Well we made it to Japan last night, and it’s a day later and I’m fucking wiped. I started uploading a bunch of photos to my account on Flickr since it has a much nicer package all around than when I shoehorn things into Wordpress. There’s an RSS feed there somewhere too that I’ll link to once I awake fully.
And I gotta say - it’s a nice and warm here. Take that Canada!
I was going to start by posting some pictures of the first part of my “vacation” in Niagara Falls but I can’t find them. So I’ll skip right to Sault Ste. Marie and Iron Bridge.
This is a shot of coming in by the airport in the Sault:
One of the places we checked out in the Sault was an old park near the locks and the steel mill. The first shot is off the steel mill. The second here is a railroad bridge that used to rotate to allow trains to cross over the locks, and then rotate back to let the ships through. It’s been unused for quite some time, and apparently even the Canadian portion of the locks has been busted for about a year. All the ships have been using the American locks instead:
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I missed pictures of this construction project though outside of the Sault - there’s a massive bypass being built north of the city so that highway 17 can skip the local traffic altogether.
Later on in Iron Bridge we took our boat and my uncle’s boat out on the river and checked some shit out. Look at this here nature!
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You can actually see a family of ducks here:
We then murdered and devoured them. Just kidding.
This next photo is “the island”. This place was great. A bunch of us (teenagers) would get our parents to drop us off upriver in canoes and we’d just kinda float and paddle until here, set up camp and sorta party. It of course never got out of hand since several hours later we had to paddle our asses out of there:
On our way to the island we sometimes stopped at this very sandbar. I wanted to write SOS in stones but lacked the energy:
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The next few are the Red Rock dam. We used to come out here as teenagers too to party. Once we locked ourselves out of the fucking car (in the winter) and none other than the great Roberto S. ran the several kilometers back to town to find the only locksmith:
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Also there’s a bunch of other local pictures I took that I have to track down. I think Chie moved a batch to her computer already, but if I find them I’ll post them.
Oh and of course the most important part of the trip - the goddamned dog!:
It occured to me, after getting a bunch of longing text messages from Derek, that I barely told anyone that I was going on a vacation. Chie, her parents and I went to Niagara Falls last week and Iron Bridge over this weekend and just arrived back tonight. I’ll probably post a bunch of pictures from the trip. Unless I get even more lazy than normal.
I’m off to Japan on Thursday morning for the weekend plus a day or two. I’ve got some stuff to bring the wife, and a bunch of her stuff to bring back - combine those factors with a ton of Aeroplan miles and I’m outta here. I’ll be back at work and all that on Tuesday.
I’m back in Toronto, and utterly exhausted. I’m going to eat and then sleep. Anyone who wants to give me a call tomorrow can reach me at 416-580-6009 (until I switch from Bell to Rogers :-)
Heading out now. Chie and I are going to Yokohama, where we’ll catch the Narita Express train to the airport. At which point I’ll be going back to Toronto. James, I hope you’re home when I get there - if not, no more foot massages for you! ;-)
Looks like I’m heading back to Toronto on October 16th, ticket is all booked and everything. I’m looking forward to seeing… everyone. By that time I’ll be a married man, so no more games of grab-ass for me.
E. Coli. Me and one of the guys I travelled with got violently sick from yesterday until today, with horrible emanations coming from both ends. I’m much better now, just relaxing and recovering.
Yesterday morning at work I started getting really, really sick and having to run to the bathroom a lot. All I had was one meeting in the afternoon and I was planning to go home after that. When it was finally time to leave, I was taking a taxi back to the apartment but then changed my mind and went straight to the hospital (which conveniently is next door to my place).
The doctor on call in the emergency room hooked me up with an IV to the usual saline since I was massively dehydrated. I took in 4 bags of the stuff (I’m guessing that’s measured in pints), and ended up just sleeping the whole time they pumped me up. All in all I was in the hospital bed for about three hours. It definitely sucked.
I am doing much, much better now.
I spent the night yesterday in Jakarta, we had an early morning meeting today and all the flights were booked. Hotel was nice, country was fucked.
And then I’ve got to stay in a hotel again on Wednesday night for a Thursday morning meeting. So just “touching base” and vouching for my being alive.
Once again I chickened out and didn’t take any pictures of Manila. So here’s one I found on the “Internet”:
The flight was strange; there was a medical emergency and we did a really fast drop and landing, but then Will and I expected the attendents to tell everyone to stay put. But they didn’t. Which might mean that someone died on the plane. Of course, no one mentioned anything about it.
Once we got off the plane strangely enough there was another security check with X-rays and everything even though we were leaving the plane, not boarding. I guess nobody trusts the Manila airport security.
Other than that I’m very excited to get back to Japan on Friday.