At noon I was jostled awake by one of my many interns. Evidently there was a sort of urgency surrounding my itinerary while in Japan, a trip which I was told (and had conveniently forgotten) I am to embark upon in just seven days. Another intern scaled my emperor-sized cantilevered bed and handed me my morning smoothie while I meditated upon how I am to spend an entire month in that beloved archipelago.
The urgency was this: I have not at all thought about the logistics of this trip outside of flying to Tokyo from Berlin and flying back to Berlin from Tokyo. Whatever happens between those two utterly exhausting days, which are spaced between January 10th and February 11th, is still a great big question mark. That did not altogether bother me much, as I like to travel this sort of way wherever I go, just Frankensteining it all together in the moment and hoping it works out because shockingly it mostly does . . . but I did have to consider that the flight there is 16 miserable hours long, and when that plane finally touches down at Narita Airport on January 11th, I’ve got to have some friendly place to rest my weary head.
Past Ryan had on a whim bought that plane ticket to Japan during a period of some distress. Our nervous system was completely shot, you see, and so flying to the other side of the planet seemed like the most logical thing to do at the time. He figured it would soothe us in some way to go someplace quiet and safe and walkable . . . someplace with a lot of noodles and hot springs. As Present Ryan, I can safely say Past Ryan definitely made the right decision for Future Ryan and me. He took care of us knowing full well he himself would not get to experience the relief that trip would bring— relief he so desperately needed just then. In despair he placed a present for us in the future hoping we would be there to receive it. I can safely say the thought of its arrival has sustained us through the darkness.
I have been to Japan many times, and even lived there for short stretches . . . but I have not been back since January 2010. That’s 16 years ago this month, for God’s sake. And so every year I’ll think, and write here, “This is the year I’m finally going to return to Japan.” And then for whatever reason I just don’t end up doing it, usually because I’m off doing some other thing to destroy my life. No more . . . I’m going. They’ll have to kill me to keep from boarding that plane.
Perhaps I could have flown to China or Mongolia or Vietnam or some such a place, a place I have never been before and would like to see . . . but I would classify this trip to Japan as something akin to watching a movie you really like for the 500th time after getting out of the bath and while wearing very comfortable clothing. For me, this trip will be like watching BLADE RUNNER at 3 am in my robe while stoned off my ass on a weed gummy . . . which is to say: I know EXACTLY what I’m in for, and it is ABSOLUTELY going to rule!!
While writing this, I stopped to book a bed at a hostel in Tokyo between January 11th and January 22nd, so that’s something. Typically a hostel is a sort of rat hole for criminals and perverts and Australians. I’ve stayed in some that should have been outright condemned. But in Japan this is not the case overall . . . they’re quite nice. Most importantly, like a lot of things in Japan, they’re clean. This one even includes breakfast . . .
I reckon the morning of the 22nd I will wake my dumb ass up and take the Shinkansen to Kyoto and stay for a week or so. Not that I need to remind you, but my birthday is the 26th (cash or gold are acceptable as gifts) . . . and so I have decided to go to an onsen town called Kinosaki, which is two hours northwest of Kyoto by train.
Get a load of this fuckin place:
. . . wow! Apparently if you stay at any of the ryokan in town, you get access to all seven onsen there. Those places ain’t cheap, but it is my 38th birthday, and I pretty much never buy myself anything . . . so this will be the only time I’ll break from the $18-a-night hosteling I’m going to be doing the rest of the time. And here’s the little sadness I will include at the end: I just wish I didn’t have to be alone on my birthday.
After that I’ll go to Osaka and Nara and Hiroshima, or wherever the hell else, then head back to Tokyo and hang around for another week like a dumb jerk.
As Present Ryan, I am tasked with paperwork and bureaucracy and logistics for the next week, so I suppose I will get on with that. Outside it is windy as hell and snowing. It is 2 am and I’m not awake and I’m not asleep either . . . I have been in this sort of nowhere state for a month now and I don’t really like it. Maybe Japan will help me. That’s the whole idea anyway . . .
I took the picture at the top of this post and the picture below in Shinjuku in Tokyo back in March 2008, which was the first time I ever went to Japan. I was barely 20 years old and I flew all the way to the other side of the world with a backpack to stay with my friend Tim Rogers, a guy I had written emails to since I was 16. If I really thought about it, those two and half weeks I spent there just falling ass-backwards into everything was probably the most fun I ever had doing anything. I had shown up with no plan and had no idea what I was doing. I am not so sure I am comforted by the fact that 18 years later I am flying to Japan with the same sort of MO, but then I suppose there are worse fates. I have survived many of them.
