My first sand castle.

made without shovels or buckets. perhaps it is Okinawan style castle ruins?

Strange Things I've Seen While Driving to and from Work

Recently, I was driving to work through the middle of nowhere, and I saw a woman brushing her teeth. She was standing in a parking lot. I thought this was very strange. It made me think that I have seen some other interesting things while driving to and from work.

Occasionally I drive past a hardware store when I drive to work. If I time things right, I can drive past the store when the employees are doing their morning exercises in the parking lot. This group of macho-looking men stretches together in the parking lot every morning.

While driving home from work, I sometimes see elementary school children crossing the street. For some reason, Japanese children are taught that they should raise a hand while crossing the street. Perhaps to make themselves more visible? I always find it entertaining (and a bit strange) to see a line of kids crossing the street, all with hands raised.

Children are not the only ones with strange street-crossing habits. In my neighborhood, dogs cross the street at crosswalks. I don't know why they do this. Are Japanese dogs particularly smart? Did someone teach this behavior to all the stray dogs in the area?

Don't touch another person's hat.

and other interesting tidbits from lonely planet Mongolia:

Traveling in Mongolia is difficult for even a healthy adult.

Mongolian food is difficult to stomach no matter what your age.

Out in the countryside, potatoes are often considered exotic, leavened bread a treat, and spices a cause for concern.

The classic Mongolian dinner staple is referred to simply as "makh," or meat, which consists of boiled bones, fat, indiscernible organs, and the skull, all sent swimming in a plastic bucket.

Authentic Mongolian barbeque first involves pulling the innards out of the neck of a goat or marmot. The carcass is then stuffed full of scalding rocks and the neck cinched up with wire. The bloated animal is then thrown upon a fire (or blowtorched) to burn the fur off the outside while the meat is cooked from within.

It's worth knowing that the bubonic plague, or Black Death as it was known in medieval Europe, can be passed by handling marmot skins.

It is not easy to convince a Mongolian that you don't want to drink alcohol.

If camping, make sure that no drunks have seen you set up your camp- otherwise they will invariably visit you during the night.

Burn dried dung if you are being eaten alive by mosquitos.

No matter how many times you're offered hem, dinosaur bones and eggs are definitely not souvenirs (legal ones anyway).

Strangely, there are only about three intact toilet seats in the entire country.

Go to all airports at least two hours before departure on the assumption that you will have to struggle to get a seat on the flight, even if you have a ticket.

Injuries sustained from falling off a horse are common in the summer season.

Mongolians have over 300 words to describe the country's two million horses, mostly related to coloring.

In the countryside, some dogs are so damn lazy that you are unlikely to get a whimper if a hundred lame cats hobbled past; others may almost head-butt your vehicle and chase it for 2km or 3 km while drooling heavily.

How to Get a Chinese Visa

Or more accurately, How to Get a Double Entry Chinese Visa for Travel During the Beijing Olympics if you Live in Okinawa (and an Assortment of Other Lengthy Comments on Organizing My Trip to Mongolia).

Back in college, I decided I wanted to volunteer at a summer camp in Mongolia. I applied for a grant from the Office of Volunteer Services to pay for it. And my application was rejected. Why? Was my application essay not convincing enough? Did my fellow students have much more impressive and heart-warming volunteer proposals? Or did the folks at the Office of Volunteer Services know just how hard it would be for me to actually get to Mongolia? As I am headed there this summer, I am finding out just how hard it is to get there.

To the best of my knowledge, there are 4 ways to get there. Though Russia, China, South Korea, and Japan. Coming from Russia and China, you can fly or take a train. From anywhere else, you have to fly. Flights from Japan are infrequent and expensive. Any Japanese person who would even consider going to Mongolia would probably be going on a very expensive guided tour. I am not about to go on a very expensive guided tour. Flying from Okinawa to South Korea to Mongolia is not so cheap either. So I decided to save money and redeem frequent flyer miles.

Easier decided than done. There are only a handful of airlines that fly to Mongolia. Mongolia is a remote location. Similarly, there are only a handful of airlines that fly to Okinawa. Okinawa is also a remote location. So I spent much time on the internet (and calling airlines) to find out if there was a way to get from Japan to Ulaanbaatar while flying one airline group.

Yes! There was a way! I could fly Korean Air from Fukuoka! Korean Air is partners with Delta! I had a lot of miles with Delta! And according to the flight reward chart, I had enough miles for the flight. So I happily called Delta to redeem my miles for a free flight to Mongolia. BUT. There were blackout dates. For some reason, Korean Air wouldn't let me fly on certain dates in August. So I decided I could work around those dates. I asked for the earliest flight possible. And the Delta guy found one! And just as he was about to book my free flight, he realized that Korean Air considered the 2 legs of my flight to be 2 different flights. And I would have to pay double the number of miles... which I didn't have.

So then I decided to find the cheapest way to get to Mongolia. If I couldn't fly for free, then I'd fly partially for free. I was able to redeem miles for a free flight between Okinawa and Beijing! From Beijing, I decided I would take the Trans-Mongolian Railway to Ulaanbaatar. It would be interesting taking a 30 hour long train ride through the middle of nowhere. And so I looked into reserving train tickets.

After much researching, I decided that it was impossible to buy Trans-Mongolian tickets on the internet. And, after consulting with the Lonely Planet Tans-Siberian Railway guidebook, I still had no idea how to buy my tickets without actually going in person to Beijing or Ulaanbaatar first. And so I had to do something that I wasn't too happy about. I had to accept that I couldn't do it myself and that I had to use a travel agent.

So I contacted two travel agents- one in China and one in Mongolia. And I found out some troubling news: the Chinese government decided that during the Olympics, no one could make a reservation for an international train ticket more than 3 days in advance. It made me a little uncomfortable booking my ticket at the last minute, but what choice did I have? I looked into plane tickets, and flying was a lot more expensive than taking the train.

With my transportation to Mongolia and back to China still up in the air, it was time to apply for my Chinese visa. Unfortunately, China wouldn't let me apply for my visa through the mail. And as there isn't a Chinese Consulate on my island, I would have had to fly to mainland Japan during business hours to both drop off and pick up my passport. Not so easy (or cheap) to do! So once again, I had to turn to a travel agent for help.

The travel agent required the following documents in order to process my visa application: proof of residence from city hall, confirmation of a hotel reservation for each night I would be in China, a copy of my e-ticket for the flights between Japan and China, a copy of my e-ticket for my flights between China and Mongolia, the application form, a photo, and my passport. But wait! I didn't have a reservation for flights between China and Mongolia. I wanted to take the train!

Too bad. I would have to book plane tickets. Again, I went through a travel agent. And unfortunately, the travel agent with the lowest price was in Mongolia and wouldn't accept credit cards. Apparently the credit card system was broken. And so I had to send an international bank transfer. I went to the closest bank after work to ask about the transfer and was told I'd have to go to a bank in Nago. So I went to my bank in Nago. And someone there told me I'd have to go to a different branch of the bank in Nago. So finally I showed up at the correct branch, and I filled out the paperwork. And although I didn't have the branch name for the bank in Mongolia (I suspect there is only one branch of the bank, so there was no need to specify the branch name.), the money went through! After a week of waiting and the unfortunate added expense of sending the transfer.

The day after the Mongolian travel agency emailed me the itinerary for my e-ticket, I printed a copy and dropped it off with the travel agent. And then I worried about whether or not I would actually be able to get my visa. I had heard rumors that China stopped giving out multiple entry visas for this summer. Worry worry worry worry... And then 2 weeks (and a lot of yen later), I was able to pick up my visa! Finally! Soon I'll be on my way to Mongolia! Take that, Office of Volunteer Services!

Weekend Escape

I took advantage of the long weekend to meet up with a friend in Hiroshima. It was nice to get off my island. Nice to see someplace new. Nice to be someplace urban. Nice to visit with my friend.

We went to Miya Jima for the day. The deer on the island apparently eat paper. These are fighting over a piece of paper someone gave them. Yum!

Of course we visited the famous shrine.

Then we took a cable car up to the top of the mountain for the supposedly scenic view. But it was raining reasonably hard, and we could only see mist. There were some really cute monkeys at the top of the mountain. It seems that monkeys don't like rain, because these guys were all huddled together with unhappy looks on their faces. The hike down the mountain was quite wet and rainy.

The next day, we learned all about the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. And while we were taking a break on a bench, some random guy came over to talk to us. And a minute later, this other random guy came over, asking for help with his English homework. I was actually quite relieved when the second guy came over because the first one was a little bit creepy. While I was distracted with helping guy #2 with his English homework, creepy guy #1 started trying to take a picture of me with the camera on his cell phone.

Eventually we managed to get rid of both guys. And then I said to my friend, "See?? I told you random people try to take pictures of me!" Because the day before, I got the feeling that 2 ladies on the street car were trying to take a picture of me. This actually happens to me quite a lot. And whenever I tell people, they always think that I'm paranoid. But yes, people do take pictures of me. And yes, people do stare at me, ignoring other foreigners who might be around. This has happened to me in just about every Asian country I've visited. So while I was weirded out that a strange guy was taking a picture of me, I was also happy that I had a witness. I'm not paranoid! People really do watch me!