I wrıte thıs from a hotel lobby ın Selçuk Turkey... beautıful hılltown near the Aegıan Sea. Today we saw the ruıns of the bıggest cıty ın ancıent Rome, as well as the home belıeved to belong to Vırgın Mary... pretty cool, but to be honest Egypt ıs hard to top and I can't waıt for the south country clubs.
Here's more from Tokyo.
We go sightseeing—various trains to bus station, then up wintery hills to lakeside mountain village. The biggest thing there is a boat terminal, where ferries & 10s of swan-shaped peddle boats rest for couples in sumertime. It's icey at that elevation, & the chill racing off the water is incredible. Buy tickets for a touristic Pirate ship, & when it comes, we can't help but add random ARRGHs to every sentence. Dash down harbor, board, & with a big BERAAAAGH the ship sets forth. From lake-middle we notice several temples meditating atop surrounding peaks. Dock in far-off port—quaint, full of more swan-shaped boats, all nestled in dramatic valley. Dash through cold and into warm building. Immediately buy hot chocolates, then cones of green-tea soft-serve (strange texture, like apple flesh). After regaining circulation, we board cable cars. Through north-facing window see Mount Fugi—snow-capped, immense, so much higher than everything, as if mountain itself is torso of a sumo celebrity, head being Fugi, ostensibly pondering the whole of Japan. Cable car climbs into wilderness, over passes see mines that turned the soil electric, & sulfuric hot-springs are everywhere adding earthy scents. Float down mountain behind village, then hop on bus & traverse back to citylife. Exit few stops early for “best sushi in Tokyo.” After 20 minute cue in outdoor freeze, we squeeze in small barside section, which surrounds 2 sushi chefs who skillfully prepare every color of fish. Beside me is nice Japanese couple who promptly spark conversation and explain the restaraunt: just beyond our resting elbows is a river, hand-width, on which various types of sushi float on elegant porcelain boats—like Kabuki Sushi in Pacific Beach, different types of sushi have different types of boats: rainbow rolls float on boats painted black with orange dots, nigiri salmon floats on boats painted green with pink curlicues, etc—take from the river what looks appetizing, then at meal's end, get charged for the quantity/type of boats we collect.
We dive in. Though everyone's on a budget, we splurge. 6 dishes fill me up, but eveything's soo right. I get adventurous—ask the couple for something strange... whale—violet color, flavor like lean beef & mint... magnificent. (1 month later, Aussie friends would inform me that it was most likely a threatened species illegally caught off Autralia's coast... damn. whoops!) Then Kelly asks the couple for something strange as well: prawn, alive... nice. Her & I order it...
Return to hostel bellies full. Facebook-chat with Jen Clark, another friend from High school living in Tokyo studying culture, and the 6 of us decide to sing kareoke in bar district Shinjuku. Again off we go. We stop at sidewalk-vending-machine for beer, meet up with Jen, exchange ploar-bear hugs, & charge toward the Kareoke building. **In the US, kareoke's sung in big bars for drunk audiences who cheer, participate, & spill their drinks; creativity, personality, & expression are encouraged! Contrarily, Japanese kareoke's sung in tall buildings, in private rooms rented by-the-hour... this is fitting—Japanese are wonderfully polite, pleasant, & good-spirited, but also reserved, or suppressed, like their emotional volume is on permanent low; they seem to be part of a profound, confident, efficient machine—mind you, it's nothing like Big Brother, people have their own styles and privacy etc, but the idea that someone would do something outrageous in the street or in a bar or anywhere at that, is totally inconceivable.
Elevator up to 4th floor. Walk the hall exchanging vodka pulls & I peek in rooms via tinted-glass doors—see locals in small rooms seated in couches before TVs, some alone wearing suits, really trying to sing—they hold the mic like a school girl performing national anthem at baseball game—this is how people spend their free time or unwind after work? Awesome! AH if I could hear them!
Find our room—it's perhaps 8ft wide & 12ft deep, lit outrageous... decorators went for the acid-trip laser-tag look with black-lights glowing mural'd walls: big pictures of manta-rays flying in space, images of galaxies, shooting stars, dolphins, & angel fish. Beside the door is a TV, above which 2 party lights hang from ceiling—u-shaped couch surrounds room, & in the middle is a table on which 2 massive song-books await. We go insane! 6 of us singing to each other, jumping on furniture, banging on the walls, shaking what our mammas gave us, all the while laughing uncontrollably at how ridiculous everything is. The energy in the room was ınsane!
Today is Saturday, May 2nd. Spent the last 12 nights in Egypt and good gawd it was incredible. The people, the cities, the desert, the culture, the sights... astounding... many of Brad's pics are already on his facebook. Tomorrow we arrive in Turkey for another stint of experience!
Here's 24 hours in Tokyo...
New Zealand was a nice introduction; Australia was a party; Bali was exotic.... Japan was a challenge. It's not foreigner friendly—every sign's in Japanese and most people “don'tuh speak eny ingrish, sawry.” It also lays claim to the best rail system (JRL) in the world.
Our plane lands in the afternoon. It takes more than an hour to find our bags, go through customs, and get a JRL swipe card, aka Suica, which grants easy access to every train in the country. We waddle with our enormous backpacks through the airport, down to train level B5, or basement level 5 (the place has 5 stories of trainlines!). Tokyo trip takes __ minutes—extremely quick and futuristic—the car is impeccable and the seats are first class—a digital map on the wall tells location, and clocks provide both ETA and time remaining. Now in Tokyo station, the task at hand is finding our local train and getting to the hostel—we're delirious and still semi-hungover from Christmas night. The station is astoundingly huge, the size of San Diego's Fashion Valley Mall (parking lots included), and mostly underground. There are restaurants, cafes, coffee houses, fashion boutiques, convenience stores, etc. We wander aimlessly through Japan's biggest train-hub, trying to understand the color-coded strange-named (Akinobashi, Kokobunji, Shibuya, etc) system. Though it's frustrating, it's our first glimpse at Japanese people... unforgettable.
Many guys resemble G-Star Raw ads—denim everything with unnecessary straps, zippers, washes, and crinkles. Others are suit-clad, clean-cut, and walk determined on balls of feet. Young women dress posh in boots, warm coats, and mini-skirts. Many people run, a few strut hair styled like Anime characters. It is winter, flu-season, so 40% wear surgical masks—at first we thought this was to avoid germs or pollution, but it's the opposite: ill people (sniffles, flu, a mere cough, whatever) wear masks to not spread germs... remarkable, and sums up the general vibe of Japanese—extremely polite and kind. We ask them where our train is and the first lot smile so big then apologize for not speaking English, and giggle around seemingly nervous but I think they just naturally squirm for foreigners. Then, we ask an old balding man and he perks up pointing his index finger like a cartoon'd epiphany “Ah yass yass go o'er der den up stair” off we trudge, and we wind up exactly where the airport train let us out. Turns out many Japanese men have too much integrity to admit 'I dunno'—they instead give you wrong directions... sweet.
Eventually, we meet a Japanese-American girl who speaks perfect ingrish, and happened to spend 6 years living in San Diego...what are the odds? She's kind enough to walk us to our train, and we thank her 88 times. Now on board, we look around and everyone's mouth's shut—they're staring at their phones, ostensibly texting (cell minutes are expensive so everyone texts, and their phones have 10 megapixel cameras). 8 ft away, in the corner, there is a fat kid (22?) playing his PSP console—I can hear the music from his headphones—oblivious to the world, he picks his nose twice and eats his findings. Arrive our stop, walk a tunnel, up 2 stair flights, and into street. Turn right and after 5 steps notice how clean it is—no litter whatsoever—every 30ish yards there is a big 'no smoking sign' painted on the sidewalk. The weather is near freezing, or maybe I'm just a pansy... compared to Bali the place felt like the North Pole and damn the wind chill!
We traverse the area for half an hour trying to realize our location. We finally ask directions and discover we've spent the entire time going the wrong way—turns out the hostel was just a block away from the subway exit... we turned right instead of left... beautiful.
Now sun is down and we're at the hostel. We remove our shoes in the front lobby, put on provided slippers, and check in. Go to our rooms and WOW the place is silent! and weird... In New Zealand and Oz, hostels are proper dorms: just big rooms with bunk beds, but the bunks here are totally private—imagine a cabinet for sleeping in—long, woodgrain, rectangular-enclosed cube-pod; inside is a bed with 4-feet of head room; entrance is a thick curtain at the foot of the bed—big cabinets. I stash my backpack in a locker, take a shower, climb in my bunk stark naked, and drift into the most wonderful sleep.
Then I startle awake to a stranger in my cabinet, on my bed...it's a dude what the fuck! I flip on the light and staring at me square in the face comically blank “Todd! what are you doing in JAPAN MAN! NO WAY! NO WAY! Bro I'm naked get out of here” I throw on some clothes and hop down. Old high school pals Todd Smith and Matt Flischer have surprised us in Japan! I'm dreary, high on adrenaline, flattered, and speechless, literally unable to speak beyond loud mumble—we'd been away from old chums for so long and it takes a minute to realize I'm not dreaming. Todd says he saw Bradon returning from the shower, and Brad's face went through 5 different expression in 5 seconds...it's a celebration bitches!
Snag our duty-free bottles then scurry upstairs to the communal room and over sloppy vodka pulls we catch up on Todd's film career and Matt's teaching gig, and then Kelly, our outstanding friend met back in New Zealand, who's on a similar round-the-world trip running marathons on every continent, struts in and more big hugs abound as the scene grows blurry in the best of ways. We found a Japanese - American translation book... hilarious The 5 of us set out for pub-laughs. The 3 of em already know the trains inside and out, so they lead to Shinjuku, 1 of the bar districts. We get some beer at a sidewalk vending machine and trot alive from the layers of reunion, the buildings themselves alive with soundtrack'd video-billboards, everything so techno— bulb'd signs flash as street corners scream neon and people walk hurridly in front of shops with neon indoors and others with faint indoors and others even mysterious with doors mask'd opaque, all inviting and electric—I feel exactly like Harrison Ford in Bladerunner but exuberant and the landscape's clean—trains plow bridges between skyscrapers overhead, but no sound over jamming streets of incessant action! Nigerian promo-men hype the girls in their bar and their girlie-bars and skin shows; they hype relentless and over-the-top stating how the most beautiful are in their club, and their street fronts blink pink kanji (Japanese letter). but our group is so absorbed in each other and the moment and JAPAN! that we march past 'til a lonely door catches our eye, 'Rock and Roll Bar', so we shift down 3 stair flights into a dim basement pub hearing the American-soul-song of Stevie Ray Vaughn. We find a table in the back and plunge into rounds of pints amidst conversation that breaks only for short moments of stunned awe--the 5 of us are together in Japan... plans evolve.
Bali around Christmas: E-V-E-R-Y S-I-N-G-L-E shop plays Christmas carols, but not traditional renditions, they play Asian techno remixes, which are mostly too fast, very loud, and horrible. Most vendors also where Santa hats, despite the fact they're Hindu and the weather is hotter than Jessica Alba's ass. __ Christmas was around the corner and things were a bit lonely. Bradon was in an internet cafe and randomly met these 2 girls from Carlsbad (30 yrs old). They said they had a friend living in some crazy villa in the hills near Kuta (the club district), and they planned to spend Christmas day there. They invited us to join, which beat the hell out of our original plan to get plastered on the beach.
Christmas Eve. We pull into a cheap Kuta hotel, get settled, and chill. Next morning I rise early. The sun is out so I go read poolside. A Swedish girl finds a nearby lounge chair. We start talking, she's nice, and remarks her homesickness. I invite her and her friend to tag along. Anyways, at noon, Brado, me, the Swedes, and the Americans get into a van-taxi and high-tail it to the hills. We arrive this villa—good gawd! The place is straight outta MTV Cribs. Massive, on a mountain that overlooks the entire coastline. We walk in and 2 happy servants inquire what we like to drink. Then the friend arrives (supremely kind woman) and gives a tour. Turns out she's an interior designer... you can't imagine how cool the 'massage room' looked. Much of the house is elegantly decorated with festive things, for example, in the small hut that hovered above the infinity pool, there was a baby Christmas tree. Our party was 9 all together—our group of 6, the couple who lives there, and their wonderful friend who is living in Southern Japan. The girls wore angel costumes while the men (brad, me, and the man of the house, who was a 50-yr-old rockstar of finance) wore santa hats. Everyone gets acquainted over cocktails around the pool. 1 of the house dogs smokes cigarettes: when someone exhales smoke, it runs over and bites the air. Then we all sit down for a gourmet Balinese brunch. Then we had a 'White Elephant' gift exchange, which is where everyone put a present into a pile, then take turns unwrapping. If you dont like a gift you can trade it with someone. Most were gag gifts... You know how in Mexico, there are countless stalls selling exactly the same thing? And it's usually something weird and worthless? It's the same in Bali. During that time, 1 such item was a wooden-cock & balls-bottle opener—penis sizes ranging from index finger to forearm. Naturally, this stupid thing was my White-Elephant gift. I went for the medium-size black one. I just so happened that 1 of the Carlsbad girls bought the same thing. After both were opened, the girls used them for a sword fight... cockfighting angels on Christmas... haha what the hell. We finish off the afternoon swimming, drinking, eating, and definitely being merry. After sunset, the Swedes and us go to a nightclub and rage the night away. We left Bali the next afternoon... Ratings & Reactions Bali [1-10:Terrible-Terrific] Language Barrier: most can speak smiling-shattered english 7 Locals: 10 Women: 7 Food: 7 Nightlife: 7 Top 3 highlights: 1)Ubud 2)Uluwatuu surf 3)Bungeejumping in a nightclub
Grandma Gettıng LOW LOW LOW at the Club on Xmas night!!!
10am after the sunrise hike we visit the Lake Temple—straight outta Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, the lake is pristine harmony, a holy silent emanance. We stand loose at the western shore, in the main temple enjoying everything, then we trace the shoreline and find a large shrine slumbering this small island several yards offshore, separated, inaccessible. Stand loose gazing at it as well, pondering things that such a sight will spark, then we traverse the onshore compound getting more impressed at every step, still taken back by the lake's majesty.
Exit holyground and climb in the SUV backseat—surfboard's resting in trunk, nose jets out over headrests so I duck as I enter. We whiz down the mountain through local towns and villages, and I bemuse myself waving at the locals, all of whom (literally every single one) shines a smile or waves. We pass deep valleys of rice paddy, women carrying things on their heads, and the landscape is unnaturally green, literally electric, so bright, I can almost hear the plants shouting “GOOD DAY! YES FRIEND, I TOO AM ALIVE AND WELL!”
After 2 hours we arrive in Ubud (Bali's art capital).
*sidenote: Bali's economy is almost totally based in tourism and export. Consequently, districts and even whole towns devote to producing a specific good—in the hills there is a 'jewlery town', where the bulk of jewlery is molded, finished, etc. There is a furniture district, where 5 blocks of shops make bar stools, and the next few blocks focus on tables. Near Kuta, there's a big stretch of masonry (2 miles long?), where various totems, fountains, and statues are carved.
Ubud is apparently where the art gets done, 90% of shops sell paintings, widdled figurines, and the like. Many locals are western artists who decided to settle down, as well as old Dutchies (Bali was once a Dutch province), and laid back Balinese. We check into our hotel—quaint clean place in the town's heart, across from a massive soccer field, adjacent to an elementary school—during every morning shower I hear kids cheering, laughing, and being young.
An old friend recommended an incredible yoga studio—my health isn't up to par on account of Australia's liver bashing, and the wild nights of Kuta, so I say “what the hey” lets get healthy. I rent a motorbike ($3 per 24hrs) and scoot over. It's called 'Yoga Barn'. I walk around the place...
They offer every sort of class—75 minute breathing, abdominal strengthening, relaxation, Kung Fu?—most Yoga Barn teachers are very experienced and designed their own programs. I buy 12 classes—time to get normal.
Ride back to our hotel and a roar is floating over from the school (recess?). I fall into bed and quickly drift off. When I wake, Bradon is lounging playing Tetris on our laptop. We discuss Ubud's activities and map an agenda for the week.
Attend a sunrise yoga session—holistic balance through breathing (it was called something in Sanskrit, but so help me God). We do all sorts of new postures, and at end I feel open lungs. Leave and scoot down a few blocks, enjoy breakfast at Lilipad Cafe.
(view from my table)
Return for another yoga session—jungle yoga, strenuos 75 minute class devoted to total body strengthening. Leave on a cloud scoot round town—pass Monkey Forest Temple—enormous ancient trees reach out over stone walls, walls where innumerable monkeys sit watching passersby, while others crawl skip whatever in the road. Arrive home for another relaxing evening reading doing nothing.
Next day begins with another yoga class. Afterward, I meet up with Brado to check out Monkey Forest Temple—it's totally swarming with primates. We drop 2 bucks on 2 bushels of bananas (called 'sugar bananas', much smaller than those of home, and much sweeter). Walk through the place and shoot these little guys can eat! whole hordes follow you staring at your bushel—some hop your leg shimmy up torso then grab the fruit! We hide the bushels under our shirts, pulling out just a single banana when we see one worth feeding. Then one learns our secret—he shimmies up my leg and starts biting my shirt! AAAAH freak out and he grabs the bushel, and I'm out of bananas. Damn.
(sorry about the angle in the video)
The janitor back at our hotel told us of a secret road that runs behind the temple's front gate, behind the monolythic statues, and it runs behind the madhouse ending at some remote village—it's just wide enough for a motorbike.
We jump on our mopeds and return to the temple entrance, sure enough the road's there, and we vroom through the jungle over a worn cobblestoned path, twisting pass artifacts, broken columns, monkeys staring curious from trees— at road's end there is what appears to be a temple-back-entrance— we see a big gate bordered by two watchful monkey statues. Snap a few photos then continue our ride, cruising around town to the back vilages. We come across some procession (reminds me of how movies portray group of midwestrn folk walking to church on a sunday morning), everyone is dressed in religious garb: white cloth cap, white loose-fitting shirt, surong, but we're on such a high from the bikes we just blow pass trying hard to get totally lost, get where tourists rarely make it—we knew we'd made it when we rode 15 'caucasianless' minutes.
Yoga Barn for sunset, and when I return home Bradon's glued to the computer—Tetris “hold on high score”—I flop down on my bed. Bradon begins mumbling distress, mumble mumble then “Woah! Dude I can't change the shape! NOOO! WHAT! The keyboard is fading! AAAAAH (cursing)!”—you can imagine the agony of a high score being stolen, the blocks falling incorrectly, helpless, and that's when our laptop broke, forcing us into grimey internet cafes for the following 4 months. Pain-in-the-ass.
The remainder of the week was relaxed—nothing to 'write home about', except for the chuk-chuk dance:
Dark evening clouds, everything obsedian. Almost 9 o'clock so we scoot to a specific temple. There we walk beneath old candles, through a stone pillared entrance, through an outdoor corridor of high burning torches, into a candle-lit arena—a crecent of guests sit on the brick floor (a smokey hue), or on stones or folding chairs. We find 2 chairs facing the stage, which isn't a stage, but rather, 45 immense stone steps where a stage should be—they lead to main temple, a huge, elegantly unpainted, mysterious structure, adorned with innumerable curlicues, all chizeled 100 years ago. Between us and the steps, crescent center, is an open area, pintailed by a forlorn bouquet of unlit candles, the holder made of tall weathered rod-iron—a deep bucolic feel.
Got some extra time—strain our eyes reading a performance brochure. The story's Romeo-and-Juliet-like, only with trecherous demons, mischevious faiiries, and holy monkey kings... should be interesting.
Chanting is heard from a vague location, louder and louder. A procession of Balinese men appear at stair summit, half enters from left, half enters from right—all dark island skin, shirtless, clad in clothe hats and surong. They're shouting and moaning their chant, bouncing with it, creeping toward the center. A shoulder-to-shoulder-line forms facing us at summit, behind which a crowd of performers organizes, chanting all-the-while.
The group begins bounce-stepping down, throbbing toward us slowly, concentrating on the chant. They fill the arena center, and form a 5 person deep ellipse around the candles. Bouncing evolves: they hop-shift from foot to foot, then 1 yelps and they chant louder, hop-shift harder. Another yelp and all quickly fall into a cross-legged pose, chanting still now with arms outstretched to left, in unision they reach out then relaxe back, out and back out and back with the chant, high yelp and they switch to the right. This remains constant throughout the 1 hour tradition, during which an elaboratly costumed ensemble used only dance to tell the story.
Then the ensemble a scurries off, and a man removes the candles, and the chanters, in the same fashion they entered, move to the base of the stairs forming a shoulder-to-shoulder line, facing us still chanting. Then 2 men walk down the stairs with a large (size of outdoor trash can) bamboo basket. They scurry to arena center and dump the contents into a big mound (5ft diameter)—dead coconut husks. The men ignite the mound and it explodes into bonfire.
Suddenly a man drifts into view at the stair summit. He is constumed as a horse: he is wearing a 6-foot long, white-bamboo-contraption that is shaped like a stallion—his torso is sticking out the stallion's spine, he controls the neck and head with bowed arms, while the tailend just rests at the man's back.
He is ostensibly sleep walking—his eyes are tight slits, he stumbles drunk-like then stops rigid, total control, leans into another long swirve then stops rigid, again, and again. Then he ruffles the contraption, expressing a shivering horse. He leans into another swrive, this time rushing down the stairs right toward the bonfire and POW he runs right through it! Now I see that his only raiments are clothe shorts, a hat, and an orchid behind hid right ear.. shoeless! The 2 men who lit the fire use push-brooms to gather the now scatterd burning husks: they reform the mound. The horseman stands rigid, swirves, shivers, swrives, then POW blasts right through the new pile kicking fire everywhere. The 2 men rebuild, the horseman floats around, then POW blasts through it again, only this time I notice he's standing right on a burning husk (barefoot), not flinching, not doing anything, then he swirves and swirves again onto more embering husks. Another mound is rebuilt. POW! rebuild POW! rebuild POW! ...
Finally, the horseman gets hugged/tackled, forcefully, by 1 of the firebuilders who holds him, and he's still got that expressionless sleep-walk gape. A priest saunters down the temple stairs, stands before him, and sprinkles water on his forehead while reciting something extensive. And it was over. firebuilder and horseman(wearing hat) tourists getting photos taken with some of the dancers coconut husk embers after the show
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