, I went to the electronics market in Yongsan and bought my favorite video game console of all time. It’s a little tough finding games, but I’ve got a couple, and I’ve already logged like 10 hours on the sucker. It’s a bit surprising to me to see how passionate I still am about these old games. I try new games sometimes and almost all of them just completely fail to catch my interest. It’s so great to revisit childhood classics and find that they still satisfy in ways most modern games just can’t. It made me want to write something about how awesome they are.
Now then, the game I want to talk about today is Yoshi’s Island. Yoshi’s Island was released in 1995, just a year prior to the debut of the N64. By this time, the PlayStation was the hot new product on the market, ushering in a new generation of games. The new generation of consoles would be significantly more powerful than those that came before, capable of rendering fully 3D environments and delivering cinematic storytelling. In other words, 16-bit games were already anachronisms by this point.
With a 3D revolution rapidly approaching, Nintendo calmly released another new platformer on its aging flagship. But it wasn’t just any platformer, slapped together to make a few more bucks off a solid moneymaker before retiring it. Yoshi’s Island was billed as a sequel to Super Mario World, one of the most acclaimed games of all time, and certainly the most respected platformer of the SNES/Sega Genesis generation. Despite the fact that SNES sales had slowed by this point, it remained essential to create a high quality game. Anything less than brilliance from a Mario game being released shortly before the arrival of a new Nintendo console could be a brand-tarnishing failure. More importantly, stylistically, the game was a huge departure from previous Mario games. Both in look and in feel, it was a completely different experience than its predecessors. On the eve of Nintendo’s own transition to the great unknown of 3D gaming, they decided to rock the boat with their most sacred franchise. Why?
From 1985 to 1995 Nintendo almost single-handedly rescued the video game industry from a catastrophic collapse in 1984, and then proceeded to mold it into its own image. Profits became reliable. There was greater quality control. And for the first time, games were connecting with audiences in ways that made them seem like more than just a fad. They were batting .1000 in this era, and it was only when the times changed on them in the late 90s that they showed a costly failure to adapt.
Almost all of this, good and bad, can be laid at the feet of a single person. During this time, and even through today, the dominant creative force at Nintendo was Shigeru Miyamoto. Talk to anyone with any interest in games, and they can talk to you for hours about Shigeru Miyamoto. Outside of that world, however, he is largely unknown. This would be akin to a person who doesn’t care for basketball being unaware of the existence of a man named Michael Jordan. Shigeru Miyamoto was to video game design what Isaac Newton was to physics—at least in the 2D era. He laid down the rules. He replaced chaos with something new, and it worked fantastically.
Miyamoto was an art designer at Nintendo in the 80s. Nintendo was making arcade games, getting by in an industry that was about to hit a wall at about a thousand miles an hour. It’s all but forgotten now, but in 1984, the video game endured a crash of such monumental proportions, that many commenters dismissed the industry entirely as a fad whose time had passed. Atari went under. Mattel ceased to support its Colecovision. Home consoles were dead. Most of the companies making them, or making arcade games, were now bust. The industry was a victim of its own success. Anyone could make a game and put it on the Atari, and everyone did. The market became flooded with garbage that no one wanted to play. Supply was high, but demand was low for horrible games. After a few years of easy success, investors were overreaching to obscene degrees. One story that sums up the whole period: Atari made a video game adaptation of the movie E.T., giving its single programmer just six weeks to design and test it. They manufactured 5 million cartridges, more than there existed Ataris to play it. The game was such an abomination that virtually every copy sold was eventually returned. With mounds and mounds of unwanted games, Atari buried them in a landfill in New Mexico. Here lies Atari. Born 1972. Died 1984.
The destruction of the 1984 crisis was widespread. Even companies that weren’t arrogantly lax about quality suffered greatly. Nintendo was no exception. Nearly wiped out, and with little resources to spare, they pinned their hopes of surviving the crisis on a 25 year old art designer. Shigeru Miyamoto was one of a very small number of employees remaining at the company. He was essentially told “We will die if you don’t make a hit game. Do whatever you want.” He delivered the arcade game Donkey Kong. It was a smash success, and Nintendo was now flush with cash at a time when none of their competitors could afford their bankruptcy attorneys’ fees. They decided to try their hand at the home console market. Known as the Famicom in Japan, the NES would dominate the home console market to a degree that was unprecedented, and very likely can never be seen again. And what game was packaged with it, utterly blowing kids’ minds and hooking them for life? Shigeru Miyamoto’s Super Mario Bros.
It’s difficult to objectively evaluate Super Mario Bros. 25 years after its appearance. (Yes. 25 years. I know, I know. You’re old. So am I. Only a 12 year old could still feel young after reading that.) It completely changed peoples’ expectations of what video games could be. It encouraged exploration. With secrets and warp zones scattered everywhere, it meant that one play-through was just the beginning. It also featured significantly better art design than anything that had come before. It looked like what it was, a game made by a young art designer filled with confidence and enthusiasm. It was cool!
Yet despite all this difference from the standard expectations of the time, it was still very simple. You had two buttons. You could run. You could jump. That’s all you needed. You had three power-ups. A star made you invincible and the music changed to reflect the fact that you were now DER UBERMENCSH. A mushroom made you big. A flower allowed you to shoot fire, and turned your overalls a nifty red and white. Okay. None of that makes any sense, but it’s simple enough. There was a story, which was, hilarious, more involved than most video game plots. This was the story: King Koopa kidnapped the princess and the chubby plumber will get her back. Bam! Kids can relate to that story. There’s a monster. There’s a princess. There’s some dude who could be your dad (he’s the hero). You’re into that story. It wasn’t much, but it was more than Pac-Man had.
And this basically encapsulated the Miyamoto method. He made off-beat decisions that somehow resonated instantly with vast audiences. This game featured flying fish, bullets from nowhere, crazy springs that could vault you over 30 foot gaps, tunnels all over the damn place, spinning wheels of fire, beanstalks to the sky, and God knows what else I’m forgetting. It all worked. None of it seemed out of place. We ate this up as kids. It was the coolest thing ever. And the thing that made it really remarkable was that it was still simple enough for a 4 year old to enjoy. There it is. That was the formula that was often imitated but rarely duplicated. Eccentric art design, a feeling of simplicity, and gameplay that rewards exploration. He just made a game that he’d want to play.
With a picture of Miyamoto in our heads, Yoshi’s Island starts to seem more inevitable than unexpected. The SNES had a great run. The Sega Genesis had given Nintendo a scare by capturing a similar market share, but the fact was, they made a ton of money and more good games than you could shake a stick at. Now, imagine you are Shigeru Miyamoto. You’re now too busy at Nintendo to actually direct many games. You’re mostly a producer now. You basically set the creative philosophy of your company, which has grown massive thanks in large part to the success of your Donkey Kong, Mario, and Zelda franchises. And now there’s time for one more Mario game before the SNES punches its ticket and steps aside to make way for the future. What do you do?
Here’s what you do. You make a game where all the backgrounds look like they were hand-drawn with crayons and colored pencils. You do that in response to your superiors asking you to make the game more high-tech. You take it totally in the other direction and kick so much ass at it that they say, hey, you know what, you’re right. That looks a lot better. You make a game with an “enemy” called Fuzzy that doesn’t actually hurt the player, but rather causes the images on the screen to toss around like waves on the ocean and distorts the music. You’re Shigeru Miyamoto. If you want to make an enemy that causes kids to feel like they’re tripping their shit, you do it! It’s the last Mario game of the 2D era. Go nuts! You make the game a prequel about Mario and Luigi as babies. You know why? I don’t know, probably because you drew it in your sketchbook and thought it was hilarious. Your sketchbook is worth its weight in gold, dammit. You’re Shigeru Miyamoto. You rescued not just a company, but a whole damn industry by designing whatever the fuck you thought was cool.
This game was trippy. Its art style was radical, and I don’t mean that in the 80s sense of the term. I mean it was actually such a significant departure from every single one of its peers as to be radical. Yoshi can’t even die by getting hit by enemies. You only lose by losing baby Mario for too long. This game dispensed with “health”. It was such a ridiculous wellspring of creativity that it still makes games today look stale.
And that’s why games have only regressed for me since the SNES. High-powered 3D graphics can be very immersive, but they’re so technically demanding, and so expensive to create (because of the manpower necessary) that this kind of free-wheeling creativity has to be put aside. In 1995, Shigeru Miyamoto could make the game he wanted and put in the elements he wanted, more or less on a lark. He could wake up and say, “You know what would be fun? An enemy that makes the screen rock back and forth but doesn’t hurt you.” And there it would be in the game.
Nowadays, innovation in games is as dangerous as innovation in heavily promoted Hollywood blockbusters. When your movie costs $200 million, it must make money. Even if that means delivering something utterly formulaic. When your game costs $50 million, it’s the same story.
Yoshi’s Story was the perfect swan song for the SNES. It was an exclamation point ending an era where it was still financially defensible to do crazy things with big franchises. It was weird and funky and proud of it. Its energy continues to make it a blast 15 years later. Those crayon and colored pencil backgrounds still look way too cool. Hats off to Shiggy. Now, excuse me, I have to make a dinosaur spit watermelon seeds at bad guys who are walking around on stilts.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Early (early!!) morning hiking and value of foreigner friendly tour groups
When the bus reaches the foot of the mountain at last it is 4 AM. Passengers brace for the cold and stumble out into the night. We are a hundred miles from Seoul, and the stars are out. Away from the light pollution—not to mention the regular pollution—dozens more stars are visible over the skinny bare trees and small snow-covered buildings. It gives the night an eerie feeling to be able to see many stars after so long without seeing any. It’s like walking through a graveyard. We are being watched from above, the only living things in a silent space.
It takes a special sort of person to climb a mountain before sunrise in the coldest month of the year, so most of these people are completely insane. Sitting in ront of me on the bus is Nate, whose body seems to naturally produce methamphetamines by the kilo. He takes six hour walks through the back alleys of Seoul, and has much of the city mapped out in his head. Nate practically scoffs at the notion of sleeping on the bus ride. He tells Anthony and me that he is “always too wired” to sleep on these midnight hike bus trips, preferring to talk to whoever is awake. Nate has the appearance of a young intellectual. He is dressed neatly, but practically, is already almost bald in his mid-20s, and studied Marxism in college. When he’s not relaxing with marthon walks and midnight hikes, he likes to do “lots of writing, drawing, painting, whatever”. I don’t ask him what does when he’s tired. Might as well ask a bonfire what it does when it gets cold.
The passenger with the most enthusiasm of all is Tim from Seattle. He came prepared for a late night/early morning hike. He has a flask of vodka and insists we all share share share. He spends the next three hours getting himself to the just-right level o drunkenness. You can tell he’s an old hand at this. He’s looking out for us, really, by offering liquor, because as he says, “If you go hiking at 4 in the morning and you’re not drunk, there’s something wrong with you.” When we divide into groups to look out for each other on the trails he christens his group “the snow leopards.” Later I found out he assigned them all numbers based on how effective a member of the Snow Leopards they were. SL6 had much to be ashamed of.
And so on in this fashion. There were more crazy characters of course. We were a bag of mixed nuts. The bus was pretty evenly divied between gung-ho crazies like Time and Nate and crazies of a more disbelieving sort. I was one of these. When I told people this was my first real hike, my first winter anywhere cold, and eespecially when they saw my old, busted-up K-Swisses, they could saely file me in the “what in the hell am I doing here?” group of nuts. It was a good fit for me, to be honest. Being born must have been a very confusing process for me, because I always find it very bewildering just to be alive.
Breakfast was at 9 AM, because that’s when we made it all the way back down the mountain and to the ski lodge restaurant. Outside there are maybe 50 snow sculptures of all different sizes and levels of detail. We’re at the grounds for one of Korea’s winter festivals. Festivals are huge here, especially in the warmer months. But even in the dead of winter you can have a good time with weekends of ice fishing, or ice sculptures and open bazaars with handmade goods for your tourism collection.
Shockingly, bottles of soju appear at nearby tables. Koreans are ordering liquor with their breakfast. At our table full of foreigners, we wash our pancakes and noodles down with nothing stronger than Coca-Cola. Caffeine is a drug that may come in handy here, but for us hikers, no alcohol is needed. We’re drunk on warmth. Being inside feels so good.
We’ve all been hiking for 4 hours already today, but not one of us seems the least bit tired. I’m on an hour of sleep. Some people are on less. Nobody seems to care. The bus will be back to take us home at 5 PM. The day is young, and one thing about coming back from the top of a mountain when the wind chill is making it feel like it’s less than 0 degrees Fahrenheit… everything seems very easy. “You can’t hurt me, I’m already dead! My frozen corpse is on top of the mountain. Bring it!”
The hike itself was strenuous but fairly uneventful. People met people and told stories from their lives. That’s really what these events are all about. People can hike on their own, or just organize something with a few friends. The reason people go in these big groups, always organized by one crazy-ambitious Korean social butterfly with a penchant for foreigners, is that they’re a great way to make friends. Maybe 60 people altogether came on the buses. Mostly foreigners, but some Koreans, most of whom spoke very good English. About half of the group stayed behind where the buses stopped, at a little inn that consisted of 4 rooms full of sleeping bags.
One thing about meeting new people here: The first 5 minutes of conversation is somehow even easier than it was in college. You have those standard questions in college about major, and living situation, and where you’re from, and there are similar questions here, but now the answers are more interesting. People are from all over the English speaking world, and hagwon life (private schools, almost all of which have kindergarten classes) is so chaotic and nutty that everyone is having a totally different experience. I always felt like the “getting to know you” basics were something to avoid if you could think of better topics of conversation. You ask me my major when you don’t know what to ask. Now I really am very interested in the answers to all these questions. The responses are so much more diverse. I talked to a handful of people on the way up the mountain and ended up spending quite a bit of time during the day with a few of them.
The main challenge of the hike was not the steepness of the incline, even though that was quite steep. It was the cold. I longed for a scarf, but Anthony told me his was doing him very little good, and that the most noticeable effect it was having was to give his snot a place to freeze right in front of his face. I walked much of the way with one my gloved hands in front of my face, breathing into my palm to warm my cheeks, trying not to fog my glasses over.
Near the top, Warren, the Korean guy who put this group together, told us to slow our pace. We all wanted to go quickly to generate some body heat. Much better to feel the pain of exertion than the bite of the cold. One of the first winter lessons I learned here. When it’s extremely cold, take the stairs, not the escalator. It’ll warm you up. Warren was right, though. We needed to slow down so we’d make the top of the mountain just at sunrise, and not earlier. If we made it earlier, we’d have to stay there longer. He warned us “This is nothing. The top is much, much colder, and windier. If you think this is bad, this is nothing.” We had to time it so that our beautiful vista was there waiting for us. We did a pretty good job. We made it about 15 minutes after sunrise, which is just about perfect.
Near the top of the mountain, the path leveled out for about 30 meters, and there were no trees along the side. I could see the whole valley stretching out for miles. It was as high up on a mountain as I’ve been before, and the sky was pink behind the other peaks. There were so many trees, and they were inconsistently green and bare, so there’d be a patch of brown spires and then a patch of heroically green warriors. It was a really wonderful view.
From there, the mountain peak was just another five minutes up, but I can’t recommend those five minutes. Warren was so right about conditions at the top. The cold was absolutely brutal. I’ve never, ever been so cold in my life. I have little memory of the view from the mountaintop. All I remember is cold, cold, cold. The wind was blowing so hard and there were no trees to block it. Winter was attempting to murder us for having the arrogance to scale this mountain. After about two minutes, I’d had enough and decided to start the descent. I was starting to go just as Warren called out “Let’s get a group picture.” I shouted “No!” and that was that. About 10 people followed right away, and Warren’s idea went totally unheeded. This peak was not worth it when there was an infinitely less cold spot just 20 or 30 meters lower. In the immortal words of Socrates, “Fuck that noise.”
The rest of the day was spent in circumstances similar to those at breakfast. I spent about 45 minutes giving all the snow sculptures a close look, and many of them were quite cool. There was an area with a children’s literature theme featuring a rad Dr. Seuss inspired house, and a nice likeness of the Little Prince standing about 15 feet tall (the Very Big Prince?). However, other than that, there wasn’t a whole lot going on at the festival. This same festival is running through next week, and sculptures were under construction during our time there. (Watching the construction is interesting. When they are just starting out they use small cranes to move the snow. Then they use chainsaws, and finally, their hands. It’s a great show of the principle that you have to trade power for precision and vice versa) I imagine most of the major attractions, like the planned attempt at breaking a Guinness record for largest snowball fight, will probably be next week. It was a pretty low-key festival this weekend.
In all honesty, that was fine by me. I spent about an hour in a coffee shop getting acquainted with some very nice folks, and then another hour or so later on with the same group having lunch. After such a rigorous hike it was nice to spend the whole day relaxing in the nice, warm indoors, especially when there were a lot of new faces. I’ll definitely be doing another tour with this group at some point.
Apparently, there are a lot of regulars, and it really seems like this sort of thing is a better way to make friends than going out to bars. For one thing, you get to see different things about Korea at the same time, and for another thing, I’m not very good at shouting, or at hearing people in loud places, so it’s difficult for me to have much of a conversation in many bars. Even with those considerations though, I’ve been satisfied with the pace I’ve been meeting people. So now I’m really excited to discover how superior these tour groups are for that purpose. I think it’s really going to up the quality of life.
Until next time,
Love and toodles,
Randy
It takes a special sort of person to climb a mountain before sunrise in the coldest month of the year, so most of these people are completely insane. Sitting in ront of me on the bus is Nate, whose body seems to naturally produce methamphetamines by the kilo. He takes six hour walks through the back alleys of Seoul, and has much of the city mapped out in his head. Nate practically scoffs at the notion of sleeping on the bus ride. He tells Anthony and me that he is “always too wired” to sleep on these midnight hike bus trips, preferring to talk to whoever is awake. Nate has the appearance of a young intellectual. He is dressed neatly, but practically, is already almost bald in his mid-20s, and studied Marxism in college. When he’s not relaxing with marthon walks and midnight hikes, he likes to do “lots of writing, drawing, painting, whatever”. I don’t ask him what does when he’s tired. Might as well ask a bonfire what it does when it gets cold.
The passenger with the most enthusiasm of all is Tim from Seattle. He came prepared for a late night/early morning hike. He has a flask of vodka and insists we all share share share. He spends the next three hours getting himself to the just-right level o drunkenness. You can tell he’s an old hand at this. He’s looking out for us, really, by offering liquor, because as he says, “If you go hiking at 4 in the morning and you’re not drunk, there’s something wrong with you.” When we divide into groups to look out for each other on the trails he christens his group “the snow leopards.” Later I found out he assigned them all numbers based on how effective a member of the Snow Leopards they were. SL6 had much to be ashamed of.
And so on in this fashion. There were more crazy characters of course. We were a bag of mixed nuts. The bus was pretty evenly divied between gung-ho crazies like Time and Nate and crazies of a more disbelieving sort. I was one of these. When I told people this was my first real hike, my first winter anywhere cold, and eespecially when they saw my old, busted-up K-Swisses, they could saely file me in the “what in the hell am I doing here?” group of nuts. It was a good fit for me, to be honest. Being born must have been a very confusing process for me, because I always find it very bewildering just to be alive.
Breakfast was at 9 AM, because that’s when we made it all the way back down the mountain and to the ski lodge restaurant. Outside there are maybe 50 snow sculptures of all different sizes and levels of detail. We’re at the grounds for one of Korea’s winter festivals. Festivals are huge here, especially in the warmer months. But even in the dead of winter you can have a good time with weekends of ice fishing, or ice sculptures and open bazaars with handmade goods for your tourism collection.
Shockingly, bottles of soju appear at nearby tables. Koreans are ordering liquor with their breakfast. At our table full of foreigners, we wash our pancakes and noodles down with nothing stronger than Coca-Cola. Caffeine is a drug that may come in handy here, but for us hikers, no alcohol is needed. We’re drunk on warmth. Being inside feels so good.
We’ve all been hiking for 4 hours already today, but not one of us seems the least bit tired. I’m on an hour of sleep. Some people are on less. Nobody seems to care. The bus will be back to take us home at 5 PM. The day is young, and one thing about coming back from the top of a mountain when the wind chill is making it feel like it’s less than 0 degrees Fahrenheit… everything seems very easy. “You can’t hurt me, I’m already dead! My frozen corpse is on top of the mountain. Bring it!”
The hike itself was strenuous but fairly uneventful. People met people and told stories from their lives. That’s really what these events are all about. People can hike on their own, or just organize something with a few friends. The reason people go in these big groups, always organized by one crazy-ambitious Korean social butterfly with a penchant for foreigners, is that they’re a great way to make friends. Maybe 60 people altogether came on the buses. Mostly foreigners, but some Koreans, most of whom spoke very good English. About half of the group stayed behind where the buses stopped, at a little inn that consisted of 4 rooms full of sleeping bags.
One thing about meeting new people here: The first 5 minutes of conversation is somehow even easier than it was in college. You have those standard questions in college about major, and living situation, and where you’re from, and there are similar questions here, but now the answers are more interesting. People are from all over the English speaking world, and hagwon life (private schools, almost all of which have kindergarten classes) is so chaotic and nutty that everyone is having a totally different experience. I always felt like the “getting to know you” basics were something to avoid if you could think of better topics of conversation. You ask me my major when you don’t know what to ask. Now I really am very interested in the answers to all these questions. The responses are so much more diverse. I talked to a handful of people on the way up the mountain and ended up spending quite a bit of time during the day with a few of them.
The main challenge of the hike was not the steepness of the incline, even though that was quite steep. It was the cold. I longed for a scarf, but Anthony told me his was doing him very little good, and that the most noticeable effect it was having was to give his snot a place to freeze right in front of his face. I walked much of the way with one my gloved hands in front of my face, breathing into my palm to warm my cheeks, trying not to fog my glasses over.
Near the top, Warren, the Korean guy who put this group together, told us to slow our pace. We all wanted to go quickly to generate some body heat. Much better to feel the pain of exertion than the bite of the cold. One of the first winter lessons I learned here. When it’s extremely cold, take the stairs, not the escalator. It’ll warm you up. Warren was right, though. We needed to slow down so we’d make the top of the mountain just at sunrise, and not earlier. If we made it earlier, we’d have to stay there longer. He warned us “This is nothing. The top is much, much colder, and windier. If you think this is bad, this is nothing.” We had to time it so that our beautiful vista was there waiting for us. We did a pretty good job. We made it about 15 minutes after sunrise, which is just about perfect.
Near the top of the mountain, the path leveled out for about 30 meters, and there were no trees along the side. I could see the whole valley stretching out for miles. It was as high up on a mountain as I’ve been before, and the sky was pink behind the other peaks. There were so many trees, and they were inconsistently green and bare, so there’d be a patch of brown spires and then a patch of heroically green warriors. It was a really wonderful view.
From there, the mountain peak was just another five minutes up, but I can’t recommend those five minutes. Warren was so right about conditions at the top. The cold was absolutely brutal. I’ve never, ever been so cold in my life. I have little memory of the view from the mountaintop. All I remember is cold, cold, cold. The wind was blowing so hard and there were no trees to block it. Winter was attempting to murder us for having the arrogance to scale this mountain. After about two minutes, I’d had enough and decided to start the descent. I was starting to go just as Warren called out “Let’s get a group picture.” I shouted “No!” and that was that. About 10 people followed right away, and Warren’s idea went totally unheeded. This peak was not worth it when there was an infinitely less cold spot just 20 or 30 meters lower. In the immortal words of Socrates, “Fuck that noise.”
The rest of the day was spent in circumstances similar to those at breakfast. I spent about 45 minutes giving all the snow sculptures a close look, and many of them were quite cool. There was an area with a children’s literature theme featuring a rad Dr. Seuss inspired house, and a nice likeness of the Little Prince standing about 15 feet tall (the Very Big Prince?). However, other than that, there wasn’t a whole lot going on at the festival. This same festival is running through next week, and sculptures were under construction during our time there. (Watching the construction is interesting. When they are just starting out they use small cranes to move the snow. Then they use chainsaws, and finally, their hands. It’s a great show of the principle that you have to trade power for precision and vice versa) I imagine most of the major attractions, like the planned attempt at breaking a Guinness record for largest snowball fight, will probably be next week. It was a pretty low-key festival this weekend.
In all honesty, that was fine by me. I spent about an hour in a coffee shop getting acquainted with some very nice folks, and then another hour or so later on with the same group having lunch. After such a rigorous hike it was nice to spend the whole day relaxing in the nice, warm indoors, especially when there were a lot of new faces. I’ll definitely be doing another tour with this group at some point.
Apparently, there are a lot of regulars, and it really seems like this sort of thing is a better way to make friends than going out to bars. For one thing, you get to see different things about Korea at the same time, and for another thing, I’m not very good at shouting, or at hearing people in loud places, so it’s difficult for me to have much of a conversation in many bars. Even with those considerations though, I’ve been satisfied with the pace I’ve been meeting people. So now I’m really excited to discover how superior these tour groups are for that purpose. I think it’s really going to up the quality of life.
Until next time,
Love and toodles,
Randy
Sunday, January 17, 2010
He's in the zone!!
The bus ride to the DMZ is educational in two ways. First, as you might expect, you learn a few random facts about the area. The tour guide saw to it that we were learning these facts by calling people out when they stopped paying attention to talk. She also quizzed us occasionally to see if we could recall what we’d learned. Here’s what I learned: The last bridge you go over en route to the site was built by the founder of Hyundai. He defected from North Korea 50 years ago after selling his family’s cow. He then built an empire in the South. Years later, he decided to pay his family back for the cow. He gave them 1001 cows, reasoning that he owed a thousand more as “interest”. However, the bridge that was in place would not support a thousand cows, so he built a large and modern bridge. This bridge, I will remember forever, is nicknamed “cow bridge”. I don’t remember its actual name, but I do remember that, because “Laura” the tour guide used it as a quiz question to see who was paying attention about… 500 times? Give or take.
Cow bridge. Very important.
So, I’ve been to the DMZ now and I have returned alive (and non-kidnapped!). Hurray! It’s a surprisingly fun experience. Despite the close proximity of land mines just behind the fences and the poor bored soldiers tasked with preventing unauthorized photographs, the tour has a certain “gee whiz, look at that” feeling. The mood was strangely jocular. I bought a wooden figurine of a smiling pig at a gift shop. There are statues that look like Fisher-Price versions of Korean soldiers. There was even an igloo with the letters DMZ in colored snow over the entranceway. Here you are at the doorstep of a no man’s land, a 4 kilometer wide strip of land where you could be shot for trespassing, and the atmosphere is bizarrely whimsical. Why were there figurines of smiling pigs? Why are there t-shirts with smiling cartoon soldiers? Is this for real?
The funniest part was from the movie. The first area of the tour was tunnel #3. About 50 years ago the North built some secret tunnels into South Korea. The South became aware of the tunnels after an engineer of one of them defected and told the government everything he knew. At the site of the tunnel was a building you go into right after getting off the bus, and pretty much all that’s in there is a movie screening area. You watch a movie that’s about 5 minutes long that first does a quick rundown of the history of the DMZ before switching tones entirely to extol the virtues of the DMZ as a natural reserve. The narrator talks about all the wildlife that now flourishes there and we get to see images of them. Mostly it’s a lot of very impressive looking birds, but right in the middle comes one of the strangest pieces of narration I’ve ever heard. He’s been rattling off a list of animals, “The white heron… The large Chinese sparrow” or whatever, and then he drops this gem: “And the living natural fossil… The goat.”
WHAT??
The living natural fossil?? What the hell does that mean?? Is he implying that a goat is an obscure creature almost lossed to the sands of time and that it is therefore for special and extraordinary that we have the priviledge of seeing them munching on grasses between two sets of soldiers? Goats! Who gives a rat’s ass?
The tunnel was really great. You ride some little mine cart train down 300 meters at about 2 miles per hour. The mine cart is in a tunnel that is smaller and narrower than “the” tunnel, the one that the North Koreans built. It’s so cramped in there and the place is lit by green track lights overhead. It’s an eerie atmosphere that really makes you feel like you’re descending into a whole different world.
The tunnel itself is a bit bigger, but still pretty small and cramped. It must have been horrible making the damn thing. When the project was abandoned, the North Koreans spread a bit of coal on the walls to try to pass it off as a tunnel built for coal excavation purposes. But the rock is nothing but granite, and there is no naturally occurring coal in the area. It was a feeble cover-up of a tunnel that I can’t imagine ever had any chance of amounting to anything strategically worthwhile. It was just too small to imagine that it could be effectively used for the purposes of staging a surprise invasion. Of course, there are several other tunnels, but even if there are as many as ten, it’s still tough to believe they could have been a worthwhile system of delivering troops. North Korea just seems so pathetic to me most of the time. Their whole state is centered around the military but their military doesn’t really seem to do anything right. These tunnels were probably started in the 50s and none were discovered until the 70s, I believe it was. They were never put to any use and they never can be now. The main impression I took from touring the tunnel was not that the North is so devious, as the tour guide seemed to want us to feel, but rather that this whole project had been a ridiculous boondoggle for them. I’m just not that intimidated by an army that tunnels thousands and thousands of meters through granite only to abandon the project after achieving nothing and attempting to cover their tracks with thin little scrapings of coal.
But anyway, that aside, the tunnel was darn cool.
The next stop on the tour was a lookout. This is where the soldiers had to make sure we didn’t take any pictures. I’m not sure why it’s necessary to prevent pictures. The lookout gives a great view of the Zone, and although it was winter, you could still easily see how it’s such a haven for wildlife during the warmer months. It had a look of tranquility. There are a few roads crossing through it, as there is a factory complex in the Zone, which are run by South Korean business and staffed with North Korean workers. They’re paid $70 a month. This is considered a very good wage. Other than that industrial complex, the zone is devoid of people. It’s a sliver of nature that runs from coast to coast.
Finally, we stopped at a train station. Over the last few years, the trans-Eurasian railroad system has made huge strides. It’s now possible to take a train from London, or Lisbon, all the way to Vladivostok on the extreme Eastern end of Russia. Soon, that rail system will connect through North Korea into Seoul and past that down to Busan, on the Southern coast of Korea. This is the last train station in South Korea. There is one train a day that goes into the North, on the way to Pyongyang. It’s now empty, except when a busload of tourists arrives. It’s the most decorative empty train station in the world. There are huge murals on the wall with symbolic depictions of unity. Images of clasped hands and people dancing together are over the rows of empty chairs where no passengers are waiting. When the trans-Eurasian railroad connects to this station, these murals will find a much bigger audience, but for now, it’s as surreal as anything at the DMZ.
That was the tour. It was quite interesting, and I may go again in the summer, this time taking the longer tour. It should really be a sight during months of higher visibility and when all the animals have returned to the site. Going in the winter did have one advantage though. I imagine that touring in the summer makes it all less surreal.
Cow bridge. Very important.
So, I’ve been to the DMZ now and I have returned alive (and non-kidnapped!). Hurray! It’s a surprisingly fun experience. Despite the close proximity of land mines just behind the fences and the poor bored soldiers tasked with preventing unauthorized photographs, the tour has a certain “gee whiz, look at that” feeling. The mood was strangely jocular. I bought a wooden figurine of a smiling pig at a gift shop. There are statues that look like Fisher-Price versions of Korean soldiers. There was even an igloo with the letters DMZ in colored snow over the entranceway. Here you are at the doorstep of a no man’s land, a 4 kilometer wide strip of land where you could be shot for trespassing, and the atmosphere is bizarrely whimsical. Why were there figurines of smiling pigs? Why are there t-shirts with smiling cartoon soldiers? Is this for real?
The funniest part was from the movie. The first area of the tour was tunnel #3. About 50 years ago the North built some secret tunnels into South Korea. The South became aware of the tunnels after an engineer of one of them defected and told the government everything he knew. At the site of the tunnel was a building you go into right after getting off the bus, and pretty much all that’s in there is a movie screening area. You watch a movie that’s about 5 minutes long that first does a quick rundown of the history of the DMZ before switching tones entirely to extol the virtues of the DMZ as a natural reserve. The narrator talks about all the wildlife that now flourishes there and we get to see images of them. Mostly it’s a lot of very impressive looking birds, but right in the middle comes one of the strangest pieces of narration I’ve ever heard. He’s been rattling off a list of animals, “The white heron… The large Chinese sparrow” or whatever, and then he drops this gem: “And the living natural fossil… The goat.”
WHAT??
The living natural fossil?? What the hell does that mean?? Is he implying that a goat is an obscure creature almost lossed to the sands of time and that it is therefore for special and extraordinary that we have the priviledge of seeing them munching on grasses between two sets of soldiers? Goats! Who gives a rat’s ass?
The tunnel was really great. You ride some little mine cart train down 300 meters at about 2 miles per hour. The mine cart is in a tunnel that is smaller and narrower than “the” tunnel, the one that the North Koreans built. It’s so cramped in there and the place is lit by green track lights overhead. It’s an eerie atmosphere that really makes you feel like you’re descending into a whole different world.
The tunnel itself is a bit bigger, but still pretty small and cramped. It must have been horrible making the damn thing. When the project was abandoned, the North Koreans spread a bit of coal on the walls to try to pass it off as a tunnel built for coal excavation purposes. But the rock is nothing but granite, and there is no naturally occurring coal in the area. It was a feeble cover-up of a tunnel that I can’t imagine ever had any chance of amounting to anything strategically worthwhile. It was just too small to imagine that it could be effectively used for the purposes of staging a surprise invasion. Of course, there are several other tunnels, but even if there are as many as ten, it’s still tough to believe they could have been a worthwhile system of delivering troops. North Korea just seems so pathetic to me most of the time. Their whole state is centered around the military but their military doesn’t really seem to do anything right. These tunnels were probably started in the 50s and none were discovered until the 70s, I believe it was. They were never put to any use and they never can be now. The main impression I took from touring the tunnel was not that the North is so devious, as the tour guide seemed to want us to feel, but rather that this whole project had been a ridiculous boondoggle for them. I’m just not that intimidated by an army that tunnels thousands and thousands of meters through granite only to abandon the project after achieving nothing and attempting to cover their tracks with thin little scrapings of coal.
But anyway, that aside, the tunnel was darn cool.
The next stop on the tour was a lookout. This is where the soldiers had to make sure we didn’t take any pictures. I’m not sure why it’s necessary to prevent pictures. The lookout gives a great view of the Zone, and although it was winter, you could still easily see how it’s such a haven for wildlife during the warmer months. It had a look of tranquility. There are a few roads crossing through it, as there is a factory complex in the Zone, which are run by South Korean business and staffed with North Korean workers. They’re paid $70 a month. This is considered a very good wage. Other than that industrial complex, the zone is devoid of people. It’s a sliver of nature that runs from coast to coast.
Finally, we stopped at a train station. Over the last few years, the trans-Eurasian railroad system has made huge strides. It’s now possible to take a train from London, or Lisbon, all the way to Vladivostok on the extreme Eastern end of Russia. Soon, that rail system will connect through North Korea into Seoul and past that down to Busan, on the Southern coast of Korea. This is the last train station in South Korea. There is one train a day that goes into the North, on the way to Pyongyang. It’s now empty, except when a busload of tourists arrives. It’s the most decorative empty train station in the world. There are huge murals on the wall with symbolic depictions of unity. Images of clasped hands and people dancing together are over the rows of empty chairs where no passengers are waiting. When the trans-Eurasian railroad connects to this station, these murals will find a much bigger audience, but for now, it’s as surreal as anything at the DMZ.
That was the tour. It was quite interesting, and I may go again in the summer, this time taking the longer tour. It should really be a sight during months of higher visibility and when all the animals have returned to the site. Going in the winter did have one advantage though. I imagine that touring in the summer makes it all less surreal.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
I survived Star Hill Ski Resort and all I got was this lousy blog post
Listen to me very closely. I have some very important advice for you that could change your life someday. OK, are you listening? Ready for this? Here it is:
Never get on the wrong chair lift your first time skiing. Unless the first things you want to master are “how to bail out without dying” and “getting up off the snow”. Those are the lessons I had carefully drilled into my hips, my legs, and, hell, even into my gloves. I thought I should share them with you while they were fresh.
So I’m back from skiing, and I am alive. Someone tell my dad. Try to leave out the part about falling a lot. It might make him worry. Also, tell him that I clipped my nails the other day and that I managed to survive that too. (Just kidding, Dad! Love you!) Yes, thanks to Jason, my pasty sherpa from the Rockies, I have not only survived my first journey to the slopes, you might even say I thrived. If by thrived you mean “kicked the bunny slope right in the ass”. You should have seen me out there. Slaloming between 6 year olds, dodging couples going down while holding hands on snowboards, riding chair lifts. Oh, man, I was like Schwarzeneggar in Total Recall. I was simply too much man for this Earth.
Meanwhile, while I was rocking out on a 10 degree incline, Jason and Jordan were flying down sheer cliff faces, and flying by flapping their arms, and breaking the sound barrier with their minds, and God knows whatever else it is that experienced skiers and snowboarders do as easily as picking parsley from their teeth with toothpicks. I mean, fuck! They’d go down these ridiculous slopes which would obviously cause you to rocket towards the bottom of the mountain, burst into flames, and die, except somehow they were not dying, and were, in fact, quite game to do those same slopes many more times. They assured me that as you ski more and more “everything will begin to click” and it will be easy, by which I assume they mean that I will eventually grow balls the size of watermelons, which will come in handy when I fly totally out of control on ungodly difficult slopes because I can always use them as an anchor.
So anyway, one of these schizos—the one called Jason—led me down a dangerous path the first time up the mountain. It was my first time skiing, but it was also their first time on this particular mountain. Jason made a very understandable mistake. From the exit of the resort building you can only see two chairlifts. One of these was clearly the expert lift, so we went to the other one, thinking it must be the beginner slope. Whoops. It turned out that the beginner slope is deviously hidden from sight. You have to climb a hill (WTF??) to get to it. The slope we chose actually turned out to be an intermediate slope.
Now for those of you who haven’t skied before, the word “intermediate” might not sound all that intimidating. All I can say is, I no longer think I would feel fear if I had to face a firing squad some day. Never in my life has my ass been so thoroughly kicked by anything. Never have I even imagined that I would complete a task so difficult and grueling. It took an hour to get down that slope. As soon I’d stand up (when I made that foolish decision) I’d be sucked helplessly down a horribly steep incline with no control at all over my speed. All I could control was my direction, and when I chose to fall. This is where I learned my previously mentioned skills of “avoiding death” and “getting up”.
That’s about all I seemed to be learning, because I’ll tell you what, I sure as hell didn’t learn how to get that damn “make a V with your skis to stop” nonsense to work. In fact, I never got that to work very well all day. In the end I came up with the theory that it has something to do with the way I walk. I don’t walk with feet parallel. My natural posture puts my feet in a V, so it’s already like I’m turning my feet relative to where they feel natural just to stand on the skis normally. I then have to twist them farther to get into the stopping position. I think this might be why I couldn’t apply much pressure to use the skis properly, as Jason described, “as snow plows” to stop myself. In the end, on the beginner slope, I more often slid perpendicular to the direction of the slope to stop. It’s supposed to be harder that way, but it worked better for me.
Anyhow, somehow I made it down the intermediate slope. I felt sorry for Jason, because he blamed himself for picking that chair lift. He really shouldn’t have. The signs were in Korean! It was just as much my responsibility as his to look out—after all, he’d never been to this slope before either. He’s such a nice guy though, he just kept apologizing and telling me I was doing great and that I’d get it eventually. It was such a long and frustrating descent, but he got me through it. I really appreciated the way he stayed positive. I needed that.
By the time we made it down, I was starving in addition to mentally exhausted. I went inside to eat while Jason and Jordan continued to ski (or in Jordan’s case, snowboard). I went to the cafeteria and got some rice curry while cursing the day that snow was invented, and generally dealing with a strong desire to just quit right there and get a cab home or something. By the time I finished my food, however, I could see this was crazy talk. I went on the intermediate slope! The first time I’d ever put skis on! Of course it kicked my ass in. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. It’s supposed to exclude beginners so more experienced skiers can really shred some snow. I went back outside with resolve. This time, I would find the right slope and do some damn skiing.
I found the gosh darn thing in its jerk-ass hiding spot and got in that bull-honkey chairlift and then, I’ll tell you what, then I was skiing! I spent the rest of the day going round and round on that slope. I probably went down it about 8 times altogether. Maybe it was 10. I talked with an Australian girl who seemed really cool, but unfortunately had to run all of a sudden when a guy came up to her and told her that someone in their party had been injured. I talked on the chair lift with a Korean guy who was thrilled to get a chance to practice his English. I went as fast as I could go without losing control completely, and then went faster by accident many times. No worries though. By this time I was an expert in the art of the controlled fall-stop. Nothing to it, really. You just turn your feet and slide. Falling to a stop on purpose is even kind of fun. One time while hitting the snow, I did a 360 with my poles still in my hands. Then I pretended I did it on purpose. Fun!
That was my ski adventure. I learned a lot and it should be more fun next time. I learned to control my turning, how to be safe if things get dangerous, and that chairlifts aren’t quite as scary as they seem (although they’re still the scariest part of the whole experience—fuggin heights). Basically I learned everything except how to stop. But hey, who needs that!
I also feel, because I always look for a lesson in things, almost to the point of pathology, that it was a good experience because just when I felt like I absolutely had to quit, wanted to quit, couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there, suddenly it got a hundred times easier. Now I just need the same breakthrough when it comes to teaching kindergarten (and talking to girls!) and I’ll be a straight up assassin in no time. This week, the mountain. Next week? The world!
As always, I love you all,
Randy
Never get on the wrong chair lift your first time skiing. Unless the first things you want to master are “how to bail out without dying” and “getting up off the snow”. Those are the lessons I had carefully drilled into my hips, my legs, and, hell, even into my gloves. I thought I should share them with you while they were fresh.
So I’m back from skiing, and I am alive. Someone tell my dad. Try to leave out the part about falling a lot. It might make him worry. Also, tell him that I clipped my nails the other day and that I managed to survive that too. (Just kidding, Dad! Love you!) Yes, thanks to Jason, my pasty sherpa from the Rockies, I have not only survived my first journey to the slopes, you might even say I thrived. If by thrived you mean “kicked the bunny slope right in the ass”. You should have seen me out there. Slaloming between 6 year olds, dodging couples going down while holding hands on snowboards, riding chair lifts. Oh, man, I was like Schwarzeneggar in Total Recall. I was simply too much man for this Earth.
Meanwhile, while I was rocking out on a 10 degree incline, Jason and Jordan were flying down sheer cliff faces, and flying by flapping their arms, and breaking the sound barrier with their minds, and God knows whatever else it is that experienced skiers and snowboarders do as easily as picking parsley from their teeth with toothpicks. I mean, fuck! They’d go down these ridiculous slopes which would obviously cause you to rocket towards the bottom of the mountain, burst into flames, and die, except somehow they were not dying, and were, in fact, quite game to do those same slopes many more times. They assured me that as you ski more and more “everything will begin to click” and it will be easy, by which I assume they mean that I will eventually grow balls the size of watermelons, which will come in handy when I fly totally out of control on ungodly difficult slopes because I can always use them as an anchor.
So anyway, one of these schizos—the one called Jason—led me down a dangerous path the first time up the mountain. It was my first time skiing, but it was also their first time on this particular mountain. Jason made a very understandable mistake. From the exit of the resort building you can only see two chairlifts. One of these was clearly the expert lift, so we went to the other one, thinking it must be the beginner slope. Whoops. It turned out that the beginner slope is deviously hidden from sight. You have to climb a hill (WTF??) to get to it. The slope we chose actually turned out to be an intermediate slope.
Now for those of you who haven’t skied before, the word “intermediate” might not sound all that intimidating. All I can say is, I no longer think I would feel fear if I had to face a firing squad some day. Never in my life has my ass been so thoroughly kicked by anything. Never have I even imagined that I would complete a task so difficult and grueling. It took an hour to get down that slope. As soon I’d stand up (when I made that foolish decision) I’d be sucked helplessly down a horribly steep incline with no control at all over my speed. All I could control was my direction, and when I chose to fall. This is where I learned my previously mentioned skills of “avoiding death” and “getting up”.
That’s about all I seemed to be learning, because I’ll tell you what, I sure as hell didn’t learn how to get that damn “make a V with your skis to stop” nonsense to work. In fact, I never got that to work very well all day. In the end I came up with the theory that it has something to do with the way I walk. I don’t walk with feet parallel. My natural posture puts my feet in a V, so it’s already like I’m turning my feet relative to where they feel natural just to stand on the skis normally. I then have to twist them farther to get into the stopping position. I think this might be why I couldn’t apply much pressure to use the skis properly, as Jason described, “as snow plows” to stop myself. In the end, on the beginner slope, I more often slid perpendicular to the direction of the slope to stop. It’s supposed to be harder that way, but it worked better for me.
Anyhow, somehow I made it down the intermediate slope. I felt sorry for Jason, because he blamed himself for picking that chair lift. He really shouldn’t have. The signs were in Korean! It was just as much my responsibility as his to look out—after all, he’d never been to this slope before either. He’s such a nice guy though, he just kept apologizing and telling me I was doing great and that I’d get it eventually. It was such a long and frustrating descent, but he got me through it. I really appreciated the way he stayed positive. I needed that.
By the time we made it down, I was starving in addition to mentally exhausted. I went inside to eat while Jason and Jordan continued to ski (or in Jordan’s case, snowboard). I went to the cafeteria and got some rice curry while cursing the day that snow was invented, and generally dealing with a strong desire to just quit right there and get a cab home or something. By the time I finished my food, however, I could see this was crazy talk. I went on the intermediate slope! The first time I’d ever put skis on! Of course it kicked my ass in. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. It’s supposed to exclude beginners so more experienced skiers can really shred some snow. I went back outside with resolve. This time, I would find the right slope and do some damn skiing.
I found the gosh darn thing in its jerk-ass hiding spot and got in that bull-honkey chairlift and then, I’ll tell you what, then I was skiing! I spent the rest of the day going round and round on that slope. I probably went down it about 8 times altogether. Maybe it was 10. I talked with an Australian girl who seemed really cool, but unfortunately had to run all of a sudden when a guy came up to her and told her that someone in their party had been injured. I talked on the chair lift with a Korean guy who was thrilled to get a chance to practice his English. I went as fast as I could go without losing control completely, and then went faster by accident many times. No worries though. By this time I was an expert in the art of the controlled fall-stop. Nothing to it, really. You just turn your feet and slide. Falling to a stop on purpose is even kind of fun. One time while hitting the snow, I did a 360 with my poles still in my hands. Then I pretended I did it on purpose. Fun!
That was my ski adventure. I learned a lot and it should be more fun next time. I learned to control my turning, how to be safe if things get dangerous, and that chairlifts aren’t quite as scary as they seem (although they’re still the scariest part of the whole experience—fuggin heights). Basically I learned everything except how to stop. But hey, who needs that!
I also feel, because I always look for a lesson in things, almost to the point of pathology, that it was a good experience because just when I felt like I absolutely had to quit, wanted to quit, couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there, suddenly it got a hundred times easier. Now I just need the same breakthrough when it comes to teaching kindergarten (and talking to girls!) and I’ll be a straight up assassin in no time. This week, the mountain. Next week? The world!
As always, I love you all,
Randy
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Japan might have been TOO awesome
Holy mackeral! The vacation is over, and it was a blast! Akihabara, Shinjuku, Harajuku, Shibuya, Odaiba, and the humble, but pleasing sights of little ol’ Satte. I bought a wind-up alpaca, ate a new years feast with Denton’s wonderful host family from when he was studying abroad, viewed downtown Japan from 55 storeys up, rode the world’s tallest ferris wheel, grooved to wicked bongos in a bar/restaurant that was as hippieish as Japan can get, had my balls thoroughly rocked by Avatar in 3-D, and got my ass whupped by the best smash bros. player I’ve ever met. And, really, I left out a bunch of stuff. I don’t even know how to go about remembering it all. There’s so much! It was wonderful and I’m so glad I got to go.
But I didn’t come here to talk about that!
I got overwhelmed last week trying to write a post about one day in Japan, so there’s no way I could ever manage to recount it all. If you want to the detailed scoop, drop me a line on skype or facebook or something.
Therefore, please enjoy this post about riding in planes.
Here we go on the taxi-go-round. A highly trained pilot is earning his keep by staying between the yellow lines. We’re moving at what seems like a lumbering pace, although looking closely, I can see it’s much faster than I can run. Airplanes taxiing resemble nothing so much as a half-beached whale in 3 feet of water. The plane is dying to fly, and when the pilot thrusts the throttle forward to let those jet engines suck down torrents of air, it’s a moment of release and excitement. It’s not long after that the plane is again ready to realize its purpose. The nose tilts up, the ground drifts away, and the whale is back in deep water. Kickin ass and taking names! Hoo-rah!
The most remarkable thing about flying is the speed of the ascent. One minute, you’re on the ground and the next, ZOOM! An incredible set of sights fills the window. You learn a lot about a region in about 8 seconds. The architecture, the plant-life, the locations of rivers and lakes nearby. By the time you are 300 meters off the ground, a world that once seemed so vast, that you braved so tortuously to get to the airport and into the plane—that overwhelming world is now just geography. I can’t watch the full transition. On every flight I take, I have to look away a few seconds into the ascent.
I can look out the window just fine once we get really high, and everything in the world looks very small. I can watch the shadow of the plane sliding over the tops of clouds and it gives me no discomfort. In fact, it’s very nice.
But that first moment of ascencsion, faster than I can tie my shoe, or drink a cup of water, that FIRST shock—it always goes straight to my stomach. I feel my stomach drop suddenly and I have to look away or my brain will start screaming.
Now, truth be told, I’m the kind of guy who likes a good brain screaming. Normally, nothing could be more comforting to me than a sudden violation of my expectations. For example!
You know when you’ve been drinking a can of soda? and you put it down for a while and forget how much is in there? Maybe you thought you finished it and were about to throw it away. Maybe you did finish it but you just forgot. Anyway, sooner or later, you pick it up expecting it to be a certain weight and then Hey! It’s a whole different weight! I love that.
It’s like when you’re going to sleep and you’re in that half-under phase where it’s kinda swimmy and you aren’t really conscious of your thoughts anymore but you’re not asleep either, and then suddenly you feel like you’re falling! So you—what do you do? You throw out your arms and legs as fast as you can to break your fall! But they don’t go anywhere. They just hit the bed and stop dead instantly with a whmm. I love that too. Totally cool and definitely worth waking back up for.
Actually, come to think of it, those kind of pale in comparison to watching the earth fall away at about 50 meters a second. Those are more like “brain coughs”. But! Let it be known that at the very least I’m the kind of guy who likes a good brain coughing.
Until next time! Eat your vegetables! Even if you can’t recognize what kind of vegetables they are!
But I didn’t come here to talk about that!
I got overwhelmed last week trying to write a post about one day in Japan, so there’s no way I could ever manage to recount it all. If you want to the detailed scoop, drop me a line on skype or facebook or something.
Therefore, please enjoy this post about riding in planes.
Here we go on the taxi-go-round. A highly trained pilot is earning his keep by staying between the yellow lines. We’re moving at what seems like a lumbering pace, although looking closely, I can see it’s much faster than I can run. Airplanes taxiing resemble nothing so much as a half-beached whale in 3 feet of water. The plane is dying to fly, and when the pilot thrusts the throttle forward to let those jet engines suck down torrents of air, it’s a moment of release and excitement. It’s not long after that the plane is again ready to realize its purpose. The nose tilts up, the ground drifts away, and the whale is back in deep water. Kickin ass and taking names! Hoo-rah!
The most remarkable thing about flying is the speed of the ascent. One minute, you’re on the ground and the next, ZOOM! An incredible set of sights fills the window. You learn a lot about a region in about 8 seconds. The architecture, the plant-life, the locations of rivers and lakes nearby. By the time you are 300 meters off the ground, a world that once seemed so vast, that you braved so tortuously to get to the airport and into the plane—that overwhelming world is now just geography. I can’t watch the full transition. On every flight I take, I have to look away a few seconds into the ascent.
I can look out the window just fine once we get really high, and everything in the world looks very small. I can watch the shadow of the plane sliding over the tops of clouds and it gives me no discomfort. In fact, it’s very nice.
But that first moment of ascencsion, faster than I can tie my shoe, or drink a cup of water, that FIRST shock—it always goes straight to my stomach. I feel my stomach drop suddenly and I have to look away or my brain will start screaming.
Now, truth be told, I’m the kind of guy who likes a good brain screaming. Normally, nothing could be more comforting to me than a sudden violation of my expectations. For example!
You know when you’ve been drinking a can of soda? and you put it down for a while and forget how much is in there? Maybe you thought you finished it and were about to throw it away. Maybe you did finish it but you just forgot. Anyway, sooner or later, you pick it up expecting it to be a certain weight and then Hey! It’s a whole different weight! I love that.
It’s like when you’re going to sleep and you’re in that half-under phase where it’s kinda swimmy and you aren’t really conscious of your thoughts anymore but you’re not asleep either, and then suddenly you feel like you’re falling! So you—what do you do? You throw out your arms and legs as fast as you can to break your fall! But they don’t go anywhere. They just hit the bed and stop dead instantly with a whmm. I love that too. Totally cool and definitely worth waking back up for.
Actually, come to think of it, those kind of pale in comparison to watching the earth fall away at about 50 meters a second. Those are more like “brain coughs”. But! Let it be known that at the very least I’m the kind of guy who likes a good brain coughing.
Until next time! Eat your vegetables! Even if you can’t recognize what kind of vegetables they are!
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