Today,  the final results of the presidential vote were officially declared and  then some celebration ensued. This is Piedra Blanca, a small town of maybe a few thousand people. But there was enough noise to make it hard for us to continue our office meeting. So I took the opportunity to duck out onto the office balcony and take some pictures.

This afternoon, I'll be heading for the border region near Haiti. This is about a 6 hour drive and I'll be there for a few days. No internet, no blogging sorry. The border area, which I think I've talked about in the past, is pretty interesting. There's this blending and clashing of cultures and economies and beliefs that make it pretty complicated and fascinating. Sort of a wild west scenario in someways. Would make an amazing Ph.D thesis for somebody. Anyone?

Today, my arrival, just happened  to be presidential election day. An apparently peaceful and orderly event. However, this evening everyone seems to be staying off the streets, I guess in case  something does happen. 

So I pulled the old stay-up-really-late-the-night-before-an-early-morning-trip stunt. This I actually think is a good strategy, because then on the travel day you're so tired you keep falling asleep all  through the flights and layovers, so the day doesn't seem nearly as long. The obvious drawback is that if you need to be alert for any reason during the course of the journey, well, you're kind of out of luck.  

I've got all these little plants on my balcony which now are going to go unattended for a bit. I hope they make it. 

I'm in a really good  mood tonight, and I don't even know exactly why. Maybe it's because I got to go canoeing with my Dad this  evening, which was really great, and we got to see a whole bunch of wildlife right in the middle of the city. Or maybe some other reason, I don't know. Probably shouldn't over-think it.

On the plane on Saturday I hit the jack of my headphones with my knee, which broke the jack. I bought a jack replacement at an electronics store for 1.27, and found plenty of helpful videos on line, but this particular earbud set, SE115m, which is no longer being sold by Shure has a more confusing wiring scheme than regular headsets. So after some trial and error I figured out which wire goes where. So maybe I'll save someone else the hassle by saying Pin 1-Blue wire, Pin 2-Red wire, Pin 3-Black, Grey, Ground wire. The yellow wire I think is for the switch or mic, and doesn't seem  to need to be hooked up if you're just using it for audio.

After all these years of travelling, I finally get to Japan! I have an 11 hour layover here,  and took the chance to get out of the airport and take the train into Tokyo. Shown below is the Sensoji Temple in the Asakusa area, apparently Tokyo's oldest temple. I apologize if the image is a bit hazy, since it rained  most of  the day, and I was continually trying to keep raindrops and condensation off the camera lens. Tucked away in a corner of the temple property far from the hundreds of visitors, I found the oldest building at the Senso-ji site, and the only building with an English explanation. This almost felt like a discovery to me in the midst of all the crowds, and there was even enough space for me to set up a self-timed tripod shot.

For those who  may want to do something similar on a Narita layover, I found this relatively easy to pull off. If you do a websearch for transport from Narita to Tokyo, you  will find that the train system is described as being rather intimidating, and I would have  to agree. However, there is pretty good signage in Japanese, Korean, and English, and I found the train and airport staff to be extremely helpful in getting me pointed in the right direction, even if our ability to communicate was limited. 

At the Asakusa station in Tokyo, the station attendant knew little English, but when I said, 'Narita?', he replied, "Narita airport?" a word he appeared to have memorized precisely for this kind of situation. He then looked at his watch and said, "11:50", jumped up, escorted me to the ticket machine, and punched in the correct options. This left me with just the task of (very quickly) putting in the appropriate amount of yen--1250 by the way--an grabbing my ticket. I thought about pulling out my cell phone to check the time, but based on the station attendant's air of urgency, I figured that might waste precious seconds. I grabbed my bags, checked through the wicket, and took about a half a second to scan the signs directing me to the right platform, before I felt a train blowing into the platform below. I ran down the stairs, and there it was. Jumped on with the doors closing seconds  later. One hour, fifteen minutes later, I was  back at the airport.

The other fortunate thing is that, completely by accident, I ended  up here on a Saturday. This meant the trains were mercifully uncrowded as you can see. Quite unlike what I had envisioned.

 

By the way, it is freezing here. I've got a toque on and a fleece jacket, and I'm still cold. OK realistically it is probably about 15 degrees but I am not warm. By afternoon the toque will come off and it will be pretty pleasant, but mornings are cool this time of year here. Also, another by the way, the thing I was afraid of has happened. That is that all that smoke in the air has somehow worked  its way into my sinuses, and I feel like my head is a balloon with too much air. A lot of complaining for one blog post, I know.

If you like street food, you would enjoy the thing I went to last night which is pretty much a weekly street food festival with dozens of vendors and hundreds of hungry people wandering up and down buying satay, fried noodles, soup. This particular vendor was selling a sticky rice pastry with mung bean, toasted on charcoal grill. Very tasty, and actually reminded me of something my grandmother used to make. There was even street food sushi. Although I don't know about eating street food sushi...