Submitted by:
Joe Davis
Friend of the World
Peace
Box 15301
Fritz Creek, AK 99603 USA
v: (907) 235-4069
e: nfjad@alaska.bitnet
Categories:
Education, K12
Keywords:
Creation of new ideas, products, or services; Technology transfer; Leverage of public funding
Supporting Documentation (contact author for more information):
Software; Computer graphic images, such as GIF files
The Story:
Hi!
We are from Nome Alaska and use Internet quite a lot! Last summer my then 11 year old son and I took off and went around the world, starting in Oregon, CA, Japan, and on. We played hide & seek via email and Internet/AOL and assisted schools around the world as well in email and paper mail. I “enclose” the first World Walk-About of a series that we have. If you like, i can send more. Let me know. Ted in CT clued me in on some Internet book thing. Sounds like fun, Joe & Arlo
WORLD WALK-ABOUT WITH JOE & ARLO
September 8, 1992
Introduction
Note to Student/Instructor/Cyber-fan
WORLD WALK-ABOUT is a new live interactive event you can share in today! The first goal is to discover where we are. Supplied are several levels of odd clues from the impossible to the ROK – I get itS level. Copy this file and separate the levels. On day one read the hardest level and try to figure out where we are. Then read the succeeding levels as you choose, one a day, week or all at once. Where are we?
Second, WORLD WALK-ABOUT is meant to be more than mind- babbelings and odd ball clues, information you could have lived without but havenUt. There are real addresses of real people/schools/cyber-fans and paper-fans alike, and the potential for real time projects. Pen pal letters are out, joint projects are in, and the key is: World Pollution/Local Solutions by young people (ages 7 to 857). When you get an address you like and need help, call us. We are on E-Mail BITNET accessible at: NFJAD@ALASKA.BITNET. That is the only way to find us (BTW, America Online users can send mail to us at that same address in the alternative mail link). As we are traveling there is no permanent mailing address for paper mail.
Any questions so far? Just ask. We will log in as often as possible, at least once a week, assuming the country we are in has a node. Send us your comments as well, and happy hunting in this world wide hide & seek!
Good Wishes, Joe & Arlo Davis
Chapter 1
Impossible Clues
Well Cyber-dives, here is the first and most unusual facts/observations we have discovered and offer to you. (Remember C-fans, the basic question is: Where are Joe and Arlo today?) Ding ding, ding-dong, bing – we were in our RresidenceS and heard a vehicle making music coming slowly down the street, and thought RThe Ice-Cream Truck!S, but going out side, found out that it was the garbage collection truck! It plays music (rather loudly) and people hear it coming and bring out their trash! NO ICE CREAM! So, where do they have musical garbage collection trucks? Next in the list of unknowns: Where do they drive on the left side of the road (and walk on the left side of the stairs)? Yo, and have remote control air conditioners! Here is another easy one: they have a glass marble in their pop bottles! They seldom have sidewalks in rural streets and this country is the home of the three original monkeys: See no evil; Hear no evil; and Speak no evil. There it is, the top clues for you in the RImpossibleS level. If you are stumped, beg for level 2, the RNearly ImpossibleS level. Good Luck!!!
Nearly Impossible Clues
One of the problems in this country is that the sport of golf is now very popular and so many golf courses are being built and there is little land. The police officers here carry guns but seldom use them due to the great amount of paper work to fill out if they ever fire the gun. Also, they rarely ever shoot a person other than in the leg or non-vital area of the body. Four-wheel drive cars here are now very popular among the public, though it seems not really necessary. There are areas where it is useful in the winter though. Some areas get as much as 3 meters of snow. They use Soy beans to fill their pillows for sleeping. English is learned but mostly in writing, not speaking, so to communicate more difficult thoughts we wrote the words down and they were easily understood. Also, counting by fingers starts with the thumb down for one, then the index finger, middle finger, ring finger and pinky. OK, those are the nearly impossible clues. Figure it out!
Easy Street Clues
OK, canUt get it yet? Here are the easy ones sure to get you where we are. Rice farming once was the major occupation, 95% of the people grew rice, now it is about 5% that grow rice and is still dropping. There are two major terrorist activities going on during our stay here, in what is otherwise a very peaceful country. One group is against building a larger airport at Narita International Airport (thus using up more farm land – remember the golf problem, not much land here). So they create problems for those trying to make the airport bigger. The other terrorist group is against their countries Emperor going to make a visit to China before the Chinese Emperor visits their country.
Travel in the country is rather more expensive, toll booths on the roads, gas prices high, and train/subway tickets are high. They set the standard though for a very fast train here, can you name the train? Baseball and Sumo wrestling are popular sports. Tatami grass mats are on many of the floors, and futons are beds they just roll up and put away in the morning.
The nation is very industrialized and mechanized. Seldom did we ever have to physically open a door to a store, they are almost all automatic. There is no standard RarmyS for this country. They eat lots of fish. They take their shoes off when entering a house or certain shops. (BTW, the slippers were always too short for my feet.) They drive lots of different vehicles on the street, from regular cars to tiny little trucks and 3 wheeled carts and small motor bikes. Water water everywhere, lots of run off from the many mountains, creeks and drains all over.
Rarely was ArloUs name ever pronounced correctly, the RLS sound is difficult for this language. They have a kind of treat that is like squares of cookie dough, with cinnamon flavor – yum yum! The taxi cabs are spotlessly clean, inside and out, and have automatically opening doors for the customer. The cabs often run on propane. The people are very honest and theft and crime are very low. If you are caught drunk driving a vehicle your license is taken away forever! No second chance!!!
The homes have solar water heaters on the roofs often, to save electricity (which is expensive). The subways, streets, parks and in general, everywhere, are very clean. They play a game in public buildings, a form of gambling, called Pachinko. It is like automatic pin-ball machines. You put in the money and send the balls on their way (little tiny steel shot, about 3/16th of an inch diameter). The machine does everything, and the more you win (win more tiny balls) the better for you, as you can trade them for prizes or cash sometimes. This country has many ports. They have soap operas on TV just like in the USA or England. When you leave a room (doors are paper and thin sticks, sliding) you always face back into the room for politeness).
Yo! Where are we???
Want to learn more? Write to:
Shiozawa School
Wakayama Fumio, teacher
1550 – 1 Shiozawamachi
Shiozawa Minami-uo-numa-gun
Niigata-ken
Kbqbo(that is code, figure it out!)
Or write to:
Hiroyuki Nakaike, teacher
Narita Kokusai High School
3-16 Karabe Narita
Chiba-ken 286 Kbqbo
tadashi@apic.or.jp for a High School in this country
Where next? Stay tuned for more Impossible clues, almost Impossible clues and other observations.
[[[end text]]]
I do much with Russia and especially the Republic of Georgia, and have been working to stop the war there, helping Mr. Shev a bit. On AOL I have a bulletin board called “The Bering Bridge” concerning all FSU including Internet email addresses, penpal letters from email, stacks, language lessons, fonts, paper addresses, new stories live from Tbilisi, lots of stuff.