Next stop: Salt Lake City, Utah!
Our work here is done!
Our first part of summer holidays – namely working – are over. Newark is where a plane is taking us west…
Settled in
Finally getting settled in our apartment in Brooklyn, provided by AirBnB. Situated in the residential area of Prospect heights, we are accommodated over two floors.
Included with the apartment are a big collection of jazz, reggae and classical vinyl, 4 meter high ceilings and even has a backyard. In short – the most perfect start of our vacation possible.
Day 1: Orienting the map
Salt Lake City
We went, as planned, to Salt Lake City. But from there to where? We had an idea that we were to go North, deviating from the google-suggested short route of 766 miles going through Nevada.
It took some explaining at the local tourist office in Salt Lake City to have them get them understand the idea of making the trip longer and less convenient, but we soon had three guides at our disposal, all discussing what the best trip for us might be …not that the tourist office in Salt Lake was packed with people, but it seemed the idea of having a couple going on a trip completely without an itinerary surely resonated with the offices guides and their memories from their youth. So there were stories.
Rerouting
It didn’t take long before we understood that the 7 days we had rented the car for would not suffice, or at least be a big stretch.
Never the less, we set out for Jackson Hole, WY. In our ears sounding like just the place we wouldn’t go (gunfights in the streets, saddles as bar-stools), but it seemed only logical we should go just there. But hey – when in Disneyland…
Take the A-train
Taking the train to Koya-san on a normal commuter train. Being a two hour train ride, and being accustomed to having a seat while going thus far, I first wondered if it could be the right train; besides benches along the wall, there were only four normal seats, reserved for priority passengers in each carriage.
Looking like a typical subway car, it was first when I memorized the japanese railway attendants’ extreme ways of loading the train that I understood this was just that right type of car. Luckily, our train left well before working hours was out, and we soon found seats.
Need cash?
It is a well known fact that most of Japan’s cafe’s and small restaurants only accept cash as form of payment. But no matter how much cash you are comfortable with stocking up in the airport, you are eventually going to run dry. So – where do you go to get more cash on your hands? If your first response was “ATM!”, and your second is “Bank!”, you are most likely to be both disappointed and confused.
Running out
Having run out of cash, and with Kari and myself in desperate need for a lunch break and coffee to increase her blood sugar level (she slowly descends into a Murakami-like stasis when the ‘out of sugar’ lights start fading away), we were both very happy when Kari finally spotted a familiar three-letter sign: “ATM”
A whole hall of robot-like ATMs, the common explicitly marked queue-line arrows with their sibling queue-poles greeted us. Luckily, there were none in line.
Cute denial
I randomly selected a machine. Two cute animated characters greeted me cutely (everything in this country is cute, and do whatever they do in a incredibly cute way). I entered the required data, and the machine slurped in my card into its midst.
It didn’t like it at all. It started making repeated chewing sounds, seemingly wondering what kind of weird, foreign, toxic-tasting plastic it had been presented. After a while of rumocking, the couple smiled at me, and an on-screen notice appeared:
“Your transaction is complete.”
In a strange combination of cuteness, respect and denial, the couple now bowed at me accompanied by a discontent alarm-beep, giving me my card back along with a printed receipt.
“Your card has expired or is invalid. See printed receipt for more info.”
We tried all our cards, double checking pin-codes and expiry dates, but neither VISA, nor MasterCard or Eurocard made the couple change their cute&denial routine.
Another world
If the world takes VISA, Japan is of another world (and I wouldn’t digress). Luckily our SoftBank SIMcard and Google told us why. Turns out the only places you can be sure to withdraw cash is from the Japanese Post Office and nearly all 7/11’s.
Yes! A place for my umbrella!
I always struggle to find a place for my umbrella. In the shop, fetching money from my wallet at the counter; I poke someone with it, leaving it on the floor by my chair in the café the waiter trips over it, and when I manage to tuck it away out of sight under my seat or in a corner somewhere, I end up forget about it and leave it behind. Hence; I never buy a expensive, good umbrella that actually serves it purpose – and shelters me from the rain. I buy crappy ones, small enough to fit into my handbag and so cheap I can afford the loss, and these shitty things collapse on me and turn inside out if there is any wind at all. But here it’s different.
Of course no one causes hazard poking about with an umbrella indoors. It has it’s place in a rack or container at the entrance of any shop, restaurant or other sort of facility. At the entrance of the public bath house (onsen) we visited, the umbrella rack was of the more advanced than it usually is; fitted with lock and key mechanism, one for each umbrella.
