Our 1981-82 Honeymoon in Southeast Asia

Our plan was to travel for two years, starting with Asia.  We left, true to D’s usual, and by this point obligatory, timing , what was before his birthday on October 21 st .  We had ‘open jaw’ tickets with multiple stops.  First stop: Japan.  Although the ticket said ‘Tokyo,’ the airport is closer to a small town, Narita, and being small town types ourselves (Balfour in the Kootenays and Salt Spring Island in the Strait of Georgia, a ferry ride away from a mall or recreation centre), we chose to stay there, at least for the first few days.  As this was long before the internet world of sites like booking.com, I cannot recall exactly how it was we found a place to stay with a family in their private home.  What we’d call a ‘home stay’ now.  Perhaps we found it in the Lonely Planet, or Asia on a Shoestring or The Backbacker’s Guide to the World (I just made that one up). In the entryway to the house, a small vestibule f...

from my journal Little old women walking pigeon-toed In dark kimonos and haori coats Mumbling to themselves.   Strolling along the narrow streets Crowded with colourful shops Purple and orange pickles spilling out into the traffic Deisel buses roaring past Motor-scooters, toy trucks and cars, bicycles. Two men gutting eels by the side of the road Next a sweet shop with neatly arranged packages Of pastel candies.   from my journal Coffee shops, restaurants, all with wonderful plastic models Of the ‘specialities’ they offer. Tomatoed spaghetti cascades from a spoon, Magically suspended in mid-air – the wonders of plastic (I feel sure it’s all real food, sprayed with some clear preservative…).   Roadside temples adorned with flowers, A cup of tea, some rice… Or a new building, carefully constructed  Around some little family shrine or grave-markers.   Hordes of people – everywhere School children, in navy uniforms at all times of day Crowding onto buses, trooping t...

One of our main objectives in Kyoto was to go back to a place D had been to on previous trips to buy used kimonos.     He and his ex had bought them there, had shipped them back to BC, and then sold them at music festivals and fairs throughout the province, but mostly in and around the Kootenays.     D had no trouble finding the place, up a narrow staircase and into a large room filled with colourful kimonos.     At that time the Japanese were not interested in old or used things, and would sell them, or just discard them, once they were no longer using them.      Although there were some cotton kimonos at the ‘shop’ (really just like a big living room, we were really only interested in silk kimonos.  And we mostly in search of older kimonos, the ones that had not been mass produced.  The lovely hand painted kimonos with dragons and cranes.  The kimonos with intricate ikat designs.  Kimonos embroidered ...

What better place to write my final impressions of Japan than here, sitting in one of the very few seats provided in the Osaka airport with a tv blaring nonsense right beside me?     Having driven for almost an hour through a sea of industrial crap – Japan’s ‘countryside.’     Every inch of the landscape seems to have been claimed by industry, and the air is thick with smog and diesel fumes.    From this standpoint, it will be a relief to leave. It will also be a relief to leave behind the expense – of food, accommodation, and transport.    There are also a number of things about Japanese culture that I find disconcerting – some almost frightening, especially if I consider that this may be the direction in which all of us are heading.  These are the main things that I find somewhat off-putting:           Their obsession with ‘face’ and appearance.  Women, men and children clearly pay a lot of attention ...

Taiwan - we are immediately overwhelmed by the terrible crush, clutter and clatter of humanity.  Taipei – noisy, gaudy, shabby, hot, polluted and stinky.  The nose-assaulting stench of diesel fumes and stale urine.  After sterile neatness, cleanliness and modernity of Japan, Taiwan – or at least Taipei – feels positively Third World.  Great gaping holes in the pavement; endless and apparently ancient construction zones; dilapidated buses and rusty old vehicles; and garbage everywhere.  Bleak concrete block and rebar buildings, mostly half-finished, or finished and already decaying, falling apart at the seams.   A pervasive, depressing, greyness and dirtiness. In the streets, thousands upon thousands of motor-scooters, belching noxious blue fumes, zig-zagging in and out through the melee of trucks and cars, overwhelming the sidewalks, where they are also parked, making being a pedestrian a daunting and dangerous activity.  ...

Hong Kong, the New York of Asia – big, busy and bossy.     People of all colours, from all over the world, most of them there to make a dollar – many dollars, in the free-wheeling financial centre within spitting distance of communist China.    Hong Kong was no longer the bastion of the British Empire, although we saw and heard many horse-faced British women and their homely daughters, trying to keep up the show, and obviously losing.  “That’s lovely dear; how nice!”  And too many overweight Australians with loud boomerang voices: “That’s it mate, over here!”  But these pathetic and/or obnoxious white folk, although likely at the top of the economic ladder, were outnumbered by the multitude of Chinese and East Indian government officials, merchants, trades people, workers, sailors and street people.  While there didn’t seem to be any overt racism, the many signs in many places said it all: “Beware of pickpockets.” “No spitting....