Golden Week 2008

Four Japanese national holidays fall around the beginning of May: April 29 and May 3-5. They usually line up such that a few vacation days can combine to create ten days or two full weeks off. That period of time is called Golden Week. This year, the timing was sort of crummy: the days fell such that we had a Tuesday and the following Saturday through Monday off. That effectively wasted two perfectly good holidays--the Saturday and Sunday--but oh well.

I went to Indonesia for Golden Week. Three friends of mine--Mutia, Zoe, and Rachel--live in Sasebo, which is a port city between Fukuoka and Nagasaki. We met up in Fukuoka, and took off from there.

I'm going to try using this page as a sort of portal for the trip blogs. Hopefully the post date system will work. That in mind, here's the lineup:

I.	GETTING THERE: Taiwan

II.	DAY ONE: Bali!

III.	DAY TWO, part 1: Elephants!

IV.	DAY TWO, part 2: Dancing!

V.	DAY THREE: Macaques!

VI.	DAY FOUR, part 1: Prambanan!

VII	DAY FOUR, part 2: Sultan's palace!

VIII.

DAY FOUR, part 3: Borobudur!

IX.	DAY FIVE: Semarang!

X.	DAY SIX: Orangutans!

XI.	DAY SEVEN: More orangutans!

XII.	DAY SEVEN, part 2: Jakarta!

XIII.

DAY EIGHT: My best friend's (cousin's) wedding (reception)

XIV.	DAY NINE: Taiwan again!

XV.	DAY TEN: Back home

I also put down some of my thoughts on different things about the trip: the different attitudes toward foreigners, ecotourism, and Borneo.