Yes, the end of every trip gets lost in a haze of being on the way home and doing as many things at the last minute and nostalgia for home and fear of returning to the routine then the actual routine itself. So to hell with it.

After Takayama blues, I rushed my ass over to Tokyo, taking my final ride on the Shinkansen. This time I was able to remain awake and see the coast and the sprawling metropolis in its full glory. Arrival was met with immediate confusion. Surprisingly the first thing that looked like a subway map had no latin letters on it, and following the vague instructions from the hostel was thus made more difficult. The subway proved so confusing that I finally threw my hands in the air and forwent my usual complete grok of the transit system. There were several sub-systems requiring different types of tickets and furthermore a spaghetti topology that could not shed any light on to the structure of the city, because the structure itself was more like its own city rather than a nice, skeleton view of the layout.

A lot of wandering around an overcrowded station and some twinkie-like Japanese junk food later, I made my way onto the regional train which connects to the subway. This was amazing in that there was literally no room for everyone, which necessitated sardine-style packing, which is not so friendly to people with two suitcases. I really found this to be as difficult and threatening-feeling as many mosh pits I have been in. Stop by stop, I was gradually forced to the opposite side of the train from the exiting doors, and I honestly felt as though it was possible that I would not make it out of the door when we got to my stop. I have never felt that before. Amazingly, though, despite the seemingly chaotic packing of people in the train, the exit was smooth, as though choreographed. The center around the door gradually released pressure as the people literally filed out of the train (I mean in a line), and marched toward the exit. It moved as quickly as if there had been no crowd at all.

The rest of the city followed such a pattern. Quick, clean, smooth. No trash cans, yet no trash on the ground. No cops, yet no crime.

My first meal there the next day was done faster than you can say “McDonald’s”. It was at one of these really interesting places where you actually order what you want from a series of pictures on a vending machine, which, in return for the cost of the meal, gives you a small ticket with some Japanese printed on it. You hand it to the guy behind the bar and he whips up a combination of cold noodles, vegetables and raw egg that vaguely resembles what you expected from the low-resolution picture on the machine. The weird thing was that this way of doing this wasn’t exclusive to the in’n'out-type places. Some of them with real famous shit had this too.

One doesn’t have to search far to find wonder in Tokyo. In the neighborhood of my hostel was already a gigantic market on the path to a really stellar temple. I bought some cookies there due exclusively to the fact that you got to witness robotic manufacturing process, complete with air valves releasing and injecting beans and pastry stuff and thrusting forms and cookies up and down conveyor belts. You get the idea. I took another fortune at the temple, and I suppose it’s bad luck to do two days in a row: I got a “bad” fortune that told me nothing would go right in the near future. I should not move, no one would ever visit me and work was going to be shit.

What followed was a lot more touristy stuff. On the way, I noticed a lot of homeless people, but it was actually hard to tell if they were homeless, as they were so well groomed and hardly appeared listless or hopeless. Beside that I mostly marveled at a rather amazing city, going on a sparsely attended pub crawl (but do go on it if you’re in Tokyo–I should plug it: http://freetourtokyo.jimdo.com/the-pub-crawl/), seeing the crowded, colorful and bright red light district, attempting to shop in the overwhelming Shibuya area and finally calling it early from exhaustion and general fatigue. I was also proud that I made it to the airport. That’s always a major win when it happens.

So there you have it. The conclusion of a rather lonely trip was rather lonely. It is hard to really get it right under duress and self-imposed pressure to get it right. I got a lot of it right, though.

On a lighter note, I’ll include some random oddities I didn’t fit in otherwise:

• “Paris syndrome” is something described by Japanese psychiatrists as the feeling a Japanese person gets from visiting a European city (or elsewhere) where the disorder, lack of efficiency and obedience sends him or her into a cultural shell shock and acute depression. There are Japanese psychiatrists in Paris dedicated to treating these people.
• The Ig Nobel prize was awarded to the Japanese inventor of the karaoke machine, presumably for the peace, love and beauty it has spread around the world. (Read the real deal here or elsewhere.) Would the UN going out for a night of karaoke alleviate some of our diplomatic ails?
• Almost all (and I don’t use hyperbole here) of the western-style toilets I visited had heated seats, all the way up and down the classy scale. This also often included bidet and butt spray functionality. Amazing.
• I think I saw more baseball being played there than any visit I have made to the U.S. since moving to Vienna.
• Everyone (and I’m again not being hyperbolic) was staring at a cell phone or other mobile device on the Tokyo subway. There was hardly any talking at all.
• On the way out of many subways in the night there were buckets lined up along the wall. Finally I saw someone throwing up in one. The Japanese are so clean that even in a drunken stupor they make it to the bucket.
• Someone told me of a massage parlor called (really) “Hand Job”, that didn’t actually offer happy endings, but rather took the meaning of the English words literally. A massage is indeed a job for the hand(s).

That’s it. I wish I could have put it in a can and saved it to look at again. Writing and picture taking (the camera made it back!) will have to suffice. Thanks for reading and commenting while I was all alone in a strange land “where they speak no word of truth, but we don’t understand anyway”.

So I slept in a bit to chase away the blues, but it had a limited effect. Ate breakfast at the place across the street. I think it’s called “Coffee UhUh” (written in Latin letters). It turned out to be an interesting experience. My guess now is that people come here after retiring. There were old people at the cafe bar, old people at the tables and an old woman serving everyone, seemingly the same thing. Coffee, hard boiled egg and toast with jam at the top. There was an old table arcade with some very interesting looking controls on them, so of course I was interested, but people were eating at it the whole time.

After I ate and paid my $3.50-ish, I walked by more old people on the way to the festival float showroom. They only had five pieces, and it was $8.50-ish, but well worth it. The first was a mobile shrine that was once carried in the festival parade but its weight of 2 tons required that 40 people carry it, and 40 more to carry it back. The guide (quite cutely presented as a bulky tape recorder walkman-like device) explained that they couldn’t find 80 people of the same height to do it. I wonder whether to believe it. If it is to be believed, that’s a little sad.

The other floats carried marionettes that were played in the parade. Making the correct motions with them is so difficult that some of it is believed to have been forgotten. And I can kind of believe it. I saw one of these marionette shows on television in Kyoto, and it really did involve sometimes about 4 people for each character.

The additional thing the ticket bought me was a large room of miniatures of some of the major buildings with “computer simulated” sunrise and sunset. The effect of that and the quiet music was hypnotic and calming. I picked up a written oracle on the way out. It was a bit confusing. Especially the part where it instructed me to marry “the latter”.

I walked by some more old people on the way back to the hostel packing up their stands in the morning market, and this was a pleasant sight as well. I finally spent time at the temple I was sleeping at to appreciate the shrine part of the temple I was staying. It was quite impressive, even relative to the other, more famous ones I had already seen. A feature of this temple in particular was a chamber below called a Kaidan Meguri. This means “Traversing the path of Buddha”. It consists of an unlit chamber underneath the shrine of the temple in which you walk around a circle. Halfway through, you discover a door, and somewhere around that door is a key that unlocks it, allowing the journeyer to grasp a small Buddha statue. Doing so absolves you of all your sins. I was brave and did it, but I didn’t find the key. I think I might not have been trying too hard, though. Actual being absolved would seem to carry more burden than I could handle right now.

The instructions also remarked that “we human beings live in the light. We take it for granted. We are not thankful for the light. By entering the complete darkness, we must use faith to guide our steps…” and that you “enter as a human with all your faults, experience the trials of the darkness, attain peace and return into the light. Perhaps it will be a bit brighter on the other side.”

As I contemplated this and what I would write in my blog, I concluded I was getting a bit too eat, pray, love about this shit, and that it was time to get the fuck out and go to Tokyo.

So today I thought I was going to take it easy. I had it all planned out to go to the sleepy historic town of Takamara, where many old houses remain, and sleep in a temple cum guesthouse. But of course all silent moments in my life become anguished by some external force. In the morning, I thought to call the hostel from Nara to confirm if I could arrive early, and considered using my cell phone to do it. First, let’s check the bill to see if this is going to be really expensive, I thought. No biggie. In the span of 10 short calls and a few downloaded emails, the bill is somehow up to €1222. No joke. And for now I’m in the dark as to exactly why that is, whether it is an error and, importantly, as to whether I’m going to have to foot it. It’s moments like these where you really have to work to appreciate tranquility.

I did my best. I arrived late because of such panicking, and so I missed all the open things, and wandered around a bit. Stopped in a shop, bought some kitsch, in lieu of the whiskey I am assigned to purchase, which was not there. The homes are lovely and the feel is really there, if only I could feel it.

The really great part is this temple experience. Despite some very not zen moments, I’m really starting to appreciate it. The walls are literally paper thin (they are made of paper), and surprisingly, or not, the consciousness that everyone has of this makes it even quieter. You can sense that everyone is a bit meditative in one way or another, reading, thinking, cuddling. I am trying to let some of it rub off on me. Especially quaint is how the lights in the room show evenly through the translucent paper. I’m trying to steal a picture of that without other guests noticing.

Each room has sliding doors on every side. It’s hard to imagine how such rooms functioned in general, although our single door system is not always ideal. How did they move about? What was proper protocol for entering and exiting? What were their days filled with? Did homes resemble this style? I certainly would enjoy such a place, but the “experiment” of such a radically different way of living space would probably exclude almost all potential cohabiters.

You got a glimpse in the shogun castle I mentioned a couple posts back. There were halls for meetings. People would kneel in rows before the chief. A page would sit closest and perpendicular. All people there were packing swords. There was a living quarters as well for the chief. He appeared as though he might actually sit, not kneel, sometimes in this sanctuary. The travel of sound was also used to their advantage. The “nightingale” floors were intentionally made to squeak pleasantly as you walked over them, so as to warn of intruders.

Some of the rooms in the imperial palace (not the shogun castle) were tiered waiting rooms, each different depending on how important the visitor was. In any case, they mostly consist of thatched floor mats, paper walls, sliding doors, ceilings and some ornamentation, especially on the case of temples at the apparent worship altar. A co-traveller last week wondered where they would keep their souviniers. It would be nice never to need souviniers.

Am I staying, or going to Tokyo?

So I finally ditched Kyoto for good. Its familiarity was beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable, plus it isn’t all that relaxing despite the beautiful sights. But I didn’t leave before finally seeing the imperial palace. The whole affair was entirely free of cost, but in order to get there, you had to get special permission in advance. You basically fill out a web form and sign up for a tour time, and you’re there. The buildings of course were magnificent, the gardens lovely, but the tour guide offhandedly mentioned that the samurai castle would be much more enchanting, because while japan had the shogun samurai government, they had all the bread. And maybe you see now how this shit is like crack, because I decided to spend more time and go to the samurai castle. This was breathtaking as promised, nevertheless.

I finally hopped on a train to Nara, a smaller city and the original original capital of Japan (Kyoto was the last capital before Tokyo took that distinction) to see more shrines and temples. And I saw some, but of course I was too late to enter any of them. What’s noteworthy here is that all these landmarks are in a very large park that has an overwhelming deer population, and all the deer are happy to be hanging out with you. You see, in pre-bhuddist times, deer were considered messengers from god. Thus highly revered. And for the second day in a row, I was observing familial and social behavior up close of fellow mammals.

Besides that it was a lot of wandering about searching for more crack.

The end of the night proved interesting. This time I ducked in the place that was unexpectedly emulating an American diner. What I got was rice with a scrambled egg on top, with a chunk of hash beef on top of that, with stew on top of that. Perhaps I’m missing something (and I often am) but what this seems like is an odd adaptation of an american dish, that may be common. Sound familiar? And here, I was the only white dude. They only offered a fork and a spoon with which to eat, yet still gave you the warm, moist towel that comes with every meal here. The girls next to me really struggled to use the fork. You see, everything here is upside down, figuratively AND literally.

The conference was great, and provided for some funny moments. Especially enjoyable was going out with some Swedish folks and karaoke-ing, at first under the guidance of some Japanese folks. The whole thing is quite a bit different. You rent a room, for one, and additionally there is not much of what you’d call a stage. This basically kills most of the thrill I have with karaoke. For me it’s usually a venue to prove how nuts I can be, but if you do it in front of friends that doesn’t really make you nuts, it just makes you have friends.

The hourly rate was high, but the beer was unlimited for the time we were there. Thus we drank it as much as we could. This effectively killed one day of the conference, and when we did it again on the last day (we couldn’t think of a way to have more fun, and it was still a lot of fun), it killed my first free day in Kyoto. This was ok, though, wandering aimlessly through downtown Kyoto is much better than many other places.

Today I got the rest of my trip basically planned out and then set out for the sightseeing. I went to the far out Arashiyama area, which is home to many awesome sights. Many of these can be saved for the pictorial account, but an interesting bit was the monkey mountain. It was a rather laborious $5 (I’m converting to dollars here because they’re closer to yen and I’m lazy) climb up a hill to where some japanese monkeys take residence. Apparently the species is particularly interesting to some scientists or something. Not that I should know anything about that.

When I saw the first one, I very carefully took a picture with a bit of apprehension, as they had strongly advised against staring at or interacting directly with the monkeys. I was surprised to see that around the next bend were a half dozen more, just sort of hanging out on my path. I don’t know why I was worried about these tiny monkeys, but i didn’t want no trouble, so I waited until they got out of the way to pass. It was quite cool to see them just hanging out and walking around them. They spent most of their time grooming each other, cleaning out their hair for I don’t know what (probably don’t want to know), and this was really sweet to see, or lying on their stomach, or climbing a bit, or play fighting a bit. I wondered as they were supposedly somewhat smart if they got bored of doing this all day. I wonder that about most animals, but I think I busy myself too much.

I’ll quote the guidebook here in a sentence I swear I would have written myself (although a bit abashedly): refreshingly, the humans feed the monkeys from inside a cage, rather than the other way around. I suppose this was the only safe way to do this. It was a bit interesting to see the different personalities, some more coy and still getting the food, perhaps due to their understated charm, others fighting a bit for real estate on the side of the cage, others literally yelling for attention. I also felt pretty funny to have a tiny hand grab an apple from yours like that. I dunno, like monkeys and humans hanging out. Oh, it’s stupid I know.

I toured the bamboo forest, and this must be seen in pictures to comprehend. But it was really, really lovely. It took a lot of walking to find, and my being pressed for time didn’t afford me much time to meditate on them, which I probably should have done anyway. This was much more lovely and out of this world than the highly impressive temple that followed.

The guide book recommended the a shop downtown that makes anything you want in Japanese lettering, and the usual thing to get is your name. This sounded borderline in the morning, until I realized what must be done. The guy was, however, a bit taken aback by the concept of putting Japanese words in Japanese on the shirt, but even more confusingly, he said there were two different lettering systems in which it could be written. Isn’t spelling supposed to be done one way only? Uncertain as to its correctness, I confirmed with the hostel receptionist-slash-whatever that indeed, I had purchased a t-shirt with the words Niji Babulu, meaning rainbow bubble, in Japanese lettering. Yes.

So things got a bit busy when the conference started, so I thought I would save my Monday experiences for later, fully aware that I might forget them.

My lab mate arrived, and we decided to go on our own to the golden temple. This is exactly what you expect it is. Like the other temples you’ve seen, but golden. In fact, though, it was burned down in the 50′s by a crazy monk. It was fully restored and repainted in 1987. Not sure how disappointed I should feel about that. In particular, there are serious doubts about the quantity of gold leaf in the restoration being authentic. I could post pictures here, but the ones in the Wikipedia link at the beginning of the paragraph are better.

I’m pretty sure I didn’t mention this yet, but it would be a mistake not to mention the touring students who have visited the various shrines and temples at the same time as us. Apparently, among their assignments was to spot some white folk and speak some English with us. Being that they were quite young, the interactions were entirely scripted. They would say something and each took turns doing so, and when they got confused, they would talk to each other extensively in japanese and then return with something. They started with, “hi, we are students and would like to ask you a few questions. My name is -,” and so on, to which I responded, “I’m bob.” they proceeded after that to ask me what my name was. I repeated, and they wrote down “bod.” So I explained it was “B-O-B”, and one of them said, “ah! Babu! Babu!” So naturally I double checked again, but in this case they had the correct spelling. Apparently, some of the consonants in Japanese come with a “u” built in.

They asked my favorite thing in Japan, how long I’ve been here, and also what my favorite food was. Lacking an honest answer, I picked the previous nights meal, (Japanese pizza–see part 3) which I honestly enjoyed. This got them real excited and launched them into a long discussion. A couple minutes later one of them doled out quite slowly, “we had that for lunch.” I was finally impressed by their effort. In the end, I signed that I talked to them, about 8 times. It made me wish I were big in Japan. Signing autographs is cool. Alas, I was merely giving some kids credit for somewhat half assed work.

We had lunch at a hip cafe in an old bathhouse that served Japanese-Indian fusion. Good shit. Apparently, English is also a hip thing to do, ending up on posters for concert venues with the sole purpose of adding hipness to the poster. Only here no one is checking it. One of them had the header, “our recommends for July”.

We made an attempt at seeing the imperial palace, but you need to get an appointment in this season, I guess. My second attempt will be tomorrow. Yes, I have an appointment.

Sadly I cannot this get this iPad to upload photos to the blog. I think I need to update the blog software as it is being hosted on my server…blah blah. Does not seem like a task for now.

Today I had the most unexpected lunch of the trip thus far. Taking a tip from my guide book as the only interesting eatery in the vicinity of my hotel, I found the essentially unmarked Honke Dai-Ichi Asahi restaurant nearly at an underpass. Its exterior didn’t distinguish it much from the nearby coin laundry joint, and its interior was the closest thing to a Japanese diner I can imagine.

I guess the place is well known. The 29 seat place was mostly packed, and according to the book, there is a line of people waiting at most lunchtimes. There were several signs in Japanese, not even using Arabic numerals. Its inclusion in guide books is what must have necessitated the out-of-place English menu, which was the only thing I saw there that attempted to be somewhat pretty.

I sat on a stool that looked directly into the kitchen, which was the main attraction here. Some 6 Japanese men were yelling back and forth at each other, some chucking fistfuls of ramen noodles into a pot, some were frying and shaping scoops of fried rice. Others were dunking head-sized chunks of pork into water or oil, removing and stabbing them to check their doneness, then shaking them off the knife into drainers.

The chunks were later transferred 10 liter metal tapered tubs. When filled, a tub was thrust into a dumbwaiter, a button was pushed, and more Japanese was shouted. This was answered by an off-camera Japanese woman, presumably on the floor above, who shouted back at the top of her lungs, “[thank you]“.

The two floors were in constant communication, although it could have been that they were shouting at themselves. With me, they were soft spoken and terse, due to poor language skills, sometimes double checking that I would really want a raw egg, or a side of fried rice. I guess they got some tourists who didn’t realize what they were getting into. What I got was about a half liter of the greasiest, fattiest noodles and pork soup you can imagine. I didn’t make it through my side of fried rice, and my stomach is still churning. It was a delicious show, nevertheless.

Apologies to those involved who may later read this, but group tourism usually can be relied upon to go awry. The benefit of such a thing is that you usually end up in places you would want to go, due to a mutual friend who is the de facto leader, but the achy disadvantage is general bad decision making with regards to logistics and individual interests. The loudest one tends to be the one who wants to see everything, and the second loudest one is the person who has a better idea of how to get from a to b than the loudest. My strategy, as one who has been both the loudest and second is to milk it for the good stuff.

Today, we ended up at  a couple very lovely temples and gates and gardens. Especially cool was the authentic tea experience. For those of of you who have not seen Drawing Restraint 9, it is an incredibly peaceful, deliberate affair, involving a very thick (authentic, original) version of green tea, kneeling, kimonos, bowls, ritualistic rotation of said bowls and a cool, calm room, well worth the 5ish €/$ at the hojo hall by nazen-ji temple. It looks out on water, and gives an impenetrable sense of calm that almost motivated me to make enough money to build one of these for myself. I began to reach a moment of, ähm, zen, as we reached the semi-artificial waterfall meant for bathing and praying as we were directed to hurry out of the place to b line it to another temple.

The nanzen ji is connected to the gan…oh who cares…by the philosophers path. This would see convenient, except no signs point you there,  so getting between the two began the internal strife. Upon finding the fabled path, we ducked into the first restaurant that we could find, which happened to be quite famous. It was one of those kneel seating things, and they serve one 7 course meal consisting largely of tofu. This is apparently not uncommon. 

Being the homeland of the one who penned “all your base are belong to us”, this country is replete with many more such gems. On the back of a stamp for souvenirs, it is written, “please press lightly. If you do hard, it may cause trouble.” One refreshing beverage is called “Pocari Sweat”. A poem at a temple references “the mountain’s heart…growing out of a crotch of the slippery monkey tree.”

After taking an hour to finish what was promised to be a 10 minute journey (during which we thusly refrained from much  needed toilet and coffee stops), we asked a middle aged japanese woman for directions. This ended in her spending the evening with us. You see, it seems if you ask for help here, you will receive it at the maximum capacity of the one helping. Many of the Europeans I’ve spoken to at the conference “complained” of being taken all the way to their hotel after asking directions. One took  the umbrella-carrying helper to the umbrella shop in order to unambiguously remove any obligation and rid herself of her.

Point being that people are incredibly friendly, efficient, apologetic and well meaning here. If it weren’t for the difficulty of the language and what I imagine is going on behind the scenes (the child rearing), I would probably already be looking for a job here.

We went to the geisha district and saw the teahouses with her, and received quite a history and explanation. She tried to be diplomatic, but we were quite uninformed. I’m proud to say I was not the most. We spotted only a couple, they are only out in the wild during the hours between the parties, namely 6 and 8 pm.

We rounded out the night with okonomi, sometimes referred to as Japanese pizza, a leek pancake topped with Japanese style grilled meat and sauces. Delicious.

The fatigue associated with the combined jet lag and touring is incredible. This one is being finished a day after the previous attempt, in which I fell asleep mid-sentence multiple times before I gave up. Pictures will come once I get some combination of mobile devices to post them. I already almost lost the camera I bought here. Perhaps the friendliness and non-criminal nature of this place will spare the life of a camera for once.

It seems silly, but some service to the movie Lost in Translation is due. It’s not that every American who comes here is bound to be Bill Murray’s character, a troubled, coming of age actor with romance issues, but a feeling of being out of place is pervasive in the movie, and serves as a central plot device, making a lot of parallels to any visit inevitable.

I think of this now in part due to my sleeplessness. It’s bound to happen in the first few days. I am essentially 13 hours jet lagged, take a few maybe, and despite skipping a night of sleep, I awoke at 4. In a single room, I got no one to talk to. I could use a Scarlett Johannson. Not that I need an age inappropriate semi-romance at the moment, but I’m not getting a lot of chatting about the visceral aspects of these things here.

It’s the details that get you. Television consists of all the silliness you might hope to see. The American rehashes are exactly that. It’s no exaggeration. They break the fourth wall regularly. Fake curtains and clashing Japanese characters pop up. Cartoon kittens carrying wands interject. You just don’t need to satirize this shit. It’s built in.

The pillow has only one side you can sleep on. Somehow the other side is supposed to serve as foundation. The air conditioner doesn’t make sense. Correctly anticipating confusion, the hotel provided a semi-English brochure, but it only confounds. I’m not sure what to expect when I press the “powerful button”, the “mildew shock button” or the “good sleep button.” What the hell is this puppet show on TV all about? The singing dwells as vibrating between two tones a half step apart and is to me grating. The costumes and choreography are, however, fascinating.

It’s the food, the behavior, the language, the aesthetic. It’s how seriously everyone takes it. You are somewhere where everything is happening, the economy is good and people are happy, but you have no way of fitting in or understanding. This is really getting away.

On Wednesday I was in NYC, today, Saturday, I am in Japan. Wait, it’s Sunday. I would be enjoying the sites of Kyoto if it weren’t for the fact that it’s raining, and I am real jet lagged.

So far, everything has been odder than you might expect, even from a somewhat jaded tourist. The first thing we did was buy tickets for the train from tokyo to Kyoto and some Starbucks. In both cases, there was a second person involved, basically trying to make sure that before you got to the cashier there was no ambiguity about what would be ordered. That is, no need to chat with the cashier about the menu.

Next were the trains. Already with the airport to tokyo shuttle another pattern emerges. All cars are closed as women in pink uniforms wipe down and orient the chairs and mop the entire train. Precisely five minutes before departure, the queue that has orderly gathered in a line behind the respective doors is invited to board. The confused westerners are already sticking out.

Same thing in the Tokyo-Kyoto connection. The scenery was already great. Trees are more crowded, follow that shoot fashion, and are generally canopied by other plant life draping across the top. Everywhere are the rice fields, with their glassy-appearing pool of water supporting. Farmers wade through in flood gear and sometimes hazmat suits when spreading pesticide. Housing is crowded and boxy, yet aesthetically appealing. I couldn’t really characterize it properly, but it seemed vaguely reminiscent of the traditional architecture yet utilitarian.

Up to this point I have been with some travel companions, but we necessarily split due to our hotels. So I’m at no high class hotel, but the scene still fits the stereotype. About 5 people greet me with smiling, quick bows from behind the desk as I ascend via the escalator, before I even reach the top. I check in before the room is ready and someone has already snuck up behind me to take my luggage to storage before the person talking completes her struggle to explain the situation in English.

I decide to kill time by going to the nearby shopping megacenter. Logistically there are major rubs. Most of the bank machines have no English mode, and the proper way to insert your card is never clear. You usually aren’t informed of your error until some way through the attempted transaction. Many machines don’t take my card. My credit card isn’t working, either. Usually the magnetic strip partis necessary, but here, they work with that gold chip thingy. Using the regular credit card number as a payment method has twice resulted in consulting several people up and down the chain, and even calling Visa once.

Then there’s the issue of directions and street names. Latin letters are scarce. Thus internet access would be great, but despite the connectedness of this country, the plain fact that I have talked to no one who can form complete English sentences prevents me from figuring out how to consistently get the Internet to me.

Anyway, after wandering through this breathtaking electronics store (I simply can’t do it justice–the busy and overstocked store was like nothing I have seen) I managed to get an adapter and a camera (fingers crossed this one makes it). I then wandered through the rain searching for the Internet. I had a lead from some free wifi spots page, but of course navigating more than three blocks is near impossible with the damn street signs.

So I wound up here, stealing someones Internet after eating some of that pre marinated uncooked meat they serve with a grill for you to finish them off with. Delicious, but the english menu was clearly abbreviated to only the pricier dishes. Pay no mind, the first night usually ends up that way (see Rome). At least there is no rain falling on me at the moment.

It seems like I could write about every damn detail, like the fervent use of the word “hai” (“yes”) by the hotel clerk, sounding ambiguously subservient or elated. Instead of an umbrella bucket at the door they have a metal apparatus that you stick the umbrella in, which is then enveloped by a custom umbrella-sized plastic bag, then click it out, simultaneously tightening the bag around the top and readying the next bag.

These aren’t even the sites to see! Oh Japan, where are we going?