Japan on her mind

"It's a beautiful day today, just as 9/11 and Aug. 6, 1945, were beautiful days. The sting of evil is more potent on a beautiful day. I spent most of the morning in the Hiroshima Peace Museum and the Peace Memorial Hall. I feel like I have to write about it before I can go on to more pleasant things. This museum powerfully conveys the horror and the agony people suffered in the atomic bombing. I feel wrung out and enormously sad, having spent the entire morning with tears in my eyes."

-- Excerpt from Ruthe Karlin's travel blog, "Japan on My Mind"

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Ruthe Karlin of North Point Breeze recently returned from a monthlong adventure in Japan, but even though the 73-year old was traveling alone, her family, friends and several dozen others were with her all the way. They stayed in touch via "Japan on My Mind," the travel blog Ruthe kept during her journey.

For the uninitiated, a travel blog is a dedicated Web site into which text, photos, video, audio and other electronic files can be uploaded along the way, essentially creating an internet travel journal. Traveling with her digital camera and laptop computer, Ms. Karlin posted entries almost daily during her trip, and anyone who accessed the blog (at www.ruthek.wordpress.com) was able to send a response.

First, understand this was no pre-organized trip, group tour or escorted vacation package. Ms. Karlin, who speaks virtually no Japanese, decided to undertake her ambitious itinerary to visit museums, shrines and other artistic and spiritual destinations she had come across during a course on Asian art she took recently at University of Pittsburgh. She had visited Japan two decades ago and had always wanted to return. Because she doesn't like group travel, Ms. Karlin, who moved to Pittsburgh from New Jersey last year to be near her daughter and her family, decided to plan her own expedition.

"I figured it was now or never," she said.

With enough frequent-flyer mileage for a round trip, she decided to see if she could get a ticket for a trip between mid-October to mid-November because she thought the tourist season in Japan would be over, but the weather would still be good.

Booking a ticket for that time symbolized that her trip was possible, and it served as the first installment of "Japan on My Mind."

"I set up my trip on a Google calendar and used the blog as a way to organize my thoughts and research," Ms. Karlin explained, adding pertinent and informative live links to useful Web sites she discovered during her investigations.

The blog also served as a personal journal for her to track and deal with trepidations she had about undertaking such an ambitious trip at her age. She knew that visiting six cities in a country where finding her away around alone would be a challenge.

"Language definitely proved to be a barrier for me. I had a hard time just buying tea bags, let alone finding my way around."

On the other hand, coming up with thoughts and images for her blog entries was simpler for Ms. Karlin, who has worked as a photographer and graphic designer and also was a technology specialist for Reader's Digest. She also had experience with blogs, having kept another one since she'd moved to Pittsburgh (fat-old-artist.typepad.com).

She used the Internet to make most of her hotel reservations and got planning advice from individuals she encountered online. Another big step was buying a 21-day rail pass at the Japanese tourist office during a visit to New York City.

As her trip took shape, her blog became a working document, but its primary entries were created during the month of her trip. "I tended to be tired after walking around all day and didn't like to dine out alone," she said. "So I enjoyed many evenings in my hotel room eating and working on my blog."

Finding an Internet connection to upload her entries was not always easy. But it was worth the effort because she was able to exchange Instant Messages with her daughter and grandchildren. "It definitely helped me avoid feeling lonely. Since I had a frequent flyer ticket, I knew I could come home early if things didn't go well, but as it turned out, I wished I'd had more time to spend there, especially in Kyoto."

Taken together the entries of "Japan on My Mind" provide a surprisingly candid, well-written and informative exposition of the satisfactions and frustrations of Ms. Karlin's personal passage, from the wonders she encountered along the way to dealing with weariness, sore legs, strange toilets, unfamiliar food, and increasing difficulty with steps. Her blog is a uniquely personal document, which at the same time is interactive, accessible for all the world to see and archived for posterity.

Even now that she's back, Ms. Karlin continues to refine the blog, adding photos, slide shows and even some short videos, using the best of the hundreds of electronic images she captured. And although she plans to create a print version of the blog, she is more motivated by the creative process than a desire for a larger audience.

"I enjoyed the discipline and challenge of doing the blog, but for me the best part for me is that my grandson and granddaughter both read it and kept in touch with me along the way. It was really for them."

But the rest of us are welcome to share her experience.

Travel blogs have become increasingly popular, with thousands of personal journals already available on line. For example, former Post-Gazette staffer Chico Harlan is currently keeping a blog about his travels to Australia.

And if you're interested in setting up your own travel blog, several Web sites can simplify the process, including: www.travelblog.org, www.travelblogs.com and www.bootsinall.com. The blog sites Ms. Karlin uses are www.typepad.com and www.wordpress.com