Brian’s Japan Adventure

March 29th, 2008

This and That

First, I want to let you know that I found about 4 dozen photos in my camera from my final days in Japan.  I have uploaded them all to the gallery.  If you ever wanted to see Y-San, Yakiniku, Japanese versions of Italian Food, and my idea of paradise, check them out right away.

So what have I been up to this week?  Nothing dramatic.  Preparations for my next trip are mostly done, at least for this week. I’ve been listing some stuff on eBay every day.  I’m mostly listing old stuff that isn’t particularly valuable this week.  I’m just not really of a mindset to liquidate the good stuff at this time of year. Between springtime and tax time, I’m thinking I will wait as long as possible to get rid of the best stuff.

The weather has been alternating between cold and rainy to cold and sunny.  The cold part isn’t going away.  Florida sounds better every day.

Overall, not much to say. I’ll get back into this as the preparations for my next adventure begin.

March 25th 2008

An Update

I went to the Home University Pool this morning, as the Community College was closed for Spring Break. Afterwards, I went to China Cottage for lunch. That’s twice for Chinese compared to still only one burrito. That’s scary.

I’ve Been Working On The Eeee-Bay

I finally listed some stuff on eBay.  Half the workday was spent in learning new listing software.  I used to use a company called Marketworks to handle my eBay listings, but while I was gone, another company, Channeladvisor, bought them out.  In just a few short months, the system I used to love became crippled and unrecognizable. So I ended up subscribing to a tool offered by eBay itself, called Blackthorne Pro. It’s nowhere near as flexible a tool as what I was used to, but my business model is going to be different now.  I’m just selling stuff, not dealing with restocking or inventory levels.  I’ll get by.

I did actually get 35 items listed from scratch today, and now I know what I’m doing, which will speed things along tomorrow.  I’m mostly listing many of my lesser items; I hesitate to use the word “junk” but this is the slow time of year for eBay, and I don’t want to risk giving away something that I can get more for later.

Pizza Pizza

For dinner, I had Papa Murphy’s Pizza.  It’s one of those place you go in, tell them what kind of pizza you want, and they hand it to you- cold.  You then cook it at home in your own oven.  We usually have good luck with these.  They’re often better than delivery pizza, and always far better than frozen.  This was the first “real” pizza I’ve had since my return.  Mom asked me about Japanese pizza, and couldn’t believe it when I told her than what we would call a medium pizza was about $45 in Japan.  She wanted to know which ingredients were so expensive. I explained that it’s not the ingredients; it’s the oven. No one in Japan has an oven.  They have regular stoves to cook on, but there’s no oven underneath.  I assume it’s because of energy restrictions, but for all I know the houses simply aren’t wired for it.

Sleepin’ The Night Away

I do seem to finally be back to a somewhat normal sleeping schedule. I’ve done midnight to eight-ish for several days in a row. I guess it really was easier than the trip there, but it was still harder than I expected to re-adjust. It’s probably a good thing I’m not going to Japan again right away; I’d have to adjust all over again.

Vacation Update

I looked into various ways of getting to Florida. I check on renting a car here and driving there and back as well as flying down there and renting a car while there. Both were about the same cost, but would double my cost, more if I bought insurance.  I think I will just take my old car.  I think it’ll be fine, and if it’s not, then I’d rather be responsible for replacing my own car than a new rental car.

I ordered some new sunglasses from Zenni Optical.  This is the place with $7.95 eyeglasses.  I added UV Protection and tinting, so that doubled the price, but I still ended up with a pair of prescription sunglasses for under $20.  Yes, I had some trouble with the pair I bought from them and took to Japan, but I’d still recommend them obviously.

March 23rd, 2008

Sleep? Me?

Yes, I slept a full night sleep two nights in a row. Unless I make a big mistake tomorrow, I’m going to declare myself the victor in the battle against jet-lag. It took a full week, which was longer than planned, but still less than the other trip. Yay for sleep! Now that I am back on a regular schedule, I can start getting things organized and call my recovery period done. I was still so tired (even when I wasn’t actually sleepy) that I just wasn’t really doing anything.

Vacation Trip Preparations

As I discussed quite often last month, I said that I wanted to take a beach trip after returning from Japan. Well, I did return from Japan, and now it’s time for my next adventure. I had discussed Hawaii, and I did a lot of research on that while still in Japan. Yes, I could afford to do it, but it was still rather expensive even with student airfare. I couldn’t stay for more than a week. I really don’t much care for sightseeing, I just want to spend a lot of time at the beach; I don’t need Hawaii for that. So I started looking at Florida. It’s cooler in early April, and I have my doubts about the first place I am going; it might still be too cold there when I arrive. But I can drive there, pay for gas, and spend three whole weeks there for about the same cost as just the plane ticket to Hawaii. I am estimating my budget for the whole trip, including crazy gas prices, at right around $1000. I can do a lot more in three weeks than in one, especially if I don’t have to worry about being broke when I return.

No Job and Three-Week Vacation? How’s That Work?

One of the ways I have managed to do it cheaply is by staying at campgrounds. This is no hardship, since I like to camp and didn’t get the opportunity at all last summer. I have to admit I’ve never tried it for three weeks before. I’ve checked the April weather history for each place that I am going, and it shouldn’t be too hot or too cold at any of them for camping. I have a nice large tent and all the necessary supplies, so that’s no expense; over the next week I will be on the lookout for a good new tent though; mine requires a bit of time to set up. One thing I had not done before was reserve a campground space online; here in Ohio I usually just show up and they give me what they have. Florida uses www.ReserveAmerica.com for reservations, and it couldn’t be easier. It showed me which campsites were available on any particular day, and which places were completely booked up.

The problem came in that most of the places I wanted to go were booked up. My goal was to leave here on April 1st, but I quickly saw that that was going to be simply impossible. I ended up shifting everything for more than a week, and even then there were some problems. Try as I might, I never could find a good park available for the 19th and 20th, so I ended up paying for a hotel those two nights. That’s OK too, after a week outside I’ll probably be ready for some bed rest and an indoor shower by that point in the trip. I could say something very similar about the one night at Little Talbot Island; the park doesn’t sound that interesting, but it was the only place in the area that night; it’s not a destination, it’s filler. There was one park, Bahia-Honda, that sounded wonderful on their website; maybe too wonderful since they were booked up for the entire summer. I couldn’t get in there at all, but fortunately they are only a short drive from the John Pennekamp Coral Reef park that I am going to, so I see no reason I can’t make a day trip there at some point.

I bought some snorkeling equipment a couple of years ago for that year’s Virginia Beach vacation. I was disappointed to find Virginia Beach too murky to use those things. According to the websites, several of the places this year ar good for snorkeling, including both the Coral Reef park and Bahia-Honda that I just mentioned. That’ll be fun.

Where and When?

Here’s my schedule. This stuff is all reserved and paid for already, so it’s not likely to change. If I get bored, which is unlikely, I can always cancel my reservations at the last place or two if I want.

Sebastian Inlet State Park 4/12-4/16 (4 nights)
John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park 4/16-4/19 (3 nights)
A hotel in Miami Beach 4/19-4/21 (2 nights)
Gamble Rogers State Park 4/21-4/24 (3 nights)
Anastasia State Park 4/24-4/26 (2 nights)
Little Talbot Island 4/26-4//27 (1 night)
Wekiwa Springs Park 4/27-4/29 (2 nights)
St. Joseph Peninsula State Park 4/29-5/3 (4 nights)

Sebastian Inlet, first on the list, is up in northern Florida, and as I said, might be cool in early April. Pennekamp and Miami are in South Florida, and those will be plenty warm. The others work their way back north, but time will be passing and getting warmer all the while. I think it’ll be fine. I’d be more confident in the weather if I waited another month, but… I don’t want to wait another month.

The next dilemma is how do I get there? My car is running fine, but it’s twelve years old. Do I trust it? Yes. But I know nothing about repairs and if anything does happen, I could be stuck. I don’t want to have to buy a car when I get back. I don’t really expect a problem, but I usually consider everything that can go wrong.

The other option is to rent a car. I checked, and renting a car is about $440 in Florida, which means I’d have to get there first. I can get a flight for $231, which puts me at $670. Another option is to rent a car here, and drive the whole way. A rental from Dayton seems to be $660 for the same time period. I wonder why the difference? If I did that, I’d have to pay for gas, but mileage is unlimited. Another option is to rent the car in Florida and take a bus down and back, but I don’t much care for that idea. They also want an arm and a leg for insurance, and make it sound pretty nasty if I don’t get it. I dunno; I’ll call my car insurance place Monday and see what they say.

Living in Torment Right Now

And of course, Sunday is Easter. I went to my brother and sister-in-law’s house for the afternoon. The kids had seen me at a restaurant since I got back from Japan, so my being there wasn’t a surprised for them, but they sure were excited. They hadn’t gotten to play with me in close to seven months, and the uncle tormenting genes within them had been working to a full steam. I’m amazed that I can still hear. They’re great kids, but the first visit on a sugar-overload holiday might not have been great timing.

I gave them their Japan gifts, and they liked them. One of the gifts I gave was a little paper map with stickers of the flags of all the big countries. My niece pointed to one of them with green,, yellow, and red. I thought it was France, but she said it was Italy. Then she pointed to one with a little coat of arms on it and said it was Mexico. Yeah, OK. Then I gave her the next gift. I should be on the game show “Are You Smarter Than A First-Grader?” I would lose on the first round.

I bought them some nice stuff, but I also threw in some little stuff. Some of this was a bunch of little refrigerator magnets that came as freebies on Pepsi bottles in Japan. I figured we could look at the funny writing on the packages and talk about that; I never expected they’d like the magnets as toys. Nope; the nephew played with magnets and ignored most of the big stuff. It’s all about the toys with him.

But we fought with swords and they tackled me a dozen times, and generally I survived their toughest torments. The bruises and scars will eventually heal. It was a good day!

Hi Ho! Hi Ho! It’s Off To Work I go!

As I said in the beginning of this post, I am starting to feel normal again, so Monday sounds like a good day to hit the office and start getting organized there. I have tons and tons of old merchandise to sell off, and I’m not going to do that without a lot of work. I plan to look for a regular job after my trip to Florida, but I could probably live off eBay for a solid year just with the stuff I have in storage. Besides, I should be able to easily pay for the Florida trip in the time I have before I leave. I have a nice savings after Japan, but why use it if I don’t have to? Besides, I can use Florida as a mental “reward” for selling enough to pay for the trip. Silly, but I need all the motivation I can find to get back into that stuff. There’s a reason I wanted to go to Japan and get my degree; I am sick and bored of online selling.

March 21st, 2008

Taxes and Trips

If you hadn’t noticed, I have skipped a couple of days.  I’m still readjusting to the time zone change, although as of today, I have slept two nights in a row.  Only for a few hours, but at least it happened at the right time of day.

Friday was a good day, although not too hectic.  I started off the morning by getting my taxes done.  That took about an hour and a half. It should have been relatively simple, since I had slowly cut down my business as a graduate student and shut it down entirely in early summer.  There wasn’t nearly as much in the way of income or expenses as in previous years, so that end of things was simpler.

The Japan income, though, was more of an issue than I thought.  I really didn’t think they would want to tax it at all.  I had assumed that under a certain dollar amount, they just wouldn’t care. Especially since I have no W2 or other proof of what I was paid. I could have lied and said pretty much anything.  Still, I claimed the right amount, as much so I could learn the rules for the future as anything else. It turns out that you have to live in a foreign country for 330 days before the government will exclude foreign income.  As it was, my pay was taxed at the normal rate for American income. That sucks, but I had some losses held over from previous years that offset the income. Anyway, that ordeal is over, and it didn’t cost me very much all things considered.

Meet The Kids!

Then I went to meet my brother and the kids at Friendly’s restaurant. This was the first real chance I had to see and talk to my niece. The nephew was more interested in his Grandpa today than me, so the niece and I got re-acquainted.  She brough a library book with her and read part of it to me. Whoah!  I know I was reading in the first grade, but I remember a lot of “See Ann and Sam run” type stories.  This was a regular book with long sentences, realistic words, and a plot. Either they teach kids reading earlier or more efficiently than they used to or she’s just way smarter than I was at that age.  Anyway, lunch went well, and the kids were great.  I’ll see them again on Sunday when we go over for Easter.  I still have my “Japan Gifts” to give them as well.  I bet they’ve never had octopus jerky in their Easter baskets before. No, I’m NOT kidding. Heh heh.

Home A Week; Time To Move!

Not too long after getting home, I decided to work on my vacation trip plans.  I had looked at a few campgrounds the night before, and it looked like it was going to be hard to get a place to stay in early April, so I knew I could procrastinate much longer.  I had wanted to go around the first and come back a week or so later. No dice; everything was sold out, and the absolute earliest I could get in anywhere was April 12th.  Although I had planned all along to stay at more than one place, the scattershot schedule of the Florida campgrounds made finding a place to stay every night in sequence much more difficult that I had expected.  Instead of three or four widely scattered beaches, I ended up scheduling and reserving stays at EIGHT different locations.

That’s a lot of setting up and taking down the tent; maybe I’ll buy one of those quick “pop-up” style tents since my old one is wearing thin.  Yes, I’ll be camping the entire time except for one two-night stay in a Miami Beach Hotel in the middle. That’s OK; I like camping and it’ll be warm enough to be comfortable. I’ll be staying only in state campgrounds, and they all have detailed websites to show me details of the places with maps and photos.  Also, each place uses the same reservation system, so my entire trip is reserved in one place.

“Why camping?,” you might ask.  The obvious reason; price.  I have a budget of about $1000 for my trip, not counting food and stuff that I would end up buying at home anyway.  This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me, since I’ll probably never have this free of a schedule again, so even cheapskate me can scrape up $1000 for this.  I could have stayed in a hotel somewhere down there for a five or six days, or rented a house a little further north for a week.  By camping, I can visit eight different widely-separated places and do it over a period of twenty-three days.  That’s right, I’ll be a beach bum from April 12th through May 2nd.  Unless of course I get bored and decide to come home early, which I suppose is a possibility.  But the reservations are made, and everything is set except for getting down there. I am planning to drive my own car, but I guess I ought to look into renting one.  I’m betting that three weeks of a car rental is pretty expensive though.

And that was pretty much it for today. I’m all set and scheduled to start making more specific plans for my next “Adventure.”  Upon my return from Florida, the big “job search” will begin.

March 19th, 2008

Fuzzy, Blurry Day #6

Yeah, I know whining about non-sleep isn’t an exciting read, but it’s real and it’s part of the traveling experience, so here it is.  I could mention the weather, but it hasn’t changed; it’s rained non-stop since I got back to town.  The TV’s top news stories are about floods everywhere.

I got up at some in the morning. I don’t remember any more.  As far as I can tell, the whole jet-lag situation in the fall actually may have taken as much as two weeks to settle down.  I had assumed that was because I had nowhere to go after it got dark and had nothing to do but take naps and sleep.  I had assumed since there was plenty to do here in the States that I’d be back on schedule more quickly.  I guess it’s not going to be as easy as I expected. I am still going to avoid napping, but the way this just goes on and on is just ridiculous.

Anyway, I went through my mail today. Nothing but junk primarily. No bills or anything like that, but lots of stuff about domain names and a big stack of English Teacher magazines I subscribed to last spring.  I gathered together some paperwork for getting my taxes done.  This year is really simple I think.  I made only a little money in the first few months of the year, then nothing over the summer since classes were intensely busy.  In August I got paid for the exchange student program, and then I was off to Japan.  I don’t know if I’m supposed to pay taxes on the money from Japan. How would they even know how much I made there?  I guess that’s question number one for the accountant.

Then I did the pool again.  I guess I’m building up to where I was before my long break.  Before I left, I could easily tread water for two hours. I probably could go a lot longer than two hours, but that’s as long as the pool is open, so I never got a chance to go longer.  Monday I was lucky to do 10 minutes a couple of times.  I think I was up to about 45 minutes today, so I’m getting built up pretty quickly again.

Once I got home, I had a couple of miniature frozen pizzas.  They were not the best things going; I want a real pizza before too much longer.  Then it was back to bed around 8pm.  I woke up again about 3-1/2 hours later and was up the rest of the night. Sigh.