This morning I woke up and I knew that I was going to get ill. It was one of those tingles in the throat when it’s evident. But no worries, it was the very last morning, so I thanked my luck for being ill on zero of the days in my holiday, what a blessing. Swine flu, bring it on.

Our flight to Heathrow wasn’t until six a clock, so we had a good while morning to bounce around New York left. It was sunny as well, what a great set of weathers have we stumbled on. We generally had very little rain on this trip, only a couple of days when it was pissing down, and even then, it was entertaining.

First things first, our mission was to visit the Chinatown post office and get the very last package on its way to Finland. 26 packages total have we sent from this trip, most of them not on the smaller side if you see what I mean. The post office was an experience on its own. In there you really understand all the safety rituals, all the reasons to be alert of all times. This was like going to a prison to talk to an inmate. All the office workers were behind thick, bullet proof glass, with signs on them that said: Attacking a Postal Worker or robbing a post office is a crime punishable by 10-15 years in prison. There was a bullet proof glass cage which you put the package into, which the officer then opens only after you closed it from the other side. Later on the day we walked past another post office downtown. The security in that one was nothing like this. It really gives you a perspective on how dodgy the neighborhood where we were staying was. I didn’t see any guns, but I could feel them all around me, in the bags, under the counters.

After checking out and leaving our luggage to the hotel reception, we took bus number 15 to Battery Park again and went to visit the museum of American Indians. This was a huge, gorgeous Art Deco building which they seemed to have gained recently to the purpose of putting out this exhibit. However, it was one of the poorest experiences that I’ve seen, an excuse for a museum. It didn’t help that we stumbled onto a security guard, who was pretending to be a curator, who knew absolutely nothing about the pieces on show and then decided that he would interpret my husband’s shit which was Haida art moon that we bought from Vancouver: “See this, it’s a Killer Whale”, was the last straw. They had some costumes of the aboriginals on show (some inluded series of Moose teeth sewn on top!), which of course were interesting, but they had been placed out in the huge building by an eight year old… The museum seriously needs to pay a visit to the Asian Art Museum on San Francisco. As the aboriginals let us down, I felt no obligation or need to buy their tat, even though they had Haida art there as well.

We decided to take the metro back to the Chinatown to have lunch around there. We also tried to check out the museum of Chinese in New York, but it was –if possible- even a bigger disappointment than museum number one previously today. This one didn’t even have an entrance to it. There was a corridor, a sign, but no entrance. But not to worry, there was still plenty of post cards to write back home. I estimate that I have written around 200 post cards, at least 12 from each city (30 from some) and we were in around 12 cities on our way…

No more to do except to get a taxi to the airport. JFK terminal 8 was kind of a disappointment as well… Nothing more that I would have wanted to buy, series or burger kings and Kentucky fried chickens lurking. We spent our last hours abroad watching quality American television – the one thing that the Americans do well. I never had a huge urge to go to America, like some… And now as I’ve been there, I can say that yes, there is original culture there, hiding underneath it all… But I have no huge desire to be back soon… Back in San Francisco one day would be nice, maybe we’ll take the Transsiperian to Vladivostok like we always talked about.

Just when leaving, I stumbled onto the evil King Fu Panda Noodles shop… Forget everything I said about it being bland in here… Only in America…

Day 42/63

Aloha once more. This was our last day in the warmth. Now it’s North America and then home. We slept in late because we were in no hurry to see anything particular. Trip to the post office and some laundry was the range of the main missions for today. I posted off two packets of jerkey, one Kangaroo, one Crocodile. Also in the same pack is a tea plant seeds, which makes it highly unlikely to ever get through Finnish customs. But who knows, I live wildly and took the chance. The other packages contained a various of souvenirs and gifts for family as well as some of my summer clothes which sadly I feel I won’t really be needing in the October San Francisco.

We had Subway for lunch. I know what you are thinking: I am abroad, why should I have something like McDonald’s for lunch? However, having Subway in America constitutes as a local, cultural experience. It’s pretty much like back home, except you have more bread choices, you can choose a different cheese option and you have something called the ‘FEAST’ which has about EVEYTHING in it…

We then took a taxi to the Chinatown of Honolulu, which turned out to be a wide spread arrangement of shops and restaurants – pretty much what we can expect normally. Japanese playing cards and chess in the shades, a temple hanging around. We stumbled on a beauty barlor in which they gave Jonathan a hair cut. I had a pedicure while waiting. You know: Because I could! How many times are you in Hawaii anyways. I thought 14 euros for it was hardly a tough deal. And my toe nails have possibly never looked better.

We then tried our best to see the Maritime museum, but unfortunately it was closed for repair. At least we got to see the harbor with its luxury cruisers and the elderly passengers wondering around in dehydration, perhaps not seeing very much of Honolulu… Made me feel very good about taking this trip at the age of 28 and not 68. I must be one of the lucky ones.

For the last part of our day, we spent on the beach, me chasing the waves in the Waikiki shores and my husband reading a book, trying to escape from mad tourists stumbling on top of him while trying to take pictures of each other in the sunset. At least I can say that I’ve swam in the Pacific Ocean. I can see that the waves can be quite treacherous if you get in far… Fortunately, I am not a stupid Finn, I was out of the water before the sunset and ready to take some quality Granny Weapers (“Make your granny cry” is how my photography teacher describes a picture of the sunset).

Aloha Hawaii, welcome San Francisco. Now, if you’re going to San Francisco, I shall be sure to wear some flowers in my head.

This entry was written under the influence of one Maitai and one Long Island Ice Tea. No complaints considered.

Day 41/63

We got up early and checked the complimentary breakfast at our hotel the Aqua Aloha Surf and Spa. This consisted mainly of pan cakes, fruit and muffins. If I have not told you yet, the Hawaiian fruits are gorgeous and brilliantly fresh. I can’t eat raw anything in Finland, but in here it’s no problem, since they don’t have to use toxins for keeping them up until the get to Finland…

After breakfast we consulted our lobby consierge who booked us into a shuttle to Pearl Harbor. We were there about 9:30am, which meant we didn’t really have to queue very much for the USS Arizona tickets. The USS Arizona is the main sight in Pearl Harbor, consisting a 15 minute film about the events of 7^th of December 1941, trying to get the audience into the mood of about 1100 men who were killed on board. They carefully tell the story in a way, that the ‘Japanese had to attack’, because they had no choice. Where as of course there has been theories that perhaps the US knew they were coming, but did nothing so that they could later on justify their own cruelties against Japan. None of this has been proven of course.

In 1941, Japan bombed all eight battleships in Pearl Harbor bay, sinking many of them. USS Arizona was hit to its ammunition storage which blew up and made it sink so very fast that most men didn’t stand a chance. The memorial is a white capsule built on top of the underwater grave of these men, the ship itself, which they left in place. All the other battleships have been recovered/taken out of the harbor. You can see some of the bits of it from the impressive memorial, in which, you should only speak in whisper. I think this was much harder for the Americans than for us.

After the theatre and the boat trip to USS Arizona, we scampered into the USS Bowfin, a submarine that served in the WWII and managed to get through two missions to Japan sea without harm. I am scared of submarines, as I find under water excursions to be scary in general – I wouldn’t want to drown as my death. USS Bowfin is an impressive sight on its own, and we had good audio guides telling us what was going on. We saw the torpedo rooms, the four big engines and of course the quarters of the submarine men. They were luckier than most sea service men, because their life expectancy was so low that they got better food in general. Fresh fruit and vegetables were available as long as they lasted and they even had an ice cream machine. The ship had less beds than men, so when one would get off duty, he would go and wake someone up, take their bed and keep it warm.

When the submarines would sail to shore, they would hang up a flag of their conquests, which are all presented in the museum of the submarine. They had small Japanese flags calculating the ships they had sunk. Some flags have even German flags on them. The whole experience of Pearl Harbor is somewhat contradictive to me, not because my grand uncles fought on the other side, but just the feeling of late events in the world: What is a good reason to go to war? You want something so badly that it justifies killing of others…

We couldn’t visit the USS Missouri, the great big Battleship that is normally one of the main big attractions. It had been taken on dry land, I am assuming for service. Instead there was a real air-craft carrier on the Pearl Harbor bay. It had arrived three days ago. Pearl Harbor is still a major military base, which you can see of all the army men in the hotels partying on their leaves.

Later on, we went shopping in the neighborhood. I bought some tiki-tat and immediately sent it home. Not only was this a relatively cheap sending service, but they say it’ll get there in 5 days. This kind of post looks really effective in comparison to the Australian “maybe it’ll be there in three months -policy”. There is a ton of Twilight crap around and I am hoping to run into some quality TV series tat shop in San Francisco/New York.

Finally note to self: When you are deciding which size your drink/soda/shake should be, bear in mind that this is America. So ‘medium’ size means the size of my freaking head…

Day 19/63

We got up extra early to get the 7:22 Shinkansen to Nagoya. Our friend, Alex was waiting for us in the station. He is Jonathan’s friend from the Anime business and we visited him and his lovely Japanese family in Nagoya two years ago as well. First stop of the day was to post off 12 kg of souvenirs and shit that we had mastered together in the last week or so. This is still a Japanese holiday, so we were a bit worried about none of the posts being open. However, Alex knew that there was an ‘emergency’ counter open in the main post office and so we put together boxes of yukatas, rice bowls, trays, books, comics, t-shirts, totoros, whiskey and whale meat… Those are just examples on what it is that we wanted to export. Over the last three weeks we’ve sent around 25kg of stuff back home. And as expensive as you think it might be, it’s still a lot cheaper than the Finnish postal system.

Alex had chosen to take us to see Meijimura, a whole theme park of Meiji era buildings and railways & such, which is about an hour drive from Nagoya. The park turned out to be a great place. There is tens of buildings that have been brought from all over Japan and replanted around this area of a lake(?) and some mountains. Inside the buildings you can read about its history or get a guided tour. We only visited maybe 20% of the houses, because of the limited amount of time, but we did get to squeece in a post office, old hotel from the middle of Tokyo, a church, a couple of prisons, a kabuki theatre, a photographer’s house, a doctor’s house, a lighthouse, a ride in the bus, the tram and a steam train, and the judo hall. There might be some that I forgot, but this is clearly a place where you could spend more than one day. The architecture is beautiful and it wasn’t very crowded, either. A perfect place to spend a day.

My personal favorite of course was the judo hall, which had tons of tatamis and a lovely, old wooden floor. I did some hokei, but unfortunately couldn’t stay for a long time. The photographer’s house was also great: It had one of those triangle shaped roofs, except one side was a glass ceiling. This was because of there not being any electricity at the time and they needed studio lighting. I personally think that natural light is always better, so if I had a lot of money, that would be something my house would also have.

Alex has got three half-Scottish, half-Japanese children: Isla, Kainan and Sasha. My husband and I both agreed that having three Finnish or English kids with us through out a long day, walking around – it would have been a nightmare. But these three are specialy well behaved and caused no trouble and were actually excited about the history – which apart from sweets and ice cream, was the only thing that the park could offer. If we ever have kids, I am sending my husband to get lessons from Alex about raising children.

Later on, we met Reiko, Alex’s wife at their home in Nagoya and got the most amazing cultural experience of them showing us how to do taco-yaki for dinner. Taco in Japanese means ‘Octobus’. However, ours were filled with sausage, cheese and chikuwa (fish paste) rather than real tacos, but never mind. Tacoyaki itself is something that I could see Finns getting excited about. It cooks on a hot plate with little round bundles, on top of the table, so everyone can participate into the cooking and seeing it get done. The Yakis are little round bundles of something close to a pancake/okonomiyaki mix with the filling inside. Now we only have to find a pan like that in Finland, or export one in our luggage;)

Overall, it was a lovely Nagoya day and always a pleasure to see Alex and his wonderful family.

15th of September, I am catching up.

Day 11/63

It must have been the fastest ever I’ve gotten off a hotel room. I woke up at 9:28 only realising that our train from Hakodate to Sendai was to leave in one hour and 12 minutes. Before that I had planned to shower, go to the post office to send one package to Australia, one back home to Finland *and* have my breakfast. It seemed like a doomed possibility, since most of our stuff was around the room yet and no packing had commenced. However, I can be organized and the post office was just 40 metres away from our hotel, so we managed to be at Hakodate station with the luxury of 20 minutes to spare, buy our saru soba lunch for the train and get some Pocari Sweat as well.

The train from Hokkaido to Honshu goes underneath the sea in a tunnel so long that there is actually a station underneath. What one does underneath the sea, I wonder… Perhaps takes care of the tunnel? We changed the normal train to shinkansen at Hachinohe and were in Sendai for about five hours.  Our hotel in Sendai is the same as in Hakodate, the Chisun grand. There is even a Lawson near by.

Sendai is supposed to be the most beautiful area of Japan. We got the only room in our hotel that is both meant for two people and has internetto in it. Fastest connection so far btw, I caught up with my picture uploads as well as my television, kind of. Internet really means a safe haven now a days.

We went out for dinner to the local Teramachi, which means a shopping arcade (it’s called the ‘CLIS ROAD’ btw… Not exactly GLIS as my reasech group’s name but close enough). After some city ramble, we located a rolling sushi place, which I think my husband chose because he could pretty much take the night off translation business and we can just have whatever we want from the plates floating by. Everything was very cheap of course, around 100yen a plate (75cents), so my dinner was about 5 euros, even though on that amount of Sushi in Finland, you would have easily ended up paying 20euros. Easy.

We also checked out the tat shopping possibilities and came across a rather high quality tat shoppy which sold samurai things and wooden plates and stuff. Jonathan almost bought some more yukatas, japanese style bathrobes, which he has completely worn off since the last time he bought them in 1992. Finland is a land of saunas, so we are eventually wanting to get some to ourselves as well as our potential guests to our so far potential sauna that we hopefully someday have…

Sendai seems like a busy city. I still haven’t seen enough to make up my mind if it’s the most beautiful place in Japan or not.