The Mountains Are Calling And I Must Go

2017 July 09

It’s not often that anyone is given an opportunity for a voluntary and extended change of pace in their life. And I imagine it is even less often that anyone can create that opportunity for themself without assuming too much risk or burning bridges in the process. But I am fortunate enough at this point in my life to have almost nothing tying me down, and I have my brother to thank for teaching me the art of frugality (in moderation) and how to travel cheaply. Combine this with over a year of intense growth as a software developer to the point of near-burn out, whisk on high speed until fluffy, and bake in the oven for 10 to 12 minutes at 400°F or until the desire for adventure and change overwhelm the senses.

During this critical time in the oven, one of my best friends told me that he will be doing an internship in Beijing this summer, and that at some point he will have the opportunity to take a short break in Hong Kong to do some exploring. Then he jokingly told me I should take a vacation and join him. I just kind of sat there, the oven timer dinging deafeningly loud in my ears. Then I completely seriously told him I’ll be there. We made flight arrangements that next week.

While booking the flight, I realized that it didn’t make sense to just stay a short time overseas. Traveling to the other side of the globe and back was a pretty significant overhead for such a quick trip. Additionally, I had only taken three vacation days in over a year, and I was clearly needing some extended time off. What I needed was to meet up with my friend as part of a larger journey for myself. I would need at least a month, but two months might be too long for a first solo trip, so I decided on 48 days.

Hong Kong, Japan, and Thailand

There were a few factors that guided my decision to spend time in these places, aside from visiting my friend. First, I wanted to keep flight costs down. Since I was already going to be in Hong Kong, it would make sense to keep the rest of my trip local to SE Asia and Japan. Once there, flights within the region are very inexpensive. Second, I have always been fascinated by Japanese culture and especially in love with Japanese cuisine and architecture. I have also seen every Hayao Miyazaki movie multiple times, and I have had a romantic notion that I could explore some of Japan’s wilderness and cities that inspired scenes in his movies. I’m looking at you, Princess Mononoke. Third, I wanted to spend some time near the water and beaches because I’ve been denied those things living in the Midwest.

I also wanted to spend at least a week and a half in any one place to avoid feeling rushed. Burnout is burnout, and feeling rushed on an adventure defeats the purpose of being on one.

So here’s my itinerary:

Shanghai: July 18 - July 19
Hong Kong: July 19 - July 27
Japan (Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima, etc.): July 27 - August 20
Thailand (Phuket, Krabi Ao Nang): August 20 - August 31
Shanghai: August 31 - September 1

My Rule With Languages

Since I started traveling out of the country, I have set a rule for myself. For any country that I will be spending two or more weeks in, I must learn enough of the language to get around on my own without English. Now I know translation tools such as google translate have gotten incredibly advanced and can translate speech and text in real time, and I absolutely appreciate their usefulness in certain situations. But if I want to immerse myself in a culture and interact more intimately with people, it makes sense to me to develop as direct a connection as possible. Reducing my dependency on a real-time translation app will also help to conserve power on my phone and make it much easier to get around if my phone dies, and not needing to use a language reference every time I look at any foreign language text will save time and mental context switching and allow me to more fully enjoy the moment.

That being said, because I will be spending almost a month in Japan, I have begun teaching myself Japanese! Interestingly, just a couple of weeks ago Duolingo released a Japanese course, so I have spent about an hour every week day and two to three hours on Saturdays and Sundays picking up Japanese, beginning with the Hiragana (ひらがな) and Katakana (カタカナ) scripts and moving to Kanji (漢字). Kanji are adopted chinese characters heavily used in Japanese writing to represent most content words such as nouns, verb and adjective stems, and personal and place names. Kanji are also logographic, meaning each character represents a word or phrase on their own. This is in contrast to Hiragana and Katakana. Hiragana is used to represent verb and adjective endings, particles, and can be used in place of kanji where the kanji is either too difficult to process or understand. Katakana is used to represent transliterations of foreign words and names in addition to common animal and plant names. Both Hiragana and Katakana are syllabaries, meaning each character represents a syllable.

Japanese Progress

It is a difficult language to pick up, but it is both interesting and incredibly fun. At the moment, I have all the Hiragana syllables and their combinations with diacritics memorized and can write them pretty accurately (completely self-assessed). I also have some basic words down.

The following are the hiragana base characters, functional marks and diacritics:

And some basic words and phrases:

one: いち (pronounced i-chi)
two: に (pronounced ni)
yes: はい (pronounced hai)

good morning: おはよう (pronounced o-ha-yō)
goodbye: さようなら (pronounced sa-yō-nara)
nice to meet you: はじめまして (pronounced ha-ji-me-ma-shi-te)