Tokyo and Sayonara

We were pretty well travelled out by the time we got off the train in Shinjuku, a borough of Tokyo. The outer edges of a typhoon kept a steady rain going as we, yet again struggled to find the hotel, the bizarrely-named, art-deco decorated "City Hotel NUTS." I hadn't eaten breakfast and it was lunch time, so after we stowed our bags, we went to find the Japanese Mexican restaurant I'd seen on the walk to th hotel. On the way we took a moment ot admire the gloriously misnamed "Me Room: Home Cocking" restaurant. At the Mexican restaurant, Jana got either a beef or chicken taco and nachos. I settled on the chorizo taco and burrito. My idea of chorizo, honed by my Mexican travels, is a diced, spicy sausage; the Japaneses' is a warm vienna sausage. Japan is so strange.

After we went back and checked in, Jana and I Ieft mom to write emails to her beau as we explored the area. We quickly found an English pub where they had fantastic specials on happy hour cocktails and also $12 pints of Guinness. After a couple of drinks, thoroughly worn out, we headed back to the hotel relatively early. The next day was still rainy so we made no effort to cram in sight-seeing. We manished to find a Turkish restaurant and then made our way to the airport. Without much ado, I got them to the departure gate. We sa our sayonaras and off the went to traverse the planet as I made my way towards Yokohoma.

Random Observations:

-Kamikochi has a troop of wild monkeys. our first night, late in the afternoon, they descended from the mountains and wandered nonchalantly through the better dressed primates who followed them and took pictures. Mom, Jana and I traipsed along with them for several hundred yards. I'm pretty sure that's the first time I've seen monkeys in the wild.

-Once, while writing in the comfort of an inn's tea room, I left my computer on a table as I left the roomm to fetch something or other. When I returned, my fellow Japanese guests had grouped around my laptop and were gawking at the desktop picture, a sunset in Afghanistan. One even pulled out his camera and took a picture. Something about that struck me as quintessentially Japanese tourist.

-If you don't like seafood for breakfast, dn't go to Japan. If you don't like seafood, period, definitely don't go to Japan. They even have seafood calzones.

-It took over a week, but I was finally subjected to a traditional Japanese squat toilet, a glorified trench/hole. Uh-uh. I searched until I found a western one. The dichotomy between the two, just like every other one between traditional and modern in this country, is jarring. On one end is the trench/hole and on the other is a futuristic toilet. Every western toilet we've come across has a heated seat, and many had "remote controls", panels against the wall next to the toilet with buttons to flush, raise or lower the lid(s), activate the built-in bidet, and, possibly, teleport to the 30th century. To me, I can sum up this country thusly: Japan...$2000 toilet; 20 cent roll of toilet paper.

Kamikochi

We got to the bus station reasonably early in the day and caught the bus for the two hour ride up to Kamikochi, the famous hiking resort. I have an extreme aversion to cities...okay, that's putting it too strongly, but I dislike feeling like a rat in a maze, which is what I end up feeling like when I'm among the thronging masses. Even a city like Kyoto, which didn't feel outrageously large, has over a million inhabitants. At any rate, Kamikochi, up in the Japanese Alps, was what I had been looking forward to most of the trip. Kamikochi does have a reputation for being ridiculously crowded, but as it's a summer-only resort and it was only a week or two from closing up for the winter, when snow makes the roads impassable ("All work and no play make Jack a dull boy." "Here's Johnny!), my hope was that the crowds would be at a minimum. The bus we were on was full but comfortable, and as we slowly ascended the curving mountain roads the scenery became more and more spectacular.

For the most part, the trip has been unexpectedly warm, with temperatures in the 60s and sometimes 70s. I was pleased when it was in the low 50s in Matsumoto. I was thrilled that as we rose higher and higher, autumn took greater hold. We were probably a week too early for optimum differentiation, but the mountains were well into their turning, the deciduous trees already muted oranges, yellows, and reds. The peaks of many of the mountains were white, not fom snow, but from frost from the clouds passing through them. The closer we got to Kamikochi the colder it got and the more fogged the windows became, to the point we were constantly swiping at them to take in the magnificence all around us.

After we arrived at the Kamikochi Visitors' Center, it was a short walk on a path through the ridiculously tall Japanese pines and the ferns that blanketed the forest floor. At the river, now reduced to a strong stream, the forest opened and we were there. To a man brought up with the Appalachians, the Japanese Alps are particularly unusual, being, unlike Afghanistan, densely wooded but startlingly steep in a way that I've only seen in pictures of Hawaii.

We crossed over the suspension walking bridge and went to our hotel. Yet again it was not time to check in, so we left our bags and, after a fantastic lunch at one of the resort restaurants, went walking on one of the paths which skirted the river as it ran along the valley floor. I made note, as we walked the main path, which route I would take the next day up one of the nearly 3000m (10,000ft) mountains. Though we'd been told it would be raining the next day, as the vanguard of a typhoon hit the island, I was resovled to get a proper hike in. Unfortunately, that first day, when the weather was beautiful, we'd arrived too late for me to get the girls set up and make a proper attempt without the risk of nightfall catching me somewhere on the mountain.

Mom is in the beginnings of a burgeoning romance and has been like my very own love-sick teenager. Instead of being somewhere she could enjoy and appreciate the wonder all around us, she was more than content to stay in the room and email back and forth with her beau. I didn't really envision spending the kind of money I have so she can look at a computer screen hours upon hours a day. She could do that when she's not on my dime; however, I've certainly been caught in the throes of the exciting initial stages, so I couldn't begrudge her something that's making her so happy. I took it as a much needed opportunity to get writing done.

Along with the bottle of 18yo Laphroaig I've been toting around since Kyoto, I sat out at a picnic table an scribbled away on my manuscript. As the shadows lengthened and it grew colder, though my core was pleasantly toasty from the snifter of scotch, my fingers weren't dealing with the low temperature. I looked over my shoulder at the hotel and saw Jana had taken a window seat in the tea/coffee room and was getting writing of her own done. I went inside to join her and we wrote and chatted pleasantly until it was time for bed, when I went to the male dorm and she met up with mom at the female's.

The next day, I woke early to eat. Though the dorm was expensive, it fortunately included dinner and breakfast. This was our first traditional breakfast. A deck of card's worth of salmon, a slice or two of heavenly apple, a handful of giant, seeded grapes, rice, salad with tuna paste on top, misu soup with tofu chunks, and a little something or other that was sweet. Breakfast was almost indistinguishable from dinner the night before and, like dinner therefore, it was a lot of food. Be that as it may, despite the relative quantity of Japanese food, it doesn't feel like it sticks to the ribs. I ate much more than I would for a western breakfast and I felt hungry in what seemed like no time.

Mom had made mention of wanting to go along with me for the beginning portion of my hike. I was tired and in no mood to gout out in the rain at 730am so I took myself back to bed. When I woke up it was still raining and was in the low 40s. Clouds obscured the mountain tops. I didn't think she'd much want to go out in that. Undaunted, I set out. I'd picked my path the day before, thinking the best way to get up the peak I'd selected was to skirt a massive rock slide that dominated the scenery of the mountainside. I'd told mom my plan the day before, but wasn't entirely confident she'd paid any attention. As I was scaling a mountain alone, I took a reflective belt and draped it over my shoulder, the better to assist search parties if I became horrifically lost, or was injured or killed.

I'd seen a path that I thought would take me up to the eastern side of the rock slide. Though I'm not out-of-shape, I'm also not currently in-shape either. Still, I nearly always feel reinvigorated once I'm on a hike in the woods, and, sure enough, I charged up the mountain, the canopy of pines and cedars transforming what had been a light, continuous rain into sporadic dousing drops. Nevertheless, I quickly heated up to the point that I shedded both my alpaca poncho and then the rain jacket. Soon, I was above the rain and within the clouds and while it was certainly cold up there, it was refreshing. The path I'd found turned out to go in a different direction, heading towards a different peak. I finally left it to make it to the peak I'd selected from the start, but, unfortunately, the path had taken me to the opposite side of the rock slide.

The prudent thing to do would have been to go back down the mountain below the rock slide and hike back the other side; the Andre thing I did was to climb several hundred feet up the rock slide until I all I could see was the immediate terrain and the cloud I was in (goodbye, valley floor). Of course, the mountain looked much different while on it, rather than from the valley, so the "obvious" route I'd chosen the day before wasn't nearly so. I pondered making a go for the peak, particularly since I'd made it so far so quickly (1/2-1/3rd of the way up in little over an hour), but I felt I'd already pushed my luck a fair bit scaling the rock slide. Honestly, from an orienteering perspective, what I'd hiked was kiddie-play. I'd followed a path and then stuck to the main terrain feature. In the rain, in the cold (even if I wasn't feeling it at the moment), it seemed foolhardy to risk going into the bush and getting lost. Yes, ultimately, Kamikochi was on the valley floor so all I'd have to do is head "down" to get to safety, but these are jagged mountains. If I did manage to get lost, spending the night alone, in the rain, in near freezing temperatures, was more risk than I was willing to accept, no matter how much such an experience would have filled my quota for Andre-style awesome suffering (so long as I survived relatively intact).

Fret not though, to ensure at least a modicum of stupid, unnecessary danger to satisfy my warped sense of machismo, I descended the rock slide, several times "surfing" it as rocks beneath me gave way for short spurts. Obviously, I died in an horrific avalanche of boulders.

By the time I got back to the ryokan (Japanese Inn), I was ready to partake in the communal bath which mom and Jana had praised the night before. Japanese onsen (hot spring baths) are renowned as the jewel of the Japanese tourism experience. Iconoclast that I am, I can reveal that an onsen is really a supersized naked hot tub with strangers (same sex only) who have no qualms about looking at your genitals. As Jana and mom had already been they informed me I could expect a strong measure of genital staring and warned me not to be visibly taken aback by the Japanese aversion to grooming (or lack thereof, to be precise). Prepared with this knowledge, I boldly set out for the bath, looking forward to sending my recharged ego, bolstered from foolishly courting a quality maiming (if not mangled death), to fantastically unbearable levels from the hushed tittering and unrestrained awe I'd no doubt receive from the Japanese. My budding hubris was duly checked, however, by the unabashed snickering of the pack of 6'5" Danes I found at the onsen. Arrogant bastards...

Himeji, Trains, & Matsumoto

We hopped on th train early in the morning and mad our way to Himeji. Though we weren't on the famous Shinkansen, we still sped along remarkably quickly on the Special Rapid, which was really a superfast subway style train. Just after we left Kobe and its beautiful women, we passed the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge, the longest single-span suspension bridge in the world, which connects the main island of Honshu with the island of Awaji.

After 40 minutes or so, we arrived at Himeji. Even though I've never heard of it prior to the trip, the guidebook proclaimed it a must-see as "the best preserved feudal castle in Japan." Osaka-jo is more famous, and rightly so as the most visited tourist site in Japan, but it's a concrete reconstruction as the true castle was partially destroyed by Tokugawa in the early 1600s and the current iteration was built (poured) after WWII. I had no qualms with skipping a fake Osaka-jo and reveling at pristin Himeji-jo.

The guidebook was right about Himeji-jo being the best-preserved castle. I'll credit it for that. What I'm m ore than slightly miffed about is the fact that the Rough Guide: Japan didn't mention the main keep is under a 5 year restoration and is encased in heavy steel-beam scaffolding. Classic. Yet another time the farthest leg of a trip of mine has resulted in Clark Griswald/WallyWorld-being-closed-like failure. In 2000, on spring break, I drove over 2000 miles to see Lake San Isabel in Colorado (went there as an 11 year old and was convinced it was the prettiest place on earth) only to discover it was still closed for winter. The next year, after I graduated from Artillery school, my brother and I drove from Oklahoma to California and then all the way to Crater Lake, Oregon, only for it to be fogged in for the two days we were there.

As we were in Himeji anyway, we toured the grounds of the castle, which were spectacular in and off themselves, but because I foresaw a long day of travel ahead of us, I herded the girls back to the train station. I was looking forward to a day of travel because I needed rest. I've not had a completely down day in months and, though this has been a fairly easy trip, it's been draining to be the travel master, so to speak. Hours of sleeping on the train were just what I needed.

Though she was actually 100% correct, I was particularly displeased when, after I'd bought the tickets and we'd settled in for our circuitous route to Matsumoto via Tokyo and Nagano, Mom pulled out the guide book and pointed out that we were going through our elbows to get to our butts ad there was a much shorter direct route. I tried not to bite her head off, but I really dislike when people leave all aspects of guidance/leading to me and then snipe when I make a mistake. Either participate the whole time or stay out of it. Also, and fundamentally, what the hell is the good/use of pointing out that (and not simply dropping it) after a) I've bought the tickets and b) we're on the train? I mostly ignored her, closed my eyes and fell asleep.

I stayed awake as we approached Nagano. The clouds were spectacular in the dying light of the day as I gazed upon the jutting mountains and the cities speeding by us in a blur. After a brief stop in Nagano, we caught the connection to Matsumoto, where, thankfully, the hotel was directly across from the station.

Kobe

As it has been every day here so far, it was overcast as we made our way back to the pandemonious labyrinth of the Osaka train station. Kobe turned out to be nearly a suburb of Osaka, so we got there very quickly. As proved to be a problem repeatedly throughout the trip, we arrived well before the check-in time at the hotel. We were able to chew up a decent chunk of time by trying to find the blasted hotel.

As I've mentioned previously, I pride myself on my ability to keep my bearings and to know where I am. When I am lost or disoriented, I become what some might call "agitated." Others might prefer "irritable jerk." Potaytoe/pohtahtoe. We got off at the correct subway station and the ultra-vague directions said exit the west exit, take a right and the hotel was less than a minute away and obvious. Osaka, perplexing as it was, is at least, in some small way, prepared dto accept it gets Western tourists. Confusing as they are, Osaka at least had English on signs and maps.

Kobe? No way, Jose. Using a map that seemed representative more of a thought of a dream of an idea of a cartographical device, we exited what I could only guess was the west exit (but later discovered was the west exit of the east gate of the central terminal) into rain, finally. Perfect. I looked at the hotel-provided map. Nothing matched. I checked to make sure it was for the right city. It said it was. Confused and aggravated, I went with faith, left the girls under an overhand, and walked in the rain to the right, hoping against hope the hotel would magically appear.

I returned five minutes later in a foul temper. Jana was content to smoke a cigarette, but mom, in a tragically self-defeating case of recognizing I was frustrated to the point of maniacal fury, attempted to help by talking through the directions I had. I promptly tore her head off. "I'm following the directions! I'm following the map! Non of the @#$! damn streets are labled in Western script and the map is complete @#!!"

Rather than sit under an overhang at the train station, where I was certain the hotel wasn't, I barked at the girls to follow me as I chased my (accurate it turned out) hunch we weren't at the west exit. None of us were happy as we lugged our bags in the light rain. Thoroughly unconvinced I had any idea that I knew where I was going, I barked, yet again, at the girls that we were taking a taxi.

The myth in America is that the Japanese are smarter than us, or, at the very least, more disciplined in their studies, and since I'm pretty sure they take 12 years of English in school (though where I got that I have no idea) led me to believe that communicating wouldn't be overly difficult without knowing a lick of their language. W.R.O.N.G. No doubt my pronunciation of the address was atrocious, but the profusely apologetic cabbie couldn't understand me when I gave him the name and address of the hotel. Knowing my handwriting is horrible, I printed out in my most careful block lettering the name and address. Didn't work. He pulled out his cell phone, blabbered something quickly into it, and then handed it to me.

"Hello?" I said.

"Hai!" said a heavily-accented voice. "Hello!"

"I want to go to the (hotel name)?" I said, a bit perplexed.

"Hai! Hand phone back to driver."

I did. A spot more blabbering, then he drove us three blocks east, four blocks north, four blocks west, three blocks south, and one block east to the hotel. To go to the hotel one block away from the taxi stand, I'd paid $8. My attitude was sparkling. As we'd still managed to get there early, we couldn't check in, but we left our bags with the concierge. I parked my grumpy self at a coffee shop to let my fury subside, while the girls wandered around.

Since we didn't come to Kobe to see anything, there's not so much to say about the sights. Obviously, Kobe is known for it's beef. We ate at a steak house. It was heavenly. Other than that though, I tried to take in a quintessentially modern Japanese city (Kobe having been rebuilt almost from scratch after the '95 quake). First and foremost, and I have no idea why, the women of Kobe were far better looking, uniformly, than any other place we'v e been. I don't typically have a thing for Japanese women, but I nearly snapped my neck whipping around to see the Nipponese goddesses all around. Even lowly store clerks were strikingly beautiful. It was bizarrely movie-like how everyone was pretty. Of course, I wasn't impressing any of the Kobe beauties what with speaking only a mutilated "Hai!" and "Domo arigato!" and cavorting around with mom and Jana. I also wasn't helping my cause by nearly running many of them over.

I hate the English driving system. Hate it. I've driven in England and Ireland and it was nerve-wracking the entire time. I didn't grow accustomed to the change. I had to focus the whole time to make sure I didn't drive into oncoming traffic any time I made a turn. Japan follows the English system. Sure, I wasn't driving, and thankfully so (note: I'd recommend those who can't read the various Japanese scripts not attempt driving there either), but the sides people drive on translate to what side of the sidewalk they walk on. I'd start looking around at the shops and signs and unwittingly, reflexively veer to the wrong side of the sidewalk and force the politely confused locals ("Why doesn't the gaijin walk on the correct side?") to pour around me. There are 180 million or so Japanese. The side walks are typically crowded. Gunking up the flow was embarrassing, but, sadly, frequent.

Kobe wasn't particularly different from any other big city I've been to. Tall, mostly drab buildings and too many people, but when Jana and I went out to explore after dinner, the city was transformed. Stereotypical lights and signs lit up all over the place, but instead of being garish as I'd figured they'd be, they lent a dreamlike quality as we took in the atmosphere of the city.

There are a great many aspects of Japanese culture, particularly when it attempts to fuse with Western culture, that just leave me perplexed. Thus it was that I was confounded when I walked past a store with an ad featuring a 50 or 60yo Japanese woman in some sort of latex maid's outfit with a heart shape cut out of the chest to show cleavage. I stopped in my tracks. What in the hell was THAT ad for? Jana had independently stopped to look at another ad on the building and called out, "Andre! Check this out!" It was a picture of the same old lady in a miniskirt looking coyly over her shoulder and seductively fingering the hem of the miniskirt. I was beyond confused until I looked at the store more carefully. It was a porn shop. She, I can only surmise, is a porn star. Some elements of this culture need to be chalked up as a mistake, taken out back, shot, and buried in an unmarked grave.

Osaka

Prior to Japan, France had the worst sign directions I'd ever encountered. All the street signs were designed for people who already know where they're going. The signs in the Osaka train station are designed, not for anyone to know where they're going, but, rather, to draw unsuspecting gaijin into a labyrinth of department stores at the core of the complex. I have a fantastic sense of direction and a startling ability to remember a path somewhere if I've been there even once. I don't get lost. However, if I do, it's such a shock to my system that I have been known to lose my composure. Naturally, when I'm completely turned around, confused and infinitely frustrated is when my mother likes to chime in and offer oh-so-helpful tips like "Well, where are we supposed to be going?", "Are you lost?", "Did you follow the signs?", and "Did you (insert whatever would best enrage Andre)?" I did my best not to murder her (and succeeded...otherwise, this would be admissible evidence).

Amazingly, a random Japanese saint saw the Monster Nose Round Eye about to go nuclear in the bowels of the train station and offered to help us. Feeling naked and helpless, I agreed to follow him as he led us. Visions of being led to an alley where his ninja compadres robbed us or even something so simple as him taking us to his overpriced "Lost Gaijin" car service flitted through my head as Mom, last person who should ever be given a secret security clearance, babbled on and on about everything about us (my years associated with the Department of Defense during the War on Terror™ have left me slightly paranoid, I admit). I was waiting for the other shoe to drop until the little old man paid for our subway tickets and put us on the right train. God bless you, little old Japanese Angel.

Osaka Castle is the most visited tourist site in Japan. It's said that's because it's the only thing to see in Osaka. We wouldn't know. We skipped it. We took at $25 taxi to Universal Studios Japan!

Because there's simply not space in Japan for a huge complex, most of the "rides" have to rely on motion simulation, which is pretty clever. It would have been even more clever if we had any idea whatsoever of what was going on. Our first "ride" was Spiderman and after a (relatively) short 25 minute line, where we wound around the ride building and watch Peter Parker's editor, Jonah Jameson, scream angry Japanese at the beleaguered, broke superhero, we got in the ride car. We wore 3D glasses as we watched Spidey fight four villains as we were (simulated...surprisingly realistically) lifted hundreds of feet in the air, dropped repeatedly, subject to countless goblin bombs and who knows how many of Doc Ock's tentacles nearly snatching off our faces. Jana took advantage of the small kids in the car with us not knowing foul-mouthed English to express her complete approval as we jostled around. I joined her. Back to the Future involved some story about Biff stealing the Delorean and we chased him back to prehistory where we dodged subterranean magma and subterranean Tyrannosauri Rex (?!!). Jaws was a knockoff of Disney World's Jungle Cruise, though I, personally, enjoyed the four year old who cried and cried when Jaws burst out of the water.

T2 ended up not being a "ride." I'd had a fair amount of beer by the time we were herded into an auditorium and an insane lady apparently told us super enthusiastically about the wonderful innovations that Cyberdyne was coming up with, including a robotic young Shaquille O'Neal who actually makes free throws. Twenty minutes of her jabbering was a bit much. Then we were put in another auditorium where we put on the 3D glasses to see nuclear war (awkward in this country) and then Arnold and John Connor saved the world from a GIANT SPIDER (?!!). My note I wrote to myself sums up the experience: "1st in line to @$#!ing crazy!"

After hours and hours wandering in the rain (of course with my luck the day I shell out the megabucks to go to the amusement park was the first day it actually rained) at Bizarro Studios, we took another $25 taxi to the hotel and our ship-berth-sized room.

Nara

We piled onto the train to Nara, the first Imperial city and one I'd never heard of before researching for this trip. When we arrived, we were greeted by the city's mascot, adopted for the 1300th anniversary of the city's founding as an Imperial center, a cartoon Buddha with antlers sticking out of his head. Nara, it turns out, is home to the world's largest wooden building, a temple to Buddha, and the sacred deer which surround it.

By fortune, we managed to just miss the annual deer mutilation festival, where the priests chase down the deer, hold them down, and cut off their antlers. Still, as we walked in the park approaching the temple, the fawns wandered along the pathways (the deer have free reign), trying to get tourists to feed them the cookies that vendors sell for that very purpose. The older deer, with their shorn nubs, tend to be more skittish, though they can be coaxed to come over for a cookie before scooting off to a distance. The deer make a sound when begging for a cookie that I can only liken to a baby's wail crossed with a dog's bark. It's not upsetting so much as damn weird to hear that erupting from all directions and distances.

The main temple is the most impressive thing I've seen in Japan so far. There are others more beautiful or ornate, but the sheer immensity of the building is flabbergasting. Inside is is a seated bronze Buddha holding up a hand that's the size of a grown man (which made me ponder and lament the loss of Phidias' Zeus at Olympia...idiot Christians...or the Bamiyan Buddhas...stupid Muslims) and even so it pales to the temple's size. 160' may not sound like a lot, but wow.

Kyoto

In order to save a spot of money, I took the slow train back to the airport to pick up the mom and Jana. It took 30 minutes longer but was half the price. I was in no hurry.

They'd only been on the plane for 13 & 1/2 hours, which I find remarkable because it takes 16-19 hours from Dubai to Atlanta and I'd thought that was a shorter (distance) flight (turns out it is. They fly up near the pole to cut the distance). They were in good enough spirits, but very tired so we went back to the hotel.

The next morning, we braved the morning rush and went ot the main station to get on the super fast "shinkansen" bullet-train. On the subway, we were crammed like sardines; not pleasant while carrying all that luggage (I had mine crammed in a backpack). The girls each had a rolling bag. I'm amazed the sarin gas attack back in '95 killed so few. I was sure that most of Tokyo was on the subway with us.

I'd been led to believe that English was much more prevalent than it's turned out to be so far. I assumed there might be a reticence to speak English because the speaker might be embarrassed not to be fluent, but, no, the average Japanese knows almost no practical English. This is particularly apparent in regards to fashion. Just as in the State there are those who wear clothing in Oriental script (or all to often have a symbol tatooed) without having the slightest idea what it truly says, we've come across some truly bizarre word combinations emblazoned. It made the people watching while we waited for the train that much more entertaining.

Because the ticket teller didn't know English very well, we ended up getting the most expensive tickets possible. I can now say I've been on the fastest train in Japan though. We sat and played trivial pursuit as the world flew by. I won, but was aided in small part by the fact that Jana, who has bipolar disorder, discovered she'd left her limictal on her kitchen counter, so she will be spending the trip with the attention span of a crabby goldfish. Awesome.

Kyoto, as a major tourist stop, was well-marked for us and we spent our three days walking all over Shinto creation. I'll save a laundry listing of places and just say that we sall dozens of temples and pagodas and gates. As the holder of the camera, I switched between elaborately directing the girls in the shots to taking pictures when they weren't looking to get them at their most ludicrous. I was wildly successful.

For the most part, the Japanese are amazingly polite, as I'd been led to believe. Even when it's obvious I have no idea what's being said, a teller or clerk will enthusiastically chirp or bow repeatedly when I buy something. I return the bow and give my best "domo arigato" (thank you) and that sets off more bowing and beaming smiles and indecipherable gibberish that continues as I walk out the store and the door shuts behind me. It feels as though they're amazed to see a real, live westerner (a tall one at that) walking around. In fact, in the most awkward moment I've had here so far, a twenty-something man walked up to me outside the 180' tall Toji 5-Story Pagoda and pointed at me, my beard in particular, before then absent-mindedly walking away.

Jana has a friend from high school who's lived in Japan for a decade. We met up with the awesomely named Danny Mark Donny-Clark and he took us to all manner of places we wouldn't have known to look for. Donny is thin and tall with short, wavy/curly blond hair and blue eyes. For Japan, he is particularly striking looking. He's an English teacher in Kyoto and married to a gorgeous Japanese woman. He's gregarious and quick-witted and seemed perfectly at home answering as the three of us asked him different questions simultaneously, while also shouting out directions to lost Japanese tourists. When that happened, it invariably took them a moment or two to realize the faultless Japanese was coming from the American. I've met plenty of people who are fluent in other languages, but Japanese seems so alien in pronunciation and cadence that I found Danny's proficiency all the more impressive.

On our last night in Kyoto, he took us out to a restaurant and, with someone there to explain what, exactly, we were putting in our mouths, I wasn't nearly so hesitant. The girls' first night in country, Jana and I walked into a random restaurant and pulled random plates of sushi from a conveyor belt that ran in front of us. For the most part, it was nothing I hadn't seen at a sushi restaurant in the States. Except for some pink globules of gelatinous something wrapped in seaweed that I dared us to eat. I have no idea what it was and don't share Jana's eagerness to find out; if it was balleen whale embryos, I don't wanna know. Though I was devil may care that particular night, I've barely eaten here since I apparently like to know what I'm eating. With Danny around, I finally ate enough to get over the feeling of impending starvation that had begun to hit me after four or five days of barely eating.

Tokyo

After I'd extricated myself from the airport, I got on the train for Tokyo. Though only 5pm, it was already dark and I watched the world of bizarre neon flashing lights speed by the window. God save the epileptic born in Japan.

Once I'd found the hotel, I stowed my gear and headed out to find something to eat. To be honest, I could see how Japan could be frightening. I know enough (continental languages and history) that I've felt comfortable in Europe (save Hungary and Czech, where I know nothing) and Latin America. I know jack and squat about Japan. I mean, I read "Shogun" and a history of the country, but that still means I only know "Konichiwa!", "Sayonara!", "Banzai!", "Kamikaze!", "Domo Arigato!", "Hai!", "Typhoon!" and "Toyota", "Mazda", "Honda", "Suzuki", and "Nintendo." I've watched at least one Kurosawa movie. I know the Japanese eat weird food (and endangered at that) and they like bizarre TV shows. I also know they're inordinately polite, unless they're at war, in which case God may not have created a crueler, more wanton race. That's what I know about Japan and the Japanese. What I know is of virtually no use.

From the hotel, I walked down the street. Lights flashed everywhere, cars drove past, people walked by, but it was oddly quiet. Reserved flamboyance is oddly unnerving. I walked past tiny Japanese eateries; American fast food; DVD stores with pornography interspersed with regular titles; convenience stores with potato chips, rice, sushi and bourbon; and video arcades reminiscent of carnival fun houses (and thus creepy).

Without company to bolster my bravado, I sought some familiar food. I was a bit too overwhelmed to handle fugu on my first night. I saw an Italian flag and a sign that said "Bistro." I went in.

When I went to visit my buddy Chris when he was in law school in Boulder, CO, I remembered vividly the restaurant we passed one night that proudly proclaimed it served "Asian Food." A continent in one restaurant. I imagined a "North American Food" restaurant serving halibut, maple syrup, pulled-pork barbecue, fried chicken, gumbo, and enchiladas.

This Japanese Italian bistro had French flags inside, along with pictures of Czech cathedrals and the Eiffel Tower. The only western alphabet on the menu were the headings (antipasta, pasta, frutti del mar, pizza, etc); the rest was in their glyphs, though they were numbered. I played it safe and picked my surprise meal #33 (from Pizza) and mystery beer #3. I was rewarded with a ham pizza with an egg yolk wobbling in the dead center and a Guinness Extra Stout. Later, I had a #4 beer, a Corona, I think. All told, $25 (the two beers ended up being nearly $15).

Having not slept but in fitful spurts for the previous 36 hours, I went back to the hotel and crashed.

The Vacation Begins

Bagram Air Field (BAF) is an unpleasant place. Virtually every passenger I send there from Kabul (because BAF is the arrival/departure point for us) begs me to send them there for as short a time as possible before they fly out of country. Unfortunately, I have to stand firm on their pleas. Since it's a warzone and anything can, and typically does, happen, I send them to BAF three days before their departure date. As I tell them, "I know you hate BAF. But you'll hate missing your flight to Dubai even more."

However, since I work in the Air Operations department, I cut a day off of that and went two days prior. I was willing to be ticked if weather got bad or flights were grounded due to enemy activity; I'm not willing to get chewed out if employees miss their flight through no fault of my own. In six months on the job, I've not had one employee miss his plane flight, though some have been taken straight from the helos to the plane.

It had been over three months since I'd last been to BAF. Some things were the same: the overwhelming congestion of 25-30k people jammed on a base designed to fit a half or third that number; the 40' banks of dust that rose from the clogged roads and lazily drifted or hurled themselves over everything, depending on the wind; the constant roar of jets taking off and flying overhead; and the worn-out look of persevering despair plastered on nearly everyone's faces.

What had changed since my last BAF visit was my standing in the department. I had come back from my last vacation on July 7th, flown back to Kabul after checking in with my boss and him telling me I was doing a great job, and over the course of the next ten to fifteen days proceeded to become more and more perplexed as the boss, Tom, always an emotional guy, got more and more irrational in a series of bizarre and autocratic emails, to the point where my coworker Jim and I went to employee relations because we were concerned we were going to be fired and we didn't know why (other than that we weren't in lockstep with Tom's unhinged behavior). At any rate, Tom actually did threaten to fire me in email and threatened to fire all of us in a phone conference meeting I had the employee relations rep sit in on (unbeknownst to Tom). The rep initiated an investigation of his own accord and recommended Tom's termination before the higher-ups squashed it to a verbal warning. Even though nothing happened to Tom, he quit harrassing us. Lesson learned? Don't threaten a lawyer.

Due to all of that, I was really not looking forward to BAF. Even though Tom had moved out of the department (his impending promotion was why the complaint against him was swept under the rug), he'd stocked the BAF office with his lackeys. The Americans, his sycophants, were cool towards me, but the Bosnians and Philippinos were pleased to see me.

While I was there, I stayed in the transient tent. The outbreak of bed bugs there for the past several months had finally been brought to heel, I was told. I crawled into an open bottom bunk, a mere 18" beneath a 225lb fellow employee and prayed the canvas separating us didn't give way. Fortunately, I got to contemplate greater dangers when the Giant Voice woke me to the sound of "Incoming! Incoming! Incoming!" Even though I know that by the time the alarm goes off the attack has been over for at least ten minutes, I put on my flip flops and body armor and sat in the bunker for thirty minutes until they gave us the "All clear!" I'm much pleased to relate that the thirty minutes in the dark was rather entertaining, what with the guys from the Balkans having a shouting competition, which resulted in a 25-way tie, as well edifying, as there was a geopolitical lecture given by a plumber, which he thoughtfully interspersed with a healthy helping of profanity so as to relate to the rest of us...I think. Or he could have been cursing gibberish myths and rumors. One of the two.

I also managed to do the one thing I didn't want to do, which was to run into Tom. I was speaking with someone else when he walked up. He didn't recognize me at first (I was bearded). "Oh...Andre..." he said, surprised, when it dawned on him. He gathered himself. "Going on vacation?" He offered his hand. Seeing no need to make the situation more awkward, I shook it, babbled something and went on my way.

The flight to Dubai was uneventful. After we landed, when I unbuckled my seat belt, I was quite surprised to realize I was still wearing my multi-tool, a $90 Leatherman, which is like a Swiss Army knife on steroids. Loath as I was to part with it, I handed it over to a bewildered, but appreciative, flight attendant. I'd rather buy another multi-tool than languish in a Middle Eastern jail.

It was only after I got to the hotel that I discovered that the free flight to Dubai not only cost a $90 multi-tool, but also a $250 Ipod and $50 headphones that I'd left on the plane. Dammit. I went to the hotel's "Sketch Bar," surprising devoid of prostitutes, and had a scotch, neat, to unwind. When the scotch turned out to cost $20, I was back on edge.

I met up with an Air Ops buddy of mine who was in town on a business trip. We went and got something to eat as he filled me in on all the department gossip. It turned out Tom had gone crazy with pretty much everybody and their hope was that he would be fired soon. I told my friend, "Good luck with that." Before turning in, we had a drink at the Sketch Bar. This time there were hookers, but they didn't proposition either of us. We were offended. The beer only cost about $10.

When I got back to my room, I checked my flight information for the next day to make sure of what time to be at the airport. My flight was the next day, all right, at 12:10am. I cursed, re-clothed, packed and headed to the airport. I bought another Ipod, shopping being the last thing I wanted to do in Dubai, but Japan being notoriously more expensive than just about anywhere else, and boarded my Air China flight. I have this to say about the Air China Airbus 300 I rode on for six hours: it can go straight to hell. Even though we were at 38,000 feet and it was -50 degrees just on the other side of the fusilage, it was a stifling 90 degrees inside. I inelegantly shoehorned myself into my cramped aisle seat. I'm fairly certain I'd have been more comfortable in the carry-on bins. The twenty-something chinaman with the unkempt haircut sitting in the window seat next to me took the sterling opportunity to awkwardly stare at me in silence the. entire. flight.

My time in Beijing involved taking off my shoes, being wanded and going through several metal detectors before, thankfully, getting on a Boeing for Tokyo (Narita). I slept like a baby.