Dispatches from the Western Affairs Desk

Ahhh, to be back in Tokyo. I have resurfaced my from internet exile. Since I have accumulated a bevy of experiences in a number of places, which I have diligently documented, I present them here in a loose chronological order from the most recent onward. The reason there's been scant word of my travels since I headed off on my own after Fukuoka is as such: I was incapable of writing anything in Beppu since I was overly relaxed, and Hiroshima wasn't very free wifi friendly - and my laptop didn't jive with the internets at the hotel. But now that I'm back in the hub network of the labyrinth that is Tokyo, I'm back, baby!

At the moment I'm staying at a capsule hotel. For anyone who hasn't heard of this, I'll have pictures up later tonight that will illustrate this short description. Basically, it not for the claustrophobic. A grid two high and ten long line each side of a air conditioned hallway, each capsule is about three feet high and eight feet long, about the size of a slightly larger than usual single bed. There is a screen to pull down the entrance, which is about three feet square, to give you privacy. Inside, on top of the capsule by the end you put your feet and other belongings is a television in a plastic enclosure. When I checked in after getting off the train from Hiroshima, I was watching the Japan vs USA soccer game while cooling off from lugging my pack for about forty minutes on two different trains to get to my destination, Asuksa. This is where we stayed our first week in Tokyo, and I decided to head back to the same area since I know the lay of the land pretty well there.

The rest of the afternoon was spent getting back into the city groove, which meant going to a game parlor and playing my favorite Japanese Gundam game until my eyes were about to bleed. I gained five levels and two new mechs with plenty of upgrades, but there's this dude named Shinji-Ko who regularly hands my head to me on a silver platter... I must beat him...

After my limbic system couldn't take anymore, it was off to Garage Bar to pick up my tickets to Summer Sonic, which is all weekend. I'm still walking on cute little puffy clouds that I randomly stumbled on tickets to this thing. A lot of bands, a lot of dancing, and as I expect, a lot of sweating. So my thanks goes out to Tom, the bartender at the punk rock bar where my trip to Japan went from super cool to downright awesome.

Hopefully the weather won't be too hot, as the main stage is a baseball stadium. Luckily the other stages are indoors and air conditioned, but I can't drive home the point that I had no idea what kind of heat I would be facing in Japan. People said it was hot, and I know what hot is, but lugging around 30 pounds of camera equipment, at times, is getting to be borderline insane behavior. I've taken to the schedule of waking up and finding as many indoor activities as possible, and then after the sun sets, I break out the big guns and hit the streets of Shibuya, Shinjuku and other similar places to get the last few, and in my opinion - most important - shots of this trip.

I am still in constant awe of the complexity and sheer magnitude of this place. Although I feel that when the 14th comes around I'll be very ready to be back in the temperate climes of Los Angeles and a nice hot slice of pizza.

The post continues on to writings from earlier on this week, hope you enjoy and think about what's said, hopefully it will make some sense.

Dawn in Hiroshima
August 6th, 9:30 am
Hiroshima

63 years ago, from where I'm sitting at this moment I'd probably be dead by now. 1945, at approximately 8:15 am, this place is where the world changed forever. I didn't come to Hiroshima knowing the significance of August 6th. It was apparent the moment I got to the peace memorial that something was going on, as I was greeted by the sight of thousands of people mulling around the grounds under the hot summer sun. At first I wasn't too surprised by the amount of people, this is world heritage site and a national, if not global, landmark... but in this heat? It became clearly obvious as I read some of the first large commemorative signs: "At 8:15 August 6th, 1945, the hydrogen bomb dropped by the Enola Gay detonated 600m directly above this site, marking the first use of nuclear weapons in history." It was a chilling recognition. A flood of memories washed over me as I stood there staring up at the remains of the building known now as the "A-Bomb Dome". I used to have a model of that very bomber, the same B-29 that dropped the bomb. I remember running through my back yard as it's pilot, and laying on my back, holding it up against the sky. Now, almost 20 years later, I stand on the spot where surely someone else stood looked up at the sky, saw that very same plane, and in a flash, was incinerated by the massive ball of hellfire that consumed 2 kilometers of this city almost instantly. As an American, this event has always been portrayed with a strange distant duality, the horror of the mushroom cloud, but yet ending a war that could have resulted in millions more dead if the allies had to invade the mainland of Japan. But being here, seeing this place, going through the museum displaying charred lunchboxes, watches stopped at 8:15, pieces of concrete that had the ghastly silhouettes of people caught in the initial flash burned onto it... finally seeing the human cost to such an event moved me very deeply. The stark nature of why it happened: Hiroshima didn't have any prisoner of war camps, was a city larger than 3km, and it was clear that day above the city. It's fate was sealed. Such as it is, the area of the epicenter of the blast consisted mainly of a hospital, three schools, and a industrial trade building, the latter which is one of the only remaining buildings left standing. The reason is that because the explosion occurred directly above it, the physics of the blast allowed most of the structure to survive, the iron skeleton of the bronze dome now aptly referred to as the A-Bomb dome. The people inside the building were not as fortunate, but were lucky enough to be vaporized and saved the pain of having their skin flayed off by radiation heat.

The grounds of the peace memorial were being prepared for a large ceremony that is probably going on right now as I write this, but yesterday there was a myriad of people protesting nuclear weapons proliferation, and organizations selling t-shirts that simply read "Peace". I was impressed to find out that since the end of the world war, the prime minister of Japan has issued a letter of protest to every time a country has conducted a nuclear weapons test to this very day. The museum had an entire wall that displayed a majority of the letters, each personally written to the leaders of the countries of the United States, France, Russia, China and India... a powerful gesture, but it seems in light of the advancing stage of weapon proliferation and development, a nation devoted to peace is one gentle voice muted in a sea of shouting.

I thought back to Beppu, when I was sitting at the train station and saw a woman wearing a shirt that simply read "I hope the world changes". I agree sister, I really do...

But I'm confounded at how many pieces of clothing I see that are in English... it's the flipside to the coin of American's who wear stuff that has Japanese kanji (the name for the vastly complex written language) or other languages on it and have no idea what it means, "It just looks cool". Fair enough, at least some of it has a good message.

Miyajima Calling
August 5th, 10:45pm

After taking in the peace memorial, which I have decided to write about tomorrow for reasons that will be made obvious then, I headed to the island of Miajima. A friend who had spent some time in Japan suggested that I come here, and since it's about 20 minutes by train and ferry from Hiroshima, it's two birds with one stone. According to the many advertisements, it's one of the three most popular places in Japan. Mt. Fuji being one of the others, and the third which I can't remember, I feel I've done pretty well in hitting two out of three of Japan's favorite places. The most notable landmark is Itsukushima Shrine, a large Shinto shrine that rises out of the water, but at low tide you can walk right up to it.

I crossed over on the ferry just before sunset, and the sky and light were on my side. It's a tourist town for sure, but the remainder of the island is a lush place of steeply rising hills covered with forest. I take it on good authority that it was Miyazki's inspiration for the setting of Princess Mononoke, one of my favorite pieces of anime... EVER. I can see what inspired him.

The mist hung low around the bay and there were small shrines dotting the hills from where I was standing. There were a few notable places that were within walking distance, but in better weather I would love to camp around this island, which is allowed. It is a place that still holds on to a level of mysticism, as deer freely walk all over the grounds. I now know that deer are sacred animals in Japanese tradition, and were once thought to be the messengers of the gods. Before I took the ferry back over to the city, I was sitting by the bay with a green tea ice cream cone and two little deers would not leave me alone. It made enjoying the moment by myself rather difficult, but eventually they kept their distance and waited patiently for the scraps of waffle cone I threw their way. My offering to the gods, maybe it'll guarantee my film to come out perfectly.


Beppu, Bep-me, Bep-everyone
August 4th, 9:45am

I've managed to become so relaxed I'm actually ashamed of myself. Well, not really, but I'll tell people that so I don't sound like I'm gloating. It seems a bit strange that I would beat the heat by going to hot springs, but it's just what the doctor ordered. After leaving Fukuoka, I was feeling a bit under the weather with a cough and sniffle. So I headed off to Beppu, a scant hour by limited express train, the center of Japanese spa culture, called "onsen". This place is particularly noted for it's "sand baths". Imagine a large sandbox that has spring water pumped underneath, and you lie down and are buried by attendants up to your neck in heated soil. I was fortunate enough to find out about a place that does this right by the ocean, so I had a nice cool breeze to accompany this experience. For about ten minutes your body is wrapped in a strange sensation of pressure and heat, and thought you can't really feel how much sweat you're producing, I felt about five pounds lighter after I stood up and brushed the sand off. Then it's off to the bath, where you rinse the sand and take a dip in a mineral bath, and then shower. As I walked out of the shower room I took a deep satisfying breath. My schedule in Beppu consisted mostly of sleeping in until 11, taking a bath in a hot spring (there are literally hundreds in the area), getting brunch, sand bath, hot spring, nap, dinner, another soak, a couple drinks and then back to sleep. A nice change of pace after a sightseeing blitz with the group.

I head out for Hiroshima in a few hours, hopefully my hangover will have passed by then. Last night I was wandering about and came across a place called the Plus Bar, where I met a charming young lad named Nobu, who spoke enough English for us to have a conversation about music and my travels. I was amused when he asked me if he should have a gun if he ever came to visit Los Angeles. I told him he listened to way too much hip hop and that LA was generally a safe place as long as you didn't go looking for trouble. News to him. We talked about DJ's, drinks and other stuff guys in their late twenties do, and before too long and too many glasses of Asahi, I headed back to my hostel without staggering too much.