Fukuoka

Our day in Fukuoka felt more like a continuation of the previous 36 hours than the start of a new adventure.  With surprisingly minimal jet lag, we set out to explore the surrounding area.

We were able to visit two separate temples--the first, Shinto, the second, Buddhist.  Ninety percent of Japanese in Japan are followers of Shinto and Eighty percent are Buddhist.  Yes, that means there is overlap.

They were truly beautiful.  After purifying ourselves by washing our hands at the front, we were able to enter the inner areas.  The temple was built in the year 808!

Following this, we made our way to the Godzilla exhibits at the Fukuoka Art Museum.  There is so much to talk about, but I'll just leave it with: it was good, I greatly enjoyed it.

On the subject of food, (because honestly, who cares about anything else, amiright?) Fukuoka is known for its wooden food stands.  Called "yatai", these are where you want to go for some cheap, delicious meats, noodles, and rice.  And beer, apparently--a great way to loosen your tie after a long day of work--or travel.

"Yakitori" technically just refers to fried or barbecued chicken, but I feel as though the word means so much more here because this was one of the best means of my life.  One thing I noticed upon arrival is that the scents are all different.  This is important enough considering my sense of smell--which, day-to-day, ranges from "eh" to "dreadful".  Walking up and down the strip, alongside the water, our group hunted for a stand with enough seeing for five.  The air was heavy with the sourness of beer and the acrid smoke of charred meats.

For the past two weeks, I have been practicing my eating.  I've been working on eating much more slowly and deliberately--trying as hard as I could to taste the food better whilst I chew.  I am so glad for this because what awaited me on this particular evening was wonderful.

In halting english and with much hand-waving (both figuratively and literally), I was able to help communicate to our chef that we each wanted to try the barbecue and that we each wanted a beer.

Dehydrated and on little sleep, the brew soon worked its magic.  

The custom in Japan is to never pour your own drinks--and to keep your drinking partners well lubricated.  My drinking partner did an admirable job of introducing me to Japanese custom.  Soon, admidst the swirling scent of charred porka dint e din of far-off J-pop, I lost just enough of my inhibitions to allow me to try out my Japanese.

It ended just about how you would expect it to have.

Taiwan

A lot of how this trip is going to be evolving is shrouded in the unknown; our descent into Taiwan was just as mystifying. 

It's barely morning now (5:49am local), but we arrived before the sun.  Upon our descent into the city, I found the landscape to be both inviting and mysterious, with mountains and rises in the countryside only visible because they would obscure the city lights behind them.   The mere suggestion of mass and matter. Taiwan is suggestion.

On the other hand, we will be leaving for Fukuoka out of the Hello Kitty themed Airport Terminal...so there's that...

Sixteen Hours in a Cubicle

Right now it's 5:36 your time and we are four hours in on our 15 hour flight. Tactically, our best bet is to stay awake for the next 2.5 hours at least. The absurdity of the sleepiness that I feel right now is indescribable. I know I've been more tired than this at other points in my life, but 

...

I forgot where I was going with that.

The plane has these cool screens which show graphics of your flight speed, the local time in both airports (NY and Taipei), the flight altitude...it also shows a little plane icon on a line graph that represents your distance to your destination as well as a number that says how many kilometers you are from there. This is bad. I have been obsessing over these two numbers for the entire trip. (Incidentally, we are currently 3563 km out from NY and 9789 km).  

The entertainment offered by this device includesto a wide selection of possibilities--from electronic pachinko to recently released movies (Andrew and Christina just finished Captain America 3) to a variety of July Pop and Malaysian artists to sample. A literal "Who's who" of musicians--because I have no clue who any of them are.

The seven of us on this trip are a motley crew. Jimmie is a salaryman working for a company and he's used to the traveling; he bought his tickets with points.   He's a bit quiet, but maybe that is just in comparison to Andrew.  Andrew is my freshman year roommate and eventually my Senior year apartment mate and my gradschool...what do you call a guy who bums on your couch every once in a while? A friend? A cat?

Yaki (I don't know his real name) is the one who I have the least grip on. He's another quiet type. The whole group keeps talking about anime and Pokemon Go and I feel a *bit* left out. I don't watch many animes.

Christina and Andrew and I have been (and most likely will be) hanging out the most together for this trip. Christina is a funny girl with a deadpan delivery. I met her at Anime Boston a few years ago and her and Andrew were dating by the end of that very month.  They've moved in with each other and apparently they work well together. She's quiet and he's loud, but they're both cognizant of each other's unique ways of reacting to a situation and can adapt accordingly. I feel equally comfortable being around one as the other.

__________________

Sorry, dozed off there for about 30 seconds. The micro-naps are coming with increased regularity. 5:56am where you are right now. The plane icon is informing me that it is now 9582 km to Taipei.

The final two on this trip, I would have to say, I know the least about. Mel is the name of the "she" character and the name of the "he" has escaped me...something with a "C"...Colin?...Corey?

A child has just started a rebellion.  I'm not sure what its infernal cries are in response to...probably the economy...or perhaps he's a Bernie-or-Bust person.  More likely, it's because the creature is as tired of being conscious as I am (6:03am/9467km).

I'm losing my schwerve. It's time to pace the plane again and splash water on my face. 

6:13am/9312km

I suppose there's no way of knowing if I've gone insane at this point from the waiting.

We will be landing in Fukuoka and spending the day at a Godzilla Museum. I anticipate that most of my "camera film" (as if, right? who uses real cameras anymore, right?) will be used up tomorrow/today/I have no conception of how to describe this.

6:32am/9043km

The Start of a Journey

It wasn’t until the plane was already in the air that I started to become excited; my nerves slowly melting away into a vague sense of—first acceptance—and soon contentment—and now joy.  I was going, finally, to Japan.  The trip was no longer a "someday" or a “when I have the time”, or even a “maybe next year”, it was today.  At 1500 feet, the sensation figuratively made my ears pop—and also literally. 

Japan has always, even when I was very young, made the short list of places that I have wanted to visit.  I have to admit (and with no small amount of embarrassment, I assure you) that the origins of my single-minded fixation on the archipelago began when I was four due to the influences of a certain 50-meter tall radioactive lizard.  I have to give my dad the thanks (or the blame) for this: when he called me into the living room and had me sit down to watch “King Kong vs. Godzilla”, he couldn’t have known that this would be the start of a “something”.

And it was VERY “something”—I would go on to collect and watch and re-watch "daikaiju eiga" (giant monster movies) of all sorts.  I would go on to learn far more about Pokemon than any sane human would recommend.  I’m not sure when my interests evolved to include Japanese history and culture, but…well, there you go…

I wouldn’t say that I am in any way uniquely qualified to comment on such a journey.  Quite the contrary: I may be the least qualified person (hey, you don’t know that I’m not, so don’t even try).  

But hey, I am on a plane traveling to an alien land, so there’s that.

___________________

I have seven hours left to kill before I finally get to go to sleep.  In order to prevent excessive jet lag, Kara and Andrew have discerned the exact time when we are allowed to fall asleep.  Eight AM EST.

That would be bedtime (a generous bedtime) in Japan.  Every cell of my body is crying out for sleep and I must steel myself against the crystalline siren call of shuteye.  Every moment of awareness is pain.  Oh, to drift away into sweet nothingness…

Sorry, lost my train of thought there.  

At any rate, I have wasted a sufficient amount of time on this diversion for now; my thoughts are becoming increasingly more scattered and the small spaces between the atoms—at least in my brain—have become engorged.

I have no clue what that means.

Six and a half hours left.  Time to speedrun Pokemon Blue Version.

Too Focused on Pokemon to Play Pokemon

Let me tell you all a story about how "Pokemon Go"dropped surreptitiously overnight and I was left hungering for adventure for days.

Wait, that might be the whole story...

I suppose that I can't say it's not my fault that I haven't started the game; I have had plenty of time on my hands.  Summertime for many teachers means stressing out about how your paychecks are stretching to the limit; exercise that body and exercise the wallet; both must be stretched.  Fo me, however, summer is time for me to (finally) take some time off.  See, I'm not only a teacher: I'm a teacher/tutor.  At parties (when I'm at least 40% intoxicated) I like to facetiously (or rather 40% facetiously) describe these two as my "community service job" and my "mercenary job", respectively.

Let's face it, teachers don't get paid in any real money.  Teachers get paid in broken dreams and wasted effort.  As much as I would like to be able to feed myself with cynicism and ennui, I tend to seek out solid foods because this insufferable corporeal form requires them.  The tutoring is how I make all of my real money.  As a matter of fact, the teaching salary is completely incidental by comparison--not even matching up to 10% of the same hourly rate.  The only reason I do the high school science teacher thing at all is to keep in touch with my conscience.  If I accepted ALL of my money from rich, stubborn parents and their rich, stubborn children, I would surely have sold my soul to the non-denominational devil, so to speak.  The teaching helps ground me, but it doesn't keep the internet "ON".

So here I am with all this time on my hands breeding pokemon for my upcoming Sinnoh Classic Battle Competition (later in July) when Pokemon Go drops like a ton of rectangular prisms made out of baked clay (bricks, I believe the humans call them).  I'm a very "first-things-first" kind of fellow: it is often the case that I forego doing something entirely if I would have to be stretching myself between two different activities.  I have a pile of unstarted video games and books; I can't begin something new if I'm working on or involved in something else.  I can't start Pokemon Go until I'm satisfied with the team I've been building for this ACTUAL Pokemon Tournament (blog post about this one to come).  Well, I could, but I wouldn't enjoy myself nearly as much as I would if I just started it, say, a few days from now after I've gotten things cleared away for the Sinnoh Classic.

As a result, I've been sitting here hatching Vulpix eggs and soft-resetting for the correct-natured Zapdos when I could be out there in the sun catching Butterfree with my pokemon (charm the Charmander.  Fuck me, I've already chosen a nickname for him!).

Well, these eggs aren't going to hatch themselves...