“Some folks hide, and some folks seek, and seeking, when it’s mindless, neurotic, desperate, or pusillanimous can be a form of hiding. But there are folks who want to know and aren’t afraid to look and won’t turn tail should they find it-and if they never do, they’ll have a good time anyway because nothing neither the terrible truth nor the absence of it, is going to cheat them out of one honest breath of earth’s sweet gas”

-Still life with woodpecker- Tom Robbins

My very good friend Jannik who I met while we were both studying in Spain came to visit me for two weeks and left this morning. The school year here starts in the middle of April so I was able to take the whole two weeks off of work that he was here. Jannik was my first visitor and it was very fun trying to condense all of the best parts of Japan that I have experienced in the past eight months into two digestible and enjoyable two weeks and also plan in new experiences for me.

Our first few days we stayed around the Tokyo area and I slowly took him to some of my normal hangouts and tried to introduce him to the biggest city in the world. This includes going to Shibuya which is sort of like time square in New York and is very visually stimulating with lights, bizarrely dressed people and just an amazing amount of people and traffic. It just turned out that Jannik arrived right as the cherry blossoms were in full bloom so that slowly started to dictate where we went around town. Wandering one day I remembered that I had heard that Yoyogi park in Tokyo had nice cherry blossoms so we decided to take a subway ride there. It turned out that I had remembered wrong, and I don’t think I saw a single cherry blossom in the park but we did find the Meiji shrine. I don’t have a guide book so I had not visited most of the places that Jannik’s guidebook told us we should go to, but later that night after visiting the shrine we read that it was the most famous shrine in all of Japan. The shrine turned out to be beautiful and fully deserving of being in every Tokyo guidebook ever. It is right next to the biggest shopping and business districts in Tokyo but as soon as you enter into the huge forest surrounding the shrine you can’t hear, see or feel them. It was a great joy to wander down the sprawling path through ancient trees that led us to the shrine and it was even better because we had no idea what it was that we were walking towards. That same day we visited a very interesting museum that talked about the history of Tokyo. I learned that during WWII the United States bombed Tokyo to almost nothing, killing 100,000 people. I was always taught about the atomic bombs we dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki but never about the other cities that we had bombed and the incredible devastation that we caused during that time.

A week into Jannik’s trip after visiting many sentos, restaurants and coffee shops here we took an overnight bus to Kyoto along with my friend Ben. It was my first trip that far south in Japan. The bus was incredibly difficult to sleep on because ever two hours all during the night they would stop for fifteen minutes and turn on all of the lights and announce a rest stop. That continued for nine hours. We arrived in Kyoto at six in the morning and had our very grumpy selves served coffee by a very grumpy coffee shop owner. After a quick nap at our hostel in the tatami common space that we just let ourselves into, we were off exploring the city on our rented, very squeaky bikes. During the next three days we had a lot of very unexpected moments and we visited many beautiful historic sites. The cherry blossom came late to Kyoto this year so we arrived right when they were in full bloom which made every place that we visited that much more beautiful. Because of the time of year that we visited we not only saw a simple grey stone zen garden but rather a simple grey stone zen garden with a bright pink cherry blossom filled branch hanging over the wall. That continued in every place we were with streets, castles, parks, temples, pagodas, shrines, mountains, streams all lined with beautiful pink and white cherry blossoms. This also meant that there were many many tourists from all over the world visiting, so we shared our very special experience with many people having their own special moments.

One of my favorite moments of the trip was in a neighborhood called Gion around midnight. Gion is known for being a more shady part of town where men go to do not so beautiful things with very beautiful women. It is also where if you are lucky you can see what we normally call Geisha girls, but in Kyoto they are referred to as Meiko. These women are extremely sophisticated and intelligent woman who men hire to accompany them for the night, performing some sort of traditional art or music, or just playing drinking games with them. As we were leaving the neighborhood, a taxi cab with three Meiko inside pulled up in front of us and had to stop at a red light. I don’t know if it was the thick white makeup on the women’s faces, the painted bright red lips, or the incredibly intricate hairstyle they wore but all of us just stood like little boys staring at these women almost in a trace with their beauty. It was just so unexpected the whole experience and then the woman in the front seat, the most beautiful of them all turned and flashed a quick ethereal smile right at me (Jannik claims it was at him but he is a liar). Throughout the night we saw a couple of other Meikos walking around the neighborhood going from appointment to appointment but none of them matched that divine smile on that superbly elegant face.

Kyoto is an incredibly beautiful city apart from the beautiful women that smile at you. For a thousand years it was the capital of Japan both politically and spiritually and it is filled with wonderful old buildings. But more than that, Kyoto has just about everything else I like in a city. It did not seem overly touristic, which some historic towns can become, but rather a very much alive city that had that history as its base. I was especially impressed by the bread shops which came the closest to real French bread outside of France that I have ever eaten, and more cool local coffee shops than we could have enjoyed even if we stayed there for months. Somehow Japan has been able to support local business while still embracing big chains and brands in a way I haven’t seen in other countries. I had heared about Kyoto since the time that I had arrived here in Japan and how it is many people’s favorite city and I can very much understand why now. I am also glad that we waiting until now to really start to branch out to other places in Japan because now we have at least enough basic Japanese to talk with people, ask recommendations and ask for directions when we are lost. It is a very rewarding feeling being able to tell shop owners that I hate mayonnaise so please don’t put it in my sandwich and to ask where the bus stop is, even if I get four different answers from four different people.

Returning from Kyoto Jannik was able to attend a karate class at his katate school’s central dojo which was a dream for him. We only had a weekend left when we returned but it was a very fulfilling time for both of us. Cherry blossoms have ended here where I live, but there was still cherry blossom festival this past weekend. It got rained out but Jannik and I still attended umbrella in hand to eat lots of good festival food. I saw some of my students there and I got to meet their families. One student was working a food stand with her father and when they found out who I was, Jannik and I were both offered a big steaming bowl of pig stomach soup which we had to finish in front of them because it was gift. It was actually delicious in a pig stomach soup sort of way, but very difficult to get it out of my mind what it was that I was eating and some of the pieces were a bit hard to swallow. During the night Ben came over to my house and we all went out to a local sushi restaurant that I had seen for the first time that day during the festival. The place fit only 8 people around the bar where the sushi chef stood. It was my first time at a sushi shop that was so intimate. There was no menu and the chef just started to give us sushi, three pieces at a time as we went along eating it. It was delicious and the chef was really goofy and we all had a good time. He even gave Jannik a free cup when he found out Jannik was leaving the next day. Next we walked to our favorite local restaurant Sama Sama where the owner/chef has become a very good friend of mine. We arrived around closing time and after eating some delicious appetizers, Hiroshi, the owner, came out with a bottle of wine and we sat talking for a couple of hours until we had to catch last train. He is a very generous man and we always feel so at home when we go and visit him.

Jannik is gone now and it is my first day of school. As of yesterday I am 26 years old and as of today I have been in Japan for eight months. Last year at this time I had just finished walking part of the Camino de Santiago. My twenty fifth year was very rich in experience and I have had the joy of living on opposite sides of the earth and of meeting wonderful people that I hope stay in my life for a long time. I hope that I can learn just as much being twenty six. Thank you all for your birthday wishes,

-James