Tips for Picking your Guide Book

Whenever we decide on our next destination (or often even before we have) my first reaction is to head to the bookstore and buy a nice fat travel guide. Resist the urge!

TIP #1: HIT UP YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY
Get your hands on every guide book available on your desired location. Don't waste your time reading them all cover to cover. Ain't nobody got time for that! Skim through a few different guide books to get a feel for the one you like best: writing style, maps, layout. Truth be told (don't rat us out to the library) if the trip is not going to be that long sometimes we just take the library copy along with us and renew it a few times. You can't highlight, write or fold the corners down that way though.

Some books are better for preplanning your trip while others are ideal for getting you around day to day. The book, you also choose, depends on how you plan on using it. Some books will be better for preplanning (booking hotels and activities before you go), while others cater to being carried along with you and doing things more spontaneously when you arrive.

I also like to take out a few books on the local culture. I am mainly interested in the art so I like to read up on significant works done in the region and track them down if they are still in local museums or galleries. (Many works of Asian art, for example, on display in North America or Europe.)

THINGS TO WATCH FOR WHEN YOU DO BUY:

TIP #2 - SIZE/WIEGHT
A key feature, to pay attention to, is its mass. If you are going to be on a long trip with limited luggage space you, don't want your guide book hogging all the room. Buy one for a specific region or city if you can. Many guide books also offer PDF version that you can put on your phone or tablet. I liked this when we travelled through eight different Asian countries last spring. We didn't need a different book for each country and city.

TIP #3 -  MULTIPLE COUNTRIES IN ONE
If you are crossing borders on the same continent look for a book that specializes in that. Many of them will have tips on the best ways to cross borders or suggest good stops in multiple places. We liked Lonely Planet's South East Asia on a Shoe String, which helped us navigate currency exchange and border crossing. Some of our travel companions lost over $500, when they ignored the advice we shared with them from the LP.

TIP #4 - TRAVEL YOUR WAY, ON YOUR BUDGET
Lonely Planet is aimed at a younger backpacker audience while Frodor's targets at a bigger budget and more luxury-style travel.

Our personal favourite travel guide is Lonely Planet. I would never go on a trip without one.  It recommends the type of travel we enjoy most. I like a mix of the sights and off the beaten track. We also usually travel out of backpacks and on a budget.
More recently I've discovered "Top 10" is an intimidating place to first start.

TIP #5 - CURRENT
Often when you go on a trip someone you know will be excited that they were there ten years earlier. How convenient that they have saved their old travel guide all these years. Why don't you take it and save yourself thirty dollars? Travel guides can be pricey. Do not travel with a book even one edition out of date—it is entirely useless. An up to date edition is especially important in rapidly developing countries. For example, we found even some of the information in our current edition books was already out of date in India.

TIP #6 - DON'T BRING IT HOME
Some people like to keep their guide books on their shelves like little awards or pins on a map, which is a kind of a cool way to remember your trips. Some people consider books sacred and would never cut them up but for us though travelling light always takes priority over sentimentally, on this one. We cut out the sections of the guidebook that we needed for our trip to India and left behind the sections on provinces and cities we were not planning to see. As we leave a region we, leave that section of the guidebook too. I'd rather bring home something I bought there than an outdated book.


In case you can't tell from my mountain of library books we are off on another adventure again! We leave in a month to return to South Africa and on the layover home we are spending just over two weeks in Turkey. 

Touring Tokyo

Tuesday June 18, 2013

I can hardly believe that our Asia trip has come to an end.

Map of Tokyo Metro System

We left April 28, and we are now in the Tokyo airport headed home via Chicago.  N is hoping to catch a Boston-Chicago hockey playoff game it the airport.  Although every time, I've watched Chicago doesn't seem to be doing very well.

 It has been an amazing trip, but we are ready to head home now.  Our bags are heavy, and our clothes are filthy. It's time to be back in our place.

Our time in Japan was lovely.  Tokyo is not a city that necessarily has "must see" spots, which suited us very well.  I love just wandering around and getting the flavour of a city.

We were not as organized as we could have been, and so we missed out on some stuff we might have liked to see but just wandering around the city proved extremely enjoyable.  N and I were both quite ill on and off during our time here, which slowed us down a little (we are wondering if it is a side effect of our malaria medication). The train system though a bit intimidating is great to use.  It takes you anywhere you need to go.

 National Art Centre Entrance

We went to The Tokyo National Art Centre, which is very interesting architecturally.  I was not blown away by the exhibits.  I can't complain though since most were free, and we only paid about $4 to go into one.

Some of my favourite Japanese prints are coming to one of the Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museums next month.  An unfortunate miss.  We didn't find that out until we got there though.  It is still an interesting building to see.  It looks a bit odd amid all metallic skyscrapers.  It is in a high-end business area, but we found a nice bistro and a little sort of park area just behind it for lunch.

The other museum, I wanted to see was also closed on Monday. It has the largest collection of Asian art in the world. It is surrounded by a beautiful Ueno Park though so we enjoyed the trip. In Sundays, it apparently is a major hangout with a big goth scene.  Again our poor planning failed us, and we didn't get that information until we were there on Monday.  And the Museum is closed on Mondays.

Another museum, which has the largest collection of Asian art in the world was closed on Monday.  It is surrounded by a beautiful Ueno Park though so we enjoyed the trip anyways. In Sundays, it apparently is a major hangout with a big goth scene.  Again our poor planning failed us, and we didn't get that information until we were there on a Monday.  And the Museum is closed on Mondays.

The First Market was a highlight for me.  Early in the morning they are supposed to have enormous tuna but we went late in the afternoon and caught it for an hour just before it closed at 3pm.

The Metropolitan Government Building has a great view if the city for free!  That seemed like a good find.

While we were totally disorganized and missed out on a number of things that we may have enjoyed but it did not at all takeaway from our experience.  I think N was happy enough to have missed spending long hours in the museums, although he was genuinely disappointed for my sake.  The great thing about trying to get to so many if these destinations is that we saw lots of different parts of the city.

I had  my heart set on seeing Mt. Fuji. Unfortunately, June is supposed to be the worst time to see it because the weather is rainy/humid creating a cloudy haze that prevents a good view.  Instead of taking a 2hr bus (one way) to see it and being disappointed by not getting to see it we decided to just not try and enjoy trekking around in the city instead.  I just keep telling myself we'll have to come back.  I'd like to come again to see me cherry blossoms and the art museums. 

We went to an area called Shibuya. It has the busiest crosswalk in the city.  The Starbucks on the corner boasted the best view of the street.  It was quite cool just to sit up there, and people watch.

Again and again on this trip I have been surprised by how much I have enjoyed the major cities: Beijing, Bangkok, Kuching, Kuala Lumpur.  I knew I'd love Tokyo.  I don't know if I had a low expectation for these places, but I feel like I'd to return and spend more time or even live in many of them. 

We've rounded off an amazing trip, and I just feel like we will have to return because there is slouch left that we need to see and so many places that we missed!  The world is just so wonderfully vast and diverse.  The media always tricks me into thinking the world is small and everywhere is the same but it's just not at all that way.  Ever place we go give me such a different perspective and outlook on others, myself and the world.

It's such an amazing experience, something I really consider a gift!

Soul Baring || Sculpture

This is a work I submitting tomorrow in my art portfolio.  I wanted to share images of it and a little blurb here as well.  I have never been so involved with a work as this sculpture.  I am extremely happy with the result.  It is strange to be so moved by your own creation.

Soul Baring

The construction of this piece has a lot to do with the meaning behind it.  The larger piece of wood is the root of a birch tree.  It was quite labour intensive, as well as time consuming, to extract the tree from the frozen peat moss and clay.  Cleaning the delicate roots was an equally involved process.  The willow branch that embraces it is cut from the same forest. The act of carefully stripping away the bark to expose the raw wood beneath the willow bark as well as the careful cleaning of the birch root became a very significant element to the work. At one part in the root the red wood exposed from the torn away bark looks as though it is blood stained.  When it was initially pulled a small stream of water oozed from this place for several hours and the branch looked as though it was bleeding.  

The piece has a lot of personal symbolism. The sculpture was provoked by extensive though on the subject of romantic relationship.  It is inspired by anticipation for my upcoming marriage.  It speaks about sharing yourself with another, the vulnerability and exposure involved in this kind of union.

Soul Baring — April 2011 — Michelle Falk 

Using the root as the head of the sculpture gives them a cerebral effect and personifies the wood.  This allows the viewer to transpose human emotion and experience onto the inanimate branches. 

These branches are distinct from one another but dependant as well.  They support one another and cannot stand apart.  

The wood is left unglazed or polished because I wanted it to reflect the rawness of relationship.  

Marriage is not tidy, organized or smooth.  The wood retains a wildness that is essential to the theme of a love partnership.  The condition of the wood reflects the title of baring the soul.