AdventurePod 1 – Charlie Interview part 1 – Transcript
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Video (Part 1) Duration: 13:01
John: All right, everybody, welcome. This is the very first Adventure Pod English. My name is John – some people call me English Teacher John – and today we have a wonderful interview. This is our opening show, and we’re very happy to have my good friend Charlie. How are you doing?
Charlie: I’m pretty good, thanks.
John: Looking pretty good. Charlie’s beard is almost as good as mine. We’re going to learn about Charlie’s adventure today. This is a Podcast about adventures. Adventures that I hear about; adventures I’d like to do; adventures I’ve done, and we’re going to try to learn some English while we’re listening to and discussing adventures. So Charlie, you have a great adventure coming up. We have talked about it a little bit. So can you tell us – you know Charlie from one of our previous Podcasts – what number was the Podcast we interviewed you?
Charlie: Sixty-nine? Nope. Twenty-four.
John: Well, anyway, we had Charlie twenty-something. We had a nice interview with Charlie. And now we’re going to learn a little bit more. Charlie is embarking – he’s heading out – on an adventure. Where are you going? What are you doing?
Charlie: I’m going to travel around Japan. By bicycle. For a year. Starting from right here, Matsumoto. And stay at various hosts along the way. Maybe organic farms and organic type of industries, businesses, and volunteer to stay there for a couple of weeks. Get some food, get some place to sleep, move on. Cycle for a couple of days. Get to the next place, do the same thing again. And slowly work my way up north for the summer. And south for the winter. And come back. With a real, real long beard.
John: So one year on the bicycle, if you can believe it. One year going around Japan. Wow. What made you do this? This is great. I want to hear the details, but what inspired you? What got you motivated to do this kind of thing?
Charlie: Two people motivated me to do this. One is John. With whom I went biking a couple of times.
John: I didn’t know that.
Charlie: There you go, John. The freedom of having your bike and going anywhere where you want to go. Buying my bike, that also inspired me. It’s the first real – real bike I spent any money on, ever. And I’ve only had it for four months or so, and it’s just great. And the second person I met from Canada – she was traveling around Japan, also doing the WWOOF’s, and we met up one strange day, have a lovely in-depth conversation, and that kind of gave me a chance to learn about WWOOF.
John: So I’m learning this about Charlie. I know many things, but I don’t know exactly this whole motivation story. Let’s ask more about it. So, Charlie, you mentioned ‘woof,’ as in ‘woof-woof.’
Charlie: I’m embarking, as in dogs barking.
John: Woof-woof. So tell us about woof.
Charlie: Woof is W-W-O-O-F. It stands for —
John: It’s not a wrestling federation.
Charlie: No. But it’s pretty close. It’s Willing Workers On Organic Farms. So I’m a Willing Worker.
John: [Whispering] W-W-O-F, okay.
Charlie: I’ll do the gesture. W-W-O-O-F.
John: F.
Charlie: Hey . And I’m a willing worker, and I’m going to go and work on an organic farm, volunteering this year. So that’s about it. That’s what WWOOF does.
John: We should – oh, sorry.
Charlie: You can find WWOOF just about anywhere in the world. And you join for a set fee for a year, and you get a membership card, and with that you can start to call up potential hosts in your country or the country you want to visit. So as a tourist, or as an adventure holiday, especially for long holidays, it’s a great way to see a country without worrying too much about your accommodation. It can be very cheap. But the thing is, you do have to spend a day working at the host. Also, you can go in groups. Some hosts even accept whole families. So even if you have kids, it could work out for you, where you have a nice place to stay and you’re able to move around. And you get to meet a lot of interesting people, too.
John: So, Charlie, do they have a website that we could —
Charlie: Yes, they do. WWOOF Japan is probably wwoofjapan.com. I could be wrong. In fact, we’re going to put it just right here. It’s free in the sense that you’re not going to pay for accommodation, but you pay in other ways. By gestures of kindness and love and cooperation and —
John: Great. It sounds like a great network. I have to say when you told me about this, Charlie, a couple of months ago, I remembered WWOOF – I remembered the term. I was traveling around New Zealand and Australia in the early 90’s, and I met some people who were working their way – the same, I think – free accommodation, free board, free food – working their way around Australia and New Zealand. So it kind of reminded me from – reminded me of ten years ago, when I was traveling. So you’re going around – you said one year.
Charlie: One year.
John: And from Matsumoto, Japan, which is in the center of Japan – center of Honshu Island – so are you going north first, south first, and what do you think your total distance will be?
Charlie: First I’m going to Mount Fuji, which is south, then up to Tokyo, where I’m going to meet my mom for two weeks. Then go on up to – up the east coasts of Japan to Sendai, Almori, Hokkaido, where I’m going to meet my dad for two weeks. He’s coming Saki. And then reach the most northern point in Japan, head back down –
John: On Hokkaido Island, right?
Charlie: Yeah. Head back down on the west coast, this time. And come back to Matsumoto. From there, down to Osaka, Kobe, Shikoku, to another island, called Kyushu, and from there, you can take a really long ferry to a very small, small southern island called Okinawa.
John: Ride ferries, and then –
Charlie: I’m going to rent one of those pedal boats, and try and make it back to Kyushu.
John: By pedal boat.
Charlie: By pedal boat, yeah.
John: Paddle boat or pedal boat?
Charlie: Pedal boat. You know those swans that you rent?
John: [Whispering] I think he’s joking here.
Charlie: For like a hundred yen for ten minutes, and then —
John: So, we have a paddle boat and we have a pedal boat. Which one is it?
Charlie: It’s the pedal boat.
John: Charlie is going – you’re here – Charlie is going by pedal boat from Okinawa –
Charlie: Yes, yes, I am .
John: Now, ooso – we would say in Japanese – that means you’re lying. No. Ooso – you’re kidding. Sorry, we don’t know your – what’s your total distance? What do you think about it?
Charlie: I hope it’s going to be ten thousand kilometers.
John: Wow.
Charlie: Which isn’t like a lot over a year.
John: Ten thousand kilometers.
Charlie: That’s like 20 K’s a day. So if you can do 20 K’s a day, you can do that in a year.
John: Twenty kilometers per day? Going around Japan for one year.
Charlie: You could walk it if you really wanted to.
John: Walking might take a few extra years.
Charlie: The first guy to ever walk around Japan, he did it in two and a half, three years. And he was the first cartographer, drawing maps and illustrating various points around Japan. And he just measured point to point to point to point. He’s the first person to make a map of Japan. I forget his name, but he did it by foot.
John: Wow. So, Charlie, what’s your motivation? Is there a purpose? Is it just fun and adventure, which is usually a good enough reason for me, or is there some other purpose?
Charlie: A lot of benefits to going. I’m going to learn Japanese, because I’ll have to be interacting with the local people in Japanese more than any other language. I’m going to enjoy cycling, because that’s like a pretty good thing to do. I’m going to visit many places. Something which most Japanese people don’t get the chance to, or don’t find the time to, to this kind of scale. I don’t think they’ll be many people who would have visited as many places as myself after doing the – the whole trip. Something like a hundred and fifty towns and interesting places to see. It’s pretty crazy. But yeah – it’s good. The other reason was to learn about organic agriculture, organic farming. Other forms of living, other lifestyles, where you consider more your environment, the energy you consume, the kind of food or produce that you eat, whether you make it yourself, whether you grow it yourself, or through other sources. That’s really like what I want to learn. Because I think, when I come back, that’s something I’m wanting to start myself. I might be a farmer one day, yeah.
John: So there’s a bit of an educational component, not just a go and have fun and go on adventures. You expect to learn a few things about the farming and the people and the places and the language.
Charlie: I’m done having fun, John.
John: .
Charlie: I’m funned out.
John: The big question is, for me – are these guys ready? Let’s see how you’re doing there.
Charlie: Let me put it this –
John: Let’s check Charlie’s legs here. Yeah, they feel pretty strong to me. I’ve been out on the bike with Charlie and I’ve been a rider for about two years. I never was much of a cyclist before two years ago, moving to Japan – my wife found a nice cheap bicycle for me, and I became a cyclist just two years ago. And my legs have gotten stronger. First ride out with Charlie – he just got his new bike – he kicked my butt going up the hill, I have to say that. . How about a website? Is there a place we can go and follow up and see how you’re doing?
Charlie: Yes. It’s called www.onemanjapan.com .
John: All right. We’ll put that up on the screen.
Charlie: Yeah, right here.
John: I understand you have a partner in life, and I was just wondering is she coming with you? If not, how does she feel about this whole journey of yours?
==== END OF VIDEO PART 1 ======
[go to: video page | transcript part 2 | audio/podcast page ]
