My Wandering Days Are Over

Photo: Kamakura-Enoshima Furii Kippu, day pass for a trip to the region in Kanagawa-ken, with a background of commuters hurrying for the Shonan-Shinjuku line back to the city. I had visited Kamakura for the first time on my first trip to Japan, in July 2008. It was such a pleasure to return on my last full day in Japan, in Asia, to go back to see the Daibutsu (Great Buddha) and the Kannon Hasedera Temple, as well as new discoveries like Enoshima Island. Six months on, so much to revisit, so much new to find.

You know my wandering days are over
Doesn't mean that I'm getting boring
You tell me
I'm tired of listening to myself here

I'm back! Safely home! And although, like in the song by Belle & Sebastian, "six months on, the winter's gone", I'm not filled with melancholy like the lonely circus boy and disenchanted pony. Instead I'm full of energy to leap into my new life, to settle into Vancouver, and to sort through the detritus of what seems like several past lives currently tucked into myriad boxes.

But I'm not turning my back on the trip altogether. I've transferred all 7,389 photos to my computer, and eventually I'll start sorting through them and posting some more here. Although I never got around to writing most of my planned posts on my travel music, I might get around to it now...and there are always future trips to plan.

You know my bip-bopping days are over
I hung my boots up and then retired from the disco floor
Now the centre of my so called being is
The space between your bed and wardrobe with the louvre doors

Lyrics here.

Tea ceremony

More matcha tea, at Isuzen in the Daitokuji temple complex, Kyoto.

Omu raisu

Omuraisu, or omelet rice, from a mall food court in Kagoshima City, where I ate lunch with what appeared to be the entire teenage population.

Omuraisu is total comfort food, fried rice with a thin egg omelet draped overtop. It's often served with curry, demiglace, or ketchup, but this version unusually has the okonomi toppings of brown sauce, mayo, bonito flakes and shreds of red pickled ginger.

Beside the "white diaspora", the other tourist group catered to in Bali is Japanese, and I was amused to see a sign outside a restaurant advertising "omu nasi"!

Mikan

Tiny mikan from the slopes of Sakurajima, the smallest in Japan.

Cooling off after the onsen

This is Daimon-san in the Ibusuki area of Kagoshima prefecture. Just behind the photographer is the onsen where I was buried in hot volcanic sand with the sound of the surf crashing only metres away.

It was an amazing experience, the sand so hot that my hands and feet began instantly to pulse, as if I had four extra hearts. The combination of the heat and the weight were so relaxing I wanted to stay - but you can only remain for 15 minutes and even at that my skin got very slightly burnt.

Afterwards, to remove the yukata and clean off the sand, then soak naked in the onsen waters, before heading outside to drink an iced coffee and gaze happily at the mountain while the sea breeze cools you...bliss.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Photo: samurai armour in Matsuyama castle.

This vast novel by Haruki Murakami was my companion for most of my time in Japan. I was on my third reading when I finally, reluctantly, gave it up in Kyoto in exchange for some new material.

It's fascinating, absorbing - and despite multiple readings I don't understand it enough to say much about it except you should read it too. It's probably bad to make comparisons but the obvious one in my mind is Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, for the sweeping breadth and for the way that political and domestic history are intertwined; and for the surrealism. But this is Japan, not South America, and the comparison only goes so far.

It's about a young man abandoned at the bottom of a well, about his marriage and the strange machinations of his wife's family; it's about the atrocities committed by Japan before and during WWII, and the terrible fates that awaited the individuals that carried out the orders from on high, as well. It's about strange connections between strangers and the cost of letting go of reality in order to be able to heal.

I think it's probably a lot about the "soul" of modern Japan, except that I feel too ignorant to really understand; but happily the ignorant can feast on the book anyway. Ah, I am going to read so much once I come back to settle somewhere with a bookshelf and a library card again...

Believe!

Boddhisattvas are all loving-kindness, but there are more forceful deities to help convert the masses. These fearsome statues are often placed at the entrance to temples to help instill a sense of urgency in the not-yet-devout.

The kawaii never stops

Instructions for how to purify yourself before entering the grounds of a temple or shrine in Japan.

Goma

Toasted crushed sesame seeds ready to be added to fresh udon at O-men.

Kouyou

Looking down at the red leaves near Fukushima City, Fukushima, on the way to the summit of Azuma-san.

Azuma Ko-Fuji

View from the top of the crater near Fukushima City, Fukushima.

Jizo

Local god or boddhisattva with someone's gifted prayer beads.

Noh

My favourite from an exhibit of Noh masks that I saw in Kyoto. The way that I found out about the exhibit - I was browsing in a paper shop and an elderly woman approached me. In excellent English, she asked me if I was interested in Japanese culture, and when I said yes, offered to conduct me to an exhibit.

So she walked me there, apologising for not walking fast enough (while moving at a good clip assisted by a cane, no less!), delivered me into the care of her friend who was working at the exhibit, and melted away almost before I could say thank you!

The masks were lovely as was the chance to wander peacefully through the small rooms, attended by various elderly people who hovered affectionately but nervously, too shy to try to talk to me even in Japanese but clearly wanting me to be taken care of!

It turned out that the docents had made some of the masks themselves, and that the sensei himself was present! So, not entirely sure what etiquette required of me, I bowed to him, and he waved me off tolerantly and disinterestedly. I left again to go on with my planned day, though not before I was offered tea, and sent on my way with a packet of postcards of the masks and an embroidered handkerchief, courtesy of the temple that offered the exhibition. More Japanese generosity, and a sense of the wealth of the ages being handed down, on and on and on.

Authenticity

One of the little things that amused me while in Japan was watching the look of intense irritation that would sometimes waft across the face of another white person when they caught sight of me. Here I was, having a perfect Japanese moment, the look seemed to say; and then along came this lone other foreigner and RUINED it. Since so often you are clearly the only outsider around, it is noticeable when you pass another of your kind, the dreaded foreign tourist.

This is especially funny in Japan because no matter how many gaikokujin pass through the country, it is hard to imagine there ever being enough to even slightly dilute its essential Japaneseness. Plus, what did you think, other traveller, all these signs in English everywhere were erected for your personal benefit?

I mock, but alas I too am one of those travellers who dislikes thinking of herself as a tourist (though that is what she is). This search for authenticity (and getting to be an invisible observer) is the kind of concept Stuff White People Like was invented to make fun of, but in a way it's an almost necessary part of the desire to travel. We make the effort because we're captivated by some idea of the exotic Other Place, even if the ideal is just a white sandy beach. Then when you get there you have to deal with the fact that the beach is crowded with other holidaymakers, you get sunburnt, there are no bathrooms, and all the other little details that weren't covered in the brochure.

This fond delusion that I admit to cherishing, that as a traveller you can slip quietly into the background of a scene and be part of it without transforming it is of course an illusion for the most part. But one of the many delights of travelling in Japan is that no matter how touristy and built-up the site is, the number of domestic tourists by far outweighs the number of foreign ones. So even if you are having a dreadfully tacky tourist time, it's AUTHENTICALLY tacky. (Plus it's Japan so it's still aesthetically pleasing.)

If Japan let me nourish my delusions in peace, my first few days in South-East Asia were a shock to the system. The presence everywhere in Ubud of posters advertising "the "real" Bali!" were a bit of a hint that this authenticity was no more. If it's made it into scarequotes and onto tour descriptions, it might not be quite what it used to be.

Of course there is still "real" Bali, but it has to hide a little harder from the tourists to maintain itself. Plus, when you're aware that the presence of so many other tourists has already pushed it underground, how hard do you want to try to find it, and make it more vulnerable still?

So then what does the determined non-tourist do? Slip from travel mode into vacation mode and just enjoy the surface pleasures (in Bali there are many, many pleasures to be enjoyed, "real" or not)? Or try to find some non-toxic way to travel? I prefer the following, but short of living somewhere and properly learning about it, I'm not sure what it is. But I have a few months left to try and find out.

Photo: the author, inauthentically pretending to be Japanese at a ryokan in Fukuoka, Kyuushu.

Slurping, sniffing, and smoking

Japan has a deserved reputation for being a very polite country, with lots of rules to follow. But then Canada is supposed to be a nation of fairly polite people too, and a lot of the same rules apply. We tend to take off our shoes when visiting people's houses, even if the location isn't demarcated by a handy step (and we don't provide separate slippers for the bathroom). But anyhow basic polite behaviour is fairly similar.

There are customs that are more idiosyncratic though. People who have eaten a lot of meals with me know that one of my more annoying qualities is severe sensitivity to sound (well, just severe sensitivity really!). Slurping noises can ruin a whole meal for me if I'm in the wrong mood.

Asia is an excellent place to come to break myself of this overreaction. In Japan, not only is it perfectly ok to slurp, but actually when you're eating udon it's rude NOT to slurp. When a friend took us to a traditional udon shop on my trip to Japan in 2008, the owner was perfectly welcoming to the two gaikokujin, but made sure to impress on us that we had to slurp when we were served the noodles! Such is Japanese politeness though, that a friend once told me when he eats ramen in NYC, he looks around at the people around him. If they are mostly Japanese, he slurps, and if they are mostly not, he doesn't!

In fact my month in Japan was enough to win me over to slurping - when you're eating noodles in hot soup in a hurry it's completely functional, cooling each bite as you eat (and also keeping your shirt clear of broth splashes). Sniffing I wasn't really won over to. Apparently you are not supposed to blow your nose in public in Japan, as it draws too much attention to yourself, so instead you are stuck sniffing and sniffing until you are safely in a private place...

And smoking mores are different too. Tokyo has reminder signs everywhere about polite smoking behaviour - don't waft the smoke in people's faces, don't smoke right beside a non-smoking area etc. In most public places in the city it's forbidden to smoke outside. But it's still ok to smoke in restaurants and bars, and the chain cafes that offer both smoking and nonsmoking areas usually have a purely psychological barrier between the two - not too effective as a smoke barrier it turns out.

These are just some random examples but it makes me wonder what behaviours I accept as perfectly normal seem terrifically rude to others. The classic Foreigner-in-Japan example is probably wearing the bathroom slippers out of the bathroom - a solecism I thankfully avoided! I have enough Japanese friends that I felt pretty safe there. Now in South-East Asia, I'm on less certain ground, and I keep wondering what thing I unthinkingly do is someone else's sniffing noise...

Mata ne!

And so, after a fabulous month-and-a-bit in Japan, it was time to depart. Most reluctantly. I was fighting a bitter inner war with myself about whether I should live in Kyoto or Tokyo when I come back to Japan (or go apprentice myself as a farmer in Fukushima, of course) and it seemed inappropriate to decamp without fighting the decisive battle! However, I will be back in about five months, so it's "mata ne" instead of "sayonara"!

I had a few last days in Tokyo to spend time on important issues like catching up on neglected soba-eating, as well as day trips to Nikko and Kamakura. I also found time to return to the excellent cafe operated out of this tiny van parked just off Omotesando, one of Tokyo's ritziest shopping streets. (Photo taken on my visit in early October. Please note the plants set out around the van. For anyone in Tokyo, to find the cafe head down Omotesando away from Meiji-jingu for a few blocks, and it will be in an alley on your left, just past that really fancy odd-shaped department store, tucked away behind Morgan de moi, and its hours are 10 to 6 I think).

Those who know how I love to be a regular will understand how much the following meant to me. When I went to get my latte, the owner (or at least the same woman who I've always seen working there) handed me a stamp card. Then she took it back and added a stamp saying, "for last time". Last time was a whole month ago, but she remembered me! I felt sad to not be able to fill out the stamp card until March - but it was a nice send-off from my all-too-brief stay in Japan. The littlest things can make me happy...

And on to South-East Asia - first stop, Bali!

Fushimi Inari

An endless flow of red torii gates at Fushimi Inari shrine.

This is the head shrine for about 40,000 others across Japan. If you see little fox statues just past the entrance torii, you know it's an inari shrine.

At Fushimi, just south of Kyoto, you can follow the gate-path all the way to the top of the mountain, with views out over the city and toward Osaka. I contemplated them with a kinako (toasted-soybean flour) ice cream in my hand.

Ine

On the farm in Fukushima.

A-bomb dome, Hiroshima

Autumn leaves