New Year's Day: Japan Trip and More
Despite my really low energy level (I stayed home from a New Year's Eve dinner party last night--crackers and a book in bed was more my speed), the New Year gives me a big boot in the seat of the pants.
My ONE (only one, folks, I'm trying to learn not to over-commit) New Year's resolution is to finish the book that I see as a carry-it-everywhere companion to my blog. The title: The Assertive Cancer Patient Handbook: A Troublemaker’s Guide to Getting the Best Cancer Treatment Possible.
I plan to self-publish, and sell the book through my blog.
Other money-making ventures for 2008 include putting a "donate" button on the blog.
I've stayed away from advertising, for reasons I've discussed before. The short version is, I don't want ads for shlock and quacks and Web sites that I would avoid myself on MY blog. And that's what's out there in the so-called "cancer space." If I can't endorse it, I won't link to it.
We'll see how that goes. I average three to four hours a day blogging, and while I love it, I need to have a bit more income.
I've also got the design for the 2008 Boycott October button, and I've sent it off to Busy Beaver Button Co. to have them make me up a sample (Once I send them a check).
And I sent out the invites to the 2008 First Annual Cancer Bloggers Reunion. Forgot one or two people the first time around, but I think I've gotten everyone now, except for Gudrun, in Germany. Originally, I thought I was going to be able to pay people's airfare, but that was when I was thinking of a conference, with financial support from donors to pay speakers.
Now it's going to be more like a slumber party. Luckily my house has four bedrooms, including the Teenager Suite. Anyone want the top bunk? I think I'm going to get the boys to take the top bunk down when the event gets closer, so we have two single beds in that room.
Japan Trip, October 2008
Back to the Japan trip.
I have a section on my blog about the trip, for friends, armchair travelers, and anyone else who is interested.
Right now, the plan is to go for three weeks, in part to avoid the pink madness that is the month of October in this country. I have one friend in Japan who also has breast cancer, and she assures me that it hasn't yet reached Japan. A few races for the cure, I believe, but that's all.
I've spent a lot of time in Japan in the past, so the other reason for the trip is to spend time in places I enjoy.
I'm thinking that I will try to get an inexpensive "business hotel" (as opposed to "love hotels," which are for sex, or expensive name-brand hotels, which can run several hundred dollars a night). Business hotels are bare-bones, but clean and safe. Also private, which I want while recovering from jet lag.
I'm expecting to need afternoon naps, and you can't do that in a traditional Japanese inn, or ryokan. They roll up the beds during the day and expect their guests to go out and stay out all day.
So: I'm thinking one week in a business hotel, to get rested up and to putter around the Tokyo neighborhoods that I enjoy. These include: Tsukiji, where the fish market is; Ginza, for big department stores, my favorite bunbogu-ya (a stationary store, but it's so much more), and Japan's first Starbucks. I wrote a story about this Starbucks when it first opened; I'll try to find it online and link to it.
Bookstores. Kinokuniya. Maruzen. There is a new Maruzen near Tokyo station that I visited last time I was in Japan, but I need to dedicate a full day, or even two, to the bookstore.
I also want to see Kabuki, and the Kabuki theater is right there in Higashi Ginza, which is my old stomping grounds.
The second full week I'm there, I hope to stay with friends. Homes in Japan are small, so it's not so easy to ask to spend the night, but I have several friends who I can ask to stay with for a night or two. The focus for that week will be catching up with these old friends.
And the third week I plan to be in Western Japan, Kyoto (temples, gardens, turning maple leaves, food, funky traditional artifacts) and then further West to Hagi, a pottery town on the Japan Sea.
I've been to Hagi only once, almost exactly 20 years ago, with Older Son in tow. Older Son was only 3, but he behaved amazingly well, and no pottery was broken during our trip.
We watched potters at work and marveled at the traditional kilns, which look like a series of brick igloos going up a hillside. They are fired with wood. Or were. It was 20 years ago.
Hagi-yaki (the pottery) is my favorite of all Japanese pottery (although I also love celadon, but the Japanese don't do that as well as the Koreans did). Hagi-yaki has a glaze of pale grays and pinks. Just barely pink, a blush of pink next to the gray.
Traveling
I have two friends who are hoping to join me for part of the trip, which is great. I like to travel alone, but it's better for me to have a companion these days, especially for those long air flights (eight hours one way, 10 the other).
Amorette, the blogger, wants to go, as does my friend Laurie, a massage therapist, writer/editor, and artist.
Note to Amorette: Travel requirements to Japan for cancer patients:
Japan is stricter than some other countries about prescription drugs. You need a letter from your doctor stating the names of the drugs and doses, plus a brief description of your medical condition. Then you need paper copies of all prescriptions, and the drugs themselves need to be in the original containers.
I did all of this, and it was a pain, before my last trip to Japan and never had my bags opened. So it was all for naught, but if I hadn't followed the rules, for sure I would have been searched and interrogated. Not fun.
Only once have I been taken aside into the little room at the airport, and it was so long ago now that I can't even remember the reason.
Usually, I sail through customs and immigration, but we can expect a wait of an hour or more to go through customs once we land in Japan this time. That is so cruel to arriving foreigners! Tired, dirty, confused, wanting only a shower and a bed.
On my most recent trip, with Younger Son, the trip we call "The Military History Tour of Japan," since he picked the sites, we stood in that passport control line for 90 minutes. It was horrible, Meanwhile, the Japanese citizens waltzed right through.
I understand the U.S. does the same thing to arriving foreigners--I'll watch for that next time I come home from abroad.
@ Jeanne Sather 2008.
