autumn tactics

Obon is the Festival of the Dead. Though obon traditionally fell in July, it varies from region to region, and the generally accepted period is now three days in the middle of August. Nearly all corporations offer their employees obon break, though it isn’t a national holiday. Obon is one of the two big family vacation times, the other being New Year’s, when people usually tend to return to their parents’ house. This returning to one’s origins is not for only the living, but the deceased as well. Families’ ancestors’ spirits return the their graves, and their kin assemble to pay respects. At the end is a lovely festival of lights to help lead the departed back to the world of the afterlife.

I don’t have any blood relations in Japan but when I first started out here I met some very dear people that to me were family, so traditionally every summer for obon I would go back to the beginning, to Nara, and visit with them.

But times change and people move on. All of the people I grew up with in Kansai are moved or estranged, so going back now has become little more visiting with ghosts in another victim of urban sprawl and over development. It’s just as well because in recent years I’ve been working too much to really notice.

So the saying goes, “Obon mo shigoto da ze!“, which means “Obon is also work!” This is a play on a classic drama Hisatsu shigotonin where the original saying goes　something along the lines of, “Shigoto no ato wa shigoto da ze!“, which means “After work comes work!” This tongue-in-cheek line is comedy that rubs the wrong way, since so many of us in Tokyo are bound and chained to this work-centric lifestyle anyway. Nowadays the particular place it I notice it though is on pachinko ads in the trains.

2008 marks the fortieth anniversary of film series “Otoko wa tsurai yo” (It’s Tough Being a Man). The protagonist, Tora-san, deserves a proper post to himself, but here’s a shot from the Yamanote line platform at Shibuya displaying the cool countenance of Japan’s perennial hard luck lover.

My cherry tomatoes have also come of age the last couple weeks, though for the most part it hasn’t been a good harvest at the Ventura farm this year. I didn’t do any cultivation research in advance so I guess this is what I get. I know I can get more out of my crop; things have just been so hectic I don’t have time to do much more than water at midnight and in the morning. The tomatoes tasted okay; not superb, but passable. When steamed the carrots were half-decent as well.

Though the particular date often escapes me, summer always brings the terminal feelings associated with my anniversary of living in Japan. Another cycle is spent; I’ve been here five years. I don’t know what is right anymore; I act but with so much less anticipation. I’m so tuned and adept at certain things but so blind to a myriad of others that I used to entertain. It’s like being in a crowded room with hundreds of people talking all at once but over time you unconsciously develop the habit of filtering them out one by one, until it’s as if you’re the only person for miles.

The first place I lived was a weekly mansion in Takaido. I bought a used mint green Ralph Lauren oxford for five hundred yen and I wore it to work the first day after nicking my Adam’s apple shaving in the morning. The photographs I took then were beautiful to me, but now looking at them I can hardly believe that they’re mine. It’s like seeing yourself at a party as a stranger.

I am exhausted, completely exhausted: physically, mentally, emotionally– in every way imaginable. A single pint of beer makes the following day almost intolerable. It seems that 85% of my life is muscle memory, and my brain is eternally drugged. I keep thinking to myself, if I just eat a little healthier, if I just change the position I sleep in, or how I hold myself when I walk, it’ll all come together and I’ll feel like I used to, like I barely remember.

I’m learning, but how much and at what cost I can’t keep track of any more.

Too tired to sleep…

[I just noticed that this is post 700. Seven hundred in just a little over five years; though the last nine months the rate has really slowed.]

The last several days have been…vintage Rusty. Assumptions, preconceptions, goals and limitations. Extremes are still my master, I soon forget my rules and principles. But oh how the fire burns! As the flames shrink, a deeper heat, an enduring one swells within. What have I learned other than my own weaknesses ad nauseam? Small things. Small beauty more timeless and sacred than my petty aspirations. Stories told by captivating old men, designs for a home to confuse invaders and protect one’s family, through time I slipped– centuries of valor, betrayal, honor, and poetry.

Fujiwara, Yoshitsune, bakufu, and Basho… Tokugawa, Ishiguro, Aoyagi, and Odano. I hiked through knee deep snow under a canopy of dormant sakura. I ate kiritanpo and dojou nabe, visited half a dozen bars and snacks in one night, faltering only at the end. I talked with locals about the Minamoto, matsuri, wabisabi, and satisfaction with life. So many mysteries unresolved, shades of light exposed then drowned out in unfolding darkness. So many questions, so much uncertainty; like the fickle weather of Kakunodate: ten minutes indoors and a crystal blue sky becomes a swirling snow storm.

I watched all four hours of Gone with the Wind, witnessing the horrible self-defeating tragedy of mankind and the eternal yearning for fantasy (ignorance of truth). Satori seems scarce at first but perhaps there is something deeper here to bring to heart.

My first day, New Year’s, took me to Hiraizumi in Iwate. I forgot a number of important items but managed to hack something together with parts from the Ichinoseki ekimae Lawson. I also had oden from a konbini for the first time. It wasn’t bad. After arriving at Hiraizumi, I got set up in my room by 3:00 and then headed out to take as many pictures as I could before dark fell on the quiet, snowy town. I ended up going to Chuusonji and had a cup of amazake while watching the hundreds of temple goers stream up Gogatsu no Saka for hatsumode. I returned to my ryokan at dusk and spent a blissful half-hour spacing in front of a roaring gas furnace before an enormous supper. Though I planned to get a lot done in Photoshop at night, the touch pad combined with some ridiculously grainy Ilford Delta stymied my efforts. It took an hour just to perform dust and scratch removal from fifteen mediocre shots.

Afterwards I gave up on the PC and watched the TV for a couple of hours, the standard New Year’s celebrity shows, before turning in early for the night.

Wednesday I got a lot of mileage out of my day hitting all of the historical sites in the center of town before I had to leave at two. Transfers at Ichinoseki and Morioka were subdued, not many people in Japan travel on January second. I spent half an hour lay over each time and stood on the end of deserted, hulking, hangar-like station platforms watching a sunburst melt over snow-covered warehouses.

Basho came to Hiraizumi to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Yoshitsune’s death. It was then, seeing the open fields, all that remained of the once great Fujiwara monuments, that he wrote the famous haiku to sum up mankind’s fleeting glory.

Natsukusa ya (Ah, summer grass)
Tamedomo ga (All that remains from the ruin)
Yume no ato (of warriors’ dreams)

Though I always turn off my iPod when I enter a temple or shrine, I’ve spent most of my time walking around listening to the solemn half of the Final Fantasy VII soundtrack. While this is fitting, reinforcing the muted, cold atmosphere I half-wished to find on this trip, this is not completely fair. Music, like any other form of art, can be used in recreation to serve us. We see what we want to see, we hear what we want to hear, and we feel what we want to feel. Walking around with headphones all the time reinforces any barriers we already have built up around us, encased in our our little private bubbles. This cannot continue for very long without adverse effect.

So I took off the headphones to leave my mind to idle though. As I further realized when walking through the jukai of Aokigahara, it’s not long before I start making nonsensical remarks to myself, quoting movies and books, frequently in an absurd voice. Before stopping for afternoon tea I wondered aloud if Basho talked to himself three hundred years ago, and if he did, did he quote popular theatrical comedy of the day, pausing to chuckle at how amused with himself he was?

Today I’m starting out on my four-day tour of Tohoku (northeast Japan). I’ve been planning it for days, and set got so many pieces of the puzzle put together in advance, but somehow still managed to first miss the train I hoped for by oversleeping, and then fail to estimate what time it really was and had to run to the station to make the next departure on time. In the process I made quick grab-and-run decisions that I may end up regretting in the next couple of days. The first of these is bringing the 5D, the second leaving behind my tripod. I also forgot the Holga and my positioner. I also declined to bring the Happy Hacking keyboard with me, which leaves me with only the working set of keys on the WinBook (this does not include escape, five, six, zero and consequently right parenthesis]. But all twenty-six letters of the alphabet work, and my current login password doesn’t contain any of the dead keys, so I’m fine as long as the five-year old Li-Ion battery holds up. At least I didn’t pull any boners like leave the power supply at home. I’ve done this with cameras before though.

To get back to the actual trip, I’m travelling to Tohoku, in particular Hiraizumi in Iwate prefecture, and fan favorite Kakunodate in Akita. One of the many challenges in this journey is time management, many in the realm of transportation. In Tokyo where the Yamanote line comes every two minutes, in the country trains come once an hour, and if one’s transfers don’t line up nicely with the sparse number of departures, a nice long fifty minutes or so is spent in the cold staring off of the station platform into rice fields. Today I have to transfer four times to get to my destination, and in the end I have a fifty-minute layover to travel one station. Maybe I’ll get a bus. Maybe I’ll decide to tough it out and walk. Who knows. Maybe I’ll get lucky and get a seat on the bullet train. Maybe not and I’ll be standing. That brings to mind one more thing I forgot to bring: a book.

When I first came to Japan, I spent the better part of my first year answering questions like, “Why do you like Japan so much?” or, “How come you have to live so far away?” And I did my best to convey my nascent feelings of destiny and dreams, and awe; but I routinely fell short of conveying a fraction of the unregulated emotion I had streaming from my heart every second I spent here.

Now it’s 3:36, I’m dead tired and my strength to do anything but collapse is quickly waning, but I am in a position right now to explain it more sufficiently than normally I have the impetus for, so I will fight exhaustion for another thirty [seventy] minutes and write. Today was Saturday, and in many ways not so different from any other, but nearly everything I did was an accent to my motivation to live in Japan.

Last night after getting off of the phone with my mother I prepared for bed and acquiesced that I could watch part of a movie before falling asleep on the sofa and thusly did so. I set an alarm for something like 6:30, but in between torn dreams of unrequited passion that became 8:30. I rose to the shrill crescendo of my old monochrome Toshiba keitai, and spent the first two hours of the day (unintentionally) getting roped into futzing with scans and photo sets more intensive than my computer can handle at the moment. I had plans to go to Horiuchi to get a score of prints for friends and myself, but in doing the math I realized what I wanted to print would cost over three hundred dollars, and so started thinking seriously about buying my own printer and consequently a new computer (briefly a Macintosh until I calculated it would end up costing twice as much as the 5D).

Around 1:00 I went to lunch in Yoyogi, and then headed to Shinjuku Nishiguchi to pick up some film before my trip tomorrow. I locked my bike up in front of pachinko parlor Gaia and in a dazed sort of mood made my way slower than usual through the crowd to look at electronics and the like.

You’ve probably been to any number of Circuit Citys or Best Buys in your life, but at any given time there was never more than a few patrons per aisle in the store. In Tokyo there are commonly more than eight customers per square meter in any centrally-located spot of commerce. This is something that after first arriving exhausts you. But as time goes on it’s not other people all around to avoid but just so much denser an atmosphere– rustling tree boughs and bushes along the winding path to one’s destination. Most of the time I’m incredibly goal driven and take note of this phenomena only half-consciously. But every once in a while I completely give up on time and efficiency and shuffle along idly with only a vague sense of some task to accomplish. It’s at these times that I prickle with the cool shock of from realizing all the everyday differences between this land and the one I grew up in. Here there are so many human beings, buzzing about with a torrent of agenda like so many determined bees. An ocean of wealth and capitalism, and a swarm of tautly smiling, suited staff to guide and direct.

While at Yodobashi I gazed with focused contemplation at a sample photograph borne from the Pixus 9500 inkjet printer until a beaming girl wearing a black Canon windbreaker and matching mini-skirt interrupted my study to ask if there were any questions I had about the product. Half-considering how completely she could really allay my concerns about reflectance range, I politely replied no and said I was just looking. She then nodded and warmly added that if there was anything I needed to just ask, before scurrying away and being absorbed into the writhing mass of commerce I was stationed within. I looked at the oversized sample prints and thought to myself that if my beloved Canon really intends to sell this product line to “professionals”, they wouldn’t distribute questionable testimonies of this quality, smiling to myself before moving on.

After buying my standard ration of high speed film from the gangly, brush-headed clerk in the print department, I had a brief conversation with a crooked-toothed girl at Map Camera about release cables for the A-1. Despite the fact I was interested in a two dollar piece of used wire, she was extremely attentive and sure to give me every chance to examine the device before my purchase. It’s probably the greater part of being lonely before my time, but I always end up trying to extend such interactions as long as possible, to share in some spirited common interest for a few brief moments before I’m out of the store and left again to my own fragmented thoughts.

On the way home I was moved by how clear the autumn sky was and remembered Sister Charles remarking that the October heavens were always the purest blue. When I got home I had a long list of things I intended to do but instead felt quite drowsy and after playing with my release cable for a few minutes fell asleep on the sofa again with the Pixus 9500 product guide spread across my chest.

When I awoke just before five o’clock the sun was desperately clinging to the tops of the Nakano skyline and I rushed to get a few unsatisfactory pictures from the 5D before the day vanished all together. Afterwards I flipped through a couple channels and ultimately settled on the kindergarten television show Pitagora Switch on the Japanese equivalent of PBS. Scooping up the last of some thawed salmon pasta gratin I gathered my bags and set out for Honmachi.

My former neighbor Kimura-san is a big fan of the Swallows’ manager, Furuta, and this weekend is his last series of games as he’s retiring. So I bought a pair of tickets in advance and invited her to the special event against the Dragons where a memorial video reel was due to be played between innings. It was standing room only and we ended up in the last few rows of the upper section behind the home bullpen, but the stadium is small so we still had a fairly good view of the action. Indicative to how things went this season, Chunichi kicked the snot out of Yakult, despite my best efforts of cheering along with the inflatable thundersticks we received upon entering the stadium. In the bottom of the seventh Furuta activated himself as a pinch hitter. With that well-scripted move the already emotional crowd exploded into a frenzy. On the wrong side of a 8-0 shutout he scored a hit early on in the count and the stupid cynical part of me that’s festered with age wondered how much respect and honor for one’s seniors were put into the pitches thrown to the Swallows’ aged catcher. In the bottom of the ninth he got on base again and then a well-placed hit from center fielder Aoki scored Furuta, the only run in an otherwise dismal game. But everyone in the park loved it, my honored guest tearing up at the sight.

After the game we went for Kimura-san’s favorite kind of food, ramen, and had a repast far beyond what I was capable of consuming. It was a nice, warm finish to what should have been the end to my day, but I’m a sucker for old friends and duty. So after bidding Kimura-san good night I went to an izakaya (bar) near where I used to live to give my respects to the owner. A number of old acquaintances I hadn’t seen in a nearly a year were there, my arrival stirring up a fair amount of conversation. Japanese are markedly more sensitive to foreign nationals than Americans, probably as the island country has remained isolated for thousands of years with a near perfect homogeneous population. I chose my compliments carefully, ate my “sa-bisu” dishes with a broad grin, and did my best to encourage the owner’s college-age daughter to overcome her discouragement and believe in herself.

Around midnight all of the other customers had gone home and though I was still in the mood to chat, I knew it was time to leave so I bid the owner good night and got back on my bicycle. Again, I was exceedingly aware that I really should have gone home given the next two days ahead of me, but there was still one establishment I was indebted to and really needed to make an appearance at, considering the fortune of being close by.

So I went to the Lounge Maki once again, a small, old “sunakku” situated above the grocery store where I used to shop. The pub is one of many expiring drink-and-conversation bars where a generation of salaried middle-aged men stop to find a little solace after the war zone of work and before the battlefield of home. The grandmotherly owner, Jun-san has always cared for me; she stayed up with me until 5:30 on my birthday, in an awkward time when I had nowhere else to go or anyone to share turning 25 with. Again, though it wasn’t my birthday, I received two pair of Burberry socks, withdrawn from a locked chest reserved for only the best customers. I accepted the present in chagrin and listened to her talk about her family and modern day child rearing in Japan until well past three.

On the short trip home between Honmachi and Sangubashi I came across a policeman headed the other way. Of course he waved me down because the headlight on my bicycle is broken, and I’m sure he didn’t run across many other potential inquiries in that part of town so late at night. However, as always, the officer was kind, courteous, and warm, conducting his business while affably carrying on a conversation. We talked about baseball and Furuta’s retirement, in addition to the standard fare of how long I’ve been here, how good my Japanese is, etc. After checking the bicycle’s registration number he apologized again for detaining me and with a smile bid me good night. I am blessed to live in a country so tranquil.

When I first moved abroad, I wanted to show everyone how special I was, I wanted people to notice what I did and get validation for it; much more so than when I was in America. For in coming to Japan, I was a child once again, and needed the approval of someone, anyone, for anything so I could feel like I was good and belonged. But as the years have passed I have learned something a little more complicated, and perhaps not so much uniquely Japanese as human. In living here I’ve acquired what an honest person can pick up almost anywere, but something markedly invaluable — compassion. When I do things for myself, I do them alone, but when I am around others I increasingly try to choose my actions based on what I guess I can do to serve those close by, those who’ve been so unflaggingly kind to me.

A song, or a drink; a smile, or an inquiry… I use the knowledge I have gained and the instincts in my heart to find doors to those around me. Living in Japan is perhaps not more about tradition, or obligation, or empathy than any other country, but being here has helped me learn to appreciate and embrace them.

今夜お久しぶりエヴァンゲリオンを対面しました。新規な映画が出来てると最初に聞いたときに、ちょっと疑問がありました。十年前の劇所版はテレビシリーズと一緒に、曖昧で、満足の感じだったか微妙でした。今回なら、どういうものかなあ～と思ってた。やっはり、同じ物語ですけど、全26話を四つの映画に圧縮しているから、カット数が多くて、イツモよりややこしい。マニアックしか把握できないけど、まあ、1000円なら残りの三つの映画見に行くと思う。

アニメに間してそんなに詳しくないですけど、エヴァと同種の制作は個人的に大切です。日本の始めた来たときを思い起こさせます～その超現実的なファンタジー、その夢想的な驚嘆。あの根深い理想を忘れてはならない。

碇シンジは相変わらず嫌な主人公です。分かる方が分かると思うけど、テレビシリーズに彼は四割くらい泣き言です。葛城、加持、と飛鳥ははるかにもっと面白いキャラクターです。だけど、シンジが弱虫でもちょっと彼の窮地を相通じる。

自分の脆弱性、自分の不安感と、イツモ嵌る。逃げちゃうは駄目。

Honey you are a rock
Upon which I stand
And I come here to talk
I hope you understand

–Coldplay

I could say a lot about raving in Japan, about how it’s still pure, how it still nurtures a lot of the innocence that built the PLUR movement over fifteen years ago. But I have a fever of 102 right now and I’m buried in my own work for society so I can’t go into details. Instead, I’ll let a picture say it better than I could ever describe. This is Yoyogi Park, my liberal, open air backyard, where nearly every Sunday there is a free party set up by someone who just loves spinning and seeing people having a good time.

Young and old, affluent and impoverished, peace, love, unity, and respect are for everyone.

I’m sitting in a kotatsu (or is it under a kotatsu), and sipping my morning acerola juice. I’m currently at a friend’s vacation house in Nasu, Tochigi-ken. This is the first time that I’ve worken up after eight o’clock in several weeks. Usually waking up at this time requires turning over, and half not-sleeping for a number of hours. I’m not sure if in the end this is beneficial or detriimental, but Mom usually says, “You needed the sleep.”

I came here with my firend, Matsutsuka-san, and his co-worker Hayakawa-san. They both work at Fuijitsu, but I know Matsutsuka-san because he’s the husband of one of my Japanese sensei from Carnegie Mellon. I walys feel just a little off-blaance aournd them, because she was my teacher and all, so I fumble over culling all the slang and off-color jokes from my Japanese. I don’t want to make any mistakes; I feel it would be a bad reflection on her if I chattered on like some sort of heathen.

Anyway, we came here to ski, the last skiing of the season. It’s been an exceptionally warm winter, so we’re lucky if there’s any snow left. There isn’t any here, desptite being in the base of the moutnains. But Matsutsuka-san said he called the resort a couple of days ago and they still had a few feet of snow on the trails. I’m really not sure what’s going to happen. Every other time I when I went on a ski trip it was always a package deal with a hotel, fixed meal times, etc. We got here at about two a.m. (work), and then had some drinks and snack before bed, which I think are partly responsible for my uncomfortable daze. I want to get in as much skiing as possbile, but since we’re going to be here for a couple days, it’s probably best to take it easy so I can pace myself. Usually after about six hours or so my leg muscles start to wear out and I can’t make the turns I need to anymore. Then I just get sloppy and crash.

Since we may be on the slopes for three days, I finally took the time out and bought myself a pair of skiis. Wednesay was the first day of spring, which is a Japanese holiday, so after a photo shoot in the morning, I went ot the Alpen in Kanda and chose my blades: a pair of 175 Dynastar Troublemakers.

I read that you’re supposed to select a pair of skiis just above your skill level, so you have room to grow. I think that these will work out for now. So far I’ve had the best luck with rental carving skis, but these Dynastars are of the “freeride/new school” variety. I’m don’t know that menas, but they’re light, not very narrow, and dual-tipped. I’m not sure how to interpret that, but in theory I should be totally sweet.

After two weekends of searching for homes in my sweet triangle and finding very few possibilities, I acquiesced and decided to broaden my search to areas farther away, consenting to listings as far away as Koenji, which while still within a twenty-minute bicycle ride to Shinjuku, probably the better part of an hour to work. This would mean commuting via train, and the loss of my currently accruing commuter allocation. In turn, I lowered my acceptable upper bound for rent to 625 dollars a month. There’s nothing wrong with Nakano and Koenji, on the contrary they’re quite fashionable, trendy, cheap places to live and still within easy distance of Shinjuku. Being farther west on the Chuo line, however, they make all of the easy access to central Tokyo via bicycle that I enjoy now, more of an ordeal.

The first listing was billed as being near Nakano station, and having a spectacular view. It was rather nice, but unfortunately much smaller than the first floor rental in the same building, and a good twelve minutes’ walk from the station, something that’s a lot more important when you stop going everywhere by bicycle. At least it was clean, however.

The second place in Nakano I visited was much closer to the station, and near a shoutengai (small merchant street) just off of Waseda dori. Unfortunately it was on the sunken ground floor and had a lovely north-facing view of the the front shrubbery, leaving absolutely no sunlight whatsoever. It was pretty small too and felt a lot like a converted basement bedroom of Rachael’s parents’ that I slept in once. This tomb was ruled out before I even took off my shoes and as such didn’t bother to take any pictures.

The last place I saw was in Koenji, and the path to the building was magical. Apparently a long arcade runs underneath the Chuo line from Koenji to Asagaya, and the way in between is spotted with incredibly cheap bars, restaurants, and vintage stores. I could easily imagine unwinding at any number of friendly watering holes on the way home, negating even the worst of workdays with bouquets of cheap suds and the charming, stylish youth of Tokyo. But the real peach was the house itself. This was another one of those incredibly old, hardly maintained buildings that just screamed, “beat”. The stairwell was littered with trash, the antiquated interior sliding doors paper-thin, and all of the metal was in a various state of corrosion. Even the bathroom light was out, so it took the flash of my camera to give me an idea of what state the place was in. Nothing felt evil or dangerous though, it was more of just a very worn, very old part of the city left to the young and struggling artists. The owner of the building was obviously aware of all the strikes against it, for the rent was less than I was currently paying, and fitting despite how close it was to the station. A little too close, actually. The room was on the third floor and only about a good fifty feet from the elevated tracks of the Chuo line. Since it wasn’t right in front of the station I didn’t hear any whistles, but the trains rolled by every sixty to ninety seconds, and they were certainly hard to miss. I almost felt the old building rock slightly when an express rocketed by. If you’ve ever seen The Blues Brothers, you’ll have an idea of what it’s like, honestly.

The icing on the cake of this place though was the treasure I discovered in the kitchen closet. The previous tenants had apparently left behind three large photo albums and a bunch of negatives; what seemed like ten years’ of past discarded for the future. It was fascinating, I could hardly believe that it wasn’t scripted. There, in that cold, empty, beat house was over a decade of memories, a vault of life. It started with a clean-faced, bright-eyed boy at high school graduation, all of his friends and family crowded around in celebration. The suits were spotless, the smiles were genuine, and the world lay full of promise and hope.

After high school the protagonist gradually grew his hair out, in successive collections his look became more punk, and through their late teens and early twenties the friends formed a band. The beaming grins were replaced with nonchalant expressions accentuated by an appearance of the finger or the occasional moon. Rehearsels and gigs at local bars were recorded as the group tried hard to get by. Through the same pages and albums, one girl from the graduation photos appeared more and more prominently: a trip to Disneyland, holiday at Nara. Eventually they seemed to be living together, sharing the fight through an ambigous time. But towards the end of the catalog grinning faces were fewer and farther between, and the pictures didn’t all make into albums, some just in shoe boxes or the original sleeves from the print shop.

I guess in the end things didn’t work out the way anybody expected. The Blue Hearts broke up, the J-Punk boom of the early nineties ended, and so did everyone’s vision of what it should all be like. If those memories were cherished ones they certainly wouldn’t be left behind in an empty house, so it seems that it in end it must of have been a rough falling out. It’s kind of sad, if you really think about it. But the finding of such a striking slice of someone else’s intimate history was surreal and riveting. I almost wish I hadn’t found any better rentals just so I could take that beat pad by the train tracks and inherit that legacy. I’m positive I would end up writing the most fantastic of books from it. But it didn’t work out that way, so it stays just a naked brush with raw, wet humanity.

Since my housing snafu in mid-December, I’ve been on the market for a new apartment. I know it’s going to end up costing about 3500-4000 USD, but that comes with the territory in Japan. I’ve been hoping to make an upgrade in several keys areas of my domicile, among them location, size, and amenities. Right now I have about a twenty to twenty-five minute commute on my bicycle, but it’s entirely down Yamate Street, which is about as construction-ridden and pollution filled a ground level road as they come in the city. It’s a good workout, but the toll it takes on my alignment bothers me, to say nothing of what my lungs must think of it. If possible, I’d like to move a little closer to the office and find a less-heavily travelled route.

Given that, I made my list of requirements and potential dwellings and carpet bombed the real estate web sites [Much later I found out how fruitless this is, being mostly composed of fake listings and ad bait to attract customers to realtors' offices.] I even worked through two regional realtors, to maximize my chances of return with one while the other was idle. In the end, I saw enough floorplans to write a book on the state of property rental in west central Tokyo.

In terms of location I wanted to be no farther from work than I currently was, which gives us about a six kilometer radius from Nakameguro. I also wanted to be on either the JR Yamanote or Sobu Line, with accessibility to a big station in less than fifteen minutes, like Shinjuku or Shibuya. Additionally, I needed at least as much space as I currently had, about 21 square meters, or my furniture wouldn’t fit in. In some cases even more space wouldn’t work depending on the layout. In the end, I concentrated on the area in between Yotsuya, Shinjuku, and Shibuya, with the ideal being Sendagaya, where I originally lived when I came to Tokyo four years ago.

I don’t have time to go into detail about all the politics and hoops I had to jump through just to see these places, but it may still be interesting to enumerate the places I have pictures of, and ultimately what was wrong with them (for me). [It's actually quite comical now that I think about it.]

This first apartment was an old building in Sakamachi, east of Higashi Gaien and between Yotsuya and Shinanomachi. Anything in this area peaked my interest because the commute would involve skipping Yamate dori all together and going through the incredibly upscale areas of Jingumae, Aoyama, Hiroo, and Ebisu. As it was, though, this apartment’s rent was slightly above my upper limit of 90000 yen (750 dollars a month), and the kitchen was barely wide enough to stand in. Ultimately it would take setting up my food preparation area and gas stove in a separate room down the hall. It also didn’t have a balcony (a feature I wanted to add this time) or much direct sunlight for my wide array of plants.

This second apartment is just west of Yotsuya station, in Saneichou. There were no apartments adjacent to or below the room, so sound would be a surefire non-issue. The amenities and fixtures were new, and incredibly the rooms were spacious. Everything was sparkling, and the dining kitchen was even carpeted. The owner was also an elderly old lady who ran a traditional Japanese sweets store around the corner which dated back nearly a hundred years. I almost went with this place despite the appreciable lack of direct sunlight, but in the end it fell through because I tried to do a run around the good ‘ol boy real estate system to save on a couple thousand dollars of service fees. It wasn’t pretty when the realtors got wind of it.

Lions Mansion is an extremely large chain of managed buildings all over Japan. Everyone’s heard of them and you’d think that with that much influence and success things would be handled a little more professionally. Such was not the case and this mansion in Nishi-shinjuku was a pit when we visited. It looked a lot like a some sort of gangster or cromag had previously lived there. Two refridgerators and a collection of broken furniture still remained, and stains from fluids of various origins were smeared across all the walls. I’m not sure which was more amusing, the decapitated cockroach bodies on the floor or the broken toilet seat which had been wrapped with duct tape. Even if the place was guaranteed to be renovated before move-in and heavily discounted, I don’t think you could have paid me to live there. It was suggestions like these from my first realtor that led me to quickly part ways with them. The view of the capitol was very nice though.

This little room was on the top floor of a crumbling and poorly maintained building only accessible by a spiraling series of progressively narrow roads which culminated in a set of decaying concrete stairs. In Akebonobashi the place gave good access to the east for when one is inclined to ride to Akihabara, but other than that, it was a bust. The heater was in the kitchen, leaving the bedroom ice cold, and the roof had no awning. This design problem was made readily clear by the freezing cold rain that was pouring the day I looked at the place. No sooner than I cracked open the window the tatami floor begin to get soaking wet. The toilet was also traditional Japanese style and not good for reading.

It’s no use crying about “what the market will bear”, because that’s always going to be true, especially in real estate. Time after time I saw small, poorly laid out apartments with little in the way of restoration since their contruction thirty-some years ago, when people were smaller and without an abundance of useful electric appliances. And for these gems each was listed at well above 80000 yen simply because it was less than three kilometers from the center of the city. My impression is that people still keep paying for these decreipt places for simply that reason. This room was on the top floor of a building that was rusting apart at the seams and completely empty (an especially stubborn owner I suppose). Flaking lead paint curled along every square inch of the facade giving the appearance of a geriatric poodle. The room itself had mold deep in the tatami mats, as well as disturbingly all along the inside closet walls. I wondered if the house had been under water as I remembered with trepidation all the horror stories I heard about condemned houses in the wake of hurricane Katrina. Once the mold has penetrated the mere surface, the only option left is to replace the wood completely. Somehow, the state the building was in left me little hope that this could be negotiated. The layout was also poor, the kitchen being too large but without useable wall space, leaving no practical place for my desk. Though the apartment sported two balconies to the north and south, the latter was useless as it looked directly into a larger apartment building.

Still, there was one incredibly redeeming point was not listed on the ad sheet. The southern balcony had a nearly hidden steel escape ladder leading up to the roof. Curious, I had to indulge and climbed up. Without any railing, the roof didn’t seem to be meant for any practical use other than access to the satellite dish. However, that’s all there was, and the large, concrete building top was nearly large enough for a pool. A 360 degree panoramic view of southern Shinjuku opened up and my mind raced at the thought of all the gorgeous photographs I could take up there, sunsets and sunrises. A deck chair, sunbathing, a private barbecue under fish scale clouds: it was fascinating. The best part was that the only means of access was through the top apartment, so if I rented, it would all be mine. This secret hideaway was almost enough to make me bear the decaying hulk below; but not enough to contract some sort of chronic illness from the spores that were already clinging to every paperlike surface inside. Since I had a feeling that I wouldn’t be back, I took a dozen or so shots with the A-1 before saying goodbye to that beautiful, silent sky.

One of my favorite listings was an apartment in the very large, very clean Towa High Town. The building is located on the very eastern edge of Shinjuku, right by Gaien Nishi street. It’s an area similar to the Upper West Side in terms of swank and style. The apartment wasn’t cheap, either. It was 91000 yen, but it was ridiculously huge and had a fantastic downtown view facing southeast. It also had the incredibly appealing benefit of not requiring any “key money” or intermediary service fees (this totals about 2400 dollars). The whole building looked like a hotel, had a number of elevators, and a security camera in the lobby. Oh, if only I could have landed it.

Unfortunately, it turns out that I wasn’t wanted there. Despite positive assurances from the management company that things would be all right, after applying I was turned down. Oddly enough, all of the vacancies in the building open at that time were mysteriously held by the same owner, so reapplying for a different room wouldn’t change things. Was it my income? The fact I’m foreign? Or that the listing was introduced to me by the slimy realtor I was trying to work around? I’ll never know, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be. Oh well, as my dad says, “You gotta be ready to walk.” I tried hard not to get my hopes up about it until the contract was closed, but of course I was still more than a little let down.

If nothing else, this trip to Kyoto was very efficient in terms of time. I was in the city for about twenty-six hours, spent less than four of that trying to sleep, and the remainder was pretty much writing, walking, and taking pictures for the brief period that the sun was out. I didn’t ride any subways or trains, and with all the back and forth traversing I did around Shijo, an eyeball estimate puts my foot traffic at about thirty kilometers, or slightly better than one of my best days at the M.S.S. Walkathon for St. Jude’s Medical Center. This was done with about six to seven kilograms of gear including my travel backpack and multiple wool, calf-length winter coats.

My mood went up and down in a fairly periodic fashion, which is par for the course considering the solitude, the cold, and the vast amounts of time with nothing to do other than write or walk. I am proud to say, though, that the only alcohol I had was a glass of wine I was treated to at lunch with some former colleagues.

Here are a couple highlights of my wanderings:

Pink is the path I walked on my first day after arriving at Kyoto staton at about two. Blue is the route I followed on the second day.

As night fell and my scheduled arrival time at the internet cafe a good five hours away, I was faced with the dilemna of what to do with my night. My options consisted of going to see Casino Royale for a third time, getting drunk, or being more productive with open schedule. Wisely, I chose the third option and bought a very nice book about the basics of SLR photography. For about the price of the movie ticket, I got a reusable reference book and spent a couple hours holed up in a warm corner of Starbucks until closing making satisfying progress with reading a technical book in Japanese. [Most people my age go to Starbucks because they like the atmosphere, the coffee, and the internet access (or to look sharp in public I guess). I go because I have nowhere to sleep and having already been to McDonald's once in the day, it's the warmest place to loiter that's open late.]

“Go back to the basics.” “A just world values conservative nature.”

These words were written on a wrought iron ring I found on the ground outside of a pachinko parlor in Naka-ku. The worlds spoke to me so deeply, I thought it was a heavy-handed sign, just for me, of what I should do. I contemplated keeping it but my conscience has become a force undefeatable. And like Poe’s Telltale Heart or the One Ring, I nearly went insane in holding it and ran to the nearest police station after having it in my possession for fewer than five minutes. I did, however, record the finding so the words would not leave me.

This is daybreak at the gates of the Imperial Palace and soon after the Kamo River. The sun rose to a fairly clear morning and burned the fog off the horizon overlooking the Emperor’s perfectly cultivated mountains. I would continue on to walk another hour and a half to reach the foot of the world-renowed Ginkakuji, the silver temple famous for the scores of pilgrims who travel to pray at its altar for fortune. Unfortunately (sorry), there are no ATMs within miles of the ancient site and having spent the last of my coins on a vitamin drink and travel toothpaste (priorities), the five-dollar entrance fee barred me from nirvana. The timeless irony of commerce pervades even stoic Rinzai Zen Buddhism with the adage, “It takes money to make money.”

When I passed the sign for this hotel, I immediately shouted out loud, “HHEEHHHAAHHHRRRDIIIN-DOO-FLAHECHHHHHEEUUURRRSSSZZZZ!” I guarantee that at best, one person will get this joke. [Get it?]

I hoped to make up for my bad luck with Ginkakuji by following Valentine Michael Smith‘s example and visiting the animals in the zoo. Along the way I put my camera over the wall and tried to take pictures of some gazelles before I got around to the entrance, but all I ended up with was odd-angle shots of service areas and some empty cages. upon arriving however, I discovered it was closed for the holiday. This was just icing on the cake for me, but what was really depressing was when this little girl came skipping up path to the main gate with her father, incredibly excited about being able to go see all the animals, and they found out it wasn’t open. The guy probably works every single weekend trying to save for her education and when the poor sop finally has a chance to take a day off and make good on a promise to his daugther, the damn zoo is closed.

Towards the end of the my time in the city Rodney and I passed a charming little cafe with the most wonderful name. However, my delight was extinguished when Rodney explained to me how he knew the proprietor, and “David” actually passed away a number of years ago and his domestic partner had taken over the business along with a small gallery.

It was a nifty trip, though, and a got a lot of thinking done (how much is really actionable is another thing), in addition to a fair amount of reading, writing, and experience with my new wide-angle lens. The trip back was of course standing room only on the Shinkansen, but fortunately I scored a floor spot in between cars after the stop at Nagoya, so it was actually a pretty good deal.

A couple weeks ago I thought that I could survive for a month or so sleeping and showering in a manga kissa if I had to. However, after last night, I’m starting to rethink my position. I barely fit into my designated box and the chair didn’t recline more than 135 degrees, so despite as tired as I was, I wouldnt’ exactly say I slept deeply. Actually, I had a dream that I was in the manga kissa, but that each time I woke up, it seemd to be five minutes earlier than when I last went to sleep. It turned out in the end that the culprit was a rarely seen supporting character from a webcomic I regularly read. It was drawn crudely and unlike all the others, and every time I looked at the wriggling mass some sort of garbled foreboding music bellowed, like Dark Side of the Moon run through a sewer pipe. I’m not sure what it means, but it only kept me unconscious for about two hours. In the end I suppose it was better than trying to sleep in a park, though.

Now I’m in Matsuya having just finished my fermented soybean set meal, (how else am I going to start a day like this and survive?), listening to cheap Pizzicato Five knockoff music and thinking how convenient twenty-four hour trips through quasi-urbania are made by places like 7-11, Matsuya, and the manga kissa. If not for them, the only way I’d eat at quarter to six on a national holiday would be to untether some samurai rations from my bundle and sit in the frigid, pitch dark night and reflect on how nice a fire would be. (Actually I’m in luck, it’s not that cold at all despite being winter: a tepid six degrees with no wind at all.)

But the sunrise awaits me at the Imperial Palace, so I must be on my way.