Traveling Japan, Kuester-style: Part 2

Food: This has been my favorite part so far. Essentially, when I'm with someone, I'll go to eat out because the variety and goodness of food is enough to justify it. Aside from that, I try to get the other 90% of my meals from the supermarket. Thankfully since I'm moving so much, I only get hungry maybe once or twice a day. Some of the standard options are bread with meat, chocolate cream, or maybe some sort of jam on it. Unfortunately, the Japanese haven't really bothered to learn the fine art of bread-making, so most is just square-shaped white bread. The snacks (read: chip-like salty things that crunch) are in far greater variety in the states, and very very good, though I haven't discovered any solid substitute for kettle chips or doritos yet. Other food things I've discovered are packets of curry that you heat in boiling water to put on rice and plain bowls of rice in a 3-pack. Combined together they are delicious and filling, though cold. The oter item I just discovered is end-of-day bento boxes. There's nothing wring with them, but they make for a filling meal at half-price to make room for new ones the next day. Definitely more to come on this topic!   

Traveling Japan, Kuester-style: Part 1

I gets dark here at 6pm (no daylight savings time) which gives me plenty of time to do nothing after it gets dark. I think I will use the blog to just post travel anecdotes from here on out and leave the big events, sights and itinerary to the hopefully-weekly emails.

Transportation: Because I have not yet validated my 3 weeks unlimited rail pass, I've been stuck paying for all the times I don't walk. So far he basic idea has been to camp outside of Tokyo for a day or two without moving around very far, and then swooping into Tokyo for the day to see things or visit someone before leaving that evening in a different direction. This way I can get to different places arranged in a hub-and-spoke pattern around Tokyo without having to pay for the expensive accomodation there. This might also work for a non-Kuester with a rail pass to avoid expensive hotels.

Winding down Europe

Well, I leave this continent in just two says for a place unlike any I've ever been before. It should be interesting.

Turns out there are about 600 pictures since I last posted, so look forward to those soon.

Right now I'm in Maastricht, and just finished lunch with someone I met on the train from Mainz to Mannheim a few weeks ago. Next, I'll be in liege for a few minutes to eat my first Belgian waffle in more than 5 years, and am suitably excited to do so.

Over the last 5 days or so Evan and I have been mostly touring aroung Germany, through Munich, Heidelberg, Wurzburg, Bamberg (for the legendary rauchbier), Leipzig, Dresden, and Berlin. Thankfully we found a great place just outside of Leipzig to pitch Evan's tent for a couple nights while we explored the area.

Today when I got off the train here in Maastricht a guys pointed out my UW dawg pack basketball shirt to his friend, which wasn't unusual at all since it's not their language. It was when I heard him say "Seattle" that I knew he'd really heard of it. Turns out he was an exchange student to Woodinville and went to the UW/Arizona basketball game last year. I told him I was there too, and it was all very exciting.

I'll let you all know when I post the pictures. Doesn't school start pretty soon? :)

-Jordan

Venice

I am in Venice!
I think that sums everything up pretty well. This morning we were in Bled, a small lake town in Slovenia with a monastery in the middle of the lake on a small island and a castle perched on a cliff overlooking the lake. Just wonderful.

For those who may be curious, in the 31 days I've been on this continent I've manages to spend about $200. At this rate, maybe I'll be able to travel the world without even taking time to earn more money. :) I even have all of my transportation already booked out for the next 2 months, so it's really just going to be the cost of food (sushi).

I ought to be able to post hundreds of pictures sometime between Wednesday and Friday when I am staying with friends in northwest Germany. There should be some good ones!

Back in Munich!

So why am I back in Munich again? It's a good hub and my little brother has never been here. We were in Budapest all day yesterday. I finally got some good pictures of parliament without scaffolding on it. Check out out some pictures of it on google images. Do you think there's any building in the world more epic?

The day before we saw Cesky Krumlov, a town in the Czech Republic built on not one, not two, but three bends in the river. Unfortunately, the beat perspective of it is from the air, and one can't see it's dramatic turns well even from the surrounding hills. After that we took the train to Plzen. I went on the tour of the Pilsner Urquell brewery while Evan visited Prague. The brewery is amazing. They can bottle 60,000 half-liters of beer every hour. The cellars under the brewery used to age the beer in cool surroundings are over 9km long. The best part is why the brewery was opened. Apparenty in 1938 30 kegs of beer from the town were emptied on the steps of the town hall because they were "unfit to drink". Two men founded the brewery a year later as a massive effort of the whole city to restore he reputation of Plzen beer!

Today we'll visit the Deutsches Musuem here in Munich, which is the greatest science and tech museum in the world, with 13km of exhibit halls. Tonight will be an overnight train to Bled in Slovenia in the morning, then to Venice for the afternoon, followed by a night train back to Munich tomorrow night. After that we'll just be around Germany until I fly to Japan from Frankfurt next Saturday. Hope all is well with everyone!

-Jordan

Ceske Budjowice

Well, all of about 30 seconds ago a very drunk guy was askjng me for 20 crowns so he could buy more beer. He could not believe an American would have no money. Tomorrow we are headed to possibly float the river by Ceaje Krumlov (google some images), possibly go to the Budweiser brewery for a tour, and then go to Prague in the evening before catching a late night overnight train to Budapest.

Over the last few days we have moved around a lot. We went from Carcassone to the Pont du Gard (Roman aqueduct), followed by Avignon and Monaco, a swing through Florence to visit friends from college, and today to Vienna to see te sights. It's a crazy amount of travel and I often have 2 or 3 conversations with people I don't know every day. Europe is a blast and I look forward togettjng to Slovenia in the next few days, the only country on this tour I've never been to.

All for now.

-Jordan

Carcassone

I just met up with evan in carcassone and now we will head out on the last train to Montpelier to try to see as much of the French riviera tomorrow, which is impossible on weekends good luck to us!? We'll be in Florence on Sunday evening I hope. Bye all!