26. For Fukui's Sake

By:  Sam Baldwin

Rated 5 star
Kindle

This book was a free Kindle download.  I really don't understand the rational amazon uses on making some books available for free but in this case it turned out to be a treasure.

I enjoyed this authors writing and story telling style very much.  I highly recommend this book to all the armchair travelers who, like me, enjoying visiting interesting places with interesting people.  




Unhappily employed in the UK, Sam Baldwin decides to make a big change. Saying sayonara to laboratory life, he takes a job as an English teacher in a small, rural Japanese town that no one – the Japanese included – has ever heard of.

Arriving in Fukui, where there’s ‘little reason to linger’ according to the guidebook, at first he wonders why he left England. But as he slowly settles in to his unfamiliar new home, Sam befriends a colourful cast of locals and begins to discover the secrets of this little known region.

Helped by headmasters, housewives and Himalayan mountain climbers, he immerses himself in a Japan still clutching its pastoral past and uncovers a landscape of lonely lakes, rice fields and lush mountain forests. Joining a master drummer’s taiko class, skiing over paddies and learning how to sharpen samurai swords, along the way Sam encounters farmers, fishermen and foreigners behaving badly.

Exploring Japan’s culture and cuisine, as well as its wild places and wildlife, For Fukui’s Sake is an adventurous, humorous and sometimes poignant insight into the frustrations and fascinations that face an outsider living in small town, backcountry Japan.

9. In a Sunburned Country

By Bill Bryson
Rated 5 Stars
Kindle Format

I recently became very curious about Australia after reading a book about Australian Pioneer Women.  And for me, who better to turn to than Bill Bryson who is my very favorite travel writer in the world.  In fact, I admire him so much as a writer that I am making plans to be just like him in my next life.  I have, unfortunately, left it a little late for this one. ;)

But the description below is right about it being a dangerous place.  Australia is one tough country. Aside from having one of  some of the most inhospitable terrain on the planet it also has an awful lot of scary critters running around loose.

The upside is that if the people I know from that part of the world are typical then some of the nicest people in the world live there.  Australia, New Zealand (They Have Hobbits!) and Tasmania are high on my places to visit in my next life.

What, they don't really have Hobbits?  Darn!!!

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 2001

Every time Bill Bryson walks out the door, memorable travel literature threatens to break out. His previous excursion along the Appalachian Trail resulted in the sublime national bestseller A Walk in the Woods. In A Sunburned Countryis his report on what he found in an entirely different place: Australia, the country that doubles as a continent, and a place with the friendliest inhabitants, the hottest, driest weather, and the most peculiar and lethal wildlife to be found on the planet. The result is a deliciously funny, fact-filled, and adventurous performance by a writer who combines humor, wonder, and unflagging curiousity.

Despite the fact that Australia harbors more things that can kill you in extremely nasty ways than anywhere else, including sharks, crocodiles, snakes, even riptides and deserts, Bill Bryson adores the place, and he takes his readers on a rollicking ride far beyond that beaten tourist path. Wherever he goes he finds Australians who are cheerful, extroverted, and unfailingly obliging, and these beaming products of land with clean, safe cities, cold beer, and constant sunshine fill the pages of this wonderful book. Australia is an immense and fortunate land, and it has found in Bill Bryson its perfect guide.

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91. Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle

By Dervla Murphy
Rated 3.5 Stars
From:  Library via Bookflurries

This book certainly had it's good moments for me.  However I had problems with understanding why anyone in their right mind would start out to make a trip like this in the dead of winter.  The first third of the book was almost a diary of a test of endurance and I couldn't help thinking about how much she was missing by having to concentrate all her energy on surviving rather than enjoying the region she was traveling through.  Maybe if I was more of a bicycle enthusiast instead of a died in the wool tourist I could have appreciated that bit of it more.

The other problem I had was not the author's fault unless you want to say that appreciating the countryside and writing beautiful descriptive prose about the scenery and people she met is not a good thing.  Almost every where she traveled has since been turned into battlegrounds either by regional strife or by invasion of not one, but two super powers (Russia and the UN.)  I imagine that if you traced her steps today you would find everything much different.  That really makes me sad because the people she met who were so nice to her are probably either dead or their lives are so changed that she wouldn't recognize them.  Neither I imagine would she be greeted with such open hospitality.

From Library Journal
This book recounts a trip, taken mostly on bicycle, by a gritty Irishwoman in 1963. Her route was through Yugoslavia, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and ended in New Delhi. She carried a pistol, got sunstroke, and suffered the usual stomach disorders. She endured bad accommodations but reaped much local hospitality, too, including a dinner with the Pakistani president. Most of the book concerns the high mountain country of Afghanistan and Pakistan. First published in England in 1965, the book is neither current, nor quite old enough to be of much historical interest. Nonetheless, it is a spirited account, suitable for larger public library collections. Unfortunately, it lacks illustrations, and the two maps included give us little idea of the remote areas she visited. Harold M. Otness, Southern Oregon State Coll. Lib., Ashland
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.