a day in the floating world

This was originally part of a facebook message to a friend who asked me for an update, but it was too long to send on facebook and i don't have the friend's email so i'm putting it here because i want to



It was Thanksgiving last week. They don't really celebrate Thanksgiving here, but there is a public holiday on what's known in America as Black Friday. So I took a day of paid leave and had a nice four-day weekend. I waited too long to book my tickets to Kyoto, so the journey there was long and arduous. I left my house and walked to the train station though nasty ice cold wind blowing over the island. Fortunately, It was warmer down south in the ancient city. I took an express train into to Tokyo and got there about 8 o'clock and I had to get from Ueno to Shinjuku and the station was bustling with people all clamoring over each other to get a spot on one of the billion commuter trains. I hadn't been to Ueno station before and I was a little disoriented so when I located the right platform the train doors were just closing and people, cramped shoulder-to-shoulder like sardines in a metal cans, were being taken away.

Here in my countryside town, if you miss a train you're waiting at least thirty minutes before the next one comes, and that's just during peak hours. But in the heart of Tokyo, it takes all of thirty seconds before the next one arrives. An identical metal box of sardines ready for disposal. I squeezed in and took the ride. Maybe 20 minutes later the crowd thinned a bit and I was on the other end of the metropolis at Shinjuku station, which is like a strange zoo with all sorts of flavors of Japanese sardines flopping around. Some have suits and ties and some wear slutty boots and layers of makeup and some dress like gansta rappers with lugz boots and baggy pants and some are still in high school and wear regulation uniform, but the strange thing about Tokyo is that no matter where you look or who you look at, everything is beautiful.

So I left the sardine cannery and walked outside and smoked a cigarette and started to look for the bus depot, but I got distracted by a brilliant display of Christmas lights covering the whole of a random pavilion. Japan is an odd place. It has such a rich and incredible history, but tends to gloss over it all in the name of foreign western rituals. Japan has no cultural or religious stake in ideas like Christmas or Halloween. But they're here, in all their consumerist and capital-driven glory. Japan is a society of blatant, shameless mass consumption and consumerism. That's the dark side of this place. But I try not to let it get to me. I go with the flow of it all, and enjoy the pretty lights.

I found the bus depot and killed the time in between my departure by drinking beer from a convenience store. Kyoto is about eight hours away from Tokyo on the highway. In (what at the time) seemed like a reasonable and logical decision, I booked a seat on an overnight bus that would have me all the way down south by dawn the next day. This was not the best idea. The original plan was to drink heavily and then pass out, only to awake the next morning in a new city far away. Passing out did not happen. In fact, real sleep didn't happen. Just 8 hours of trying to fall asleep, dozing off for an hour or so, then waking back up. Over and over. On and on into the night. I didn't manage to make it through a full cycle of sleep in the entire eight hour bus ride, so when I arrived in the city I was drained and exhausted.

I also smelled. So I managed to orient myself and locate a public bathhouse on the third basement floor of a massive building near Kyoto station. The place was crowded and my naked white body drew the usual amount of stares from foreign eyes. I don't bath publicly often. Especially here, where just about every man has a physique superior to mine. Welcome to inadequacy.

I bathed and changed and paid and left quickly. The morning air was crisp and the sun was bright and warm. The city was alive. I needed to recharge to keep pace. So I found a Starbucks nearby and bought a medium sized cup of Sumatra coffee and sat outside, watching the masses bumble about. Kyoto is a massive city. I'd venture to guess that at any give point, there are at least 100,000 people in the train station (which is absolutely massive and also THE best station in Japan. Google it.).

I sat there drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. Watching people. Lots of foreigners in Kyoto. For some reason that irks me, it's like they're invading my space or something. And they all see you and your white skin and shoot you this obligatory glance of acknowledgment: "Hey look, I'm not Japanese! Hey, neither are you!" I can't fault them, the first time I came here I did the same thing. You can identify the foreigners who actually live here by the blank and disinterested expression they wear as they pass you by.

So I sat there, soaking in the vibe of the city, watching is ebb and flow. I messaged Ryan and Danielle and Kipp. The plan is to meet up later. We all originally met in Chicago at pre-departure orientation, and spend the first four days together in Japan together at the massive Tokyo orientation.

They didn't respond immediately, so I finished the coffee and put on my backpack and walked away. I stayed on the main road and came to a large temple that I had seen before on previous trips to Kyoto, but had never visited, so I went in side an looked around and it seemed like there was something going on inside, so I climbed up the stairs and took off my shoes and entered the temple. Scores and scores of people were all sitting down, waiting for something to happen. They were generally all older and Japanese. I asked the woman next to me what was going to happen and she said that the service would begin soon. For a brief moment, I thought I better leave, that I had fallen into a horrible trap, but then I thought about how I've never had an experience like this and since bought the ticket, I better take the ride.

The monks filed out in unison and took their places. The head monk recited a prayer, then begin to chant. Soon the rest of the men joined in and the temple reverberated with the deep droning chant of the monks and it sent chills thought out my entire body and I closed my eyes, but my mind was wide open. I could feel my body, I could hear what it was saying to me, I could feel the strain on my feet and legs from sitting Japanese seiza style, I could feel the fatigue throughout my body from the restless night. And I could also feel the natural diarrhetic effects of the black coffee coursing its way through my system.

I've never been a huge fan of using the restroom in public. Obviously, over the span of my 23 years, there've been numerous occasions where I've had to get over myself and take care of business. But I will say that if you ever have to drop a bomb in public, a Zen temple is really the best place to do it.

After that was over I took a walk around the temple grounds, looking at the colorful autumn leaves. The word for autumn foliage in Japanese is koyo. This city is renowned for its koyo. It's the reason I came.

***

So you loose your mind for a minute in a forest exploding with yellow and red and orange and green and you think you're on acid but you're not and you kick yourself a little for misplacing those three tabs you smuggled in from back home. Then you walk past a sign that says Let Us Discover The Significance Of Birth And Joy Of Living and that seems like something we all need to agree upon. And afterwards you keep on walking and still haven't heard from any of your friends so you keep on walking because you know there is a park nearby that you want to see but you don't have a map, but you think it's okay because you have a basic sense direction and as you walk through alleyways and side streets, past all the little shops and cafes and houses and vending machines you wonder if you're going in the right direction, but then you reach a gigantic forest surrounded by a Japanese wall and it occurs to you that you must have found what you were looking for.

And so you walk around the wall looking for the entrance and it takes 10 minutes and it was a long walk and you realize once you get in that it's not a public park, but a private garden that you have to pay to see. But you pay the 500 yen anyways and walk in behind an old man from Sapporo who has traveled much farther than you to be here in this ancient city in the autumn. But you can't help but wonder if the old man was disappointed to walk in through the gated entrance and turn the corner around the tall Japanese hedge only to see a field of dead plants. Brown and lifeless corpses, hardened by the sun and wind, somehow still standing proud and tall in a pond of green water. And you wonder if the old man who came so far was disappointed that death came quicker than he, or if he was able to find the beauty in it too. And so you walk through the garden and you look at all the beautiful things and some are full of autumn red and green and yellow and others have already finished the annual pilgrimage across colorful death and are now bare and lifeless, but there is still beauty in it all.


***

Later on Danielle and Ryan send for me and I walk back to the station from the garden and it's not too far to walk and along the way I can't help but think how much I enjoy this city and the fall.

So I catch a bus to another part of the city near the palace and imperial park and I find Danielle and Ryan on the second floor of a restaurant overlooking the palace grounds. With them was a girl from New Zealand called Anna. I hadn't met Anna before, but she is a friend of Danielle's who was in Kyoto too. I hadn't seen my friends in four months and it was wonderful to be in their presence again, because they are my kind of people, and those are hard to come by here.

They had mostly finished eating, but ordered dessert while I decided on a light lunch and the first of the day's beers. Danielle said she liked my pinstripe jacket. Anna criticized Ryan for being abrasive and blatantly foreign. I tell them the story I've just told you. Kipp sends a message. He wants us to meet him in the park. We paid for the meal and smoked a cigarette and walked to the park.

The palace grounds, covered in trees and plant life, had exploded in a fiery symphony of autumn colors. I had to put on sunglasses to keep from going blind from the beauty. Ryan and I wandered aimlessly, trying to lose ourselves in the wonder. Danielle followed not far behind. Anna went in a different direction and I never saw her again.

We spent hours in the park. Kipp came as the sun was beginning its decent behind the mountains. We looked at leaves and saw families walking dogs and couples sitting on park benches, looking young and in love.

When we left we made a quick stop at the guesthouse then took a bus to the Zen temple called Ginkaku-ji and it was very crowded, but still beautiful, especially in the twilight.

Afterwards we walked down the bustling sidestreet that led up to the temple and wanted to have a rest so we stopped in a small shop for a cup of tea, but ended up having coffee instead. And the shop had just opened back in August and the owner build all the tables and chairs (along with a wood cabin in Nagano) with his own hands and he also smoked meat and cheese in his little shop and he had two brothers who lives in the states.

We had coffee and smoked cheese and got up to leave and the man told us to take care and then we walked out into the night. And the street that was once bustling shoulder-to-shoulder with people less than an hour before was now deserted. All the shops were closed and it was dark, so we decided to go.

We saw an advert for nighttime leaf viewing and agreed that we should try to find the spot so we started walking towards that part of town. It was far enough to hire a cab, but we had trouble hailing one, but eventually did after walking halfway there.

The shrine was in Kipp's old neighborhood and he knew his way around. As we passed a tree that looked enshrined he told us the legend of the swordsman Musashi and how this was the tree that he hid in before jumping down to the ground and singlehandedly slaying 20 men. Then we went to the shrine and saw leaves lit up in the night and we took off our shoes to go inside and it was cold to walk on the tatami floor but everything was all right.

Then we left and needed food and drink so we made a quick stop for a beer and a snack then got on a small train with just one car and I almost lost a glove but Danielle found it and then we got off at a different station and caught a subway to a part of town that was glowing with neon and flashing lights.

We entered the floating world.

Music was blaring and people were in every direction and everything was illuminated and very different from the ancient temples and gardens we'd visited earlier. The exploding autumn forests had been replaced by neon and commerce and trying to navigate through the madness was a wild trip. We floated past hostess bars and love hotels and porno shops and bars and pubs are restaurants and clubs and game centers and everything was glowing in the night. We saw a sign that looked good and walked underground into an Indonesian restaurant.

It wasn't crowded, the only other table was also foreigners, which was odd because you suddenly have to watch what you say when you realize that other people in the room can understand English.

We ordered beer and spring rolls and tandoori chicken and pahd thai and curry and more beer and had a good meal.

What did we talk about? What was said?

I can't think of it now.

Except that Ryan asked the waitress if she thought the sheep brain curry was good. And she said that she liked curry but had never tried that one. I said I didn't blame her.

Afterwards we resurfaced back to the neon streets and met up with an old university friend of Kipp's and floated to a bar on the 5th floor of some building and paid 1000 yen for an hour of all you can drink so I switched from beer to whisky and soda with lime.
Then we left and found a skybar on the ten thousandth floor of a building on a hill and from the top we could see the entire city pulsing beneath us. We ordered another drink and a pizza and it was all overpriced but the atmosphere was good and at the table next to us were five Japanese and at some point three of them left and two girls stayed behind and struck up a conversation with Kipp and his friend Ikketsu and Danielle and Ryan and I ordered another drink and smoked cigarettes until Kipp pulled me into the other conversation and so then I talked with these Japanese girls and had a drink and then we needed a change of scenery and more affordable drinks so we got up to leave and invited the two girls to come with us and they said that would be fine. And they weren't very lovely, which was sad, but still true even after the drinks, but we floated to a bar somewhere and the interior décor was comprised mainly of bud leaves and other stoner paraphernalia but there were no real drugs but we stayed anyway and had two drinks and a shot of whiskey before we left the floating world and returned to the guesthouse by taxi and ended the first day in Kyoto.