Recounting tales untold, part 1: 京都 (Kyoto)

You know how it is. There so much to write about, but the only times you write is when you're anxious and unsure, and need to compress all your thoughts and feelings into words to make sense of them. But I haven't really been anxious recently, so that's why there haven't been any updates. :-P
In fact, I have been back home in Germany for over two months now. Uni has started again, and the everyday life has me back... Not that I want it this way, but you get used to it.

But let me now, bit by bit, bring you up to date on what happened since my last entry.

After staying in Kyoto for 5 days and looking at all kinds of awesome temples, hiking into the eastern mountains without map, guide or idea where I'm going, rolling around on the street, seeing a few Geishas or Maikos, meeting all kinds of interesting people, buying a Cap big enough for my head and hair, a Holga plastic camera, and generally having a good time, I found a WWOOF host. Not near Kyoto, but on Shikoku. "Well, better than nothing!" I thought, and went on my merry way.
But let's leave that for another time. Let me tell you about Kyoto first! Can't leave out all of the details after all!

The first day I got there, with Sarah from France, her Japanese friend and Hannah from Finland whom I met on the ferry from Shanghai back to Japan, I first checked into my hostel. An odd place: Like so many buildings in Japan, it was really narrow, but still somehow managed to cram everything in. Seriously, the place was maybe 4 or 5 meters wide, but 20m deep and had 5 floors. Odd, but comfy, except for the beds.

I met the four of them again and we went to check out the Nishiki food market.



That was nice, except for the fact that most of the food was fish, and you know how much I like fish. They had some cute shops too though, where they sold all kinds of stuff that tourists like me would buy.



We went to the Kyoto International Manga Museum after that, which was interesting, in a way. They had all those really old paintings that were the beginnings of contemporary Manga pop culture. Apparently it all started with storytellers on the street, who used these kinds of images to illustrate stories they were telling to children or adults... I don't remember all the details. It was interesting, but not all that mindblowing, really. Couldn't take any photos either, what with copyrights and all that.
I walked home from there, which took maybe 20mins... Kyoto isn't all that big, and I like that.

The next day, I met with Hanna to go to Arashiyama, in the north west part of Kyoto. We looked at some nice temples, including the allegedly most beautiful zen garden in the area.











I just love the attention to detail in this kind of Japanese architecture:



That looks to my amateur eye like whoever built this really paid attention to detail, and took great care in their work. This would be an exception where I come from, but in Japan, it seems to be the rule instead. I find that impressive.

After that garden, we took a stroll through the nearby bamboo forest. Wow, bamboo forests are incredible! They look great, and when there's a breeze blowing, they sound great too - why, you wonder? Well, bamboo is rather flexible compared to other kinds of trees, and when there is wind, they hit one another up above, and that sounds very eerily interesting.





And then we had lunch. Really nice Soba, at a traditional Japanese restaurant place. I still miss that kind of place around here... *sniff* And of course, the food was excellent, too.

After that, we walked to a temple nearby, whose name I forgot. I believe it was the headquarters of one buddhist sect in Japan, but I don't remember which, either. Yeah, I'm getting old... They had quite nice things there though! I had read a lot about so-called nightingale floors, but never actually stepped foot on one. They are designed to squeak, no matter how carefully you walk across them, to warn the important leaders about approaching assassins. Interesting! A piece of real ninja lore, right under my feet! :D









One of the shrines there was painted entirely red, and it looked quite nice in the golden evening sun.







So much for the first two days in Kyoto. The rest will follow soon™!

Well.

It seems that my laptop has decided to die on me completely. I'll spare you the technical details and will just commemorate it with a concise: Rest in peace.

I'll most likely send the thing home by mail, or put it straight into a trash bin... One less piece of luggage to carry around.

Anyways, dear family (Yes, I'm talking to you, dad!) - This means I'll still not be able to call you guys through Skype. Or upload photos, for that matter... Please call me on my (Japanese) phone though when you get the chance! Just to bring you all up to date. :)

Peace.

Life signs

Just to let you know that I'm still alive. I returned to Japan from China today, where the almighty Internet Authority had blocked blogspot.com, so I couldn't access my own blog anymore. And yes, I was just too lazy to use proxies to circumvent that problem.

Anyways. I owe you all a vast-sized account of the tales my life has spun in the past few days and weeks, but my graphics card is starting to die on me, which makes my computer randomly lock up and restart. Annoying, that! I guess my laptop's age is finally starting to show.

Right now, I'm sitting in the lounge of a backpacker hostel in Kyoto, decorated with a weird mixture of reggae posters, hiphop posters and sexist posters with nipples on them, and am trying to find another WWOOF host. The rough plan is to stay near Kyoto for a week, then go to the Nagano area for another week or so, and then finally gravitate towards Tokyo to get on that plane back to the fertile homelands.

Speaking of home, of course there is a part of me that looks forward to seeing all my friends again, to build a cozy little cabin with lots of pillows and candles, make friends with a cute kitty cat and invite it to live with me; but there's also the part that doesn't want to return to normality - doesn't want to get back to routine, resume studying, work, and all that everyday stuff. I think the far-away has gotten to me, has got me, and now it won't let me go again that easily.

Time will tell.

Hitting the road again.

Looks like I only ever post when I'm moving, and never when I'm in one place. Oh well!
Anyway, I've been at Keiko's farm for almost a month now, and it was a simply awesome time here. I've learned so much Japanese that I can even properly ask random people on the street for directions. Granted, I won't understand their answers, but you can't have everything, right?

Tomorrow afternoon, I'll take my leave again. Going to take the night bus to Osaka, do some sightseeing when I arrive there, find a place to lay my head to rest at night, and then board the ferry the next morning. 48h later, on Sunday, I'll arrive in Shanghai.

I'll see if I can't keep you guys updated in the meantime. Still have to buy a book for the boat ride, otherwise I'll be pretty bored...

又ね！

Touchdown in the land where the skies are blue

So 2007 is coming to a close, huh? Well... let's see what it got me. If I remember it right, I started the year pretty much alone in my place, because I couldn't be bothered to find a party. If I recall correctly, I was working on something or other in Photoshop, and when the first fireworks went off, I took a minute to figure out what was happening.

Around May, I failed my first written intermediate exam by not getting it done in time, because I'm a damn lazy slacker. So the stress that was supposed to be over two weeks after the semester began stayed with me until its end, yay! I managed to finish by the second attempt, and pass my subsequent oral exam as well. Not well, but I passed.

Then came the stress of moving, and then came Singapore. What can I say? It's been pretty damn great. The posts in this blog probably give you at least a bit of an idea of what I've been up to, but of course there is so much that didn't make the news. All the people I met, all the places I've been, all the fun and not so fun times... I say thank you. Pulau Rawa was a great start, Indonesia was awesome, and Cambodia was just incredible.

And now, I'm in Japan. I've been here for almost 3 weeks now, and it feels so much longer! I've stayed in a 10-man dorm, worked in a carpenter's workshop, and now I'm living the farmer's life. I'm quite curious about what's yet to come!

Yeah, about that farmer's life... it's incredible here. My sleeping pattern has completely shifted about, um... 6-8h backwards. Yeah, I sleep normal hours now! Every day begins at 7, and ends at dinner. Every morning, chickens and sheep need to be fed, and then there's various kinds of work to do. Don't think I ever did the same thing twice yet. We already killed and cooked some chicken, collected eggs, heaved straw for the (single) goat, built a shed, and so on. Most of all, had loads, boatloads of fun with the people here though. They are so kind-hearted, funny and communicative, it's just great. I probably already mentioned that I'm learning a lot of Japanese, since only one of the staff members speaks English, which is great. In a way, I feel like a child - just marveling at all the cool things to do and see around here, having fun with language without regard for... anything, really. All in all, I'm quite enjoying myself, and you can take that just the way I said it.

Now, have a happy new year! It's just started here, 30mins ago. And no fireworks on New Year's Eve in Japan. Personally, I'm going to go to sleep now, in order to get up in time to see the first sunrise of 2008 together with everyone tomorrow morning. In 4.5 hours... fun! :D

As a little New Year's treat, have some photos! All of them are worth checking out in full size, so click them and then click on "All Sizes"! And of course, more photos, as always, can be found in my flickr galleries, linked on your right.

Warm greetings from the land where the skies are blue!

Moving on again

A cheery hello to all the folks at home! I haven't written up a proper blog about my first host yet, but all in all, the time I spent with Hiro-san and Kazuko-san was very enjoyable! And I got to cook both my chicken curry and my tortellini for them, yummy!

Today I moved on to a different host. Keiko and her crew have an organic farm about 1.5 hours from Tokyo. They've got chickens and sheep, and also grow some stuff, but I haven't yet figured out what it is. The place is very different from urban Tokyo, to say the least! Hey, it's a farm. This is the first time I shall ever work on a farm. I'm a little excited, after all I still have a sort of vision about my future as a self-sufficient farmer's man somewhere outside of Europe one day.

Not much else happened today. I'm going to learn a great deal of Japanese however, since only one person here speaks English, and she's quite busy. There is another WWOOF'er here as well, and it so happens that he's from Germany. Luckily (or unfortunately?) for me, he speaks rather good Japanese, so he can act as an interpreter in those difficult situations, but then again that of course takes away a little the reason to improve my Japanese. I was however able to call Keiko from the station and tell her in Japanese who I am and that I have arrived and am waiting at the station, I'm so proud! :)

There's probably a lot to do here, a lot of tasty and healthy food, and not much else. We'll see if I get a yearning to go online and waste my time there, or manage to relax and blend in - as much as that's even possible as a fair-skinned *cough* Gaijin with dreadlocks... So, I probably won't be online much in the next 1-2 weeks, all things willing.

I wish you all a merry belated christmas as well, or whatever your religion's appropriate reason for seasonal merriness! And for myself, I wish I had brought warmer clothes.

Roppongi, and moving on.

Yes, I'm 2 days late for the Roppongi report... No, it's not because the hangover lasted that long! :P But let's cut to the chase.

We got going around 11pm on Saturday, six of us, and quite the mixed troupe: One guy from Israel, two, a couple, from Mexico, one guy from Japan (Atsushi I wrote about already), one girl from the US and humble me from Germany. Hey, that rhymed! We were to meet another local girl, our guide, at Roppongi, and after about 30mins of Train and 20mins of walking, we did.


Before.

When the question came up of where to go, "Salsa!" seemed to be the general consensus, and who was I to disagree? So Ayumi got us into an apparently members only latino club, where we spent the next 4-5 hours dancing and drinking a lot of tequila. It was the Mexicans' idea, honest! Israeli guy hooked up with Japanese girl, and I think I kissed someone too, but I'll pretend here that I can't really remember. We decided around 5 that it was time for Kebab- ...Döner! They actually have Döner kebab here! I didn't believe my own eyes! It looks just like in Germany! Oh man... That was so awesome! Selling it from parked vans. Coolness!

Gas panic? Only in Japan will you find places named like this.

Anyways. Karaoke! God, my voice was so ruined! I am as of now totally convinced that Karaoke machines are designed to make you sound horrible.
And then we went back home, and it was 7 am.


After.

The next 2 days were spent reading Stephen King's "The Dark Tower", 7th of the series, which I bought for cheap money in Taiwan. Not much to tell otherwise... Oh, except maybe that Atsushi invited me to come to his place in Kyushu should I ever make it to that part of Japan. Cool guy, taught me a lot of Japanese too :) And yesterday we were out drinking with a friend of his, who was quite cute, but taken.

Now, today I got to my first WWOOF host. For those of you who are completely oblivious, WWOOF is a pretty much worldwide organisation that facilitates contact between mainly organic farms, but also other kinds of hosts, and people who are willing to work on/at/for them in exchange for free food and accommodation. People like me.

My hosts now are Kazuko and Hirofumi. She has a restaurant and shop, and he has a carpentry workshop, where I will be working with him, and hopefully learning a lot of interesting things! Today I only got here at 4pm, so didn't do too much, except to help finish a table. Then we went out to a sushi place, and that was the first time ever I tried sushi in my entire life! Lack of hunger and appetite kept me away from all the funny looking fish tables, but I tried some seaweed-wrapped rice, something else with rice, something with ham and a lot of dessert :D It was not bad, but I really didn't feel brave enough to try fish, yet.

Afterwards, Kazuko and me went shopping, and guess what - I get to cook pasta for dinner tomorrow :D

I also finally got a positive answer from a host over new years, so no worries there, I have a place to stay until early January, yay! I didn't even realize how close christmas already was! 5 days to go... I could have easily missed it if I wasn't in contact with people over the internet... So, merry christmas to everyone I don't see or hear from until then!

Now it's about time for bed, 1:25am here, and work tomorrow starts at 10pm.