oh boy

this morning (J time) one of my greatest friends ever landed safely in God's country, returning to a jetlagged reality. things here are a bit quieter now. for the past week, however, i'm proud to say that we together enjoyed some of the most exciting, surreal moments of my life. being the first of my peeps from home to pay a visit (eh-hem...), i felt it was a good gauge of how accustomed i've become to these strange lands. i was a bit concerned that i'd lost my ability to adequately communicate with folks the way i used to, but those fears have since hella-subsided. i also feel reassured that japan is fun. not like smoking pot and playing video games fun, but like spending 13 of your daily 24 hours laughing your ass off fun.

i wasn't quite sure when to expect said VIP. equipped with a flight number and a powerful thirst for the 'Net, i called it a day at work and scoped the narita arrivals. seeing her flight arriving aboot an hour early, enthused, i hit the f'in bullet train station. i figured on a 2 hour window of arrival. i and the JR staff must've felt me a douche, all excitedly getting up to stand at the turnstiles twice and hour and whatnot. came in on the last train o' the day.

i've been to himeji castle numerous times, and had never thought to venture further from the station than the magnificent castle that it is. since i'd spent the prior 3 weeks gaining knowledge of the greater kinki region (no shit), i heard tell of a joint that might be worth a visit. after working for a couple hours in the AM, we hit up Shosha-zan (書写山). bus from the station-ski, cable car to the top-ski, fucking fantastic....ski. ch-ch-check it:

this was this Hugh Gass bell that you could swing that there Heav Yass log into. i struck the bitch exactly 21 minutes before the quake (which i'll discuss in a mo'). the sheer resonance surprised the shit out o' me.

so basically, from the cable car it's like a network of trails and dirt roads leading you to all sorts of different temples and seemingly abandoned establishments. it was cold and friday, so most folk were at work or all snuggled up under the kotatsu. coupled with some unexpected snow, the solace was incredible. we were at one with our awe and sarcastic jokes. one trail was lined wit all deez statues and shit. this was my absolute fave.

this is a bit obscure, but it's the main temple of the complex. neither of us were in the least bit prepared for how fucking sweet it was.

it kind of jutted out 'the hillside. had there been any people there, it might not have been so impressive. we did our best to fit in with the times. went inside and lit some incense and everything. we even hid our beers in our pockets!

anybody see "the last samurai" starring tom mothafuckin' cruise!? this place look familiar?? eh??? there go my hollywood-style name drop for the day. BOOM.

it's hard to capture the scale and beauty of places like these on film. it's even harder to do on flash memory. this was some sort of boarding school for monks back in the day.

the woodwork was quite exceptional. thought my old man would especially dig it, were he to visit. (eh-eh-hem...)

another attempt to showcase the grandeur.

this tomb up on the mountain-piece.

from there we boarded the cable car for the ride down. we shared the cab with only the staff, who explained to us in japanese that there had been an earthquake in the Tohoku area, that there was a tsunami (津波) warning, and that we should take care heading home. at the bottom, Horace hooked up varying reports of the magnitude ranging from 7.4 to 9. didn't think much of it, and continued the adventure. wasn't until the phone call/email from momma that we thought it was serious, and wasn't until we got home all fucked up that we saw the footage. absolutely unbelievable. however, as there was no (AND STILL IS NO) danger posed to us, we took it in stride.

hit up kyoto the next day:

expansive graveyard. the best part about it was that we found it by taking what was probably the wrong side street.

i got this sweet new app for the H-man. allows him to take super scene photos.

kiyo-mizu dera was having this festival of lights that started the night we were there. mighty sweet!

there was this crazy bright spotlight comin from yonder mountain. not sure what that was all about.

this is the kiyo-mizu, or clear water. it comes from a "mysterious spring" in the mountain-piece, and let me tell you, tastes FUCKING FANTASTIC. we seized the opportunity right quick.

the UV sterilizing chambers for the mizu (water) scoops. solid engineering and a desire for freshness at every turn here on J street. we used two of these bad boys to fill up my water bottle (thanks doug and amy) with the sweet, life-giving liquid, then drank the shit out of it in a hard fought battle against our hangovers the next day*.

the best night view i got from the temple, reflected on the surface of a small pond. you see, i hadn't the proper settings on me digi camera-piece, and had to hand it over to the professional to hook shit up.

next stop was nara. it's true that kyoto was the capital before tokyo, but nara is like the grandaddy capital. apparently there's a great-grandaddy capital as well, but i didn't catch the name. besides, it probably has a naked lady tattoo and is always trying to scare the shit out of you by yanking his fake teeth.** here it go:

homeboy is clearly caged up for a reason. this was all wood by the way pops.

this is 東大寺 (todaiji). 'tis the largest wooden building in the world.

it houses this 大仏, or big buddha. michelle got in there for scale purposes, but it's still bigger than it looks. take note of the nostrils.

another bad ass wooden sculpture. i simply can't get enough of them. it's like that lay's (maybe) potato chip commercial back in the day that was all like "betcha can't eat just one!".

hopefully y'ins all noted the nostrils of the big buddha as instructed. this is a nostril-sized hole in one of the pillars in the temple through which, if one fits, one will be blessed with enlightenment in their next life. slid through like a greased goddamn pig, thank you very much.

anyway, it was easily the most enjoyable week i've had in japan to date. if anyone thinks they can help me beat it, good fucking luck. that said, i invite you all to try!


in other news, i got a new baby. now, i know what you're all thinking: "michael, you're way to young for that type of bullshit." but no, it's been far too long. i call it The Stallion, and it's beautiful and fast as shit:

weighs less than my backpack usually does, and loves me with all it's heart.

The Stallion and The Little Mule together. i still have plenty o' use for Ol' Muley, took him out on the train today in fact.

what follows can possibly be described as a rant, and is not necessarily in line with the positive attitude of this post. for those not interested, kindly skip on to the next photo.

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in extra other news, let's get down to the fuckin earthquake. i can honestly say that i've never seen such devastating video footage in my entire life. this is partly due to the fact that it's 2011 and japan is a super high-tech country. many people were equipped to capture the moment from their cell phones and cameras. i even saw some footage from this dude's webcam as he tried to steady himself in the middle of his room.

for those of you who don't know, it went a little something like this: japan is a highly tectonically active country, much like the US, Chile, New Zealand, and numerous others. off the coast of Tohoku, the pacific plate meets the north american plate, creating a subduction zone. the pacific plate (from here on referred to as "packie-p") dives under the north american plate ("namps"; "ol' nampy"; "the nampster"), creating a subduction zone. for the last hundreds or thousands of years, packie-p's been dragging ol' nampy down towards the core of the earth, and friction's been doing it's best to keep them together. on friday at 14:42 local time, however, the nampster simply couldn't take any further bending, and snapped back into place. essentially springing "upward", this displaced an incredible amount of seawater. the ensuing 津波 was absolutely catastrophic.

like i mentioned earlier in the post-piece, J-street engineering is fucking top notch. it's the reason that quake-inflicted structural damage was relatively limited. after the Great Hanshin Earthquake, folks here went to great measures to re-engineer numerous buildings across the country. there were even 津波 barriers in place. this scenario, however, was more or less worst case. i'm not sure it will ever be possible to protect anything against the 9.0 magnitude-13 meter combo.

while the danger posed from the partially exposed reactors at Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant are still very real, i'm afraid that the media is seriously over-hyping the situation. this is a widely known phenomenon (the over-hyping thing), yet i'm consistently surprised by how hard people bite the fucking hook. if i'm wrong, then i'll sincerely apologize. for now, however, i don't feel that there's any danger to tokyo, let alone me. i honestly believe that creating a panic in a greater metro area of 30-40 million people would be even more disastrous than the events of the previous week. this idea is most likely on the government's radar.

also, if you're one of the selfish mofo's who's thousands of miles away, trying desperately to relate this horrific incident to yourself by stocking up on iodine pills and bottled water, please stop watching the fucking news.
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in other extra other news, i got all fat.

then turned into a zombie.

*shortly after this peaceful photo shoot, we deftly located the only reggae dance club in town, embarrassed all the wannabe rug-cutters in the house, and called it a day.

**this may not be funny or even understandable if you didn't know "GG", but if you didn't, and it is, sweet.

what i haven't learned

i've learned vast amounts in the past 29 years, that's for goddamn sure. still, there seem to be some simple things that i just can't get my head around. for example, i can't walk for more than 10-12 months without spraining an ankle or two. if y'all remember correctly, the last one mentioned on this'n here blow-gauge took place in cambodia (glass ankles), at the most famous o' wats. since then there's been two. funny enough, since 2008, i've sprained an ankle every march. 2011 stepped it up a notch... the most recent (and it's pretty fuckin recent) is a minor sprain of the left anterior ligament, and oughtta heal up before too long. got me an L size brace and can still rock the wheels without too much trouble.

on to fluids. i am NEVER without potable liquid. it's a habit that i developed sometime in college. coffee, water, beer, o-juice, you name it. this being the case, i always drink from the largest containers around. considering all of the facts, one might think that i'm pretty good at pouring beverages into my mouth. alas, 10-12 times monthly, i miss my lips at least partially, increasing the urgency of the next laundry load.

moving on once again to jerks. this one i'm coming around on, but i still lack sizeable balls to say no to aaaassholes. sometime during childhood emerged an unrealistic fear of confrontation, and it haunts me to this day. coupled with the fact that i prefer to be a nice guy... you get the picture.

i almost always forget to smile at girls as well. the stares received in this narrow land are plentiful. when it's old men, looking as though i'm the spawn of satan, it can be pretty annoying. however, when it's young beautiful women, wondering if i'm the second coming of christ, my spirits lift appropriately. i often stare back, but mistakenly keep a straight face, as if to telepathically say "hi, i'm boring". in most cases, i just end up looking creepy. "shit!" i tell myself. "you forgot to smile again." i'd say this roughly occurs 10-12 times per week.

thankfully, the list of things i HAVE learned trumps this list by at least ten or twelve items. moreover, at my advanced age, i still retain the 'bility the acquire new, improved knowledge. i just remain astonished that some basic functions haven't yet come naturally.

inyways..... my life in graphics!!!

delicious grub.

went hiking along this abandoned-ass train line not so far from where i lay my hat. about 10-12 tunnels, no lights, all about 10-12 hundred meters long.

abandoned-ass bridge.

pretty good movement outta the waters around here. saw some suckers in the flats, not much else.

HEADS!! WITH FEET!!

all too familiar.

my awesome view. if it's getting old, just let me know...

night moves.

the man himself.

people.

a pretty cool tree, all sculpted and whatnot.

a pretty big christmas tree.

MY fuckin tree. view from loft.

my tree again. view from carpet.

scared the shit out of me.

this cool bubble fountain. i dug it.

back catalogue

bloggin's pretty far off the radar these days. however, i do so often get the notion. i'm hoping to get back into the groove. here goes a new layout n' some photes:

this is what it's all about. THE TRAIN. it works well here.

sweet ass view of my sweet ass town.

 there's this bridge with a glass bottomed floor that you can walk on. although a bit sketchy, i took solace in the thought that some sumo wrestler had most likely previously stood in the same spot. coupled with J-street engineering efficiency, i felt moderately safe.

the longest suspension bridge in the world, as not shown on wikipedia. i tried to get in on yonder excursion, but alas, i couldn't exactly blend in. i'll bring a hard hat next time.

gotta be careful in the elevators around here.

photo taken from my favorite ferry. i cried for seven solid days upon hearing of said ferry's demise. you see, the bridge toll was recently reduced in an effort to boost (automobile) tourism. with the standard illogical covetousness o' western frivolousness, folks flocked to the pedal, and thus the efficient and cost-effective ferry days dwindled. a buyout, a bankruptcy, and a stockholder revival since, i'll contentedly be on a boat again come march.

rice.

this was some sweet ass shrine in more or less the middle of nowhere. as exploration is easily a tertiary motive for every decision i make, i figured what the fuck.

PUT MONEY IN MY BOX 'CAUSE I'M ANGRY!!

could you put some money in my box please?

the best thing about this joint was the lack of people. other than the deafening cicada, there really wasn't a whole lot goin on.

more rice and whatnot. actually, i suppose these are more like vines and tubers.

safety is key.

especially when you got a dog. don't forget your fuckin' tackle though.

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Terebi

I love watching J street news. It let's me know that there is definitely some shit happening. Somewhere. I think most of it's in japan. Today there are mad flash floods and landslides and shit, most definitely results of the recent flurry of sweet sweaty storms.

Sat on the balcony in my draws last night until umbrella-san damn near flipped wrongways. Needless to say, I love me some heavy rains.

Garden's never much thirsty, and withstanding the winds with a bit of buttressing and some periodic minor repairs. Harvest's a-closin, and there's still three months of growin season.

golden oldies

yesterday marked the last of a string of national holidays. all of my students, upon interrogation, didn't much care what the holidays were, only that they were in fact days off of work. this is a common phenomenon with most holidays here, well reflecting the national workoholic attitude. for those interested, in succession, it went:

4/29 - previous emperor's birthday (the current's is also celebrated, 12/23)

5/3 - constitution day (when the long, skinny land was wrangled from the depths of feudal lawlessness)

5/4 - green day (a bit like earth day. i find it less important, because japan, as a state, is way more environmentally conscious than most others)

5/5 - children's day (a total fucking misnomer. it's only celebrated if you have a boy. in the ladies' defense, however, march 3rd is reserved for celebrating womanhood.)

collectively this is known as Golden Week. this particular year, 5/1 and 5/2 fell on a weekend, so much long-lasting fun was had by all. especially me. it went a little somethin' like this:

i wrapped up thursday around 9:45, then headed for osaka to catch the 11:30 night bus to hiroshima. the night bus is by far the cheapest way to travel most places. i heard nothing but complaints from peeps about the lack of sleep and whatnot. i thought it was fine. i didn't sleep much, but, as previously stated, it was REALLY fuckin cheap.

got to hiroshima round about 7 in the am and set out on the exploration tip. walked around a bit, took the following photos:

the place quite reminded me o' p-town. there are a few rivers running through it, everybody rides bikes, and a couple hundred thousand of it's inhabitants were needlessly murdered once. no wait, maybe just the river and the bikes part.

also there were mountains nearby. this is a common feature of most places on J-street.

this was the first thing to... i keep saying "blow me away", but only for lack of a better phrase. i mean no disrespect by it; it just fits. this is a panoramic photo of the "city" shortly after the attack. you'll notice that almost nothing is left standing. everything within a mile was completely fucked.

atop the monument, you'll notice a whole bunch of paper cranes. these are in memoriam of a girl who developed lukemia after the bombing. she very much didn't want to die, and there is a japanese legend that if you fold 1,000 paper cranes, your wish will come true. she died before folding all 1,000 though.

center: genbaku domu, or atomic bomb dome. 'twas the closest building to the blast to remain standing.

little boy exploded about 500 meters from yon' building. the river here is quite famous. after the temperature on the ground reach roughly 3000°C, a lot of people started looking for water. their skin was melting off, and they weren't too comfortable. some people made it to the river (which was also incredibly fucking hot), and some just piled up on it's banks. pretty much all of them died.

this is the Aioi bridge right by the dome-piece. T-shaped, it was easily visible from the sky, and was the determined target. homeboy came pretty close. neither horseshoes nor hand grenades, but effective either way.

this is a clock tower across the river from the dome-ski. every day at 8:15 am, the clock chimes. this is the exact time of the explosion on august 6, 1945. friday morning, i happened to be walking right past this clock at that time. it really put things into perspective. i looked around at folks sitting on park benches and biking to work. just like any other day.

what i basically gathered was this:
japan was a broken country long before the bombing. germany had fallen, and japan would inevitably find no alternative. the war was pretty much over. america had multiple options for securing an end to the war. they could have invaded japan troop-style, perhaps costing the lives of up to a couple thousand people who volunteered to die for their country in battle. they also could have renegotiated the terms of surrender they proposed to japan. they were a bit unreasonable to begin with, and basically granted japan no rights.

in reality, america had invested a billion dollars and a whole bunch of man power in "the bomb". the combination of man's ruthless curiosity and the need to justify such cost to the american public pretty much paved the way for the unbridled destruction of life. interestingly, when the set of potential targets was chosen, all further air raids on the targets were cancelled. these fuckin pricks wanted to have a clean slate so they could witness and document the full effects of the bomb. hiroshima was chosen because it housed a fairly major military installation, had a landscape that would minimally hinder the atomic bomb's annihilation, and didn't contain any POW camps. god forbid a couple of captive american soldiers die amidst HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of innocent japanese people.

before visiting hiroshima, i was a bit worried that i would feel embarrassed due to my nationality. thirty seconds after entering the museum, all semblance of birth place was forgotten, and i remain in disbelief that people from any country could authorize, execute, and benefit from such an action.

after some sobering morning exploration, miyajima was in the sights. this is an island close to hiroshima, supposedly harboring on of the 3 best views in japan. took the ferry over, shot the following:

itsukushima shrine. built mad long ago. very famous. made of wood.

tall building with five floors. i'm running out of steam on the caption tip...

view of miyajima from miyajima.

this Hugh Jass temple on miyajima. all open, all wood. it was raining a bit at this time, which added to the ambience.

another view of the temple. it was pretty neat!

there was a priest here a long time ago who developed the revolutionary rice paddle that we all know and love today. his innovative design spread like mononucleosis in a junior high school, and rendered miyajima somewhat of a celebrity. there are oversized replicas like this one all over the place.

part of a network of temples in the tidal flats.

yet another view of the shrine made famous by japanese postcards. miyajima was overall incredibly beautiful. the only trifling thing was the deer. deer in japan are a national treasure, and mustn't be harmed. as a result, they are way too fucking tame, and try to eat all of your apples. right out of your hand. i got into a bit of a skirmish with one of them. i think it was more used to high-pitched screaming and cringing, and not so much to having 'bows dropped on it's face-piece. score one for lil' mikey...

stayed that night at an internet cafe. i mentioned this in my previous post. hands down the coolest place i've ever stayed. although exhausted, i stayed up watching movies and eating ice cream.

here's what it looked like. sweet padded floor with a bean bag chair, electrical outlet, and wastebasket. a shower cost four bucks.

took the bus back to kobe in the evening, much shorter than the night bus. worked the next day, then took a serious hike on this island to camp for a night with some buds. next morning headed back mainland to meet up with a student who wanted to take me to a tea ceremony. unshowered, wearing shorts and short-sleeves, i rushed up to her car. inside i found three beautiful women dressed in full kimono, and immediately felt as though i'd slightly under dressed for the occasion. i suppose it was expected that i wouldn't get it right (being a foreigner and all), but i felt disappointed in myself that i played right into the stereotype.

anyway, the tea ceremony was one of the sweetest experiences i've had in japan to date. even the women i was with had never experienced such a traditional event. the guy whose house we went to was basically mad rich, and had a tea ceremony room built into his house/garden. super private, super traditional.

his backyard was designed by some famous landscape architect and has been featured on television programs. there were multiple paths, and they used traditional markers such as this to kindly show which way not to go.

another marker, after being removed from the path (to let us know it was time to go down said path).

my man collects antiques. seriously. inside was like a museum, with spot-lit glass cases and the like. he even had an autographed photo of gerald ford.

sweet back yard, hella-scaped.

afterward, i was treated to a traditional japanese dinner at this super sweet restaurant. clockwise from top left: tempura rice-type thing, raw horse tongue, rare beef with tasty sauce, tempura spinach, seaweed in thick broth, tomato with cheese/bean combo stuffing, tempura lotus root with spicy mustard. it was BAD ASS.

apologies for the awful picture quality. mostly i just want to drive home what an asshole i was, and also how sweet it was to hang out with kimono-clad ladies for an afternoon.

in summation, the past week kicked tons of ass. i'd say that i'm now living the shit out of the dream. also, if you've ever supported war, for whatever reason, please visit hiroshima.

cyber sleep

comin at ya live, mid-hiroshima trip, with a quick update:

i've decided that i'll never stay in another hotel again, so long as there's an internet cafe nearby. for about $20, you get 9 hours in this sweet little booth with a bean bag chair, computer, pillows, and blankets. all the dvds you can watch, cheap showers, and unlimited soft-serve and whiskey and coke. ok, you have to provide the whiskey, but i ain't kiddin about the ice cream.

it's easily the coolest place i've ever stayed, and quite possibly the cheapest (relative to the local GDP, naturally).