From now on, Holiday season comes to the world. Without thinking about religions, there are a lot of holidays in December. One of them is the Christmas Day.
In Christian countries, people prepare to celebrate Christmas Day some weeks before. Especially, in European countries, Christmas Market is very popular, and people enjoy shopping for their Christmas. This Christmas Market has started in Dresden in Germany. Now people can see everywhere in the world.
One of the impressive fun is the lighting of Christmas Tree. Originally, Christmas tree started in Germany. After several centuries have past now, the culture still alive, and becomes more and more popular. In Rockefeller Center, NY, today, November 28 is the day.
The ice skate rink in the Rockefeller Center has already opened. Walking on the Manhattan, you can hear Christmas songs with the fantastic lights. If you are travel there, it will be an unforgettable experience.
"Unforgettable" (1991)
by Nat King Cole & Natalie Cole
Some days ago, the president Obama went shopping for the Black Friday, and bought 15 books for his daughters. However, a few days ago, he referred about "Fiscal Cliff." This is a big problem for people who live in the United States because the tax increase is quite a lot. How will it work for the world travelers?
New York suffered from Hurricane Sandy. The damage is very huge. The professionals says, the climate change causes it. Recent news related to COP18 informed the temperature will raise more than 4C/7F until 2060 in the worst case. What do you think about this?
On your travel, be critical is very important. If you find the answers, it's good!
Please try to ask yourself, and think about the future world with your eyes.
"Thanksgiving" comes here in the United States. Thanksgiving is a special day for American people. They are back home, and enjoy the weekend with their precious family. Therefore, it's a holiday!
Today, in many cities without urban areas, their public services are limited, or closed. In fact, Christmas Day also, most of public services will be limited, or closed.
These are a little problem for many travelers. However, many countries have similar special holidays. You need to check before your travel. If you are on the travel, this may cause a serious problem. You may not come back from highlights. If you stay at your hotel, I recommend to stay peaceful near your hotel. If you have a car, you are a lucky guy!
Anyway, today, even my favorite Starbucks shop closes at 5pm. We can see how people think this thanksgiving day is important.
Yesterday, the President Obama choose a "pardon" turkey. It's a recent tradition of the president family. How the turkey think? "Oh, I'm a happy guy?"
"Holiday for Strings" by David Rose (1942)
November 15 was the new years day for Islam countries. Soon Hanukkah will come for Jewish people. After these, this world has the end of Mayan calendar, Christmas, and New Years Day.
If you are on the travel, please enjoy the culture with the traditions. It must be a good experience for you.
I'm originally not an English speaker. I still have troubles when I write English. I need a double-check when I publish these posts. However, I usually find a lot of mistakes, and correct these information after I post them. (Especially, when I drink, sometimes I make terrible mistakes on this :-))
It is not only my problem, but all the people in the world have it. Recently, some troubles came up with "Google Translate" because people in other language cultures tend thoughtlessly to use the function when they translate.
For example, one website related to Nara, a famous Japanese sightseeing place, used to be terrible. It had guides for some languages, and the English language guide was from the kind of translate functions. Therefore, they had a lot of wrong information. They closed it once, and rebuilt it.
Similar cases happen all over the world. Before you travel on this holiday, please check your plan. You can contact with your travel agency. Also you can check with some guidebooks such as "Lonely Planets." If you find some different information for the same highlight, something wrong may happen for it.
Next week, the thanksgiving day comes for the people in the United States. Do you know what people call for the next day? The answer is "Black Friday." On Black Friday, retail stores start selling products with huge discounts. This is the beginning of the holiday season in the United States.
This year, the Black Friday is on November 23. What should we prepare for the line?
1. Protection Against Cold
Normally, people need to line outside the retail stores. If you want to buy some rare products, you may need to line for more than 2 days. Then you need to care about the weather. Especially, in Northern states of the United States, there is already frozen cold. You should have warm outers, coats and blankets. For the location of the stores, you may have a stove for camping, and keep warm.
2. Food and Water
If you stay overnight, you may need some food. In downtown, pizza parlors may deliver your favorite pizza for you. If Starbucks is near, you can get a cup of hot coffee. However, if you don't have the place to get, some snacks such as chocolate, candy drops, cheese, and beef jerky are good. They are high calorie snacks, and you can keep the energy to line. Also don't forget water. Water is one of the most important thing in the human body. If you have a thermos, keep some warm drinks in it
3. Killing Time Materials
Naturally, you can use your phone to play games, tweet and listen to music. However, if you line for a very long time, you may run out of the battery. Therefore, some good old day materials are useful such as books, magazines, board games such as chess with magnets. The new Kindle(Paper White) is also good. It has the light. You can read your favorite books even at night. If you bring a game machine, you may need a spare battery.
Anyway, these are some ideas. You can try yours too. Some years ago, seemly my friend went with sleeping bag. It's something like a survival in the city jungle. The situation is similar with backpackers, right?
"Back In Time" by Pitbull (2012)
The holiday shopping season is also the time of "waste." Check the holiday catalogues! Every product claims and screams, "Baby, my sweet baby." Which do you pick up? All of them? or one of the highlights?
Backpackers also always need to care about money. If you spend all money for waste, you can't keep your travel. Don't be beaten by the seduction... but, keep your life warm!
What should we do when we start traveling? It's a difficult problem for us. There are some good apps remember a lot of things for us, and keep them on cloud online, our phone and computers.
Evernote:
Evernote is an application integrated with desktop computers, smartphones and web. It has the useful clipper, then you can keep all useful information on the same application, and rearrange when you plan your next trip. Also you can use this on your travel. You can keep photos with your notes and opinions.
(This is not a cloud storage. If you need to keep big files, this is not the right application. Or, you need to pay for the extra storage such as Dropbox.)
OneNote:
This application is similar with Evernote. You can keep your ideas in one notebook on your devices. If you have your Microsoft Account, you can keep and manage on it online too. You can keep your photos on SkyDrive, and also put on your OneNote from your phone. SkyDrive has 7GB storage for each user. (You can use with Microsoft Account online. If you are a Windows user, it's including with Microsoft Office. For Android and iOS users, you can download this from the apps store. For Mac OSX users, Microsoft still doesn't release the apps, but you can use on SkyDrive.)
Google Apps:
You can keep all your need on your Google Drive. You can share some folders with your friends, and keep your photos and videos also. You can also plan with Google Docs. Google Drive has a 5GB storage for each user, you can keep everything on it. (In China, Google Apps is not a good way for your travel because it withdrew from China in 2010, and still sometimes connection problems happen.)
iCloud:
If you use iTunes, you have this account. You can use iCloud Calendar, Reminder, and Notebook to keep your information. Especially for Mac & iPhone users, it's useful.
Here are something:
Calendar:
Without Evernote, they have calendars on the account. You can manage your schedule on your vacation on the calendar apps.
Task List/To-Do:
You can make a check list on these applications. You can plan what you should do for the "X" day. You can create a document for this.
Storage:
You can keep your files for your plan. For Evernote, you need to care the monthly limit. iCloud doesn't have a storage without iWork and iPhoto users and iPhone users.
Search:
Evernote has remarkable search functions. Even the letters are handwriting, it can pick the letters from the images. You can search letters from your documents on Google Drive.
Email:
Without Evernote, they also have email accounts. You can collect the information from your friends in the world, and keep them with a tag or a folder for your travel.
Many people in the world use these "multipurpose" applications. Therefore, they are standard. They may not have the useful tools for sharing, but, personally, you can use wherever you travel.
If you only want to share your information, you can use SNS such as Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram. However, I'm sure travel plan is always based on your interests. Especially, you are a backpacker, you need your way to keep your plan.
What people feel on the way of the travel? Many of them feel, "I'm small." That's true. How our daily task impact to the world? However, all the small things make the huge history like Newton's Apple. Don't forget about it.
"All The Small Things" (2000) by Blink-182
When we travel, the plan is always too much. Don't squeeze a lot into your day, but keep a few interests for the plan is the best. If you don't want to miss the highlights, please check some tours for the highlights. It may reduce your mess and time to plan.
These weeks, I was busy for my things. During then, The Hurricane Sandy came to the East Coast. The Election in the United States happened in the terrible condition. I watched a lot of damages on TV, and I remember some films. They might predict these terrible weather and conditions before it happened.
"The Perfect Storm" (2000)
This is a fishermen's movie based on the real story. Glouceter is a small fishing village in Massachusetts. People peacefully live, but they worry about their life because of the poor hauls. One day, Billy and his fellows decide to get the ocean, and meet a huge storm.
"The Day After Tomorrow" (2004)
"Climate change may cause the Ice Age." Seeing the melting and broken ice in the Antarctica, Jack indicates it to the government. However, they ignore Jack. One day, some strange weather come up in the world. It was not a usual happening, but just the beginning of the nightmare in the world.
Anyway, when people travel in the world, "weather" is the biggest matter. It causes flight delays. Also you feel thirsty and cold for it. Please care about weather when you go out. If you plan to picnic in the mountain, you may get lose there for it.
