As if my dreams, or as you less experienced dreamers would call them; soul crushing nightmares, weren’t bad enough… now there’s earthquakes in them too.
Thanks Japan.
As rwg confirmed in a comment a few posts back I have indeed experienced two earthquakes since I got here. That was new for me. I know all you California people handle this every 30 seconds or so but man… that’s some crazy shit. Buildings are NOT supposed to move around like that.
So anyway, Tuesday I decided to head down to the Ueno area and spend some time exploring the market area and Ueno-Koen, the park. I am not sure what Ueno means so I have decided to go with “infinite mangy cat” because the park was full of those. Mangy cats, I mean.
Everywhere I looked their was either a really beat up cat resting in the sun, or the biggest damn ravens, or possibly crows, in the world. They were terrifying. The birds, I mean. The cats were just lazy. The birds though had beaks on them that looked like even if I thought I saw a lot of cats, I didn’t see as many cats as there used to be cause they have been eaten. Whole.
So, Ueno park was okay but kinda old and run down. There were some pretty spots but a lot of smelly spots. Ueno park is home to Tokyo’s largest homeless population. They set up blue tents made of tarps and just move in and I guess the police don’t hassle them very much. Rumor has it that you can actually receive mail in the park if you’ve lived there long enough. I’d love to see that address. “16 Screaming Naked Guy Path, Ueno-Koen, Ueno, Tokyo, Japan”
The only big highlight in Ueno park was when I was sitting on a bench watching some turtles playing in the water and a guy came up to me speaking decent English. He told me was a performance artist and would I mind if he practiced his art for me. My initial instinct was to run away but I hadn’t really talked to another human being in like 5 days so I figured it was worth a try.
He explained that he was a practitioner of (something) which had had studied at a temple in (somewhere) and that if I would let him he would be able to increase the energies in my hands. At one point he said “without touching” but I wanted to be sure I heard him correctly and asked him to repeat it.
So he had me make a fist and hold it out and then he concentrated very hard and waved his hands around it, kind of like you might if you were a wizard and you had a ball of energy between your hands and you were coercing it grow larger. At least, that’s what it looked like to me. I play too many video games though.
After 20 seconds or so I could feel my hand throbbing a bit in time with the movements of his hands and I told him so. At this he got really excited, thanked me extensively and ran off.
That was about the extent of the excitement in the park. After that I wandered over the market area to try to convince myself to try Japanese food again, and failed. I had KFC instead.
On Wednesday I laid around quite a bit but eventually decided to head back to Ueno market area and conquer my food fears. I STILL had not had a Japanese meal in a Japanese restaurant and it was beginning to embarrass me. So I went down and wandered around the market for a few hours (it’s a big market!), bought a cool chain for my wallet to replace the carabiners I was using and… And… AND… HAD McDonalds!
I know! It’s pitiful! The food just scares the hell out of me! I can’t identify half the shit I see and I certainly can’t read it and I am just afraid I am going to end up with a bowl of chicken anus noodles with battered eel sperm. Go ahead and laugh, but I guarantee someone is selling that exact meal. And it’s probably a delicacy.
So I walked the walk of shame back to my hotel and watched Scrubs all night.
So that was Tuesday and Wednesday. Lame, I admit, but there you have it. I can’t be a superstar every day you know.
Oh, I also bought a ticket to Kyoto for Friday afternoon on the bullet train somewhere in there!