fresh n juicy chunks of oyster :: RTW travel blog

It is my last day in Japan and as brief as our encounter was it has changed me more than anywhere else in the world. Japan has crept up on me - I barely noticed it amidst the flurry of confusion, excitement, isolation and peace - and today for the first time I felt its soul mingling with mine.
Before I arrived I thought that I knew Japan better than most places without ever having been there but the longer I stay the more I realise it is impossible to know Japan, ever. Japan defies comprehension and logic; all you can do is to start feeling it and listening for the vibrations that are around you everywhere, creating a symphony that initially appears to be devoid of all harmony.

When my plane touched down here I experienced sensory overload and some serious sleep deprivation. The two worked together to paralise me in fits of gigles wherever I'd look: the cute, cartoonish icons on signs; the way people were bowing enthusiastically to each other; the train conductor with white gloved hands bowing every time he'd enter or leave a compartment; the dark but brightly neoned streets of Tokyo replete with singing and dancing billboards vying for attention; the crowds of people who as soon as the traffic lights turned green would simultaneously spread all over the pedestrian crossings that dissect junctions diagonally; and the hordes of salarymen (business men) sleeping on trains clutching their mobile phones or the overhead hand-holds hanging like overworked bats in their cave.
Cool, I was in the Japan I knew from movies, stereotypes and books and was loving it. Ooh, and then there was the food: sushi, seaweed, bento lunch (or breakfast) boxes, slurpy ramen soups, gyozas, delicious sweets and finally amazing 24 hour convenience stores on almost every street corner selling most of the above. For a while I was in heaven.
I would walk the streets of aimlessly like a ghost amidst a population imbued with unfathomable purpose. It was as though I was invisible and everyone was ignoring me; the only way of making my presence known was through token konnichi was and arrigatos: I was experiencing the way of the gaijin (foreigner). As a gaijin you will never fully fit in or be treated as Japanese; a permanent stranger in a country where conformity exists even in youths' attempts at non-conformity. The fake-tanned schoolgirls applying glitter make-up compete for being kawaii (cute) with the schoolboys sporting gravity- and nature-defying hairstyles straight out of a manga; others go for the full-on goth look with Nazi-insignia blissfully nonchalant about the significance but luckily equally kawaii within their group; the arcade addicts who perfect their hand-eye co-ordination seemingly every free hour of their day, racking up perfect scores on personal favourites such as the virtual drumming, guitaring, DJing and dancing games.
But then right in between red-light districts, shopping centres and neon lights sit countless shinto and buddhist shrines and temples - even with a multi-lane highway next to them these places exude calm and peace with their manicured gardens and trees, raked gravel fields and people solemnly praying and being zen. After having seen countless cathedrals in my lifetime I couldn't help but be in awe of the shrines and their beauty. Here was a religion that didn't try to shock and awe you into submission with cold, imposing angularity and gold that screams brightly like a TV commercial advertising a vengeful God. In Japan places of worship are timelessly elegant with their gentle curves and solemnly sturdy beams of wood. They feel like living, natural objects, like forests in themselves just like a bonsai conversely feels like a man-made work of art. In shintoism there is natural beauty in everything from the most unremarkable pebble to the most majestic mountains whose silhouettes often line Japan's horizons.
After my first couple of temple visits I would have been ready to 'convert' if I were a more spiritual person and spoke Japanese. But instead I started looking inside people on the street more and thought I was feeling everyone brimming with inner peace. I would trust almost every stranger here with my life - the kindness of people here doesn't cease to amaze me and in fact Japan may very well be the most peaceful nation in the world (discounting its antics in earlier history and I don't recall ever feeling as completely safe as I do in Japan's streets).
And just when I thought I too was finding inner peace here, Japan's hyper-modern 21st century confused it all again. Shivers ran down my spine when I felt my first Shinkansen bullet-train fly past me, thundering like the furious and eponymous winds of old that twice miraculously saved Japan from the invading Mongolian armies. But maybe nowadays this modernity is in some strange economic way too saving and protecting the age-old spirituality that seems to lie diametrically opposite to it. Ultimately, however, it still doesn't make sense to me and in Kyoto I just gave up and immersed myself in more temples and shrines.
And then today, possibly induced by post Karaoke hang-over, I stopped feeling as isolated from everyone around me and I started bowing and smiling to random people in the street - and they bowed back! I actually felt that for the first time I was in some way part of it all, not a ghost anymore. Maybe if given time I could one day too be Japanese?
But no, as I was dodging bicycles on the pavement and waited obediently for a minute in front of a red traffic light on a small road with no cars in sight I realised that some things were just impossible. As I crossed the road by myself with the locals left behind me I thought that maybe they are right and gaijins can never 'learn' to become such complex and mysterious creatures as the Japanese are. Japan is a way of life and more than just loving karaoke.



[Just for the record, I love karaoke. But I am sure they will have karaoke bars in China where I'll be heading tomorrow by ferry and will be having trouble with updating this blog over the censored internet, no doubt. But there's always a way as a deeply spiritual person might say.
Apologies for not having updated for so long but the internet here is really, really expensive and Japan's been so hard to write about.
And apologies too about no pictures in this post - the internet here is giving me trouble viewing my own pictures.
Click here for Albums Japan 1, 2 and 3.. Final apologies for the lack of captions - see above for my excuse.
Wishing myself a safe voyage.]