The Stupid American Tourist

Updates on Learning Japanese, Word Lists, and iPhone stuff

Things have been hectic.

I decided to start taking JLPT exam prep classes offered at the NC Japan Center, and I find that that has been helping me to focus on acquiring new vocabulary and grammar. For some reason or another, I had gotten a bit bogged down doing the self-study thing. Maybe it’s just a matter of having too many books and too many distractions. A class is good because it focuses me on doing just one thing at a time, rather than scattering my efforts all over the place.

The other good thing about the class is that I have access to a native Japanese speaker once a week for two hours, and I can share my toils with 3 other kindred spirits who are at roughly the same level, ability-wise. (And of course I have discovered where my Japanese language abilities lack. No surprises there, really.)

I prefer taking a class with adults over a class full of college students. No offense to college students, but adults are, well, adults. We’ve all been “out there” and “seen stuff,” so it makes it easier to socialize. Sitting in on college classes always felt kind of weird because of the age/experience gap.

Intermediate Kanji Book

Book-wise, we’re using “Intermediate Kanji Book, Volume 1″ by Bonjinsha. It’s a good book for working on vocab, because it’s full of vocab exercises. Like any book, it’s only useful if you use it thoroughly. We’re using it pretty thoroughly. The only downside is that the book is kind of expensive. My copy was around $50 at the Japan Shop.  As the title implies, it comes after “Basic Kanji Book,” volumes 1 and 2, respectively.  The first two volumes will net you around 500 or so kanji, and this volume promises another 250 or so. There’s a volume 2 with another 250 in it as well, which will get you to the magic number of 1,000 for the level 2 JLPT.

Or you could just do Kanji Odyssey books 1 and 2, and that will net you 1,110. But I never did get started on book 2, because things got too hectic. I’ll probably snag some material from it as I go through IKB1, though.

Word Lists

I’ve been putting my earlier entry on word lists to use for the early reps of grinding the new vocab. I created a photoshop graphic page that divides a 11″ x 8.5″ (so it’s landscape, not portrait) sheet of paper into six columns. Then I just print or photocopy the “master” page to make a bunch of study sheets.

I use the 5 lines as guides to fold the paper, so I can hide columns I don’t want to see, making it easier to study. Then I just study from Kanji with kana underneath it -> English -> Kanji + Kana -> English, and back and forth until one side is full. If I’m still feeling insecure, I fold over one side, use it as a prompt for the far right side of the back, and keep going until I feel comfortable. I decided to just put the kana under the kanji to save time and space, rather than mess with adding a separate step for kana. Really, if I need to know one, I need to know the other, so I might as well knock both out at the same time.

Otherwise, my rules are simple:

• Put a few hours in between repetitions.
• Don’t fill the column until you can get everything right. So that means test it, see if you got it right. If you didn’t, then set it aside for 20 minutes, then test it again. I can test other stuff in the meantime. This way, I can get multiple short lists of 5-7 vocab words going, and juggle them.

I’ve started cutting the pages down the middle to save paper, too. So I can take one sheet of paper, and create two long, short, six-column study aids. I can fit 7-10 words on each one.

Once I feel comfortable, I use the list as a guide to grab sentences from online sources like dictionaries and dump them into Anki for long-term retention (and context.)

Kanzen Master

The class also uses the Kanzen Master level 2 grammar book, which is very good, but also kind of tricky, because it’s all in Japanese. In my case, I have to go to my reference books a bit to figure out what some of the entries mean.

We’re going to plow our way through it at our own pace. In the meantime, I’m picking up the level 3 grammar book to help me review all of the things I’ve probably forgotten by now. I love the Kanzen Master series for its thoroughness… 3-A makes great books in general.

iPhone Stuff

Just a few random things. Japanese by CodefromTokyo is on sale at the iTunes App Store until 2/3. 20% off, so it’s $16 instead of $20. It’s a good app that does a lot of things. My only beef is that it uses EDICT, which is free (as in Free Beer), and it wasn’t written by professionals. (Well, at least not professional lexicographers.)

You can get EDICT for free if you download Kotoba, and that’s free. Japanese does have a lot of other useful functions, though, like stroke order diagrams for most (not all) kanji, JLPT word lists, a simple flashcard program and other things that enhance the experience, but dictionary-wise, I’m not a huge fan of EDICT, and I already have Anki for flashcards.

So if you already have a robust study framework with Anki and better dictionaries, I’m not too sure where this program fits in yet. I’ll keep poking at it to see what other tricks it can do. I’d say it’s good for beginners to maybe lower intermediates, perhaps?

I prefer my 研究社 dictionary for the iPhone (even though it runs ~$30) as a Japanese-English, English-Japanese dictionary, simply because it was written by professionals. It doesn’t have some of the features of Japanese, but the new version is pretty strong for just a dictionary.

Same goes for 大辞林, which is an excellent 国語 dictionary. (That’s a Japanese dictionary which is all in Japanese.) The 大辞林 app even has a 四字熟語　dictionary section in it now. Cool stuff. It also runs in the $20-$30 range.

Syncing Backwards

Finally, I managed to solve a long-time vexing problem with my iPhone. At some point, my iPhone started telling me that I couldn’t sync my applications anymore. It wanted to overwrite the applications it had with the ones on my iPhone. That would just not do, so I stopped syncing my apps. Naturally, this made me a ball of nerves, because I was walking around with a bunch of $30 dictionaries in my pocket, worried that they’d get accidentally zorched. And I never could seem to find a way to make iTunes sync with my stupid iPhone and rescue all of my expensive apps that I had downloaded straight to the phone.

Until I found this link to an article about transferring apps from your iPhone to iTunes. All I had to do was right click? Seriously? That’s it? Gah! I thought Apple didn’t believe in the RMB.

I’m starting to lust openly at the Android phones now. I’m getting tired of the Byzantine OS that is all things iPhone and iTunes.

Posted in Japanese Language, Technology | No Comments »

Turning Your iPhone Into a 電子辞書

So what’s a 電子辞書 (denshi jisho)? Well, it’s Japanese for “electronic dictionary.”  It’s a great little gizmo that’s really handy if you’re learning Japanese. They’re usually full of all kinds of dictionaries, and now they have things like a drawing pad where you can draw a character on it, and it will recognize the kanji you draw on it. So gone are the days of tediously looking up kanji by their respective parts.

Sounds great, right? Well, there are downsides. For starters, they’re hard to find outside of Japan. You have to find a way to import them, and that can wind up being very expensive. Also, they’re usually bulky and full of a lot of features you’re just not going to use. Add to it the fact that it’s just one more thing to carry around.

My Papyrus has an MP3 player and a bunch of other random crap I just never use. I’ve seen others that have TV tuners. Seriously? I just want to look up some words. And my iPhone does just about all of that better.

Well, good news.

If you’re an iPhone or iPod Touch user, well, you already own something that can easily be turned into a 電子辞書 if you’re willing to spend some money in the iTunes App store.

I’ve already mentioned the excellent 大辞林 app, which gives you a great 国語 (kokugo– Japanese) dictionary for around $13 US. If you need something more along the lines of a 英和/和英 dictionary (that would be an English-Japanese/Japanese English dictionary), then you can get the pretty good Genius 2 for $42, or the excellent 研究社 for $31, or the Wisdom for $24.

I love the 研究社 for its sample sentences, and its search robustness, but its interface is a little plain, and it lacks a super jump ability. You have to cut and paste words to search related words, which is kind of a pain.

There are also 四字熟語 dictionaries available as well as medical dictionaries. (The medical dictionaries are hideously expensive.)

To find Japanese dictionaries in the App Store, serch under 辞書 or  辞典 (jisho or jiten… but you need to use the Japanese keyboard to generate those kanji.)

But what about the kanji recognition? Does the iPhone have that? Actually, it does. Add the Chinese Traditional Handwriting keyboard under Settings> General> Keyboards> International> Chinese (Traditional). Then when you want to look up a kanji by drawing it, use the globe button to select the handwriting pad. Select until you see a big rectangular pad, and draw the kanji you’re looking for. Draw slowly, and use proper stroke order. Then select one of the four kanji that pop up on the side. Voila. Kanji recognition– just like a $350 電子辞書, only it fits in your pocket.

Posted in Japanese Language, Technology | No Comments »

Great iPhone Japanese Dictionary

I was looking for a good portable dictionary for my iPhone, and I’ve found a couple of programs. One is great, one is free. If you’re going to use either one of these, make sure you install the Japanese keyboard on your iPhone, and take the time to learn how to use it.

For starters, there’s Kotoba!, which is a very basic free dictionary that is “based off of Jim Breen’s JMDict.” JMDict is essentially EDICT, which isn’t a professional dictionary. But it is free, and it is Japanese->English. The definitions are very stripped-down, sometimes confusing or misleading. But again, it’s free.

If you’re beyond the beginner phase of learning Japanese, and if you’re comfortable using Japanese->Japanese dictionaries, I highly recommend the 大辞林 (Daijirin) dictionary, which is available from the iTunes app store as well for $12.99 US. It takes a little getting used to at first, but once you get comfortable with the interface, you’ll realize just how great it is.

For example: even if your Japanese isn’t as strong as you’d like, you can touch-select words in the definition you don’t understand, and it will allow you to jump to the definition. You can keep jumping until you figure everything out, then jump back to the original definiton.

This is a great way to pick up a lot of new vocabulary, and gets you more proficient at using Japanese->Japanese dictionaries, which are always better at explaining Japanese words than Japanese->English dictionaries.

The best part about the 大辞林 is that you don’t have to shell out $300 for a portable electronic dictionary to get it, which is how it usually comes, and it means one less thing to carry around.

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PS3

Forgot to post this, but anyway, I picked up a PS3 when the new version came out.

Dear Sony,

I’ll tell you what it took to make me finally buy a PS3:

1. For starters, you had to cut the price in half, from $600 to $300. The original PlayStation 3 was very shiny, but it was freakin’ huge, too. Yes, the new unit looks and feels a little on the cheap side, but I don’t particularly care. I don’t sit and there and grope my PS3 all day. I use it for playing games or, whenever I get around to buying Blu-Ray movies, Blu-Rays. I’m sure fit and finish is important to a certain degree (ask any Xbox 360 owner who had a RROD), but that’s what the extended warranty is for. One thing is certain– it’s a heck of a lot quieter than the 360, which often sound like it’s about to launch from my entertainment center.
2. Then you had to increase the hard drive size to something I could actually imagine using. 120GB is something I can imagine using. I like the ability to swap out the HDD.  Nice touch adding the front panel… although these days, I can fit 120GB on a flash drive the size of my pinky.
3. Adding DualShock to the SixAxis controller was a good idea. I was puzzled when the original PlayStation 3 came out without DualShock… it was only in about 7 years’ worth of PlayStations. I’m sure that was done a while back, but when the PlayStation 3 came out without it, that was a turn-off to add to the other turn-offs. And I like that the controllers have built-in rechargeable batteries. The original Xbox 360 controllers didn’t have that, neither did the Wii. I hate buying batteries.
4. Most importantly, there was finally a critical mass of Games that Didn’t Suck. My rule is that there have to be at least 3 “OMG I have to  play this!” games out there. The original release games usually suck. It’s hard to get around that truth.

There are a few things that annoy me– updates, updates, updates. I buy a game, stick it in, get ready to play, and then have to wait 3 hours for 450MB of updates to finish downloading and installing. I can’t tell you how much I hate that. I’d love it if that were optional, or better yet, if I could play the game, and let the updates be handled in the background. It’s not like it’s rocket science to handle more than one process at a time.

I also wish it did a better job of auto-detecting when I have the device plugged into an HDMI source. If you switch between a conventional TV and an HDMI TV, then you better have a way to hook up the PS3 using the composite video plug before you go HDMI, because it won’t do it automatically.

But it’s worth it to hook up the PS3 to any kind of HDTV, because the games look 10 times better than they do on a conventional TV. Even a computer monitor works, if you have the right kind. (That’s what I did.)

All in all, I have no clue how the PS3 is going to do in the long run, but I’m satisfied with it. I got my “must-play” games, all of which have hundreds of hours of replayability, and I have the ability to play Blu-Ray movies, too. Works for me.

Good job Sony, even if it is a little late.

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A Few Days With the Epson 1400

I got my Epson 1400 on Monday, so I’ve had a few days to play with it. Here are my initial impressions.

It’s big. No, I mean it’s menacingly huge. That’s no moon… okay, I’ll stop now.

It’s large enough to create problems about “Where do I put this… thing?” The extendable feed trays and output trays add to the problem. You wind up with this massive rectangular block with this one thing shooting 8-9 inches out of its head, and another tray shooting 5-6 inches out of its  belly. It reminds me a bit of a NASA experiment. “This will be a servicing mission to deploy the feed and output trays for the Epson 1400 in low Earth orbit.”

So make sure you have enough room for it.

It’s also heavy. 29-30 pounds heavy. Don’t hurt yourself carrying it across the room. Its mass is significant enough that when it prints, it shakes the solid steel shelving I put it on. This isn’t some flimsy shelving, either. This is stuff made out of rigid steel tubing with reinforced steel shelves. Yet when I print a photo, the shelves shake.

So don’t put it on that breakaway balsa-wood table.

The print quality is excellent. I grabbed some random photos from my trip to Japan, printed them on 4″ x 6″ glossy photo paper, and was impressed with the results. Even photos with really fussy light colors came out looking great. Bold colors are suitably bold, shadows and light areas are evenly printed.

Printing speed is noticeably slow. It takes about 2 minutes to print a 4″ x 6″ photo when you have it set at its highest output mode.

The software is thorough. You get options on top of options.

The much-hyped borderless printing is kind of a let-down. Whenever you select it, you get all sorts of warnings that the prints aren’t going to be as good as they would be if you printed with a border. I haven’t tried borderless printing yet.

Installation was painless. (Except for lifting the printer.) The instructions say it takes around 3 minutes for the ink cartridges to charge. I’d guess it takes closer to 5 minutes. Just be patient.

One other thing: Staples just called me today to make sure the printer had arrived and that everything was okay. That was a nice touch. I give them a lot of credit for turning an unpleasant experience into a very pleasant one.

Posted in Photography, Technology | No Comments »

The Squeaky Feed Roller Gets the Grease

Straying ever further from the main point of this blog, I recently had to delve into the world of printers for the first time in a long time. My 14-year-old HP LaserJet 5 scares me with a foul odor and even fouler-looking pages now, and my 8-year-old HP DeskJet 940c can’t stay in register to save it’s poor little life.

Getting Stapled

Since the state of North Carolina had decreed that last weekend was to be a holiday of mass consumption in order to get the kiddies ready for school, I made it into my frenzy of printer acquisition. (Since printers were on the tax-free list.) Before the holiday, I had spied a neat deal online at Staples– an Epson 1400 for $179. It’s a great inkjet photo printer that usually runs for $300 everywhere else. Alas, they were out of stock online.

So I went to the local store, which, according to the website, had the item in stock. I looked at the shelf, and they wanted $299 for it. I asked one of the sales people if they would match the online offer, and they would. But they were out of stock, too. They had some about 45 minutes away,  and they reassured me that if I went a few days later, I could still get the deal. (Yes, I was greedy– I wanted the deal tax-free.)

Okay, here’s where you should be very careful. Yes, sales usually go from Sunday-Saturday. But online deals don’t. And I didn’t know that. If someone tells you you can get the price, you should say at this point, “Can I get that in writing?” That was my first mistake.

Thursday rolls around, and I knew I would be near the store that still had them in stock. I decided to check online before I left home to make sure they still had them in stock– they did, but they were low. The  deal was still good. But by the time I got there, they had already yanked the deal off of their website.

Actually, they had not only yanked the deal off of the website, they had yanked the printer off of the website completely. It was as if it didn’t exist. So it didn’t matter what I said to the store employees there, they wouldn’t give me the deal.

Naturally, I was a bit upset. I hate it when the rug gets pulled out from under me, but what can you do? I didn’t take it out on the employees there– it’s not their fault. So I went home, wrote a letter to Staples explaining why I was upset, and what had happened.

I didn’t expect to get the deal at this point. I had already mentally walked away. If I could get the deal through writing a letter, great, but if not, I was over this. I always keep in mind what one of my old law professors taught me, “Never fall in love with something that can’t love you back.”

He’s Not Heavy, He’s My Brother

The printer frenzy weekend came and went. During the frenzy,  I found a great little Brother MFC 7840W (which totally rocks) from Best Buy for $199, reduced from $300. With a couple of gift cards I had, I walked out the door having spent only $125 on it. Tax free, too, because of the weekend. (It was also the last one in the Triangle. Woot.)

The 7840W is an awesome little printer. It’s a black and white laser printer that also is a fax, copier, and scanner. It has an auto-sheet feeder as well. Most importantly, it does wireless network printing like a champ. I guess it does scanning, too, but I don’t need that so much. The only weakness it has is the manual feed port– you can only manually feed a sheet at a time, and you have to hold the sheet you’re manually feeding. The other weakness is a lack of auto duplexing, but I don’t care about that.

Other than that, it’s great, and it fills the smoking hole left by my dying LaserJet 5.

One other neat trick I found is that if you cover the small round window on the right side of the toner cartridge with some black tape, you can squeeze out a few extra hundred or so pages. Toner refills look bearable, price-wise. (Moreso with this trick.)

Pulling out the Staples

So anyway, here I am, happy with my little laser printer. I’ll admit I wanted the Epson to print out a bunch of my photos from my journeys. The Epson is a great inkjet for photos… and not much else. After looking online, it’s hard to get a good deal on it from a reputable seller. It costs a fortune to ship, too, because it weighs a ton.

Much to my surprise, about 5-6 days after my email, I hear back from Staples. They’re looking into the matter. To be honest, whenever I contact a company, I don’t ever expect to hear back, simply due to the volume of e-mail they get. I mostly wrote to get the frustration of having wasted 2 hours off of my chest, and to let them that know that yanking a deal down in the middle of the day isn’t such a nice thing to do to your customers.

We exchange some more mail, and after a few more days, they agree to ship me a new Epson 1400 for $179 + tax, free shipping.

So in the end, I can say I’m pleased with how things turned out. Two new printers worth about $600 for about $300.

I win.

I’d say the moral to the story is this: always walk out on a bad deal. And go into every deal ready to walk out. (Walking out on a bad deal is one of the most liberating feelings ever. It’s really fun to do when a car dealer tries to screw you over. I’ll save that for another post.)

Be willing to haggle, and be willing to negotiate. Stand up for yourself, and tell companies when they do things that tick you off.

And never fall in love with something that can’t love you back. That way, you’ll always win.

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A Secret to Japanese Language Success: Post Less, Study More

I’ve gotten a lot of great advice and tips from reading all kinds of message boards and blogs, but to be honest, I think the best most important lesson I’ve learned is that eventually, you just have to stop drinking the bathwater and start getting things done.

When I saw the 999th iteration of the same general argument over whose study method is better on one of the boards I frequent, I realized that both methods are no good if they spend their time arguing about them in English, no less. (And I was just as bad for wasting valuable time reading them… okay, and now writing about them, but this will be the only time.)

So to anyone who reads this: if you’re trying to learn Japanese, and you’re looking for shortcuts, good idea! Look around, grab a few, try them, and move on. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel, and most traditional language-learning methods are horribly inefficient. There are a lot of folks trying a lot of neat stuff. Some of it may work great for you. I’ve posted a few that work for me. They may work for you, they may not.

But please don’t waste your time getting entangled in message board drama– especially message board drama about study methods. It’s like arguing about the best way to clean your house, while your house remains a pig sty. It accomplishes nothing, except consuming your valuable study time.

In my mind, the best theory of language acquisition came from a glass studio tech I interviewed in Seattle way back. He was talking about finding ways to build a better glass studio, but the idea works for pretty much anything.  “If you find a good idea that works for you, rip it off.”

To go along with the perfect bottom-line theory is this corollary: use it as long as it works for you. But if it doesn’t work, stop doing it.

If you want to tell people about it, great. Good ideas need to spread. But don’t let message boards become a time sink. I look at a high post count as a bad thing in those cases. My thought process goes like this, if this dude is so great at Japanese, why is he posting so much on an English-language forum about it? Maybe I’m just a suspicious, cynical and dark-hearted person by nature, but, well, there you go.

One final thing– don’t waste a lot of time worrying about trying to set up the perfect study method. It’s a fool’s errand. There’s no such thing. Just dive into the language, make a bunch of mistakes, and make adjustments as you go along. (Says he who is trying to set up a perfect study environment. Heh.)

Posted in Japanese Language | No Comments »

Asian Markets in the Triangle

I forgot to post this yesterday, so it’s backdated accordingly.

I went on an excursion today to check out some of the Asian markets in the Raleigh-Durham area today, because I had a sudden and unexpected free afternoon pop up. I had been meaning to check them out for a while now, because there are a few things I have been looking for. Now that I have a copy of Gaku Homma’s book The Folk Art of Japanese Country Cooking (on loan), I figured it would be a good idea to scope out sources of ingredients.

I also needed some teriyaki sauce.

First off is my reliable store for everything Japanese, Toyo Shokuhin and Gift Shop, at 748 E Chatham Street, Suite L in Cary, NC. They have a good supply of Japanese groceries, as well as some dishes, rental videos, and knick-knacks. They have my favorite rice there, a California Koshihikari short grain called Tamaki Gold. They don’t have tons of fresh produce, but they do have a robust sake selection. If there’s a pre-packaged food that triggers your 懐かしい switch, odds are they have it. I even found UCC American Coffee. The last time I saw that was in Okazaki. 懐かしい indeed.

After that, I went to Grand Asia Maket, at 1253 Buck Jones Road in Cary, in South Hills Mall. It says mall, but it’s really more like a convoluted shopping center. Anyway, it’s a nice big supermarket-sized place that carries a variety of food and gifts from all over Asia. You can find Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and lots of other Asian countries’ products there. (Although it seemed predominantly Chinese. Maybe it was just me.) They have a very respectable dinnerware section, and lots of fresh produce. They even have live fish, a bakery, and a restaurant. The bakery was really tempting. The store is right near the intersection of Buck Jones and US1/US64.

Then I made a trip to A & C Supermarket on 3210 South Wilmington Street in Raleigh, on US 401 about a mile south of I-40 at exit 298A. It’s really big. They had a lot of cookware, too. They also have a small restaurant attached as well, and a produce section. I didn’t have a whole lot of time to spend there, sadly, because I was running out of time. It looks like a nice store, it’s just a bit too far away from Chapel Hill for my tastes.

The final place I wound up at was Raleigh Asian Market at 3901 Capital Boulevard, suite 159 in Raleigh. All of the units in the shopping center are numbered 159, so the number is kind of useless. It’s tucked away on the Buffaloe Road side of the shopping center. It’s a small store, but it has a lot of stuff, especially what seemed to be Vietnamese stuff. (I’m pretty sure that was Vietnamese… my knowledge of Southeast Asian languages is rough.) It’s not really what I need for what I’m trying to make, but if I ever get into Southeast Asian cooking, I’ll definitely come back. The people were friendly.

Just looking at Google maps, I realize that there are at least a dozen Asian markets in the area… maybe more. And I’ve barely scratched the surface. I need to get busy.

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Shooting with the Bard

No, I didn’t go hunting with Mr. Shakespeare. This is about going out and taking pictures with my Bard camera bag by F-stop.

It’s one thing to use a bag to carry stuff around with, but it’s something entirely different to go out in the field and use it as a tool. I’ve had a few opportunities to take my camera and lenses out with the Bard and go shooting, and here are my impressions so far.

First off, size. It’s bigger than you think. I’m glad I bought the Bard instead of the Maverick. I’m sure the Maverick is a great bag, but I would be hating life at the end of a 4-5 hour day of walking around town carrying my gear in something that huge. The Bard itself is pretty large, and since it has firm sides, it doesn’t really “squish” down a whole lot. So when you’re carrying it around, it’s a bit bulky and can get in the way. It takes a little getting used to.

The bag has a waist strap… which I didn’t use much. I just couldn’t get comfortable with it. I might be missing out, or maybe there’s a better aftermarket waist strap. Or maybe I’m just not optimally-sized to use it. I’m going to try it again when I go out taking pictures again. Maybe I’ll like it better over time. Maybe not.

The shoulder strap is okay. It’s a $99 bag, so I didn’t expect it to be perfect. It’s a little on the thin side, and a little on the narrow side. I like my shoulder straps thick and squishy, especially if I carry my bag all day. I’ll probably look aftermarket.

Minor gripes aside, my Canon fit perfectly with the 17-55mm f2.8 attached, pointing down. All I had to do was yank it out and shoot. I left one lens bay open, and could stuff a rain jacket in it. (Which was perfect, because it rained a lot in the mountains.) My monstrously-huge (and heavy) 80-200 f2.8L sat in the other bay.

As a travel bag, I managed to cram an incredible amount of junk in it. Since I was going by car, I could get away with it. I’m not sure I’d recommend that for airline travel, though.

All-in-all, it’s a very nice bag if you’re looking for an affordable alternative to the Crumpler bags. It’s a great messenger-style bag that doesn’t yell “Look at me!” or “Steal me!” quite so much.

Of course, as soon as I pulled out my camera, I got looks anyway… but up until then, I was in stealth mode. (Or at least I like to think I was…)

Posted in Photography, Travel | 2 Comments »

Back to Mt. Mitchell (Eventually)

I finally had good weather today, and decided to make the drive to Mt. Mitchell State Park, which lurks around milepost 354 on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The last time I was there was in 2007, right before I left for Japan, so I figured now was as good a time as any to head back and see what things were like.

In case you didn’t know, Mt. Mitchell is the tallest peak east of the Mississippi River in the US. When the weather is cooperative, the views are great.

First things first, though– getting there. I always go via Elk Mountain Scenic Highway, which is one of my favorite roads in North Carolina. The road starts in Asheville, and it’s windy, curvy, and feels just a little dangerous. It dumps you out on the Blue Ridge Parkway after about 20 minutes or so.

About 15 minutes down the road, there’s also a place where a lot of people pull off to the side on the right where you can gaze out over some of the valleys. But if you’re not careful, it’s really easy to fall off of the mountaintop and wind up a stain on the valley floor. It’s not an “official” overlook, it’s just some place where everyone goes to look at the mountains. So it’s usually kind of messy and covered with graffiti left by high school kids.

In spite of all of that, it’s worth stopping for a few minutes on the way to the parkway.

With road work on a 16-mile stretch of the parkway from mile marker 375 to mile marker 359, the usual 45 mile an hour speed limit is cut down to 35. To top it off, the road itself is in sorry shape in places, so you really don’t want to push your luck. I’m talking “surface of the moon” potholes here. It was even less fun coming back from Mt. Mitchell, because that’s all downhill.

The weirdest bit had to be the random stoplights on the parkway, used to control traffic through a single-lane construction zone. It was brutal. I wound up sitting there for about 10 minutes on each side, just waiting for it to turn green. Not much traffic went by either way. I’m not sure how it works, to be honest, but a lot of the time I bet it was just red on both sides, while its dark silicon heart laughed at us.

I finally got to the summit of Mt. Mitchell after about an hour or so total of driving.

They replaced the gravel path to the summit with some sort of asphalt with a pattern cut into it. I’m sure it has better traction now, but it looks bland. I miss charm of the old gravel path.

They also tore down the shabby old observation tower and replaced it with an open air ramp thing that’s very shiny.

The clouds were in great form, with giant thunderheads and rain clouds forming all around us. I got some good photos, in spite of the fact that I didn’t have the right filter on my camera. I really need to drop the money for a good graduated neutral density filter for the new lens. It makes a huge difference with landscape shots.

I’m glad I managed to wait out the weather up here. It took almost a week, but it was totally worth it.

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