2001-08-19 - 2:23 p.m.
the distance to here

I'm sure nobody cares by now, but I feel I have to finish up with Japan before I can go on to current events. (I am the laziest writer in the world when I'm not under time pressure. Call it a stylistic homage to Douglas Adams. Heh.)

As I left the museum, my mom and dad were engaged in conversation with some slightly disreputable-looking local who spoke pretty good English. He was talking about politics, apparently, and how Japan needed to internationalize. Or something. He also talked a lot about how important it was for Japanese and Americans to talk to each other, and especially for "Japanese man and American woman to learn to talk together." He said some funny things about how easy it apparently was for Western boys to hook up with Japanese girls. He also talked about how he was the "troublemaker" in the park, which apparently meant he cleaned up undesirable elements like rowdy drunks; I think the word he was going for was "bouncer," but he didn't know it.

But mostly, he talked about how Japanese man and American woman needed to talk to each other, and he kept looking at my mom when he was talking, and I think he was hitting on my mom. Do you know how disturbing that is? (Especially since my dad was right there. I mean, what did this guy think the family constellation was here?) My dad agreed with me when I mentioned it later, and I don't know which of us was more weirded out. Heh.

Anyway, we eventually disentangled ourselves from the Scruffy But Probably Harmless Lonely Guy Who Talked Too Much (and isn't it interesting to find how certain archetypes cross cultural boundaries?) and headed back to the train. In a plaza-type area on the walk back was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I'd caught a glimpse while running toward the museum before, but my parents hadn't, and at first we could just see the casual crowd and hear a violin playing; "Live music!" my mom said. I knew better, but I didn't say anything, because she just had to see it (and I wish I could show it to all of you so you could understand just how cool it was). When we got closer, we could see the real attraction. A recording of a Beethoven violin concerto was playing, while a beautifully rendered puppet of a violinist performed in front of a red curtain with a music stand and a chair to sit down on in between pieces. The articulation on this puppet was just amazing, and we were all three certain that its human (a Westerner) must be a highly skilled violinist himself. I put a lot of yen in his hat.

Being John Malkovich, anyone?

(When Japanese people give out "spare change," which they don't often do since there are few homeless people on city streets and the few who are there don't beg for money, they really give. I saw several bills in the puppeteer's hat, and in the bowl of the one beggar we saw, who I suppose was a holy man of some sort [he was dressed funny and ringing a bell, and when I gave him a couple hundred yen he rang his bell some more and said something that I assume was some kind of blessing]. The smallest bill in Japanese currency is 1,000 yen, or about ten dollars.)

Got up early to get on a bus for the Five Lakes area, which is in the neighbourhood of Mount Fuji. Main attraction for my dad was an alleged old-growth forest of some sort; also unspoiled lakes and caves and stuff.

The ride on the tourist bus is about an hour. The view only becomes interesting about forty minutes in. A lot of the highways have high barriers on the side, so you might be looking at something interesting out the window and then, bam, you have a view of a concrete wall going by for the next fifteen minutes. I spent much of the ride listening to my headphones and reading the 2001 Nebula Awards anthology.

Whn the comfy tour bus ride was over, we disembarked at a rustic little bus stop where my dad set about buying us tickets for the next bus up to where we were actually going. My mom and I set off for the bathrooms.

I've skirted around the subject of Japanese toilets, aside from that one joke, because I don't want to get into TMFI territory here, but they're unappealing things, and when you venture out of the city, you can no longer count on finding a "Western style" stall. It's probably even worse for my mom, since she has bad knees. OTOH, there's a certain feeling of small-scale triumph that comes from using one of those things. "I survived the Malevolent Bathrooms of Japan." Also, they don't believe in paper towels. Sometimes they don't believe in toilet paper.

Freshened up, we got on another bus and soon arrived in a pleasant area of the middle of nowhere with a gift shop that sold soft serve ice cream. More dawdling and consulting things, then, at last, we ventured into the woods.

A real, serious, forest. It was almost like being back in California, though the flora and fauna were entirely different, of course. Here is the thing about this forest: About 1100 years ago, Mount Fuji erupted and covered this whole area in lava. When the lava flow had cooled, bits of plant life slowly took hold in the topmost layers of igneous rock. I wish I could give you a nice romantic description of the forest-building process, but I'm an actor, not a biologist. All I know is, now there's a big-ass, lush, green forest there, and the path is still made of crumbling volcanic rock that you really shouldn't climb on in sandals.

After a few minutes we split up--everyone else went back to the rest-stop area to find out where the really old-growth stuff was, and I just kept going ahead on the trail. There weren't many people around, so a lot of the time I was pretty much alone with the trees. And it was quiet. We'd just spent about a week in Tokyo, where you step out on the street and you're assaulted by the noise of cars and pachinko parlors, the voices of seas of pedestrians walking by and people standing outside stores and cafes with microphones, pitching their product like carnival barkers... and you get used to it. Suddenly, I was in a space without a single human voice.

Heavenly.

The walk through the forest was beautiful, but the path was a little deceptive. I walked for an hour or so, taking what I thought were the right turns and thinking it would loop around, which it didn't. I kept going just a little farther, but eventually I realized I would have to turn around and just hurry back the way I came, so I did, and fell down. Which was good, however, because it kept me there long enough to run into my dad and find out the shortcut back to the parking lot. Turned out that by walking on I'd wound up in the same place that my dad wanted to get to.

Back on the bus, back on the other bus and back to the hotel. In bed by 23:30.

Breakfasted and out of the hotel by 10:00. The only interesting thing about the process of getting to the airport and onto the plane was the various annoying things that got in our way, and that shit is just so negative, knowhamsayin'?

This time we called ahead and I got a vegetarian in-flight meal. It didn't suck. The in-flight movies did. My brother and I had some bonding moments as we flipped through the channels on our little personal screens and both wound up half-watching Star Trek: Insurrection, which, we agreed, sucked a whole lot of ass. I'm always glad to find that the kid has good taste.

I tried sleeping, but I can't really sleep on planes unless I'm desperate. I like flying, anyway. I enjoy being in transit.

After nine hours on the plane, we arrived in San Francisco on the day we left Tokyo, six hours earlier than our departure. Whatever. As soon as we got home, I went to bed and slept for eight hours, got up, had dinner, checked my email, and slept for fifteen more hours.

This, if you can manage it, is a really good cure for jet-lag.

And that's it for the Vacation That Never Ends. I've been home for a week and a half now, but very few newsworthy things have happened to me. Further bulletins as events warrant.

Thanks for taking the trip with me, possums. I hope it was at least as comprehensible for you as it was for me.

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