狂ったブログ » 旅 (travel)

21 September, 2007

Jun-Dai — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 01:57:58 +0000

I think I can safely mark 21 September, 2007 as the longest day of my life. Between 21 September and our trip to Singapore on 19 September, we almost completely exhausted NWA’s on-board entertainment (4: The Rise of Silver Surfer, Oceans 13, I, Robot, The Good Girl, and a couple others).

Singapore (now with pictures)

Jun-Dai — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 16:36:08 +0000

Singapore was lovely. Sadly we only had some 28 hours to take the city in, but that was more than enough to know that we want to go back. We lodged (i.e., dropped off our stuff) in the Perak Hotel (formerly known as the Perak Lodge) in Little India, and we spent the day walking about the city. More later, but here’s our Flickr set: http://flickr.com/photos/jundai/sets/72157602169199319/.

Singapore

Jun-Dai — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 12:00:16 +0000

Once again our visas haven’t finished processing and once again our 90-day temporary permission to stay is expiring. As much as I enjoyed going to Seoul, I wasn’t looking forward to another 2-day trip out there—I’d much rather return to Seoul when I can spare a few weeks to really get to know the city. Fortunately, cheaper than tickets to Seoul were tickets to Singapore, and so tomorrow night we will be flying out there for a quick trip to renew our tourist visa. Unfortunately our departure time is late (6pm-ish) and our return time is early (6am-ish) and the flight is long (6 hours-ish), so what I thought was going to be a two-day trip is more like a 28-hour trip, and our hotel room will be more useful as a place for napping and keeping our stuff than for getting two good nights’ rests.

It has been 9 weeks since we resubmitted our visa application and they are still not finished processing it. I’m not sure whether this is a sign that it’s going well or that it’s going poorly. All I know is that I don’t want to take another expensive, last-minute trip out of the country to renew my visa (this time, at least, it is less stressful than last time).

日光 (Nikkō)

Jun-Dai — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 05:45:41 +0000

Last Tuesday we went to 日光. Photos are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jundai/sets/72157601628191939/.

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A strange thing occurred towards the end of our trip. In front of a shrines that was not open at the time, there was a dragonfly sitting on the handle of the ladle that was sticking out of the 手水舎. It seemed to be afraid of nothing, and didn’t react when I approached it or even waved my hand in front of it. It did fly away when a couple came washed their hands, but when they finished the dragonfly returned a scarcely a second after the handle had been let go.

As remarkable as this was to me, what made it really 不思議 was when I noticed that there was a dragonfly sitting in the exact center of each segment of a rope fence behind 手水舎, some seven in all. The sun was about to set, and the air was very calm though still warm and humid, and all of this created a very strange effect.

As we walked, I noticed that there were a lot more dragonflies that were sitting, dormant, atop various objects–rocks, posts, statues, and especially there was one on each segment of rope in every rope fence we passed. This made the shrine seem a little less special, but did leave me with a very curious feeling as we walked back into town.