Photos from Japan, Part 4. As I said, these are by no means all of them, and I did my best to keep out any landscape, landmark, or tourist pictures. These are just for stories. See my PicasaWeb for the full set.

Photos from Japan, Part 3. These are by no means all of them, and I did my best to keep out any landscape, landmark, or tourist pictures. These are just for stories. See my PicasaWeb for the full set.

Yes, one of me that I snuck in.

Photos from Japan, Part 2. These are by no means all of them, and I did my best to keep out any landscape, landmark, or tourist pictures. These are just for stories. See my PicasaWeb for the full set.

And more to come.

Photos from Japan, Part 1.

Some photos from my recent month in Japan. Characters and settings aplenty. Use ‘em before I do. These are by no means all of them, and I did my best to keep out any landscape, landmark, or tourist pictures. These are just for stories. See my PicasaWeb for the full set.

 More to come.

Nihon de Update #6: Tropics haz ur flutterbys

Nihon de Update #5: Japan haz ur giant bugs

At the moment, an island version of Alphaville’s Forever Young is playing (think Napoleon Dynomite). We’ve also heard Paul Simon’s the Boxer and MJ’s Beat It plucked on three little resonant strings. I’m amazed we found an internet cafe on this tiny little island of Ishigaki, further south than Okinawa, a skip away from Taiwan. No one here speaks english. No one.

In fact, on our way down here this morning, a three-foot tall japanese lady insisted on asking us over and over again in japanese for bus instructions despite fully understanding that we didn:t speak japanese. Her size and the size of the spacebar on this wacky keyboard is in sharp contrast to the three-times size of all the insects in this country. Apparently relative size is something doled out from a master bag of proportionality.

Anyhow, here we are after five days in Kyushu (japan’s southernmost mainland island). Five days covering 8 mountains, 5 temples nestled in those mountains, 160 kilometers, about 5km total vertical elevation, all on bicycles or on foot through some incredible countryside. Grizzly Peak, you will be our bitch. Legs arent even sore anymore, probably due to the nightly trips to bathhouses. Our guide was a lovable lunatic and deserves far more than an email to explain him. He did it all with construction boots and a 5 inch piece of titanium in his shoulder that was placed there in August after a bad bicycle crash, and which will be removed in another 5 days. We could hardly bitch about the inclines since he did it with a pink bow locking one arm to his chest, while still carrying a pack on the good shoulder. In 5 minutes Joe (goofy white guy from Homer Alaska) could have the business card of any little japanese girl he saw. Still, I cannot believe what "trails" we followed him up.

So here we are on this subtropical island. Out our hotel window is Kabira bay, one of two places in the world where they cultivate black pearls, surrounded by mangrove groves whose thick twisted above-ground roots look like they’re sucking the magma right from the pale blue ocean’s core without any bashfulness. Between the mangroves and black pearl farms is the largest reef of blue coral in the world, but thats been kinda tough to appreciate since i think we’ve been in the middle of a typhoon for the past 24 hours, despite the laughter of our hostess when i say "typhoon des ne?" stupid americans.

But the rain appears to be stopping, and yes, its time for another beer.

Nihon de Update #4: Killer beez haz ur buzzz

Nihon de Update #3: An Amerika-jin desu

Nihon de Update #2: Kyoto haz ur illushuns

Nihon de update #1: Konnichiwa bitches

All is splendid in the land of the rising sun. Angie & I hooked up with our jet-setting friend Zach
when we got here, had some drinks, some gyoza and soup, and passed
out…then woke up at 5am and hit the Tsukiji fish market (might as
well when we were jet-lagged anyway). It was everything you can hope
it can be. We ate fish that might have been still breathing. Oh man.

A little market-going, scampered around electric town (memory cards
are dirt cheap) said goodbye to zach, lunched at this crazy delicious
tempura bar, and trained to the outskirts to visit the ghibli museum
which is a wacked out animated fantasy wonderland. the we passed the
fuck out. way early. oh yeah. also, the subway map that looks like a
ball of yarn…best subway in the world.

now to some tea…

also, as you can see, i havent found the apostrophe on this
newfangled japanese keyboard.

who needs an apostrophe when you have squiggles everywhere anyway.
tomorrow we:re off to the
monastery…

shitsureishimasu,
s

And, for an easily related story, a man who makes sculptures out of bundles of chopsticks. A tale of love between him and a patron-less broom shop owner?  Hell yeah.

According to the Tokyo Times, this Tokyo broom store hasn’t had a customer since 9/2/72, and even that customer wanted a hand broom which they could not provide. Sad, in an awesome sort of way. What a great character/setting to frame a story…who owns this shop?