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     <title>Chris Bracken</title>
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     <item>
       <title>Hand-decoding an ELF binary image</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2018/10/decoding-an-elf-binary/</link>
       <pubDate>Wed, 31 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2018/10/decoding-an-elf-binary/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;While recovering from some dentistry the other day I figured I&amp;rsquo;d have a go at
 better understanding the ELF binary format. What better way to do that than to
 compile a small program and hand-decode the resulting binary with a hex editor
 and whatever ELF format spec I could find.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h2 id=&#34;overview&#34;&gt;Overview&lt;/h2&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Below, we&amp;rsquo;ll use &lt;code&gt;nasm&lt;/code&gt; to build a small assembly Hello World program to a
 64-bit ELF object file, then link that into an ELF executable with GNU &lt;code&gt;ld&lt;/code&gt;.
 Finally, we&amp;rsquo;ll run the resulting object file and binary image through &lt;code&gt;xxd&lt;/code&gt; and
 hand-decode the resulting hex.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The code and instructions below work on FreeBSD 11 on x86_64 hardware. For
 other operating systems, hardware, and toolchains, you&amp;rsquo;re on your own! I&amp;rsquo;d
 imagine this should all work just fine on Linux. If I get bored one day, I may
 redo this for Mach-O binaries on macOS.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h2 id=&#34;helloasm&#34;&gt;hello.asm&lt;/h2&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;First we&amp;rsquo;ll bang up a minimal Hello World program in assembly. In the &lt;code&gt;.data&lt;/code&gt;
 section, we add a null-terminated string, &lt;code&gt;hello&lt;/code&gt;, and its length &lt;code&gt;hbytes&lt;/code&gt;. In
 the program text, we set up and execute the &lt;code&gt;write(stdout, hello, hbytes)&lt;/code&gt;
 syscall, then set up and execute an &lt;code&gt;exit(0)&lt;/code&gt; syscall.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Note that 64-bit FreeBSD, macOS, and Linux all use the SysV AMD64 calling
 convention. For calls against the kernel interface, the syscall number is
 stored in &lt;code&gt;rax&lt;/code&gt; and up to six parameters are passed, in order, in &lt;code&gt;rdi&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;rsi&lt;/code&gt;,
 &lt;code&gt;rdx&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;r10&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;r8&lt;/code&gt;, &lt;code&gt;r9&lt;/code&gt;. For user calls, replace &lt;code&gt;r10&lt;/code&gt; with &lt;code&gt;rcx&lt;/code&gt; in this
 list, and pass further arguments on the stack. In all cases, the return value
 is passed through &lt;code&gt;rax&lt;/code&gt;.  More details can be found in section A.2.1 of the
 &lt;a href=&#34;https://software.intel.com/sites/default/files/article/402129/mpx-linux64-abi.pdf&#34;&gt;System V AMD64 ABI Reference&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;; hello.asm
 
 %define stdin       0
 %define stdout      1
 %define stderr      2
 %define SYS_exit    1
 %define SYS_write   4
 
 %macro  system      1
         mov         rax, %1
         syscall
 %endmacro
 
 %macro  sys.exit    0
         system      SYS_exit
 %endmacro
 
 %macro  sys.write   0
         system      SYS_write
 %endmacro
 
 section  .data
     hello   db      &#39;Hello, World!&#39;, 0Ah
     hbytes  equ     $-hello
 
 section .text
 global  _start
 _start:
     mov         rdi, stdout
     mov         rsi, hello
     mov         rdx, hbytes
     sys.write
 
     xor         rdi,rdi
     sys.exit
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h2 id=&#34;compile-to-object-code&#34;&gt;Compile to object code&lt;/h2&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Next, we&amp;rsquo;ll compile &lt;code&gt;hello.asm&lt;/code&gt; to a 64-bit ELF object file using &lt;code&gt;nasm&lt;/code&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;% nasm -f elf64 hello.asm
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;This emits &lt;code&gt;hello.o&lt;/code&gt;, an 880-byte ELF-64 object file. Since we haven&amp;rsquo;t yet run
 this through the linker, addresses of global symbols (in this case, &lt;code&gt;hello&lt;/code&gt;)
 are not yet known and thus left with address 0x0 placeholders. We can see this
 in the &lt;code&gt;movabs&lt;/code&gt; instruction at offset 0x15 of the &lt;code&gt;.text&lt;/code&gt; section below.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The relocation section (Section 6: &lt;code&gt;.rela.text&lt;/code&gt;) contains an entry for each
 symbolic reference that needs to be filled in by the linker. In this case
 there&amp;rsquo;s just a single entry for the symbol &lt;code&gt;hello&lt;/code&gt; (which points to our hello
 world string). The relocation table entry&amp;rsquo;s &lt;code&gt;r_offset&lt;/code&gt; indicates the address to
 replace is at an offset of 0x7 into the section of the associated symbol table
 entry. Its &lt;code&gt;r_info&lt;/code&gt; (0x0000000200000001) encodes a relocation type in its lower
 4 bytes (0x1: &lt;code&gt;R_AMD64_64&lt;/code&gt;) and the associated symbol table entry in its upper
 4 bytes (0x2, which, if we look it up in the symbol table is the &lt;code&gt;.text&lt;/code&gt;
 section).  The &lt;code&gt;r_addend&lt;/code&gt; field (0x0) specifies an additional adjustment to the
 substituted symbol to be applied at link time; specifically, for the
 &lt;code&gt;R_AMD64_64&lt;/code&gt;, the final address is computed as S + A, where S is the
 substituted symbol value (in our case, the address of &lt;code&gt;hello&lt;/code&gt;) and A is the
 addend (in our case, 0x0).&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Without further ado, let&amp;rsquo;s dump the object file:&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;% xxd hello.o
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;With whatever ELF64 &lt;a href=&#34;https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19120-01/open.solaris/819-0690/index.html&#34;&gt;linker &amp;amp; loader guide&lt;/a&gt; we can find at hand,
 let&amp;rsquo;s get decoding this thing:&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;elf-header&#34;&gt;ELF Header&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|00000000: 7f45 4c46 0201 0100 0000 0000 0000 0000|  .ELF............
 |00000010: 0100 3e00 0100 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ..&amp;gt;.............
 |00000020: 0000 0000 0000 0000 4000 0000 0000 0000|  ........@.......
 |00000030: 0000 0000 4000 0000 0000 4000 0700 0300|  ....@.....@.....
 
 e_ident[EI_MAG0..EI_MAG3]  0x7f + ELF          Magic
 e_ident[EI_CLASS]          0x02                64-bit
 e_ident[EI_DATA]           0x01                Little-endian
 e_ident[EI_VERSION]        0x01                ELF v1
 e_ident[EI_OSABI]          0x00                System V
 e_ident[EI_ABIVERSION]     0x00                Unused
 e_ident[EI_PAD]            0x00000000000000    7 bytes unused padding
 e_type                     0x0001              ET_REL
 e_machine                  0x003e              x86_64
 e_version                  0x00000001          Version 1
 e_entry                    0x0000000000000000  Entrypoint address (none)
 e_phoff                    0x0000000000000000  Program header table offset in image
 e_shoff                    0x0000000000000040  Section header table offset in image
 e_flags                    0x00000000          Architecture-dependent interpretation
 e_ehsize                   0x0040              Size of this ELF header (64B)
 e_phentsize                0x0000              Size of program header table entry
 e_phnum                    0x0000              Number of program header table entries
 e_shentsize                0x0040              Size of section header table entry (64B)
 e_shnum                    0x0007              Number of section header table entries
 e_shstrndx                 0x0003              Index of section header for .shstrtab
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;section-header-table-entry-0-null&#34;&gt;Section header table: Entry 0 (null)&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|00000040: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |00000050: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |00000060: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |00000070: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 
 sh_name                    0x00000000          Offset into .shstrtab
 sh_type                    0x00000000          SHT_NULL
 sh_flags                   0x0000000000000000  Section attributes
 sh_addr                    0x0000000000000000  Virtual address of section in memory
 sh_offset                  0x0000000000000000  Offset of section in file image
 sh_size                    0x0000000000000000  Size in bytes of section in file image
 sh_link                    0x00000000          Section index of associated section
 sh_info                    0x00000000          Extra info about section
 sh_addralign               0x0000000000000000  Alignment
 sh_entsize                 0x0000000000000000  Size in bytes of each entry
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;section-header-table-entry-1-data&#34;&gt;Section header table: Entry 1 (.data)&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|00000080: 0100 0000 0100 0000 0300 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |00000090: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0002 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |000000a0: 0e00 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |000000b0: 0400 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 
 sh_name                    0x00000001          Offset into .shstrtab
 sh_type                    0x00000001          SHT_PROGBITS
 sh_flags                   0x0000000000000003  SHF_WRITE | SHF_ALLOC
 sh_addr                    0x0000000000000000  Virtual address of section in memory
 sh_offset                  0x0000000000000200  Offset of section in file image
 sh_size                    0x000000000000000e  Size in bytes of section in file image
 sh_link                    0x00000000          Section index of associated section
 sh_info                    0x00000000          Extra info about section
 sh_addralign               0x0000000000000004  Alignment
 sh_entsize                 0x0000000000000000  Size in bytes of each entry
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;section-header-table-entry-2-text&#34;&gt;Section header table: Entry 2 (.text)&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|000000c0: 0700 0000 0100 0000 0600 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |000000d0: 0000 0000 0000 0000 1002 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |000000e0: 2500 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  %...............
 |000000f0: 1000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 
 sh_name                    0x00000007          Offset into .shstrtab
 sh_type                    0x00000001          SHT_PROGBITS
 sh_flags                   0x0000000000000006  SHF_ALLOC | SHF_EXECINSTR
 sh_addr                    0x0000000000000000  Virtual address of section in memory
 sh_offset                  0x0000000000000210  Offset of section in file image
 sh_size                    0x0000000000000025  Size in bytes of section in file image
 sh_link                    0x00000000          Section index of associated section
 sh_info                    0x00000000          Extra info about section
 sh_addralign               0x0000000000000001  Alignment
 sh_entsize                 0x0000000000000000  Size in bytes of each entry
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;section-header-table-entry-3-shstrtab&#34;&gt;Section header table: Entry 3 (.shstrtab)&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|00000100: 0d00 0000 0300 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |00000110: 0000 0000 0000 0000 4002 0000 0000 0000|  ........@.......
 |00000120: 3200 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  2...............
 |00000130: 0100 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 
 sh_name                    0x0000000d          Offset into .shstrtab
 sh_type                    0x00000003          SHT_STRTAB
 sh_flags                   0x0000000000000000  Section attributes
 sh_addr                    0x0000000000000000  Virtual address of section in memory
 sh_offset                  0x0000000000000240  Offset of section in file image
 sh_size                    0x0000000000000032  Size in bytes of section in file image
 sh_link                    0x00000000          Section index of associated section
 sh_info                    0x00000000          Extra info about section
 sh_addralign               0x0000000000000001  Alignment
 sh_entsize                 0x0000000000000000  Size in bytes of each entry
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;section-header-table-entry-4-symtab&#34;&gt;Section header table: Entry 4 (.symtab)&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|00000140: 1700 0000 0200 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |00000150: 0000 0000 0000 0000 8002 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |00000160: a800 0000 0000 0000 0500 0000 0600 0000|  ................
 |00000170: 0800 0000 0000 0000 1800 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 
 sh_name                    0x00000017          Offset into .shstrtab
 sh_type                    0x00000002          SHT_SYMTAB
 sh_flags                   0x0000000000000000  Section attributes
 sh_addr                    0x0000000000000000  Virtual address of section in memory
 sh_offset                  0x0000000000000280  Offset of section in file image
 sh_size                    0x00000000000000a8  Size in bytes of section in file image
 sh_link                    0x00000005          Section index of associated section
 sh_info                    0x00000006          Extra info about section
 sh_addralign               0x0000000000000008  Alignment
 sh_entsize                 0x0000000000000018  Size in bytes of each entry
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;section-header-table-entry-5-strtab&#34;&gt;Section header table: Entry 5 (.strtab)&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|00000180: 1f00 0000 0300 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |00000190: 0000 0000 0000 0000 3003 0000 0000 0000|  ........0.......
 |000001a0: 1f00 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |000001b0: 0100 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 
 sh_name                    0x0000001f          Offset into .shstrtab
 sh_type                    0x00000003          SHT_STRTAB
 sh_flags                   0x0000000000000000  Section attributes
 sh_addr                    0x0000000000000000  Virtual address of section in memory
 sh_offset                  0x0000000000000330  Offset of section in file image
 sh_size                    0x000000000000001f  Size in bytes of section in file image
 sh_link                    0x00000000          Section index of associated section
 sh_info                    0x00000000          Extra info about section
 sh_addralign               0x0000000000000001  Alignment
 sh_entsize                 0x0000000000000000  Size in bytes of each entry
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;section-header-table-entry-6-relatext&#34;&gt;Section header table: Entry 6 (.rela.text)&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|000001c0: 2700 0000 0400 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  &#39;...............
 |000001d0: 0000 0000 0000 0000 5003 0000 0000 0000|  ........P.......
 |000001e0: 1800 0000 0000 0000 0400 0000 0200 0000|  ................
 |000001f0: 0800 0000 0000 0000 1800 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 
 sh_name                    0x00000027          Offset into .shstrtab
 sh_type                    0x00000004          SHT_RELA
 sh_flags                   0x0000000000000000  Section attributes
 sh_addr                    0x0000000000000000  Virtual address of section in memory
 sh_offset                  0x0000000000000350  Offset of section in file image
 sh_size                    0x0000000000000018  Size in bytes of section in file image
 sh_link                    0x00000004          Section index of associated section
 sh_info                    0x00000002          Extra info about section
 sh_addralign               0x0000000000000008  Alignment
 sh_entsize                 0x0000000000000018  Size in bytes of each entry
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;section-1-data-sht_progbits-shf_write--shf_alloc&#34;&gt;Section 1: .data (SHT_PROGBITS; SHF_WRITE | SHF_ALLOC)&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|00000200: 4865 6c6c 6f2c 2057 6f72 6c64 210a 0000|  Hello, World!...
 
 0x000000  &#39;Hello, World!\n&#39;
 Zero-padding (2 bytes starting at 0x20e)
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;section-2-text-sht_progbits-shf_alloc--shf_execinstr&#34;&gt;Section 2: .text (SHT_PROGBITS; SHF_ALLOC | SHF_EXECINSTR)&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|00000210: bf01 0000 0048 be00 0000 0000 0000 00ba|  .....H..........
 |00000220: 0e00 0000 b804 0000 000f 0548 31ff b801|  ...........H1...
 |00000230: 0000 000f 0500 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 
 0x00000010  mov       edi, 0x1
 0x00000015  movabs    rsi, 0x000000 (placeholder for db hello)
 0x0000001f  mov       edx, 0xe
 0x00000024  mov       eax, 0x4
 0x00400029  syscall
 0x0040002b  xor       rdi, rdi
 0x0040002e  mov       eax, 0x1
 0x00400033  syscall
 Zero-padding (11 bytes starting at 0x235)
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;section-3-shstrtab-sht_strtab&#34;&gt;Section 3: .shstrtab (SHT_STRTAB;)&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|00000240: 002e 6461 7461 002e 7465 7874 002e 7368|  ..data..text..sh
 |00000250: 7374 7274 6162 002e 7379 6d74 6162 002e|  strtab..symtab..
 |00000260: 7374 7274 6162 002e 7265 6c61 2e74 6578|  strtab..rela.tex
 |00000270: 7400 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  t...............
 
 0x00000000: &#39;&#39;
 0x00000001: &#39;.data&#39;
 0x00000007: &#39;.text&#39;
 0x0000000d: &#39;.shstrtab&#39;
 0x00000017: &#39;.symtab&#39;
 0x0000001f: &#39;.strtab&#39;
 0x00000027: &#39;.rela.text&#39;
 Zero-padding (14 bytes starting at 0x272)
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;section-4-symtab-sht_symtab&#34;&gt;Section 4: .symtab&amp;rsquo; (SHT_SYMTAB;)&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;h4 id=&#34;symbol-table-entry-0&#34;&gt;Symbol table entry 0&lt;/h4&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|00000280: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |00000290: 0000 0000 0000 0000                    |  ........
 
 st_name                    0x00000000
 st_info                    0x00
 st_other                   0x00
 st_shndx                   0x0000 (SHN_UNDEF)
 st_value                   0x0000000000000000
 st_size                    0x0000000000000000
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h4 id=&#34;symbol-table-entry-1-helloasm&#34;&gt;Symbol table entry 1 (hello.asm)&lt;/h4&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|00000298:                     0100 0000 0400 f1ff|          ........
 |000002a0: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 
 st_name                    0x00000001
 st_info                    0x04 (STT_FILE)
 st_other                   0x00
 st_shndx                   0xfff1 (SHN_ABS)
 st_value                   0x0000000000000000
 st_size                    0x0000000000000000
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h4 id=&#34;symbol-table-entry-2&#34;&gt;Symbol table entry 2&lt;/h4&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|000002b0: 0000 0000 0300 0100 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |000002c0: 0000 0000 0000 0000                    |  ........
 
 st_name                    0x00000000
 st_info                    0x03 (STT_OBJECT | STT_FUNC)
 st_other                   0x00
 st_shndx                   0x0001 (Section 1: .data)
 st_value                   0x0000000000000000
 st_size                    0x0000000000000000
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h4 id=&#34;symbol-table-entry-3&#34;&gt;Symbol table entry 3&lt;/h4&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|000002c8:                     0000 0000 0300 0200|          ........
 |000002d0: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 
 st_name                    0x00000000
 st_info                    0x03 (STT_OBJECT | STT_FUNC)
 st_other                   0x00
 st_shndx                   0x0002 (Section 2: .text)
 st_value                   0x0000000000000000
 st_size                    0x0000000000000000
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h4 id=&#34;symbol-table-entry-4-hello&#34;&gt;Symbol table entry 4 (hello)&lt;/h4&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|000002e0: 0b00 0000 0000 0100 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |000002f0: 0000 0000 0000 0000                    |  ........
 
 st_name                    0x0000000b
 st_info                    0x00
 st_other                   0x00
 st_shndx                   0x0001 (Section 1: .data)
 st_value                   0x0000000000000000
 st_size                    0x0000000000000000
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;symbol-table-entry-5-hbytes&#34;&gt;Symbol table entry 5 (hbytes)&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|000002f8:                     1100 0000 0000 f1ff|          ........
 |00000300: 0e00 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 
 st_name                    0x00000011
 st_info                    0x00
 st_other                   0x00
 st_shndx                   0xfff1 (SHN_ABS)
 st_value                   0x000000000000000e
 st_size                    0x0000000000000000
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h4 id=&#34;symbol-table-entry-6-_start&#34;&gt;Symbol table entry 6 (_start)&lt;/h4&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|00000310: 1800 0000 1000 0200 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |00000320: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 
 st_name                    0x00000018
 st_info                    0x01 (STT_OBJECT)
 st_other                   0x00
 st_shndx                   0x0002 (Section 2: .text)
 st_value                   0x0000000000000000
 st_size                    0x0000000000000000
 Zero-padding (8 bytes starting at 0x328)
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;section-5-strtab-sht_strtab&#34;&gt;Section 5: .strtab (SHT_STRTAB;)&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|00000330: 0068 656c 6c6f 2e61 736d 0068 656c 6c6f|  .hello.asm.hello
 |00000340: 0068 6279 7465 7300 5f73 7461 7274 0000|  .hbytes._start..
 
 0x00000000: &#39;&#39;
 0x00000001: &#39;hello.asm&#39;
 0x0000000b: &#39;hello&#39;
 0x00000011: &#39;hbytes&#39;
 0x00000018: &#39;_start&#39;
 Zero-padding (1 byte starting at 0x34f)
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;section-6-relatext-sht_rela&#34;&gt;Section 6: .rela.text (SHT_RELA;)&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|00000350: 0700 0000 0000 0000 0100 0000 0200 0000|  ................
 |00000360: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 
 r_offset                   0x0000000000000007
 r_info                     0x0000000200000001 (Symbol table entry 2, type R_AMD64_64)
 r_addend                   0x0000000000000000
 Zero-padding (8 bytes starting at 0x368)
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h2 id=&#34;link-to-executable-image&#34;&gt;Link to executable image&lt;/h2&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Next, let&amp;rsquo;s link &lt;code&gt;hello.o&lt;/code&gt; into a 64-bit ELF executable:&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;% ld -o hello hello.o
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;This emits &lt;code&gt;hello&lt;/code&gt;, a 951-byte ELF-64 executable image.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Since the linker has decided which segment each section maps into (if any) and
 what the segment addresses are, addresses are now known for all (statically
 linked) symbols, and address 0x0 placeholders have been replaced with actual
 addresses. We can see this in the &lt;code&gt;mov&lt;/code&gt; instruction at address 0x4000b5, which
 now specifies an address of 0x6000d8.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Running the linked executable image through &lt;code&gt;xxd&lt;/code&gt; as above and picking our
 trusty linker &amp;amp; loader guide back up, here we go again:&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;elf-header-1&#34;&gt;ELF Header&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|00000000: 7f45 4c46 0201 0109 0000 0000 0000 0000|  .ELF............
 |00000010: 0200 3e00 0100 0000 b000 4000 0000 0000|  ..&amp;gt;.......@.....
 |00000020: 4000 0000 0000 0000 1001 0000 0000 0000|  @...............
 |00000030: 0000 0000 4000 3800 0200 4000 0600 0300|  ....@.8...@.....
 
 e_ident[EI_MAG0..EI_MAG3]  0x7f + ELF          Magic
 e_ident[EI_CLASS]          0x02                64-bit
 e_ident[EI_DATA]           0x01                Little-endian
 e_ident[EI_VERSION]        0x01                ELF v1
 e_ident[EI_OSABI]          0x09                FreeBSD
 e_ident[EI_ABIVERSION]     0x00                Unused
 e_ident[EI_PAD]            0x0000000000        7 bytes unused padding
 e_type                     0x0002              ET_EXEC
 e_machine                  0x003e              x86_64
 e_version                  0x00000001          Version 1
 e_entry                    0x00000000004000b0  Entrypoint addr
 e_phoff                    0x0000000000000040  Program header table offset in image
 e_shoff                    0x0000000000000110  Section header table offset in image
 e_flags                    0x00000000          Architecture-dependent interpretation
 e_ehsize                   0x0040              Size of this ELF header
 e_phentsize                0x0038              Size of program header table entry
 e_phnum                    0x0002              Number of program header table entries
 e_shentsize                0x0040              Size of section header table entry
 e_shnum                    0x0006              Number of section header table entries
 e_shstrndx                 0x0003              Index of section header for .shstrtab
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;program-header-table-entry-0-pf_x--pf_r&#34;&gt;Program header table: Entry 0 (PF_X | PF_R)&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|00000040: 0100 0000 0500 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |00000050: 0000 4000 0000 0000 0000 4000 0000 0000|  ..@.......@.....
 |00000060: d500 0000 0000 0000 d500 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |00000070: 0000 2000 0000 0000                    |  .. .............
 
 p_type                     0x00000001          PT_LOAD
 p_flags                    0x00000005          PF_X | PF_R
 p_offset                   0x00000000          Offset of segment in file image
 p_vaddr                    0x0000000000400000  Virtual address of segment in memory
 p_paddr                    0x0000000000400000  Physical address of segment
 p_filesz                   0x00000000000000d5  Size in bytes of segment in file image
 p_memsz                    0x00000000000000d5  Size in bytes of segment in memory
 p_align                    0x0000000000200000  Alignment (2MB)
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;program-header-table-entry-1-pf_w--pf_r&#34;&gt;Program header table: Entry 1 (PF_W | PF_R)&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|00000078:                     0100 0000 0600 0000|          ........
 |00000080: d800 0000 0000 0000 d800 6000 0000 0000|  ..........`.....
 |00000090: d800 6000 0000 0000 0e00 0000 0000 0000|  ..`.............
 |000000a0: 0e00 0000 0000 0000 0000 2000 0000 0000|  .......... .....
 
 p_type                     0x00000001          PT_LOAD
 p_flags                    0x00000006          PF_W | PF_R
 p_offset                   0x00000000000000d8  Offset of segment in file image
 p_vaddr                    0x00000000006000d8  Virtual address of segment in memory
 p_paddr                    0x00000000006000d8  Physical address of segment
 p_filesz                   0x000000000000000e  Size in bytes of segment in file image
 p_memsz                    0x000000000000000e  Size in bytes of segment in memory
 p_align                    0x0000000000200000  Alignment (2MB)
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;section-1-text-sht_progbits-shf_alloc--shf_execinstr&#34;&gt;Section 1: .text (SHT_PROGBITS; SHF_ALLOC | SHF_EXECINSTR)&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|000000b0: bf01 0000 0048 bed8 0060 0000 0000 00ba|  .....H...`......
 |000000c0: 0e00 0000 b804 0000 000f 0548 31ff b801|  ...........H1...
 |000000d0: 0000 000f 05                           |  .....
 
 0x4000b0  mov       edi, 0x1
 0x4000b5  movabs    rsi, 0x6000d8
 0x4000bf  mov       edx, 0xe
 0x4000c4  mov       eax, 0x4
 0x4000c9  syscall
 0x4000cb  xor       rdi, rdi
 0x4000ce  mov       eax, 0x1
 0x4000d3  syscall
 Zero-padding (5 bytes starting at 0x000000d5)
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;section-2-data-sht_progbits-shf_write--shf_alloc&#34;&gt;Section 2: .data (SHT_PROGBITS; SHF_WRITE | SHF_ALLOC)&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|000000d8:                     4865 6c6c 6f2c 2057|          Hello, W
 |000000e0: 6f72 6c64 210a                         |  orld!.
 
 0x6000d8  &#39;Hello, World!\n&#39;
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;section-3-shstrtab-sht_strtab-1&#34;&gt;Section 3: .shstrtab (SHT_STRTAB;)&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|000000e6:                002e 7379 6d74 6162 002e|        ..symtab..
 |000000f0: 7374 7274 6162 002e 7368 7374 7274 6162|  strtab..shstrtab
 |00000100: 002e 7465 7874 002e 6461 7461 0000 0000|  ..text..data.
 
 0x00000000: &#39;&#39;
 0x00000001: &#39;.symtab&#39;
 0x00000009: &#39;.strtab&#39;
 0x00000011: &#39;.shstrtab&#39;
 0x0000001b: &#39;.text&#39;
 0x00000021: &#39;.data&#39;
 Zero-padding (3 bytes starting at 0x0000010d)
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;section-header-table-entry-0-null-1&#34;&gt;Section header table: Entry 0 (null)&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|00000110: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |00000120: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |00000130: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |00000140: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 
 sh_name                    0x00000000          Offset into .shstrtab
 sh_type                    0x00000000          SHT_NULL
 sh_flags                   0x0000000000000000  Section attributes
 sh_addr                    0x0000000000000000  Virtual address of section in memory
 sh_offset                  0x0000000000000000  Offset of section in file image
 sh_size                    0x0000000000000000  Size in bytes of section in file image
 sh_link                    0x00000000          Section index of associated section
 sh_info                    0x00000000          Extra info about section
 sh_addralign               0x0000000000000000  Alignment
 sh_entsize                 0x0000000000000000  Size in bytes of each entry
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;section-header-table-entry-1-text&#34;&gt;Section header table: Entry 1 (.text)&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|00000150: 1b00 0000 0100 0000 0600 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |00000160: b000 4000 0000 0000 b000 0000 0000 0000|  ..@.............
 |00000170: 2500 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  %...............
 |00000180: 1000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 
 sh_name                    0x0000001b          Offset into .shstrtab
 sh_type                    0x00000001          SHT_PROGBITS
 sh_flags                   0x00000006          SHF_ALLOC | SHF_EXECINSTR
 sh_addr                    0x00000000004000b0  Virtual address of section in memory
 sh_offset                  0x00000000000000b0  Offset of section in file image
 sh_size                    0x0000000000000025  Size in bytes of section in file image
 sh_link                    0x00000000          Section index of associated section
 sh_info                    0x00000000          Extra info about section
 sh_addralign               0x0000000000000010  Alignment (2B)
 sh_entsize                 0x0000000000000000  Size in bytes of each entry
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;section-header-table-entry-2-data&#34;&gt;Section header table: Entry 2 (.data)&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|00000190: 2100 0000 0100 0000 0300 0000 0000 0000|  !...............
 |000001a0: d800 6000 0000 0000 d800 0000 0000 0000|  ..`.............
 |000001b0: 0e00 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |000001c0: 0400 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 
 sh_name                    0x00000021          Offset into .shstrtab
 sh_type                    0x00000001          SHT_PROGBITS
 sh_flags                   0x0000000000000003  SHF_WRITE | SHF_ALLOC
 sh_addr                    0x00000000006000d8  Virtual address of section in memory
 sh_offset                  0x00000000000000d8  Offset of section in file image
 sh_size                    0x000000000000000e  Size in bytes of section in file image
 sh_link                    0x00000000          Section index of associated section
 sh_info                    0x00000000          Extra info about section
 sh_addralign               0x0000000000000004  Alignment (4B)
 sh_entsize                 0x0000000000000000  Size in bytes of each entry
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;section-header-table-entry-3-shstrtab-1&#34;&gt;Section header table: Entry 3 (.shstrtab)&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|000001d0: 1100 0000 0300 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |000001e0: 0000 0000 0000 0000 e600 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |000001f0: 2700 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  &#39;...............
 |00000200: 0100 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 
 sh_name                    0x00000011          Offset into .shstrtab
 sh_type                    0x00000003          SHT_STRTAB
 sh_flags                   0x00000000          No flags
 sh_addr                    0x0000000000000000  Virtual address of section in memory
 sh_offset                  0x00000000000000e6  Offset of section in file image
 sh_size                    0x0000000000000027  Size in bytes of section in file image
 sh_link                    0x00000000          Section index of associated section
 sh_info                    0x00000000          Extra info about section
 sh_addralign               0x0000000000000001  Alignment (1B)
 sh_entsize                 0x0000000000000000  Size in bytes of each entry
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;section-header-table-entry-4-symtab-1&#34;&gt;Section header table: Entry 4 (.symtab)&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|00000210: 0100 0000 0200 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |00000220: 0000 0000 0000 0000 9002 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |00000230: f000 0000 0000 0000 0500 0000 0600 0000|  ................
 |00000240: 0800 0000 0000 0000 1800 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 
 sh_name                    0x00000001          Offset into .shstrtab
 sh_type                    0x00000002          SHT_SYMTAB
 sh_flags                   0x00000000          No flags
 sh_addr                    0x0000000000000000  Virtual address of section in memory
 sh_offset                  0x0000000000000290  Offset of section in file image
 sh_size                    0x00000000000000f0  Size in bytes of section in file image
 sh_link                    0x00000005          Section index of associated section
 sh_info                    0x00000006          Flags
 sh_addralign               0x0000000000000008  Alignment (8B)
 sh_entsize                 0x0000000000000018  Size in bytes of each entry (24B)
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;section-header-table-entry-5-strtab-1&#34;&gt;Section header table: Entry 5 (.strtab)&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|00000250: 0900 0000 0300 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |00000260: 0000 0000 0000 0000 8003 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |00000270: 3700 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  7...............
 |00000280: 0100 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 
 sh_name                    0x00000009          Offset into .shstrtab
 sh_type                    0x00000003          SHT_STRTAB
 sh_flags                   0x0000000000000000  No flags
 sh_addr                    0x0000000000000000  Virtual address of section in memory
 sh_offset                  0x0000000000000380  Offset of section in file image
 sh_size                    0x0000000000000037  Size in bytes of section in file image
 sh_link                    0x00000000          Section index of associated section
 sh_info                    0x00000000          Extrac info about section
 sh_addralign               0x0000000000000001  Alignment (1B)
 sh_entsize                 0x0000000000000000  Size in bytes of each entry
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;section-4-symtab-sht_symtab-1&#34;&gt;Section 4: .symtab (SHT_SYMTAB;)&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;h4 id=&#34;symbol-table-entry-0-1&#34;&gt;Symbol table entry 0&lt;/h4&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|00000290: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 |000002a0: 0000 0000 0000 0000                    |  ........
 
 st_name                    0x00000000
 st_info                    0x00
 st_other                   0x00
 st_shndx                   0x0000 (SHN_UNDEF)
 st_value                   0x0000000000000000
 st_size                    0x0000000000000000
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h4 id=&#34;symbol-table-entry-1&#34;&gt;Symbol table entry 1&lt;/h4&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|000002a8:                     0000 0000 0300 0100|          ........
 |000002b0: b000 4000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ..@.............
 
 st_name                    0x00000000
 st_info                    0x03 (STT_OBJECT | STT_FUNC)
 st_other                   0x00
 st_shndx                   0x0001 (Section 1: .text)
 st_value                   0x00000000004000b0
 st_size                    0x0000000000000000
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h4 id=&#34;symbol-table-entry-2-1&#34;&gt;Symbol table entry 2&lt;/h4&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|000002c0: 0000 0000 0300 0200 d800 6000 0000 0000|  ..........`.....
 |000002d0: 0000 0000 0000 0000                    |  ........
 
 st_name                    0x00000000
 st_info                    0x03 (STT_OBJECT | STT_FUNC)
 st_other                   0x00
 st_shndx                   0x0002 (Section 2: .data)
 st_value                   0x00000000006000d8
 st_size                    0x0000000000000000
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h4 id=&#34;symbol-table-entry-3-helloasm&#34;&gt;Symbol table entry 3 (hello.asm)&lt;/h4&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|000002d0:                     0100 0000 0400 f1ff|          ........
 |000002e0: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 
 st_name                    0x00000001
 st_info                    0x04 (STT_FILE)
 st_other                   0x00
 st_shndx                   0xfff1 (SHN_ABS)
 st_value                   0x0000000000000000
 st_size                    0x0000000000000000
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h4 id=&#34;symbol-table-entry-4-hello-1&#34;&gt;Symbol table entry 4 (hello)&lt;/h4&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|000002f0: 0b00 0000 0000 0200 d800 6000 0000 0000|  ..........`.....
 |00000300: 0000 0000 0000 0000                    |  ................
 
 st_name                    0x0000000b
 st_info                    0x00
 st_other                   0x00
 st_shndx                   0x0002 (Section 2: .data)
 st_value                   0x00000000006000d8
 st_size                    0x0000000000000000
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h4 id=&#34;symbol-table-entry-5-hbytes-1&#34;&gt;Symbol table entry 5 (hbytes)&lt;/h4&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|00000300:                     1100 0000 0000 f1ff|          ........
 |00000310: 0e00 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ................
 
 st_name                    0x00000011
 st_info                    0x00
 st_other                   0x00
 st_shndx                   0xfff1 (SHN_ABS)
 st_value                   0x000000000000000e
 st_size                    0x0000000000000000
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h4 id=&#34;symbol-table-entry-6-_start-1&#34;&gt;Symbol table entry 6 (_start)&lt;/h4&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|00000320: 1800 0000 1000 0100 b000 4000 0000 0000|  ..........@.....
 |00000330: 0000 0000 0000 0000                    |  ........
 
 st_name                    0x00000018
 st_info                    0x10 (STB_GLOBAL)
 st_other                   0x00
 st_shndx                   0x0001 (Section 1: .text)
 st_value                   0x00000000004000b0
 st_size                    0x0000000000000000
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h4 id=&#34;symbol-table-entry-7-__bss_start&#34;&gt;Symbol table entry 7 (__bss_start)&lt;/h4&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|00000330:                     1f00 0000 1000 f1ff|          ........
 |00000340: e600 6000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ..`.............
 
 st_name                    0x0000001f
 st_info                    0x10 (STB_GLOBAL)
 st_other                   0x00
 st_shndx                   0xfff1 (SHN_ABS)
 st_value                   0x00000000006000e6
 st_size                    0x0000000000000000
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h4 id=&#34;symbol-table-entry-8-_edata&#34;&gt;Symbol table entry 8 (_edata)&lt;/h4&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|00000350: 2b00 0000 1000 f1ff e600 6000 0000 0000|  +.........`.....
 |00000360: 0000 0000 0000 0000                    |  ........
 
 st_name                    0x0000002b
 st_info                    0x10 (STB_GLOBAL)
 st_other                   0x00
 st_shndx                   0xfff1 (SHN_ABS)
 st_value                   0x00000000006000e6
 st_size                    0x0000000000000000
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h4 id=&#34;symbol-table-entry-9-_end&#34;&gt;Symbol table entry 9 (_end)&lt;/h4&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|00000360:                     3200 0000 1000 f1ff|          2.......
 |00000370: e800 6000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000|  ..`.............
 
 st_name                    0x00000032
 st_info                    0x10 (STB_GLOBAL)
 st_other                   0x00
 st_shndx                   0xfff1 (SHN_ABS)
 st_value                   0x00000000006000e8
 st_size                    0x0000000000000000
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;section-6-strtab-sht_strtab&#34;&gt;Section 6: .strtab (SHT_STRTAB;)&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;|00000380: 0068 656c 6c6f 2e61 736d 0068 656c 6c6f|  .hello.asm.hello
 |00000390: 0068 6279 7465 7300 5f73 7461 7274 005f|  .hbytes._start._
 |000003a0: 5f62 7373 5f73 7461 7274 005f 6564 6174|  _bss_start._edat
 |000003b0: 6100 5f65 6e64 00                      |  a._end.
 
 0x00000000: &#39;&#39;
 0x00000001: &#39;hello.asm&#39;
 0x0000000b: &#39;hello&#39;
 0x00000011: &#39;hbytes&#39;
 0x00000018: &#39;_start&#39;
 0x0000001f: &#39;__bss_start&#39;
 0x0000002b: &#39;_edata&#39;
 0x00000032: &#39;_end&#39;
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
 &lt;h2 id=&#34;effect-of-stripping&#34;&gt;Effect of stripping&lt;/h2&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Running &lt;code&gt;strip&lt;/code&gt; on the binary has the effect of dropping the &lt;code&gt;.symtab&lt;/code&gt; and
 &lt;code&gt;.strtab&lt;/code&gt; sections along with their section headers and 16 bytes of data (the
 section names &lt;code&gt;.symtab&lt;/code&gt; and &lt;code&gt;.strtab&lt;/code&gt;) from the &lt;code&gt;.shstrtab&lt;/code&gt; section, reducing the
 total binary size to 512 bytes.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h2 id=&#34;in-memory-process-image&#34;&gt;In-memory process image&lt;/h2&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;FreeBSD uses a memory superpage size of 2MB (page size of 4kB) on x86_64. Since
 attributes are set at the page level, read+execute program &lt;code&gt;.text&lt;/code&gt; and
 read+write &lt;code&gt;.data&lt;/code&gt; are loaded into two separate segments on separate pages, as
 laid-out by the linker.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;On launch, the kernel maps the binary image into memory as specified in the
 program header table:&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;ul&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;PHT Entry 0: The ELF header, program header table, and Section 1 (&lt;code&gt;.text&lt;/code&gt;)
 are mapped from offset 0x00 of the binary image (with length 0xd6 bytes)
 into Segment 1 (readable, executable) at address 0x400000.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;PHT Entry 1: Section 2 (&lt;code&gt;.data&lt;/code&gt;) at offset 0xd8 of the binary image is
 mapped into Segment 2 (readable, writeable) at address 0x6000d8 from offset
 0xd8 with length 0x0e bytes.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ul&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The program entrypoint is specified to be 0x4000b0, the start of the &lt;code&gt;.text&lt;/code&gt;
 section.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;And that&amp;rsquo;s it! Any corrections or comments are always welcome. Shoot me an
 email at &lt;a href=&#34;mailto:chris@bracken.jp&#34;&gt;chris@bracken.jp&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Moving to the US: Importing a Canadian Vehicle</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2011/05/moving-to-us-letter-of-compliance/</link>
       <pubDate>Tue, 10 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2011/05/moving-to-us-letter-of-compliance/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;A big difference between the last time I moved to the US and this time is that
 this time, I&amp;rsquo;ve got a lot more stuff. One of those things is a Nissan Rogue
 that&amp;rsquo;s been quietly living its life in Canada. Faced with the prospect of
 selling the car and buying a new one, I chose instead to import the one I know
 and love.  Here is my story.  But be forewarned, it is not for the faint of
 heart.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2011-05-10-futile.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;Scrawny kid vs sumo wrestler&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;To import a vehicle to the US from Canada, you need to undertake a series of
 quests. These are detailed on the &lt;a href=&#34;http://stnw.nhtsa.gov/cars/rules/import/&#34;&gt;NHTSA website&lt;/a&gt; under the heading
 &lt;em&gt;Vehicle Importation Guidelines (Canadian)&lt;/em&gt;. As of May 2011, you need the
 following items in increasing order of difficulty:&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[easy]&lt;/strong&gt; The following information about your car:&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;ol&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;VIN&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Make/Model/Year&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Month/Year of manufacture&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Registration &amp;amp; ownership information&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ol&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[easy]&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&#34;http://www.epa.gov/oms/imports/&#34;&gt;EPA Form 3520-1&lt;/a&gt;. You will likely be importing your
 vehicle under &lt;em&gt;code EE: identical in all material respects to a US certified
 version&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[easy]&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&#34;http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/rules/import/&#34;&gt;NHTSA Form HS-7&lt;/a&gt;. You will most likely be importing your
 vehicle under box 2B, for vehicles that complied with Canadian CMVSA
 regulations at their time of manufacture and where the manufacturer attests
 that, with a few exceptions, it meets US regulations; see final item.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[medium]&lt;/strong&gt; A letter on the manufacturer&amp;rsquo;s letterhead from the Canadian
 distributor, stating that there are no open recalls or service campaigns on the
 vehicle. I&amp;rsquo;m not sure if this is required, but Nissan Canada thought it would
 be.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;[hard]&lt;/strong&gt; A letter from the vehicle’s original manufacturer, on
 the manufacturer’s letterhead identifying the vehicle by vehicle identification
 number (VIN) and stating that the vehicle conforms to all applicable FMVSS
 &amp;ldquo;except for the labeling requirements of Standards Nos. 101 &lt;em&gt;Controls and
 Displays&lt;/em&gt; and 110 &lt;em&gt;Tire Selection and Rims&lt;/em&gt; or 120 &lt;em&gt;Tire Selection and Rims for
 Motor Vehicles other than Passenger Cars&lt;/em&gt;, and/or the specifications of
 Standard No. 108 &lt;em&gt;Lamps, Reflective Devices, and Associated Equipment&lt;/em&gt;,
 relating to daytime running lamps.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Items 1-3 are left as an exercise to the reader. I will focus here on items 4
 and 5 to save you the 14 hours of accumulated hold time and multiple phone
 calls. Prepare yourself friend, for here begins a journey of hurt and
 frustration, but you will prevail.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Let&amp;rsquo;s start with item 4. I gave &lt;a href=&#34;http://www.nissan.ca/common/footer/en/contact.html&#34;&gt;Nissan Canada&lt;/a&gt; a ring at
 1-800-387-0122 and managed to make it through the phone navigation system to a
 human operator. I told them I was importing a Canadian Nissan into the States
 and needed a &lt;em&gt;Letter of Compliance&lt;/em&gt;. After a bit of digging, they stated that
 such letters are only provided by &lt;em&gt;Nissan North America,&lt;/em&gt; but they would
 instead mail out two other letters on Nissan letterhead:&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;ol&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;A letter stating the VIN and that the vehicle has no pending recalls or
 service campaigns on it.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;In place of a &lt;em&gt;Certificate of Origin&lt;/em&gt; (which Nissan Canada does not
 provide), a letter stating the VIN and that the vehicle was manufactured for
 sale in the Canadian market and complied with all safety and emission
 regulations at the time of manufacture.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ol&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;We&amp;rsquo;re almost there, but your next and final mission is also the most
 challenging: the &lt;em&gt;Letter of Compliance&lt;/em&gt;. Call &lt;a href=&#34;http://www.nissanusa.com/apps/contactus&#34;&gt;Nissan North
 America&lt;/a&gt; Consumer Affairs Department at 1-800-647-7261. Navigate
 through the phone system to an operator - get their name and extension. They
 may ask for your VIN only to find it&amp;rsquo;s not in their system. Canadian VINs are
 not in their system. Some operators thought they were, others were sure they
 weren&amp;rsquo;t. They&amp;rsquo;re not. Many operators tried and failed to find it. Ask them to
 open a file, give them the vehicle information and your info and get the file
 number. Use this number whenever you call.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Here are the five steps to success:&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;ol&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Tell the operator that you&amp;rsquo;re importing a Canadian Nissan vehicle to the US
 and that you need a &lt;em&gt;Letter of Compliance&lt;/em&gt; stating the VIN and that the
 vehicle was built to conform to Canadian and United States EPA emissions
 standards and all US Federal motor vehicle standards except for daytime
 running light brightness. There is a very good chance they&amp;rsquo;ve never heard of
 this. Get them to talk to their supervisor, and their supervisor. Anyone.
 Someone will know.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;They will tell you that the vehicle needs to have its daytime running lights
 disabled before they will issue the letter of compliance. All the government
 rules seem to specifically exclude the daytime running lights, and the
 letter they issue even states that the vehicle doesn&amp;rsquo;t meet that standard,
 but for whatever reason they want a copy of a work statement showing the
 work was done. Remember to get the operator&amp;rsquo;s name and extension and the
 fax number for the work statement before you hang up.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Get the daytime running lights disabled. It&amp;rsquo;s a setting change in the
 on-board computer; your local dealer will do this in under 30 mins for $50
 or so. &lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Fax your the work statement and put your name, return fax number and a
 request for the &lt;em&gt;Letter of Compliance&lt;/em&gt; on the cover sheet. Phone Nissan
 North America Consumer Affairs back. The phone navigation system will give
 you hope that you can input an extension directly, only to find it only
 accepts 5-digit extensions but your rep has a 6-digit extension. You&amp;rsquo;ll end
 up back in the queue. Ask whoever you get to put you through to your
 previous rep, by extension. When you get through, say that you sent the fax
 and request the letter. Ask them to phone you back when they&amp;rsquo;ve faxed it.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;You&amp;rsquo;ll get the fax eventually - &lt;em&gt;check the information!&lt;/em&gt; On my letter, the
 year, model and VIN were all incorrect, though they got my name right. If
 it&amp;rsquo;s incorrect, try again.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ol&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;You now have everything you need to import your Nissan to the States. Good
 luck my friends, I don&amp;rsquo;t envy you, but know that I am with you and that victory
 will someday be yours too.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Job Search, Search Job</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2011/05/job-search-search-job/</link>
       <pubDate>Fri, 06 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2011/05/job-search-search-job/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;After close to seven years with &lt;a href=&#34;https://www.morganstanley.com&#34;&gt;Morgan Stanley&lt;/a&gt;, I&amp;rsquo;ve turned in my badge
 and exited the world of finance. I first joined Morgan Stanley in Tokyo in 2004
 working in the Equities Technology group focusing on scalability in the trade
 processing plant. Throughout my career at Morgan, I&amp;rsquo;ve had the pleasure of
 working alongside a lot of incredibly bright people on some very interesting and
 challenging problems, mainly focusing on scalability, parallelism and system
 architecture.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;After being made the offer one sunny Kyoto morning, and giving it some serious
 contemplation, I&amp;rsquo;ve accepted a position with &lt;a href=&#34;https://google.com&#34;&gt;Google&lt;/a&gt; in &lt;a href=&#34;https://goo.gl/maps/gxWf&#34;&gt;Mountain View,
 California&lt;/a&gt;. While there&amp;rsquo;s no question I&amp;rsquo;ll miss working with all the
 people who made my time at Morgan Stanley such an awesome experience, I&amp;rsquo;m
 excited about joining Google, and looking forward to working on some tough and
 interesting problems in a very unique environment.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Winter Sounds in Japan</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2011/04/winter-sounds-in-japan/</link>
       <pubDate>Mon, 25 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2011/04/winter-sounds-in-japan/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;There are a lot of uniquely Japanese sounds.  But the two I&amp;rsquo;m writing
 about today appear on cold winter nights, and echo eerily through the
 dark, empty streets between dinner and bedtime.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Japanese winters are cold. They&amp;rsquo;re not -30C cold, but what they do have on
 Canadian winters is how drafty Japanese houses tend to be, and the distinct
 lack of central heating. All across the country the appearance of convenience
 store oden and yaki-imo wagons mark the arrival of winter.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2011-04-25-yakiimo.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;Yaki-imo wagon&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;Yaki-imo are sweet potatoes roasted over flames in wood fired ovens in small
 mobile carts or trucks.  They&amp;rsquo;re served up wrapped in newspaper, and are not
 only delicious, but keep your hands warm too.  But the most distinctive thing
 about yaki-imo is that the sellers sing a very distinct &lt;a href=&#34;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P9yctE9_hQ&#34;&gt;yaki-imo
 song&lt;/a&gt;. They typically make the rounds until just after dinner time,
 and I always found their song a bit eerie drifting though the dark streets.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2011-04-25-hinoyoujin.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;Hi no Yōjin&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;Central heating is near non-existent in Japan, one result of which is the
 &lt;a href=&#34;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotatsu&#34;&gt;kotatsu&lt;/a&gt;, but another is that kerosene and gas heaters are still
 commonly used for heating.  Every year, housefires result from people
 forgetting to shut of their heaters before bed.  As a reminder to shut off the
 heaters, people walk through town late at night, carrying lanterns and clacking
 wooden blocks together, calling out &amp;ldquo;&lt;a href=&#34;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFqRIKoVckA#t=20s&#34;&gt;hi no yōjin&lt;/a&gt;&amp;rdquo;: be careful
 with fire.  The sound of the blocks typically carries for many blocks, and you
 often hear their calls echoing through town, coming and going for up to half an
 hour as you lay in bed.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Installing Mozc on Ubuntu</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2011/04/installing-mozc-on-ubuntu/</link>
       <pubDate>Fri, 22 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2011/04/installing-mozc-on-ubuntu/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;If you&amp;rsquo;re a Japanese speaker, one of the first things you do when you install a
 fresh Linux distribution is to install a decent &lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_IME&#34;&gt;Japanese IME&lt;/a&gt;.
 Ubuntu defaults to &lt;a href=&#34;https://sourceforge.jp/projects/anthy/news/&#34;&gt;Anthy&lt;/a&gt;, but I personally prefer &lt;a href=&#34;https://code.google.com/p/mozc/&#34;&gt;Mozc&lt;/a&gt;, and
 that&amp;rsquo;s what I&amp;rsquo;m going to show you how to install here.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Update (2011-05-01):&lt;/em&gt; Found an older &lt;a href=&#34;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfgjTCXZ2-s&#34;&gt;video tutorial&lt;/a&gt; on YouTube
 which provides an alternative (and potentially more comprehensive) solution for
 Japanese support on 10.10 using ibus instead of uim, which is the better choice
 for newer releases.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Update (2011-10-25):&lt;/em&gt; The software installation part of this process got a
 whole lot easier in Ubuntu releases after Natty, and as noted above, I&amp;rsquo;d
 recommend sticking with ibus over uim.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;japanese-input-basics&#34;&gt;Japanese Input Basics&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Before we get going, let&amp;rsquo;s understand a bit about how Japanese input works on
 computers. Japanese comprises three main character sets: the two phonetic
 character sets, hiragana and katakana at 50 characters each, plus many
 thousands of Kanji, each with multiple readings. Clearly a full keyboard is
 impractical, so a mapping is required.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Input happens in two steps. First, you input the text phonetically, then you
 convert it to a mix of kanji and kana.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2011-04-22-henkan.png&#34;
     alt=&#34;Japanese IME completion menu&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;Over the years, two main mechanisms evolved to input kana. The first was common
 on old &lt;em&gt;wapuro&lt;/em&gt;, and assigns a kana to each key on the keyboard—e.g. where
 the &lt;em&gt;A&lt;/em&gt; key appears on a QWERTY keyboard, you&amp;rsquo;ll find a ち. This is how our
 grandparents hacked out articles for the local &lt;em&gt;shinbun&lt;/em&gt;, but I suspect only a
 few die-hard traditionalists still do this. The second and more common method
 is literal &lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wapuro&#34;&gt;transliteration of roman characters into kana&lt;/a&gt;. You
 type &lt;em&gt;fujisan&lt;/em&gt; and out comes ふじさん.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Once the phonetic kana have been input, you execute a conversion step wherein
 the input is transformed into the appropriate mix of kanji and kana. Given the
 large number of homonyms in Japanese, this step often involves disambiguating
 your input by selecting the intended kanji. For example, the &lt;em&gt;mita&lt;/em&gt; in &lt;em&gt;eiga wo
 mita&lt;/em&gt; (I watched a movie) is properly rendered as 観た whereas the &lt;em&gt;mita&lt;/em&gt; in
 &lt;em&gt;kuruma wo mita&lt;/em&gt; (I saw a car) should be 見た, and in neither case is it &lt;em&gt;mita&lt;/em&gt;
 as in the place name &lt;em&gt;Mita-bashi&lt;/em&gt; (Mita bridge) which is written 三田.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;some-implementation-details&#34;&gt;Some Implementation Details&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Let&amp;rsquo;s look at implementation. There are two main components used in inputting
 Japanese text:&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The GUI system (e.g. ibus, uim) is responsible for:&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;ol&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Maintaining and switching the current input mode:
 ローマ字、ひらがな、カタカナ、半額カタカナ.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Transliteration of character input into kana: &lt;em&gt;ku&lt;/em&gt; into く,
 &lt;em&gt;nekko&lt;/em&gt; into ねっこ, &lt;em&gt;xtu&lt;/em&gt; into っ.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Managing the text under edit (the underlined stuff) and the
 drop-down list of transliterations.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Ancillary functions such as supplying a GUI for custom dictionary
 management, kanji lookup by radical, etc.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ol&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The transliteration engine (e.g. Anthy, Mozc) is responsible for transforming a
 piece of input text, usually in kana form, into kanji: for example みる into
 one of: 見る、観る、診る、視る. This involves:&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;ol&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Breaking the input phrase into components.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Transforming each component into the appropriate best guess based on context
 and historical input.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Supplying alternative transformations in case the best guess was incorrect.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ol&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;why-mozc&#34;&gt;Why Mozc?&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;TL;DR: because it&amp;rsquo;s better. Have a look at the conversion list up at the top of
 this post. The input is &lt;em&gt;kinou&lt;/em&gt;, for which there are two main conversion
 candidates: 機能 (feature) and 昨日 (yesterday). Notice however, that it also
 supplies several conversions for yesterday&amp;rsquo;s date in various formats, including
 「平成23年4月21日」 using &lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_era_name&#34;&gt;Japanese Era Name&lt;/a&gt; rather than the
 Western notation 2011. This is just one small improvement among dozens of
 clever tricks it performs. If you&amp;rsquo;re thinking this bears an uncanny resemblance
 to tricks that &lt;a href=&#34;https://www.google.com/intl/ja/ime/&#34;&gt;Google&amp;rsquo;s Japanese IME&lt;/a&gt; supports, you&amp;rsquo;re right: Mozc
 originated from the same codebase.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;switching-to-mozc&#34;&gt;Switching to Mozc&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;So let&amp;rsquo;s assume you&amp;rsquo;re now convinced to abandon Anthy and switch to Mozc.
 You&amp;rsquo;ll need to make some changes. Here are the steps:&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;If you haven&amp;rsquo;t yet done so, install some Japanese fonts from either Software
 Centre or Synaptic. I&amp;rsquo;d recommend grabbing the &lt;em&gt;ttf-takao&lt;/em&gt; package.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Next up, we&amp;rsquo;ll install and configure Mozc.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;ol&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Install ibus-mozc:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;sudo apt-get install ibus-mozc&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Restart the ibus daemon:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;/usr/bin/ibus-daemon --xim -r -d&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Set your input method to mozc:&lt;/strong&gt;
 &lt;ol&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Open &lt;em&gt;Keyboard Input Methods&lt;/em&gt; settings.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Select the &lt;em&gt;Input Method&lt;/em&gt; tab.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;From the &lt;em&gt;Select an input method&lt;/em&gt; drop-down, select Japanese, then mozc from
 the sub-menu.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Select &lt;em&gt;Japanese - Anthy&lt;/em&gt; from the list, if it appears there, and click
 &lt;em&gt;Remove&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ol&gt;
 &lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Optionally, remove Anthy from your system:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;code&gt;sudo apt-get autoremove anthy&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ol&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Log out, and back in. You should see an input method menu in the menu
 bar at the top of the screen.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;That&amp;rsquo;s it, Mozcを楽しんでください！&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Ride to Okutama-ko and back</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2008/10/ride-to-okutamako/</link>
       <pubDate>Sun, 26 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2008/10/ride-to-okutamako/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&#34;https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1qLR0za_apX5qMJi32cqDoNYESRI&amp;amp;ie=UTF8&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;msa=0&amp;amp;ll=35.67441532772013%2C139.44887900000003&amp;amp;spn=0.214689%2C0.47083&amp;amp;t=p&amp;amp;source=embed&amp;amp;z=9&#34;&gt;View map&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;I haven&amp;rsquo;t ridden a &lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_ride&#34;&gt;century&lt;/a&gt; since I moved to Japan but with a bit of
 spare time on my hands before baby number two is due, I decided I was going to
 get back into decent enough shape that I could pull one off. I&amp;rsquo;ve been using
 mornings and weekends to get back into riding longer distances, and slowly
 building up toward the goal of 160 km by riding further and further up the Tama
 river every weekend.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Five minutes looking at Google maps yesterday morning at 6 am convinced me that
 Lake Okutama was exactly the necessary 80 km away, so without a minute to lose
 I got dressed, headed out the door and rode north up the Tama river.  Here&amp;rsquo;s
 the &lt;a href=&#34;https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/18311395&#34;&gt;activity report&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The ride along the river is gorgeous, one of the few places in Tokyo you can
 ride uninterrupted through a green belt that runs from the ocean at Haneda
 airport all the way into the mountains in the northwest corner of Tokyo. The
 bike path ends at the south Hamura dam, but by then it&amp;rsquo;s pretty &lt;a href=&#34;http://www.ehimeajet.com/inaka.php&#34; title=&#34;Inaka: rural Japan&#34;&gt;inaka&lt;/a&gt;,
 so you can continue by road from there without much worry about traffic. At
 the north Hamura dam, I crossed over to the west side of the river, to pick up
 Route 411 through the towns of Oume, Sawai, and Mitake before leaving the city
 completely and starting the climb up into the mountains.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The trip on from Mitake is a long, slow ascent along a narrow, winding road
 through small towns and villages while criss-crossing the river. Particularly
 this time of year with the leaves changing colour, the trip is visually
 spectactular, with the mountainsides lit up bright orange and red. Okutama is
 the last major town before the final hill-climb up to the lake. At its
 westernmost edge is the world-famous Tokyo &lt;a href=&#34;http://web-japan.org/nipponia/nipponia19/en/feature/feature05.html&#34; title=&#34;Conbini: Let&#39;s enjoy convenience store life!&#34;&gt;Conbini&lt;/a&gt; Shuten—the final
 convenience store of Tokyo. Complete with latitude and longitude figures on its
 sign out front, it is a site of pilgrimage for cyclists headed up to the lake
 and the border of Tokyo and Yamanashi prefectures. Too bad it&amp;rsquo;s a &lt;a href=&#34;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_Yamazaki&#34;&gt;Daily
 Yamazaki&lt;/a&gt; and not a &lt;a href=&#34;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FamilyMart&#34;&gt;Famima&lt;/a&gt;, but either way it&amp;rsquo;s got
 &lt;a href=&#34;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocari_Sweat&#34;&gt;Pocari Sweat&lt;/a&gt;!&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;From the town of Okutama to the lake is a 13 km hill climb up through tunnel
 after tunnel to the dam at the edge of the lake. My the one route change I&amp;rsquo;ll
 make the next time I do this is to go &lt;em&gt;around&lt;/em&gt; the tunnels instead of &lt;em&gt;through&lt;/em&gt;
 them. I can&amp;rsquo;t possibly imagine why someone felt the need to put (very
 expensive) tunnels in on this road given that almost every single one can be
 bypassed on the road. I can only assume that this has something to do with the
 government trying to buy the powerful rural vote with thousands of unnecessary,
 environment-destroying &lt;a href=&#34;http://www.iwanami.co.jp/jpworld/text/publicworks01.html&#34; title=&#34;The LDP and pork-barrel politics&#34;&gt;construction projects&lt;/a&gt; per year.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The good news is that once you hit the top, the views are spectacular, the
 roads are flat, and you&amp;rsquo;re back in &lt;a href=&#34;http://www.flickr.com/photos/68908288@N00/141327403/&#34; title=&#34;Jidohanbaiki: Let&#39;s vending machine!&#34;&gt;jidohanbaiki&lt;/a&gt;-land where
 Pocari Sweat and Aquarius are available in abundance! I&amp;rsquo;d accidentally left my
 cycle computer off for a 3km stretch out of Okutama, so I cycled 3 km down the
 road to make up for it and be able to claim a &lt;em&gt;recorded&lt;/em&gt; 160 km. I ran into a
 German cyclist named Ludwig who&amp;rsquo;d also ridden in from Tokyo; he had a
 drool-worthy Canyan carbon-fibre bike, and interestingly, it turns out he&amp;rsquo;s
 part of the &lt;a href=&#34;http://positivo-espresso.blogspot.com/&#34;&gt;Positivo Espresso&lt;/a&gt; cycling group whose blog I&amp;rsquo;d
 been reading for a couple months.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Ludvig continued on up towards Yamanashi-ken with the plan of packing up his
 bike and taking the train back when he got as far as he wanted to go. Good
 plan, and something I&amp;rsquo;ll give a try next time. I turned my bike around for the
 long trip back home. The best part of that trip was the 30 minute descent back
 down out of the hills at car speed, before hitting Mitake, and heading back out
 to the flat cycle path along the Tamagawa.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;All in all, a pretty awesome day of cycling and a trip I&amp;rsquo;d definitely do again.
 While the trip included a nice hill-climb, it wasn&amp;rsquo;t severe, and didn&amp;rsquo;t last
 more than 15 km. I&amp;rsquo;ve included the GPS map—there are a couple errors where I&amp;rsquo;d
 accidentally switched it off for 3 km near Okutama, and for about 5 km near
 Hamura on the way back.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Monkey Madness</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2008/08/monkey-madness/</link>
       <pubDate>Fri, 22 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2008/08/monkey-madness/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;How many police does it take to catch a monkey in one of Tokyo&amp;rsquo;s busiest train
 stations? Apparently a lot more than the &lt;a href=&#34;https://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=1LbhEJ2NUxE&#34;&gt;40 or so that
 tried&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The monkey was first spotted around 9:45am on top of the Tokyu Toyoko Line
 schedule display, possibly one of the best choices for people-watching in
 Shibuya Station, strategically positions between the exit of the Tokyu
 department store and the entrance to one of Tokyo&amp;rsquo;s busiest train lines.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;It hung around for close to two hours while commuters, shoppers, news crews and
 a posse of net-wielding cops showed up, before finally deciding to
 &lt;a href=&#34;https://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=AKFh-Wc7KSE&#34;&gt;make a break for it&lt;/a&gt;. Police never did catch the cheeky
 monkey, and its current whereabouts are unknown.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Apparently this is the third incident of a monkey getting into a train station
 in Tokyo in the last few weeks.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>PR#6</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2007/06/pr6/</link>
       <pubDate>Wed, 06 Jun 2007 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2007/06/pr6/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;According to &lt;a href=&#34;http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/06/0028246&#34;&gt;Slashdot&lt;/a&gt;, this month the &lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II&#34;&gt;Apple
 II&lt;/a&gt; turns 30. It was in production for 18 of those 30 years,
 which likely makes it the longest-selling personal computer of all time. It was
 the computer I wrote my first program on, and spent countless hours banging in
 and editing code from &lt;em&gt;Compute&lt;/em&gt; magazine—including page after page of raw hex
 code when a program included graphics.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;In tribute, I ran a Google search on PR#6 to see what turned up. For those who
 don&amp;rsquo;t know or don&amp;rsquo;t remember, PR#6 was the command that kicked off the
 bootloader code for slot 6, the drive controller. The search turned up two
 relevant links: an &lt;a href=&#34;http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=197&amp;amp;coll=ap&#34;&gt;Apple TechTip&lt;/a&gt; on a simple copy-protection scheme,
 and a fantastic &lt;a href=&#34;http://diveintomark.org/archives/2006/08/22/c600g&#34;&gt;blog entry&lt;/a&gt; that covers a bit about the Apple
 ][&amp;rsquo;s boot process, which brings back a lot of memories of old Shugart drives,
 including the terrifying sound of a track 0 seek – a process wherein the drive
 head was moved across the disk very quickly until it physically couldn&amp;rsquo;t go any
 further, resulting in a loud alarm-like buzz from the drive when it hit the
 limit of its reach.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Anyway, in celebration of the Apple ][&amp;rsquo;s 30th birthday, I recommend grabbing
 your nearest &lt;a href=&#34;https://www.scullinsteel.com/apple2/#dos33master&#34;&gt;emulator&lt;/a&gt;, and banging in a &lt;code&gt;call -151&lt;/code&gt; for old time&amp;rsquo;s
 sake.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2007-06-06-happy_birthday.png&#34;
     alt=&#34;AppleSoft BASIC program&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Google Reader</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2007/05/google-reader/</link>
       <pubDate>Wed, 30 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2007/05/google-reader/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;For years, I&amp;rsquo;ve been a fan of &lt;a href=&#34;http://inessential.com/&#34;&gt;Brent Simmons&amp;rsquo;&lt;/a&gt; OS X-based feed
 reader, &lt;a href=&#34;http://www.newsgator.com/Individuals/NetNewsWire/&#34;&gt;NetNewsWire&lt;/a&gt;. It&amp;rsquo;s a fantastic application, and I&amp;rsquo;ve definitely
 got my money&amp;rsquo;s worth out of it. After partnering with &lt;a href=&#34;http://newsgator.com/&#34;&gt;NewsGator&lt;/a&gt;, I
 started using their online feed-reader on and off, with mixed
 results. I like that it keeps my feeds in sync between my computers,
 and that I can browse articles at lunch, but the interface is still not on par
 with NetNewsWire itself.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;While NewsGator&amp;rsquo;s implementation was lacking, I really did like the idea of
 dropping the desktop app altogether and going with a fully online solution, so
 I started exploring other options. The obvious free alternative is &lt;a href=&#34;http://www.google.com/reader/&#34;&gt;Google
 Reader&lt;/a&gt;, and I have to say, I&amp;rsquo;m impressed. While the
 presentation isn&amp;rsquo;t as customizable as NetNewsWire, the functionality that I use
 is all there, and in fact, it has some extra search features that I miss on the
 desktop. It was only when I launched NetNewsWire today and saw 290 unread
 items, that it hit me I hadn&amp;rsquo;t used it in almost a month. So while I look
 forward to &lt;a href=&#34;http://www.flickr.com/photos/hicksdesign/210309912/&#34;&gt;NetNewsWire 3&lt;/a&gt;, I&amp;rsquo;m sticking to Google Reader for the time
 being.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2007-05-30-google-reader.png&#34;
     alt=&#34;Google reader graph of usage by hour of day&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;I also discovered that my prime news reading hours are apparently 6:30am to
 7:30am and 9pm to 11pm, with a strange local maximum straggling out around
 12:30am. I&amp;rsquo;d be curious to compare this to &lt;em&gt;before&lt;/em&gt; I had a baby that woke me
 up around that time.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Update (2007-06-06):&lt;/em&gt; NetNewsWire 3.0 is now out.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Apple Reinvents the Phone?</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2007/01/apple-reinvents-the-iphone/</link>
       <pubDate>Fri, 26 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2007/01/apple-reinvents-the-iphone/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Update (2009-02-28)&lt;/em&gt;: Alright, guilty as charged. &amp;ldquo;No wireless. Less space
 than a nomad.
 &lt;a href=&#34;https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/Apple-releases-iPod&#34;&gt;Lame&lt;/a&gt;.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;After watching the Steve Jobs iPhone keynote, I have to say I&amp;rsquo;m a little
 disappointed. While this phone has a slicker GUI than any other phone I&amp;rsquo;ve
 seen, it&amp;rsquo;s not so much the $499 US price-tag, but the stone-age functionality
 of the phone compared to what we have here in Japan that makes my jaw
 drop.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Here in Japan, 3 years ago in 2004, for 1 yen, I had the following in a
 cellphone:&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;ul&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;3G download speeds of 50 Mb/s.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Two-way video-phone.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Built-in fingerprint scanner (for security checks).&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;MP3 player and download service.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Edy BitWallet (like Interac, except you swipe your finger on the
 phone&amp;rsquo;s scanner to accept the transaction).&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Can be used as a &lt;em&gt;Suica&lt;/em&gt; train pass.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Can buy movie tickets and scan in at the theatre, bypassing the
 lineup.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Can wave it at vending machines for food and drinks.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Will figure out train routes, transfer locations and times, and
 ticket prices.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Can scan barcodes which take you to websites – eg. scan at the bus
 station to pull up the schedule or scan a magazine to order a
 product.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;MP3 player and download service.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Decent email (+ attachments), SMS, calendaring, notepad.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Automatic location triangulation (by determining which antennae are
 nearby) and location-aware mapping, shopping/restaurant listings.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Interactive mapping of current location with zooming and scrolling.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Integrated graphical web-browser.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;1 megapixel Camera, Video camera.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Display/graph your phone usage to the day.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Can write and deploy your own Java/C/C++ applets.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ul&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;If you go for a high-end phone with more than the above (e.g. built-in TV
 tuner), you&amp;rsquo;ll need to pay more than one yen, but the price range is normally
 below ¥20,000 ($200 Canadian). In its current state, the iPhone won&amp;rsquo;t sell in
 Japan even if it&amp;rsquo;s free; Apple is going to have to do some major work if it
 wants to compete with even the bare-bones models on the market in Japan.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>A Mystery Solved</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2006/09/mystery-solved/</link>
       <pubDate>Sat, 02 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2006/09/mystery-solved/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;One of my biggest complaints about Japan has always been the complete and utter
 lack of garbage bins in this city. There are none to be found.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;If you buy a (most likely seriously overpackaged) snack, you either have to
 carry all the wrapping and leftovers around with you until you get home, or
 toss it on the street. But the streets are impeccably clean here, which had led
 me to believe that like me, the other 12 million people out for a walk this
 afternoon, will be carrying their litter around in their backpacks and shopping
 bags.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;But it turns out this is not the case: an article in &lt;a href=&#34;http://www.metropolis.co.jp/&#34;&gt;Metropolis&lt;/a&gt;
 unveils the answer to &lt;a href=&#34;https://web.archive.org/web/20190222191348/http://archive.metropolis.co.jp/tokyorantsravesarchive349/315/tokyorantsravesinc.htm&#34;&gt;The Big Tokyo Trash Mystery&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Happy 139th Birthday!</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2006/07/happy-139th-birthday/</link>
       <pubDate>Sat, 01 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2006/07/happy-139th-birthday/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;Canadians in Tokyo got a head start on the Canada Day celebrations, kicking
 things off at 8:30 am with a pancake breakfast at the &lt;a href=&#34;http://www.maplesportsbar.jp/&#34;&gt;Maple Leaf Bar &amp;amp;
 Grill&lt;/a&gt;, followed by a Canada Day barbeque at Yoyogi Park including
 hot dogs, yakitori, a massive Canadian Flag cake, and imported Canadian beer.
 By 6pm things, as started to wind down at the park, people started the long
 trek back to Shibuya and into the Maple Leaf, where it was standing room
 only.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Some &lt;a href=&#34;http://www.flickr.com/photos/cbracken/sets/72157594183420453/&#34;&gt;pictures of the event&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Canadian Medical Research</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2006/06/canadian-medical-research/</link>
       <pubDate>Mon, 26 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2006/06/canadian-medical-research/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;Don&amp;rsquo;t let anyone tell you that Canada never contributed groundbreaking research
 to the medical field. First, the discovery and isolation of insulin by
 researchers at the University of Toronto; now &lt;a href=&#34;http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/325/7378/1445&#34; title=&#34;Ice cream evoked headaches: randomised trial of accelerated versus cautious ice cream eating regimen&#34;&gt;this paper&lt;/a&gt; published in the
 British Medical Journal, co-authored by a Grade 8 student from Hamilton,
 Ontario.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>麻酔お願いします！</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2005/10/masui-onegai-shimasu/</link>
       <pubDate>Sat, 08 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2005/10/masui-onegai-shimasu/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;Yesterday was my first trip to the dentist in years. The last time was just
 before moving to Mexico, in the summer of 2001. As you might imagine, I was not
 entirely expecting a clean bill of dental health. The fact that I had once
 again ignored my dentist&amp;rsquo;s advice to floss daily was not improving my outlook
 one bit.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;So it was with some trepidation that I went to see Dr Nakasawa yesterday
 afternoon at 3 o&amp;rsquo;clock. I stepped into the office, swapped my shoes for
 slippers, filled out some forms, and took a seat in the waiting room,
 attempting to pass the time by reading ads in Japanese for Sonicare
 toothbrushes.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Eventually, I heard the receptionist call out &amp;lsquo;Bracken-san!&amp;rsquo; The door swung
 open, and I was escorted to a chair and told to have a seat and wait for a few
 moments with nothing to do except stare at the assortment of torture
 instruments laid out on the table in front of me.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Now, in Canada, this is the point where the hygenist comes in, cleans your
 teeth, tells you what a poor job you&amp;rsquo;ve done of brushing your teeth over the
 last six months, asks you whether you&amp;rsquo;ve actually bothered to floss even once
 since the last time you came, then takes off and the dentist comes in and pokes
 around. In Japan, it goes only slightly differently. The dentist comes straight
 in, cleans your teeth, tells you what a poor job you&amp;rsquo;ve done of brushing your
 teeth, asks you whether you&amp;rsquo;ve actually bothered to floss even once since you
 last came in, then starts poking around. Normally, that is.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Chotto akete kudasai.&lt;/em&gt; I opened my mouth. Dr Nakasawa looked around for a
 moment, poking at things with his tools, then paused.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Kono chiryou wa Nihon de moraimashita?&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&amp;lsquo;No, didn&amp;rsquo;t get &amp;rsquo;em here. I got all my fillings in Canada.&amp;rsquo;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Another pause. &lt;em&gt;Aah, Canada-jin desu ka? Daigakusei no jidai, Eigo o benkyou
 shimashita kedo, mou hotondo wasurete-shimaimashita.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&amp;lsquo;That&amp;rsquo;s ok, I&amp;rsquo;ll try my best in Japanese.&amp;rsquo;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Dr Nakasawa takes another glance in my mouth, does a bit more poking and says
 to the hygenist &amp;lsquo;Number 14 looks like an A. 18 looks like a B. 31&amp;hellip; is A-ish.&amp;rsquo;
 Dr Nakasawa sits back in his chair. Another pause.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&amp;lsquo;These fillings&amp;hellip; the grey ones,&amp;rsquo; he says, &amp;lsquo;how long ago did you get these?&amp;rsquo;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&amp;lsquo;I don&amp;rsquo;t know, maybe when I was in middle-school. A long time ago. I haven&amp;rsquo;t
 had a filling in years.&amp;rsquo;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&amp;lsquo;They&amp;rsquo;re really old. This one here looks like it&amp;rsquo;s chipped away on the edge and
 the tooth underneath has a little bit of discolouration that may well be a
 cavity. We don&amp;rsquo;t really do this style of filling in Japan anymore, but what I&amp;rsquo;d
 suggest — it&amp;rsquo;s up to you — is that we remove these, check for cavities
 underneath, do any cleanup you need, then replace them with modern fillings.&amp;rsquo;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&amp;lsquo;Sure, the last dentist I talked to mentioned these were getting pretty awful
 too, so sure&amp;hellip; sounds good. Let&amp;rsquo;s do it.&amp;rsquo;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&amp;lsquo;Okay, I&amp;rsquo;m particularly worried about this one here, so let&amp;rsquo;s start with this
 one.&amp;rsquo;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&amp;lsquo;Sounds good.&amp;rsquo;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&amp;lsquo;Would you like to book a time next week, or if you have time I could do it
 today?&amp;rsquo;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&amp;lsquo;I&amp;rsquo;ve got no plans for the rest of the day, let&amp;rsquo;s just get it over with.&amp;rsquo;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&amp;lsquo;Alright. &lt;em&gt;Masui wa dou desu ka? Hitsuyou desu ka?&lt;/em&gt;&amp;rsquo;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Now here I want to remind you that although I can get by in day-to-day life and
 carry on a conversation in Japanese, one of the unequivocal facts of gaijin
 life is that there are some words you simply don&amp;rsquo;t know, and to keep the flow
 of conversation going, you skip them and pick up the general idea from context.
 So when someone says to you &amp;lsquo;What about &lt;em&gt;masui&lt;/em&gt;? Would you like it?&amp;rsquo; in a tone
 that suggests that really, you probably wouldn&amp;rsquo;t, your instinct tends to be to
 say &amp;rsquo;no, no.&amp;rsquo;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;One of the wonderful things about living in another country is that
 occasionally you&amp;rsquo;re pleasantly surprised by turn of events that leads to an
 experience that you&amp;rsquo;d almost certainly never have stumbled your way into back
 home. These experiences often upend long-held, fundamental beliefs that you&amp;rsquo;d
 have never even thought to question in your life.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;However, I am going to tell you right now that there is no question at all that
 getting your teeth drilled with no freezing hurts almost exactly as much as
 you&amp;rsquo;d imagine it does.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The full meaning of Dr Nakasawa&amp;rsquo;s question, and of what was about to transpire,
 became crystal clear as he picked up the drill, looked me in the eyes and said
 &amp;lsquo;Open wide, and put your hand up if at any point you can&amp;rsquo;t handle the pain.&amp;rsquo; I
 swear I detected just the slightest hint of a smile on his face as he said this
 to me, but I didn&amp;rsquo;t have long to think about it because it was it was at this
 point that I began focussing my entire being on keeping my hands clamped in a
 death grip on the armrests of the dental chair.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;I walked out of the office that day with a shiny new hole in my tooth and a
 temporary filling while they create the permanent one. I managed to do this
 without once raising my hand, but Dr Nakasawa&amp;rsquo;s lucky his chair has still got
 its bloody armrests attached.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Look At All The Pretty Pictures!</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2005/08/look-at-all-the-pretty-pictures/</link>
       <pubDate>Fri, 05 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2005/08/look-at-all-the-pretty-pictures/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;So I moved my webpage and was all of a sudden faced with a deluge of emails
 from people who I never even knew read the thing. Among those emails was a
 request from my amigo Chaffee requesting more pictures. Seeing as I&amp;rsquo;d always
 wanted to play with the &lt;a href=&#34;https://flickr.com/services/&#34;&gt;Flickr API&lt;/a&gt;, I requested an API Key and
 started hacking away at some &lt;a href=&#34;https://php.net&#34;&gt;PHP&lt;/a&gt;. The end result is that on the left side
 of this page, you now get to see whatever happens to be the latest picture I&amp;rsquo;ve
 taken on my mobile phone.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The moment I take a picture with my cellphone, it gets emailed to the magical
 servers at &lt;a href=&#34;https://flickr.com&#34;&gt;Flickr&lt;/a&gt; and tagged with a title, some keywords, and a
 description. The next time someone loads this page, a small PHP script in the
 innards of this site makes a &lt;a href=&#34;https://www.w3.org/TR/soap/&#34;&gt;SOAP&lt;/a&gt; request to Flickr&amp;rsquo;s servers and
 retrieves an &lt;a href=&#34;https://www.w3.org/XML/&#34;&gt;XML&lt;/a&gt; response. This response is then parsed out and a URI to
 the thumbnail image on Flickr&amp;rsquo;s servers is generated which is then inserted
 into this page. To improve performance a tiny bit, I avoid the overhead of the
 SOAP call every time this page is loaded by caching the response for five
 minutes and reading the cached XML if it&amp;rsquo;s available.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;For those of you who are into &lt;a href=&#34;https://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/12/18/dive-into-xml.html&#34;&gt;RSS&lt;/a&gt;, I&amp;rsquo;ve added a &lt;a href=&#34;feed://flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?id=37996625178@N01&amp;amp;format=atom_03&#34;&gt;Flickr
 feed&lt;/a&gt; to my pictures in the HTML headers on this site.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;My goal—and this is entirely for you, Chaffee—is to take at least one
 picture a day, which is far more ambitious a schedule than my posting to this
 page. We&amp;rsquo;ll see how that works out.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>結婚してくれますか？</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2005/07/kekkon-shite-kuremasu-ka/</link>
       <pubDate>Sun, 31 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2005/07/kekkon-shite-kuremasu-ka/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;The big news is that Yasuko and I will be getting married in November at
 Shimogamo Shrine in Kyoto. For the desperately curious, I &amp;lsquo;officially&amp;rsquo; proposed
 in February at &lt;em&gt;Souvenir&lt;/em&gt;, a French restaurant down the street.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;In Japan, getting engaged isn&amp;rsquo;t strictly just proposing. You&amp;rsquo;re really not
 truly engaged until you&amp;rsquo;ve &amp;lsquo;officially&amp;rsquo; proposed, which means not just deciding
 to get married, but getting together with the finacées parents and proposing to
 them. A long time ago, one might typically say &lt;em&gt;O-jou-san o boku ni kudasai.&lt;/em&gt;
 &amp;ldquo;Please give me your [honourable] daughter.&amp;rdquo; I decided I&amp;rsquo;d pass on that line.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;In any case, after a few trips back and forth to Kyoto, we settled on a
 Japanese ceremony just before noon, followed by a party with friends and family
 at a restaurant. The &lt;em&gt;nijikai&lt;/em&gt; party in Tokyo will be western-style, but we
 haven’t even begun to think about when or where yet.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;For those questioning the sanity of a November wedding, keep in mind that in
 Japan, this is &lt;em&gt;kōyō&lt;/em&gt; season, when all the leaves turn red and Japan is at its
 most beautiful. As Fall and Spring are the two most beautiful seasons in Japan,
 we were lucky to reserve when we did, back in April. Even then, some
 restaurants we talked to were already booked solid until mid-December.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;In any case, with the shrine and restaurant out of the way, all we have left to
 figure out is wedding rings, kimonos, invitations, flowers, food, gifts,
 speeches, photos, &amp;hellip;&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Bonjour, Bon Vespre!</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2005/05/bonjour-bon-vespre/</link>
       <pubDate>Wed, 11 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2005/05/bonjour-bon-vespre/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;Just how far can you travel in a week and a half? It turns out pretty far.
 Combining planes, trains, ships, and automobiles, Yasuko and I travelled, all
 told, roughly 22,100 km over the Golden Week holiday.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;From Tokyo to Avignon, on to Marseille, then Arles and Nîmes, followed by
 Carcassonne, Perpignan, and Barcelona, before heading back to Paris and home to
 Tokyo in 12 days wasn&amp;rsquo;t bad… Especially considering the car was a Fiat.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>桜吹雪</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2005/04/sakura-fubuki/</link>
       <pubDate>Sat, 09 Apr 2005 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2005/04/sakura-fubuki/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;Last weekend, the temperature shot up to 23 degrees, and in the space of two
 days, the cherry blossom trees erupted into bloom. The Japanese take this
 opportunity to throw impromptu picnics, dinners, and random sake-drinking
 events under &lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_blossom&#34;&gt;sakura&lt;/a&gt; trees all across the country.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2005-04-09-sakura.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;Cherry blossoms near Naka-Meguro&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;The street behind my building is lined with sakura for as far as you can walk,
 so it’s been packed with everyone in the neighbourhood until almost midnight
 every night this week. With the cherry blossoms falling like snow since this
 morning, the whole thing will be over with by early next week, so Yasuko and I
 plan to get in one last hana-mi event tomorrow evening before heading back to
 work on Monday.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Huh?</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2005/03/huh/</link>
       <pubDate>Tue, 29 Mar 2005 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2005/03/huh/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;As I stared blankly out the window of the train on my morning commute,
 something caught my eye. As the train flew along its raised track, whizzing
 past the rooftops of Gakugei-daigaku at 80 km/h, I swear I saw a guy
 standing on the roof of a building alongside the track, dressed in a red cape
 and wearing a giant fish on his head, wailing away on a guitar.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;He was gone from my view before I was able to catch a second glance, though.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Update (2008-03-20):&lt;/em&gt; I’m glad he’s &lt;a href=&#34;http://jiyugaoka.keizai.biz/headline/171/&#34;&gt;not just a figment of my imagination&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2005-03-29-gakugeidai.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;Man with fish on head playing guitar&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Update (2011-04-27):&lt;/em&gt; Found a &lt;a href=&#34;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DbvxgmEAtE&#34;&gt;YouTube video&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>明けましておめでとうございます！</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2005/01/akemashite-omedetou/</link>
       <pubDate>Wed, 05 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2005/01/akemashite-omedetou/</guid>
       <description>&lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2005-01-05-yasaka.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;Buddhist monk ringing bell&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;今年も宜しくお願いします！Jumped on the Nozomi Shinkansen from Shin-Yokohama
 station on the 31st to arrive in Kyoto two hours later. It was dumping snow
 from Nagoya onwards; and by the time we hit Kyoto, about 10 cm had
 accumulated.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;After stopping by friends’ for the traditional osechi-ryouri and soba dinner,
 Yasuko and I did hatsumoude at Yasaka shrine from 11 at night until 2 in the
 morning in the midst of the blizzard.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Spent the next few days shopping in Kyoto, visiting more friends, and
 re-visiting shrines and temples before heading back to Tokyo on the 3rd—though
 on the return trip, I had to stand from Nagoya onwards since the trains were
 booked to 120%.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Fresh Snow</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2004/12/fresh-snow/</link>
       <pubDate>Thu, 30 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2004/12/fresh-snow/</guid>
       <description>&lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2004-12-30-fuji.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;View of Mt. Fuji from Ebisu Garden Place&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;I came into work to a nice surprise this morning. Sipping on hot green tea, we
 all crowded around the windows to check out the view.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;With the recent cold snap, the views this morning are incredibly clear. A
 little less so when passed through the tiny lens of my cell-phone camera. To
 see it in person, it really does dominate the horizon; and at over 100km away,
 that’s a pretty big feat.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>寒い！</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2004/12/samui/</link>
       <pubDate>Thu, 09 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2004/12/samui/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;With the last days of 2004 upon us, it appears the weather has taken a turn
 from the relative warmth of November and December to plummet sub-zero
 overnight. What started as a light flurry this morning has progressed to a
 full-out blizzard, and it’s still coming down like crazy as I write
 this.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;In unrelated news, I’m off to Kyoto for Oshogatsu from the 31st to the 3rd.
 This time, I swear I’ll post pictures!&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Hope everyone had a happy Christmas. See you in 2005!&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Apartment Hunting</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2004/11/apartment-hunting/</link>
       <pubDate>Thu, 04 Nov 2004 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2004/11/apartment-hunting/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;Through a stroke of luck, I think I may have actually found a permanent place
 to live in Jiyugaoka close to Toritsu Daigaku station.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;I have my current apartment in Ebisu until the 30th, so the plan is to move the
 weekend of the 27th. In the meantime, to placate people asking for pictures,
 here’s the view from my balcony here in Ebisu. The upside is that Ebisu is an
 incredibly central location in Tokyo with a ton of great restaurants; the
 downside is that tea costs 735 yen at the coffee shop across the way.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2004-11-04-balcony.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;Tokyo Tower viewed from Ebisu Garden Place&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>東京に引越しする！</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2004/09/tokyo-ni-hikkoshi/</link>
       <pubDate>Wed, 15 Sep 2004 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2004/09/tokyo-ni-hikkoshi/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;After two years back in Canada and several trips back and forth to Japan, I’ve
 signed a full-time contract as a software developer with a firm in Tokyo and am
 permanently re-locating to Japan. I’ll post pictures as soon as I can get
 around to it.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>New York, NY, USA</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2004/09/new-york-ny-usa/</link>
       <pubDate>Thu, 09 Sep 2004 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2004/09/new-york-ny-usa/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;Flew out to New York for interviews with Tokyo via videoconference on the 9th
 and 10th. More details later, but I’ll post pictures now.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Summer 2004 in Japan</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2004/08/summer-2004-in-japan/</link>
       <pubDate>Fri, 20 Aug 2004 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2004/08/summer-2004-in-japan/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;I had originally planned my summer vacations for May, then July, and finally,
 in an effort to match my summer vacations with those of friends in Japan, ended
 up shuffling them back to August. Aside from the scorching heat, August is a
 fantastic time of year to visit. The heat this summer was more than a little
 bit scorching though, it was the hottest summer in ten years.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;It turned out, however, that I would have something more pressing than the
 weather to keep my mind busy though. In the middle of the night, somewhere over
 the Pacific ocean I woke up from my sleep in a cold sweat. My heart was
 pounding. The airplane cabin was surprisingly silent; everyone around me had
 dozed off to sleep and all that was left was the low drone of the jet engines
 and the gentle hiss of the air vents. Slowly, I reached for the back pocket of
 my backpack. My hands trembling, I unzipped it and slowly pulled it open. With
 a huge sigh of relief, I pulled out my wallet. I hadn’t forgotten it at home
 after all. Dropping it back in, I turned back toward the window and fell back
 asleep. It wasn&amp;rsquo;t until the next day in Osaka, as I opened my wallet to pay for
 my hotel that I realised I’d forgotten my bank card at home.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;This would not have been a problem, except that in a flash of brilliance, I had
 decided to forgo the usual traveller’s cheques and use post office bank
 machines to withdraw from my accounts back home. This had worked fantastically
 last year and would save the hassle of cashing traveller’s cheques at a bank.
 Fortunately I had a credit card on me. Unfortunately, Canadian credit cards
 can’t be used to withdraw more than 20,000 yen a day, and then only at special
 Visa bank machines which tend to be incredibly hard to find. Or, as I would
 find out, impossible to find outside of Osaka or Tokyo. Fortunately I was able
 to get hold of Mum on the phone relatively quickly, and she FedEx’ed the card
 to Yasuko in Tokyo. By my math, I had just enough cash to buy Shinkansen
 tickets to Shizuoka, then Tokyo. All I had to do was ensure that I reserved a
 hotel in Shizuoka that accepted Canadian credit cards. No problem.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;I spent the first night in the Umeda ward of Osaka, mostly because it’s so
 close to Osaka station, and I was planning to catch the train first thing next
 morning out through Kyoto, then Otsu, to Imazu-cho to meet Annie. Aside from
 spending most of the next day in Osaka desperately seeking out Visa ATMs, I
 can’t say I had that bad a time. Well, the weather was alright anyway.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Annie put me up for a few days in Imazu-cho, where I had the chance to meet up
 with some friends from last year, and do a little exploring of nearby bits of
 Shiga-ken. Caught the ferry out to Chikubushima, an island just 30 minutes out
 from shore into Lake Biwa. The amazing thing about Chikubushima is the temples
 and shrines you find in this remote location. The wood for the buildings did
 not come from the island itself, but was ferried out by hand hundreds of years
 ago. Chikubushima is one of several locations in Japan where the godess of
 artistic inclinations, Benzaiten, is worshipped. Benzaiten, or Benten as she is
 more often called, is the only female among the Shichifukujin¹ and is often
 depicted as a woman carrying a lute. As she is a river godess, temples and
 shrines dedicated to her often appear on lakes or near water.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;After a few days in Imazu, I decided to head to Shizuoka. The best way to get
 there was to catch local trains to Maibara station, on the other side of the
 lake, then take the Shinkansen from there to Shizuoka. As I was running a
 little late, I ended up sprinting through Imazu, suitcase in tow, to the train
 station. With 100m to go, I saw the train pull into the station, so I threw it
 into high gear. I quickly bought the 900 yen ticket from the ticket agent, who
 told me to run for track 3, and remember to change trains at Nagahama station.
 I sprinted up the stairs, and threw myself headlong through the train doors
 seconds before they closed. 20 minutes later, the train driver called Nagahama
 station over the crackly radio, and I hopped off. I was the only one. The train
 pulled away, and I was left standing on the train platform with nothing but the
 scorching heat and humidity, and the chirping of cicadas. It was then that I
 read the station name: Nagahara. I’d misheard the name. There would surely be
 another train in ten minutes though, so I staggered down the stairs and noticed
 the utter lack of automatic ticket gates.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;An old woman sat in the station-master’s booth. She looked up at me with a
 half-surprised, half-worried expression and asked me for my ticket. I handed it
 over. Noticing the apparent discrepancy in train fare she asked, “where are you
 headed?” I answered “Maibara.” She said, “that’s on the other side of the lake.
 You’re at Nagahara.” I said “I know. I’d meant to change at Nagahama…” at which
 point she started laughing. ”The next train’s in three hours.” Three hours. I
 asked when the next train to Oumi-Shiotsu station was. It was one station to
 the north, at the junction of two train lines, so there’d be a much better
 chance of catching an earlier train. She said ”That&amp;rsquo;s the one. The next train
 anywhere is three hours from now. There’s a bus in two though. Or I could call
 a taxi, if that would help.” Maibara had to be at least 80km from here. No way
 I could afford a taxi. But I could probably get a taxi to Oumi-Shiotsu, which I
 did. And was laughed at some more over my mistake.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Turned out I wasn’t the only one. When I arrived at Oumi-Shiotsu, I was greeted
 by three Japanese backpackers from Kyushu who’d apparently gotten off at
 Nagahara the day before, and decided to stay the night at a nearby hotspring
 and continue on to Maibara the next day. We sat for an hour, jumped on the
 train, and eventually arrived at Nagahama, changed trains, and completed the
 journey to Maibara. From there, it was the Kodama Shinkansen to Shizuoka.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;I crashed the night in Shizuoka, then spent the next day exploring town. I
 visited Sumpu-jou, a small castle in central Shizuoka, and Sumpu-jou Kouen, a
 nearby park where I was invited in to try a whole series of green teas.
 Shizuoka is famous for green tea, and as I had been the only foreigner that
 week, I was treated to a detailed history of tea cultivation in the area, an
 explanation of the many varieties and styles of green tea, and a pile of free
 desserts! They asked if I had some spare time, as they’d love to take me on a
 guided tour of the rest of the teahouse, and show me the private gardens in the
 back. It was pretty spectacular.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;After Sumpu-jou Kouen, I tried to find a bank machine that would allow me to do
 a cash advance on my credit card, but finally gave up while I still had my
 sanity. I bought a Shinkansen ticket for Tokyo with the plan to meet Setsuko at
 Tennodai station at 9pm.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;On the train, I met a professor with the Shimizu Univeristy Naval Engineering
 school, and we ended up chatting the entire way to Tokyo. He was originally
 from Kyoto, but had lived in Holland for years, and half-way through the
 conversation, I discovered that he also spoke flawless English. He was
 incredibly polite and put up with my fairly dodgy Japanese the entire way. It
 was pretty good practice for me, though we did switch to English as the
 conversation got into ship-building and a few other topics I knew nothing about
 in Japanese.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;In the end, I got to Ueno station a little bit early, stuffed my suitcase in a
 locker, and ended up exploring the park for a few hours. I ended up doing a
 huge survey on what I thought of Ueno Park, which was also great Japanese
 practice, and I got a free pen out of the deal, to boot. I also discovered a
 big festival going on at the far end of the park, near a temple that Yasuko and
 I had visited last year. I wandered past the booths selling onigiri² and
 kaki-kori³, listened to the music, took some pictures, and stopped by the
 temple for a bit. It sits in the middle of a large pond full of blossoming
 lotus flowers, and combined with the smell of incense wafting over the pond, it
 makes for a very peaceful experience.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Eventually, I grabbed some onigiri and headed back to the train station to
 catch the next train for Tennodai, in Chiba. Got there just in time, sat down
 and waited on the platform for Setsuko, who arrived 5 minutes later. It was
 crazy to see her again on the other side of the world. We headed off to the
 supermarket, grabbed some food for dinner, and headed back to her apartment to
 eat.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The next day, we did some shopping around Kashiwa station in Chiba, and I ended
 up ordering a hand-made traditional futon. They measured me, we selected
 fabrics and they said to come back in ten days to pick it up. Grabbed some
 chinese food for lunch and some snacks, and did a bit more shopping. Eventually
 we headed back, and I went to sleep. I remember being woken by an earthquake at
 about 2am, but falling back asleep before it was even over. I can’t stay awake
 for long on futons; they’re incredibly comfortable.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Yasuko and I arranged to meet at Shinagawa station early the next morning under
 the big clock by the central ticket gates. It was great to see her again, and
 we immediately bolted off to drop my gear at the apartment in Shinagawa she’d
 rented and head out for lunch at an Italian place nearby. The rest of the week
 was spent eating some of the most amazing sushi, soba, French, and Italian food
 you can imagine, and checking out two huge fireworks festivals. Aside from all
 the eating, we also visited art galleries in Ueno park, and did a bit of
 shopping in Jiyuugaoka and Ginza. I got to visit Apple’s flagship Ginza store
 which is a noble goal for any true Mac fanatic. Well, technically I also needed
 a new AC adapter, since I’d accidentally destroyed mine earlier in the day.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;After a week in Tokyo, it was off on a business trip to Oita, on Kyushu. I’d
 never been to southern Japan before, and I was looking forward to meeting some
 of my Japanese counterparts for work after many email conversations. Not only
 did I get to visit a Japanese shipyard and see firsthand the incredible
 precision with which they manufacture their vessels, but I also got to visit a
 rural Japanese town, and meet Matsumoto-san and Kato-san, who treated me to
 some of the most memorable karaoke of my life. After the business trip to
 Nagasaki, we headed out for one last night together, with an amazing
 traditional Kyushu-style sashimi and sushi dinner, and karaoke until two in the
 morning.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;For my final day in Japan, I was scheduled to fly out of Oita airport, arriving
 at Tokyo Haneda airport at 12:15. At 5pm, my return flight to Canada departed
 Tokyo Narita airport. In the intervening 3 hours, the brilliant plan was to
 jump from train to train at breakneck pace and make it to Togoshi-ginza station
 to meet Yasuko for lunch, then jump straight back on the train and make it out
 to Narita just in time for my flight. I made every single train as the doors
 were closing. Literally, with under two seconds to spare every time&amp;hellip; but we
 did have a fantastic Italian lunch, and make it to the airport with such
 impeccable timing that by the time I arrived at the gate, everyone had boarded
 but ten people. You can’t cut it much closer than that.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Once again, one of the most memorable trips of my life. The best part is that
 I’ll be permanently moving back to Japan within a couple of months, so I’ll be
 even closer to all the places I’ve been looking forward to visiting. Thanks to
 everyone who put me up again this year: Annie, Setsuko, and Yasuko! I can’t
 wait to be back.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;glossary&#34;&gt;Glossary&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;ol&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Shichifukujin:&lt;/em&gt; The seven gods of good luck.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Onigiri:&lt;/em&gt; Rice balls, often stuffed with pickled plum or fish.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;kaki-kori:&lt;/em&gt; Shaved ice covered in flavoured syrup such as strawberry,
 blueberry, or green tea.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ol&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>End of Season</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2004/04/end-of-season/</link>
       <pubDate>Wed, 14 Apr 2004 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2004/04/end-of-season/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;Two last ski trips for the year. The first, at Mt. Washington, saw a beautiful
 attempt at a forward flip by Kevin, and Pippa ripping it up. For the second, I
 burned off on the 10 hour trek to Nelson, where Trav skiied until he dropped
 and I tried out the new Rossignol B2s.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Mt. Washington</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2004/03/mt-washington/</link>
       <pubDate>Mon, 08 Mar 2004 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2004/03/mt-washington/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;Put a group of idiots together on skis and boards, and you’ve got a guaranteed
 recipe for a good time. Tom managed a sweet 360 and Matt successfully pulled
 off half a backflip.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Biking Japan 2003</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2003/08/biking-japan-2003/</link>
       <pubDate>Sun, 17 Aug 2003 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2003/08/biking-japan-2003/</guid>
       <description>&lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2003-08-17-cycling-in-japan.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;Brodie bike parked beside vending machines in front of restaurant&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;The plan was to travel from Osaka north to the Japan Sea, northeast along the
 coast to Joetsu, south through the alps to Nagano, then southeast all the way
 to Tokyo — a total distance of close to 1200 km, entirely by bicycle.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Unfortunately for me, disaster struck just over half-way, in the form of
 150km/h winds and torrential downpours. Typhoon Number 10 ploughed straight
 through Japan, following a track from the island of Shikoku through Nagano
 before it died out, dumping up to 650mm of rain a day, and flooding out every
 town and village in its path.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;I arrived in Osaka the night of July 28th and promptly hauled my bike,
 panniers, and tools through customs and immigration, across the airport, and
 into a hotel. I’m not entirely sure how happy they were to have a
 grotty-looking guy assembling his bike in his hotel room overnight, but no one
 said anything, and I snuck out around 6am anyway.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;It’s unbelievable just how slowly you start and stop when your bike is loaded
 with 40kg of gear. Sort of the cycling equivalent of driving an 18-wheeler. The
 weather was a scorching 36C, with the humidity hovering around 85%. Over the
 first 70km from Osaka Itami Airport to downtown Kyoto, I consumed 8 litres of
 Dakara, Boku, Miu, and the oh-so-deliciously named Poccari Sweat, crashed
 twice, and got lost every 5 minutes. Took a break in Kyoto, stopping by to take
 a look at Sanjuusan Gendo, take some pictures, and chat with Taxi drivers, the
 police, and anyone else who wanted to know just what the hell I was doing.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Eventually, after a few more Poccari Sweats and some ramen for lunch, I jumped
 on my bike and started the trek to Otsu. Half an hour later, winding my way
 slowly uphill, along a narrow shoulder on a bridge 30m above a cemetary, I had
 the first major close call of the ride. Fortunately, through a combination of
 luck and skill, I deftly avoided flying over the railing and plummeting 30m to
 my death. Unfortunately, I did so by launching myself headlong into a traffic
 barrier, failing to release my toe-clips, breaking the seat right off the post,
 and trashing both my leg and pannier on the pavement in the process. Pretty
 sure my leg was broken, I lay there for a few minutes contemplating the
 resounding success of my bike trip thusfar while the last of the Poccari Sweat
 drained out of my water bottles into my shoes.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2003-08-17-fireworks-in-fukui.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;Fireworks in Fukui&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;Suffice to say that the rest of the day went uphill from there (both literally
 and figuratively) and I arrived in Otsu, on the edge of lake Biwa, in one
 piece. Annie met me at the JR train station, we ditched the bike in a parking
 lot, and rode the train back to Kyoto, where we met up with the entire
 complement of Shiga JET Programme teachers at The Hub, an Irish Pub in
 Karamachi. After a few beers, some fish &amp;amp; chips and edamame, Annie and Brent
 hauled me back to their apartment in Imazu, where they (and I am forever
 indebted to them for this) put me up for three days.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Although I didn’t get to go to SummerSonic in Osaka, I did get to pick up my
 bike in Otsu, ride 95km back north to Imazu, and spend the evening at Imazu’s
 Natsu-matsuri¹ with friends of Annie’s and Brent’s (Josh, Yo, and Hatsumi).
 Natsu-matsuris involve many elements, but some of the most important factors
 are: fireworks that put ours to shame, music and dancing, traditional Yukata²,
 and vast quantites of food and alcohol. After the festival, we dragged
 ourselves to Bumblebee Twist, a local bar, and had a few more before eventually
 hauling ourselves off to bed to recover.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The next day, we were all invited to a barbeque. The one thing that any
 foreigner will immediately notice about a Japanese barbeque is that you can’t
 just light the barbeque using zip-lights or lighter fluid. No&amp;hellip; the correct
 way to light a barbeque in Japan is for one person to heat the coals with a
 torch while the rest stand around fanning the flames with uchiwas³ until the
 barbeque, in a moment of glory, bursts into flames and the cooking begins. We
 had music, more food, beer and Chu-hai (a sort of cider), snacks, and more
 fireworks. It was totally great, even though I was beat over and over at some
 kind of pirate game by a three-year-old.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The next morning, I said bye to Annie and Brent, then hurled myself off
 northwards up the highway towards the north coast. For 30km, the road winds up
 through the mountains over a narrow pass toward Tsuruga. In the scariest
 downhill of the entire ride, I plummeted down the winding road, drafting behind
 semi-trucks at 70km/h, flying in and out of tunnels and around hairpin turns
 for the 8km down into Tsuruga.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Tsuruga sits on the ocean at the edge of the Sea of Japan, at the beginning of
 the long road leading northeast to Fukui and Kanazawa. Unfortunately, it also
 sits at the beginning of a 95km-long leg of straight uphill running along the
 edge of a cliff with no shoulder. Fortunately, it’s some of the most beautiful
 riding you could possibly hope for. Even more fortunately, midway through the
 ride, as I sat at the side of the road huddling in a tiny corner of shade at
 the edge of a cliff, two motorcyclists from Osaka pulled up and offered me
 something to drink, a look at their road maps, and some encouragement in
 Kansai-dialect. This was reinforced over and over throughout my ride by
 children hanging out of car windows waving and shouting &amp;ldquo;ganbare!&amp;rdquo; at the top
 of their lungs.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2003-08-17-lining-up-for-okonomiyaki.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;Lining up for okonomiyaki&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;Eventually, I wound my way up through the mountains to Fukui, where I almost
 had to spend the night camped on a park-bench by the river. Just when I’d
 almost given up hope of finding a hostel, someone walked up to me and in
 perfect English, asked if I needed a place to stay for the night. Turns out her
 family ran a hotel downtown, and she and her sister had spent several years
 living in Australia. Their mom invited me in for tea and snacks after dinner
 and we all stayed up late with their little boy, Ryu, yakking about travelling
 and good Japanese food.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The next day it was off to Kanazawa, which it turns out has a lot in common
 with Kyoto. While it’s much smaller, there were many beautiful old sections of
 town. There are temples and shrines everywhere, Kanazawa Castle and Kenrokuen —
 probably the most famous Japanese garden in the world. There’s also a crazy guy
 dressed in a cape and John Lennon glasses who runs around dragging people to
 convenience stores. Too embarassed not to buy an ice cream treat from the
 shopkeeper, I grabbed some ice-cream mochi balls, borrowed the phone and set up
 reservations for Nagano.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Because of the typhoon, I ended up doing the rest of the trip by train. I found
 a bike shop and spent the day yammering away in pseudo-Japanese to the little
 old grandma and grandpa who owned the shop. Turns out that he had done almost
 the exact same bike trip about 40 years ago! He had also cycled across
 Australia and much of the rest of Japan. Pretty amazing! If I hadn’t found
 them, my bike would probably be lying in a crumpled heap in a landfill right
 now. It took hours, be we did manage to pack everything into an unbelievably
 small bag that I could haul onto the train with me.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;From Kanazawa, I caught the train to Nagano, taking local lines and limited
 express trains the whole way. Nagano was the site of the 1998 Winter Olympic
 Games, but has since reverted to its pre-Olympic small-town feel. It was a
 beautiful place to visit, hidden away in the Japanese alps, surrounded by
 Japanese hot springs and ski hills. I can’t wait to visit in winter. Nagano’s
 biggest feature is probably Zenkouji, a Buddhist Temple which houses the first
 Buddhist images to come to Japan from the Asian mainland. Underneath the temple
 is a pitch-black maze of tunnels that you can wander into, pushed along by wave
 after wave of school-children on field trips, people on pilgrimmages, and
 curious tourists. It’s almost impossible to tell just how fast you’re moving,
 or how far you’ve gone&amp;hellip; just disembodied voices in the dark. Eventually you
 arrive at the “key to salvation”, which you can’t see, but you can feel. A few
 shakes and rattles, then you’re swept away down the tunnels again.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;From Nagano, I caught the Asama Shinkansen into Tokyo. At 280km/h the trip
 takes just about two hours. The train tore through the edge of the hurricane at
 breakneck speed and we were in Tokyo on schedule to the minute. You can’t help
 but love the Japanese train system.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2003-08-17-akasaka.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;Akasaka at night&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;Met up with Yasuko in Tokyo, and we spent the week bumming around town and
 catching all the sights: Akasaka, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Odaiba, the Tsukiji fish
 market. Took a side trip to the art gallery a few hours away in Hakone
 Prefecture where a mix of European and Japanese art is on display. There were
 some absolutely amazing pieces of Japanese pottery in their collection. Back in
 Tokyo, we had the chance to see a Kabuki play. I wasn’t entirely sure what to
 expect, but it was great. The most striking thing is perhaps the movement. It
 was absolutely incredible. I wish I were able to describe it, but the best I
 can do is recommend that if you’re even in Tokyo, you go see a Kabuki play!&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;I returned home on August 17th. Ate breakfast, lunch and dinner in Tokyo,
 jumped on the plane at 6pm and had another breakfast and lunch. Arrived back in
 Canada 8 hours before I left, and had lunch and dinner again, for a total of
 seven meals on the 17th. Not bad! It was a pretty wild and crazy trip, but it
 was one of the best trips I’ve ever taken. I can’t wait to go back.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Thanks to everyone who put me up along the way! In particular, Annie &amp;amp; Brent,
 and Yasuko! You guys are the best!&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;glossary&#34;&gt;Glossary&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;ol&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Natsu-Matsuri:&lt;/em&gt; every village’s traditional summer festival, usually in
 early- to mid-August, near Obon, the Day of the Dead.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Yukata:&lt;/em&gt; traditional light cotton kimonos that come in a variety of colours
 and patterns.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Uchiwa:&lt;/em&gt; Large, flat traditional Japanese fan.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ol&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Site Update</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2003/04/site-update/</link>
       <pubDate>Tue, 01 Apr 2003 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2003/04/site-update/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;I finally got around to updating and re-organizing the site. It should render
 properly in everything from the latest browser to lynx or a text-based browser
 on a cell phone. All the reports from Mérida are now up, including links to
 photos at the top of each page. The trip home is still a work in progress.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>I am Canadian</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2003/02/i-am-canadian/</link>
       <pubDate>Fri, 28 Feb 2003 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2003/02/i-am-canadian/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;Since the original &lt;a href=&#34;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMxGVfk09lU&#34;&gt;I am Canadian&lt;/a&gt; ad, Molson has released a slew of
 others, but until recently, I haven’t been too impressed; however, the
 &lt;a href=&#34;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y7fHQiGkH0&#34;&gt;I Am Canadian Anthem&lt;/a&gt; is a hilarious 90-second snapshot of the
 cultural history of this country.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Back in Canada</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2002/05/back-in-canada/</link>
       <pubDate>Sun, 26 May 2002 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2002/05/back-in-canada/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;Back in Victoria, B.C. after a two month return home to Canada by land beginning
 in Mérida, Yucatán and continuing through Cuba, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras,
 then all the way back up through Guatemala, México, the U.S. and finally
 across Western Canada.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Chetumal, Quintana Roo, México</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2002/04/chetumal-quintana-roo-mexico/</link>
       <pubDate>Thu, 04 Apr 2002 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2002/04/chetumal-quintana-roo-mexico/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;As we stepped off the Cubana Ilyushin Il-62 plane at the Cancun airport, I
 literally kissed the ground in happiness. The airport was crowded with people
 snacking on good Mexican food and the sound of shouting and laughter filled the
 air. After all the episodes of trouble, dengue fever, and trying to figure out
 what the hell was actually going on, it was easy to lose sight of just how
 great a country México is, and after Cuba, coming back to México felt like
 coming home.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;After arrival, the first challenge is getting from the airport to the Cancún
 bus depot. The shuttle bus drivers&amp;rsquo; union has a strangle-hold on travel from
 the airport in Cancun. They charge 75 pesos per person one-way from the airport
 via the major hotels along La Zona Hotelera to the station. If you happen to be
 living on a wage of 50 pesos an hour, this is practically highway robbery.
 However, it turns out that the shuttle bus drivers only have a monopoly on
 travel from the airport; travel to the airport remains entirely unrestricted.
 Those who take a few minutes to sit and relax out front of the airport for a
 few minutes will notice that there is a clever way around this racket.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Following the example of the locals, we hauled our backpacks across the parking
 lot, headed out the gates of the airport, and started down the highway in 36
 degree heat. Within moments a taxi skidded to a stop, and the driver, nervously
 glancing out the rear window, motioned to us to get in.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;We didn&amp;rsquo;t. Instead, we stood at the window asking &amp;ldquo;cuanto cuesta?&amp;rdquo;, to which he
 shouted &amp;ldquo;no importa! vamos amigos!&amp;rdquo;.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Still we didn&amp;rsquo;t get in. &amp;ldquo;We&amp;rsquo;ll pay 50 pesos&amp;hellip; for the two of us.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Looking insulted, he replied &amp;ldquo;Are you crazy?! I won&amp;rsquo;t do it for less than 70
 pesos each!&amp;rdquo;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Glancing back toward the airport we told him &amp;ldquo;That&amp;rsquo;s ridiculous, the bus is 75
 pesos, and besides we don&amp;rsquo;t have that kind of money. We live in Merida; we&amp;rsquo;re
 not rich turistas norteamericanos.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;A shuttle bus flew by honking its horn while the driver shook his fist at the
 taxista.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&amp;ldquo;Bueno! 110 pesos para los dos! Vamos!&amp;rdquo;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;At 110 pesos, we were still overpaying by Mérida standards, but given that we
 were a 16km walk in scorching heat from the city, I was pretty sure we weren&amp;rsquo;t
 going to get much of a better deal.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;At the bus depot, we bought tickets for Chetumal, 5 hours to the south, then
 made a dive for the nearest yucatecan restaurant. After weeks of oil-drum
 pizzas and roast ham &amp;amp; cheese sandwiches in Cuba, I savoured every last bite of
 my poc-chuc. We finished our horchata, then climbed into the bus for the trip
 to Chetumal.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Confined by the jungle to the southeast corner of Quintana Roo state, and
 squashed between the sea and the Belizean border, Chetumal is the last outpost
 of civilisation before crossing into the jungle to the south. Until the end of
 the 1970s, like much of pre-Cancun Quintana Roo, it was essentially a free zone
 in relatively lawless territory. Trade with British Honduras (now Belize) was
 the foundation of the local economy, and earned it the title of the territory
 (now state) capital. The historical importance of trade gives the city a
 distinct feel from colonial Merida. You can still spot the occasional
 wood-frame house, and the city has a relatively modern atmosphere.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Previously named &lt;em&gt;Chactemal&lt;/em&gt;, the city had served as a Mayan capital since
 pre-Columbian times. The first Spanish missionaries arrived the 16th century,
 and the Conquistadors followed soon after. By 1544, the city had fallen to the
 Spaniards and the remaining Maya fled into Belize, leaving the city all but
 abandoned for the next two centuries.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;At the turn of the 20th century in 1898, Porfirio Diaz, then President of
 Mexico, ordered the establishment of a port at the mouth of the Rio Hondo in
 order to quell the flow of arms across the Belizean border and into the hands
 of the Maya. To this end, the city of Payo Obispo was founded by Othon Blanco
 with the help of Mexicans from the surrounding areas. The economy developed
 quickly and the city grew into the territorial capital by 1915. In 1936, the
 city renamed itself to Chetumal, which it remains to this day.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;All along the waterfront of Chetumal is a gorgeous walkway. Unlike the
 shimmering blue waters of the north-eastern coast of the Yucatan, the water
 here was more reminiscent of the murky green ocean back home on Vancouver
 Island. The locals are adamant that the water is horrifically ugly, but I
 suppose when your bases for comparison are Playa del Carmen, Cozumel and
 Cancun, that you can afford to be picky.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;After sunset, as we wandered through the town, snacking on fresh tamales, we
 were stopped by a couple of old men sitting in chairs on the sidewalk in front
 of a saddle shop. They stopped us to ask where we were from and what brought us
 to Chetumal. We explained we were taking a trip to see Guatemala and part of
 Honduras before returning back to México.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&amp;ldquo;Why do you want to go to Guatemala? It&amp;rsquo;s a dangerous. It&amp;rsquo;s poor. They have
 nothing. Pickpockets are everywhere, and the people have no dignity left. Life
 is cheap in Guatemala, they&amp;rsquo;ve been surrounded by civil war and death for 30
 years. It&amp;rsquo;s a beautiful country with a terrible history.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;That night, we checked into an 80 peso hotel. The employees were huddled around
 the television furiously debating México&amp;rsquo;s loss to the USA in fútbol.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&amp;ldquo;The giants defeated us midgets! Look at the size of their players. And the
 Americans don&amp;rsquo;t even care about fútbol! Can you believe this?! This is an
 insult!&amp;rdquo;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;We tried to console them by mentioning that Mexico would be guarateed to put
 Canada to shame. It was the best we could manage. It didn&amp;rsquo;t help much.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;They shut off the game, and we got to sleep early. Just after the stroke of
 midnight I woke up and, in a final farewell to the bugs I had picked up in
 Cuba, I threw up (in order) the dinner tamale, followed by the entire plate of
 celebratory Poc Chuc I had eaten that afternoon. I felt surprisingly better,
 and fell sound asleep excited about the next day&amp;rsquo;s 12 hour trip down a narrow
 dirt track road through the jungles of Belize and into northern Guatemala.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Trinidad, Sancti Spiritus, Cuba</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2002/03/trinidad-sancti-spiritus-cuba/</link>
       <pubDate>Thu, 21 Mar 2002 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2002/03/trinidad-sancti-spiritus-cuba/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;Looking down on the ocean from the rolling hills a kilometre away, Trinidad is
 a small, traditional town whose population of 50,000 takes great pride in its
 home. Founded by Diego Velásquez in 1514, Trinidad became a stopover for
 explorers and trading ships travelling to and from México. During the 17th and
 18th centuries, its economy largely depended on trading contraband with
 pirates. The buildings are in incredibly good shape for their age, most of
 which are at least two centuries old. It’s not too tough to see why Trinidad is
 now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2002-03-21-trinidad-street.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;Street in Trinidad, Cuba&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;Trinidad is about five hours from Havana by bus, and as with everything in
 Cuba, there are two buses: one for Cubans, with a several hour long line-up,
 and one for people with dollars, with basically no wait at all. Upon pulling
 into Trinidad the bus was swarmed by masses of locals offering a room in a casa
 particular. We ended up being shown one house, but it had been freshly painted
 that afternoon and the fumes were pretty rough, so we set out wandering down
 the streets in the dark. By sheer chance, we ran into an old grandfather
 carrying a bucket and pushing his bike up the rickety cobblestone streets and
 when we asked him if he knew of any places to stay he said that in fact, we
 could stay at his house. This is how our planned two-night stay in Trinidad
 ended up turning into a week-long stay in paradise.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Roberto and Elda, their daughter Mercedes, her husband Eddy, and their
 11-year-old son Saúl made our stay in Trinidad one of the most relaxing visits
 we had to anywhere in our travels. We would have breakfast every morning in a
 little courtyard off to the side of the house, spend the mornings wandering the
 cobblestone streets in search of pizza, and the evenings falling asleep to the
 sound of Cuban salsas, merengues, and cha cha chas drifting through the window
 from La Casa de la Trova across the street.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2002-03-21-horse-cart.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;Horse-drawn cart driven by man and boy in Trinidad street&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;While most of the old town is centered around the main plaza, cathedral, and
 clock tower, most of the action seemed to center around the plaza in the newer
 part of town down the hill. Old men sitting on park benches sharing a bottle of
 rum, school children eating peso ice cream, and the occasional black market
 cigar salesman trying to pass off some cigars smuggled out of the local factory
 all milled about the plaza in the hot, sticky heat. A bunch of us sat on our
 park bench watching the old men on the bench across from us get progressively
 more drunk from their homebrew, before eventually falling asleep. One thing
 that anyone visiting Cuba can be assured of is eventually being offered a taste
 of homemade rum. My guess is that neither the recipe nor the distilling of this
 rum has changed much over the past few centuries, so you can be assured that
 your experience will be as blindingly nerve-wracking as that of the colonial
 sailors plying the waters of the Caribbean in the 1600s. Following the initial
 jolt of fermented cane sugar hitting your stomach like a rock is the slow
 nauseating feeling of vertigo creeping over your body; after that, a strange
 queasiness, and finally recovery and swearing it off for life&amp;hellip; or at least
 the next day.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;A few days into our stay in Trinidad, as we walked down a dark street off the
 plaza, we heard music pouring out through a half-open gate. Peering inside we
 were greeted with the sight of thirty or so people packed into a small dirt
 courtyard, and a small band of grizzled 80-year-old men playing salsas on their
 guitars and trumpets. People had pulled up some old wooden benches and were
 serving mojitos made (I swear) straight rum, some sugar, and crushed mint. A
 woman named Blanquita invited us in, offered us some mojitos and yanked us up
 off the bench to teach us some salsa while chickens scuttled around our feet.
 It was probably my most vivid memory of Cuba.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>La Habana, Cuba</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2002/03/la-habana/</link>
       <pubDate>Tue, 19 Mar 2002 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2002/03/la-habana/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;Havana is a city of contradictions. It’s simultaneously one of the most
 beautiful and most run down cities in the world. It’s hard to imagine how
 things could be any worse, or any better given the Cuba’s political past and
 present.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2002-03-19-old-havana-street.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;Run-down street in Old Havana&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;Havana, along with the rest of Cuba, is the way it is almost purely because of
 politics—some of the most complex politics on the planet. If you like history
 or politics, Cuba is for you.  Cuba’s troubled history begins long before the
 Cuban Missile Crisis, or even before the Revolution of 1959. Ever since
 Christopher Columbus set foot on the Isle of Cuba on October 29th, 1492, one
 nation or another has been fighting over the country. For over half a
 millennium now, politics have affected almost every aspect of life in Cuba.
 It’s amazing that despite all this, Cuban culture is felt worldwide through its
 music, dance, and artistry.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;fast-facts&#34;&gt;Fast Facts&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Before we get started, here are a few quick facts to clear up a few common
 misconceptions about Cuba:&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;ul&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;The US embargo was put in place on October 19th, 1960, two years before the
 Cuban Missile Crisis. It was the result of the US Eisenhower Administration’s
 plan to overthrow Castro. This was the result of Cuba nationalizing a lot of
 property sold to the US by Cuba’s former dictator, Fulgencio Batista. In
 1963, after the end of the Missile Crisis, the Kennedy Administration imposed
 a travel ban on US citizens, preventing them from visiting Cuba. Here’s an
 &lt;a href=&#34;http://www.historyofcuba.com/history/funfacts/embargo.htm&#34;&gt;Economic Embargo Timeline&lt;/a&gt;, if you’re interested.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;In 1959, a group of Cuban revolutionaries, including Fidel Castro and Che
 Guevara, led a popular uprising to overthrow Fulgencio Batista, the
 totalitarian dictator who led Cuba from 1934 to 1959. Under Batista, more
 than a third of the land in Cuba was sold off to US interests. In several
 cases, teachers who worked to alphabetize rural villages were tortured and
 killed by Batista’s private police force, for fear that a literate population
 of farmers would be more likely to favour local land ownership, and oppose
 the dictator. Cuba is now a communist country, and Castro is the elected head
 of state. Elections are supervised by international monitors. They work very
 differently from other western electoral systems, however, since there is
 only one party. Like Canadians, Cubans elect local representatives, who
 select a party leader. In practise, Castro has been re-elected President by
 party officials in every election since the Revolution.  Here’s some more
 information on &lt;a href=&#34;http://dodgson.ucsd.edu/las/cuba/1990-2001.htm&#34;&gt;elections in Cuba&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Today, Cuba’s population is highly educated. The current literacy rate is
 approximately 97%—the same as Canada’s. Before the revolution, the overall
 literacy rate was 23.6%. Castro’s guerrilla manifesto of 1957 included an
 immediate literacy and education campaign, with the slogan &amp;lsquo;Revolution and
 Education are the same thing.&amp;rsquo;&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;It’s illegal to form a party other than the Communist Party, and people live
 under fairly strict supervision by the government compared to most western
 nations.  The movement of Cubans is restricted by the government. The
 Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs maintains a &lt;a href=&#34;https://travel.gc.ca/destinations/cuba&#34;&gt;fact page&lt;/a&gt;
 on Cuba, as does &lt;a href=&#34;https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world-factbook/geos/cu.html&#34;&gt;the CIA&lt;/a&gt; in the United States.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Cuba’s media is not entirely restricted, and Cubans can tune in to Miami and
 Mexican radio stations. The national newspaper, Granma is published by the
 Communist Party and is &lt;a href=&#34;http://www.granma.cu/&#34;&gt;available online&lt;/a&gt; in several languages.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ul&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;I was going to include a quick whirlwind tour of the history of Cuba here. I
 started on it, but by the time I got to the late 19th century it was already
 ten paragraphs long. Instead, if you want an excellent point-form history, have
 a look at &lt;a href=&#34;http://www.historyofcuba.com/&#34;&gt;A History of Cuba&lt;/a&gt;. If you want something more in
 depth, specifically focusing on US-Cuban relations, the multi-volume set &lt;em&gt;A
 History of Cuba and its relations with The United States&lt;/em&gt; by Philip S. Foner is
 excellent.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2002-03-19-old-havana-door.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;Crumbling doorway in Old Havana&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;arrival-in-havana&#34;&gt;Arrival in Havana&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The flight to Cuba was probably the craziest flights I’ve ever experienced. We
 boarded the ancient, Soviet-built Cubana Yak-42 jet in Cancún and took our
 seats. The first thing we noticed as we sat down was that the safety
 instruction cards were printed in Russian. The second, and more alarming thing
 we noticed was that smoke was slowly filling the cabin. The flight attendants
 assured people that it was just steam, and that it was totally normal. By the
 time we landed in Cuba, The cabin was filled chest high and we couldn’t see our
 knees anymore. We got off the plane as quickly as possible, were packed into a
 rickety old East-German bus and carted off to immigration.  Once in Havana, we
 checked into Hotel Flamingo where we stayed for our first two days while we
 explored Havana. Across the street were a bunch of featureless, utilitarian,
 crumbling apartment buildings, which are apparently identical to the ones that
 were built across the Communist Block countries during the Soviet era. You’re
 surrounded on all sides by relics of the Soviet era: East German and Polish
 buses, Russian radios and record players, and tons of North Korean equipment.
 It’s fascinating to see a country that exists almost entirely apart from the
 US. When it comes to the States, it’s as though time stopped in 1959. The only
 Chevys and Buicks to be seen are 1950s models. All new cars are Ladas, Yugos,
 Polski Fiats, or Chinese and North Korean imports. Supposedly push-by shootings
 from Ladas aren’t as big a problem here as they are in Russia.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Old Havana La Habana Vieja is something amazing to see. Walking down the
 streets of Old Havana, you’re surrounded by some of the most incredible
 architecture you’ve ever witnessed. What’s even more incredible is that it’s
 crumbling all around you. Ornate gargoyles and balconies have decayed and
 collapsed with age; the paint is peeling, and everything is covered in a thick
 layer of dirt and grime. Broken windows are everywhere, and yet people continue
 to live in these buildings that elsewhere in the world would have long since
 been condemned.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Another thing not to be missed in Havana is sitting in the park in front of the
 Museo de la Revolución and eating freshly roasted peanuts out of a rolled up
 newspaper. For one peso, you can buy salted peanuts from street vendors, rolled
 up in an old copy of a page from &lt;em&gt;Granma&lt;/em&gt;, and sit back and watch kids play
 baseball in the street.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Baseball is everywhere in Cuba. You can’t turn around without seeing a game
 going on. Baseball equipment, on the other hand, is hard to come by. This
 doesn’t stop anyone from playing the game, however. A rock wrapped in rubber
 bands makes a pretty decent baseball, and we saw a lot of kids who could hit
 some amazing runs with a broom handle baseball bat. If you visit Cuba,
 something that’ll make any kid’s day is a baseball. Pencils and pens make nice
 gifts too.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2002-03-19-vintage-american-cars.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;Vintage American cars&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;dollars-and-pesos&#34;&gt;Dollars and Pesos&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;There are two things that everyone who visits Cuba should do. The first is to
 experience live Cuban music, which you can read about in the Trinidad section.
 The second is to convert some dollars to Cuban Pesos. Cuba has three official
 currencies: Cuban Pesos, US Dollars, and Cuban Convertible Pesos. The Cuban
 Convertible Peso was introduced to reduce the dependency on actual US dollars,
 but are worth exactly one dollar in Cuba, and exactly zero dollars off the
 island. Cuban Pesos are a soft currency, and as such, have no practical value
 as an exchangeable currency; however, exchanges do happen at wildly fluctuating
 rates. We got 26 pesos to the dollar.  Cuba has two economies that don’t
 overlap even remotely. Hard-currency stores charge US prices in US dollars and
 sell high-end items. Bottled water is about $1.00 a bottle, soap is $0.50 a
 bar, and meat and cheese are similar in price to what they would be in Canada
 or the US. However, Cubans are paid in pesos at a rate of about 200-400 pesos a
 month — about 8 to 16 dollars. That makes a bottle of water worth somewhere
 around 10% of your monthly paycheque. Try the math with your paycheque. Soft
 currency shops sell local goods, such as fruit and vegetables, for pesos.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The reason you should convert some money is that finding a place to spend your
 newly acquired pesos will force you to discover a whole part of Cuba you might
 otherwise never have seen. Cubans buy things in soft currency at markets or
 shops that sell in pesos. The items you can buy for pesos are universally
 locally produced items such as locally farmed foods, small pizzas baked on the
 street in oil drums converted to wood ovens, and some ice cream. A pizza, which
 is basically a piece of bread with a little tomato sauce, some oil, and bit of
 salt on it, sells for 3 pesos, which is about 12 cents US. The reason it’s so
 cheap is that peso goods are subsidised by the work you do for the state. Basic
 food staples such as beans and rice are part of your government supplied
 rations, and can be obtained with your ration card at certain shops. When you
 can find it, food sold on the street is usually in pesos. Food in paladares¹,
 hotels, and touristy places is almost universally in dollars.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2002-03-19-camelo.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;Camelo bus&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;the-rich-and-the-poor&#34;&gt;The Rich and the Poor&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The one thing that struck us immediately was the uniformity of income in Cuba.
 In México, there are two extremes: the extremely rich and the extremely poor.
 The middle class is tiny compared to Canada, where the middle class is the
 norm. In Cuba, almost everyone lives in something that is not exactly poverty,
 but at the same time they have basically no buying power. They have what the
 government gives them, and little else. The income difference between a street
 sweeper and a specialist doctor is about $7 a month vs. $15 a month. No matter
 how you cut it, the $8 difference doesn’t buy much. It’s hard to get imported
 goods no matter what, and what you can get is often on the black market.
 Although under communism employment is universal and housing is provided by the
 state, there are still people who turn to begging because it can be far more
 lucrative than work in a factory for $8 a month. As a result of the incredibly
 tiny incomes in Cuba, jineteros² have become more numerous, and will follow you
 wherever you go, trying to drag you to a restaurant or shop where you’ll spend
 your money. A lot of people on the street beg for soap or toothpaste when the
 police aren’t watching. One man told us he’d do anything, even get down on his
 knees and beg if it would make a difference.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Given all this, was the trip to Cuba worth it? Without a doubt. We met some
 absolutely wonderful people, and learned a ton about Cuban history and
 politics. The government isn’t the oppressive dictatorship many people would
 like to believe, and it’s certainly an improvement over Batista’s brutal
 dictatorship; however, things could certainly be a lot better than they are,
 and Castro isn’t exactly known for his spectacular record on civil liberties.
 The Cubans we met were friendly and welcoming, not to mention incredibly good
 dancers. When we ran into difficulty getting cash out of our Mexican bank
 accounts due to the embargo, one family we stayed with offered to reduce our
 room rate, and give us a cheap ride to the airport so we didn’t have to pay the
 taxi fare. Falling asleep to live Cuban music every night was worth the trip
 alone.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;glossary&#34;&gt;Glossary&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;ol&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Paladar:&lt;/em&gt; a small independent restaurant. One of the allowed forms of
 capitalism in Cuba.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Jinetero:&lt;/em&gt; Literally a &amp;lsquo;jockey.&amp;rsquo; Jineteros will approach you and offer to
 show you a restaurant or store. In exchange, the restaurant charges you
 extra for your meal and the jinetero gets to keep the surcharge.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ol&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>¡Feliz Navidad!</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2002/01/feliz-navidad/</link>
       <pubDate>Tue, 01 Jan 2002 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2002/01/feliz-navidad/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;Took a two week trip through southern México for Christmas. Starting in Mérida,
 southwest into Campeche, Tabasco, Veracruz and then Chiapas. Stopped to visit
 the Mayan ruins at Palenque, followed by some of the villages around San
 Cristóbal de las Casas. From there, it was northeast back onto the Yucatán
 peninsula, to Tulúm, then onwards north again to spend Christmas swimming in the
 Caribbean on Isla Mujeres in 30 degree weather. After a few days, it was
 westward again to Chichen Itzá and Valladolid before finally returning home to
 Mérida.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Valladolid, Yucatán, México</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2001/12/valladolid-yucatan-mexico/</link>
       <pubDate>Thu, 27 Dec 2001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2001/12/valladolid-yucatan-mexico/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;In 1543, Francisco de Montejo (the nephew of Mérida’s famous Francisco de
 Montejo) descended on the ceremonial centre of the Zací (Hawk) Maya, waging war
 on the &lt;em&gt;Cupules&lt;/em&gt;, a group of Maya that hadn’t taken kindly to the Spanish
 conquistadors. When the battle was done and the town had been razed, he renamed
 it Valladolid in honour of the Spanish city of the same name. Today, Valladolid
 is one of the most beautiful colonial cities in the Yucatán, with a mix of
 Spanish and Maya influences. Maya from local pueblas and from the city sell
 traditional &lt;em&gt;huipiles&lt;/em&gt; near the plaza downtown. The city is still roughly
 centered on the &lt;em&gt;Cenote Zací&lt;/em&gt; that was the ceremonial centre of the original
 Mayan settlement.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2001-12-27-cenote.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;View of Cenote Zací. Stalactites and vines hang from above. A few swimmers can be seen near the edge of the pool. A path leads upwards through the trees.&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;The cenote is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. To get to it, you hike
 down a passage into a cavern, then wind your way down the side to get to water
 level. The water is a deep turquoise colour, and is absolutely crystal clear.
 In the shallow areas, you can easily see fallen stalactites lying 30 metres
 below on the bottom. In the deep parts, you won’t see the bottom—it’s more than
 100 metres deep. The same little blind fish that are present in the cenote at
 Dzibilchaltún will nibble your toes in this cenote as well.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Above the cenote is a little zoo with spider monkeys, who spend most of their
 afternoon playing with toys, and getting fed potato chips by laughing groups of
 kids. What was more interesting, however, was that they had a raccoon in the
 zoo. You don’t see them in México at all, and most people we asked didn’t know
 what the Spanish word for it was, until an old man we ran into told us it was
 &lt;em&gt;mapache&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The main plaza of the city is gorgeous. With ornate lamp posts, hanging baskets
 full of flowers, and beautiful hedges, it was the Yucatán’s answer to Victoria.
 The streets downtown are kept immaculately clean by a crew of street cleaners
 who run through the streets every morning at 5 am. The government of Spain has
 apparently deemed Valladolid to be one of the most Spanish cities in the
 Americas, and donates money to help in its preservation.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2001-12-27-cenote-top.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;View from above, looking down into Cenote Zací. Vines hang down to the water from above. A stone staircase leads up from the dark blue-green waters. A few scattered fallen leaves litter the surface of the water.&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;Probably the most exciting thing that happened while we were there was the
 rain. We had gone off in search of what is supposed to be an absolutely amazing
 cathedral and graveyard somewhere in the southwestern part of the city. In
 typical Mexican fashion, everyone we talked to was able to tell us in
 approximately what direction it was, so we were able to slowly make our way
 there stumbling randomly from one Vallisoletana to the next. We never did find
 it, but not for any lack of determination, but because it started to rain. Now,
 when I say rain, I don’t mean the rain we get in Victoria. I don’t even mean
 Vancouver rain. To fully appreciate a Yucatecan rain storm, you really need to
 experience one. Imagine the streets filling with water, then overflowing onto
 the sidewalks until the whole city is two feet deep in rainwater. We did the
 only thing we could do: jump into a corner store. The guys in the store reacted
 the same way any other Mexicans all over the country would react: toss over a
 couple chairs and invite us in to watch some TV. We bought some cookies and
 juice and sat for 45 minutes or so, watching the water level in the street
 outside rise closer and closer to the edge of the door before we finally
 decided that we were going to make a break for it, only stopping once for a
 slice of cheesecake in a bakery along the way back to the hotel.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Valladolid is also famous for the cenote at Dzitnup, about 10 km out of town.
 While we never did make it there, we heard some amazing stories about it from
 Nick, an Irishman from Cork we met in San Cristóbal de las Casas. What is so
 incredible about it is that it’s at the bottom of a dark cavern, with a small
 opening in the roof. At the right time of day, the sun shines through this
 opening and into the turquoise waters of the cenote, making it apear as though
 you’re bathing in light. The actual name of the cenote is &lt;em&gt;Kiken&lt;/em&gt; which is
 Yucatec Maya for &amp;lsquo;pig,&amp;rsquo; because the cenote was originally discovered by a farmer
 whose his pig had fallen in through the hole in the roof.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Valladolid is also famous for its uprisings. What transpired in Valladolid in
 June of 1910 helped to spark the Mexican Revolution that erupted in the rest of
 the country that November when Francisco Madero flew across the border into
 Piedras Negras, Coahuila. The revolution wasn’t over until 1920; but as they
 say, the opening chapters were written in blood, here in Valladolid.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2001-12-27-truck.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;The rusted carcass of a truck parked on the side of the street. Painted across the front: Duele mas andar a pie (it hurts more to walk). On the bent and twisted remains of the bumper: Asi como me vez te veras (one day, you&amp;#39;ll look like this too).&#34;&gt;&lt;figcaption&gt;
       &lt;h4&gt;&amp;#39;It hurts more to walk&amp;#39;&lt;/h4&gt;
     &lt;/figcaption&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;Unhappy with Spanish control of a land they considered their own, a small band
 of revolutionaries had worked together for months, planning the overthrow of
 governor Moñoz Aristegui. On the night of June 3rd, 1910, all those committed
 to the plan met in the Plaza de la Santa Lucia at midnight. Under the command
 of Ruz Ponce and José Kantún, one group stormed the police quarter, killing the
 guard outside and taking everyone else prisoner. Another group, led by Claudio
 Alconcer and Atilano Albertos took the office of the Mexican Guard, killing the
 Sergeant of the Guard, Facundo Gil. The governor, Felipe de Regil, asleep in
 bed at the time, woke up to the sound of gunfire outside in the streets. He
 immediately jumped out of bed and, a gun in each hand, ran into the street
 firing on the revolutionaries. He fought bravely until the end, when he was
 finally killed and left lying in the street.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;At this point, there was no turning back for the insurgents. They now had the
 support of nearly the entire city, and within three days had amassed an army of
 no less than 1500 men, armed with guns and machetes. Most had no military
 training. Local landowners provided weapons, ammunition and food.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;In Mérida, this uprising had not gone unnoticed. While the locals were
 preparing in Valladolid, the government had sent a column of 65 men eastward
 with 300 guns, recruiting villagers along the way. Under the command of Colonel
 Ignacio Lara, they marched easward to Tinum, 12 km outside of Valladolid, where
 they waited for reinforcements to arrive. The cannons of Morelos arrived in
 Valladolid on the 7th. On the 8th, Lara led his men to the outskirts of the
 city, where, at dawn on the 9th of June, they began the assault on Valladolid.
 A batallion of 600 federal troops arrived on the 10th. Poorly equiped,
 untrained, and out of ammunition, the rebels fell under the three ferocious
 onslaughts. The death tolls were high on both sides: more than 100
 revolutionaries and over 30 government soldiers had been killed. This was the
 highest balance of deaths of any battle ever fought in México, and would remain
 so until the Revolution began that November.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The leaders of the revolt were eventually rounded up, tried and sentenced to
 death. In the courtyard of the Shrine of San Roque, Kantún, Albertos, and
 Bonilla faced the firing squad. That November, Francisco Madero launched the
 Mexican Revolution, and by the following April, 17000 people had taken up arms
 against Porfirio Diaz and his government. The rest is &lt;a href=&#34;http://history.acusd.edu/gen/projects/border/page01.html&#34;&gt;history&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Chichen Itzá, Yucatán, México</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2001/12/chichen-itza-yucatan-mexico/</link>
       <pubDate>Wed, 26 Dec 2001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2001/12/chichen-itza-yucatan-mexico/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;Somewhere on the old highway between Cancún and Mérida lies Chichen Itzá. The
 ruins at this site cover over 15 square kilometres, with &lt;em&gt;El Castillo&lt;/em&gt; alone
 taking up 0.4 hectares. At 83 metres in length, the Ball Court is the largest
 in Meso-America. The close proximity of the ruins to Cancún and the size of
 some of the structures have made these the most famous Mayan ruins in the
 country.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2001-12-26-el-castillo.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;A view from the ground below the El Castillo pyramid at Chichen Itzá. Visitors climb the steep staircase leading up the centre of the face of the pyramid. A few people stand silhouetted at the top, looking down on the surrouding jungle.&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;The image that most people associate with Chichen Itzá is &lt;em&gt;El Castillo&lt;/em&gt;. The
 pyramid rises more than 23 metres above the ground, with steep staircases up
 all four sides, leading to a small building at the top. What’s so spectacular
 about it is the fact that this pyramid is actually a huge Mayan calendar built
 of stone.  The four staircases leading to the top have 91 steps each, which
 when added to the platform at the top, make 365. On the sides are 52 panels
 representing the 52 years of the traditional Mayan calendar round. The pyramid
 is composed of nine terraced platforms on either side of the two primary
 staircases, for a total of 18, the number of months in the Mayan calendar. If
 you’re still not convinced of the Mayans’ astronomical prowess, you can easily
 convince yourself by visiting on either the spring or the fall equinox when, as
 the sun rises over the jungle, the form of a giant serpent is projected onto
 the sides of the two primary staircases, each of which has a giant stone
 serpent head at its base. This illusion is created by the precise alignment of
 the terraces in relation to position of the sun.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;In a corner in the shade of one of the giant staircases leading up the side of
 El Castillo is a door. Once or twice a day, the door is opened, and groups of
 20 or so are allowed inside. A narrow passage leads to a steep staircase that
 runs up the side of another pyramid inside El Castillo. It’s narrow, cramped,
 hot and humid, not to mention dark, but the climb is worth it. Eventually, at
 the top of the staircase, if you’re lucky or pushy enough, you can catch a
 glimpse of a jewel-encrusted jaguar altar, used by the Maya for sacrifices.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2001-12-26-ball-court.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;The ball court at Chichen Itzá. Large, perfectly flat stone walls rise above the grass. Two stone hoops protrude, one from each wall, facing sideways. A crowd of people stands at the far end of the court.&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;The Ball Court is another feat of engineering. The walls are each approximately
 8 metres high, with structures at the top for viewing the game. At either end
 of the court is an elaborate stone temple. But what is so amazing about the
 Ball Court is its acoustics. A whisper at one end can be clearly heard at the
 other end, 135 metres away. In fact, the sound reflection at the centre of the
 court is so incredible, you can hear at least nine echos if you clap or shout.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The following excerpt, by one of the supervising archaeologists restoring the
 ruins, describes the acoustics:&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;blockquote&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Chi cheen Itsa’s famous &amp;lsquo;Ball-court&amp;rsquo; or Temple of the Maize cult offers the
 visitor besides its mystery and impressive architecture, its marvellous
 acoustics If a person standing under either ring claps his hands or yells, the
 sound produced will be repeated several times gradually losing its volume, A
 single revolver shot seems machine-gun fire. The sound waves travel with equal
 force to East or West, day or night. disregarding the wind’s direction. Anyone
 speaking in a normal voice from the &amp;lsquo;Forum&amp;rsquo; can be clearly heard in the &amp;lsquo;Sacred
 Tribune&amp;rsquo; five hundred feet away or vice-versa. If a short sentence, for
 example, &amp;lsquo;Do you hear me?&amp;rsquo; is pronounced it will be repeated word by word&amp;hellip;
 Parties from one extreme to the other can hold a conversation without raising
 their voices.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;This transmission of sound, as yet unexplained, has been discussed by
 architects and archaeologists &amp;hellip; Most of them used to consider it as fanciful
 due to the ruined conditions of the structure but, on the contrary, we who have
 engaged in its reconstruction know well that the sound volume, instead of
 disappearing, has become stronger and clearer&amp;hellip; Undoubtedly we must consider
 this feat of acoustics as another noteworthy achievement of engineering
 realized millenniums ago by the Maya technicians.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;—Chi Cheen Itza by Manuel Cirerol Sansores, 1947&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Aside from the Ball Court and &lt;em&gt;El Castillo&lt;/em&gt;, there are dozens of other sites of
 interest. There are no less than three cenotes around the site, one of which
 was filled with tens of thousands of artifacts, from neclaces and jewelry to
 the bones of human and animal sacrifices. The Hall of the Thousand Pillars is
 also incredible to walk through, with each pillar featuring unique carvings and
 inscriptions; on some, traces of red and blue paint are still visible.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The site was originally populated by the Itzáes around 500 AD, and slowly built
 up until 900 AD, at which point it was completely abandonned. No one knows why
 the Itzáes left so abruptly, but it appears that the city was re-populated
 about 100 years later, and then attacked by the Toltecs, a tribe known for its
 brutality at war. Structures from the period between 1000 and 1300 AD show
 marked Toltec influences, including numeral reliefs of Toltec gods, including
 Quetzalcoatl, the plumed serpent. The city was abandonned once again around
 1300, this time permanently.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Tulúm, Quintana Roo, México</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2001/12/tulum-quintana-roo-mexico/</link>
       <pubDate>Mon, 24 Dec 2001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2001/12/tulum-quintana-roo-mexico/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;Between San Cristóbal and Tulúm is a long, empty road. The overnight bus works
 beautifully for this trip, winding its way through the mountains, jungle and
 the vast plains of the Yucatán. The only major stop along the way is Escarcega,
 Campeche. By major, I mean a couple of comida corrida places, a papaya tree,
 and a dusty bus stop on a long, empty stretch of highway. By six in the
 morning, we were in Tulúm, a slightly bigger collection of restaurants and bus
 stops along a long, empty stretch of highway. We grabbed a plate of
 &lt;em&gt;huevos motuleños&lt;/em&gt; and some coffee, which (I swear that I am not making this
 up) was blue. Sort of an off-grey blue. It tasted like milk mixed with
 dishwater.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2001-12-24-tulum.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;Mayan ruins sit on a bluff of rock covered with low scrub overlooking the Caribbean. Below, waves crash against the rocks.&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;The best time to see the ruins is, without a doubt, sunrise. The ruins at
 Tulúm, while not spectacular except for the two-metre rock wall surrounding the
 site on three sides, have one of the best views you could possibly hope for.
 The structures sit nestled amid the rolling green grass and white sandy
 beaches, hovering over the turquoise Caribbean. As the sun rises, the whole
 place is bathed in a warm orangey-red glow. Sitting on ruins watching the waves
 is pretty relaxing.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Since Tulúm is so close to Playa del Carmen and Cancún, the number of visitors
 is absoutely huge compared to a lot of other Mayan ruins, and especially given
 the small size of these ruins. Because of that, most of the structures are
 off-limits to the public, so you can’t climb up on them as you can at most
 other sites. In the end, it’s nice to see that these ruins are being protected,
 but Palenque, Uxmal and Chichen Itzá are a lot more fun. That said, if you look
 hard enough, you will find a couple structures you can sit down on.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, México</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2001/12/san-cristobal-de-las-casas-chiapas-mexico/</link>
       <pubDate>Fri, 21 Dec 2001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2001/12/san-cristobal-de-las-casas-chiapas-mexico/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;San Cristóbal is, without question, one of the most beautiful towns in Mexico.
 It’s also the ideal temperature for visiting Canadians, with the temperature
 hovering around 10 °C, and the humidity close to 100% during the daytime in
 winter. It’s cold, damp and cloudy. After months of scorching heat and
 humidity, I was in heaven. San Cristóbal makes an ideal base from which to do
 day-trips to the surrounding villages of San Juan Chamula and
 Zinacantán—indigenous villages comprising the Tzotzil and Tzeltal indigenous
 groups respectively.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2001-12-21-plaza.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;The bright yellow façade of a catheral faces the main plaza in San Cristóbal de las Casas. Pedestrials mill about the square in groups.&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;In town, we met a law student named Luís who took a group of us to the
 villages. In San Juan Chamula, we first visited the shaman’s hut for the
 village, where we learned about the mix of Catholicism and traditional beliefs
 practised in the village. We then continued on to the village church which was
 probably the highlight of the visit. Seeing the mix of beliefs being practised
 there was incredible: everything from prayers to the Catholic saints to burning
 incense to chicken sacrifices and ceremonial purgings. Photography isn’t
 allowed in the church and out of respect to the Chamulans, we won’t describe
 everything in detail on the web, but suffice to say that it was an incredibly
 worthwhile visit.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Zinacantán is only a few kilometres away, but the villagers speak an entirely
 different language, Tzeltal. Here, the church is much more traditional,
 although most villagers still maintain strong ties to traditional indigenous
 beliefs, such as worshipping the Earth Lord and placing a strong emphasis on
 the interpretation of dreams. For a more detailed look at the beliefs and
 culture of the people of Zinacantán, we’d suggest &lt;em&gt;Dreams and Stories from the
 People of the Bat&lt;/em&gt; by Robert Laughlin. This book is a collection of dreams and
 their interpretations as told by the villagers of Zinacantán, as well as a
 series of short stories passed from generation to generation in the village.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The town also produces many traditional handicrafts typical of Chiapas:
 blankets, clothing, dolls, etc. The villagers take these to San Cristóbal to
 sell them at the markets and on the street. The textiles are all made from
 hand, from the thread, to hand-weaving and embroidering. Typically, a
 medium-sized blanket takes two to three weeks to produce.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2001-12-21-beans.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;Dozens of varieties of dried beans in many colours arrayed for sale in bins and large sacks for sale at the market&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;Back in San Cristóbal, we spent a few days visiting the markets and wandering
 around town trying out the local food before heading back north for Palenque
 again. On our way out of town we noticed a small shanty-town suburb in a gravel
 pit. On a big yellow arch, bold black letters declared the name of the colonia:
 &lt;em&gt;Sal Si Puedes&lt;/em&gt;, &amp;lsquo;Get Out If You Can&amp;rsquo;. Just past this is the massive military
 encampment that has been in place since 1994 when the EZLN (Zapatista
 Liberation Army) overthrew and occupied the town before being driven out by
 reinforcements sent in, causing a bloodbath. There is a lot less tension now
 than there was then, but the Zapatistas still have incredibly high support in
 the villages just outside of town. The Mexican government under Vincente Fox
 has been much more responsive to indigenous peoples than previous governments
 have been, although in recent months this seems to be less and less the case.
 There’s still a lot of work to do before the indigenous groups in Mexico are
 able to live in conditions similar to the rest of the population. Most people
 in the villages still lack food, clothing and (non-dirt) floors in their
 houses, let alone running water and electricity. And although Chiapas produces
 more electricity than any other state, less than half the population has
 electricity in its home.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Palenque, Chiapas, México</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2001/12/palenque-chiapas-mexico/</link>
       <pubDate>Tue, 18 Dec 2001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2001/12/palenque-chiapas-mexico/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;For Christmas, we decided to take a trip to the state of Chiapas, about an 8
 hour bus ride from Mérida. Although Chiapas has been a somewhat politically
 unstable state during the past 10 years, it is also home to some of the most
 incredible scenery, archaeological sites and indigenous culture in the
 country.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2001-12-18-temple-of-inscriptions.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;The Mayan ruins of the Temple of the Inscriptions at Palenque towering over a courtyard surrounded by jungle. A large staircase leads up the main face of the pyramid. Rain pours down in torrents.&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;The town of Palenque sits only a few minutes by bike, foot or bus from the
 ruins of the ancient Mayan city of Palenque. The ruins themselves extend over a
 huge area and are composed of many smaller groups of structures situated around
 plazas. The most impressive of these are probably the main plaza—which is
 surrounded by the Temple of the Inscriptions and the palace/observatory
 tower—and the Sun Temple Plaza.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The Temple of the Inscriptions is well-known for housing the sarcophagus and
 jade death mask of Pakal, former ruler of the city. Unfortunately, it&amp;rsquo;s no
 longer possible to visit the inside of the Temple of the Inscriptions without a
 research permit. In theory, that involves applications via your university and
 submissions of your research to the government; in practice it involves 150
 pesos to the right people.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Dzibilchaltún, Yucatán, México</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2001/09/dzibilchaltun-yucatan-mexico/</link>
       <pubDate>Tue, 11 Sep 2001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2001/09/dzibilchaltun-yucatan-mexico/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;About halfway between Mérida and Progresso lie the ruins of Dzibilchaltún, an
 important centre in the ancient world of the Maya. The name means &amp;lsquo;The place
 with writing on the stones.&amp;rsquo;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2001-09-11-munecas-door.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;View framed by the doorway of the of Templo de las Siete Muñecas looking out over the ruins of a stone building and four-sized stone stela on a raised platform. A path leads past the ruins, through the low jungle, and towards the horizon.&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;Dzibilchaltún covers an area of about 16 square kilometres, in which there are
 about 8400 structures. The central part of the site covers three square
 kilometres, which includes several temples and pyramids, as well as a cenote of
 unknown depth, one of the largest in the Yucatán. Many of the structures date
 back as far as 500 B.C.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;From downtown Mérida, you can catch a colectivo that stops down the road from
 the temple. A 10 minute hike from there along a trail through the jungle gets
 you to the entrance to the site, where they charge 50 pesos per person ($7.50
 CDN) to get in. The day we arrived, it was a scorching 40-something degrees,
 with 100% humidity, so the fact that the small museum on the site was
 air-conditionned was worth the price of admission in itself.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The site is divided into two parts, separated by a one kilometre long road. At
 one end is the Temple of the Seven Dolls, named after seven ceramic dolls found
 there as offerings to the gods. At the other end is a courtyard, a pyramid, a
 ball court and the cenote, as well as an open chapel that was constructed
 during the Colonial era, in the late 16th and early 17th century.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2001-09-11-munecas-outside.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;View of the Templo de las Siete Muñecas from the path. In the foreground, a hiker walks toward a large worn stela on a raised platform.&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;The Temple of the Seven Dolls is probably the most interesting part of the
 site. At least it was to us. At one time, the temple was adorned with plaster
 friezes, molded to the shapes of intertwined serpents, hieroglyphs, and masks,
 though these friezes are no longer on the structure itself. The building is
 thought to have served as an astronomical observatory, and during the Vernal
 and Autumnal Equinoxes, an interesting phenonmenon can be seen at sunrise.
 During the Equinoxes, the sun is perfectly aligned such that the morning
 sunlight passes directly between two sets of opposing doors on the temple,
 casting the light down into the courtyard facing the structure. Many people
 pile into Dzibilchaltún between 5:00 and 6:00 in the morning to witness the
 sunrise, then run back out and pile into a bus to Chichen Itza to watch the
 more spectacular effect of the sun casting light in the shape of a giant
 serpent slithering up the side of the temple there in the afternoon. If you
 don’t happen to be a teacher who has classes on these days, this is apparently
 the thing to do.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The cenote on the other side of the site is open for swimming, if you don’t
 mind thousands of little fish chasing you around the whole time. What’s
 curious, of course, is that there are any fish at all in the cenotes, since
 they’re fed by a series of deep, underwater channels of water that snake
 beneath the entire peninsula. There are no rivers or streams connecting them on
 the surface, so the fish have to descend to incredible depths (over 100 m) to
 move between one cenote and the next. From what people have told us, the fish
 that live in the cenotes are blind, which is kind of cool.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;We hiked back out to the road after a few hours of wandering around, the sat
 waiting for a colectivo to drive by and pick us up. For 30 minutes we sat
 around, the air totally still and boiling hot, with only the sound of the
 mosquitos and the cow in the field next to us. I’m not entirely sure what was
 wrong with it, but the way it hollered made it sound demented and insane. I
 honestly hope I never drink any milk from that one; no way that’s safe.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Isla Mujeres, Quintana Roo, México</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2001/09/isla-mujeres-quintana-roo-mexico/</link>
       <pubDate>Thu, 06 Sep 2001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2001/09/isla-mujeres-quintana-roo-mexico/</guid>
       <description>&lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2001-09-06-lancha.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;A small &amp;#39;lancha&amp;#39; boat floats in the crystal-clear blue waters of the Caribbean, moored a few metres offshore a white sandy beach.&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;blockquote&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Lo que tu eres, yo fui&lt;br&gt;
 Lo que yo soy, luego serás&lt;br&gt;
 &lt;em&gt;—Inscription on the pirate Mundaca’s Tomb&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Many, many years ago, a pirate by the name of Fermin Antonio Mundaca de
 Marechaja landed on Isla Mujeres and fell in love with a young lady whose name
 has been long forgotten. Today, she is known only as &lt;em&gt;La Trigueña&lt;/em&gt; (The
 Brunette), the name by which he referred to her. In order to win her love,
 Mundaca built an elaborate hacienda, erected archways and laid paths throughout
 the gardens. He had trees and plants brought from all over the world to plant
 in the gardens. Unfortunately, before he finished this masterpiece, she ran off
 with another islander and got married. Today, his house lays in ruins in the
 middle of what remains of his fortress. And if you look carefully, you can
 faintly work out the words &lt;em&gt;La Trigueña&lt;/em&gt; carved into the stone archway. Mundaca
 eventually died of the plague in Mérida, but his small tomb can still be seen
 among the headstones of the small cemetary near the north beach of town.
 Adorned with an eerily grinning skull and crossbones, it bears no name, but
 carries the inscription: &amp;lsquo;As you are, I was. As I am, you will be.&amp;rsquo;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;With a couple weeks before school and work starts, we decided to visit Isla
 Mujeres (lit. The Island of Women), a small island that sits about 11 km off
 the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula, in Quintana Roo. A few hours east of
 Mérida, the island is surrounded by the turquoise, bathtub warm, crystal clear
 waters of the Caribbean, and is the site of some spectacular snorkeling and
 diving.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Isla Mujeres is tiny—about 8 km long and between 300 and 800 metres wide—and
 has a population of 7000 residents. The main part of the town sits on the
 north-west tip of the island, but there are some smaller &lt;em&gt;colonias&lt;/em&gt; in the
 central Salinas area, as well as on the south end. Although it was once a
 fishing town, the main business today is tourism. Unlike Cancún, however, Isla
 Mujeres has a much more relaxed, laid back pace of life, and it hasn’t yet
 turned into a party town full of drunken gringos. The locals appear to want to
 keep it this way, and the local San Francisco store stops selling alcohol at
 8:30 or 9:00 in the evenings.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2001-09-06-sunset.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;In the distance, the silhouette of a lancha passes through the shimmering reflection of the setting sun&amp;#39;s light on the ocean.&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;From the downtown Cancún bus station, we grabbed the Route 13 bus north along
 Avenida Tulum to the Puerto Juarez ferry terminal, then hopped on a boat for
 the 30 minute ferry ride to the island. We spent the whole ride locked in a
 psychological battle trying not to jump off into the gorgeous blue water; it
 was sheer torture. Apparently we weren’t the only ones—as soon as the boat
 pulled alongside the Isla Mujeres dock, one 40 year old passenger jumped
 overboard and swam to shore.We spent the next few days wandering around the
 island on foot. Like a lot of touristy places in Mexico, there are thousands of
 people trying to sell you anything and everything on the street. Fortunately,
 the city is small enough that all the hawkers seem to be packed into two blocks
 along Avenida Hidalgo between Av. Abasolo and Av. Lopez Mateos. Unfortunately,
 that’s the easiest way to get to the beach. Fortunately (yet again), it’s
 easily bypassed by taking the scenic route.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The best times of day for the beach are sunrise and sunset. The boatloads of
 tourists from Cancún aren’t there, and the beach is nearly empty. The water
 stays warm 24 hours a day, and the sunsets and sunrises are spectacular. During
 the afternoons, the beach is packed with people and the sun is intense enough
 that if you don’t fork over the 60 pesos ($10 Canadian) for a beach umbrella,
 you’ll fry like bacon, even with the SPF 50 they sell at the super market.
 There’s a reason most Mexicans swim in shorts and a t-shirt.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;There are a lot of other things to do on the island. One of the most
 interesting is the Sea Turtle conservation park. This is the only facility in
 Mexico dedicated to preserving endangered sea turtles, such as the Hawk’s Bill
 Turtle, which grows to over 100 kg, and lives to around 120 years old. The sea
 turtles have been hunted to near extinction because of world-wide demand from
 for their meat and shells. At the conservation facility, the turtles are bred,
 cared for, then released back into the wild. There are no railings on the
 walkways above the huge walled off section of ocean where the largest of the
 turtles swim, and according to the guy who showed us around, if you fall in,
 &amp;rsquo;te comen!&amp;rsquo;, &amp;rsquo;they eat you!&#39;.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2001-09-06-skeletons.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;Four small hand-carved wooden skeleton toys playing musical instruments and wearing sombreros sit on the step of a storefront with their feet on the sidewalk. A small wooden armadillo wanders by.&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;The ruins of Mundaca’s fortress are in the central part of the island, and if
 you want to be eaten alive by mosquitos (there are Dengue Fever warnings all
 over the place on the Yucatán Peninsula, by the way) it’s a great place to go.
 No wonder the object of Mundaca’s affections ditched him for another man. Any
 sensible pirate would have built his fortress on the beach or at least within
 walking distance. Mundaca built his in the marshiest, grottiest, most densely
 jungled part of the island. On the bright side there is, however, a sort of
 small zoo in his gardens, with alligators, monkeys, a deer, and apparently a
 jaguar, though we never got to see it, because the mosquitos drove us out
 first. By the twentieth or thirtieth bite, we’d had more than enough of
 Mundaca’s place.On the south side of the island, there’s Playa Garrafón, which
 is part of a national park, but seems to have been recently turned into an
 expensive tourist trap, complete with all-you-can-eat restaurants, zip lines,
 &amp;lsquo;underwater adventure&amp;rsquo; and more construction, all for the low, ubeatable price
 of $35 US a day! I believe they even translated that price into pesos
 underneath in small type. We actually went next door, paid 20 pesos (about $2
 US) and had the whole beach to ourselves. We snorkeled around the wharf and a
 small reef, then Pablo and Armando, who ran the place, took us out to a reef 15
 minutes out by boat, where we saw sharks, a sting ray, and a ton of live (and
 dead) coral. Unfortunately, it seems like a million and one other people go out
 to the same reef, and most don’t know how to swim. This means you’ll end up
 spending an hour getting your head kicked in by screaming hoardes of
 life-jacket wearing, water spitting drowners. I did get rammed in the legs by a
 nurse shark though. It felt like sandpaper and was among the creepier
 sensations I have experienced in my life.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2001-09-06-nativity-scene.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;The gazebo at the centre of the Isla Mujeres plaza decorated in an underwater-themed nativity scene. The virgin mary stands at the centre, her hands in prayer. Fishing nets filled with starfish, tropical fish, and multi-coloured Christmas lights surround the gazebo.&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;There are also some Mayan ruins at the south tip of the island, though there’s
 very little left of them. Most of the ruins have been hurled into the ocean by
 various hurricanes, but what’s left sits on a small point overlooking the
 crystal clear blue water. My favourite part was the hand painted sign that
 reads &amp;lsquo;IGUANAS-No los tire piedras-Cuidelas&amp;rsquo;, &amp;lsquo;Please do not throw rocks at
 the iguanas-take care of them!&amp;rsquo; Two English ladies who now live in Kentucky
 were kind enough to pick us up on their rented golf cart and haul us back into
 town, saving us a taxi ride/sunburn.During our stay on the island, we ran into
 a small herd of beach cats. They appeared to be completely starving, which I’m
 sure is all part of their little ploy to get food from unsuspecting tourists.
 In fact, I’m sure that if a study were done, they’d probably find that this is
 a behaviour that beach cats have evolved over centuries of tourism, sort of
 like pigeons that pretend to be one-legged to get sympathy points from old
 grannies in parks. In any case, these poor things ended up rounding up enough
 sympathy to get some canned tuna… twice. Most of the time, though, I we watched
 it digging holes on the beach, which I don’t really want to think about too
 much. We also saw it kill and eat cockroaches, which no matter how disgusting
 it is, I have to admit is actually sort of mezmerising.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;All in all, it was a great vacation before everything gets crazy here. We hope
 we’ll have time to go back at some point for another visit. The place to stay
 is definitely the Hotel El Marcianito; the guy who runs it is totally friendly,
 and gave us a ton of advice on places to see.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Chelem, Yucatán, México</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2001/08/chelem-yucatan-mexico/</link>
       <pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2001 14:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2001/08/chelem-yucatan-mexico/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;Grabbed a bus north to Progreso to go to the beach. While it was beautiful
 weather and the ocean looked great, there were no palm trees on the beach, so
 it was impossible to find any shade. We’d heard that in the next town over,
 Yucalpetén, there were some great beaches, so we asked around and finally found
 a colectivo headed out in that direction. The one we found stopped
 by a bathing centre and the town of Chelem. Now right now I’m going to come
 straight out and say it: if someone ever tells you a story about the amazing
 beaches at Yucalpetén, just back away slowly and do not make any sudden
 moves—the person you are talking to has probably escaped from an asylum.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2001-08-31-chelem.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;Main street of Chelem&#34;&gt;&lt;figcaption&gt;
       &lt;h4&gt;The main street of Chelem?&lt;/h4&gt;
     &lt;/figcaption&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;We wandered around for a few hours, but we never did find a beach in decent
 condition. In the end we sat on a grass embankment close to the ocean,
 observing what appeared to be the remains of a house that had been bulldozed
 across the beach and into the ocean; there still were big chunks of concrete
 wall strewn all over the place. It was sort of post-apocalyptic looking. On the
 bright side, there was a nice cool breeze.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Progreso, Yucatán, México</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2001/08/progreso-yucatan-mexico/</link>
       <pubDate>Fri, 31 Aug 2001 10:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2001/08/progreso-yucatan-mexico/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;Half an hour north of Mérida is the port town of Progreso. Though it’s on the
 gulf side of the peninsula, the water is still a beautiful turquoise-blue; it
 puts Canadian beaches to shame. On a hot weekend, Progreso makes a fun day
 trip. The wind keeps you cool, and as long as you keep ordering drinks, the
 food comes free at the palapa huts on the beach.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2001-08-31-palapa.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;Three beach chairs sit in the shade of a palm-thatched palapa on the beach overlooking the ocean. A small &amp;#39;lancha&amp;#39; boat is pulled up on the beach. On the left, Progreso&amp;#39;s long pier extends over the water towards the horizon.&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;The one thing that is impossible to miss in Progreso is the pier. At its
 original length of 6 km, it was the longest in all of México, and with its new
 3 km extension for cruise ships, it’s now the longest in the world. The reason
 for its size is that the Yucatán Peninsula is in essence a huge, flat limestone
 shelf that continues to extend long past the waterfront. At 6 km out, the
 water is still only 7 or 8 metres deep. As a result a 3 km extension was added
 in 2001 to allow cruise ships to dock safely.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;When we asked friends in Mérida about the beach in Progreso, they mostly told
 us that it wasn’t that nice. When we got back, I told my class that in Canada
 we put beaches like that in beer commercials. I guess when Cancún is only a few
 hours drive away, you can afford to be picky. The only downside is that most of
 the palm trees are tiny. The previous ones were all ripped out during Hurricane
 Gilberto a few years ago. As a result there’s very little shade, so your only
 option is to hide under a palapa.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Izamal, Yucatán, México</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2001/08/izamal-yucatan-mexico/</link>
       <pubDate>Thu, 30 Aug 2001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2001/08/izamal-yucatan-mexico/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;Took a trip a few towns to the east this morning, to Izamal. While Mérida is
 known throughout México as the White City, Izamal is referred to as the Yellow
 City due to the preponderance of yellow buildings. With a population of 15,000
 or so, it’s much quieter than Mérida, and horse-drawn carriages are still used
 as transportation by some of its residents. The two big tourist attractions
 here are the ruins of Kinich-Kakmó, one of 12 Mayan temples that originally
 stood at the site of this town, and the Franciscan Monastery, one of the first
 in the New World, built from the stones of the largest Mayan temple in Izamal
 after it was torn down by the Conquistadors.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;The Convento de San Antonio de Padua sits on one side of the Plaza Principal, a
 block from the city’s bus station. Climbing up the ramp in front brings you to
 a large flat terrace and the entrance to the buildings themselves. From there,
 you can enter the chapel, visit the arboreum or climb up to the top levels of
 the monastery. If you look carefully, some of the stones in the walls and
 arches have Mayan designs on them—these were part of the temple that originally
 stood at this location. Facing away from the monastery, you can see
 Kinich-Kakmó towering over the jungle six or seven blocks away.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Kinich-Kakmó, which is about 200 m x 180 m, was built between 300 and 600 A.D.
 and was recently restored. From the top levels, the temple provides a great
 view of the city. Following a narrow dirt path around the back affords a
 spectacular view of the surrounding jungle and the vast, Saskatchewan-like
 flatness of the Yucatán peninsula. All over the place, big, lazy iguanas
 sunbathe on the rock walls of the temple. Just beside the entrance, at the base
 of the front side of the pyramid, is a great-smelling tortillería.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;We ate at the Kinich-Kakmó Restaurant, and it was delicious though a little
 pricey. We each had a Montejo beer and lime soup, followed by Poc-Chuc¹ and
 Rellenos Negros², along with some fresh handmade tortillas. As with many
 restaurants, homemade tortilla chips and salsas are served with the meal. The
 total came to about 160 pesos, which is enough to buy you several days worth of
 groceries at Wal-Mart or San Francisco in Mérida. The main dining area is
 outdoors under a thatched Mayan style roof (and yes, lots of people still live
 in traditional Mayan huts—some have corrugated metal roofs these days, but just
 as many use the traditional palm fronds). The waiters even offer bug-spray if
 you need it. Fortunately, due to some creative engineering by the staff, you
 don’t need it. Clear plastic bags of water dangle by threads from the roof and,
 in the words of the waiter, &amp;lsquo;when the bug sees his reflection as he gets
 closer, he sees himself reflected so big and ugly that it scares him away.&amp;rsquo; It
 seems to work—we didn’t see a single fly or mosquito during lunch, and there
 were tons outside. Royal Thai in San Rafael, California does the same thing, so
 there’s got to be something to it.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, I forgot to bring the memory card for the camera, so no
 pictures, but it was well worth the trip.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;glossary&#34;&gt;Glossary&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;ol&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Poc-Chuc:&lt;/em&gt; A Yucatecan dish made with pork marinaded in orange juice.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Rellenos Negros:&lt;/em&gt; A spicy, black Yucatecan soup made from beans, with
 pieces of chicken and a hard boiled egg bathing in it.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ol&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Quest for a Hammock</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2001/08/quest-for-a-hammock/</link>
       <pubDate>Tue, 28 Aug 2001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2001/08/quest-for-a-hammock/</guid>
       <description>&lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2001-08-28-old-door.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;A worn-down wooden door lies framed by a crumbling building façade in Mérida. Traces of faded lettering remain where the paint has not flaked away.&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;In Mérida, most people sleep in hammocks. Walk down any residential street and
 look in the windows and you’ll see hammocks strung all over the room. What I’m
 getting at is that I finally caved in and bought a hammock. Now sit back and
 listen, ’cause here’s my advice…&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;If you’re in Mérida, you’ll be approached every five minutes by someone wanting
 to sell you a hammock off the street. Do not buy it! That man is crazy! The
 quality of hammock you get from a wandering hammock guy is a mystery until you
 try it out. And you’re not going to be trying it out until after you’ve paid
 for it. Generally speaking, they’re pretty bad. Locals refer to them as
 ‘hospital hammocks’ because that’s where you end up if you use them. Go to a
 hammock shop with a good reputation. If they can show you a photo album of them
 and their grandparents chopping down sisal (henequen cactus), stripping the
 fibre, and making hammocks, it’s a pretty safe bet that the hammocks are
 good.So Julio Armando pulled out a few hammocks, strung them up, proudly
 displays the threading to show there were no flaws, and got me to jump in and
 take it for a spin. Hammocks come in lots of sizes: single, double,
 matrimonial, and matrimonial especial. The difference is the number of pairs of
 end threads. Matrimonial has about 150 pairs of end threads, whereas a single
 has about 50 and a double has about 100. Keep in mind that these sizes were
 designed for people of Mayan stature, which is a lot smaller than your typical
 Canadian, or Mestizo Mexican.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, the walls in the apartment must be the only ones in the whole
 city that doesn’t have hammock hooks! Even a lot of hotels in Mérida provide
 hooks! I ran across the street to the Tlapalería¹ and using hand signals and
 pantomime, bought exactly five metres of nylon rope. Using those engineering
 skills I spent so much effort learning at UVic, and some knots I learned in Boy
 Scouts, I rigged up a makeshift hammock hookup. Unfortunately, the only
 available post to string a rope around was the chunk of wall between the
 balcony door and the window, which meant that both the door and the window had
 to be open to use it, and I had to pull the mosquito screen out of the window
 anytime I wanted to use the hammock.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;About Mérida’s weather: Maybe you people back home have looked at the
 temperatures in Mérida and thought &amp;lsquo;Wow! They spend the whole summer in the mid
 to upper 30s! It’s just like Cancún!&amp;rsquo; True, but it’s also insanely humid, which
 means you’re covered in sweat 24 hours a day—imagine waking up sticky and
 sweaty every morning; that’s why most people use hammocks. What’s more, unlike
 Cancún, there are thunderstorms every afternoon between about four and seven.
 You can set your watch by them. During these thunderstorms, it rains. A lot. So
 much, in fact, that having the window or door open even a centimetre spells
 certain doom. In short, the hammock is no longer up. Back to the drawing board.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;A curious side note here. If you wander the streets of Mérida enough, you’ll
 notice an inordinate number of people with one or both eyes missing. The reason
 for this is quite interesting. Mérida is famous around the world for its
 hammocks. And to make hammocks you need henequen fibre. The sisal cactus from
 which you get it has very, very sharp, needle-like barbs. You get the point.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;glossary&#34;&gt;Glossary&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;ol&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Tlapalería:&lt;/em&gt; A sort of little roadside hardware store.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ol&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Mérida, Yucatán, México</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2001/08/merida-yucatan-mexico/</link>
       <pubDate>Fri, 17 Aug 2001 16:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2001/08/merida-yucatan-mexico/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;Arrived in Cancún on Friday at about 6 pm, took out some money from the bank
 machine, and hopped into a colectivo¹ for Ciudad Cancún—the city itself—a
 twenty minute drive from the long strip of hotels between the lagoon and the
 ocean that the outside world refers to as Cancún. By the time the colectivo got
 to the bus station, it was 9 pm, so after checking out the schedule and booking
 tickets, there was just enough time to grab some dinner and get some sleep
 before heading off to Mérida first thing the next morning.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;figure&gt;&lt;img src=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/post/2001-08-17-cathedral.jpg&#34;
     alt=&#34;Façade of the Mérida cathedral in the evening light. Groups of pedestrians pass along the sidewalk in front as Volkswagen Beetles drive by.&#34;&gt;
 &lt;/figure&gt;
 
 &lt;p&gt;Sitting in a Mexican bus station is an activity in itself. Drenched in sweat
 and surrounded by hundreds of other sweaty people carrying bags, backpacks, and
 cardboard packages held together with twine, in heat and humidity well above
 what any sane person would tolerate, you gain an appreciation of just how
 patient a people the Mexicans are. Buses come and go as they please; to the
 Mexican bus driver, the posted schedule is only a guideline. Buses are
 notoriously late, and ours is no exception.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;When it does arrive, the bags are loaded, everyone climbs into their seats and,
 once the bus driver has got his drinks and snacks ready for the trip, he throws
 it into reverse and we´re off. After a four hour ride through the Yucatecan
 jungle, we arrived at the Fiesta Américana terminal in the north end of Mérida.
 From there, we grabbed a taxi into town and unloaded everything at Hotel Mucuy,
 on calle 57 between calle 56 and calle 58, where we stayed while we searched
 for jobs and a place to live.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;This might be a good time to explain the mysterious numbering system for the
 addresses in Mérida. Odd numbered streets run east-west and even numbered
 streets run north-south. For streets that run diagonally, the ones that run
 from SE to NW are even, the rest are odd—usually. Another challenge is that
 street addresses are not often consistent; number 499 might be three or four
 blocks from 498. Because of this, addresses are usually given as a street
 number and a cross street (for corner addresses) or a street number and the two
 cross streets between which the address lies.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Mérida is the capital city of México’s Yucatán state and, centuries ago, was
 the capital of the Mayan empire as well. When the Spanish conquistadors arrived
 in the city in the mid-16th century, led by Francisco de Montejo, they
 discovered the Mayan city of Tihó. Its temples and limestone architecture
 reminded them enough of Mérida, Spain that they promptly renamed the city and
 began dismantling the Mayan structures. While you won’t find any of the
 original Mayan buildings remaining today, the cathedral in the Plaza Principal²
 contains blocks from the Mayan temple that once stood in the same location.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;In any case, the city today is gorgeous. Its narrow streets and colonial
 architecture give it a traditional feel. Every Sunday, all the streets within
 several blocks of the main plaza are shut down to vehicle traffic while
 musicians play live music near the Plaza Principal, and people dance in the
 streets.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;glossary&#34;&gt;Glossary&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;ol&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Colectivo:&lt;/em&gt; a communal taxi, usually a VW van, into which the driver packs
 as many people as the laws of physics will allow. For example the last one
 we used had 16 people stuffed into it.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Plaza Principal:&lt;/em&gt; the main square found in almost every Mexican town.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ol&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>¡Hola México!</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/2001/08/hola-mexico/</link>
       <pubDate>Fri, 17 Aug 2001 11:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/2001/08/hola-mexico/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;After a year and a half in San Francisco, California, we’ve moved to Mérida,
 Yucatán, México. So far so good! The heat is scorching, the humidity is
 sweltering, and the mosquitos are biting. But Mérida is a beautiful city, and
 the people are wonderful.&lt;/p&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>About me</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/about/</link>
       <pubDate>Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/about/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;This site is mainly intended as a way to keep in touch with friends and
 family in Canada and elsewhere while I’m off wandering the world from
 one country to the next.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;I&amp;rsquo;m a software developer who&amp;rsquo;s been fascinated by computers since I was
 a kid. I wrote my first lines of BASIC and 6502 assembly on a Canadian
 knock-off Apple II+ clone made by Apco, dutifully copying source
 listings line-by-line from &lt;em&gt;Compute!&lt;/em&gt; magazine. Working my way up
 through a Laser Turbo XT and a 286, I finally landed on a 386 DX
 clocking in at a whopping 33 MHz. It was on this machine that I first
 installed Linux from a stack of 3.5&amp;quot; floppies and learned to code in
 Pascal and C. A couple years later, sometime in the mid-90s, some
 classmates convinced me I should check out FreeBSD, and because I&amp;rsquo;m
 used to it, but also out of sheer laziness, I&amp;rsquo;ve been using it as my
 main home setup pretty much ever since.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;I headed off to university sometime in the early 90s. Seven years later,
 after wandering aimlessly from faculty to faculty through Chemistry,
 Physics &amp;amp; Astronomy, Japanese, and Electrical and Computer engineering
 programmes, I decided enough was enough, grabbed my B.Eng., and booted
 myself out the door and into the world.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Initially, I moved south of the border to spend a couple years in
 California working on AutoCAD at Autodesk. Deciding that this wasn&amp;rsquo;t
 south-of-the-border enough, I packed my bags and headed to Mérida,
 México, which sits neatly within the borders of the Chicxulub crater
 where the asteroid that caused the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction
 event landed. I spent the year writing point-of-sale software for a
 local art gallery, doing some travelling, and doing some teaching on the
 side.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;A year later, as my visa neared its end, I started wandering my way back
 to Canada via Cuba, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras before remembering
 which way was north and zig-zagging my way slowly back home on
 third-class buses.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;A couple years later, after some more hacking on 3D CAD software, I
 picked up my few possessions and moved to Tokyo, Japan, where I met my
 wife, learned to speak, read, and write Japanese, got married, and had
 kids. I&amp;rsquo;ve had the pleasure of working on a variety of projects ranging from 3D
 CAD software, to equities trading systems, to the
 &lt;a href=&#34;http://github.com/dart-lang/sdk/&#34;&gt;Dart programming language&lt;/a&gt;, the &lt;a href=&#34;http://github.com/flutter/flutter/&#34;&gt;Flutter SDK&lt;/a&gt;, and the
 &lt;a href=&#34;http://fuchsia.googlesource.com/&#34;&gt;Fuchsia operating system&lt;/a&gt;. I currently work on open source projects at
 Google.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;You can drop me a line anytime at &lt;a href=&#34;mailto:chris@bracken.jp&#34;&gt;chris@bracken.jp&lt;/a&gt;. (en, fr, ja)&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h2 id=&#34;about-this-site&#34;&gt;About this site&lt;/h2&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;This site contains no tracking, no cookies, and no JavaScript. It should
 work well with screen-readers and text-mode browsers. My web skills are
 near-nonexistent, so if you&amp;rsquo;ve got feedback on how it could be improved,
 shoot me an email.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;You can find the source and instructions on how to build the site
 &lt;a href=&#34;https://git.bracken.jp/blog&#34;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h2 id=&#34;pgp-public-key&#34;&gt;PGP public key&lt;/h2&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;If you&amp;rsquo;re a fan of crypto, you can find my public key below, or
 &lt;a href=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/cbracken.asc&#34;&gt;download it&lt;/a&gt;. I&amp;rsquo;ve also posted
 &lt;a href=&#34;https://chris.bracken.jp/pgp_verify.txt&#34;&gt;proof of ownership&lt;/a&gt; of this site.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;GPG fingerprint: &lt;code&gt;A675C99848CEF8642180465EE15C4E854923C76C&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;pre tabindex=&#34;0&#34;&gt;&lt;code&gt;-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
 
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 u7H3J6yBozAyskKvIjwJKVgWSO83PHZZdqjyvJUuwV2wWI2p2RowD5PUSjGczm+p
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 =0tI6
 -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
 &lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;</description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Code</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/code/</link>
       <pubDate>Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/code/</guid>
       <description>&lt;p&gt;You can find most of the public code I contribute to hosted at one of
 the following sites:&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;ul&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&#34;https://git.bracken.jp/&#34;&gt;git.bracken.jp&lt;/a&gt;: My self-hosted git repos.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&#34;https://github.com/cbracken/&#34;&gt;GitHub&lt;/a&gt;: The most popular source code
 hosting solution and where most of my public contributions lie.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&#34;https://gitlab.com/cbracken/&#34;&gt;GitLab&lt;/a&gt;: Better features and UI than
 GitHub.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ul&gt;
 &lt;h2 id=&#34;significant-contributions&#34;&gt;Significant contributions&lt;/h2&gt;
 &lt;ul&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&#34;https://github.com/flutter/flutter/&#34;&gt;Flutter&lt;/a&gt;: portable,
 cross-platform app SDK and runtime. Most of my contributions focus on
 the portable C++ &lt;a href=&#34;http://github.com/flutter/engine/&#34;&gt;runtime&lt;/a&gt;, the
 platform-specific embedders, and tools.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&#34;https://github.com/dart-lang/sdk/&#34;&gt;Dart SDK/VM&lt;/a&gt;: the Dart programming
 language is a strongly-typed, object-oriented, garbage-collected
 language with C-like syntax. Compiles to either native code (either
 ahead-of-time or JITed in the VM) or JavaScript for the web.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&#34;https://github.com/dart-lang/coverage/&#34;&gt;Dart Code Coverage&lt;/a&gt;: LCOV
 support for code executed on the Dart VM.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&#34;https://github.com/dart-lang/fixnum/&#34;&gt;Fixnum&lt;/a&gt;: a fixed-width 32- and
 64-bit integer library for Dart. Dart&amp;rsquo;s int semantics vary between
 native platforms (64-bit) and the web (IEEE 53-bit mantissa). This
 library allows those with hard requirements on 64-bit values (e.g.
 database IDs) to write code that is portable to web targets.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&#34;https://github.com/google/quiver-dart/&#34;&gt;Quiver&lt;/a&gt;: a set of utility
 libraries for Dart.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ul&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Kyoto・京都</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/japan/kyoto/</link>
       <pubDate>Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/japan/kyoto/</guid>
       <description>&lt;h2 id=&#34;general-wandering-around-town&#34;&gt;General wandering around town&lt;/h2&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;nishiki-market錦市場&#34;&gt;Nishiki market・錦市場&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Kawaramachi Station (Karasuma subway line)・河原町駅（地下鉄烏丸線）&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;You should totally do this. It&amp;rsquo;s an awesome walk through a working market
 selling everything from miso to spices to bowls and teacups to fish. There are a
 bunch of restaurants around here too. (&lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nishiki_Market&#34;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;pontocho先斗町&#34;&gt;Pontocho・先斗町&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Pontocho is a narrow street that runs north-south on the west side of the Kamo
 river. Lined with restaurants and typical Kyoto style &lt;a href=&#34;https://www.japan-architecture.org/inuyarai/&#34;&gt;inuyarai&lt;/a&gt;. Definitely
 worth a visit at night. In the summer, many of the restaurants along the river
 attach large decks for outdoor dining in the evening. (&lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponto-ch%C5%8D&#34;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;ne-ne-no-michiねねの道&#34;&gt;Ne-ne no michi・ねねの道&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Kawaramachi station (Tozai subway line)・河原町駅（地下鉄東西線）&lt;br&gt;
 Gion-shijo station (Keihan line)・祇園四条駅（京阪線）&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;If you do the walk through Yasaka shrine to Kiyomizu temple, wander through here
 on the way. It&amp;rsquo;s a touristy but fun old-school area of Kyoto. You&amp;rsquo;ll probably
 see a bunch of fake maiko (geisha apprentices) wandering around, but sometimes
 real ones too. (&lt;a href=&#34;https://www.japan-experience.com/all-about-japan/kyoto/attractions-excursions/nene-no-michi&#34;&gt;More info&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h2 id=&#34;shrines-and-temples&#34;&gt;Shrines and temples&lt;/h2&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Wikipedia has a good overview of the best-known &lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historic_Monuments_of_Ancient_Kyoto_(Kyoto,_Uji_and_Otsu_Cities)&#34;&gt;Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;fushimi-inari-shrine伏見稲荷大社&#34;&gt;Fushimi-Inari shrine・伏見稲荷大社&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Fushimi Inari Station (Keihan line)・伏見稲荷駅（京阪線）&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;This is the well-known shrine with the thousands of red &amp;rsquo;torii&amp;rsquo; gates.
 Definitely worth a visit. It gets crowded during the day but if you go early in
 the morning (6:30 or even 7am), you&amp;rsquo;ll practically have the place to yourself.
 After the first set of gates you end up at a sort of second area with a couple
 little shops etc, but keep following the narrow steps up and there&amp;rsquo;s some nice
 hiking up higher (and it&amp;rsquo;s less crowded). (&lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fushimi_Inari-taisha&#34;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;shimogamo-shrine下鴨神社&#34;&gt;Shimogamo shrine・下鴨神社&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Demachiyanagi Station (Karasuma subway line)・出町柳駅（地下鉄烏丸線）&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Built in the 5th century, but there&amp;rsquo;s been stuff there since the 8th century BC.
 One of 17 Unesco world heritage sites in Japan. There are sometimes festivals,
 events, marriages, here. Fall colours should be nice too in the short walk
 through the forest to get there. (&lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimogamo_Shrine&#34;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;kiyomizu-temple清水寺&#34;&gt;Kiyomizu temple・清水寺&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Gojo Station (Karasuma subway line)・五条駅（地下鉄烏丸線）&lt;br&gt;
 Kiyomizu-gojo Station (Keihan line)・清水五条駅（京阪線）&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Worth a visit even though it’ll be busy with tourists. The area around is fun
 too. Another Unesco world heritage site, autumn leaves are great and there’s a
 good view of Kyoto. Built ~1400 years ago. A couple options to get there:&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;ol&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Start at Yasaka shrine (Tozai subway line: Sanjo station or Higashiyama
 station, or Keihan line: Sanjo station) wander through it, till you end up in
 Maruyama park. There’ll be some small ponds and a cafe or two, turn right
 (south) and find Ne-ne-no-michi (a kind of narrow street) and wander through
 the winding streets from there, and up the hill. Before you head up though
 consider turning north and making a quick visit to Chion-in (see below) since
 it’s about a 2 min walk from there.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Start at Gojo-Zaka and head up this narrowish path called &amp;lsquo;Toribeno Sando&amp;rsquo;
 through that goes past Toribeyamataishakutenotsumyo Temple and through the
 big spooky graveyard. Or do both &amp;ndash; up Matsubara-dōri and down the hill.
 Japanese cemeteries can be pretty photogenic.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ol&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;(&lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiyomizu-dera&#34;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;chion-in知恩院&#34;&gt;Chion-in・知恩院&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Shijo Karasuma Station (Karasuma subway line)・四条烏丸駅（地下鉄烏丸線）&lt;br&gt;
 Shijo Station (Keihan line)・四条駅（京阪線）&lt;br&gt;
 Higashiyama Station (Tozai subway line)・東山駅（地下鉄東西線）&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;I’m kind of embarrassed to say that it took me 33 years of visiting and living
 in Kyoto to actually go inside, but definitely worth a visit. Go through Yasaka
 Shrine to the east and when you get to Maruyama park, there’ll be a couple ponds
 and some shops. Turn north here and walk up the road a couple minutes till get
 you to a massive gate called San-mon (三問), head up the stairs and go inside.
 (&lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chion-in&#34;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;nanzenji南禅寺&#34;&gt;Nanzenji・南禅寺&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Keage Station (Tozai subway line)・蹴上駅（地下鉄東西線）&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;This is one of my personal favourite temples. There are usually not too many
 tourists, but if you want to check out a &amp;lsquo;real&amp;rsquo; temple, it&amp;rsquo;s definitely worth a
 check out on a day you feel like a quiet laid back walk. Also good for fall
 colours, and it&amp;rsquo;s got a some neat nooks and crannies and smaller areas to
 explore right next door. Even though they charge ~300 yen to go up to the top of
 the big gate, the view is good and you can just sit down on the balcony up there
 and check out the view/read a book, etc. (&lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanzen-ji&#34;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;daitoku-ji大徳寺&#34;&gt;Daitoku-ji・大徳寺&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Kitaoji Station (Karasuma subway line) + 15 min walk・北大路駅（地下鉄烏丸線）&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Probably the highest temple + garden density in Kyoto.
 (&lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daitoku-ji&#34;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;nishi-honganji-and-higashi-honganji西本願寺と東本願寺&#34;&gt;Nishi-Honganji and Higashi-Honganji・西本願寺と東本願寺&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Kyoto Station・京都駅&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;These two temples are just a few minutes walk from Kyoto station. Both are large
 Buddhist temples ordered built by shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu in the late 16th/eary
 17th centuries. They&amp;rsquo;re not particularly spectacular, but they are really
 convenient to get to if you&amp;rsquo;re downtown. If I had to pick just one to visit, I&amp;rsquo;d
 pick Nishi-Honganji. Wikipedia entries for &lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nishi_Hongan-ji&#34;&gt;Nishi-Honganji&lt;/a&gt; and
 &lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higashi_Hongan-ji&#34;&gt;Higashi-Honganji&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;nijo-castle-tozai-subway-line-nijojo-mae-station&#34;&gt;Nijo Castle (Tozai subway line: Nijojo-mae station).&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Technically not a shrine or a temple, and not a big huge badass castle like
 Himeji or Matsumoto, but lots of artwork on &amp;lsquo;fusuma&amp;rsquo; sliding screens and history
 stuff if you&amp;rsquo;re into that. If you&amp;rsquo;re not, then probably underwhelming.
 (&lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nij%C5%8D_Castle&#34;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h2 id=&#34;stores-and-shops&#34;&gt;Stores and shops&lt;/h2&gt;
 &lt;ul&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Isetan department store in Kyoto station (or really any Japanese department
 store). There&amp;rsquo;s usually a section of Japanese tableware (chopsticks, bowls,
 teapots, etc.) in the top few floors of most Japanese department stores. 9F
 has kimonos/yukatas. 10F has stationery and tableware. As noted on the main
 Japan page, the top floor has restaurants and the B1 floor is absolute madness
 filled with delicious take-out food. Other alternatives are Takashimaya or
 Daimaru in the Shijo area.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ul&gt;
 &lt;h2 id=&#34;anti-recommendations&#34;&gt;Anti-recommendations&lt;/h2&gt;
 &lt;ul&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Heian Shrine. Just a big massive gate, lots of gravel, and few trees.
 (&lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heian_Shrine&#34;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Kyoto tower. Built pretty much when everyone needed some crappy tower&amp;hellip; this
 is the Calgary Tower of Japan.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Osaka Castle. I realise it&amp;rsquo;s not Kyoto, but if you want a castle whose outside
 fools you into thinking you&amp;rsquo;re about to check out a historic castle, but
 that&amp;rsquo;s actually been renovated into a kind of crappy museum with an elevator
 to the top, this is the place. (&lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osaka_Castle&#34;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;I&amp;rsquo;m not a huge fan of the Imperial Palace, not that it&amp;rsquo;s crap, it&amp;rsquo;s just big
 and quite empty-ish. That said, I think you can get into a bunch of places now
 that no-one ever used to be allowed in to. It&amp;rsquo;s actually quite nice on rainy
 days, but can be scorching in the summer. (&lt;a href=&#34;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Imperial_Palace&#34;&gt;Wikipedia&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ul&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Tokyo・東京</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/japan/tokyo/</link>
       <pubDate>Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/japan/tokyo/</guid>
       <description>&lt;h2 id=&#34;general-wandering-around-town&#34;&gt;General wandering around town&lt;/h2&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;shibuya渋谷&#34;&gt;Shibuya・渋谷&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Shibuya station (JR Yamanote line)・渋谷駅（山手線）and many other lines.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Hachiko exit:&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;ul&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Shibuya scramble crosswalk&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Dogenzaka/Love Hotel Hill&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ul&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;harajuku原宿&#34;&gt;Harajuku・原宿&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Harajuku station (JR Yamanote line)・原宿駅（山手線）&lt;br&gt;
 Jingu-mae station (Chiyoda line)・神宮前駅（千代田線）&lt;br&gt;
 Meiji Jingu Mae station (Fukutoshin line)・明治神宮前駅（副都心線）&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Directions below are given relative to JR Harajuku Station on the Yamanote line
 since it&amp;rsquo;s the easiest option.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Main exit:&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;ul&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;On the bridge just to the right as you exit the station, you&amp;rsquo;ll find tons of
 people dressed up on get-togethers each Sunday.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;The entrance to Meiji shrine is also right there.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;A bit to the left of the entrance to the shrine is Yoyogi park, where lots of
 locals go to relax on weekends.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;As you exit the station, cross the street to the left, and walk down
 Omote-sando to see a bunch of trendy shops. The trees are lit up at night. At
 the next big intersection, you can enter Omotesando station（表参道駅）and
 take the Hanzomon line（半蔵門線）back to Shibuya station（渋谷駅）.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ul&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Takenoshita exit:&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;ul&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;The really well-known Takenoshita Street and all its fashion shops are to the
 east of the station. It&amp;rsquo;s easier to exit through the Takenoshita exit, but you
 can go out the main exit and do a U-turn to the left, and follow the station
 along till you get to the Takenoshita exit.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ul&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;shinjuku新宿&#34;&gt;Shinjuku・新宿&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Tokyo&amp;rsquo;s most famous business district, packed with skyscrapers and neon. Lots of
 dining with good night views over the city on the upper floors of skyscrapers.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;North of the station&amp;rsquo;s East Exit（新宿駅東口）there&amp;rsquo;s Kabuki-cho（歌舞伎町）,
 Tokyo&amp;rsquo;s most famous red-light district and sort of a tourist attraction in its
 own right, just don&amp;rsquo;t agree to let touts on the street take you anywhere.
 There&amp;rsquo;s a fairly well-known scam in which foreigners are enticed with promises
 of all sorts of things, only to find they&amp;rsquo;ve been served a spiked drink and had
 their wallet emptied out. Wandering around can be quite entertaining.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;On the eastern edge of Kabuki-cho is Golden-gai（ゴルデン街）, a small series of
 alleyways full of tiny bars that fit 4-8 people, each of which specialises in
 some very specific drink.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;ginza銀座&#34;&gt;Ginza・銀座&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Ginza is Tokyo&amp;rsquo;s luxury shopping district, in particular along
 Chuo-dori（中央通り）. Also home to the Kabukiza theatre where you can check out
 a Kabuki show. If you like stationery shops, Itoya is 12 floors high and
 probably one of the biggest in Japan.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;On the water, there&amp;rsquo;s Hama-rikyu Gardens (浜離宮）which is a nice Japanese style
 garden surrounded by skyscrapers.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;naka-meguro中目黒&#34;&gt;Naka-meguro・中目黒&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Naka-meguro is a laid-back sort of hipster neighbourhood with lots of small
 cafés and restaurants, as well as the well-known Meguro canal, lined with
 cherry-blossom trees in springtime.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;azabu-juban麻布十番&#34;&gt;Azabu-juban・麻布十番&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;Another laid-back neighbourhood which is a mix of cobblestone streets,
 traditional shops and trendy restaurants and cafés. It&amp;rsquo;s also where a ton of
 foreign embassies are and is a relatively popular neighbourhood to live for
 European and North American locals.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h2 id=&#34;sports&#34;&gt;Sports&lt;/h2&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;If you&amp;rsquo;re into baseball, consider booking tickets to a
 &lt;a href=&#34;https://www.giants.jp/en/schedule/&#34;&gt;Yomiuri Giants&lt;/a&gt; game.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;If you&amp;rsquo;re into football/soccer, consider booking tickets to a
 &lt;a href=&#34;https://www.jleague.co&#34;&gt;J-league&lt;/a&gt; game.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;h2 id=&#34;anti-recommendations&#34;&gt;Anti-recommendations&lt;/h2&gt;
 &lt;ul&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;If you&amp;rsquo;re planning to visit Kyoto, get your temple/shrine fix there, and skip
 Sensoji/Kaminari-mon in Asakusa.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ul&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
     <item>
       <title>Visiting Japan</title>
       <link>https://chris.bracken.jp/japan/</link>
       <pubDate>Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
       <author>chris@bracken.jp (Chris Bracken)</author>
       <guid>https://chris.bracken.jp/japan/</guid>
       <description>&lt;h3 id=&#34;city-specific-info&#34;&gt;City-specific info&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;ul&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&#34;kyoto&#34;&gt;Kyoto・京都&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&#34;tokyo&#34;&gt;Tokyo・東京&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ul&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;transportation&#34;&gt;Transportation&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;ul&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;If you have an iPhone, &lt;a href=&#34;https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207155&#34;&gt;add a Suica card&lt;/a&gt; in Apple Wallet. If not,
 pick one up from any JR station. At last check, physical Suica cards were no
 longer available due to a semiconductor shortage, tourists can pick up a
 &lt;a href=&#34;https://www.jreast.co.jp/multi/en/welcomesuica/welcomesuica.html&#34;&gt;Welcome Suica&lt;/a&gt; card, but these are ONLY available at Narita
 and Haneda airports.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ul&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;luggage&#34;&gt;Luggage&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;ul&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;If at all possible, limit your luggage to carry-on sized suitcases and use
 laundry machines at hotels. Lugging large suitcases through crowded stations
 and on trains &amp;ndash; particularly on weekdays during rush hour &amp;ndash; can be pretty
 inconvenient. If you need a large suitcase, consider also bringing a carry-on
 sized suitcase containing two days worth of clothing, then see the next point.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Luggage can be shipped by courier (&lt;a href=&#34;https://www.kuronekoyamato.co.jp/ytc/en/send/services/airport/&#34;&gt;Kuroneko Yamato&lt;/a&gt;), typically
 overnight, to anywhere in the country for very reasonable prices (~¥3000). You
 can do this from most hotels and convenience stores. Shipping to airports
 typically takes TWO days.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Hotels are happy to hold luggage after checkout at the desk for free,
 typically up until end-of-day, so there&amp;rsquo;s no need to lug bags around. If you
 prefer, most train stations offer coin lockers of various sizes where you can
 place bags. If they&amp;rsquo;re full, ask station staff and they&amp;rsquo;ll point you to open
 lockers, or sometimes hold them at the information desk.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ul&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;banking-and-payments&#34;&gt;Banking and payments&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;ul&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Most Japanese ATMs won&amp;rsquo;t work with foreign cards. You can find ATMs that work
 with foreign cards in every 7-11. (&lt;a href=&#34;https://www.sevenbank.co.jp/intlcard/index2.html&#34;&gt;ATM Locator&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;When paying at stores and restaurants via credit card, the machine may
 occasionally offer a choice between paying in yen or your own currency. If
 your card doesn&amp;rsquo;t impose foreign transaction fees, it&amp;rsquo;s almost always cheaper
 to choose to pay in yen. The rate offered by these machines aren&amp;rsquo;t great.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;I&amp;rsquo;d recommend always carrying cash. Most businesses accept credit cards, but
 you&amp;rsquo;ll still find places that either don&amp;rsquo;t take cards or where your card
 mysteriously doesn&amp;rsquo;t work.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Convenience stores and some vending machines allow payment via Suica card.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ul&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;food-and-dining&#34;&gt;Food and dining&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;ul&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;In large department stores and some office buildings, you&amp;rsquo;ll almost always
 find restaurants on the top couple floors. In Tokyo, this can mean spectacular
 views.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;In the first basement (B1) level of most department stores, you&amp;rsquo;ll find the
 most amazing collection of to-go food counters with everything from simple
 yakisoba through incredibly fancy Japanese and western cakes and desserts. If
 you&amp;rsquo;re looking for nicely-packaged food gifts for friends back home, this is a
 great place to get them. It&amp;rsquo;s also a great place to grab food for a picnic in
 the park.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;When entering, you&amp;rsquo;ll almost always be asked how many people you are. You can
 just hold up the right number of fingers, but if you want to get fancy also
 say 1: hitori, 2: futari, 3: san-nin, 4: yo-nin, 5: go-nin, 6: roku-nin.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;The bill will almost always be left on the table after you&amp;rsquo;ve ordered. If not,
 you can request it by saying &amp;ldquo;o-kaikei onegai shimasu&amp;rdquo; or catching your waiter
 or waitress&amp;rsquo;s eye from across the room and making an &amp;lsquo;x&amp;rsquo; gesture with your
 index fingers. Bills are almost always paid at the cashier on the way out, not
 at the table.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Before you eat, it&amp;rsquo;s traditional to say &amp;ldquo;itadakimasu&amp;rdquo; (I humbly receive);
 you&amp;rsquo;ll hear this from a ton of tables around you. If you&amp;rsquo;re eating with a
 Japanese person, or at their home, you should definitely say it.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Similarly, after you eat, it&amp;rsquo;s polite to say &amp;ldquo;gochiso-sama deshita&amp;rdquo; (thank you
 for the meal). If one person in particular is paying, you should say it to
 them, but also as you walk out of restaurants, you&amp;rsquo;ll often be assailed with
 shouts of &amp;ldquo;arigatou gozaimasu&amp;rdquo; (thank you) from all the staff. They&amp;rsquo;ll love it
 if you toss a &amp;ldquo;gochiso-sama deshita&amp;rdquo; their way on your way out and/or at the
 cashier.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;There is no tipping in Japan. Service is expected to be good, and restaurant
 staff are generally paid reasonable wages.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ul&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;shoes&#34;&gt;Shoes&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;ul&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;In many restaurants, particularly more traditional ones, there are places
 where you&amp;rsquo;ll need to take your shoes off. Typically these will be obvious
 since they&amp;rsquo;ll have a step up from stone floor onto wood/tatami. If you&amp;rsquo;re
 obviously non-Japanese, the staff will definitely let you know to take your
 shoes off. Typically you&amp;rsquo;ll leave them there. The staff may place them in shoe
 cabinets and return them to you when you leave.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Many temples/castles may also have places where you&amp;rsquo;re asked to remove your
 shoes and either place them on shelves, or in a plastic bag and carry them
 with you.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ul&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;key-phrases-and-vocabulary&#34;&gt;Key phrases and vocabulary&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;ul&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Ohayo gozaimasu: good morning.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Konnichiwa: good afternoon.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Konbanwa: good evening.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;X onégai shimasu: I&amp;rsquo;d like X please. (e.g. o-kaikei: the bill, koré: this)&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Kore wa ikura desu ka: How much is this?&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Arigato gozaimasu: Thank you.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;X wa doko desu ka: Where is X? (e.g. toiré: the toilet, éki: station)&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ul&gt;
 &lt;h3 id=&#34;stumble-your-way-through-japanese-mannners-like-a-pro&#34;&gt;Stumble your way through Japanese mannners like a pro&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;ul&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Chris Broad&amp;rsquo;s &lt;a href=&#34;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GCuvcTI090&#34;&gt;12 things not to do in Japan&lt;/a&gt; covers almost everything
 you need to know!&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;For extra points, &lt;a href=&#34;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyypaP_D6No&#34;&gt;Japanese table manners&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ul&gt;
 </description>
     </item>
     
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