Clock.

There's black writing on the face of the clock. Big, bold. But they don't seem very important anymore.

The ticking sound, that dry, monotonous ticking down, does not instill any urgency in the youthful heart. Time is squandered, and it flows like spilled wine, precious and red, over the coins that are spilled. Some spending here, some spending there.

Next, time reminds you that it still has a hold on your body, and mortality creeps behind you, distant at first, lingering by the weeping willows and scraping oaks, then approaching ever closer. You can smell his breath as it curls round your head, fingers of it, then reach up your nostrils.

Father time shakes his head. "Oh, my son. You've learned so much and gained so little. Learned so little and have so much."

Will the experiment be a failure?

Of Romance Relationships and Love (The plastic and the real roses)

I've seen and heard both sides of the coin, and they both make me sick. I despise their cruelty and their foolishness. I try not to despise the people. Bleeding heart sometimes, I guess. One side takes and lies and makes bogus promises, the other clings to the lying side because of - I wonder? - those tiny kernels of hidden insecurities, non-satisfaction with the person looking in the mirror, the Kay Jewelrers and romance movie pressure to be in a relationship weighing hard on their weak and oppressed psyches. Both sides are products of a bogus system that throws away morals like McDonald's wrappers and half-eaten Big-Macs.

Society says we should walk down the aisles, finger trained on the products displayed there in pretty wrappers, and pick and choose who we want to use then promptly throw away. A child abuses his toys and a parent thinks nothing of it.

Society says we should believe Prince Charming or a beautiful Princess is out there waiting who will fulfill our short-sighted dream of marriage and end up divorced and on welfare. Their dreams are all cheap plastic. They need to burn.
____

Phew! Had to get some cynicism out.

Japan Trip Part Six: 大阪の下町 (Downtown Osaka)

The second weekend there, Nori’s kind and merry aunt came to take us to downtown Osaka. She laughed a lot and wore tinted glasses. We went to 'Amemura' (American Town), where there was graffiti art sprawled along a wall, rap music, and extremely narrow streets.







While in Amemura, I saw another black person for the second time. Nori’s aunt bought a shirt for me, but I stupidly misplaced it and left God-knows-where. Here are more photos of Osaka for your eyes to feast on:







We went to a famous crab restaurant, and had pricey dishes that all featured this tasty sea animal.




Later, near evening, we went to the Osaka history museum, then Osaka castle:





We caught this guy on the bench, with his noble lizard on guard. You could touch the cold-blooded animal without it attacking. Completely docile. I don't know what the guy was trying to do.



This building near Osaka castle was closed down. Perhaps it was a museum. I have an obsession with derelicts and abandoned buildings; I wanted to explore it. I'm sure it was illegal, though.



Sadly, the castle was closed for the day, but I got my hands on freshly-made Takoyaki (fried octopus dumpling). A friendly but rough-looking old man made the dumplings right in front of us. I liked the man’s voice – it was gravelly but amicable, like the voice of your favorite grandfather who might’ve smoked two packs of cigarettes a day in his youth. The man poured the batter into the indentions, then added the bits of octopi. Amazingly good food. I can here my stomach growling even now as I type these words.

Japan Trip Part Five: Seikatsu (Everyday life)

On Mondays, Nori went to Kansai Gaidai University to take his final teaching classes. It was considerably far from his apartment, so I soon bought a bike to accompany him on the journey there. Considering how tiny buildings tend to be in Japan, the campus grounds were large.









There were a plethora of young people with whom I could converse. Unfortunately, I was too shy to do so, and missed many opportunities. Some people did come up to me, though, and I befriended most of them. Usually, Nori and I ate breakfast, lunch and dinner at Gaidai, because the meals were cheap but filling.


Nori (left) and I (off-screen) eating at Kansai Gaidai's cafeteria.

To the staff and students, I was just an international student there, so I blended in perfectly. While Nori went to class, I lounged around the student common area, biked around the city, or worked out at the gym feeling very scrawny and weak with all the muscle around me.

It would be in Hirakata where I spent the bulk of my stay, boarding (for free) at my friend's tiny apartment for one person.





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Shots of the apartment.


I slept on two layers of blankets, used two folded towels for a pillow. If I stood on my toes whilst showering, my head would touch the bathroom ceiling. We had to conserve water and AC – the landlord charged Nori for every cent of it. Because showering in his own home could be expensive, then, we often showered at the public bathrooms at Gaidai. This kind of cheap living was about as close to backpacking as I would get – and I often had my red and black Dakine bag strapped to my back as I traveled.

Now, had I commanded more confidence, and thus, a better command of Japanese, I would've gone all types of places by myself. At the top of this list of places was Tokyo – the most expensive city to live in on earth. Tokyo’s true allure, however, was a friend of mine I’d met while still in the States. She’d been my first conversation partner and Japanese friend, and had helped me greatly improve my Japanese. For the moment, though, I couldn’t speak the native tongue well enough to travel solo. Therefore, I stuck with Nori, who never had the money to get to Tokyo. In effect, I failed to reach that faraway city. Because Nori could not always spare time and money for trips around Japan, we had to entertain ourselves locally. Specifically, we frequented pachinko (I’ll explain this game soon)/slot parlors and spent hours at an internet café where a swarthy, beautiful clerk with lightly-blushed cheeks welcomed us with her demure smile. Nori seemed to have developed a half-joking crush for her. He urged me several times to ask her if she had a boyfriend, but I knew I’d end up tripping over my own tongue. In retrospect, I want to kick myself for that.

As I promised earlier, I’ll explain what pachinko is. Pachinko is a type of Japanese gambling game, in which the player turns a crank which shoots up small metal balls. The object is to get these balls in specific slots for points. In the background of the machine is a video of a game or anime. The more points you accrue, the more the video progresses, presenting intense action scenes, some of which you can interact with. Pachinko machines blast out loud music and noise, blare with lights. Imagine rows upon rows of these things, people glued to the screen while cigarettes burn idly between their lips, cigarette smoke burning your eyes and clinging stubbornly to every article of clothing on your body – this is pachinko. It’s really something else. Truthfully, Nori and I were awful at pachinko, so we stuck to the easier game of slots; matching images together is considerably easier. Out of the six times I played slots, I only lost twice. I raked in at least a 4,000 yen net gain each game. Nori and I joked my ‘luck’ stemmed from the fact that the games were controlled; they wanted foreigners to win. In addition to extra cash, winners would receive prizes based on the amount of yen they won. For small timers like myself, most of the rewards were small snacks. Small-timers – small rewards. Fair enough, right?


Pachinko

The internet café we went to, Game Buster, deserves more mention. I’ve been to an American internet café once or twice, and rest assured, they pale in comparison to the ones in Japan. It feels more like a small, quaint bookstore than a seedy haven for the socially inept and game addicts. After walking past the aisles of Japanese comics and magazines, you would find a vending machine to your right, where one could dispense cold water, hot water to make his own tea, or readily-made Japanese green tea. The cigarette vending machines stood by the restroom. Teenagers, young adults, and older men were the usual clientele. Continue forward, and you would see the booths, where, bordered by walls for the sake of privacy, awaited for you a computer and monitor that doubled as a television, slippers to hug your tired feet, a plush leather recliner that welcomed your form, a footrest of the same material, and a small piece of fruit-flavored candy as compliment for your patronage. In Japan, the customer is a god. One night, Nori and I took advantage of a special package Game Buster offered, and stayed there for a whopping 12 hours straight. It’s an embarrassing admission, but as humorous as it is pathetic. We ended up falling asleep in our chairs, and upon waking up, found that daylight had broke.

Dreams

[This is quite the digression from my recent string of posts]

I had weird dreams last night and thought I'd put them here to preserve them in case memory decides not to. Already, the images and tactility of them are slipping through the cracks that run through human memory and populate the brain more and more as age comes in.

I remember eggs - weird and unnapetizing. I want to throw up right now. A scientist had shell-less yolks in a translucent vat of sorts. They were shaped like eggs, only they existed as mere yolks. And they looked gelatinous, like the white parts usually are. Anyway, all of a sudden, I saw one yolk 'multiply' like an amoeba, and that part multiplied, and so on, until the vat was full of egg yolks. Upon tables in front of other vats, the multiplying eggs seemed to have been reduced to yellow crystals. The scientists said they were safe to eat, and we fried the little bastards up to make scrambled eggs. They were good.

Then, in a retro-futuristic world that was first black and white, a group brought (or they could've made, I can't remember) a young man. He was very frightened and weird. They took him to 'the room', which is a variant of the Infinity Room from my imagination. The IR is a closed structure built around a space-time anomaly found in the desert. Around the IR is a secret but large lab. Scientists somehow found a way to control the anomaly, and by using the IR's computer, can create anything they wish, including alternate planes of existence, or go back in time.

The young man created what I guess was some sort of creature, reminiscent of the Gekko's from metal gear solid 4:

^Gekko.

Anyway, they kept making the young man - who reminded me of Edward Scissorhands - do things in The Room. As time went by, he started breathing some sort of gas from a hose by putting it into the apparatus over his mouth. He started loving or caring about another guy in the room and gave him some gas, too. As the two started breathing the gas, colour came into the world. Then, doors opened at the back of the place they were in, revealing a cold-looking night in a very large and imposing city. Neon green gas was freaking everywhere.

Japan Trip Part Four: Mother and Son(s)

We touched down in Fukuoka city with thankfully another smooth landing. Once again, I followed the stream of people, this time to baggage claim. I grabbed my bright orange and back duffle, walked through sliding doors, and for the first time, took in the outside air of Japan. It was a humid day, and rain continued its light aerial assault on the surface world. Taking shelter under a canopy, I waited for Nori’s mother Mika to come retrieve me. For the most part, the Japanese people seemed keep to themselves; they did not seem to mind the gaijin in their midst. I would sooner have been a part of the environment, like one of the pillars holding up the canopy. Every once in a while, though, I would catch a prolonged stare in the distance. I didn’t really mind it because it is human nature to be curious.

Mika spotted me instantly, of course. She remains in my memory a very kind woman, small in stature, with a simple hairstyle and motherly face. We introduced ourselves, then she urged me to follow her to the nearby subway terminal. Mika and I toured Fukuoka that night, mostly just walking while I took photos.


It says 'Yakitori', skewered grilled chicken.


Ghostly image of a telephone booth. They haven't gone extinct in Japan like they have in the States




My brightest memory of that night shines like the lights of “Taito Station”,


a game center whose light spilled out into the streets like heavenly nectar. It beckoned me with music, pounding louder as Mika and I stepped inside. I won a tiny bath towel with a cartoon character on it and played a shooter game upstairs. It was just like the game centers I’d seen on Japanese anime. Later that night, Mika and I went to a bar, where she graciously paid for my meal of that evening: one and a half slim, small bottles of sake, sashimi, and some grilled meat. It is Japanese custom to pay for their company’s meal. Communication between us was difficult; my Japanese wasn’t as good as it should’ve been, and her English knowledge was slim. However, words are not always needed to enjoy another person’s companionship.

Right before my small reunion with Nori, Mika and I had stopped to eat at a restaurant. This was my first encounter with what I call the ‘vending machine system.'



There were two vending machines by the door – which, by the way, opened only if you put your hand on a sensor – with rows of food selection. One merely had to select his or her choice, then insert the coins or bills to print the ticket. This ticket would be handed to the chef, who cooked the selection, then called out your number. This system eliminated the concept of ‘waiting in line’ that you find in many American eateries. I ordered the spiciest noodle soup they had,



something my mouth would hate me for after becoming acquainting with it. While I tried to keep from blowing fire, Nori came to meet us at our table. There is quite nothing like meeting a friend you haven’t seen in a long time. Japanese people rarely hug in public, but because it’d been long since we’d last met, he didn’t mind breaking taboo, and pulled me in for an embrace. The rest of my first night in Japan was delightful – we caught up on old times – but uneventful. Upon returning to the hotel we all stayed in that night, I closed my eyes and wondered what the next thirteen days would hold. But not before snapping these photos of the famous Japanese commodes:


Console on the left. Heated seats.



Then...daybreak. Outside the hotel:






we woke up and, after breakfast...



the three of us took the train. Hard to take pictures with the camera whilst moving.



and, afterwards, taxi, to 'Saru-yama' (monkey mountain).



Aptly named, it was a small mountain in which three communities of monkeys lived. You could observe them live their daily lives.





Then, we went to the city of Beppu, and saw three famous boiling springs. One was a beautiful azure,



the other a hellish-red,




and the other an earthy brown. The day was mercilessly hot; our ice cream melted at an alarming rate.







We got to Kumamoto city near the evening. It was a small but nice city, where there was an ‘open-ended’ mall covered by a canopy. One of many in Japan, it had no doors, but alleys where one could simply enter from the surrounding streets. It was currently night in Kumamoto and there were many young people there. I began to wonder what it would be like living there, or if I had been born there, how life would be different. I wondered about the lives of the youth around me, what kind of people they befriended, what they did everyday afterschool. I wished at times to tear away from my 'guides' (my friend and his mother), and just do whatever whimsy led me to.







After milling about trying to figure out what to do (and for the least amount of money) we sang Karaoke at one place for about two hours. In between tracks from the Backstreet Boys and the Beatles (Nori loves both of them), I went to the bathroom. Before I could finish, someone knocked on the door and said something that escaped translation entirely. I kept saying ‘chotto matte kudasai!’ (please wait a moment), but the guy just kept talking. I sighed, annoyed, and opened the door after washing my hands. I came face to face with a boy who looked to be a junior or senior in high school. A long-sleeve black shirt outlined his thin torso. I cannot remember the words we exchanged after we introduced ourselves (his name was Yoji, I believe), but this memory sticks out to me like a beacon. This was my first personal, non-business encounter with someone in Japan other than Nori and Mika. We didn’t talk long, but for the time we did, I felt more welcome in this foreign land.

We went to Kumamoto Castle next day, the first of three castles I would see in my three weeks in Japan.





It was raining that day, and the ground was quickly becoming muddy. It was a beautiful castle – right out of a samurai movie. That old Japanese custom of taking off one’s shoes to enter a residence held true even at the castle. An old man at the entrance instructed customers to take off their shoes and put them in a bag. Only slippers could grace the aged wooden floors of this castle. The dark, wooden walls trapped humidity in every chamber of almost every floor; the floor squeaked with each movement, their age protesting against the weight. The rooms were devoid of furniture, but several had information about the castle and its history, models of it and the town in ancient times, and parts of its structure on display. I took photos with a woman dressed as a ninja, and two men dressed up as castle guards.




Later, we went to a famous park (whose name, sadly, escapes me). The trees and plants were finely manicured in Japanese style – beautiful in their simplicity. There was a temple there which we visited, where we tossed a coin into the altar, clapped our hands, and prayed.






At a shop beside the temple, we bought omikuji (fortunes). Thankfully, mine was in English. I kept mine instead of tying it to the tree, as tradition would call for. In the evening, we parted with Mika the 'okaasan' (‘mother’. She even insisted that I call her that). Nori and I boarded the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Hirakata city, near Osaka. Hirakata is a suburban kind of town, with not too much to do (where we lived at least) ,but it was bigger than small towns in America.