Japan Exodus - Day 49: Civil Engineering Parasites

Good morning!

It was the first real big day in the biggest city, though not my first time. Twice have I come to know the streets of Japan’s capital, twice did I leave feeling mediocre about the experience. Just a few extra moments between business to sneak into a nice restaurant or a quick walk around a famous neighborhood. Nothing immaculately spectacular. Today hope to approach the sights and sounds more casually, to check-off the items accumulating in my “Next time you’re in Toukyo” list.


At the top of a list under the tile “things to see” is a sight that has lost some fan appreciation over the years. Not with me. It is no short stretch for me to tell you that I am more excited to see this morning’s first aatraction than most other Japanese sights. Temples and castles may be Japan’s proudest models of engineering and architectural heritage but none as stylish are as stylish as this life size mobile Gundam space unit. Gundams, for those of you unknowing, are mechanized 250 meter human piloted armored battle units from the manga under the same name. There are many, many renderings and models of Gundams since the peak of the anime’s popularity back in the early 1980’s and 90’s. This life size unit is iconic as it is modeled after the first in the series.
 
Japan has a fascination with giant mechanized robots. If you don’t understand this fascination, respect the passion within the fascination. To posit a personal example, I am not a “car guy.” Don’t know much about how they work, what is under the hood, or what the small details are to look for which dictate which model came from which year, and so on. 

However, I can appreciate my friend Brandon’s love for cars. It is apparent from the passion in his sentences that he is fascinated with a car’s physical impression and performance prowl. It is, actually, the same way my sister talks about bikes.
 
Can you spot me? This thing is HUGE!



Many rivers stretch through the city, connecting its different regions, retaining the natural constant that has remained its boundaries since streets of soil.



No matter how many images I look at or photos I take, the elongated lines of a vanishing points remain my favorite. These lines drawn by hand rails, expressways, and shadows are simple to stumble upon in city and in nature if you keep your eyes open. You have to imagine them, and this is where part of my fascination comes in, when you pencil two-dimensional art.


In addition to finding harder places to camp, the city mandates other changes to the go anywhere, cook any time, urinate against any tree lifestyle. Cooking with open flames, as you might imagine, is not smiled upon within city limits. Breakfast this morning comes not from the pan off the back of my bike but from a favorite breakfast place of mine that resembles more an American style set course than Japanese. Eggs, sausage, rice, veggies, miso soup, packaged seaweed nori, and cup of sticky natto with spicy mustard in the middle. Yum, yum, yum!

Finding natto will be of some great difficulty once my tent is pitched across the Pacific once again. A feeling that saddens me a short bit since I have really come to enjoy these fermented beans in the morning time.



After breakfast and some annoying bridge crossing, I came to the one place in Tokyo where no one seems to be. Maybe I had just arrive early. I had been to Toukyo twice before and skipped this one favorite sight. There would not be a third.

I kept searching the city skyline for my goal, wanting to find the Gundam with the kind of surprise you only get from not pinpointing a location via smartphone. I knew the general area and direction; that was enough. In the back here, is the building that looks as though it came from the set of Christopher Noland’s Inception movie. Then, some department buildings provide a little more camouflage. A set of green trees set the scene, and stand tall as reference markers for the taller yet Gundam hiding between them in the field.

 
If you are going to build a giant mechanical robot in Japan, you don’t skip on the details. This mechanized unit is built with a fan’s appreciation for detail held high in mind. Drawing from the paper manga’s simple and boxy, black and white representation to constructing this life size model spectacle complete with fueling ports, actual bolts, and outer atmosphere maneuvering thrusters must have been a fun project to work on for the fans.


Standing tall over the tree line, overlooking the sea with the city scape behind it, the Gundam’s stance looks as though it rests in casual defense but ready to come alive at the touch of a few buttons and defend the city from Godzilla or whoever.


This is a shot of that Inception building from the front. With its connection platforms forming tesseract like cubes, this building idea is just a few lines short of an optical illusion.



My bike against the Toukyo skyline.

I spent enough time in this part of the city to allow for a bridge crossing. The Rainbow Bridge is not open to pedestrians before 9am, for some strange reason. There is another something strange in this picture. Do you see that which ought not be there?


I don’t this this rear wheel bike brace cobbled together from used DIY shop parts was meant to hold the weight of my rear tire holding about 25km of weight. Actually, on a bridge where cyclists are mandated to push their bikes across, this is a clever way of preventing pedestrians from cheating. I know that I certainly have the temptations to cycle where “no cycling” signs are posted.
 

After making it across the Rainbow Bridge, after pushing my bike the whole way across and a very friendly security guard removed the brace, there was still plenty of time in the day to run some shenanigans. You know, you can find modern art museums in any big city. You can usually find a sports team complex of some kind, and there are always city centers and markets to see. But things are a little stranger here. Instead of visiting the Toukyo Tower or Skytree, I opted for something a little harder to find. A little stranger.


Yes, that’s right. The sign reads “Parasitological Museum.” It’s still early in the day, and a workday too. I have a feeling however that even if I had arrived on Friday night date night there would not be many couples holding hands and taking in the exhibits, whispering their impressions to one another. I have the feeling that this is more of the exaggerated expression variety of museums.


Things in formaldehyde kept glasses!


Parasites come in all shapes and sizes. Some are beneficial, most are detrimental, all extremely unique yet similar in function. From the stomach, lower intestine track, blood, or simply behind one of your eye balls, these little creatures are found all over the body across all types of bodies.

 
If for no other reason, we can say that here in Toukyo you can find one of the World’s tallest buildings and some of Earth’s tiniest creatures in two buildings that are not all together that far apart from one another. Funny how this little parasite resembles the number 6. Too small to see without magnification, the existence of this little guy here is one of those unsettling reminders that are worlds which we can never penetrate, and leave up to the writers of fiction and philosophers to hypothesize over.


Take a good guess at what this photo is of. We have two creatures here, one on the left in the circle and one on the right.

 
Taking a few steps back to see the full picture. Did you guess correctly? The little parasite highlighted in the circle for reference, is the normal size for the specie. Next to it, that white line that curves up and down against the blue display glass is an actual parasite of the same species, found inside an actual person. If sizes of the normal variety count for only a few centimeters, then it is truly amazing that this record living parasite happen to grow to an astonishingly long 8.8 meters in length. That’s right, 8.8 meters. To put that in reference, in a normal sized room, from floor to ceiling, is 3 meters.


All the cool looking creatures behind sets of glass makes for a great off beat museum, and one that actually showed a descent amount of people for 11am on a weekday. Of all there parasites to wonder an existence over, my favorite exhibit is this one. These are journal entries of early researchers from a long time about. Before the massively large archive of information accessed on the Net, before microscopes with photo capturing technologies, the people who held the rare fascination for microscopic life had to keep journals and draw by hand.

An artist, even with an honest desire to represent an objective reality depiction of subject, adds individual renderings and style. That is what I find most fascinating from these personal journal entries, the distinctions and artistic styling of creatures too small to see without microscopes.


After scrawling through both floors of the Parasitological museum for enough time, I said good bye to the many variety of parasites. That really is “good bye” and not “see you again.”

Now, cycling around Toukyo is not always easy. Stairs making a bridge over un-crossable train tracks does not make for a smooth cycling experience. Nor do all the red lights that are timed to stop any one car or bicycle from ever building up serious momentum or falling into any sort of effective rhythm. Still, I made my way across the city to check into my hotel across town. I didn’t want to sleep at the edge of town again next to that airbase strip.

Along the way, many attempts of city life were made to grab my attention. Gambling houses, tons or bars and disco dance halls, cute girls passing out flyers in provocative outfits making quick passes at lingering men to come inside and order some food from the restaurants that hired them.

Also, to my surprise, lots of amusement for children and things to do together with families. Some parts of the city feel to be in perpetual states of carnival antics. Even the passing of just a simple stroll along a random street in Toukyo can produce wonder if you just happen to look up, and realize that there is a something more wondrous just beyond the forest line you thought was just a park.



It might surprise you to hear that I was kicked out of a hotel. Maybe not. Before I could even take my shoes off (that is the Japanese way of saying "before I could even get in the door"). After getting kicked out of the first hotel before I could even take my shoes off, for having tattoos, I had to fall again into a wondering state and look for a new, cooler, establishment to provide my residency. Really, I thought this was Toukyo and more flexible with foreigners and their tattoos. Turns out, I was wrong.

Wondering around this area of town, I just happen to catch a glimpse of Toukyo’s newest tourist sight. “Well, I wasn’t expecting that,” I thought to myself. I had no expectation of going to the Skytree. Looks like I’ll have an alright view if I can just find someplace to bunk…

Welcome to bunk number 330, Toukyo. Japan hotel rooms can really be small. In Toukyo, they most certainly are. And, if you are going to go small, might as well pack in all the way. Never had stayed in a capsule hotel before so when the opportunity came my way, I jumped on in. Or, in it.

With an onsen bath, sauna, and free wifi at about 70% the normal price of a single room at a hotel chain, this option is really not that bad. It’s not like there is no room to move around in the capsule, and there is plenty of communal room, no one is ever too loud that you can’t fall asleep. Really, all you are sacrificing from buying a hotel room is the little bit of privacy in the bathroom. In exchange, you get a capsule that I would warmly describe as cozy – if you’re not claustrophobic. 


Once I checked into my capsule, I was essentially useless. A quick dip in the onsen, two trips to the sauna, and some friendly travelor conversation with a group of backpacking French couples in the lobby, and I was spent. Even still, I knew that I would not be back in Toukyo again for a while. So, I forced my body out of bed with the promise of a beer at the next convenience store. Did you know it is totally legal to drink and just wander around the streets? Yeah, pretty amazing. Totally different experience than walking around sober in the day time.

Not a bad day in the life of.

Neon lit Love


-A

Japan Exodus - Day 48: Tokyo Shoe Bomb Museums

Another most beautiful day along mid Honshu range on the way to Toukyo. Sure, the sidewalks are crowded, the cars pack the streets, the route is not always clear or direct, and the air doesn’t small as fresh - but, its Toukyo! Now, today, will all be new bike territory for me. I have never cycled more North than Fuji-san, and I am so excited to start making my way that I actually woke up early this morning and got a good head start on the day. Because, why wait? Come on! 

Way in the back there you can see the snow top covered Fuji with a little cloud cover as a hat. Between there and the top of this bridge where I took this photo, is that mountain disallowed access to cyclists. What frustrates me more? That cars which have the capacity and the speed to take the long way around, don’t. Or, that the city planners would make such a convenient tunnel passage and not include at least a single walkway for people without cars through? I am young, have the means, and the stamina to make my way around and over a mountain, but not everyone is or can. 

I am calling this post part “shoe bomb” because I picked up some new gas canisters for my stove, name brand: iBombe. I laugh at the cautious misstep implication of Apple corporation actually making a bomb, though I might not actually be that far off the mark with that remark. I stuffed the compressed gas canisters into my shoes, a perfect fit and real space saver. Just, please don’t let me forget to take them out before I board the plane. No amount of charm or bribery could get me out of that situation.

Argh, more stairs. I fear this will be a repeated theme in the following days through the city streets. At least before I had a slide to push my bike up and down. These three flights of stairs are positively the worst.

“Where are all the people in your photos?” someone once asked me. Well, for one, I wait until they are out of frame if I can. Nothing ruins a good chance at an amazing photo than an awkwardly positioned civilian, staring back at you. Your eye’s attention naturally drifts to that one oddity and focuses on it rather than the whole picture. So, I wait.

Besides the normal crowds, this is a typical shot of the Toukyo streets. A confluence of concrete and floral jungle, immaculately clean and trimmed, with a hint of something big and amazing waiting for you just around the corner, if you have the curiosity to go explore. 

I used to think when I played video games as a child that the digital utopian constructions of cities within the games were solely the artist’s rendering of what a futuristic/science fiction city would look as if devoid of crime, litter, and pollution. When I came to Japan over two years ago, this lifelong assumption crumbled within the first couple hours. The video game artists were not drawing on imagination, they drew from their immediate reality. 

  

- Back to the Toukyo story in a moment. First, I have the pleasure and opportunity to tell my story many times over in my travels, to be amazed by its expansion with each day added to adventure. One of the largest turning points in the first era of telling this story came in the form of my decision to quit the life of a banker at 22. A strong reason in that decision was to go and experience university life as a student. It sounded all so much fun. And, was =) A stark turnaround from the 18 year old who once failed at three separate high schools.

At the time of a university student, I had very little access to pecuniary revenues. As did my friends. I literally used to shop for groceries at the 99 cent store two blocks north of my apartment in Berkeley across San Pablo Ave. There, you could find almost anything. Three pack of underwear? Check. Multicolored variety garden gnomes? Yes. And in the corner you also find every college kid’s go to meal for a fast and very inexpensive food adaptation. The infamous coup of noodles soup.

Now, back to Toukyo. It’s one of those ridiculous sightseeing stops that you don’t want to miss, but that you are just a little too embarrassed to buy tickets for because it is such an obvious tourist trap. Like, going to Graceland or the Statue of Liberty.

I am a moderate coup of noodles fan, people would say. That there is a museum solely dedicated to just a simply concept of dried out ramen noodles is an experience just a little more ridiculous than one might come to expect. Japan, if you did not already know, is full of ridiculousness. And dammit if it doesn’t also make me a little more curious. Also, there are rumors that if you go, you can make your own dried noodles cup, topped with whatever and how many ingredients you can shake a stick at. Think of when you order frozen yogurt toppings, but with dried ramen happenings. Ready? Let’s go!

Entrance to the first exhibition of the museum. A very square entrance for a company product famous for being served in round bowls.

Along the walls of the room you find the entire visual history, artistic packaging, and flavor evolution of the simple yet intricate cup of noodles idea. Here are the kinds of instant ramen you could buy just thirty years ago.

Here are the variety and types of instant noodles you can buy today. Not just ramen, but instant noodles of almost any kind, and in more flavors that you can count, with some so unusual you wonder how they made it past an actual decision making committee. Milk and seafood flavored instant ramen soup, anyone?

Is it strange that we find Momofuku Ando, the inventor of the Cup Noodle podiumed alongside Albert Einstein and Hellen Keller? Let’s see, who else is here? From the left its Marie Curie, Konosuke Matsushita (fourth grade education youngster sold light bulb sockets, ended up founding the company you know as Panasonic), Wilbur and Orville Wright, Soichiro Honda (last name sound familiar? Quote “99% of my efforts ended in continuous failure. I am here today because of the 1% that bore fruit.”), Helen Keller, Hideki Yukawa (first Japanese Nobel laureate; physics), Babe Ruth, Albert Einstein, Christopher Columbus, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Charles Chaplin, Galileo Galilei, Ludwig Beethoven, Henri Fabre, Alfred Nobel, Hideyo Noguchi (internationally known physician), and Marie Curie.

The museum exhibit is meant to remind us that Mr. Ando came up with the idea at age 61 with many failed ideas behind him. Now, you eat the same half-dollar cup of ramen noodles in the Styrofoam cup case as the astronauts eat after long work hours in space. Never give up!

Oh what would a museum be without an all-white ceramic center piece?

This part of the exhibition I enjoyed quite much. There were about ten panels all like this one in a row against a bare wall. Naturally, the one I enjoyed the most drew the least attention from the crowds more interested in taking a photo with the company mascot.

Even if you can’t read the Japanese (I couldn’t) the message comes across, doesn’t it? For all the accomplishments that Humans succeeded across history, the greatest ones borrow from the simplest ideas that Nature has cared for since the beginning.

Alas, cannot escape the crowds in this area. Welcome to the Willy Wonka type play room of creating your own instant ramen cup of noodles soup. Color markers, upbeat music and all the time you need to create your own masterpiece are had here with the delightful laughter of creation and chatter constant.

Boom! A little art and coloring on the front, a super-secret message on the back, and the date. All done. Except, my cup is just a cup at the moment. Step one, the artwork is finished. Which brings us right along to step 2, fillings.

Dried ramen is mechanically inserted to my cup via a crank I pull and rotate, like a pressed penny souvenir machine down at the wharf. They leave you plenty of room in the cup to add all the ingredients you would ever care to enjoy. Be warned though, as with mixing paint, swirl too many colors together and all you get is grey.

After making my way into the heart of Japan’s capital by bike, and taking in the tour of the ramen museum, the day was already setting up for its afternoon. Now, camping will take some careful finessing. I found an actual campsite on a map, which, I must say, came with a shock. Camping in Toukyo, OK. I’ll try anything four times. 

Turns out, this is what “camping” looks like in Toukyo…

Kidding, of course. This is where I pitched my tent. Not too bad, huh? Yeah, that is what I thought too. Could even make the top 20 camping sites with the bay side view and all. Then, I heard it. Big, loud, windy, and unavoidable. I checked my iphone map instantly for my location and…

Yup. I had. Somehow, I had completely missed the fact that this campsite resided immediately adjacent to a military airport strip. “Nature”, in the city. Ha. I am reminded of a brief dialogue from the Blues Brothers film when the brothers first come home to Elwood’s cramped city apartment, window positioned right outside a busy train station.

Jake: “How often does the train come around?”

Elwood: “So often, you won’t even notice.”

True, after a while, I didn’t even notice the flights coming in. That first hour and half was rough though, trying to get to sleep. I think the planes stopped coming after 10pm, but I can’t be sure. Other thoughts preoccupied my attention, such as, I had cycled all the way to Toukyo! After tonight comes time to kick down my imaginary kick stand (I don’t have a kick stand, just lean my bike up against a wall), and live out my personalized tourist wants of sights, sounds, and eats.

Out of towner Love,

-A

Japan Exodus - Day 47: You Know Your'e High When You Trip Over Tea Leaves

When cycling Indonesia, every so often or other, our adventures led us into the mountain tops. There, fog never dies and foliage slowly gives way from trees and untamed shrubbery to spectacularly organized tea leave plantations.

Today I am very happy to report that I have once again found my way into mountains on islands. These are not the kind of coastal mountains found along the southern strip of Honshu, where trucks and cars must follow alongside you, pushing your lovely narrating cyclist around turns and far off into shoulders so that they can in a futile effort keep their speed or keep their time; I can’t figure which. There, roads are shared. Here, I find myself completely alone, expect for the occasional white boxed farming truck hauling dirt and farm equipment.

It is not so much a silver lining as it is a green lining of unexpected delight today. I had thought that cycling up to Fuji would be a smog infused headache. A surprise route through the mountains keeps me climbing in low gears, and at the same time places around my head a halo of optimism not felt since cycling that first part of Wakayama with my friend Go.


I mean, just check out this morning shot. How else can you expect the day to build but amazingly when you start out the first rays of light over a crumbling mountain top, coloring the morning clouds with shades of fiery reds and oranges. The contrast between the absolute dark ink of the mountains and the burning sky really can only be found at this 5am hour, and lends to the idea that perhaps this is the image the Dead where strumming to in Fire on the Mountain.

Up, up, and up on sleek streets of gripping pavement. I have said many times before that this is my favorite time of weather – the day after it rains is most excellent for any outdoor activity. Blame the rain or the nature, the air just smells better up here.


Ah, and here they are, just as in Anytown, Indonesia. A small village tucked away within a dirt path valley, a few power lines indicating the modernity of our times, and nothing else but years of planting, harvesting, and carrying for the little green leafs that will one day make it into your morning ceramic tea cup.



The way fields are organized is typical of most farming cultures, the long coulombs of harvest fitting squarely into any available land. What fancies my curiosity is how the levels of these tea plants keep a certain height, about a meter high all around. I would suspect that they are cared for in that way, but I never see any farmers out in the tea leaf fields pruning away at the tops of these bushes. Is it so strange then that the variety of this bush grow to a certain length and halt? Perhaps not when I think of other living things, people for example. We grow to a certain height and stop as well, with variations. But these all grow the exact same height. None the less, that the tea leafs grow across different cultures and nations, different fields and dirt, yet retain uniform similarities is marvel in my eyes. Especially when compared to overgrowth and chaotic competition for sunlight found in more jungle like settings.


Foggy hill tops and muddy fields were the view today. Sometimes, after the storm, the sky opens up and clears away all the clouds to let in the blue solar, but not today. Still, the crisp air that comes in the absence of the sun on a clear day kept me going in high spirits, though my optimism would soon take a hit. At least, it wasn’t because of the weather.


What you are looking at is the only way through a mountain pass. I wouldn’t say the mountain is tall, but the range certainly is long. To have followed this road for half a day, and now only at the end realizing that I must go back the way I came because this road will not allow for bikes, is a major frustration. A prelude to cycling in Toukyo, I hope this is not. Coming down from up high where the tea leaves grow, back to the wonders of civil engineering. Or, should I say, restrictions.


Go look at a map, the distance is not far between Mt. Fuji and Toukyo. On a clear day, you can even spot the UNESCO mountain through the city skyline. I consider myself lucky today, to gain such mountainous elevation before falling from green tea grace, only to land in the most populous metropolis in the world of tomorrow. Thats right. Not "one of the most," but the largest metropolitan area in the world. For statistical sake, 3.64 million people pass through Shinjuku station alone alone on an average week day! And that is just one of many, many.....

Much Love,

-A

Japan Exodus - Day 46: One Month In, Hello Fuji-San!!

That yesterday was the 11^th of May consequently makes today the 12^th, and exactly marks one month of completed cycling from the southern tip of Okinawa! Taking the long way around, seeing the sights, stopping for beer with friends, waiting out the rain, it all can be done from Okinawa to just shy of Toukyo. A very special stop before I hit Japan’s center city. A collectively revered and very special landmark is where you will find me, just next to one of Japan’s many United Nation’s Education, Science, and Culture Organization (UNESCO) world heritage sights. 

That’s right! Got a month to spare? Why not take a trip around Japan and find your way to Mt. Fuji?

Both times now that I have passed through this region the heavens prepared the weather for my visit. Two years ago when circumstances brought Go and I on a duel journey to, and up, Mt. Fuji (read it here), the day was as clear and sun warm, with just as much snow found on the tip top of the grand mountain. Don’t let that “little” patch of snow fool you however. At the peak the weather is freezing. Just looking at that reminds me of the pain in my fingers and nose from cycling back down against the cold wind. Small prickles of hot needles poking the nerves of either. It’s a unique feeling actually, between the numbness growing around your extremities from the outside, and a tingling pain from within. Torture. The wind that hits you in the face down makes for small tears at the sides of your eyes. Which, in turn, the cold Fuji conditions turns instantly into icicles, bringing the pain of dry broken skin if ever you should blink.

Perhaps that is why the old proverb goes, “If you climb the mountain once, you are wise. If you climb the mountain twice, you are a fool.”

Let’s rewind the day a bit. I woke up in a park today, not in a rest stop. That is your first telling sign that the city approaches. Rest stops were designed for people driving cross country, away from cities and into small, less known towns or remote areas in valleys or along scenic routes (I suppose my former town of Tosa was a little too remote as we had no such station). Point is, there is a correlative ratio of Japanese country side to availability of rest stations. Toukyo may have many things that simply can’t be had anywhere else in the world, but nature is not one of them. Accordingly, my camping procedures must adjust.

Still, not so bad, heh? At one point in the middle of every night, everything is an opaque shade of grey and black. Then, slowly, like the opening overtones of a grand symphony, the small insects and bids call out, the grass, dew, mountains, and sky come into focus. The morning sun. Early rays will highlight everything in slow colorful resolution.

As the days pass, I wake up earlier and early with those sights and sounds as my alarm.

Aha! This might even be the exact same road Go and I cycled on two years ago. I notice the perfect alignment of road facing the base of Mt. Fuji straight ahead. It is a view one hardly forgets because the road almost teases you, taunting your view with the end of the rainbow.

What an amazingly clear day. A few clouds lingering around the top, necessary for just the right amount of ambiance. Can you imagine what it might me like to live in this house, to have this as your view every day? I want to think that I would never cease to be amazed by the scene, and hold BBQ’s every single chance that came my way for the most smallest of reasons. 

To reach Fuji-san twice in my life is a celebration worth splurging on breakfast for.

Besides, I was super h-u-n-g-r-y! Let’s see…eggs for omelets, some meat to fry up and grease the pan, veggies because you have to, cheese for the omelets, avocado because everything tastes better with avocadoes, and whole pineapple because it is my favorite fruit of all time and is all cut up and prepared to eat for pre/during/and post meal dessert.

My eyes, and camera lens, could not choose what to focus on more, the breakfast I covered in spoon full after spoon full of avocado, or the marvelous image of Fuji as a backdrop to the beginning of this most excellent day. Can you see it? 

One more shot of this spectacular mountain before I say my goodbyes. Or perhaps, just see you laters.

Days are getting hot now, on the verge of becoming too hot to cycle in during the mid-section of the day from 11am until 2pm. Today reached 27 degrees Celsius at its peak. Spring has sprung, and summer brings the Sun. If things continue this way, and there would no indication why they would not, I will have to make adjustments to my cycling routine. Devote mornings to cycling as much as I can, then rest for three hours mid-day under shade with food, and finish off the last part of the day with an easy ride into some place I know I can relax and keep a smile.

Today, the first day of my 30^th year on this Earth, smiles were had all around.

Much Love,

-A

Japan Exodus - Day 45: Birthday

They tell me today is my 30^th birthday.

Funny to me, it’s one of those things in life in where you simply must take third person’s account of. For example, let’s say whether or not 16^th US President Lincoln was a real person. Did you see him, shake his hand? In a Cartesian sense, you can’t prove he existed. Yet, History and most people agree with the fact. What do you say? Today, they say I’ve not died for ten-thousand nine hundred and fifty days, or so, and I am very grateful to be here with you.   

Thirty years later and this date is burned into my awareness. A spotlight highlights the date in little corners of coffee shops, it is on the back wall of restaurants on red paper calendars hung next to half stem-incense sticks and prayer tokens, and dotted in digital neon signs along train railway stations.

In 1986 May the 11th was a Mother’s Day. What a present to my lovely mother. In 2016 in Japan, I find today to be a random rainy day in the middle of a town between the grander cities of Kyoto and Toukyo.

Ay, rain. At least I have a decent reason to afford a hotel room and take in the comfort of disposable amenities - as opposed to carrying them around with me on either side of my green bike.

Actually, very happy to be inside today. From behind a pane glass window, the storm howls away the weak leafs from trees and the weak trees from their potted roots, it kicks up water from collecting flood puddles, and throws any passerby’s umbrella completely inside out, rendering their poly-synthetic protection more hassle than asset.

Two years ago, Older sister and I spend her 30^th birthday on Noashima Island. Now that was a celebration. Beautiful weather, museums, art, and a ferry ride back to the main island. We rented a hotel room that night, and then again tonight I get a clean shower and some Internet access to distract me for enough time.

But all this rain is a little depressing, no? I wonder what I would do if the rain had been delayed only a day or two. What would I have done? Not in any desire to be living a life of regret, I decide not to think about what I could be doing and instead focus on how else I will celebrate when the appropriate time comes. The calls from my family, messages and emails from friends all makes the decision an easy one. Today might be my lonely 30^th birthday - but I am not alone. I’ll be thirty all year =)

I never spend more time in my tent than for however long I happen to fall asleep for. Hotel rooms are certainly a luxury but they can get a little stir crazy even when the storm outside doesn’t provide any better option. Still, I needed a change of scene. I took a walk in the rain to go eat some local ramen, meat and eggs over rice, and some fried chicken. Hey, if I am not going to be cooking tonight means I don’t have to do dishes either. So, order up I say! And the food really was delicious.

The walk home, not so satisfying. If the storm was lifting up umbrella bottoms when I left, it was pushing me over by the time I walked home.

Complimentary breakfast in the morning. That is one of the reasons I stay with this hotel brand. All you can eat in the morning time is not really my style, not at all. But when the freshly prepared food is right there in front of you, waking up from a good honest night’s rest of indulgencies, well, stuffing your face with delectable veggies, natto, rice, toast, mashed potatoes, coffee, and whatever else hardly seems out of place.

And that is how I spend my 30th. Single, but not alone. Reminds me much of my 27th in Padang, Indonesia. Chris and I had parted cycling paths for a few days as he ventured off to unsuccessfully surf the Mentawai islands. Steve was off on a quick return trip home. I was left to my own devices.

That 27th year celebration was strangely similar yet one of the best on the account of contemporaneous food and beer filled smiles with strangers and friends over the course of the next couple weeks. Well, let’s be honest. The celebrations lasted longer than that. Until either I see you again, or until we have my 31st birthday, there are plenty of reasons to celebrate when I see you again - cheers!

10,951 reasons for Love

-A