I spent the last two weeks traveling in Japan. The trip started from NYC to Tokyo, then quickly relocated to Osaka for a few days, and to Okayama for a few (day trips to Imbe, Kurashiki, Hiroshima, Naoshima), and then the last few back in Tokyo. Very different from my only other trip there, where I spent most of my time in Tokyo with brief visits to Hakone and Kamakura. I’m going to dump some of my notes I wrote down along the way.
Fun to feel complete disorientation on first arrival, trusting years of public transit instinct to navigate the first trains. Anything outbound looks good, if not, yolo, we can turn around and try again.
I forgot how lush Japan is. Damp and green, buildings overtaken by where it’s not hemmed in. Mountainsides ready to move downhill if not paved over. Fluid. And decaying. Narita airport is far from the city center, so you pass through a bunch of podunk towns on the way to the megalopolis.
It’s also very rugged. When I think “rugged” I usually think “rocks”, but here it is hills everywhere, steep forested hills just outside every town. Life squeezed in where it can be. In several places I’d seen baseball fields in the middle of houses, like right next door – nets put up around and above so sport can take place while protecting what’s nearby. Just like all the retainment walls on the hillsides or concrete embankments on the rivers. Protect with walls so what’s inside can be preserved, or exist in the first place.
Shinkansen, like Waymo, was utterly mindblowing for the first few minutes and then I quickly took it for granted. But it’s amazing that you can just walk up, buy a ticket, walk directly on the train, and 10 minutes later be traveling at 200mph or whatever.
It’s good to have small bits of travel mixed in with the overall trip. An hour or two of calm on a train or bus. Just enough to pull out a book and be in the moment in a different way.
Learned a lot about celadon pottery, and was especially curious about all the peonies and chyrsanthemums I saw carved in them. Also learned a lot about Bizen ware pottery. So great to have LLMs to ask about what I’m seeing and deep-dive on random questions throughout the trip.
Washlets/bidets are such a great invention. We should spread these in the States. Even coffee shops have them!
Interesting to travel and not have all the social cues. Here at home I can glance at someone and have a pretty good sense (confidence, at least, if not accuracy) of where they fit in – nerd, finance pro, Bushwick hipster, “cool” or “uncool”, etc.. Not so much there. I can tell when the overlap is obvious – skater chic travels – but plenty of everyday looks I couldn’t place.
I love eSIMs. Data is so cheap, no-brainer for future trips.. I remember my first trip to Japan, I bought a cheap burner flip phone so I could have service and text with a few friends I was meeting up with, and call for basic things that weren’t easily internet-able (“open today?”). This was 2007 if I remember right. Using Art Space Tokyo and paper guide I guess, and a map, and a willingness to just be kinda lost or not find things. Different times.
Averaging ~20,000 steps per day makes for a pretty good lifestyle.
The towns of Minoo and Imbe made me think about my birth place in rural Georgia. I respond to the familiar, smaller size of each, and the closeness to nature right out the back door. But they also add density, and neighbors, and trains. Best of both worlds? They were like a more ideal form of where I grew up. (Also makes me think of The Goonies or Stand by Me, for example – small town + plenty of friends nearby + plenty of nature for adventure.)
I have a new appreciation for ukiyo-e prints. I especially like the prominence of ghosts, people sitting in waterfalls, toads, goblins. It’s all much more lively and weird than I’d thought.
The ideal city size is one that’s large enough where it’s worth having a bike to run errands across town, but small enough where you don’t feel a need to brace yourself and armor up to do it.
As an experiment on this trip, I kept a regret log. Just jotting down poor decisions and 20/20 hindsight to help shape the trip. Among those:
- Not adventuring the first night we arrived, instead letting myself crash and nap too long.
- Not learning much of the language, and having more basic phrases locked in. I felt both rude and helpless during a few basic interactions. I’m smart enough to remember these things, and had plenty of opportunity to prepare.
- Over-relying on the big train stations. It’s tempting to navigate to big central stations instead of smaller, less convenient ones. But they tend to be harder to get out of, to navigate through/around, harder to get oriented when you emerge, and a bigger pain to access on foot.
- Not eating enough early enough. I always eat breakfast at home, but let that good habit slip. I like an early start, but coffee and pastry will only last so long, and the extra time for a reasonable meal makes a big difference in how the day plays out.
- Going to the known tourist trap/shopping area just in case it wasn’t as bad as I feared. (It was. (It usually is.))
Art
Hatsuhana Praying at Gongen Waterfall, woodblock print by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi. Mongaku Shonin Under the Waterfall, woodblock print by Utagawa Kuniyoshi.
Books
Crossroads of Twilight.
Breakneck.
Around the Web
“There are going to be a lot of reluctant script executions and heavy button presses in this new era‘”
My first months in cyberspace. (via Jason Kottke)
“I find that my life is simplified if, when I’m tempted to have an opinion, I ask myself why I need one, and what I aim to do with it.”
Movies
All of these were watched as the creators intended: on am airplane seatback screen with tinny headphones.
Little Shop of Horrors. I had no idea what I was getting into – didn’t know it was a musical. Quite a fun one. Levi Stubbs singing as Audrey II seems like a clear bluesy/sleazy ancestor of Oogie Boogie and that crab in Moana. (I wonder if there are earlier examples in this lineage?) Fun to see Steve Martin’s precise theatrical choreographed movement (see also the Dirty Rotten Scoundrels training scene).
Tron: Legacy. It’s clunky. Interesting set designs, but not as thrilling, visually, as the original. Plot-wise, familiar father-and-son stuff, again not as fresh. Lots of “catch-up” explanations that slow things down. I like some of the religious undertones. Not sure why computer villains would spend time declaiming to vast ranks of soldiers.
Woman of the Hour. A blunt instrument at times, but effectively chilling.
TV
The X-Files, s5e3 “Unusual Suspects“. The Lone Gunmen origin story! Richard Belzer playing a square!
Hannibal, s1e2–3. The Abigail Hobbs character is a tough role to play.
Slow Horses, s1e1–3. Slooooow. Vulgar protagonists really annoy me.
The Last of Us, s1e1.
Mark Larson 