This time as a Victor however, feeling myself on the battlefield of Troy, riding a golden wain, albeit that wain might be merely of mental gold plate. Oh yes I do like this city, and now I had friends. Friends from back in the US, two lovely people with their equally charming daughter invited me into their temporary home away from California, on the outskirts of town in the nearby hills, their reconnaissance was a Joy indeed. For one night only, I stretched me legs and made ma bed on their floor, before a plane would carry me back to Mexico's turmoil rich north, from where I would make another attempt at admittance to that Fortress that is America. It all went smooth however, surprisingly smooth in fact, with all that hard talk about strong borders going around?
Learning Japanese at Breakneck speed, spending days on the bus rushing through California's Green Miracle of a Central Valley, discovering Los Angeles Skid Row by night, the thousands of homeless that build shanties right in the downtown of one of the most prosperous cities in the world.Crossing the Goldengate the rich lands of Mill Valley Beyond, where are the Redwoods grow, gray fog of the bay. Finding such nice homes away from home, the cozy little apartment of my aunt Sophia tucked away in the damp green hillside, with all the techies all around, and the enormous highways, but in a country that is falling apart. The amazing feeling of my auntie Teak's home in that crazy desert, javelina infested, radrunner populated, coyote futuring, cactus bonanza. Where the open land is so fascinating, so wild. So insane.
How much more bearable the winter is. So cool.
I was even able to wear several layers in the daytime, something absolutely unimaginable in summer or even fall, where venturing out in the afternoon means getting baked and feels like a form of pure vanitial suicide.
One day I cut across the open land of the..... desert, to the nearest mountains, at least the ones that most attracted me. Sometimes wading through carpets of fine yellow spikes that generations up on generations of cacti had left behind. Crossing dry river beds and forests of Saguaro until I came to the foot of the mountain. Granite peaks and boulders we're before me. Up-and-up I climbed steeper and steeper ever going.
Honestly, it eventually turned into sheer folley. But this was one of Gabriel's wild walks, and so I did not give in. Having to climb over and under enormous boulders, sliding on granite gravity defying slopes of gravel, finding the clear signs that mountain lions and coyote frequented these remote places. It finally became obvious that what I seem to find were paths only to the wild and not to the feet of humans. But at last the summit was reached, the whole wide wide world lay beneath me, in all its brown desert ness, parched and diverse, flat and undulated.Corrugated seafloor of the ancient world. And it was silent....
I've been in Japan for 3 days now and have seen only one homeless person,
one obese person,
and one Japanese flag.
It's amazing, the contrast with America could not be greater!.
Everything is small. Their houses, their metros, their dogs, yes even most cars look like they've been trimmed down like some kind of boxer dog to fit the tiny garages of tokyo's extremely limited parking space.
It was quite overwhelming, as you might imagine. The largest metropole in the planet, 3 of them in fact, in only 2 weeks. Mexico, LA, and now Tokyo. But here, everything highly organized, clean, and efficient. After 2 days of city hiking i found some place in a reclused forest Shinto temple shrine, quite by surprise. Surprise for me maybe, but not for the thousands of others. It mattered not. Shinto does not judge, and I feel very in line with it's idiologies. It feels peaceful.
Than i took the train, from massive bubbling tokyo station, traveled about 2 hours west, to the town if Fujunomiya.
And Rushing Water is everywhere, delicious fresh crystal clear gushing streams from who knows blessed mountain spring. The mountain being volcano Fuji, white headed and often whimsically hiding in shrouds of Grey mist, always seems to be there keeping a watch over you whenever you turn around, looming from the dark but now greening lower hills.
Now, having traveled a fair bunch throughout the world, steering these feet through nearly 70 countries, I had never yet gone 'around' the world, that is to say, from Europe, to the American continent, to Asia, and onward, to Europe again, circling the pole so to speak. Not that it really matters, but what I had never really grasped were the implications of the date line. The line across the pacific ocean where, well, what exactly does happen there, that's the thing!
Going from California, where I was 8 hours behind on my European relatives, now, getting in this alloy yet, and flying for 12 hours across the great waves far below, now I suddenly preceded them by 7 hours. But in that journey, the sun had never gone down! We were still in the same day so to speak, only, one day further on the calendar. Had I jumped time? What happened exactly? Suddenly Peace in California, is ahead of me in light so to speak, it being 10 in the morning here in Japan, and 5 in the afternoon in the US, but I am one day ahead of her! Is she living in the past? Or am I cheating her out of the future? This is Bizarre! It cracks my head! Anyway....
We went to see the Sakura, the cherry blossoms today, with the whole Konohana family. And the mountain in the distance, it was posh! And than in the evening they made a cherry blossomed kind of egg wrapped Sakura mega sushi for me and the other guests, with pink foliage from some red juice on white rice and a trunk of seaweed, it was so cute, and than they all sang a Sakura song!Yes, it's a self heating, Panasonic toilet seat, including bunghole sprayer and maybe even light I'm not sure. It seems like most people in this country are pretty wacky and I'm not sure if it's just because of where I'm working or maybe if that's just that it's Japan, I actually think it might be the last. Seriously, how many normal Japanese people do you know that are not in some pretty eccentric?
This Japan, land of the light blue toilet slippers, of the Sakura miracle, where while valleys turn pink, and hundreds come and picknick under the trees, in the largest city in the world, at night. This land where social cohesion seems paramount to personal suprimacy.
People are not trying to stand out but fit in. Look at the cars for example, most of them, across brands look almost identical. They do not pretend to be sports like, but instead look very comfortable, modest and civilized, and squere as a shoebox. Some are low driving candies, others like model cars, abd nearly of equal size. You notice, as a hitchhiker, I spend more time looking at cars than I would like. There not trying to out compete eachother, the're trying to live together in peace, what a relief.
I guess it's one of the island qualities, that you have to work it out together, because there's nowhere else to run. Gosh they are so polite!
Remember that this dragon island is much further removed from the main land than England, and was completely closed for 2 centuries in top of that. Everyone is really genuinely interested in where I'm from and what it's like there, what language we use and if I like Japan. Many, even the youngsters, have never left the archipelago.
I ended up at the Konohana family for a while. Having contacted them over the internet, they received me so warmly, and gave me a big room al to myself! It did take me a few days of adjusting, to the social lifestyle. This community of over a hundred members is highly successful and productive. They produce many dozens of products, the majority a variety of deliciously lush and crisp vegetables, all packed with the most tender living care, make vegan bento boxes, bread and lots of high quality chicken eggs. They grow their own rice, green tea, wheat as well as soya beans to make tofu, soy sauce and miso, run a very successful natural lunch Cafe, and raise about 28 kids as a bonus. I was able to live in their midst for a while, working in the paddies, with the carrots, bees, in miso production, mixing large cauldrons of steaming beans right off the fire and combining them with prepared koji. I ate so well, even if just twice a day, as they skip breakfast there to give the body time to digest all that deliciousness. Eating like that, I felt I could probably become very old. Slowly I got to understand the power of their life, the beauty of it, and got mega inspired.
And Yes! What I must speak of is the amazing richness I feel in having been recieved in Konohana family.
When I just entered this land. The archipelago of the dragon. Every night, after dinner, The children would line up chairs, in front of all the adults. And one by one, if they felt like it, they would be given a chance to tell all present about their day. This was a pretty serious moment. They were so beautiful. One of them would facilitate the meeting, and ask who wanted to share their stories next. And than they would just stand on their chairs and tell, with full conviction and enthousiasm, about their lifes. Than, when they had finished speaking, there would be a moment for the grown-ups to give comentary or ask questions. And than again the facilitator would ask 'lalala...lala. de mas ka?'
With such a sweet sincere voice.
This Language is really funny. It makes me laugh, in a good way. It's totally different from what I had imagined, actually of what I had imagined Jappanese to be. I don't know what I had imagined. Maybe something more Asian, something more Chinese maybe. It's really not at all. It sounds really different, and the intonations are very different too.
And sometimes, when we were at work, one of them would say 'Sunanda'. Sunanda? I was sure I knew that word, Sunanda...But from where.....? And tahn it came, Yes, Sunanda, back there, in 2009, while exploring the Dogon country in Mali, Africa, With this Jappanese friend Deisuke, he used to say it too, Sunanda, I see. Sunanda. I understand. It was a revelation.
Yesterday, my last full day there, after lunch I got all the children in a chaotic circle around two boxes of instruments that had been lying dormant in a closet.
As you might imagine it produced a "hels kabaal", or to say, so much noise that even the sound of my own quite movements around one of my shiatsu clients that afternoon was almost too much for my tender ears to bear.
But we had so much fun! Trying to bring any organization into that unruly bunch with my little Japanese and their enthusiasm was a futility perhaps, but all but the most destructive got to bash and trash to their hearts content I believe.
It was a lot of hoops to jump through to get here, and the trip is far from over, but so far, all is well, and I do like this Asian culture so much.
Now I have passed on. Leaving that wonderful family, working so hard, in the morning's cold sunlight. Hitching, again, now in Japan, the sunrise kingdom.
Temporarily landing in a high intensity wayside service area, possibly the biggest I've ever seen with 6 separate toilet buildings, and dozens of restaurants and Japanese crazyness everywhere. I'm camping a little ways away, in a bamboo grove.
