Somewhere in the outskirts of central Kyoto, I am listening to BB King in Zac Baran - a downstairs bar - drinking sake. The owner, a chain smoking Japanese man in a flanney who loves his blues, has loaned me a laptop to write e-mail via wifi. He's done this so I have an excuse to not talk to his drunk customers who speak scattered Engrish (sic.) and request "master" to translate our conversations.
Wifi has been ubiquous in my travels. Hostels have it. Train stations have it. Art Galleries have it. Pubs have it. Toilets probably have it too. Combine this with the inexorable rise of VoIP and you see the shape of the future rather clearly: the wireless network is becoming the internetwork. This is changing the face of backpacking too - when I go away again, I'd take an ultra portable notebook because Internet Cafes are rapidly becoming extinct and hostels find it cheaper and easier to offer wifi than actual computers. The NuBackpackers chase goose in budapestian casinos, wield 10mp cameras and weigh down their Kathmandu or North Face gore-tex packs with their laptops and chargers. Backpacking is now becoming a style choice rather than an economic one. In Paris, it was only 5 Euro less to stay in a 4-dorm room in a Hostel than it was to stay in my own room in a Economy Hotel. Sure, the Hostel was in a trendier part of town but that's part of the package. The rather cute girls I saw swing dancing on the Saturday night I was in Paris? (In a rather nifty bomb shelter turned live jazz club with a Cole Porter tribute night). I was able to actually converse with two of them after I moved to a hostel. Both of them were studying at The Trinity College (TM) in Dublin... and the one I figured for being a politics or law student (I described her as spikey)... oh yeah, she was studying law. What the hell is with that? I think I met lawyers/law students in every friggin country I visited. Anyhoo, transgressing - a hostel often (or should) offer one communal area, if not three or four (e.g. kitchen, lounge, bar, internet area) where part of the ettiquette is general receptiveness to conversation with strangers. You want to meet people? Have a drink in the hostel bar...
Even in Tokyo, where I was staying in a gorgeous, gorgeous Ryokan, I met a few people over the amazing breakfast. (I am sure I mentioned that it was like $6 for a cooked-on-order English Breakfast with full table service? Even if I didn't, its worth mentioning again. They let me COME BACK for said breakfast the day after I had checked out cause they were just that damned nice [and I was like staying at their shittier, dittier, sister accomodation down the road - the equiv. of going from Marge to Thelma... shudders] where I ended up seeing the shame people from the day before, telling tales of the previous days exploits. Even then, I met more people in the one night at the "backpackers hotel" than at the Ryokan. Including two French peeps who (ohmygodikidyounot) can speak Japanese. One of them was originally from Portugal, so I don't think she counts as French.
Anyhoo, I am now in Kyoto which is rather beautiful in the 6 hours I have seen of it. I am once again staying in a Ryokan. After all that ranting about Hostels, I decided to stay in a "proper" Japanese Ryokan (as proper as the non-Japanese can get - the real guest inns don't take Foreigners because of how they intrude/evade/avoid/ignore/disregard Japanese ettiquette)... and I'm glad I did. This place is FREAKING AWESOME. It only opened a few months ago and is in old Kyoto style and is completely hand-renovated by the husband/wife owners. I am talking full Tamati (sp?) mat on the floor, central courtyard garden, laterns everywhere, and bamboo dividers. I feel like I am in an episode of Monkey or in a Drunken Master movie (after two Sake, that's pretty much the truth). BTW, Drunken Master 3 was no where near as fun despite the much slicker production values.
I went to another Jazz Club before this provider-of-free-internet-and-free-sake-one... which was lovely. All antique hardwood furniture, red carpet, scotch whisky, record players and like 10,000 jazz records (as in actual vinyl). It also offered free wifi. If I worked around here, that's where I'd go to "work" remotely. c.f. This place which is more Bourbon than Scotch. Its underground, plays the blues, concrete floor, and only serves Tennesse Whisky )and the owner wheres a flanney if you may remember(. The Japanese exotificiation of Americana is fascinating, as an aside.
God, I need to pee sake.
