Entries this day: Dream asakusa golden_turd inibriation_101 nap parrrty

Dream

8:08am JST Wednesday 9 April 2003

Dreamt that I was invited to one more rally. Eeek! I felt honored and a bit weird to attend after I said I'd already attended my last, and I wondered if I'd be able to remember all the names of all the kittens I should know.

We arrived via bus at the Canadian side of Niagra falls and saw a model of the city in the water below us, floating like a future version of our society, one filled with glittering beauty all around. I realized it was a dream and ran off the edge of the bluff and flew out over the water, inviting others to come with me. No one else could fly like me.

- - - -

In a big circle of people someone said "I did something on next Thursday ago," and I helped prompt him to correct his English. He got it without me fully giving it away.

asakusa

1:43pm JST Wednesday 9 April 2003

Dru writes well.

More like a narrator than just I did this and I did that.

Soaking in the sights at Asakusa, a temple close to downtown Japan. I might say "this is the Japan I came to see" for it's the most traditional-Japanese-lookin' thing I've seen so far... except for two things:

(!) I didn't come to see a particular part of Japan.

(@) We're still in Tokyo. 10 or 12 story buildings overlook the temple on all sides, with just enough space granted the temple for me to imagine what it might have looked like 100 years ago.

I witnessed without real understanding people praying at a cauldron full of sand where they stick lighted bundles of incense. A large pit receives probably 1000 yen per minute as people toss in coins and take a moment to pray.

We took part in one ceremonial fortune-telling that had an English translation. 100 yen in the slot, shake a shaker of sticks until one stick comes out, match the kanji to a drawer, pull out the fortune.

Both of us got "BAD FORTUNE" with specifics ranging from "Your mind is unsetttled wondering to leave or to stay." to "Stop marriage of any kind and new employment."

Verrry interesting. I flipped a coin three times and 2 out of 3 it said don't sweat it. Cool.

golden turd

3:14pm JST Wednesday 9 April 2003

There's a giant golden turd crowning a black mirrored glass curvey building.

It's actualy suppoed to be a golden flame and this is a brewer thought it looks more like an office building.

The sun beams glow through the clouds occassionally as mostly cloudy skies scurry by overhead. I'm stretched out backwards on the hard plastic "glass bricks" comprising stairs up to the brewery. Not perfectly comfortable, but a nice stretch to offset my backpack. I could fall asleep right here but` Dru is chompin' at the bit to eat.

That Dru, always good for a laugh has been secretly pressing keys while I type with my eyes shut and head back on the steps.. extra apostrophe by but is his doing.

We've learned a kanji character today "kawa" which means river. It's basically three vertical lines. Aright.

inibriation 101

4:24pm JST Wednesday 9 April 2003

Dru's all, "so.... You've *never* been drunk?"

"Nope."

"My goal..."

I thought he was going to say "my goal is to get drunk," and I'm like damn G there's more interesting things in life than that!

"..is to get you drunk."

I tried to bet him 10,000 yen that he wouldn't, but he said with that much money on it I of course wouldn't do it.

"I'm going to get you drunk even if I have to inject it in your arm."

We'll see, big guy, we'll see.

nap

5:18pm JST Wednesday 9 April 2003

In a quest to meet people, we're going to a party thrown by his homey Ben tonight. But the party starts at 9 and trains end at midnight. It'll be a 2 hour party max if I want to go home tonight. Or if I'm having hella fun I'll stay until the trains start again in the AM. That would be interesting. We'll see what happens.

But first we're going to Dru's to watch Simpsons and I'll probably sleeeep.

7:54am

parrrty

7:55am JST Thursday 10 April 2003

Good morning. The briefest sentence describing the party:

Wow, she was loud.

About 12 hours ago Dru and I arrived at Ben's apartment for a pre-party yammering session about whatever came up. What came up: the war and their travel stories. I found out that there's a lot about the world that I don't know. Completely left out of their conversation only because I had nothin to input. They know shit about Nigeria, Laos, Thailand, Viet Nam, South America.. it's like all of their travel stories crush all my travel stories. Is that possible? Doesn't my 11,000 mile driving trip hold some merit or some interest to their however-many mile backpacking trips?

Backpacking. Like it's the only real form of travel - to pave the way for the hordes, thereby destroying the area for future backpackers or even the original backpackers. They were saying shit like how Thailand *used* to be cool to visit but now it's been overrun by visitors. For a real adventure go backpacking in Laos. Dru argued that Thailand is the perfect place to learn backpacking: it's a different culture and one has all the amenities one needs. Then once one is more comfortable, head on North and slip across the border into Laos where the territory is less frequented, so far untainted by the hordes.

There's a whole new culture out there - a subculture that thrives on exploring new cultures. One with adventure in its blood and something else eloquent describing the free spirit.

Ben said his friend (who seems to look like my friend Kristen) lives in Egypt and the locals *love* her and call her the queen. Or the princess or something. He suggests that the media we see...

wow you know this is a really beautiful part of outer Tokyo. We're on a train from Takao to Tachikawa (I hope I hope) and going through a tunnel now because we were just through some tree coated valley with slender pines arching toward Heaven, twinkling gently in the sun.

...that the media we see shows us fabricted foreign-government organized rallies spewing hatred toward the US... that actually most of the locals have no idea who the enemy is.. and

(hold please) How is this possible? Oh so clearly the physical sign I saw next to the train indicated Shinjuku and Tokyo as stops for the train I boarded. However, we went through beautiful mountains cause we were headed *out* of Tokyo. Sigh.

I've dismounted the train at Sagamiko. Trains are not as common here as they are closer to Tokyo. And I'm down to 23% battery on my computer; I didn't plug it in last night.

basically he was saying it's okay to roll over to Egypt and if one is female with blondeish reddish hair and fair complexion they might call one queen.

I took a train back toward Takao and *everyone* got off and tons of people got on. I asked and the woman said it would not go the direction I wanted to go, that I should use the other platform. Seems that this was the end/beginning of the line, which explains why I had a seat, but doesn't explain the signage. I'm thankful that I asked. I seem to be on a train that's going the right direction now.

So. Um, so they talked about travel and the war and I was left out out out of the conversation with nothing apparent to add. Though I did get one maybe two intelligent comments in. Aright.

Then people started arriving. I kept up with names for the first 8 people or so.

7% battery power remains. TTFN.

11:51am

Okay; I'm dressed for work and waiting for my train. Good thing that on the way to work I transfer and end at big stations that all the different trains visit if they stop at my station. <crossing fingers>

So.. the party. Oh, so anyway fuck the detailed version; a ton of people came and one girl was sooooo loud! Like.. like... I was embarassed to be there, knowing this party was WAY too loud to have in an apartment in Japan. Japanese cats are pretty loathe to complain, but we got a complaint. If we had been in the US, certainly we would have had cops over unless it was Friday on a college campus for partiers. I mean the shit was LOUD. Caterwalling screeching as bad as that movie where Cameron Diaz' character was made to karaoke and she was terrible, but just kept at it. Well this girl kept at it and kept on keeping at it to the point that like everyone was all oh my god shut her up! But trying to see the humor in it, but it wasn't funny at all.

I kept thinking how unimpressed I was with this party. I was loathe to say anything because I was the new guy in this group, etc, .. but I did say something to her, but it didn't help. at all.

She reminded me of that episode of the Simpsons where Barney is video recorded dressed in Marge's clothes and drinking beer off the floor... Does Annie know what an obnoxious caterwalling maniac she's being? Standing on a chair, screeching into a Jack Daniel's bottle-mic.. Eeeeee.

I did have fun talking to Drew, Penni (from Melbourne?), and Jennifer (from Duncanville (Dallas)).

The trains stop running at midnight and I was still pretty much having fun so I committed myself to staying overnight. By 2 or 3am though I was sleepin' in Ben's room on his futon. Andrew slept on a sleepin' bag. Super duper special thanks to Ben for allowing us a place to crash out.

The party was still rockin', but I slept using my super hero power of being able to sleep anywhere. Andrew's super hero power is even better; he was sawing logs before I was.

About an hour (?) later, Annie (our caterwalling singer) came in all, "what are you doing?"

"Sleeping; you should try it sometime."

Woke up in the morning around 8am to head home (getting lost on the way), eat, shower, change, go to work.