Duggan!

I was surprised to encounter my old friend Ryan Duggan outside Imamiya station in Osaka City on Saturday. Granted, he’d been planning his trip to Japan for months, but because of a string of hang-ups (his brief stint in the clink, my incommunicado disposition of late) I never thought it’d happen--at least not so smoothly.

It had been seven months since I’d last seen Ryan, but when we walked away from the train station toward our lackluster hostel room, I felt like I’d never left Chicago, and also like Ryan had always been in Japan.

That night I introduced Ryan to distinctively Osakan cuisine. The most accurate way to describe okonomiyaki is as a rice, noodle, and vegetable omelette with a “savory” sauce. But that doesn’t really do it justice. Just ask Ryan; it tastes like shit. But we had it anyway, hunched over the crowded bar of a cozy diner called TAKO TAKO KING, where we gulped down overpriced pints of good Japanese beer and ended the meal each with a too-tall glass of hot sake (which Ryan couldn’t stomach, so I had to help him out).


Next: Strolling about the always-humorous America Town, we wandered into a third-floor bar called Cobra King, where--yes, believe it--a Japanese ska show was in full swing. We got there just in time to watch the headlining band (and just late enough to avoid paying the cover). They were called Good, Better, Best, which I liked because it was like an English lesson on comparatives and superlatives for the Japanese 15-year-olds in the audience. Win-win.

The next day we met up with the lovely Gillian, who came down from Shiga to hang out with us.

We frolicked through groves of blossoming plum trees (and ate yakisoba among them).
=



Then, having had enough culture for one day, we went bowling.


[Gillian “The Kidd” Osborne]


[Ryan “Tatted Up Like a Mother Fucker” Duggan]





We all really sucked. A lot.

Japan and Abby and snow and white trees and Mexican food, et. al.

This past weekend I made that long journey to Nagano once again. I was foraging for snow and meeting Ms. Abby Augusta, whom I hadn’t seen since January when she, her parents and I roved around Kyoto together. It was Friday night, late, when I arrived in Saku--Abby’s whimsical town of birch trees and goat creatures whom appear and disappear as erratically as I tend to this blog.

We spent Saturday sleeping through morning then driving around town in her little red car. We found soggy trails to hike and a frozen pond where townies were fishing for spring.


I remember remarking to Abby that these people looked extremely depressed, squatting in solitude over their small holes in the ice, dormant cigarettes hanging from their lips. But if you squint your eyes, she replied, it looks like they’re all out there taking a crap in unison.

That was the scene exactly.


Paddle boats disguised as a gaggle of swans, made idle by the ice.



Snowpeople. Apparently big fans of ice fishing.


Abby Augusta admiring a lonely white tree.

Later that day we bathed at a beautiful onsen (hot spring)--one of three onsens we paid visits to that weekend alone.

The next morning we drove north to Hakuba, where the winter olympics took place 10 years ago, where we were promised snow. Alas:





We went snowboarding as soon as we got there. Our chair lift ascended over the olympic course, which was a relentless sequence of harsh moguls and flailing skiers. Needless to say, we stuck to the green and blue runs (this being Abby’s second go at snowboarding and my first in two years).

It felt good to see heaps of snow again.

That night we sought out Hakuba’s non-Japanese restaurant selection and fortuned upon a Mexican place on the outskirts of town. When we walked in, the staff said they were full and shrugged their shoulders about how long the wait would be (typical). Luckily, a table full of real Mexicans beckoned for us to join them. We did. They were stand-up fellas--all of whom spoke perfect English and had traveled all over the world (although they kept saying origami when they wanted to say arigato).

Super Shiga Friends Nabe Birthday Party

Last night we celebrated the blessed day of Tall Paul’s creation with a good ol’ fashioned nabe-and-wine party, topped off with a spell of whiskey-passing at a worn out playground near Gillian’s apartment in Tehara.

Gillian’s friend Anisa--in town from Yemen--took the following photos of lunacy.


[ me and Mark Bolan, starting things off right ]


[ Chicken Fight: Matthew and Erin (left) Vs. Gillian and me ]


[ ???: Tall Paul and me ]


[ Glee and Defeat: Gillian Osborne and me (left) having accepted vanquish, and a blissed out Matthew Cornett (right) ]

1 Comment for this Entry
dave

i miss the days when you use to jump over my head with out taking it off... see you 3 1/2 months!
Tuesday, January 23, 2007 - 03:33 AM

Notes

Kodama-sensei tells me his mother has died.

I went looking for a hook to fish his fallen hat from the subway tracks.

I went to temple, he says. I am Buddhist, not Shinto.

There’s sadness behind every third sterility mask.

The one pushing buttons in the corner has a kind enough face.

I gave you my pen, and then I didn’t write for a week.

Tell me your resolutions resolutely. Be convincing, now, try.

Yuri prowls; I don’t want to be seen by her, nor by anyone.

Akemashite omedetto gozaimasu. Bow.

On-and-off neckties.

The bag of oranges in my fingerless hands.

(you say you want to write, but for whom?)

All this motion, yet I feel like a field of golf balls holding its gut in under the sun.

Bow.

Frozen gymnasium floor. No slippers left, the cold creeps easily through my thickest socks.

Hong Kong | Day 7

New Year’s Eve in Hong Kong was predictably frenzied. And our neighborhood seemed to be one of--the many--main gathering points. Abby and I spent the day wandering relatively aimlessly. We had to hunt down souvenirs (omiyage) for our coworkers, and we still wanted to see Hong Kong Park before heading back to Japan the next day. Around 11, we tried getting together with my friend, and neighbor in Japan, Maggie. Her family lives in Hong Kong, so she had been in the city the entire time that we were. We finally caught up with her at the Starbucks (ugh) by the harbor, but she had people to see so we parted ways. Then Abby and I took off for Sheung Wan on HK Island, which is full of weird markets (like the one on Cat Street, which sells various found objects such as people’s private photographs and other domestic knick-knacks). We eventually found a classy Chinese tea shop, where we picked up huge quantities of tea to bring back as gifts.

Burnt out on the borderline-obnoxious street markets, we boarded a tram car heading in the direction of Hong Kong Park.


Around 8:30 we had dinner at an incredible vegetarian restaurant on HK Island, courtesy of the mythic Mushroom Lady, Abby’s grownup friend and benefactor. We shared a goat cheese and eggplant salad and then together polished off a veggie burrito and a huge plate of mousakka. So good. Anyway, we ended up drinking two bottles of some organic wine (half off because it was New Year’s Eve--huh?!), and we were actually booted out the door having lingered well past 11:30.

Luckily we were able to hop on the subway, take the train below the bay back to Kowloon, and ascend the subway stairs to the sound of a mass of people counting down the seconds to the new year. We were directly in front of our hostel at midnight. It was like this:



We bought two cans of Tsing Tao beer and walked around drinking, embracing elated Indian men as they danced by us, grabbing our cheeks, slapping our stomachs and wishing us a happy new year.

Abby had to fly back to Japan early the next morning, so we headed back to our room around 1. The next day I read about 6 bombs detonating throughout Bangkok on New Year’s Eve, and I still can’t fathom the kind of sad chaos that must have induced. If that had happened in Hong Kong, an unbelievable number of people would have been seriously hurt or killed. I felt utterly disheartened knowing that a good number of my friends, who were spending New Year’s in Bangkok, were beginning a new year under such disturbing circumstances. I flew back to Japan later that afternoon, and then spent the day with some friends in Osaka. Now I’m back in Nagahama, where it’s so cold I’ve had to “containerize” my life into my apartment’s one heated room. It’s pretty cozy, though, so I can’t complain. Still no snow, although everyone seems to be bracing themselves for it (switching their car tires to “snow tires” and such (no snow tires for bicycles last I checked)). I go back to work on Tuesday, then: 7 more months in Japan.

[ Abby and me in Hong Kong Park on our last day. ]


1 Comment for this Entry
Val

Wow, what a trip! Abby told me about Kiomi-san's gift to be used for a special dinner, and it looks like you found just the spot! (I can't imagine them booting you out after spending that much!) Abby's head must have been spinning when she met us in Tokyo the next day!
Thanks again for the tour in pictures and words, Nolan. It's so nice to know more about these wonderful experiences in Asia you two are having.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 01:25 AM

Hong Kong | Day 6

We drifted over to Lantau today, which is an outlying island on which Hong Kong’s international airport was erected. It took about an hour to get there by ferry, which dropped us at the Southeast end of the island--our first encounter with bikes in Hong Kong. On this side of Lantau, everybody who was anybody had a bicycle, whereas everywhere else we’d been in Hong Kong was distinctly vacant of bikes (weird coming from a country where the sidewalks are overcrowded by cyclists and the constant ding of their bells is present even in my dreams).

We had come to Lantau to visit the Po Lin Monastery on the Ngong Ping plateau, which boasts an awesome view of the mountains and ocean below in addition to harboring the largest bronze, outdoor, seated sculpture of Gautama in the whole wide world.



[ Tian Tin ]


It’s huge. But what was even more amazing was spotting the massive statue from various points on the island. Abby and I did some hiking around the plateau, and from every clearing we could see the big buddha jutting upward into the sky:




[ My favorite photo of ab, taken beside the big buddha’s left knee. ]



[This is the Ngong Ping Plateau, just outside the Po Lin Monastery where we shared a delicious Buddhist meal. ]



[ said “delicious Buddhist meal.” ]




[ Snapshots of the Path of Wisdom, a figure-8 of Chinese kanji depicting the Buddhist script on “Emptiness.” ]




[ From a boulder atop the Path of Wisdom overlooking the northern end of Lantau. ]


We didn’t want to take the bus back from Ngong Ping to the ferry harbor (because it took forever on the way up), so we opted for the cable car route instead, which travels as the crow flies straight down from the plateau to the northern end of Lantau where we could grab the subway back to Kowloon. We had to hurry down from the Path in order to each the last cable car, which we did (just barely), but were only able to get standing-room tickets (although they treated us like V.I.P., ushering us to the front of the line). The ride down from the plateau took us between mountains and straight toward the ocean. It was--cliche as it sounds--breathtaking. The sun had set completely at this point, but the city was lit up out near the harbor where we were headed.

The subway ride was long. When we got to Hong Kong Island, we drank beer and ate good Thai food in a buzzy section of Central.

1 Comment for this Entry

Val
That's amazing that you can see the Buddha from so far away....and that meal looks great!
Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 01:16 AM

Hong Kong | Day 5

We took the subway a long way’s north today and ended up in Sha Tin, a neighborhood in the New Territories of Hong Kong whose claim to fame is a nice little spot known as the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery.

[ Just around the corner is an IKEA (no kidding). ]


[ This is the start of the path leading up to the monastery. It’s flanked by looming statues of monks, all with varying expressions of intensity. ]








[ Abby assimilating nicely. ]




[ From the monastery at the top of the hill, where there was a 9-story pagoda and some colorful statues of monks and various (10,000) representations of Gautama. ]


[ Benevolent Buddha ]

* * *

Later that evening we found a snug fifth-floor bar in our part of town (Tsim Sha Tsui), where we sat outside, surrounded by tall buildings, drinking wine for a good long while and deliberating over whether or not we’d use IKEA to decorate our homes if we decided to stay in Hong Kong for good.

1 Comment for this Entry

Val
Those pictures of the 10,000 Buddha's are hilarious!
Wednesday, January 24, 2007 - 01:12 AM