Madrid day 3 I noticed a flyer next to the elevators at the hotel very specifically prohibiting pranking. No other house rules. Just no pranking. Partaking in such tomfoolery would lead to immediate expulsion from you rented room. I walked through Park de El Ritero once again, which was nicely cool in the morning. I visited a peacock garden there. Next I passed a series of bookshops near the Botanical garden, kind of like those…
Madrid day 2 At the breakfast room, a muzak-like cover of “What is Love” was playing, simultaneously the muted TV in the room was showing a long montage of scenes depicting violence as part of the news. The speakers went “…don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me no more” together with the unsolicited acts of violence in the most bizarre vaporwave-ish collage of nineties-centered nihilism hitherto conceived. I walked to metro station, but the entrance was…
Madrid day 1 Got here on a whim, late yesterday to be exact. The hotel was actually student/visitor housing during other parts of the year. Breakfast meager, but the coffee good. Started walking. The interwebs said wearing face masks was no longer mandatory as of late June. However, 86.3-ish percent of people did wear facial masks outside, so I just went with the majority vote. First thing on the agenda was the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum. For…
“How are you doing?”, I asked the receptionist at “Macdonald Hotel”. Bemused at first, he eventually answered “I’m good”. Apparently, my American manners were just that, and this was London. I dragged my suitcase up the narrow and worn stairway, to get to my room, which was reasonably priced, in part because of this being the third of January. It was already time to go to bed. Day 2 Portobello Market, dealing mostly in antiquities,…
Japan day 17 I paid the “Tokyo Photography museum” a visit, which had a decent collection of old and new photos by some of the big names. There was also a large special exhibition on birds, which I found somewhat less interesting as that’s not really my thing. Next I visited a nearby cat café, with over a dozen cats lounging about in a quite small room. they were pretty cute, though only one of…
Japan day 16 Slept remarkably well in my cabin, but got up at half past two in the night to start hiking up Mount Fuji. It was pitch black except for city lights far below thinly veiled by clouds and the stars above. Soon some lights far up the mountain came into view, which apparently were stations/huts. There you could take shelter in inclement weather, stay for the night and/or stack up on snacks and…
Japan day 15 The low/midrange hotel that I stayed at served breakfast at the tenth floor, which meant a nice view if the comparatively low-rise Matsumoto and all if the surrounding mountains. Amongst others there was natto for breakfast, which is fermented soybeans, and I guess very much an acquired taste. Somewhat like tempeh, but with the bitterness turned up to eleven. There was also something like the takoyaki balls but sweet and with pieces…
Japan day 14 Slept badly in the communal sleeping room, though that hasn’t really been a major problem for me before. Got probably four hours before I got up to watch a magnificent sunrise from the mountain ridge. In the far distant i saw a completely triangular shape but with the tip removed . It looked like a cardboard cutout, but a female hiker confirmed that it was in fact Mount Fuji. Right after that,…
Japan day 13 Half past five I set off with little faith in getting where I wanted, which in general is on top of things, this time literally. In particular on top of Yarigatake a.k.a. Mount yari. I had caught a cold and wasn’t feeling that well. Also, thunderstorms were predicted from before noon. I could always turn around, though. It started off with a winding gravel/forest road, which later turned into a quite jumbled…
Japan day 12 The majority of the day was spent in various forms of public transport. It hadn’t been that easy to figure out as Google Maps were missing important busses and various operators driving in the remote Northern Japanese Alps, where I was heading. It mostly worked out, but when I finally made it to somewhere in the midst of the Alps with only a few buildings around, and the bus had already left.…