Transcontinental Hijinks

When Chris and I booked this trip, there were two options about neck and neck for price. Fly to Saigon, with like an hour layover in Tokyo, and fly to Bangkok, with a nineteen hour layover in Tokyo. We took the Bangkok option, even though it means we'll be doubling back through Bangkok after we go to Vietnam (also, because at the time my south asia geography wasn't, like, great). We took it because of a simple, magical truth, one so fundamental it escapes many people for years.

They let you leave the airport.

So, for the low price of grinding sleep deprivation, we managed to add a day in Tokyo to our mad cap transcontinental adventure. We got on the plane in LAX at one in the morning, and got off it in Tokyo at five (which is actually a twelve hour flight, because of the magic of time zones). We checked our bags at a counter set up for that exact purpose (fun fact, baggage storage is priced by volume- the nice man measured our bags with a tailor's tape) and beelined for the clearly marked Tokyo

subway ticket booth (pro tip- look for signs with a picture of a train and an arrow). We figured the machine out pretty quickly, something which was not going to be a consistent truth throughout the day, and got on a train for the famed Harajuku district, home to youth culture and those intensely elaborate hair styles you see on the internet all the time.

Told you

It turns out that the Japanese do not, in fact, spend twenty four hours at post like NPCs. The district was completely abandoned because it was six in the morning, but still quite pleasant to wander through. Chris and I bided our time until Tokyo woke up, systematically exploring the street vending machines. Truth- they are everywhere. Fiction- they sell beer and underwear. Surprising fact- if you order a can of coffee or tomato soup from one, it'll heat the item up for you.

After exhausting the green tea and pocky reserves of the Harajuku district, we jumped back on the subway for...I wanna saw, Shibuya district? Look, there are a lot of districts. Anyway, it is a home of youth culture and political speech, according Dr. Montegomery Google. We didn't find so much culture, but again it was like noon on a Wednesday. Additionally, there were...complications with the subway. Pro tip- if you put in your ticket backwards, sometimes the machine stops working and two sharply clothed subway attendants will be forced to dismantle the turnstile in front of you and politely but curtly usher you through to the station. Soooo, there's that.

Also, I swear to god the english language version of the subway ticket menu drops some options. We never missed a train but had to have an attendant buy our tickets for us more than once.

Other things about Tokyo you know.

Super clean. At one point I came down an escalator to see a man holding a rag to the hand rail of the escalator (the rubber thing that moves with you, conveyor belt style) with a watch in the other hand. HE KNOWS HOW LONG IT TAKES TO MAKE A FULL REVOLUTION.

Polite. Chris and I are officially the Abbot and Costello of international relations, but everyone was very nice about it.

Punctual. The trains were, of course, always right on time.

English words are used completely at random.

At least, I'm assuming that's random.

Things you don't know about Tokyo.

It is cheap. The dollar buys 130 yen, and food was regularly like 400 yen. You can buy a little juice box of rice wine for 83 yen, and we saw apartments for 29,000 yen a month.

No goddamm food. ANYWHERE. There's meat on everything. At one point, desperate and starving, we dragged ourselves into a Denny's, which, it turns out, doesn't serve breakfast in Japan. I got what I thought was a cheese pizza only to find ham hidden UNDER THE CHEESE.

There is a shit load of cultural mashup in this town. People take language, style, and food influences from America, England, all of Asia and a bunch of other spots and make it something new. It's pretty cool.

 See? That's two different places right there.

As for that toilet- it was in a special bathroom at the airport that had like five signs on the door. I have no idea how to work any of those things.

 After a whirlwind day in the capitol (?) of Asia's most advanced nation (?) we hoped back aboard for another night on the plane, destined for Bangkok.

Unapologetic Cop Out

Hey, so I'm here sitting in my hostel in Bangkok putting together a blog post, and I realized that I have skipped over several weeks of thrilling, edge of your seat American Southwest action. I'm sorry readers, that's not fair to you and I won't let it happen again (I'm totally gonna let it happen again). You don't get any photos because I wiped this computer before getting on the plane, but here's a quick recap of the end of my tenure as a conservationist.

Death Valley

This was an interesting one. We were engaged to, as usual, kill tamarisk trees that ware choking the river that runs through death valley. So, first of all, there is a river in Death Valley, which was news to me, and second, it supports enough life that we were hired to get rid of some of it. There are even these schools of tiny fish running through the river, like hundreds of them. So the name may be slight hyperbole.

Because we were using herbicides, which needed to be rinsed out of our sprayers every day, out project partner (the person who hired us) insisted we couldn't camp in a designated wilderness area. Instead, we camped in a spot where two men had built and maintained a cabin in the old timey style, and had apparently been buried there (there were grave markers of unascertainable

veracity with their names next to a flag pole). It was, additionally, a popular spot for recreational shooters, to judge from the three inch layer of casings and bullets that coated the ground of the entire area, in addition to the bullet ridden propane tanks and bowling pins on the nearest ridge.

The popularity of this ad hoc shooting range was reaffirmed when we came back from work on a saturday to find a gun toting stranger standing in the middle of our camp, surrounded by our tents, firing down range. When we drove up he looked at us, finished his clip, and waved.

Also because this was an herbicide project, we were required to where fresh clothes and shower daily. The showering was okay- solar shower with a bucket, dump it over your head each night. But since no one owned eight sets of clothes, every other day we “washed” our duds by dumping Dr Bronners (it's biodegradable!) into a tub of water then putting all of our clothes in it, essentially just equally redistributing the filth amongst all of our clothes.

The strangest bit about the whole thing was definitely the balloons. We'd frequently come across deflated red balloons on the valley floor, so frequently that the project partner included picking them up as part of our scope of work. Once I actually watched one slowly lose altitude and touch down (it was a slow afternoon). Some of them would have pictures of people attached. I found out later that, for some reason, it is common practice to send a balloon up at the edge of death valley as a memorial for a loved one. So I was basically the guy that cleans up the wilted flowers and molding teddy bears from the graveyard.

Buenos Aires round dos.

I got two spend another two weeks working on one of my favorite projects- the Buenos Aires Wildlife Preserve. Located so close to the border that you can literally see the fence from work, Buenos Aires is compromised primarily of semi arid grass land and mesquite groves. The groves are what brought us there, first time and second- there are way too many, which means we get to spend the week cutting down mesquites, which is why I love this project. Mesquite are large and super hard, and covered in two inch spines that go right through leather gloves. In other words, awesome.

It was neat seeing the preserve in the spring instead of winter. The flora, being grass and mesquite, was pretty much identical, but the fauna started to return. We saw tons of coyotes and mice and red hawks, including the two that nested in a pine next to the shop and screeched at us for working near them. AlsoI learned you cannot tame a hawk with beef jerky.

Lake Meredith

So, people will tell you the texas panhandle is a dry, ugly, dust storm ridden desolate wasteland of derelict oil derricks and fire gutted walmarts. This is, of course, blatant lies and exaggeration. The walmarts there are lovely

rimshot

We spent a week here killing tamarisk trees that are choking out a waterway at the state park. The wind was bad enough that our tents had ~60% survival rate.

Colorado NM

This place is unbelievably goddam beautiful, and I never knew it even existed. It's, like, Zion crazy gorgeous. And it's all thanks to one particular lunatic a hundred years ago. John Otto loved this area so much he sent a series of increasingly aggressive letters to congress until the prez finally monumentized it. In the meantime, he free climbed the tallest spire, hung and americal flag over a canyon, and attempted to carve the preamble into a cliff face.

And of course, the work here was the dullest and least interesting possible. We spent our time spraying invasive grasses with herbicide. For ten hours a day. For eight days. Yay.

Prescott

Prescott national forest is...nothing special, to be honest. It's a lovely semi-forested grassland, with a large pinyon pine population. It is, however, the only project I got to spend in the back country- back country referring to an area we can't drive to. I got to hike my stuff in and help haul our food the few miles between the end of the road and our site on a power hauler, a motorized treaded vehicle that looks like a mad max wheel barrow. We spent the week building trail. The initial clearing was done by a bulldozer, and we came behind with hand tools to turn it into a pretty pretty trail for hiking, biking and horse riding.

Things I learned from doing intense manual labor for eight days in the back country

Dehydrated vegetarian food is basically just different kinds of pastes

It is possible for a tent and everything in it to smell indistinguishable from fart

You really do become accustomed to overpowering body odor in yourself and your peers

Pooping outside is invigorating, but not as restful as pooping in a bathroom.  

So, that's that for all that. Coming soon, Asia! To whet your appetite, here's a lil' teaser

I know my audience

Interlude againterlude

Hey, real update later. This update now.

https://www.gofundme.com/jf5o3g