All's well that ends well?

I've tried to write a finishing post for this trip but it's a lot harder than I thought it would be - mainly because the end seems wrong.

I've been on danish soil for a few weeks now. And until now I've been surfing friends' couches; just hanging out with people I like, and I've been drunk as many times here as I've been for the 2½ months I've been travelling.

My base of operations is now my parents place and it will be until the middle of december. My birthtown is pretty, historical, peaceful ... and if it wasn't for my parents there would be nothing for me here. Don't get me wrong, my childhood was great and the town does bring back those memories but there is also a reason why I moved to another country at 17 - this place drives me nuts. I love it here but I can't stay for too long at a time. Also, today none of my friends live here anymore so they can't help with the nuttyness O_O I'm self-medicating myself with books, movies, series and painting.

I also have time to revisit memories of my trip to two very different countries.

When thinking of the states I can think back to my inspired "length of Manhattan" walk (man, did I hurt >_<) that got started by me seeing that there was a comics and cartoon museum in the south end, and how when I finally got there just stood and looked at the building for 5 minuttes saying: "Typical" because they had closed the museum the previous month. Typical for my luck.

I can think of the dissapointing day in Washington that ended with me draging my butt back on a bus to go to Nashville, and how that bus ride was the best that I had because of Dennis the driver that told jokes and said that all you needed to make a day perfect was a smile; also because of the sweetest pixie woman at McDonalds in the Viginia mountains who made me a vegetarian burger despite it not being on the menu. I love the accent too :)

And I can think back on how disturbing the poverty in the states where; and how weird it was to have someone come up to me and ask for money when they had nicer clothes on than me and only picked me to ask because I was the only white person present.

I can think of the very nice indian woman at a hotel in Memphis who gave me a room with a kingsize bed for a dormroom prize because she didn't want me to walk through a bad area to get to a hostel.

I can think of how typical it is that Texas has one of the driest, hottest summers and when I got there it started raining.

And I can laugh to myself for noticing that fire hydrants are different colours in different states and sometimes in different cities: In Asheville they are clown coloured fx ^^

When thinking back on Japan my internal movie shows me the most beautiful pictures of mountains, castles, woods, sea, temples, wildlife and traditional arts and crafts *sigh*, as well as very kitshy things in an overkill way that only the Japanese can get away with.

I can remember sitting under one of the bridges in Kyoto talking to a couple of the homeless people living there after I had offered them some food; they only accepted the food on the condition that they could be hospitable to me and offered me a seat in their home.

Also, I can think back on how much it amused me that a school on Okinawa had their very orderly morning gymnastics to the beat of the Imperial March from Star Wars; cute little stormtroopers they were ^^

I can remember the panic I felt after a big 5cm bug bounced of my sunglasses because I was afraid my allergy wouldn't be able to take it if it was one of those huge hornets I've seen on tv.

And I can remember how funny it was that none of the Japanese women could walk properly in high heels (probably has something to do with the lack of hips and junk in the trunk); and that even though a lot of people rode bikes it looked like they all learned it the previous day (I have no theory as to the reason for that! I got nothin')

I am grateful for every encounter and experience that I had.

... travelling is probably the only thing I am really good at that I also really enjoy. I miss it.

Tokyo madness

It is amazing how many clubs Tokyo have (and you can get into a lot of them for free if you're female). A goth club can be right next to a disco and nobody finds it strange. I was out with a french girl saturday and we were following a bunch lolita girls around for a bit and they went from one extreme to the other - it was very interesting. We toasted in sake everytime we came to a new place.

Be careful with Sake. It's a killer. It goes straight to your brain and boils your brain ... especially if it's hot >_<

Maybe it was the sake that made a guy offer me money if I would step on him wearing a pair of heals. I wasn't drunk enough to accept and felt that it would be too much like standing next to someone as they jerked off to you. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind a boyfriend or someone I find attractive doing it, but this dude was not my cup of tea. I might be dirt poor but walking around on someone until he jizzes in his pants just doesn't seem like the right way for me to make money o_O

The sake almost ruined my Sunday, at the very least it made it harder. I went to Harajuku to goggle the cos play zoku (costume play gang). The visual onslaught to my eyes was almost as bad as standing in front of an arcade in Akihabara (my poor brain).

There were a bunch of really pretty costumes on a gang of teeny tiny girls and I asked in my very bad Japanese if I could take a picture. After a lot of giggles - I got out my camera, they posed, I said cheese ... and the fucking camera died. I might have been a little overly dramatic with my: NOOOOOOOOO! But the girls all took pity on me and chatted with me for about an hour after that.

I can't remember exactly how we came on to the subject, but the girls agreed that I could make a lot of money in Japan. As one girl so nicely put it: "There are two types of men in Japan: Type 1: the ones who wants to step; and Type 2: the ones who wants to be stepped on" and I had already had a run in with the second type the night before. The girls felt that most Japanese women can only fill the needs of type 1 so Japan needed women that could take care of type 2.
-Then a discussion about my weight started (the only part of this scenario that wasn't amusing to me) and then an argument about whether or not my boobs were real which ended after one girls grabbed them and went: "Hai! Real!" ... and here I thought that the Japanese were suppose to be a polite people, oh dear oh dear.

Today I went around Shinjuku and Shibuya with Julie, the french girl, and we could tell that I do not exist according to the shops there. Julie picked up a shirt that said XL and I swear it was a XS. We got so depressed that we ate a box of cookies. Pretty good monday really :)

I'm going to take a walk around central Tokyo tomorrow and see a Kabuki show at Kabuki-za. I'll probably love it; vibrant colours, dance, drama and men in drag - I mean, you can't go wrong there ^^
I've already seen some puppet theatre and Noh theatre so it's the next step.

I think I'll just relax after that. Read and gear up to the plane trip home.

Sooooo tired ...

Sayonara. さようなら

A little extra somethin' somethin'

The "Culture Day" Tuesday did turn out a bit of culture ^^

On a hunch (which is just another word for subtle pattern recognition) I made my way to Senjo ji temple and ran into a parade. It was basically a run-through of Japanese history and culture, and I ended up with 50+ pictures on my camera O_O Some very pretty things there. I also ran into an Aussie that I had couch surfed with at Mochan's place and had a little chat.

After the parade was over I went up Nakamise dori, a shopping street leading up to the temple, to get a few souvenirs for the people at home. The good thing about Nakamise is that most of the stuff in the stalls are made in Japan; of course you get the "made in china" stuff in between but I stay away from it. I mean, seriously - I'm in Japan so I should get things that are made here and not in the neighbouring country.

I asked a sales person about some kanji on a small figurine and the outcome was interesting:

Lady: Helt.
Me: Helt? Eh ...
Lady: Helt! Helt!
Me thinking: Oh crap ...
Lady looking very distressed: Helt! Heelt! Hellsss!
Me grapping on to the last attempt the lady did and running with it: ... Hells ... Health?!
Lady lighting up: Haaaaai! Helt!
Me: Riiiiight ... okidoki ^^

Now, we continued to poke a bit of fun at the Th-sound before I showed her how to make it. In short, I got my phonetic ass in gear and visually showed her where the sound was to be found in her mouth - and she was besides herself.

Lady: Health! The theatre! The the the the! Health!
Me: *With a big old smug smile and feeling happy that I helped*

I got a figurine for free for my help ^^
My phonetics training is really useful here; most Japanese have only minor problems reading English but have great difficulty with pronunciation. It feels good to be useful :)

In the evening it was karaoke time (I kicked ass ^^).
And we did it for so long that I didn't have a voice the next day.

Down to earth magic!

"Do everything by hand, even when using the computer."

-Hayao Miyazaki

Went to the Ghibli museum today. Woaw ....
The place has a very organic feel to it; it could be somebody's home (I'd live there for sure!) It's so nice to see that museums can be interesting without being arrogant and stand-offish. It was magical in an approachable, tangible way that made it extremely memorable to me.

The museum made me think of the "caves" I used to make as a kid; the ones where you hide away and fill your little space with treasures. I guess in some way I've never gotten beyond that since I still live in small little spaces surrounded by my cherished things. I am just a big kid. An old soul but a child at heart. I really appreciate Hayao Miyazaki's vision for his museum and I truely think he hit it right. I wish I could crawl into his head, just for a week or two. But since that isn't really possible the museum and the movies will have to do.

Uh! And I got precious booty from the shop there! ^^

It's been a long (yet satisfying) day and I'll write more tomorrow.

Dream big, my pretties.

Another holiday?!

It seems that the Japanese has at least one holiday every month and this tuesday we have now run into Culture Day (I haven't really found out if it means I can get into museums cheaper or something similar ^^) So I'm jumping on my rental bike and taking a look at gardens and parks today.

My trip on the ferry from Okinawa wasn't so bad this time because I had food with me.
There were a couple of re-runs of people:
-The cool biker chick was back and I spent a lot of fun time trying to teach her to play The Good, the Bad and the Munchkin (I actually think the language barrier made it more fun!).
-Also on board was a guy I refer to as "Mr Stare"; an extremely creepy man who kept watching me when I slept. The last time around I kept telling myself that I was imagining things and maybe he just had very bad eye sight so he focused on the darkest spot in the room; but this time I tried to move out of sight and he followed me ... twice o_O
-There was a little girl on board who last time had looked at me a lot too and this time she had worked up enough nerve to approach me. Really cute. She had seen Little My and Snufkin on my jacket and she had decided that the best way to make contact with the big gaijin was to sing the theme from the Moomins cartoon series. Kawaii ^^ It worked. We had our own little singalong and managed to get through a lot of Disney songs and a few Ghibli :)

I looked through my pictures and realized that I hadn't taken that many on Okinawa and none of people! It's too bad because I met some very colourful characters; my hostel was full of hippies, street preformers (among others a firedancer who gave a preformance that kicked ass; he's the best I've ever seen), surfers, soldiers, globetrotters. I liked it ^^

After getting very lost in Osaka (it involved about 10 japanese people who all tried to help me before someone finally found an english teacher from Australia - who ended up offering me a job because "we need brave people" :D) I was late for the Halloween celebration with Mochan's new couchsurfing group. And then I got extremely smashed.

We all went back to Mochan's house in Shizouka and arrived at about five in the morning. I hadn't really slept on the ferry due to a combination of bad weather, snoring/snorting old guy, and Mr Stare, so you would think I would be able to sleep at Mochan's ... but no. The alcohol in my system was making my world sail and I didn't manage to fall asleep before people started getting up again. The house was buzzing (along with my head) all day and we left at midnight to make it to Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo and I didn't get any sleep on the bus either. I finally got a bed at 11 monday morning and had pretty much been awake since thursday. Talk about feeling your age all the sudden. Gah! But I doubt that I have ever been happier to go to sleep in a crisp bed before ^^

The fish market was quite the show by the way. And it cemented my resolve to never touch meat again.

I'm back at Khao San (yes, like the backpacker street in Bangkok) in Tokyo. And here I'm going to enjoy my last days in Japan and pick up a few last souvenirs.

I was thinking ...

I like the fact that people pronounce my name correctly here. Japanese people take one look at my name and say it right on the first take without me saying it out loud first. Aah ... the small joys in life ^^

There are other things I do not like though. The Japanese is a apologize-first people but it doesn't stretch to their manners on the street, they walk into each other and even knock people over and keep going. I've had people turn around and stared at me like I was the scum of the earth after they've hit me with their umbrella. Very odd. Maybe the street is one of those places where they can get a couple of aggressions out that they can't other places, heh.

And I occasionally see people forget something on the train or drop something on the street and, being the gaijin that I am, I of course pick it up and return it to the owner because nobody else does it. I'm big, noisy and do not speak Japanese ... but is luckily forgiven for these traits because I'm not from Japan.

But it is hard to say really bad things about Japan. The attitude towards animal welfare is the biggest in my book but I'm sure others would disagree.

I wish it was easier to be vegan here but I'm getting by. I lived on rice and sugar to begin with but have now gotten good enough at recognising the kanji for meat products and I found out that you can go to a lot of Buddhist temples and get vegan/vegetarian food, WOO!

Would I be able to live in Japan for a year? Hm ... yeah, I think so. It couldn't be in a place like Nagoya or Osaka though: Too soulless, too much concrete, too stiff. Kyoto is a beautiful choice. Tokyo is weird enough. One of the south island is probably a better choice for me though; I could kayak, surf, dive and trek when the culture wasn't enough.

Anyway! I haven't made it to Tokyo yet. I'm at Mochan's place in Shizouka. I got very drunk on Halloween and needed some serious downtime (I'm getting old) so I've been hanging out with Mochan's recent set of couchsurfers today. We're all heading to Tokyo in the morning.

Hope you all had a great Halloween ^^