This winter I had planned to go to Indonesia. There was no real compelling urge to go there, simply everyone else was going to other places at inconvenient times. Thus I set up to go with Yamato to Indonesia.
We basically made no plans other than buy the tickets. With about a week before we were set to leave we looked things up, Indonesia is currently extremely dangerous. Most embassy's could not insure our safety and recommended all non essential travel be canceled.
I was still willing to go, but Yamato felt unsafe and since most embassy's recommended we avoid all tourist places, we decided sitting in our hotel room half the time would not be fun.
So with just 3 dyads to spare we canceled our trip to Indonesia, taking a 3 man hit, then booked 10 man en tickets to Australia. We wanted some place warm and Australia is in the southern Hemisphere, thus experiencing summer currently. We thought we'd go to Melbourne which is on the south East, and slowly make our way up the coast.
Little did we know that Australia is about the size of the European continent. This should have been a no brainer seeing as Australia is a continent in itself. But no we were stupid, it is not a simple drive to Sydney from Melbourne its a maybe 2-4 day drive, and since we only had 2 weeks it was not going to happen. We had to catch a train, even then it would be an 11 hour train ride.
Sadly arriving in Australia we were hit with a sobering reality, it was FREEZING cold. Australia is currently in Summer time as it is in the souther hemisphere but Melbourne is on the southern most end of the country thus close to Antartica. It was about 10-15 degrees and we only had summer clothes. We had very little options and no hotel reservations and thus landed up in a hostel. We thought the hostel was a little expensive at 27 dollar but did not mind since we were freezing and tired.
Another sad note, is Melbourne while perhaps a nice city to live in, is merely that, a nice city to live in. If you were to visit you would find very little in terms of tourist attractions. I would not recommend this place, and was happy to leave after 3 days.
Another problem soon arose when we realized just about everything in Australia was expensive. We would go into shops and find that a can of soda (A CAN!) was about 2 dollars, a bottle 4.50. Basically expect to pay 10 dollars for a candy bar and a large bottle of coke. Insane. Finding a meal for less than 10 dollars mean eating at fast food.
We were running out of money quick, but we were already out of things to do in Melbourne. It would be over 100 dollars if we bought ahead of time, but if you hoped to catch a stand-by ticket we would have to come in the morning. To save money we slept in the train station, so we could get said 11 hour train ticket to Sydney. This was like a form of torture because while we could theoretically sleep there, we could not lay down. Did I also mention is was FREEZING COLD. I had pants on and I had a thin sweater and a thin jacket, but it was about 40 degrees F. I was SOOOO cold, more cold than in my shitty apartment, and I was tired and VERY SICK. The day before I left Japan I had a fever of 100 but thought I would have to be DYING to cancel on this trip.
After 6 hours of non sleep in a train station with hobos in the freezing cold we got the 11 hour train to Sydney. I slept for a good 8 hours of it. It was Christmas day and we ate a TV dinner that cost 9 dollars. It tasted bad but it was food in my stomach, and we were on our way to somewhere that was not ice cold, thus in away I was happy, but I feared for the rest of the trip.
Once we hit Sydney, we were amazed to find that almost ALL hostels were booked. Everyone comes to Australia in the December and New Years was expected to be worse. Another horrible thing was Hostels were twice as expensive in Sydney. We had to pay 37 dollars to share a room with 6 other people, there was one bath room per floor. Sydney was as expected expensive, everyday we ate fast food except one day we went to woolworths (still exists in Australia) and bought a chicken for 11 dollars and cheese and some crackers. We ate on the steps of city hall, with only plastic forks, no plates as we had no place to go.
The parks were nice and abundant but we often had to walk miles everyday to find a new hostel in the morning. We still wanted to get out and drive along the coast, but we were finding that not only were hostels all booked, so were rental cars. We finally got a car for a week after hitting many car companies that told us EVERY car on their lot was rented out. We could now sleep in the car once we got it, but still needed to find a place to stay for two more nights. Hostels right before New years were the most tight, but we managed to find one hostel near the beach for 40 dollars a day, we were now desperate. It was far from the city and the swells were so big that we could not swim.
It amazed me to see how many people just went on work vacation and lived in these hostels, partying every night, having one night stands and "looking for jobs". These hostels were jam packed with them. Many were from Europe and I suppose were used to the sticker shock, some of them even said Australia was cheaper than their country.
For us we could only manage about 2 meals a day. And I remember one day were I had a box of crackers for lunch and dinner and breakfast the next day.
Once we got the car we thought we had a bit more slack one money but were a bit wrong, even after changing out MORE money we realized we had about 50 dollars a day to eat, pay for gas and entertain ourselves. From here on out Mcdonalds became our home away from home. When not sleeping in our car, we'd be going to the bath room at Mcdonalds, than indulging in their 30 cent ice cream cones. (The only cheap thing) Even at Mcdonalds a small OJ (which is smaller than an American size kid's drink) was 2 dollars. One day we ate at Mcdonalds 3 times. I was at the time reading Fast Food nation, and the irony struck both me and Yamato. I had a 2 hour rant on how Mcdonalds is bad for our nation whilst eating at Mcdonalds.
Sleeping in the car meant finding a place to park and sleep, we parked on streets, truck stops, and wherever we could. It was hot and sticky in the car and I often had a hard time sleeping. The heat and light of the sun often woke us up at 7 in the morning. Showers were now far between because beaches have on the whole gotten rid of their showers. After 3 days of no shower, I was ready to go almost anywhere. I never felt so good after finding a shower at a beach, it was freezing cold and I had to wear a bikini while I showered, yet afterwards I had never felt so clean. I showered at the beach and used shampoo and soaped my body and did not care what people thought.
When I first started living this hobo lifestyle I was ashamed to walk into establishments to simply use the toilet, and wash my face in their bathrooms, and brush my teeth in their sinks. But on the beach in front of hundreds of strangers I had no shame in my cold beach shower.
We lived for a week in that car, driving to various beaches and national parks. We took 3 beach showers in that time, and ate at Mcdonalds more times than I care to remember.
One of my biggest fears in life was becoming a hobo. But for 2 weeks I basically had very little money and often times no place to sleep other than a car, and no where to shower but the beach. In those days, it was almost an adventure, and like all adventures it was a mix of fun, danger and most of all uncertainty. Still it taught me so much about myself and why I wanted to come to Japan in the first place.
I always lived comfortably, even though I was not a greedy child, nor one that was materialistic, I always had the means to buy what I needed and wanted. My family has the money to fly first class, stay in 4 star hotels, but I always felt I did not deserve such a lifestyle. I want to work for my money, and don't feel I deserve such treatment while other people get the short end of the stick. Though I did not go shopping for LV hand bags, I could not imagine myself sleeping in a car. In fact I joked with my best friend in High School that I rather die than become a hobo, but in reality it is not so bad.
This experience was very enriching and maybe I'll do it again, but for the most part I do not want to live in a car, showering at the beach.
As a note between all this hobo living I did actually manage to do a lot of tourist things. I got to see beautiful waterfalls, go on hikes, walk many new beaches, touch Koalas and Wallabies, compress a sheep and do lot's a neat things that were in fact fun. Granted I made a lot of this sound horrible, but in all it was a great holiday but not a great vacation.
I will never forgot how a Koala feels, nor will I forget the feel of not showering for 3 days and how refreshed and happy I felt finally showering in cold water at the beach. But most important for me was the self discovery I managed while doing these things.
At home I can always distract myself with internet, TV, books, music, and all the things around me. But when you have very little to do except sit in a park or have a discussion with the people around you, you really can reflect on what kind of person you are.
It may seem odd for a girl who moved to Japan to say she hates change but I do. While I do not mind change to my environment as I feel it is inevitable and something I cannot control or stop, I loathe changing myself. In fact I often welcome external change because I feel it can be the catalyst for improving myself, another reason why I came to Japan.
But simply changing the outside does not necessarily mean that change on the inside will surely follow. I have to activly reassess myself and my flaws and work hard towards correcting them.
I always have thought highly of myself, even though I know its bad. I knew I needed to change this aspect of myself for as long as I can remember but I often had difficulty mustering the will to do so.
I have high morals and opinions, and believe the world needs to become more fair. But I often do not live up to my own expectations. I want to help change things around me, and I often criticize others for being apathetic to the outside world, and I criticize others for not being more informed about the events surrounding our lives. While I criticize from this supposed moral high ground, I myself doing little to change the world around me, and while I feel I am generally informed I do not take in the suggestions or thoughts of others, but fully expect them to take my opinions into consideration.
Most important is what I realized about discussions. I do not do discussions, I do arguments. I do not want some softball "gathering" of idea's I want to spike my opinion's in to your face and get you to say uncle. I feel it brings out the best in me. It forces me to think on my feet and pool my information resources. But while I feel these arguments pull out the best in me, it also pulls out the worst.
I feel I am not that competitive. If I were to play basketball, volleyball or some board game and I were to lose I would not feel so bad. In fact I may not put much effort into the game at all. For me there is no reason to be competitive in those situations, they are things I am not good at and even putting in effort I am in no way guaranteed a win, so I feel killing myself and getting angry is just pointless.
But, when it comes to arguments I cannot simply roll over and die. I will fight bitter tooth and nail, and not give up. This stubbornness is horrible as arguments are about two people have differing opinions and each wishing to change the others minds using rational reasoning, facts and evidence. But when both people are so stubborn and fully believing they are right, they will not listen to reason, evidence or even to what the other is saying. I am not the only one who does this and thus felt justified in doing so, but when both people refuse to budge, no one moves forward.
Also when these things happen, and I feel the person is not budging no matter how much I push I cannot help but get angry. I also need to control my anger, whenever I am irritated tiny things push me over the edge, and no where is this more true than in the car. Yet, I need to drive so much, I cannot just spend all my time in this state of irritation. It is irrational and I hate that perhaps most of all.
Still calming myself down will not be easy. I in a way believe old dogs cannot learn new tricks, and even if they do it takes them a hell of a long time. But if I don't start now I wonder if I will ever change. Still trying to stop the rush of adrenaline and hormones that accompany anger may be a losing proposition, I suppose I'll just have to come up with ways to deal with them.
This year I really want to improve myself, not just superficially, like learning to play the guitar or learning more Kanji but trying to become a better person. The type of person I feel I could always become but always felt that it would be too much work to do so.
Once again, returning from a trip abroad all I can say is I love Japan, and I love Fukuoka.
So before signing off I'd like to thank Yamato for bringing me to a lot of these conclusions. When you think about things yourself without someone around you, it is easy to reason away your flaws, or perhaps when you have no one to compare yourself to you can delude yourself to believe that it is normal and ok. But when another person is there pointing them out, it is hard to ignore. Hope you didn't go too crazy spending so much time with me for two doom weeks.
Well there goes another long rambly post, if your still with me, I hope you too can have a wonderful new year. It's my last in Japan, and I hope to make the best of it.
