Kyoto, another one of those places

It's raining again.

Kyoto is the cultural centre of Japan. In order to celebrate arriving in this significant historical location, the first meal I had (lunch) was KFC. I had a Zinger Burger, chips and an odd fruity soft drink.

I found an Osamu Tezuka shop, theatre and manga library in Kyoto station. Although the museum of his work is about a week away on my agenda, I decided to stop by here anyway. Osamu Tezuka was the guy who created Atom Boy, who we all know as Astro Boy in 1952. Let's just say my cedit card took a bit of a pounding, and I need to send another box of stuff home.

While waiting to get to my accommodation (usually check-in time is the afternoon) I went to a Buddhist Temple near the station. There was a book store there that had some English books which looked interesting, but I restrained myself and didn't buy any.

Learning Japanese isn't that hard. The hard part is learning kanji, the Chinese characters for things. I'm starting to recognise a few like Entrance, Exit, Toilet, People, Minutes, Yen, Day, Month and so on.

On the way out of the book store, I noticed the door had the kanji for both entrance and exit written together. I had not seen it written this way before and to me it meant the door was both and entrance and exit at the same time. I paused on this for a minute to consider the existential rammifications of both entering and exiting the building in parallel, considering I had already gone through this portal once. Would I never be able to leave the building as I had already exited when I entered? Would the concept of outside cease to exist, and I'd be trapped, never able to pass through an entrance again. I was pondering the meaning of all of this when someone asked me to move so they themselves could pass through this hiation in the wall. As they seemed to be able to pass through, without blinking into proto-existence, I decided I would have to traverse this post-modern paradox.

I came to the conclusion that the symbols themselves were semiotic ideograms symbolic of a larger post-structuralist interpretation of what is "inside" and what is "outside."

All that, just for a door.

Last night, a helpful Japanese bloke showed me this exhibition space for some Multimedia work. They were pretty good actually. Although it took a while to work out the interface, I did what I usually do and wait until someone goes first. I find that rather helpful.

The Internet Cafe I'm in at the moment, seems really cool. They have lounges for coffee drinkers, are playing some light techno, and have the Matrix playing on a widescreen TV, with Japanese sub-titles. I think I might hang here for a while today. I was going to go and see Ginkaku-ji and Kinkaku-ji, the two really good looking temples which also have Zen gardens with them (I've been told.)

After having read No Logo, am now about 1/2 way through Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger. Although I was forced to read this in High School, I am reading it again now because it about someone looking for meaning when they are in a world full of phony people. The books I have chosen to read in Japan are all basedon the same theme of looking for meaning. Where thill will lead me, I don't know. But it seems here there is a deep search for meaningbe people, but they keep looking in the wrong places. You can't find meaning by looking under the sofa, or behind the bookshelf. It's not that easy.

I saw a girl on the subway yesterday with just the word "Orgasm" on her t-shirt. I don't think she knew what it meant. I didn't get the chance to ask.

Perhaps it's all just hidden from me, under the surface somewhere. But I don't know where to scratch.

All the usual brands are here: HMV, Body Shop, Nike, etc. But I don't think people buy something because of the brand it is. I think people just buy things because they are a Brand in and unto themselves. Look is very important here, surface level imagery, I keep finding stores that sell what I would call kipple, foreign junk. The sort of stuff you can find at Remo, or Gownings, etc. I've said this before I know. But the store I went into yesterday was packed with people buying useless shit. I mean, really, really cool looking useless shit. Although, the stuff I bought at the Tezuka shop also falls into that category, but that's different because it was me, and I knew what I wanted, and it's important.

I've found some of Philip K Dicks work here, and was supprised how much had been translated. But I still don't think the reading of Science Fiction is that common in Japan. I did find a copy of Blade Runner/Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, but will buy it later down the track, to save on lugging it around. The reason I like Science Fiction is becuase it is the projection forward of today's ideas and attitudes into the future. Start Trek was created in the 60's when there was a growing fear of an US and THEM world, and so it tried to break down those barriers by just having EVERYONE. Unfortunately the modern re-incarnation seems to have taken 80's American culture into the future. Although Start Trek:Enterprise doesn't seem too bad, there are way too many continuity errors between it and the other later series. But a lot of other work I've read tends to suck out your brain, mixes it around in a blender and pours it back in through your ear. You are being lied to. Everything is False.

The place I'm staying in, which although is the cheapest accommodation I've had anywhere (because I'm sharing a room with up to 4 other people I don't know) is a firehazard waiting to happen. All those illegal backpacker hostels down in the Cross that burnt down in the 80's and 90's, well, that is what this place reminds me of. So, depending on the rain, I might not stay there too long. But it is really, really cheap.

And on to Hikone

Just a quickie today. I'm actually paying for this Internet Access for once. Am in Hikone, which has one of the four castles designated as National Treasures. Matsumoto was one of them (been there, done that) and Himeji I'll get to next week sometime. I won't make the fourth because I'd have to backtrack, and well, I don't want to do that. If I knew it was there, I would have gone to visit it when I was in the area. Bugger.

The castle wasn't that great. I preferred Matsumoto castle. This one had things like chicken wire over the windows and a few other "modern" bits to make it safer. The grounds also weren't tended all that well. Perhaps if I was here in Cherry Blossom time, it might be better but now, although the castle looks great, the grounds look run down.

I think I might start paying for the more expensive trains soon, yesterday it took about 5 hours to get here. With about 3 changes, which wasn't too bad. The rail system is excellent but the local trains don't have toilets or food available. (Think of going from Sydney to Newcastle on a suburban Tangara, all stations, and back again for 5 hours with a few stops here and there to change trains.) The countryside is really different. When I get home it'll be a culture shock I think.

Everywhere I go though, they say their castle is the best castle in Japan. Kanazawa did that, and their castle had burnt down a hundred years ago and just had the gatehouse left. I mean, it might, once, a long time ago been the best. But now it's a pile of stones and foundation markers. But a very impressive pile of stones and foundation markers.

Anyway, I'm staying in this business hotel that's not too expensive. I almost died when I saw how big the room was (that is, for Japan, at the price I'm paying, it's a big room) but I lose out in the bathroom, which I'll have to take a photo of, because it takes the cake for small.

There is a Chinese resturant here I was going to have dinner at last night, because I really, really wanted some Chinese style dumplings. But all the models of the food in the display window looked just like Japanese food, with slight variations. The dumplings looked like gozen (Japanese dumplings, which although nice, don't compare to somewhere like Sea Bay in Sydney.)

Some of the product names here are really weird. There's a chocolate bar called Crunky, which I think is supposed to be crunchy and chunky. It's crunchy alright, but not chunky. It's like a Nestle Crunch Bar, with the rice bubbles. I found another one today though, called Creap. It's Creamy Powder for coffee. I took a photo of it on the shelf at the supermarket. I might have to buy some to bring home. Here you go Mum, have a jar of Creap.

Tomorrow I'll make use of my JR pass and catch the shinkansen down to Kyoto, grab some accommodation and then bugger off to Nara for the day. Then do Kyoto for a day or two, and then go to Osaka. In Osaka I'll do a day trip to Tarakazuka (where the Osamu Tezuka museum is, the guy who did Astroboy,) and then off to Yokohama the see their Garden (one of the top three, along with Kanazawa and somewhere else.) Then Hiroshima, and maybe a ferry down to the island of Kyushu, depending on where it'll drop me off.

Well, that's it from Kanazawa

Just a quick post. I'm leaving Kanazawa today for somewhere else. Not sure where yet, either Kyoto, Osaka or a little place about halfway between there and here called Hikone (not to be confused with Hakone, just outside of Tokyo.) I've got a really nasty throat bug at the moment. I've got some Japanses cough drugs, which I bought from a chemist, who had no English. It's been fun trying to communicate with someone who has only sukoshi (a little) English.

I was going to go to Nagoya, but my friends there haven't got back to me, so Hikone might be a good half way point to give them another 24 hours to decide. Althought I don't think I will be able to check my email there. Hmmm, might be interesting.

Other then that, I'll probably do my postcards from Kyoto, so they'll go out in the next week or so. I've got postal addresses for quite a few of you out there, but if you'd like a real old fashioned piece of snail mail, send me your address and I'll see what I can do. (It also means you have to send me an email, which would be good :-)

Last night I did some clothes washing. I used the washing machine at the Youth Hostel. It was outside, under cover. You put your clothes in, powder in and 200 yen. It goes, and it stops 32 minutes later. The dryer was 100 yen for 14 minutes, I've no idea why it was 14 minutes. I didn't get everything really, really dry. I was hoping I could work out how to use the airconditioner in my room to finish them off, but I think the heating part of it didn't work. The thing that was weird about it was that I was staying in the Red LIght district. Now, in Sydney if I had used this washing machine (assuming it worked, as someone would have broken it to get the money out) the clothes would have been stolen from it within 30 seconds of me leaving it unattended. My even all my socks matched afterwards. Here, a crime wave is a pickpocket or similar.

Banks here are really different. No popup screens, or queues. You take your stuff in, hand it to a teller and go and sit down. They process it, and call you when it's finsihed or you need to do something. I think it works better than Australia because the junior people can do the easy stuff and the senior can do the more complex things as demand requires. But they have this cool machine for getting change, you put your notes and coins in (yen, of course) and it counts it and give you a display asking what sort of change you want, and then spits it out. Very efficient, very cool. Wish we had them, it's make somethings so much quicker at the bank. This way they just give you a slab of cash, and you work out what you want it changed into.


Have to go, need to get some lunch, and catch a train.

And now a word from Kanazawa

I'm currently in Kanazawa. It's pissing down with rain so there's nothing to do but read my books and post online rants about what it's like here.

I read Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. I am currently going through No Logo by Naomi Klein. Fight Club is a disturbing book, not because of the excessive violence, but because it speaks to a world of people who have inbuilt agression and have no way to exorcise it. It's about men whose fathers abused them, or left them or just didn't connect with them. It's about our constant need to fill our lives with meaningless material possessions that we become tied to. About starting again. From scratch. Removing history and wiping the slate clean. I saw the movie first, and then read the book. I think both have their merits, some parts of the book were better, and the reinterpretation in the movie for some parts were really good.

I met a artist over here from California. She started painting after her breakup with her Australian husband a few years ago. She wasn't classically trained in painting or art, and hadn't painted until recently. She used her work as an expression of her anger. Her works sells quite well in a few galleries in the US, and as such she can take jaunts overseas (like to Japan.) It was suprising how much we had in common in terms of life experience, and how much was different. We had arranged to come to Kanazawa together, but in an episode reminiscient of Friends or Ally McBeal, we must have done the "Just missed each other" thing for about 4 hours in Takayama. Eventually I had to leave to get here, as I was going by the slowest, cheapest form of rail transport. I was supposed to meet her at her hotel by 10am. As usual I got lost trying to find it (and had to negotiate around the second day of Takayama festival.) But got there at 10:02am. The hotel owner said she'd meet me at a resturant near the station. Well, I waited for about 2 hours, wrote a note for the owner to pass on if she saw her. (Trying to explain things like this in Japanese was very hard, "Watashi no tomodachi no Amerika-jin no Heather Gordon san o imashita ka?" At least I got the tomodachi bit right, and didn't call her my egg.)

Anyway, having missed her competely, and I don't think she got my letter because she hasn't caught up with me in Kanazawa yet, I guess I won't see her again. Not everyone has access to their email remotely, and she wanted to go down to the island of Shikoku, which isn't on my agenda (Kyushu island is.)

Two nights ago, I had dinner in a real Japanese Mama resturant. The sort of place where a middle aged Japanese woman provides food and drinks for about 5-10 Japanese business men, who don't want to go home until late at night. It's like she's their second wife, mother and counsellor at the same time. One of the men (and it was only men) equated me with Ian Thorpe, which was kind of cute. The sake was really, really good and the food okay. But this sort of place is like a Japanese institution. They are very common, and very popular. The same men might be there 3 or 4 nights per week, every week. Like the salaryman in Tokyo falling asleep over his Ramen noodles, I just wanted to say "Go Home."

Although Japan doesn't seem as brand saturated as other places (perhaps because I don't know the Japanese brands as well,) but it is evident. Coke, Nike and all the regulars are here but they have to fight for space with the established Japanese brands. Starbucks is the same, as is McDonalds and The Body Shop. Although they both have minor variations, they stick out like sore thumbs where ever they are. When I finish No Logo, I'll try and interpret the Japanese condition in relation to the US and Australian market place.

I came across a bookstore/objects du art shop recently here. They had things for sale that in Australia we'd consider boring, ordinary items. But here, a 1 litre container of American Engine Oil was on sale for 1700 yen (AU$21). You don't buy it to put into your car, you buy it to put onto your bookshelf and have it look cool. Just as in Australia we have those cutesy Japanese stores selling Hello Kitty fakes, and so on, here they have the same but selling Western things. Perhaps I should go and photograph it. Perhaps I should open a shop like it. Think of Gowings, or Remo, but the objects contained are treated as novelty objects of art. Taken out of context, and not used for their real purpose in life (making an engine run) but as items of art.

I have to go and wash some clothes in the dodgiest looking coin operated washing machine I've ever seen. Although it doesn't help that I haven't seen one like this before, so I've no idea how it worlks, yet.

Karaoke and Matsuri

Well, it's actually been a really busy weekend after all that. First Karaoke, then Matsuri (festival).

I stayed a few extra nights at Simon's place (the Australian in Takayama) so I could see the festival. Saturday night we went out drinking to a bar that was located in the sort of place you wouldn't expect to find it. I think it was a word of mouth place. Anyway, lots of Gaijin (Westerners) go there. A bunch of English, Irish and some other Brittish Isles girls and two Japanese blokes turn up to have a drink. We start talking, and before I know it, I'm being dragged off to a Karaoke club. Now, Karaoke in Japan is not the usual drunk blokes at the pub belting out Jimmy Barnes tunes to a packed place. In Japan, you rent a room that has a Laser Disk device that you enter the number of the song into, from a huge list from a book of both Japanese and Western Songs. Simon and I did Men and Work's "I come from a land down under" and the others did the usual mix of ABBA and so on. It was a late night in the end, go home at 4:30am. Simon had to leave early (2am) because he was on float duty for the festival the next day.

As for the festival which was Sunday and Monday. Takayama Matsuri is one of the best in Japan, which was why I was glad to see it. It involves about 12 large carts, usually about 300 years old with very detailed ornamental Shinto imagery on it, being pulled around the town. There was also marches of people in Shinto Priest gear and all that. These things were about 2 by 3 meters wide/long and at full extension about 4 meters high. They had about 10 men at the front pulling 3 or more on the sides and back. They were very, very heavy. Anyway, they looked very impressive. They seemed to just fit around some of the streets they went down, and were pulled very carefully by the workers. At night they put lanterns on them and pulled them back to the start of the festival, and then went off and parked them in the special warehouses for another 12 months. Simon was the first Westerner to pull a float (well, the first anyone remembers) so lots of Japanese people wanted to get a photo with him in his special gear. There was another Westerner in the parade of Shinto Priets, which whenever they stopped, would pull out small chairs to sit on, and the Japanese would queue up to have their photo with him. The night time floats also had kids sitting on top of them, singing and playing traditional flutes.

After the late night of Karaoke on Saturday, Simon had left early because he was a float duty (well, he left at 2am.) Anyway, being a bit hung over, from about 9am on Sunday (the first day of the festival) he was given lots of Sake, Sake and more Sake. Takayama is famous for its Sake, which was pretty good really because on Sunday, we all drank lots of Sake. But Simon probably had the most. After the festival was over and the carts were placed back in their warehouses, more people brought Sake to the crews, and food as well. But the end of the night, Simon, I think, was a little well saturated. And on Monday, he did it again. It was a great experience.