So I am fairly sure that I love capsule hotels. If you're traveling by yourself, on a budget, not claustrophobic, and love hot baths in the evening after long day of walking about in 100% humidity, this is the thing for you. What I love the most is the control panel by my head that has a small speaker so I can listen and watch the Japanese volleyball team kick Poland's ass at 1am and not bother any of my neighbors, of which there are many. It's been a wild ride. Safe to say that I'm ready to get back to America, though that is a sentiment that I don't come to lightly. I miss pizza. Glorious, savory, crispy crust pizza. I can't even describe the horror I came across when a guy in the capsule next to me a few days ago told me about the worst pizza he ever had. I was tempted once or twice out of sheer drunken nostalgia for my favorite food, but there's something about the plastic display food that just turns off the beast in my stomach when looking at a pepperoni slice with a layer of dust on it. Ech. There's a great many things that I have learned on this trip, besides how much I love eating sushi and gyoza all the live long day. Striding headlong into this other world has given me insight about myself and the world, how could it not? I also feel that much of what I have seen and taken in is only because I have done enough traveling to know what to look for, how to see things, and just go with the flow. Being by myself was also a boon, not because the company I had on the first week of this trip was lacking, but that I tend to get things done at my own pace. That pace is often quite exhausting, but entirely worthwhile. Here's a few things I want to share about this trip.The People I Met:
Two distinct groups, the Japanese, and the other travelers. The Japanese kids that I met were kind beyond words. Though the barrier of language was alway present, both sides did their best, often a few beers and a couple shots of sho-chu helped get the conversations rolling, be it mostly hand gestures. What surprised me most is the idea they had of what America is like. The stereotype of guns and the wild west persists. I was often asked if I owned a gun, what kind of car I drove, etc. But the greater median is that they were living their lives as best they could, in the only ways they knew how. I saw a lot of similarities in how they had very tight, but small groups of freinds. To call someone your friend, or best friend for that matter, is a very big deal. This means that you are there for your friends no matter what, under any circumstances. It gave me pause when I thought about how much that word gets thrown around in the US. A lot like the word "love", "friend", I think, has become somewhat less potent than it really should be. The businessmen I came across in Hiroshima were genuinely interested in my views on world politics and economics, and were equally shocked to find out that I had a very educated perspective on such matters. They kept asking me about Obama, and I had to keep my anger to myself when one of the more drunk members of their group made many motions of basketball and baseball... I could read in between the lines - he was telling his friends that he thought black people were only good at sports. Mazumi, the one who spoke the most English brushed it off casually saying that his friend was really drunk (and racist), and proceeded to pad the issue by buying me some really expensive Japanese whiskey. Suntory Yamazake, 18 year.
The other travelers were predominantly European, with a vast majority being French or German. I made a good friend my second night in Hiroshima, the day after I went drinking with the businessmen. Jörg, from Desden, had been in Japan for almost a year, as a part of his education. Evidently German students are required to go abroad. Lucky. He was very enthusiastic about the experience he had, and while we talked and he translated for me in a small first floor bar where a bunch of people my age were celebrating a friends birthday, I got my first taste of the flip side of that coin. In walked Ed. A very tall white guy, instantly he stood out as the odd man, and came in only because he was interested to see what was going on... since there was about three people passed out on the sidewalk outside the bar. This can be common behavior, as I have come to witness. Ed and I got talking, he is a teacher in a small town in Kyushu, the southern part of Japan, and has lived here for almost 20 years. My first reaction was, "Wow, you must love it here!", but he was quick to tell me that's hardly the case. He does love this country, but as he explained, the honeymoon with Japan is over after three or four years. "Once you learn the language really well," he said very somberly, "you go back to being a complete outsider." I was rather taken aback. It was completely opposite of what I gathered from the people that I had met so far. But I'm just a tourist. He's been here for almost as long as I've been alive. It made a little sense, but it was by no means positive in regards to the Japanese people. According to Ed, the longer you stay in Japan, the people here consider you more on the outside of society because it you are a foreigner who "wants" to be Japanese. "But you'll never be Japanese. It's really as simple as that," and with that we moved on to other subjects like literature and music.
The longer I stayed in certain places, and the more people got used to seeing me, especially this 24 hour sushi place not too far from the capsule hotel, where I am writing this, the easier things become. It's 50/50. I'll walk into a restaurant and they immediately hand me an English menu, other times they give me a regular menu and it isn't until they come around to get my order and see the confused look in my eye as I flip through the pages of kanji do they realize that I'm not Japanese, or at least can't speak it. More importantly, just going through the paces of going here and there, doing this and that... somedays I would be crawling back to the hotel, the wave of exhaustion spilling over me as I limped into my capsule and passed out. But I have seen so much. The last two days has been chock full of museums and a blitz of shopping for swag for family, buddies and myself. The national galley had an amazing exhibit that showed rival artists from distinct periods, very interesting to see the conflicting styles and stories of they came into a rivalry. The museum of advertising was enthralling as they had stations that allowed you to watch the best 100 commercials from Japan dating all the way back to the post-war era. I spent almost three hours watching some of the most innovative and bizarre spots I have ever seen. The Tokyo Museum of Photography was... meh... I was hoping for contemporary artists, but it was an exhibition on early American artists, which was nice to see some prints from people that I have studied intensively in the past, but nothing new. However, their bookstore was impeccably stocked with tons of people that I had never heard of, and I scored some majorly awesome books that I will cherish forever.
My last day was spent gathering the last of my gifts for friends, namely price hunting for Kimono's and the like, and then hitting the streets of Shibuya (as I like to call it, Shi-BOOYAH!) and Shinjuku for some pics with the big guns. Really happy with how some of these are going to turn out.
When I get back stateside, I promise a major upload of pics, videos and other stuff that I just haven't had time to get up on the 'net. But I swear on the soul of Eastman Kodak that I will barrage your collective eyes with choice cuts from John's Photo Chophouse.
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