Saturday, March 24, 2007

From the sleepless nights

From the depths of the meganopolis, I write to thee.
Packed away in a manga cafe, sleeping the night away on a sofa chair, behind a computer screen in tokyo.
After a night of club seeking, to see the youth of tokyo party proper.

My body akes, I'm not sure i'll manage going out two nights in a row, much traveling ahead for me today...

So another week has passed, the weather is warming and cherry blossoms are starting to appear; the main bulk though has yet to open- perhaps they will unfold while I am still here!

My weekend at Louise was great, Saturday was a lazy day in Shimonoseki which ended in bar hoping in Kokura - a nearby town. I got to meet more of her Japanese and foreigner friends, including one guy who runs a club and techno parties. All very itneresting. Here I started to also imagine what it would be like living in Japan. The peak moment of the night though was definetly taking photos in one of the photo booth forums they have, you know those things that print out funny thumb sized pictures. They had costumes for free rental, so we, 6 of us, got dressed in funny japanese styled garb and took very silly poses! Toot!

Sunday I slept loads, and then we ended up again in Kokura for a movie [the parfumist] and an early evening in bar whatching her friend play music. It felt like I was in Shimonoseki ages, but it was only 3 nights... Louise tells me that she will stay at least another year, I hope she enjoys her time here, as I am not 100% sure she is happy in Japan, and to be honest I don't think I'd manage living here my self. We parted and promissed to see each other again in a different country again next time... as we seem to do.

After that I headed to Osaka, to meet Raymond, a guy I didn't know yet but was connected to via Ruby - another friend of mine. I arrived, but Raymond was not in town; so I checked into a local capsule hotel in the bar/club area.

I combed the streets and bumped into some foreigners: 2 girls and a guy, and joined them as they went into a bar. Within an hour this was the situation:

All 4 of us had our shirts off [girls had bras still on], one girl was sitting on my lap facing me with her head back resting on the otherguys lap. The other girl was sitting over the top of the figure H with her but towards me: rubbing the other girls breasts. The bartender was speachless, probably enjoying it. at that very moment 2 girls walked in, we quickly got our shirts on.

This was all developing into a four-sum situation rather rapidly, I admit the thought was rather tempting, but in actuality it didn't materliaze, I was not interested - so once we left the bar, I said my good byes to them, and went back to my capsule hotel wheer I slept as long as I could until I had to get up beacuse of checkout tmie [darn checkout limits!]

I needed more sleep, the best way I have found to sleep in Japan - durring the day - is to take a long distance rapid train... its comfey and it looks like you are going somewhere, so sleeping is 'ok'.

I indulged by taking a nap, i mean trip, to the biggest and oldest castle in all of japan, slept a couple of hours more both ways and got ack to Osaka. While waiting to call Raymond a Japanese guy walked up to me, introduced himself and bought me a drink, we talked, he liked my artwork very much - quite interesting. Very friendly!

Finally I met Raymond, he gave me keys to his house, my own room and a bicycle... dude what a score! Things are so much different now that I have a pad, I can leave most of my things there, and its close to Kyoto too! Raymond left after 2 days to Cambodia, but he's let me stay in his flat while he's gone! What an angel. Raymond is an english teacher, like all the foreigners I meet here who live in the country. His favorite passtime? Playing scarble with other english teachers!

I've had a couple of days in Kyoto, man its huge! There are many temples to see, rediculously huge numbers of the, and there are some trees here! Oddly enough. In two days I've seen only about 1/5th of all the sites in the city, if not less. It has 12 world heritage sites, and even though I've seen lots already, Ihaven't even gotten to any of them yet! I did see the origin place of the three monkeys: hear, say, taste no evil.

In Koyoto, at the station on the 1st day I had lunch and a Japanese couple befriended me over pasta: Manami and Dices(u)ke. The communication is not always easy, but that didn't stop us from becoming good friends. They took me to all the really ncie places, like a place where you can see 1001 buddas, the temple of the lvoe wish [i kid you not] and small winding streets where I can vouch that I actually sighted 3 actual Gaisha's int he streets [two of them were being pulled by foot-taxies]. We had a luxurious meal where I ate the best tempura of the whol trip and the best bamboo shoots I've ever tasted, fresh from the nearby fields I'd presume.

On my second night I did more of the same, only focussed more on pebble gardens. Ending my night in a 'punk band concert club' I stumbled accross. Entertaining!

This is my last weekend of speed-trains before my pass expires, so I went to Tokyo to see Kyoko again for a last time, and pick up my books and some things I left with her. Today I think I'm going to leave with a digital SLR camera, as my camera is barely working anymore and nearly bust. [the flash dead, zoom broken, randomly screws up pictures as I take them...haha]

I'm a bit hestitant spending the money, but I supose its a good thing. I'm going for the entry level of the professional line camera's this time: so now I'll be able to use interchangeable lenses and do lots more manual settigns [shouldn't I have gotten a nice pro camera BEFORE my trip, instead of at the end of it?] - oh well.

Man, I'm dead, I've only slept 2.5 hours!

It's fun being in Tokyo again, Japan is weird. Part of me wants to leave and rush my time here, and part of me knows I will miss Japan and is enjoying it here greatly. It's a real mixed feeling.

Tokyo makes one very restless, thats what people generally say about it, so its good I will be in Osaka for a week instead. Tomorrow I'm going to Nara with my Kyoto friends [Manami and Diceske] and then I have 7 days to see what would probably take 21 days in the local region before my flight leaves! Not to mention doing some final shopping.

The biggest qusetion, what everyone in Japan is taking about, is:

Will the land explode in a sea of pink?
Or will I miss the explosion?

Love,

seb.

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