Japan travelogue thread

[maru]

Several friends appeared in Japan this weekend. Instead of traveling wildly, it became a period of just exploring where we were -- as for one of them, we were bantering back and forth about the merits of spending $300 for what amounted to an additional 12 hours together and a tour of Tokyo before just giving up on it and sticking to Osaka. We hung out around Shinsaibashi and spent a few hours talking in an older cafe where everyone was chain smoking.

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We talked about To the Stars and what Homura and Madoka's love Means, as well as the migration of Chinese kanji to Japanese marking periods of cultural migration, the different cultures in Singapore and Thailand, an anomalous amount of general legal advice ... then I got some sneakers, we tried hunting for a conveyor belt sushi place, found it above the Planet of the Maids and then parted ways. Rebecca and I went ... right back out to another cafe at night, really close to the water, and then walked around the surrounding park trying to make friends with cats.

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Then today we made our way to Nagoya. We tried to make use of our Wagayama pass for the last day, so we took a really long route to get there, spending the entire morning from like 8am to 12pm chaining between low-speed trains into various towns. I forgot my headphones. I just ended up reading Parfit and napping against the window.

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Then we tried to make use of our time in Nagoya, only to find that the vibe didn't stick with us at all. It felt like a student town with lots of international kids and a cosmopolitan touch, and had a sort of Toronto-but-run-by-the-Japanese vibe as a result. Lots of late 90s infra, glass towers and a much more English-friendly bent than our time has been in Osaka, where it very quickly gets into "nobody speaks English" land in the further wards. Literally nohongo was jouzu today. After meeting a second friend for a vegan dinner, around 8pm we started getting back on the train home and now we're preparing for the onsen episode and the festival episode.

There was one thing that stuck with me. The TV at the restaurant was playing reruns of this "why did you come to Japan?" show where they interview people At The Airport about it, and a bunch of them just like answered and clearly wanted to go on with their life after or something, but this girl from Calgary just kept going with them and going to the point where they fast-forwarded her conversation with them and then every time I peeked over they were still just hanging around doing shit with her. Oh, they go CD shopping together. And she likes Ryuichi Sakamoto, that's sick. They show her baby photos and graduation pictures. They draw anime portraits of her growing up in Calgary with her mom. They help her get her wallet back after she leaves it in a taxi. They make her speak Japanese on the phone. They show her AT the concert she came to see where the singers were shouting her out for some unknown reason and she's like . And the two heads in the bottom left and right of the screen are like about it and others and at other moments. And everyone's just like "wow you like Japan! that's so cool!" in a really sincere way. I don't know. That's nice. I want more shows like that. Though in Canada it would seem like we were fetishising newcomers or something if we did that.

[thursday]

thanks again for sharing all these. you have a nice way of writing and the pictures are really nice. i hope i can visit again sometime soon.

i really love the idea of that old man on the beach taking photos.

[maru]

That's right. It's the onsen episode! Rebecca got me a ryokan trip as a birthday present, and indeed I turned 31 yesterday. Here is me squinting in a yukata.

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We arrived by train -- we picked up a whole Shinkansen pass for the next few days because we have an action packed week planned, and this was just the first section. It took around 3 hours to get up to Kinosaki from Osaka, the entire way showcasing really pretty countryside. Town after town of "what do they do there?" I kept thinking about Persona 4, I guess because I was headed to a traditional inn in a small town.

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Once there, it was just legions of tourists, Japanese and foreigner alike. We came like a wave -- I guess the town might be used to the tides of reservations causing the floods of people in and out keeping the souvenir shops and cafes alive, but it's an uncanny experience in person.

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A bunch of ryokans (there are quite a few!) had people with signs up looking to take people straight to the inn, but seeing as we were like a 5 minute walk, we just decided to go there direct. On the way we saw lots of little roads and even an immaculate garden in the entryway of a cafe.

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We got in, met the owner and his family and immediately were set to choosing a yukata to wear and a basket for collecting goods. It's a whole process, that continues the theme of Japan sort of theme-parking itself with a conveyor belt approach. It's fun and, again, both local and foreign visitors come here. It's just interesting how streamlined it is. Anyway, there were both "fancy" yukatas for exploring the town and "onsen" yukatas that are just easier to maneuver in and take on and off ... after a few times I kind of preferred the onsen one just because I didn't have to fuss so much. Rebecca was really taken with the fancier ones and we got a lot of photos of her exploring a Family Mart. People were basically already going outside.

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After a little bit of browsing it was time for dinner, which was the largest dinner of my life. Two guys behind us were loudly slurping down their hotpot as we had a delicate multi-course dinner served over a music-box rendition of Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence and the Phantom of the Opera. We were both scared to know even when to start eating. I was so game to eat whatever was in front of me that I ate raw beef that they scurried over to say we were supposed to be cooking over the flame. I just thought, hey, beef sashimi? Sure I'll do anything.

So what did we have? Lots of rice, lots of tofu, picked items, stewed mackarel and tempura and hotpot and the aforementioned beef-you're-supposed-to-cook-dumbass ... I mean. It was all really good. But it was 2,400+ cal and I don't know how anyone gets through it without just like, partially eating it.

Knocked out we decided to try an onsen, and I basically felt super anxious between "being naked in a sex-segregated place" and "trying to not look too much but also not just have my head down". Anything more than a glance and it feels rude or lingering. Still I felt sort of scared about it. I don't regularly strip in front of people and be like "hello, here are my boobs and genitals," but I already had my yukata ripped open by one of the ryokan ladies trying to fit me properly into it, so people were making me flash them regularly.

After 30 minutes we felt sort of beat, so we wandered outside again. There was a bunch of theatrical performances and music and everyone wanted me to get closer and have a good time instead of watching people. There was, earlier in the day, a girl doing a wind-up-doll performance of being an animatronic duck, and then later on -- I don't know if it was the same girl, but we had a wind-up-doll performance yet again.

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A man was playing some really cool music I don't know the genre of. He, too, kept beckoning us closer. A lot of people were just recording him and it felt weird until I realised he was also recording himself.

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I guess you may have noticed that I take a lot of interest in watching people take photos. It's like half the fun is treating Japan itself as the set -- "this world is beautiful, so why not picture yourself inside it?" -- but then also literally also taking yourself inside that world. It's so interesting to me that even local people do this; taking a piece of the aesthetic-mythopoetic and relating to it directly is allowed and encouraged. There's so much international cultural mixture both in Japanese history and in the Japanese present that it's not like you can't see literally you-yourself here in some greater mythological sense, and it's so obvious how you can get chuuni when there's a shrine around the corner dedicated to a sacred sword you pray to for advice and guidance. It's so obvious how you get Fate/stay night. Everyone meets at these supernatural crossroads, whether it's Joan of Arc or Amakusa Shiro.

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It's Tsukimi, and it was a supermoon on my birthday. Everyone was trying to stay out late and enjoy the onsens in the moonlight, take romantic honeymoon photos, or I guess just chill with their bros.

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They set up shrines with mochi on each bridge, making each one a little devotional. An elderly woman came to the bridge to give a quick bow to it before continuing on her way. It reminded me of how we passed an ancestral shrine on our way to the ryokan to begin with; at home, in church we are supposed to bow to three different altars every time we pass them, bow to it mid-sentence at times, get on our knees when the Eucharistic Presence is revealed or carried out to the congregation. Here the devotion is in the world itself, a casual part of everyday life. I felt sad how pushed into the corners it is at home; it's become a compartment of life, something that some people Choose to include in their lives, instead of a piece of everyone's life.

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I mean, we're a different place, with a different practice. Multiculturalism means we aspire toward a mosaic -- but wouldn't that mean that different sectors of towns have different practices? Instead, it's like nobody can do their thing anywhere (something closer to a secular melting pot). I am not sure I've ever seen Muslims pray in public in Canada, for example.

Anyway, enough of my navel gazing. After another day of food and onsen bathing, we both got a lot of rest and headed back. I met up with another internet friend today (making Three of them, in this Montauk moment), and tomorrow we're readying up for Fukuoka, which I'm only going to because I like Excel Saga. I have to pick the itinerary and between me and Seraphine we have something special planned.

[JennyDog]

Thank you for posting all of these updates and photos!!.

I adore your travel writing, it's like I'm getting a little novella of Japan with your inner thoughts -- I think funnily enough, it's the sort of book with unique type setting you'd see published in Japan (or so I imagine it to be). I had a friend who was major into TTRPG design who said Japanese table top developers really care about the visual design and aesthetics and layout of books.

(This post was written as I'm waking up, so it may be long and rambly...)

It's a whole process, that continues the theme of Japan sort of theme-parking itself with a conveyor belt approach. It's fun and, again, both local and foreign visitors come here. It's just interesting how streamlined it is.

It's a bit psycho in the way anything articulated in realpolitick terms is, but I've seen the idea that smaller states without hard physical power do soft power projection via cultural production and export: that Japanness as an aesthetic is something sort of intentionally created and produced, which can influence folks who interact with it. Thailand does this with Thai restaurants, and Korea helps protect and steward it's KPop industry and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of what you see isn't downstream of policy.

But like, humans are complex and fickle creatures and it's as hard to manipulate populations to do things as it is easy to encourage populations to do things: I don't think anyone involved here is thinking in terms of soft power projection or w/e, they're thinking of their lives in the way they interact in the sea of humanity.

And as far as things you could use state capacity for, streamlined yukata sales, pretty boys and thai food is pretty harmless and kinda nice haha.

They set up shrines with mochi on each bridge, making each one a little devotional. An elderly woman came to the bridge to give a quick bow to it before continuing on her way. It reminded me of how we passed an ancestral shrine on our way to the ryokan to begin with; at home, in church we are supposed to bow to three different altars every time we pass them, bow to it mid-sentence at times, get on our knees when the Eucharistic Presence is revealed or carried out to the congregation. Here the devotion is in the world itself, a casual part of everyday life. I felt sad how pushed into the corners it is at home; it's become a compartment of life, something that some people Choose to include in their lives, instead of a piece of everyone's life.

It's interesting to hear you describe this in person, I've heard people talk about veneration of the natural area or individual things but I'm always a bit hesitant to believe reports that sort of play up quirks like this of other cultures as special. Every so often in cities I see quirky or strange graffiti or tagging, like someone carving YHWH in Paleohebrew script on a metal bench, and wonder if that isn't coming from the same human impulse.

I've started attending Quaker meeting, which is like silent meditation where you can share things if you feel compelled to, and this particular meeting has an outdoor courtyard and for the larger Sunday meeting people can do Meeting indoor or outdoors, doing it outdoors felt lovely and kind of special because I was surrounded by greenery I could look at and the open air, in contrast to the slightly more stuffy room upstairs which functions kind of like a traditional church.

I mean, we're a different place, with a different practice. Multiculturalism means we aspire toward a mosaic -- but wouldn't that mean that different sectors of towns have different practices? Instead, it's like nobody can do their thing anywhere (something closer to a secular melting pot). I am not sure I've ever seen Muslims pray in public in Canada, for example.

When I worked at an airport lounge, we had a desperate VIP room and every so often folks would ask to do Salah in there, and maybe one who did it in the main area when it was pretty quiet. Some of it might have just been wanting space but I can understand the privateness and feeling uncomfortable about doing it in public.

I think public secularness is valuable for like, religious freedom and stuff, but I also don't know if people feeling the sort of ambient belief type stuff of Japanese shinto like I think is described as being bad.

[maru]

We're sick. We're both sick. One of us is smart. One of us is not. I got up at 0630, showered and headed out to Fukuoka anyway. It didn't feel that bad until I think around noon, when the weather (36, with a humidex of 43) started to really catch up to me.

Seraphine had helped me out with an itinerary -- I sort of wanted to get off the beaten track a little and go on an adventure. But I also didn't know what the Local Scene was for anything, coffee, whatever. So she suggested things and it became a list, an order. And then today I did not follow that order. My body was very rapidly giving out, and check-in was 1600.

Why was Fukuoka so important? I think arbitrary sources of meaning are still sources of meaning. This whole trip I've found myself feeling "intuitions" and following them. Weeks ago at a shrine I gave more money than I really needed to because it felt important that I do so. I keep feeling a compulsion to go to Aokigahara but it feels like if I do, I'm going alone into the world of the dead.

In this case, I wanted to just see what ... "inspired"? Excel Saga. There's this thread on Reddit where a guy tattooed the title onto his arm and was like, "man, I can't wait to go to Fukuoka and see all the places the characters are named after." And I was like, wait, what? The characters are named after things?

And indeed, you look and you see ... Acros. Right beside City Hall. And surrounding it? The hotels Excel, Hyatt, Elgala and of course, Il Palazzo-sama. What about the city employees? They're kinda just streets, districts or shrines. Sumiyoshi? Check. Watanabe? Check. Uh, Ropponmatsu? Oh yeah.

The first thing I noticed was that foreigner presence was a lot lower in Fukuoka. Therefore, everyone seemed to be a lot more curious about you. Perhaps I always look like a total weirdo. I certainly think so when I see other people's photos. But I kept getting glanced at, or people turning around looking at me until I looked back; the barista at the local shop kinda looked at me like an alien in a way that I really could not parse. I did not see any white people all day until check-in at this hotel, and literally no one knows any English.

This made things a little awkward because I tended to rely on Rebecca a lot in the past for talking and played the blue oni to her red one; I did not look up many words on my own usually. I tended to just katakana-ize what I was trying to say and tripping over it. In Kinosaki I tried to be funny and say "Hisashiburi" when I returned to a shop and instead said "Hajimemashite" which made no sense at all. Anyway, a tote bag is just "toto baggu." So I win this time.

The second thing I noticed was that it was a bit quieter; Fukuoka is half the population of Osaka and Nagoya. It's not one of the "three big cities." It's just a city. It's smaller than Sapporo.

The third thing I noticed is that it's really pretty and probably a super nice place to live.

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It's a mixture of larger apartments, restaurant-centric districts and parks. It's the city of flowers, after all, and the original plan sure had a lot of them in it. Between all of this is a network of canals and a huge underground mall.

It also has a nice manhole cover.

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My first mission was getting this backpack off. I got a tote bag after some careful negotiation about what a tote bag is and dropped my bag at some coin lockers, after Alice pointed out that it's one of Japan's gifts to walking around wherever you want. After getting lost and making my way through some used manga stores (no Excel Saga??? but tons of Haikyuu stuff, teeny tiny Fate section for character goods, some BL manga and a very large doujin section), I got some granola (finally, some fucking fibre) at a coffee shop and decided to reorganise the day and head toward Ohori Park.

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I saw that there was another park right beside Ohori so I tried to find my way in. There was this sloping hill with thick tree roots forming stairs and I climbed up it, only to find a guided tour of the Pine Slope outside Fukuoka Castle.

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I scaled down the hill again and crossed the street to where the park should be, but I wasn't sure. The maps were inverted North in orientation and I kept getting confused. I was also clearly getting a little feverish.

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The park itself was quiet. There was a long, long field that seemed like a parking lot, and then out of nowhere a BBQ garden. It's literally called that. Just rows of tents, barbeques and some boombox somewhere playing English top 40 stuff.

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A little further and I suddenly found it. A statue of Demeter announced an enormous lake, lined with walk+jog+cycle lanes, bridges and crane boats for two. It's downright Vancouver.

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My work done I felt like Tetsuo in Akira. My time was not long if I didn't get out of this heat. Luckily I was able to find a way home through the subway and underground mall. This, of all places, was actually packed full of people, who also I guess were smarter than me. That's a theme today. So I felt weird getting photos, besides this one of Beautiful and Good and their special concern.

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Honestly the more gratuitious English I see as subtitles around logos, like, Steins Gate style, the more I feel emboldened to just start throwing kana into anything.

With my bag reclaimed I wandered over to the hotel and saw that I still couldn't check in on the tablet (there's no staff). So I sat on the staircase sweating and feeling bad for fifteen minutes. At 1558, a bunch of Russian men came out of the elevator at once and started laughing when they saw me sitting around saying "it's at 4." Even more Russian guys came out of the elevator in a second round and they all laughed more and said "in Japan it's Very Precise". Then I checked in and passed out in the weirdly snazzy room with the first actual bed I've ever seen. It almost makes up for how sketchy every other aspect of its experience is and how it's like $100 when I live in an Osaka house for like $25/day.

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(Anyway. No kvetching on Paralogue, only in real life.)

When I woke up again I realised I needed a meal that was not a tiny cup of granola, so I started wandering outside. Suddenly: people were outside.

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What's the Nakasu nightlife like? People wandering talking on phones and a few escort hotels. Many restaurants in little laneways. And above all, a lovely river.

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And so I started wandering looking for food, but I felt progressively worse even as it was cooler outside. Everything is sore. I get a headache when I move. But I wanted to see more.

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Finally I came across them all ... all the reasons I came here.

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I guess it wasn't meaningless after all... it was a kind of love, called loyalty.

[rebecca]

we're sick. we're both sick. 7:15 rolls around and my body musters enough awakeness to alert matilde that i most certainly cannot make it to fukuoka. advil is sisyphus and my headache is the boulder... and sisyphus is losing his grand battle right now.

so i sit and wait in the living room for matilde to depart. it feels bittersweet every time we have parted ways on this trip -- like a grand adventure is about to happen, but just a few doors down from my room.

arc'teryx has this big marketing campaign called "no wasted days" and really it's meant to be about like, getting outdoors and experiencing the grand world beyond, but i've taken it to heart to mean "do not be a lump indoors today. even if you are sick." and thus, i get ready to go outside.

brooklyn roasting company (namba) is the first location on the docket today because i need to work but our wifi is garbage. i spend far too much money on coffee and a cookie but the barista is jovial and so i feel pleasant about the whole experience. side note here: there is something fascinatingly bizarre about being in a space that is decidedly For Tourists as a Tourist. another Tourist enters the cafe... our eyes lock... what type of Tourist are you... are we about to do the patented Tourist smirk and nod... do we acknowledge the great journey we are each on in this exact moment...

no. i look away as fast as i can and continue to work while some american girls loudly talk about the pains of working with children.

eventually i grow tired of brooklyn roasting company's atmosphere and decide it's time to, you guessed it, spend more money. but it's (mostly) not for me, it's on souvenirs for loved ones, and so i can justify it.

i take the beautiful nankai line down to sumiyoshi taisha (the re-run!). there's an advertisement on here for a... high school? middle school? university? actually, it's all three, and it's being touted by a young girl in a clean uniform with a wistful look on her face. she is most definitely acing those tests.

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i'm here to get another bunny charm. it's for good fortune, and i bought one the first time matilde and i came down here. unfortunately, on a very cursed trip to ise, my good fortune bunny charm broke off somewhere. that very much sounds like something that will eventually have horrible repercussions spiritually but for now, meh. spend ¥1000, get another charm, pretend that the replacement cancels it all out.

afterwards, it's... god, it's bloody hot out. my lips are drying out and the wooziness is kicking in. it's a short stumbly walk to a nearby park where i desperately seek out a bench for a water break. but first, obligatory flower picture.

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the nankai line swiftly returns me to namba where people are starting to congregate en masse. everyone is here to see The Glico Man. he beckons to me, but i do not answer his call... yet. instead i buy nail polish for my sister from a strange shop inside a strange building, and then i wander into a cafe where i briefly met matilde yesterday. i felt bad for not ordering then, so i guess i'm here to make up for that now.

immediately upon entry, the familiar chime of "irrashaimase!" is combined with a new word that hits my foggy brain like a confusion dart. "otabako?"

there are a few types of travellers:
- ones who do not learn the language whatsoever. no, not even to say hello, sorry, or thank you. i most recently encountered this with an older woman on the bus who loudly said sorry to everyone she walked past. you can at least appreciate that she got the respect part of the culture down, just... translated.
- ones who learn the entire language beforehand so as to prevent even an inkling of miscommunication (you have my heartiest congratulations and my deepest fear)
- ones who learn survival phrases and pick up the rest along the way -- that's my bucket.

after a series of uh... uhmmm.... uhhhhhs.... it is translated into "su-mo-king-u?" and i wave my hand theatrically to say no. the server politely ushers me to the closest seat. water is poured, a hand towel is offered, and the menu is placed within reach. according to japanese google reviewer standards, this place already has at least a 3 star rating. i promptly down a banana chocolate pancake set because i can feel my blood sugar dropping exponentially, and i... do more work.

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the rest of the evening follows pretty uneventfully. matilde and i were supposed to eat ramen in fukuoka (apparently that's what it's known for?) but as we're split up, i seek it out on my own here. a short walk through dotonbori takes me to one of several ichiran ramen locations within a 3 block radius.

this one is halal. i want pork. good thing i can walk another 2 minutes to The Pork Location. a quick jaunt along the canal takes me to a bustling spot beneath the bridge where... oh my god. it's The Glico Man again. swarms of people flock along the bridge edge to say hello, to claim a glimpse of his fame... but they will never run as fast nor as far as him. he is untouchable.

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while i'm waiting in line, a grilled meat stand right next door is blaring Boom Boom Boom Boom! by Vengaboys while a mother films her daughter eating a meat skewer for social media content. the vibes in dotonbori are simply immaculate.

in praise of ichiran ramen:

a clipboard full of ordering papers gets passed down the line. choose your broth. choose your garlic level. choose your spice level. choose your noodle thickness. green onions, yes or no? pass the papers down the line. wait your turn. pay at a screen. wait your turn. sit in your assigned single-person booth. wait your turn. a worker arrives, briefly, to retrieve your order paper. wait your turn. a bowl of ramen arrives swiftly and... hold on. to my surprise, the worker bows after placing the bowl of ramen down. no, not a standard bow. he keeps going further and further -- my god, he's past 90° now. the deference astonishes me to the point where i need to, no, i MUST eat this entire bowl of ramen lest i let him down.

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it's the best goddamn ramen i've ever had in my life.

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there's also a sign posted right at eye level announcing part-time jobs available! work as little as one hour a week! paid time off, health insurance, the whole deal! i am tempted briefly before i remember i don't live here, and then i feel a little sad.

i go home.