Sounds

At night, the relative silence of the city is broken by the sound of dueling ezan – the prayer announcements from the loudspeakers of the local mosques. I like them. The speakers give a little crackle and the muezzin gives their most beautiful call, trying to stand out from the others. I tried to look at a mosque during prayer yesterday, but the doorman gave me stinkeye because I looked like such a tourist.

The first sound of the morning is hammering. Downstairs there is a recycler who breaks up old appliances with a hammer to get the metal. He does his work out on the sidewalk. We’re away from the main street, so our street doesn’t see too many cars. There are a lot of voices and kids playing outside. The number of people goes up until at night, streets are filled with men, women, and children wandering around. Anytime you need something from the store, just call to one of them and throw some money down and they will get it for you. Little convenience stores are everywhere, along with bread shops and internet cafes, and an assortment of other types of businesses, including restaurants and “secret” shops that sell pirated DVDs.

The money isn’t as much of a problem as it was eight years ago, the last time I was here. The old Turkish currency was counted in millions and tens of millions for purchasing small items. That was just too much for anyone to get their head around, which was probably good for rip-off artists. Now the money is easy; 1.60 TL is equal to about a dollar. For convenience’s sake, I think of 1TL as a dollar.

Today, starting in the morning until late at night, their was rhythmic hammering, like steel on concrete. I don't know what they were doing for 8 - 10 hours, but it sounded like they pounded down every last wall.

6/22/10 - Some kind of hard medicine

The nagging urge that had been bothering me for years, the urge to get on a plane and jump off the face of the earth since leaving Japan, suddenly disappeared the minute I passed throught the first security gates at Detroit Metro. It's exciting and frightening. No going back. Buy the ticket, take the ride. Afterall, I asked for this.

The energy in the terminal is distinctly different from anywhere else. Without a suitcase, anyone in this crowd looks like they could be in a shopping mall except for one key difference: Everyone here feels a purpose. It is the overly casual, bored faces that stand out.

Detroit to Amsterdam

A restless time in a cramped airplane seat - aching, itching, and squirming for eight or nine hours in a flying cattle car. I'm a zombie.

Pure fatigue keeps the nerves dull enough to kill any anxiety I might have had about the trip - sitting in the terminal I feel too fogged over to properly understand where I am.

I'm reading American Shaolin, by Matthew Polly, a perfect fish-out-of-water story that is particularly good to read while traveling.

Packed and Ready

There's not a lot left to do - just a couple of fussy details to take care of so there won't be any problems with checking in at the airport or getting through security.

Once I arrive in Turkey there'll be a couple of bureaucratic hoops to jump through before I can start working, and we need to figure out once and for all what Nilu is going to do about her school.

Thoughts?

None right now. Dogs know instinctively when they're about to go to the vet, but most of my head is too thick to process the fact that I'm going somewhere for a long time. The ticket, the passport, these bags, and people hugging me to say goodbye should be enough to help me realize that I've already spent my last night here in Michigan, but it still feels very unreal. Twelve hours from now, I'll be in the air. In less than 36 hours I'll be in the heart of one of the world's biggest cities, jetlagged and disoriented.

Preparing to go...

A couple of months before Go Time... it's difficult to know exactly how to prepare. No two people are the same, I'm sure... and it kills me that I'm not able to bring my bike, at least not at first. It looks like Turkey isn't the greatest place for cycling - maybe I'll find another sport.

As for what to bring, I've started buying little things... like a little computer.

I just don't want to get bogged down in decisions about what to bring and what to leave, so I'm prepared to make some deep, painful cuts - starting with my bicycle. When I moved from Japan back to the U.S., I brought a ton of useless junk that I never looked at again, and it cost hundreds of dollars. This time it's going to be bare essentials only.

And the winner is....

Izmir!

It looks like I'll be moving to Izmir.

Why Izmir? Well, it's sunny, and there is a very good school there that will pay me real money to work.

...and maybe there'll be a good bread shop around. I love Turkish bread.

Korea? Thailand? Vietnam? How about somewhere in Europe?

Decisions, decisions...

I love Japan. I have spent the better half of my adult life there. The question is, should I move on? Where to next?

It's possible that I've found a nice position in Korea, starting in July. Good stuff.

Korea is a place I've always been interested in, but I haven't applied to many jobs there (my strategy may be flawed: apply, apply, and re-apply) unless I'm able to apply directly to ads by the company themselves. This is because Korean recruiters are so aggressive that they feel scammy and probably are. Also, they seem to have no internal communication; one person will be communicating you via e-mail and another from the same recruitment company will be calling you.

I've looked at Vietnam and Thailand as well (and Italy, I love Italy, but all of the schools there seem to require candidates to have EU working permits), but it seems as though Korea is going to win this job hunt.

The Business Hotel in Ueno

Ueno, Japan:
In Alice's Wonderland, everything was strange, but still reasonably clean. Its characters had motivations that were odd, yet constructive and to a bizarre end. In my wonderland, the room had the same bizarre sense of being practical, but in the wrong scale and smelling like stale sweat, smoke, and urine. The novelty of the place was that corners were cut dangerously close, to the detriment of accomplishment its practical end - a hotel that approximated being a hotel while smelling like an ass.

Near my window, there was a vagrant moving around on a ledge or fire escape, clanking bottles and cutting a monsterous, jagged-looking sillhouette. The window was locked with a pretty secure-looking clasp, but couldn't help thinking that whenever my particular room was vacant, the vagrant crept into my room and slept. My thoughts hung onto that image, convincing myself that the he was going to come in and rifle through my bags the minute I fell asleep.

As disturbing as those thoughts were, as bad as everything smelled, and as dirty as the blankets felt, I slept like a baby. My last thought of the night was, "So what? I'll offer him the floor."