Blahgorrhea

I am definitely getting the hang of things being in a foreign land, but I am so happy that Jen is here to experience it all with me. The worst part of being alone was that I could not share the new things with her. I was unable to fully appreciate what I was experiencing without her to share it with. We are now in a temple in the mountain town of Koya-san. The monks open their temples to visitors, prepare two meals and include them in prayers in the morning. We just finished our enormous vegetarian meal with all sorts of strange tofu-based foods. Jen didn’t eat all that much because she didn’t like the mushy consistency of the tofu, but I had a ball trying all the new things. The dessert was a thick gelatin flavored of orange. It did not melt in your mouth the way Jell-o does, and you could cut it with a knife. I had fun playing with it as I ate.

After dinner, I took a shower and stepped into a real Japanese hot bath. The water was wonderfully warm and felt great compared to the cold mountain air. It is only 8:00pm or so now, and Jen is already asleep. Hopefully she is just suffering from jet lag. It is very peaceful up here, sitting on the tatami mats with a paper screen door that opens to a garden. We are both wearing the traditional kimonos for dining and sleeping, called yakuta, so I feel appropriately Japanese. Tomorrow we get up for a 6:30am prayer followed by a fire ceremony and then breakfast. It should be fascinating.

It seems that travelling across a country by train could just as easily be here or there. The scenery mostly looks the same. On my journey from Tokyo to Osaka the towns looked different from towns between cities in France in two ways: the signs were in a different alphabet, and the rooftop shingles were distinctively Asian. If you didn’t have a keen eye for shingling, you may not even be able to tell the difference.

I arrived in Osaka by shinkansen, the famous Japanese bullet train, which I suppose was quite fast. I got frustrated quickly trying to navigate yet another station (Shin-Osaka) and realizing that I needed to take a subway to get to the hotel. There seemed to be even fewer English signs than in Tokyo. I stopped at the tourist help desk for help, but I still needed to ask a couple more people for help doing things like purchasing subway tickets. I suppose I should feel proud of myself for having done as much as I have in such a foreign land, but instead I am just frustrated. [Continue reading…]

Today was a good food day. I went to a recommended tonkatsu place for lunch (Katsukura), on the 14th floor of a department store. They give you toasted sesame seeds in a mortar to crush up and mix with their special sauce. Barley in their rice added a nice texture, and their smoked tea had great undertones. This was probably the only pork dish I would like, though it was definitely fattier than I would have hoped for. Still it tasted good. I ordered the “extra special” cutlet, which was from some name brand pig. I wonder what the usual pig tastes like. This was another place that give you tons of food: cabbage, pickles (yum!), rice and soup accompany the pork. They offered free refills of the side dishes, but I had a hard enough time just finishing what I was served. [Continue reading…]

I managed to get some things done this afternoon that needed doing. I bought stamps for a family friend, made hotel reservations in Nara and Kyoto, and got a train ticket to Osaka. For a city that is really hard to navigate, the officials make it especially difficult to find the tourist information centers. The two I went to today were on the 10th and 8th floors of the office buildings. That is certainly not what a tourist would expect, and I was asked to fill out a questionnaire saying so at the 10th floor office. [Continue reading…]

I managed to find my way to Tsukiji market this morning. And I sort of got suckered into eating at a restaurant. The owner came out when he saw me peek in to tell me what was on the menu. I think he really just wanted to practice his English, since he wrote down a bunch of Japanese phrases for me and explained them all to me. He was very nice though, and his fish was quite good. I had a tuna sashimi plate with tea, miso soup and rice. It was a big mound of raw tuna with a few pieces of seared tuna on the side. The raw stuff still tasted like the sea. This was my breakfast, but hey, when the fish comes in fresh at 7am, there is nothing wrong with eating it raw at 9am.

I am sitting in the park surrounding the Imperial Palace, feeling more alone than I ever have in my life. There is something about this town that just makes me feel totally isolated. Not speaking the language, I wander down streets as life happens regardless of me. It is a very humbling and intimidating feeling.

I arrived in Tokyo in a daze. Getting to the train and getting my ticket were easy (mainly because the people at the Japan Rail desk helped me), but once I stepped off they train, I was in a whole new world. People flew, no swarmed, past me as I wandered trying to find the transfer to my next line. I stood in a cloud of doubt on the rush hour crowded train, before disembarking at my stop. Hoping for signs for the correct exit, I got lucky and found myself at street level, immersed in a crisp night air filled with neon light energy and more swarms. [Continue reading…]

Why do we bring back souvenirs from vacations for people? A few sleepless nights before departing for Japan, I was running through a list of people it would be polite of me to bring back gifts for, and I thought how silly of a notion this is. Given the root of the word, French for “to remember,” it makes no sense to bring back gifts of remembrance from places that other people did not go to, and thus have no memories of. My apartment is filled with artwork, trinkets and tchotchkes from all over the world, but only the ones that I bought for myself carry real memories and thus higher value. Sure, it is cool that I have three iron stirrups from different countries in South America, but having never been to those places, they are merely objects taking up space in an already crammed room. [Continue reading…]

I view my trip to Japan as my white road adventure, much like Gary Erickson of Clif Bar had white road adventures biking through Europe. Of course, I don’t know if Japan has white roads and red roads (though given their flag, it would seem appropriate). In fact they might use all different colors for their roads. But what that analogy means is that travelling to Japan with only a vague image of a plan is my chance to step outside my comfort zone and grow as a person. [Continue reading…]