Tag Archive for 'travel'

Dallas Seemed Lamer Now

Published
by
Jason C. Romero
on August 17, 2008
in Diary
. Comments

I was going to write about how Dallas seemed lamer after some guests from Japan came to visit, but I figured out that it’s just lame for sightseeing.

They went to a lot of places that I wouldn’t have suggested, like downtown Dallas, The Old Red Museum, and The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.

Some of the places they chose were okay, like Mattito’s and the West End Historic District, and my one suggestion, Reunion Tower, would have been great if it hadn’t been closed for renovations.

But it was, and still is, hard for me to think of any places that would have been much better for them to visit. Other than the Nasher Sculpture Center, all I could really think of were malls, like the NorthPark Center or the Galleria.

I don’t think it helped that they really wanted to be able to go somewhere and mill about on foot, like people do in Tokyo, since places like that seem to be rare in the United States in general, much less Dallas. If it had been later in the day, then I suppose I could have taken them to Deep Ellum.

At first, as I said above, this lack of good sightseeing opportunities made Dallas seem lamer to me, until I remembered that it isn’t the sightseeing that makes me love Dallas, but the people, shops, clubs, restaurants, theaters, and museums that I know there.

So, Dallas might not be so great for sightseeing, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still a great place. Right?

Audio Diary for 2008-08-03 – Adjusting to My Return from Tokyo

Published
by
Jason C. Romero
on August 5, 2008
in Diary
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[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/2008-08-03Diary-AdjustingToMyReturnFromTokyo/2008-08-03Diary.mp3]

Click here to download.

Daily Journal Entry #11839 05/29/08 Thu

Published
by
Jason C. Romero
on July 3, 2008
in Journal and Pop Culture
. Comments

The Airport

I got to the airport at 4 a.m. My bag was overweight at 63 pounds and they were going to charge me $80 dollars, but international flights are allowed two bags, so I just took out a canvas duffle bag I had inside my luggage and made another 13 pound bag (which was mostly books).

The Flight

The flight was fine. I had a middle seat and watched movies to pass the time when I wasn’t sleeping.

Atonement

I thought this movie was crap and felt like they could have left the entire middle out.

It gave off a pretentious self-important vibe, seemingly written by someone narcissistically obsessed with writing, especially with the annoying typewriter music they kept playing.

Cloverfield

I thought this movie was brilliant. I really appreciated the nod to Godzilla, Blair Witch Project, and Aliens.

I also really liked the way it spoke to the experience of memory and its relationship to mass media, both with the video glitches that would show events that had been previously recorded, as well as one character’s argument that “people will want to see this” because just telling them won’t be enough.

27 Dresses

Why not? The movie wasn’t great and was terribly predictable, but I still loved it.

The funniest thing was that she married just the kind of person that I would like to be with — a witty cynical writer with a soft heart. (And he was hot.)

Getting Settled

I walked around Asakusa after going to my new place and was more pleased with the area than I thought I would be. I found a small market nearby, and it seems nicer than the one I went to in Sendagaya the last time I was here. The Oedo subway line is also closer than the nearest train was in Sendagaya, and it goes to Shinjuku, which is all I really care about. My room is quite small, however, and I wish I didn’t have to climb a ladder to get in bed.

I had dinner at Yoshinoya, in part for embarrassing sentimental reasons, and, surprisingly, found that one of the workers came from Russia to study tourism. When I left he wished me luck with my research.

Minutiae

  • The (Asian) money exchange lady at the airport in Atlanta was shocked that I was not Asian.