Japan
MAR.2-21, 2007
THURSDAY, 3/1/07: Bed 10:58PM, absolutely exhausted! If we were flying EAST, I would have gratefully gone to bed at 9PM, but even 11PM in NYC is only 8PM in San Francisco. 11:04 note that I should pack a collar expander for my white suit-shirt. Sleep quickly.
FRIDAY, 3/2/07: 10:38AM typing at gate C71, waiting for flight-boarding. Dream at 3:54 and wake to note it and pee. 6:04AM another dream. Up at 6:56, tired. Continue packing, going through papers and reservations and phone Ken to find that we're flying Continental, which seems to be part of both Northwest and Delta consortia, and find my United reservation San Francisco-Osaka is ALREADY credited to my frequent-flyer account. No need for my credit card! Ken later says my Continental miles have been checked into my Northwest account. And I DO have a window seat even though it's only seat F. Close bag with difficulty, putting lots of junk into my GET bag, which weighs in at 14 pounds, which with my 23-pound suitcase gives me a VERY heavy 37 pounds to start with! Put it all together, getting more pens and band-aids and cards, make oatmeal so late that I throw out about a quarter of it when it's just too late to finish it. Phone Ken and ask if I should come up or wait in the lobby and he says "Come up." Leave at 9:11, hot in my cashmere sweater, which, made in Italy, is clearly a gift from the Caverzasis, and my OAT jacket. Subway comes instantly, jammed, and stops over five minutes at Park Plaza, at which time they announce "emergency track repair," and we're making local stops. No seats. Get to Ken's at 9:40 and see a white town-car waiting outside who says he's waiting for Levin. Ken's in the lobby and we load, and he tells the story that his doorman couldn't use the 1, 2, or 3 earlier because of a fire at Chambers Street. Talk pleasantly on the way to the airport, traffic but no jams, getting in at 10:10, very good time. Check in by 10:20, no problem, and fast through security by 10:26. Sit at Gate C71 at 10:35 and chat and start typing. I remark about few planes in the foggy air, but other flights are announced for departure. Then at 10:51, as I'm typing, an announcement comes over that our plane has been delayed, isn't due to LAND until 11:25, so we'll be delayed in takeoff to 12:05, "And since the backdrops aren't operating (never heard that term before) keep checking for current times." Off at 12:05 and arrive at 2:52, which Ken notes is earlier than we'd been due when leaving at 11:45, but maybe winds from the east will be making it faster. 5:47 flying time sounds better than 6:20. Television goes on about Anna Nicole Smith's burial in the Bahamas. At 11:10 the announcement is repeated, reiterating that the flight is completely full. I move to sheet 2 of my notes at 11:12AM, recording Ken's credit-card payment for the taxi and tip of $59. 8:13PM: Finish New York, start New Yorker. SUN comes out. Board 12:20. Seat DIRECTLY over wing, but sky is cloudy again. Move back 12:39. 5:19 flight. Off at 1:15, mostly clear over snowy fields, north route: Buffalo, Detroit, Wisconsin, Fargo, Salt Lake City, and SF. All cloudy below by 1:55. Kinked neck from looking out back window. Hungry. 8" TV screen no good for "Casino Royale," even with free (for delay, $5 usually) headsets. But Air Maroc headset fits. HIDEOUS lunch: pizza, salad with Caesar Dressing, a chocolate-nut "crunch" dessert bar, and thick potato chips. Take Valium #2 of the day at 2:25 with a SMALL glass of tonic, a full bottle later with a second tiny bag of tasty pretzel. Do two sudoku, a puzzle, close eyes---OH, PEE on floor and WET right sock and pantleg, which DOES dry and I HOPE does not smell. DAMN! 4:21: 3:06 gone, 2:13 to go, not YET 2/3. Ugh. TOTAL clouds below. 6:15, will be landing 6:40. Cleared up for lots of Rockies, lakes, canyons, snow-bound forests, towns, deserts, rivers, strange low-level lakes surrounded by red shores holding sapphire water. Guy ahead of me finally raises seat, California below at 6:20. Bright! Land 6:37, exit 6:45. To Courtesy Bus stand at 7:10 to wait for bus by 7:28. To Holiday Inn Express 7:49, read Times stolen from neighbor, taking puzzles, move more stuff from GET to suitcase, pee, type this to 8:23, Ken still clearing throat. What now? I suggest we go out to look at the bay, and find a surprisingly comfortable bench to look out over the surprisingly low tide and watch the planes land and take off, and as we leave I can't resist taking Roll 1, #1 of SF from the hotel at 8:34. Across to Max's Opera Cafe for my pastrami-flavored ribs, excellent; Ken had the crab cakes and then re-ordered his fries crispier. We started with a liter of the sangria and added another half-liter, foregoing dessert, for a truy wonderful meal. Dinner to 9:50, back to hotel 10:03, TOTALLY plotzed, and I have an Emergen-C, given out in room's welcoming packet, truly awful, and Ken refuses to go to bed, leaving a wakeup call for 6:50 for our buffet breakfast and catching the 7:55AM Courtesy bus to catch the 11:45AM plane to Osaka. I sort more things out, findimg my evening pills and my pill-box for tomorrow, hogging the single chocolate on the pillow, and typing this to 10:35PM NYC time: who gives a shit that it's only 7:35PM here. I'm going to BED! Ken expresses amazement that I can go to bed so soon after a huge meal with booze and not get reflux, but I put in earplugs and put on eyemask and go almost instantly to sleep, next day be damned.
SATURDAY, 3/3/07: 7:03AM: Woke earlier, coughing, with a tiny feeling of possible reflux, but go right back to sleep and wake with an INCREDIBLE dream and look at my watch to see that it's 7:03AM NYC time, which is only 4:03AM SF time, but I slept 8.5 hours, which is great. Put on bathrobe and get into bathroom, which door was left so open that the room glowed like morning: Ken will have to be trained anew. Type this to 7:15 and go to dream-typing. Type to 7:25, frustrated in how little I can remember, having peed and not having to shit, blowing my nose a number of times, and still feeling tired enough to go back to bed and sleep for a couple of hours. Change my watch officially to 3:27AM (by mistake, should have been 4:27AM, as I find out at the airport when I complain about being there FOUR hours ahead, and we're "only" THREE hours ahead), at least now on SF time. Look down to see that I've peed on the floor AGAIN: DAMN!!! Clean to 3:27AM. Sleep quickly, feeling calm and good, and wake at 6:52AM when Ken has the lights on full, and the phone rings at 6:58 for our 7:55AM shuttle to the airport. Breakfast 7:10-7:34: apple juice, hard-boiled plastic-yellow-and-white egg, hot sugar bun, sugar-frosted flakes, and a nut cake. Ken goes to make sure we can check in EARLY on our return. I start repacking. Shuttle 7:55-8:20, through security 8:33, for 11:45 flight!! I pee, Ken sits; I sit, Ken pees, chats with numerous attendees to 8:52, only one youngish, plainish, son in the group, and Myra's immediately established by Ken as talky. I finish puzzle, good sudoku by 10:42, boarding starting, plane delayed coming in, boarding delayed. Pee, take Valium at 10:55 and find Vicks in take-on bag for nose. SEVEN movies! Announced as 10:27 flight, smooth. Osaka weather good. Move back at 11:20. Off 11:45AM, #2 SF at 11:48. #3 SF 11:50. #4 northern peninsula 11:54, leave coast fairly quickly, over ocean ALL the way. Clouds close off sea at 12:13. 12:19 have gin and tonic. Chicken lunch, plotzed on THREE gin and tonics. Watch "The Prestige," poor on small TV, confusing, seeming to be two sets of twins performing bird-killing (and woman drowning) to each other's disadvantage. No sexual content at all. Bumpy and cloudy at 1:43, only TWO hours gone! "Prestige" is 2:10, over at 2:28. What a cast: Jackman, Bale, Caine, Bowie, Johannsen, Roger Rees! Pee. Still totally clouded. Some bumps. My seatmate has a husband across aisle. Tough! Not even 1/3 yet! Start "The Fountain" at 2:49, 1:37 movie, over at 4:19, so it's ten minutes missed at first. Sudoku to 5PM when it starts again. Over 5:07, confusing, not sexy, Jackman trying all kinds of emotion, most lost on small screen. Start "Night in the Museum" at 5:10, clearly near the start, have Twix, Ruffles, and an almond cookie snack. "Museum" over 6:44, worse than I would have thought, Teddy Roosevelt a lost (Robin Williams) character, and Owen Wilson makes his puffy-nose necessary appearance as a tiny Westerner. I'm getting TIRED. "Marie Antoinette" starts 7:26, very lavish, not much plot, ends WAY before her end, or even discomfort. Small ISLAND seen at 9:19. BUMPY; I'm nervous during movie, but don't take Valium. Movie ends 9:23, pee and shit despite "No walking" sign and get sock-feet wet AGAIN, but they dry quickly both times. Over lots of "small" towns and ships on way down.
SUNDAY, 3/4/07: Change watch to 2:55PM Sunday 3/4. Land 3:20PM on man-made island outside Osaka. To immigration line 3:42, quick through, temperature 20E Celsius, sunny, guide warns that we're very lucky, it's to be rainy and cooler tomorrow. To luggage 3:55, mine slow, to bus 4:22, crowded, missing one I predict to be a problem throughout: nerdy single guy (who turns out to have only one lung). #5 ferris wheel in Osaka 5:23. Kyoto Hotel Okura: Ranko gives talk most of the way: no tip to taxi or restaurant or porters. "Okini" is "Thank you" in local dialect. To hotel 6:15, getting dark, pass ryokan which reminds me of Tawaraya and it WAS! Dinner downstairs in a quiet restaurant 7-7:30 of tasty deep-fried bits of fish, tofu, beef (gristly), camembert (a surprise), potato, shrimp, calamari, green stuff, other things, with a good cold Kirin draft. Pay with my credit card with cute waiter telling gal at check-out how to do it. Walk local streets to 8:05, colorful shops, lots of fast-food places: French, Italian, Turkish, Indian, many others. Few people, perfect temperature, extremely silent side-streets, very colorful. Unpack, stuffing stuff into one drawer, Ken lolls, me to bed tired at 8:30 with earplugs and eye-mask, taking duvet-cover off with bitching. Sleep quick.
MONDAY, 3/5/07: 2:34 wake with dream. Pee and shit on HOT toilet seat: Toto with an ass-stream that I don't try yet. Sleep again, and up at 5AM to pee and do Actualism until 5:30, when I feel OK enough to get up to shower to 5:45, don a Happi Coat as Ken turns on light and gets into bathroom as I type 5:50-6:14, looking out 15th floor window to see sunrise. Fuss unpacking (mainly stuffing things into drawers) to 7, to a VERY chatty and DELICIOUS buffet breakfast with exceptional fruit (orange, grapefruit, canteloupe, melon, pineapple), orange and sweet apple juice, eggs in omelet very yellow, toast, bacon, and then 7:50-8:55 Aaron Gerow talks on Japanese film, and I ask about Tommasaburo Bando, still in Kabuki AND directing films, and Samurai not NECESSARILY always gay. Back to room at 9:08 to type and get ready for downstairs. #6 and 7 geishas in lobby, supposedly at the end of the school year that goes from April to March, at 9:15. Board bus 9:20, bus goes 9:27, with other guide, Chieko. #8 Kyoto Castle from rainy bus 9:53. #9 and 10 Nijo Castle entry 9:40. #11 and 12 early cherry blossoms. #13 Mai Gate: only Nijo has nightingale floors (though we DO find some others later). Some of castle re-done. #15 outside Nijo 10:26. Video of gardens to 10:33. #18 last garden shot 10:35. Get cold waterbottles on bus 10:41. #20 Narrow one-way street 10:50. Off bus 10:41, sad crowding, dim paintings, not much time in gardens in slight rain and lots of puddles in the gravel. Japanese would push THEIR language commentaries just as Chieko talked into her very convenient walkie-talkie. To Kinkakuji Golden Pavilion 11:06. #20-21 Kinkakuji 11:17. #24 side 11:23. Giesel: children's guardian 11:31 at #25. #26 vending machine before getting on bus at 11:44, raining more, little time in gardens. #27 Ryoanji (not same "ryo" as "Ryokan") (reclining dragon) Temple, FIFTEEN rocks. #28 plum blossoms 12:06. #29 Buddha (with flash). #30 raindrops before roof 12:21. #31 from TOP model of 15 rocks at 12:25. #34 raindrops 12:32. #36 lake and blossoms 12:39, sad about rushing through, rock-moss gardens not nearly as extensive as before, though I went up hill to take video of extensive flowering trees in rain. To 12:45. Leave 12:49 to Shozan Kohotsu Art Village for group lunch. Lots of stuff in later-said-to-be minor KaSeki lunch, with pink plum-blossom tinged tofu, egg tofu, fish, shrimp, soup, rice that I put into tea cup, complained about lack of explanation and Chieko said everyone just started eating, but no one even bothered to mention beer and soda being sold. Tofu to be heated in a burner for soup, sauce for shrimp, small salsa, plate of stuff along with potato puffs, tea, very pissed at lunch, going down to pee and then wandering down lane to photo child's memorial, waterfall, and buildings beyond, getting out umbrella at last, then sitting at window just admiring the view, feeling sorry for all the silly shoppers, hating the woman who insisted on sitting next to me, and the heat that makes jacket over-warm. Lunch to 1:45 and told we can shop to 2:15. Roll 2: #1 and 2 from room across City Hall. Board bus 2:18, to hotel 2:54, try Jumble and just CAN'T get it, will have to wait for tomorrow's paper! So tired I lie down at 5PM and doze to 6:10 to get guest list, which I don't use, and pack cameras, which I don't take, and across hall and up four escalators to 4th floor Gyoun room for gin and tonic, and BACK for camera bag, and eat LOTS of food: shrimp and scallop skewer, steak skewer with GOOD beef, vegetables with guacamole sauce, small sandwiches, more gin and tonic, roast beef and gravy and potatoes and a glass of poor red wine, then fruit and cakes for dessert with good white wine, saki with strawberry custard and cream dessert, then white wine with creme caramel and more fruit, then little cakes, more stuff, video awful dancers and singers, talk to a couple people, lots leave, #5 Maiko goodbye 8:02PM, last plate of food and to room at 8:09, Ken comes in just as I change to Happi Coat and type to 8:48, needing to brush teeth but too tired to think to do it, so probably just to bed, Ken insisting on wake-up call at 6AM again, though as speaker said, we'll probably all wake at 3AM again, as we did this morning. But 9PM to 3 is only 6 hours, I hope to dream more lengthily, and feeling full get to bed anyway, tired from day and looking forward to NEW sights tomorrow. There WAS a political rally downstairs at City Hall that Ken said I slept through. He made reservations for Irifune tomorrow and Tawaraya the next day, both at 7PM, and we're still here, so I put note on stripped duvet to NOT put it back tomorrow, PLEASE?! Finish typing at 8:52, plotzed from drinks and food and lack of time-zone readjustment. To bed and Ken turns light off quickly and I'm asleep.
TUESDAY, 3/6/07: 6:15AM: At 11:47PM I wake coughing with reflux. Pee and cough and take two aspirin. Pee at 3:18, taking a quarter melitonin to help me get back to sleep, which it does, but pee again at 5:46 and get up to find the Tribune's solution to yesterday's Jumble: "Rise" out of them. Oh. Pee AGAIN after brushing teeth partway: brush and rubber-tip them, and then at 6:15AM Ken's dressed and reading the paper so I catch up with this, fill my pill-box for breakfast, look out the panorama window at the hills distinct under dark clouds, and start on the Tuesday puzzle, clarifying why yesterday's puzzle was so easy: it was Monday's. Ken coughs, fully dressed, while I remain in Happi Coat. Finish at 6:30, dress, fill shoulder-bag, get toothpick for shirt pocket, put pillow on bed, put Happi Coat in closet, finish this at 6:40AM, having thrown paper into trash; nothing else to do before breakfast except stare out window. Breakfast and talk about "Life and Death" and Buddhism versus Shinto, abortion, burial cremation, etc, to 9AM. Off for walk down river, find dozens of shrines and temples, #6 from Jakko-Ji 9:41. #7 HUGH torii 9:52, I think outside Heian shrine. #8 shrine 10:04. #9 temple 10:14, starting to worry about getting back by 10:40, but enjoy being alone and discovering what I discover: gardens, parking lots, ornate roofs, shops, sweepers, cars on narrow streets, getting caught in two-way traffic on major highway. #10 river 10:21. To hotel 10:25. Board bus 10:49, tired already! Leave 10:52, 27 of us, Restaurant Fujita 11:20-11:54 with "lesbian couple" and Kaseki-style multi-bit. Bus goes at 12, parks at 12:25. Sahoji (Kokadera) temple at 12:46 after rather strenuous walk. 1:18 finish writing wish "I wish that people no longer hate and kill each other." We (mostly foreign) are excused from having to copy sutra to "merit" touring their garden: sutra SPOKEN three times. I get ONLY seat while others squat uncomfortably on floor. Put address on stick and take writing souvenirs at 1:20. #11 moss garden 1:31, leave at 2:25. #24 web 2:19, lovely alone, pity it's not CONSTANTLY sunny, no flowers except spare branches of plum and peach, large gray fish in water, many Japanese too. Sweeper sweeps moss. Leave grounds 2:25, to bus TIRED 2:39. Japanese camera has "erectronic frash." By Cafe and BLunch sign. To hotel 3:26, Ken's bed BARE, mine with quilt. Call to change, do puzzle, refuse to go for a drink with Ken. AWFUL tired! Dinner in Irifune which I think is a disaster: soup, eggroll, tempura, stuff, drinks, two tasty bottles of saki, STUFFED to 8:30, vowing never to do it again. Bed 9:40, having done puzzles.
WEDNESDAY, 3/7/07: 6:04AM: Decide to inaugurate a NEW kind of file [file 7]: outside of normal chronological order, but which can later be interspersed with the regular log. This impulse comes from my discontent with this trip and my determination to remedy it: 1) Up to now it's been to places I've already been and have seen nothing to make it "worthwhile" so far. 2) Food has been a sticking point between Ken and me: he's fascinated by the KaSeki style, which really turns me off: a) you don't know WHAT you're eating, and b) no one tells you HOW to eat it. WAS that just "water" that I drank as soup and Ken ignored last night? WHY didn't I see that the prawns had legs before I bit off a chunk and had to remove unpleasant fibers from my mouth? WHEN are you supposed to use soy sauce, and am I just being "American" by wanting to douse everything with it? IS the food here so delicate and refined that we're just not APPRECIATING it? DOES Ken like Nobu more because he "doctors" the typical Japanese cuisine for American "stronger" taste? WILL I get to know more interesting people from the trip rather than the single women who seem to latch onto me? Talk more to handsome August and sexy-eyed (as reminded by Ken) Leon? Will it be better on the ship when I sail into the Inland Sea, where I wanted to go, and see NEW places? WHY was I so tired yesterday? Disappointed because I didn't have time to get to the zoo or the museum "eastward" from the hotel yesterday, or that the moss garden wasn't really seen at the best time of year? Leave bathroom at 6:14 when I suspect Ken to be up, and he is, and when I give him the choice of the bathroom or my taking a quick shower, he suggests he does ALL his bathroom stuff now. Maybe now is a good time to sort out my stuff: hopefully finding my Fisherman's Friend to stop COUGHING. Leave this at 6:17AM. 7:16AM: Pee 1:40. Do Actualism 5:30-5:55, repack from 5:55 to 6:45, feeling good about it, but finding no Fisherman's Friend. Ken insists on Japanese breakfast. I shower and pack stuff away in carryon to 7:04 for the day in Nara. Suggest 7:30 for breakfast and run out of things to say (some said in File 7 this morning) at 7:18AM. Changed underwear for first time and socks for second. Have to get cleaning done: aware Ken HATES the "bargain basement" look of my blue shirt: "Only Leon dresses worse than you do." I bite my tongue about Ken's AWFUL "fashion" sense. Now do I have to cover this up in case he accidentally turns it on and sees what he shouldn't see? Will also be curious if they REMEMBER how to redo our beds for our last night here: moving to ship tomorrow! Breakfast 7:30-8:23, facing EAST to a wonderful OTHER view, talking with lots of singles and guides. Back to pee and type this and read the paper before Ken reappears. Leave 9:15. Horuji built in 607. Arrive 10:45. Two statues from 623. 640 fire. #26 Great South Gate at 10:48. #27 5-tier pagoda 10:46. Buy book for 300Y! #35 tree 11:33, to #36 at end, buy postcards for 300Y. Start back by 12, impressed with great stuff in museum, highlighted by Chieko's lights and explanations of dates and green beetle-wings, but follow wrong group to OTHER end, to which the guard is perfectly willing to admit me without a ticket, but I race back in the OTHER direction, finally thinking to line up the view of the 5-tier pagoda with the lower temple and recognize the gate we came through, and down to village, into gas-station parking lot not knowing what I'd do if the bus weren't there, and there was the bus, Ken saying "We just got here." Off at 12:12, sweating! Good lunch of corn soup, chicken-loaf with mushroom sauce and awful brocolli and carrots, but good custard for dessert and great cold sweet sake with the DeForests, or whoever, from Tucson. Lunch to 2, shit a bit, leave 2:05, arrive 2:15, said to depart at 3:15. #37 bus and roof of entry gate. Roll 3, #1 deer at 2:19. Temple is 48 meters high, 2/3 original width. #2-5 and video inside to 2:35. #9 Vairocana at 2:41. #19 final shot at 3:09. Pee FREE with great pleasure, compared with tips required in Madagascar and Germany. On bus 3:22, buying great book for 700Y, Ken's envy, and leave 3:27. Annika announces plans for Thursday: breakfast at 7, ship is LATE, dinner on shore, board after. Luggage out at 9 if you're going out in AM, or at 11 if leaving at end, but must CHECK OUT before 11AM or be charged. Put cabin ID on bag, leave 12:30. Check luggage there at 12:15. 2.5 hours to Himeji Castle, bring lunch for bus. French hotel dinner, passports needed. Luggage UNlocked. To hotel 4:55, again exhaused, go down with Ken for River City with tonic to Ken's two drinks, up at 6PM and lie down to 6:35, dress in suit with Ken's hated blue shirt and walk to find place: ten seats of which four are "husband, wife, maiko, maiko's trainer," and three are mother, son, and mistress, and two are Ken and me with a staff of 4 serving us. Find that it's mostly tempura, which is fine with me, liking it the best of the trip so far. 26000+ yen, Ken pays with card, out with souvenir booklet, walk back through glitzy arcade, no Fisherman's Friend, stop at ATM while Ken sails obliviously ahead, but ATM doesn't accept my card. I get to room and pee and finish this up at 9:13, actually too tired to even THINK of packing, teeth DESPERATELY in need of thorough brushing. Brush teeth to 9:41, Ken actually turning on TV! Bed 9:50, still not packed. Sleep quickly.
THURSDAY, 3/8/07: 2:17AM: Pee and type dream. Stubbed second toe of right foot beef-red in a band under an inch wide across toe below nail, maybe 1/2-inch thick, feeling sore and puffy, as if filled with blood. Hope it gets better, not worse. Pee and type dream at 2:19AM. Pee at 4:47AM. 6:44AM wake and don't feel like more napping, so I get up and add a few paragraphs to File 7 until Ken knocks on bathroom door: Just about nine hours sleep, feeling fairly good, packing the only task ahead, hoping to feel more energetic today: MIGHT be up to looking at the Kyoto Museum of Contemporary Art for its jewelry collection-exhibit before waiting for the bus, driving to Himeji, waiting for the boat, waiting for the luggage. Maybe even meet and talk to some of the people, most of whom, when met, seem interesting enough to merit attention. AND will be going into NEW territory, AWAY from the places I think I've seen, and complaining "Didn't we spend at least half a day at Nara, when we only got an hour there on this "luxury" trip?" Think I hear Ken bumping about in the room, so maybe it's time for the day to start now at 6:48AM. No, not up yet. Somehow I want MORE for my $700/day than I'm getting. We SHOULD have been provided with a box lunch for the bus, rather than having to scrounge up our own expensive substitutes for what seems to be an omission in their planning. Why can't I strike up a conversation with Leon, or the other young photographer, or someone who could become a friend, rather than sitting alone at a table and letting the pressure of "where are the last people going to sit?" to produce the forced "May I join you?" people who might rather NOT have joined us. Now at 6:51 Ken knocks, saying "It sounded like you were just typing in there, so---" and I move back to the desk to put on my glasses and open the curtains to a new day, the last in Kyoto. Out to type, open shades and take #21 Moon over last-morning Kyoto 6:56AM. Now 7AM, will dress and start packing while Ken's in the bathroom. All stuff onto bed when Ken suggests breakfast at 7:17AM and reads the Times. Up to try to sit at counter at window and want shade raised a bit so I can see horizon, and waiter INSISTS I sit at a table, so I do, and Ken says he doesn't mind sitting with his back to the view, though he later remarks about the heat of the sun on his back. Pack bag HARD by sitting on it for a LONG time to force it closed, leaving out shoes and dop kit and umbrella and papers for a plastic bag that I can leave on bus to lighten my carryon, checking it with the concierge when we leave. Leave room at 8:40 and leave hotel at 8:54 and Ken insists on leading up road away from bridge that I used yesterday, new views, but we go FAR in that direction, and end up NORTH of the Heian Shrine, which Ken wants to walk 270E around while I INSIST we should only do 90E, and after, he INSISTS I didn't tell him that I could SEE the entrance to the shrine through the Torii gate from the south, which of course I did. #22 and 23 of Heian Shrine, not much there, and all of it new, at 9:27. Into Modern Art Museum 9:45, GREAT jewelry from Cartier and Boucheron, with a Nijinsky photo Ken points out to me later, and then to the permanent collection for a good artist named Asoka being very Tanguy-like (two photos, no cards of works). To fourth floor 10:07, out at 11:08, #26 workers and gate 11:12. To hotel, exhausted, at 11:35. 11:42AM: Sitting in lobby while Ken unpacks his sandwich, having INSISTED on getting back our left-luggage, my bag odd in having mainly a used camera-roll, an umbrella, my dress shoes, and my dop kit. And I JUST don't feel like typing, so I go for a puzzle. #27 Sayonara Hotel 12:37. Dai Ginjo best and most expensive sake. I try to get on bus 1, where Ken is, but it's overfull and Ken's pulled from 1, but he doesn't mind Ranko as much as I do. Dojo has ADDED alcohol. Shoju is stronger, at 60 proof. Ranko dull, embarrassing when she "tests" group on her introduction to two Japanese character sets of Kanji and Katakana, and Chinese characters. Stop for john 1:58-2:15, having eaten hamburg sandwiches on bus, sharing one with ever-more attractive Don August and his even becoming-attractive wife Nancy. Bus arrives at Himeji 3:10, #28 of Himeji Castle 3:23. #33 up side 3:59. Roll 4: #1-6 top of Himeji to 4:12, and lots of video. #7 model 4:25, 4:34 start down from yard. Touched by playing "Auld Lang Syne" and hope my video got it. #9 last 4:40. #11 last last 4:54. People straggle back to 5:05, after I try one more last-last shot. Bus goes at 5:09 and #12 last-last-last 5:15. To Hotel 5:47, GREAT french dinner with steak and fish and John across and his other-named partner next, and the Jon and Joan Brody VERY friendly to my right, and Carol Bourne "flaky" across from Ken. GREAT wine, too, making everyone friendly. Bus leaves at 8:30, to ship, totally dark, 8:50. To room 257, lowest deck, and unpack into MANY drawers, EVERYTHING finding it's VERY adequate place, including at LEAST 26 hangers, more than enough. Bed at 10:35, tired but very happy.
FRIDAY, 3/9/07: 2:02AM severe reflux, pee, and cough. Hard to sleep from coughing. 5:30AM pee, "ship moving almost imperceptibly" I say, but in fact ship hasn't moved at all. Slight headache; take two aspirin. Up at 6:20, dress and out. #13 sunrise 6:34AM. 40E outside. Breakfast starts 7AM outside, 7:30 inside. Top deck 6 not at all accessible from inner hallway. Back to cabin at 7:10, Breakfast 7:30-8:30 with entertaining Hisa. Great. Outside without jacket and to cabin 8:40 to type 8:56 to 9:24, chatting with Ken, and preparing for life-jacket drill. Meeting 9:35-9:45, Captain rather short and stiff, Guest Director (Andy?) rotund and American. Take jacket back, type this to 9:57, and back upstairs for morning talk. Video of "The Effects of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima" available? "Black Rain" in library? "Children of Hiroshima"? ORIGINAL "Godzilla" is on DVD. "Never Forget the Song of Nagasaki"? Talk to 11:17, many questions, some ghoulish, and negotiate for 10,000Y for $85, which Ken assures me I'll need; well, maybe, since I spent $40 in a week and have two more weeks to go. Down to type this to 11:36, Ken wanting to wait to 12 to eat before leaving for Kurashiki at 1PM, with lots of free time for a tiny toy museum other than the Ohara Gallery main stop. Gotta pee again now at 11:38AM. Lunch 11:45-12:45. Talk. Leave ship 1:03PM [going to file 2 only at 7:25AM 3/10/07]. "Oh, this is the bus with the best-looking people." "It WAS." Arrive Ohara 2PM. #14 and 15 Kurashiki River 2:18. El Greco "Annunciation," Giovanni Segantini field-scene, a Gustave Moreau all on one handy handout, and a sensuous Foujita quintet of varied-sized women. Oracle bones [shit and brush teeth THOROUGHLY 7:29-7:34AM] from 1400BC. Heads from Yungang and Longmen caves to 3:33. #16 house across canal 3:36. 100Y for Segantini. #18 toy museum inside (photos forbidden) (not seeing Ken's vaunted kites). Back on bus 4:05, not the best visit conceivable. Bus goes 4:18. [Saturday: Leave boat 8AM, RAIN 10%. Hiroshima Museum and garden, back for lunch, zodiac, pagoda climb. In PM to Izo Korima shrine, torii. Eat special cakes, back to boat in PM.] To boat at 5:02. Meet 5:34-5:43 for zodiac introduction. Search EVERYTHING on shelves in boat's library to find NO videos or books except for tattoos and Pacific Islands at ALL. Search to 6:20, then down to dress in my suit for the first time to 6:35, up in elevator to be greeted by first canape and glass of champagne, to be followed by two more champagnes and a fruit juice, and about 6 canapes, feeling full even before dinner. Everyone stands around and balances drinks and canapes and talks while I sit on couch and watch people until Ken and Susan sit with me and we chat about NYC plays and operas. Captain says a few words, more things passed, and we're down to dine at 7:30. I have brie without salad, but it's cold and not very good. The duck consomme is OK, but the snapper is too much and Albert, so rich he can barely turn his head, is hardly anyone to talk to. Mother is charming, daughter is OK, son talked finance to Albert finally. I felt quite left out, ate little until the final cherries jubilee, and left at 9:41, feeling full anyway. Can't find earplugs and unwrap spare pair and do puzzles until Ken's ready for lights out at 10:22.
SATURDAY, 3/10/07: 2:05AM pee, coughing lots from reflux. 4:19 pee. Pee 6:29 and wash face and Ken's up at 6:30 and call comes in at 6:32AM. Breakfast 6:42-7:20, and Chris Kerr actually says something after staring blankly at a dish for a VERY long time. French toast, roll, hot chocolate, apple juice, and still feel full. Type 7:23-7:30; when Ken leaves john smelly, I burn match, shit two toilet-flushes-full, brush teeth thoroughly, and finish this at 7:59, Ken having left already for 8AM departure. On bus 8:05. Bomb reduced 400,000 people to 136,000. #21 Hiroshima Promotion Hall Memorial 2:35. To #28 of Peace area to 8:50 and #29 Flame of Peace (out when NO MORE bombs). 9:01 to Museum. Dome model on scale of 73/100. 9:51, much video. #31 from museum 10:07. Leave museum by bus 10:30, quieted. To garden. MAGNOLIAS in bloom all along main avenue. Park at 10:47 (leave 11:30). #33 garden lake at 10:54. #35 "long-view" 11:10. #36 cherry 11:30. #37 red quince and white plum. Roll 5: #1 magnolia 11:32. #2 camellia 11:33, #3 white plum 11:35. Bus goes 11:38, lie down in bed at noon. To lunch 12:17 at table for 4 and Albert and his wife join for GOOD talk. I have kiwi and strawberries, fruit-yogurt soup, BIT of chicken sandwich, and raspberry sherbet with cranberry juice for low-cal meal. Back to type this at 1:39, RAINING for our first zodiac to torii gate. #4 1:58 Zodiac number 3. CLIMB, to #18 (in file 7) to 3:46, and video. Pee SECOND time 3:57. To #25 by 4:11, #28 at 4:30, to room 4:55, wet. Take everything off and decide to shower, good because the next morning would have been VERY rocky! Ken writes postcards, I type in file 7: 5:30PM: What an INCREDIBLE afternoon, and I don't at the moment remember the name of the island or the many shrines. We land in the rain in the Zodiacs, passing ferries we could just as well have taken from Hiroshima, my feet wet from the Zodiac plunging head-first into a bow-wave, washing about 4 inches of water over the front of the Zodiac right over my shoes and socks and pants' bottoms. Walk through town streets to the ferry, then along a beach fronted with shops and populated with deer, "the" torii gate visible in the distance, and the bifurcated tower of some new religious sect rising from the foothills of Hiroshima, so that it's framed by the torii gate when a photo is taken WAY to the side of the shrine that occupies most of the bay. Through all that, then to the "side street" that leads up to the steps leading up to the Buddhist shrine up the hill, to which about 12 of us want to go, so Ranko is obliged to go up with us. Pass more temples, thankfully a john, then a side path to an enormous shrine for which you take off your shoes, then ANOTHER side path past Buddhas bowed to by tourists, up another flag-lined stairs to yet another temple, sounds of construction of yet-higher precincts, then someone points up to a HIGHER enormous temple from which ritual sounds emerge, backed by a double-roofed pagoda in back of which, Leon says, is an array of 1000 Buddhas! Astounding! I photo, video, sorry that it's not clearer, pee again, think that 4:30 is the LAST Zodiac rather than the first, down taking more pictures and brochures, follow a Japanese group to some of the uppermost buildings, other viewpoints and temples to take pictures, and get to the maybe third Zodiac (they said they had only 15 lifejackets left) to get right back in the spray. We go for a drink about 6:15, Cin and Cin not very good or voluminous, Ken's Cosmo weak. Egg roll appetizers and lots of nuts maybe put me off dinner, which I have VERY little of: chicken stuffed with mushrooms and truffles, lots of fruit, but my shit this morning is STILL very hard. Talk by Melanie on the Natural History (mostly volcanoes) of Japan to 7:55, dinner at the Yale table at 8, next to Carol who COULD talk about her food and restaurant choices, and Tim (?) on my right, delighted with his life of 50 years in insurance, and with his wife, who keeps looking over as if to check what he's saying. Aaron announces "Children of Hiroshima," produced by Yoshimora and directed by Kanato Shindo, after dinner, starts at 7:43, about a dozen of us watch through the fairly non-violent movie, concentrating on one teacher's face as she tries to find three surviving students from 4 years before's bomb, and it's over at 11:19. I'm exhausted and go down to find Ken laying awake, naked, with all the lights on, aware enough only to repeat whatever I say. Bed at 11:33, tired, and to sleep instantly.
SUNDAY, 3/11/07: 4:20AM pee in VERY rough seas, looking out window to see water washing over porthole. My toothpaste has fallen from the shelf into my dop kit, but I see no other damage, though there are some loud noises of something "going," somewhere. Manage to sleep through, first time peeing only ONCE all night, and lights go on at 7:35 when Ken gets up, to be followed 30 seconds later by our 7:30AM wakeup call. Dress and put now-dry things away, and breakfast 7:55-8:34, when I come back to type as we dock at Hagi, and finish this at 8:46AM, fishing shrimp from our St. Petersburg omelet from between my teeth, and Ken roams around with nothing to occupy him. Whole day in Hagi today, away from the sea, temperature predicted from 45E to 52E, with 40% chance of rain. Leave this at 8:48 to pack for day. Leave at 8:58. Leave ship 9:13. (At breakfast someone on FIVE reports water washing over the floor from her balcony door. Don's next to me at breakfast, and he says his wife always appears 25 minutes after he does.) To bus 1 in 4th seat. Chiako gives out packages of candied pomelo peel as "gift from Hagi." Bus goes 9:24. #29 and 30 master kiln 9:52, and long video. #34 takonomo display 10:20 after tea. #35 drips becoming forest. #37 shop 10:24. Roll 6: #3 unisex john 10:39. #4 bus and "Hagi street" 10:42. #5 garden 11:17. #9 Hinado (girl-dolls) house 11:42. #14 street 11:57. #16 calendula 12:12 at bus stop. Hagi Museum "free 70+" but ONLY for Japanese. #17 Hagi Bay---whitebait and cuttlefish fishing boats 12:30. #18 Texas Restaurant. Leave lunch 1:37: Kaseki lunch with beef, soup, pickles, daikon sheet, chicken, and 500ml Asahi beer for 785Y, too much. Bus goes 1:45. To Toko-Ji Temple 1:53. #19 main gate 1:55. #20 Saumon gate 2PM. To #30 to 2:29PM, infinite mossy vistas, and waiting for everyone to leave so I can PEE, but lots of "hoped-to-focus-OK" videos. #31 flash of central gold 2:44. #33 cherries 2:48. Bus leaves 2:59. To boat (long-way) 3:33. Put on Scoplamine patch from Ken at 3:40, just before staff comes to metal up our portholes! Fill form to 3:56, then up at 4:18 to clearance for Korea so we can start earlier and go slower. Type this after cutting down and inserting Odor-Eaters and typing this to 5:02PM, time for talk. Anna gabs to 5:22, talking mostly about how much we're going to enjoy tomorrow after being sick tonight (dinner moved up to 7PM), then Hisa's Hakuin Ekaku (1685-1768) for health: lie down, visualize LIQUID flowing down from above and filling the head and then whole body, eventually LIQUEFYING it. Noguchi Haruchika (20th Cent.) has three steps: 1) press fingers under ribs, lean forward, exhaling, and then straighten up. 2) twist left arm around back, right arm toward front left, and twist body as much as possible to left, then relax, then repeat to right. 3) close fists with thumbs inside, throw arms up and back and YAWN, and then instantly relax, doing it three times. Ken said he felt instant relief. Hisa added that then "natural untwisting" with occur spontaneously through the body-parts that need untwisting, making the practitioner seem like a madman involuntarily flailing around. I keep looking at classic Japan-Sea islands passing in sunlight to the south, can't wait for him to stop, then leave the instant he's finished about 6:15 and grab my coat and shoes and camera and go out to see last red rays of sunset streaming through dark clouds, video and photo passing peaked islands, going to other side, then to front, encountering other fanatics: Nancy August, Scott Thompson, Shigahisa Kuriyama, Roger Levine. Roll 7 #1-3 of sunset. Then came down to find Ken reading, and I type until 6:49, now to put laundry away. Don't feel so hot, to dinner promptly at 7PM, an idea everyone seems to have, and the doctor sits at out table. I have a damp sweat and feel worse and worse: order cream of asparagus soup and get that down, but only a few bites of the "roast sirloin," which is rather like pink prime rib, and tell the doctor that I put on a scopolomine patch four hours ago, should I take a white pill? He says no, that I shouldn't eat meat but carbohydrate like the rolls, so I have one at the table, finish my pills and apple juice, and take a roll to my room and undress, fighting nausea, looking for my earplugs, finally fall, breathing hard and hoping not to throw up, at 8:11. Lie miserably until Ken comes in about 9PM and reluctantly puts the wastebasket by the bed if I have to barf. Fall asleep in rocking, and pee at 11:24PM, less rocky and nauseous.
MONDAY, 3/12/07: 6:40AM: Wake and pee, then shit rather copiously, using my third-last match, and get out at 6:55 to find Ken dressing. I finish this and go to breakfast at 7:14AM. Only 4 people breakfasting, the father and son join us for interesting conversation on slides and records of and planning for travel. Look outside as officials come on board at 8AM, and Ken goes out to walk around on deck 3 (I should have said deck 4 to walk AROUND) as I do this to 8:10AM, ready to brush teeth and repack. Watch TV on Orange County, California, fires, and finish teeth at 8:35AM. FIND earplugs in yesterday's paper-stack at 8:37AM!! Almost set with stuff-putting-away when the door knock "Ready to board" at 8:52. Forget sign-out card! Find it and leave 8:58. Onto Ken's bus number 1, way in the back, but can't hear JiJi speaking, so I move up with him. Leave 9:06. #4 Ulsan, South Korea, customs sign 9:17. Through customs 9:20 and 9:25 start, arrive 10:30, change batteries, and we climb to shrine up a 99-turn road (100 being perfection and death) to 771 meters at 10:40. #5 bell, #6 view 10:32. #7 bell ROOF, #8 entry gate, #9 walk up at 10:44. #12 no photos inside 11:09. #14 "Off limits" 11:07. #15 view up 11:18. #16 bell-close 11:30. #17 mirrored urinals 11:33. Bus goes 11:38, MAGIC walk back alone down hill to pee before bus. #18 map 12:01. #20 main temple 12:10. #22 CHINESE pagoda and #23 KOREAN pagoda 12:18. #27 highest building 12:31: Guon-Eum-Jin. Video mudra "Joining hands," also in guide book I bought to 1000Y, overpaying its 70,000-Yuan price by about 30%, means one = Buddha = self = God. #28 JiJi and stone "box in box in box". #29 wish-making stone-garden 12:19. To lower parking lot, lost, gasp up to bus 1:10, last in. To #34 and lots of video of Korean dances at buffet lunch to 2:33. Leave hotel 2:45. #35 Craft Village 3:14. Leave 3:32. Doze on bus. To tombs 3:58. #36 tomb 4:01, #37 tombs 4:24, after no-photo museum with most in set of 18 postcards I bought for $1. Roll 8 #1-2 tombs and bent tree 4:31, after MORE video. Bus starts 4:42 [tonight: cocktails 6:30, dinner at 7; tomorrow: Matsue, not Izo-whatever because it will be too rocky for Zodiac, so we'll go an hour by bus.] Back to bus 5:44, drink a 7-Up, cocktails 6:30 joined by younger Dibner, who has a LOVELY look when he talks of living in Jerusalem without feeling terrorized, then go to Ken for early dinner at 7:05, only to find no one told kitchen about it, all the waiters pass us by from upstairs, and doors swing open for Ken and Carol and me at 7:10 and we HAVE to sit together, talking AGAIN about food, Ken to Scott, me to Hisa part-time, Hisa wanting to show me iPod program for slides. Good cream of mushroom soup, veal Oscar, Gold Rush carrot cake, and two glasses of apple juice, having broken drug-promise with a glass of red wine and lots of cheese and crackers at the reception beforehand. Dine to 8:52, bored with Carol, saying "I have to catch up on my journal," and type to 9:24, relieved to be up to date and feeling SLIGHTLY off-center by boat rocking not NEARLY so bad---and they unbolted our windows, too. Addressed 7 postcards, but just don't feel like doing them now AT ALL. Ken incessantly clearing his throat, and now coughs and sucks up his snot. Wakeup call at 7:30, so SHOULD I start for bed now at 9:27PM?? Reloaded my pillbox, throwing away the spare prescription bottle they came in, then Ken himself suggested bed and I went to bed at 9:58, taking out and putting on my facemask. Got up to pee at 11:12, sea OK, and DID I push up my facemask then?
TUESDAY, 3/13/07: Pee at 12:15AM, again at 1:25, again at 3:57, four times already! Then up at 6:33 and search again EVERYWHERE for my facemask, but it's simply not IN the bed, the bedclothes, UNDER the bed, on the floor, on my shoulder (where I found my scopolamine patch last night) or in the bathroom or in any of my drawers. MADNESS! Ken: "I'm sure it will turn up." OH? Type now to 7:01AM, not even ready for wakeup call at 7:30. Ken goes out to check the weather forecast, which he returns to say hasn't been posted yet. I guess I'll dress now at 7:02 and search more. 7:14AM: Look EVERYWHERE: my only "logical" conclusion is that it was hanging on my back, or the back of my head, when I went to the john one of four times last night and inadverantly FLUSHED IT DOWN! Absolute madness, but there's no other solution---and I BROUGHT no spare eyemask. Maybe at a subsequent hotel I can get one? From breakfast 8:15, room made up, NO facemask lying on my bed. DAMN! 8:26AM: Ready to go with my headset in my jacket, my shoulderbag stuffed with my cameras and beret and binoculars on top, and a large plastic bag with my "overage," since I packed my suitcase VERY lightly, having NO trouble closing it. Waiters buzzed around the last breakfast tables, shaking hands which indicated, I couldn't resist thinking, that they were hoping would extend a generous tip that we were told not to give but I feel sure some would give anyway, leading to higher and higher expectations, and thus greater disappointments when the hands were empty. But maybe this is all depressive paranoia on my part. Brushed my teeth before putting my dop kit in my bag to see how it would fit. Will thus have TWO items to leave in top rack of bus when we take off for the Tokyo-Edo Museum, which I think is new. Ken kept "hinting" that I should e-mail Sadahiro to confirm tonight, but I have confidence in his planning ahead that I hope is not disappointed. Can't think of anything essential to say now at 8:31, wondering when the first departures will be announced. Maybe just stop, having lowered the temperature that Ken put up two notches last night: is that what he means by "Buenos notches"? Aaron 9:20AM: SELF makes OUR images of Japan. "Otaku": lovers of animé, manga, and computer games. He goes to 10:22, questions to 10:46. Ceremony at 11:05, videoed dancer, and sake to be drunk at 6:15PM today. Hisa starts 11:36: Katakori is confusing pain. Kata = shoulders; Kori = fluid/ energy stagnation and congealing. Pain FROM stopping of qi, like Actualism. "Use it or lose it." Catfish omens quakes. Kori from HEAD, since pain lowers in abdomen to lower back? He says no. Man-Ga: Ga = drawing, Man = something like popular. He talks to 12:32. Pee and lunch to 1:10, of course Ken saves me a seat next to Carol, and we hardly exchange ANY words. Leave for bus 1:23, bus leaves 1:35. Arrive Matsue Castle 2:25. #4 Matsue Castle 2:43. #9 top of Matsue 3:05. Plain insides with few helmets and armors videoed. #11 from top 3:19. Video movie to 3:05, #12 flowers and bridge 3:33. #13 Camellia Valley 3:36. LOST! Wander around paths and stone walls, hoping to see people I know, but don't, go down a road and THERE are the buses, on at 3:47, bus leaves 3:52. Video and ME at Ma-Mian. Down road 4:21, I pay 1600Y, dash to bus 4:26, but bus arrives 4:41, video two cranes in tree, photos to #18. Bus leaves 4:35. #19 bridge built in 2005 between Shimane and Totori prefectures, we go over at 5:09. #20 sun rays 5:11. [Tonight: sake in Club Lounge 6:15. 6:30 recap, 7PM dinner. Tomorrow 9AM to Kanazawa, ship's bridge open after we get back. 5PM Aaron gives last talk. Captain's farewell and dinner at 6:30 and 7.] I'm tired back to cabin, shit, start typing at 5:40 and end at 5:55 as Ken ejaculates "We're moving!" Dinner to 8:39, Margie mentions that Travel Dynamics is going from South Africa to Morocco, making about 14 stops, in September of next year; the brochure has just come out. Up to Leon on piano 8:42-9:47, pretty good, "logical," nimble, nicer to watch in profile than full face, and even knew Strayhorn composed "Lush Life" which he might know how to play. Bed, tired, 9:59, not bothered without eyemask.
WEDNESDAY, 3/14/07: 12:45AM pee, boat rocking. Pee 4:15, crotch sore and smelly, so I powder it. 7:17AM: The MADNESS of losing my ONLY eyemask last night. Look and look and look, and it's simply nowhere. Wanted to give overall impressions here, but the eyemask problem haunts me. South Korea wasn't THAT different from Japan, guide a bit more difficult to understand. Ulsan way more industrial than in any small town on the Inland Sea, but Buddhas still Buddhas, and "no photos" the same as ever. Tired walking, stopping for photos and notes, and then walking faster than anyone else to catch up. So many more sites to see in the booklet they gave us, obviously searching for more tourism. Enjoyed just sitting in the lounge with a drink, watching the towns and hills---the area is certainly FULL of hills---and when I saw a young man in South Korea working in the shipyards, it dawned on me that we saw NO young people, except wait-staff, on the trip. Ken describes the "naked man" festival in February in Sakai, where we're getting a welcome ceremony at 11AM this morning. Too cold to stay on deck long, and they have NO deckchairs out. Some discussion why we travel NOW: 1) It's cheaper than high season, 2) It's less crowded at tourist sites so it's easier to take unpeopled pictures, 3) It's cooler than in the sometimes very hot summer. Waves crash against the side of the ship, but our portholes are still uncovered so we can at least look out. ---- Can't IMAGINE what happened to my eyemask! Stop now at 7:25AM. Up at 7:25, shower to 7:40, powder myself, breakfast 7:51-8:30, clean teeth to TV and Ken's BITCHING. Bus leaves 9:07. Arrive at Kanazawa Castle/Garden 9:35, and guide forgets to get tickets and has to return while we stand there. #21 central fountain 9:57. #22 snow on mountains 9:56. #25 tea house and jukitsuri (snow-protection) 10:14. Get chair for tea ceremony after Chris asks for one, and Carol stares at MY chair as if it should be for HER, so they get her one too. Video lots, nothing new. #28 tea and sakura-oka candy: Mountain covered with snow. Desired qualities: harmony, purity, and tranquillity. Lots of talk. 10:32 video open windows. #29 waterfall at open windows 10:37. Dress and out at 10:40. #30 snow at 10:44. To Lord Mother's Mansion. #31 tea house WAS in sun, but #32 tea house IN sun at 10:48. PLUM blossoms at #33. #35 snow in inner garden 11:08. Leave house 11:21. To bus 11:30, Ken walks us to 21st Century Modern Art Museum at 11:45, pay 500Y for me and 600Y for him, not yet 65, and two sets of ODD exhibits: ladder to heaven, suffocation, fluorescent dot room, huge concrete items, dinosaur murals, diver in glass of water, moon-face "stools" and house, non-working videos, and lots of paintings, not to mention things described in the many brochures we got from museum. Pee and leave at 12:20 and back to bus 12:30, which leaves 12:32. To hotel 12:40, lunch to 1:45: bento box with TINY cuttlefish, usual soup, vegetables, rice, salmon, eggroll, tea, beer, no-flavor gelatine dessert with strawberry on top---no one I talked to went to castle area of dual gardens. Ken walked up and down and refused to acknowledge a LEVEL walk would have been easier. Onto bus 1:52, bus goes 1:54, I talk lots to Snorfs at lunch with MUCH beer. #36 Shima garden 2:26, for which we paid 400Y each for not really very much. #37 side street at 2:37. Roll 9, #1 small street 2:55. Walk up to "gateless community of rich houses" and video that at 2:48. Meet group at corner at 3PM to go to gold-plating shop, #2 1 micron gold sheet transfer 3:06. A tiny piece I picked up wouldn't stick to note, or to page, and fell into my bag. What to do with it? [It ended up on my notepad!] #3 warrior at gold factory after video 3:17. #4-5 gold merchandise 3:28. Back to bus 3:36. Leave 3:38. #6 Kanazawa Station with drum-figure in front 3:52. Nothing really stands out about town. Anna says they pay $12/person/day tip to crew but "If you really want to" you can tip more, about which I bitch to Ken. [Thursday: box lunch on train, 2 or 2.5 hours Niigata-Tokyo, Museum tour, then Imperial Hotel with luggage going by truck. Big bags out tonight or by 6AM. Leave ship about 8:45AM.] Back to ship at 3:08, dump stuff off, get up to only open bridge 4:10-4:30, not that great, some video and a photo. Start typing 4:38 and finish 4:58PM, in time to get up to Aaron's final talk on ship. Getting tired of people, travel, and DOING, counting only 7 days left in one way of counting, 2/3 through. Go up to hear Aaron on "pleasure" places in Tokyo, from Asakusa to Ginza to new ones. Boat ROCKS and I can see sun-shone coastline pass, so when he finishes at 5:50 I dash down, dress, and go up to 5 to find it's open only AFT, for meals, not of course in front where the bridge is. So I go down to 4 and video lots of spray, but nothing even worth photographing since it's too dark already. Cold, thermometer reporting only 2E Centigrade. Down to cabin at 6:07 to hear Ken ranting on, and I type to 6:11 and get ready for Captain's farewell dinner. But decide to finish crosswords until 6:25. Out at 6:30. Dine to 8:45. Pack to 9:09, feeling seasick and snapping at Ken. Bed 9:18PM, Ken reading. Pee 11:45PM.
THURSDAY, 3/15/07: 3:35 pee, lights appearing out window to northwest. 4:49 pee, having tried Actualism since last pee, but thinking of Tokyo and extension participants and NYC problems and need to shower and worry about carryon and too late to take an Ambien to get more sleep, yet at least 2 more hours would be marvelous. 5:59AM: Just as I fear I won't be sleeping any more, I have two BIZARRE dream-fragments. Type those two and pee by 6:10AM. Phone rings and Ken's out of shower, so I shower 7:06-7:22, breakfast immediately with the Snorfs, Ken doing most of the talking, back at 7:59 to figure how to squeeze everything into my shoulderbag and ONE plastic carryon bag for the trip on the bus and train to Tokyo. Pack and last pee to 8:15, when printed announcement says we should be ready to depart between 8:30 and 8:45. Ken reads his Tokyo book and keeps interrupting my typing, but now that I'm finished at 8:25 I can think easier. Both antsy at 8:38, and I put SMALL bag in BIG bag. Phone: get passports and sit in lounge, NO luggage check at 8:45. Called to busses 8:59. Bus goes 9:03. 10:10-12:20 taking 320 train, car 6, seats 1-12. To station 9:15, 9:23 to SIT with bags. They insist on handing lunches out at 9:42, BEFORE we board. Move out 9:50. Stand in MIDDLE of cars line---obviously LAST in ---DAMN! Leave 10:09, miraculously in two together seats at window with small Nancy beside me. #8 and 9 left and right off train at 10:20. Snowy peaks, #10 close mountains at 10:36. Awful box lunch I eat maybe 1/3 of 11:30-11:45. Train in station 12:20, long walk to bus 12:40. We're in (in Japanese) Teikoku Hotel. To Edo-Tokyo Museum 1:05. #11 float in museum 1:17. #12 Edo town---mid 17th Century. #13 Lord's castle 1:24. #14 room in castle 1:30. #15 Kabuki stage 2:05. #17 portable shrine 2:14. Video Asakusa and Kanto Quarter to 2:41. #20 Ginza Bricktown 1880. #22 Katsura Theater 2:56. Video US air raids on Tokyo and #21 Peace Declaration, and to bus 3PM. #23 street 3:07. Use banquet lobby for bus. #24 Sumidagawa River with "homeless" blue-box homes. Arrive hotel 3:32. By 3:52 Sadahiro here at 6PM. Finish 4:34. Drinks in Old Imperial Bar, probably in the neighborhood of 4000Y, paid by ALBERT at 5:45, who encourages us to spend all the money at the expensive restaurant Ken chose for us three when Sadahiro had not chosen any restaurant for us---but when the menus were 18,000, 23,000, or 28,000, Ken turned to me and asked, "Do we really want to spend that much?" and I just burst out in laughter, because it was HE who didn't want to go to the local place that Chieko suggested might be about 8000Y for a meal, and Albert insisted we should enjoy it to the maximum without giving a single thought to how much it was costing us. Dress to 6:05, down to meet a compact, neat, pin-striped Sadahiro with beautiful glasses, give introductions, wait on a surprisingly long taxi line that goes surprisingly fast, and the meter doesn't even tick over the basic 660Y charge which Sadahiro pays for, and then we debate over the actual location of the place, but get in about 6:45 to a small room with two people at one table, our table for three, and a third table for four that remains empty, while the bar, which Ken faces, has maybe 7-8 seats, of which only two are occupied while we dine, though others passed to private rooms. Food came in small portions, with very tender fish and very red tuna, monkfish roe pressed into copper-colored cakes, minced green hundred-year-old duck eggs of surpassing buttery richness, a rather disgustingly raw seabass and whitefish, lots of spicy vegetables that no one knew the names of, though one was some kind of celery, a wonderful crisp lotus root slice, two forms of bamboo shoot from the stalk and underground, a soup with a usual, though very soft, cube of tofu, another dish that Sadahiro informed us that it would NOT be proper to pick up and drink. He kept joking about his cheeks turning red as he drank sake, but they really never did become as red as the backs of his hands, but Ken spilled sake onto Sadahiro's tray, which he tried to wipe up and then the waitress wiped up, and I kept slopping things over my tray also. A penultimate bowl of runny egg-white with small fish was left unfinished despite the fact that it was bottomed-out in rice. I wish I had a list of the ingredients, sauces, additives like wasabi and a sawdust-like fish-stuff, and was with no uncertainty informed it would NOT be nice to ask for soy sauce, since the chef's tastes would have been arranged according to the proper taste in the first place. One dish had about six little dishes on it, some trays had only a single ingredient, including a blissfully tender slice of honey-cooked fish that we were told to our amazement was shark. We had celery in another form, potatoes in maybe two forms, tofu in at least three, one of which had meat, maybe chicken, ground up in it of the same color so I thought it was ONLY tofu. At a point when Ken was already starting to feel full, I asked how many courses were left and was told "Several," so we ordered a second bottle of sake, poured from a beautiful slender beaker of maybe 300ml wine. The bill is quite incomprehensible: the basic 3 @ 18,000 was the meal, but then we had one item of 3000Y, which might have been the sake had there been TWO of them, but the only "2" item cost 500Y, which was hardly the sake. Also, they gave us a FIRST bill of 60,XXX, which they quickly took back, which couldn't even have been 54,000 + 10%, or 5,400, + 5%, or 2,700, totalling 62,100, but to the "bill" of 50,000 + 3000 + 1000 of 58,000 they added 10%, 5800, to a total of 63,800, and then another 5%, of 3,190, to a total of 66,990. I think I'll take it to Chieko to see if she can translate the "34" and "32" items. Taxi back at 9, more expensive 980 that Ken paid for, Sadahiro got out to take a Metro, giving me a Takashimaya bag which he'd carried the whole time, which contained a Demel K.u.K. Hofzuckrbacker, Wien, bag, with a beautifully ribboned "demel Kohlmarkt 14" label which I refused to open. Ken opened his at it was two packets of what looked to be dark-chocolate dipped rinds of some kind. Bed at 9:15, [I start file 3 3/16/07: 5:30] staying up reading, I went right to sleep.
FRIDAY, 3/16/07: Pee before (see file 8) and at 6:01, room SLIGHTLY rocking. Sex-room dream, $10 past 11PM, bills colorful: $15, $10 or $20. Up 7:06, feel AWFUL! Breakfast 7:15-7:50, type to 8:25 in file 7: 8:10AM: Feel almost clinically depressed: had I had too much to drink last night with the Singapore Sling (gin) and Valencia (peach liquor) and lots of two bottles of sake at dinner? Or the slight rocking of the bathroom and all the rooms as a result of our five days on the not-smooth ship? Or could my "data banks" be actually full as I told Beth, whom Ken asked to join us for breakfast when she lurched into the breakfast room? Or just my impatience with the demand to remove my slippers in that room (which I brilliantly countered by taking them off and slipping them into my instantly commodious pocket), as another instance of their ridiculous rigidity? Surely I can find some relief in the perfection of my hot chocolate (temperature, strength, sweetness, next-cup availability though they didn't leave the pitcher (THINK there's a different word for the COVERED INDIVIDUAL container for a liquid, but Ken says there is none, though I think there is)) and my perfect omelet of bacon, pre-sauteed onions, ham, and cheese, and the perfection of slipping my slippers into my pocket rather than making the incredible trip back to my room to change to shoes. I just feel EXHAUSTED, though I sleep well at night. Could it be a---strongly suppressed---anxiety over the return trip within only a few days? Of course the root feeling for all these is simply that I've passed over the "getting old" phase and am now firmly, irrevocably, into the "old" phase. Had BEFORE thought I would UNDOUBTEDLY add the St. Petersburg-Ukraine extension to Ken's and my Baltic-States trip, but now I question it since I seem to qualify for Nancy's description of the always-now-seated Don August's condition after two weeks: "He turns into Cinderella." I don't quite know what she means by that, but the evocation seems to apply all too sadly to me at the current time. I've eaten too much for breakfast, though really not much. I'm tired though I've slept. I'm physically fatigued though I've done nothing but walk the corridors of the Imperial Hotel. Down to Hisa's last lecture, and go up to Mary who KNOWS about juno.com, but it turns out KEN told her. Hisa: Edo (1603-1817) (started by Tokagowa Shogunate) regarded travel as "search for freshness,"---am I NOT getting FRESHNESS from this trip?! And why 21st Century Museum was so GOOD? "A sense of living again," by Augustine, Hisa translates into "ocular lust," as curiosity, which ALSO resonates with me. Type 9:35-9:38. Board bus 9:45. #25 9:52, only bridge entry to Imperial Palace, open only December 23 (Emperor's birthday) and January 3. #26 signs 10:13. #27 12th Century warrior (with flash, being chided, "No flash," though it didn't have that sign) 10:34. Thousand-armed Avalekiteshvara has 40 arms EACH of which can save 25 people, making the 1000. #28 Picasso (Jomon 2000-10,000BC) 11:27. #29 wish-fulfilling jewels 11:39. 12:38 finish the main museum building, WAIT for lunch in L'Accord, have it finally 1:15-1:45, good pork, bad cold potatoes, deliquescent (which word, along with "orthogonal," Ken never heard of) salad, iced tea with liquid-sugar sweetener, awful rice balls with red-bean sauce and green tea ice cream for dessert. #30 mirror from 8th Century 2:17. Treasury 1:50-2:30. Maori 2:40-3:40. To Museum Shop 3:52, shit 3:55, not knowing if it was MY turd or a PREVIOUS turd that wouldn't go down, #31 "no" fountain (it was on when I focused, off when I shot) 4:07. #32 Imperial Hotel lobby 4:39, Ken paying lots (2580Y to taxi) for return. [Saturday: bags out 8AM, depart 9:30AM, which is repeated in the envelope found under our door, with the two sheets for me, with my e-mail address corrected.] To room at 4:48, and type 4:52-6PM: The endurance needed for a full day at the National Museum seems unrelentingly daunting. I don't even particularly want to attend the "Travel and Curiosity" lecture by Hisa in 7 minutes. Nor do I have the energy to go back to my notes for typing. Then Ken pisses me by saying he's locked his e-mail list in his suitcase, so it is not available for me to point out my jno.com correction to juno.com. 6:08PM: Ken tells the girl who buzzes to turn down the beds to come back in 20 minutes. What he intends to do between 6:28 and 6:45 is anyone's guess. I'm rebounding from being over-tired. Sitting for ten minutes before painting-scrolls in the museum helped, not insisting on looking through the Asia Gallery when Ken wanted to come home was wise on two counts: 1) I didn't get over-tired and non-appreciative as I sometimes get when I do too much, and 2) I didn't have to pay ANOTHER $20 for a SEPARATE cab-fare back to the hotel. Looked out at the WHITE sun in the WHITE sky, which Mary described as being characteristic of Tokyo in the summer, NOT blue as it's been in the suburbs. Ken reads from the Nikko section of his guidebook to find we're staying in the best hotel and best ryokan. I still can't believe what I've already paid for the trip, but then I've already paid for it! Now at 6:12 can't really think of anything interesting to say: next-last meal with the whole group, and PROVED to get into San Francisco at 9:45AM on the second Tuesday of next week, having left Tokyo on the first Tuesday, and in fact getting back to NYC on Wednesday the 21st, STILL seven days from now if I count BOTH today and the day back home. Final countdown starting; Ken clearing throat; all isn't right with the world. I type while Ken goes out to buy "tiger" socks for the "colder Nikko," per Ranko, and then decides NOT to have a drink before dinner, which I suggest will be drinks-provided---or at least I HOPE so. Ken's dressed already, no idea what he's going to do for the next 45 minutes. I enjoy being caught up, will wash face and---do a puzzle? 6:08PM go to file 7 (transcribed above). I'd thought all along the bus left at 6:45, but he shows me the schedule and it leaves at 6:30! So at 6:20 we go down, and I corner Ranko and ask her about the Aoyagi bill, and she said the "2" was "soft drinks," which must have been the bottled water they poured for us, and the 3000Y was for sake, and she thought that was a proper price for two small bottles, so the bill is OK. Onto the bus at 6:29, Carol making a (snide?) remark about how elegant I look in my tieless white shirt and blue suit, and I noncommitally say "Thank you" and hope SHE doesn't think I'm being snide! 6:35 set out to New Otani and the Teppenyaki Garden restaurant, where we walk endlessly THROUGH the garden to the below-ground tables for 8 that mainly seat fewer, our four growing to 6 when Chieko and Ranko join Albert and---whoever she is. I panic as they start with red fish, scallops, and lobster, but then comes beef, onion, eggplant, salad, miso soup, spicy sides, sake in two bottles and a soujou for Ken that tastes more like sake than yam-juice, and good juicy melon for dessert, then fulsome ovations for everyone concerned, and EVERYONE is going to be sent a corrected e-mail list, so I guess mine wasn't the only mistake---Ken comes back and takes the correction for Leon, which is the name of the electronic instrument: samchillian. Then we all leave and when I'm halfway to the bus I realize that we didn't have to pay for the drinks. YAY! To bus first at 9:02, everyone saying goodbye, Ken feeling guilty about not tipping Chieko because others have been handing envelopes to both of them, and we drive to room at 9:29 and I start typing at 9:34, Ken calls to see if we have any bills and am reminded about the four calls to Sadahiro, billed at the rate of ONE YEN PER SECOND! For a total of 325 yen which Ken pays for. Ken leaves a wakeup call for 7:30AM and I finish this at 9:54, quite ready for bed, though Ken seems in the throes of packing. Then he even says "Contrary to popular appearances (i.e. naked) I'm not ready for bed," and climbs in with his guidebook and locates Mt. Fuji about 100km south of Tokyo. I drink more water, take two night pills, Vicks nose, pee some more, and get to bed at 10:09.
SATURDAY, 3/17/07: 3:55AM: Wake and feel cold, but type dream and pee and return to bed to put quilt back on for warmth. 6:14AM: Don't fall asleep directly after getting back in bed at 4:05AM, but doze off at maybe 4:40 to have another dream. Type it, toilet making watery noises below me, and still think it's too early to get up to shower and pack before our 8AM luggage-out time before 9:30AM departure. Will try more Actualism, I guess. Do that until 6:50, satisfactorily, and catch Ken looking at the clock. "How are you bathroom-wise?" I ask somewhat cryptically. "What?" "I'm going to take a shower?" I reply precisely. "Go ahead," he says trepidaciously. So I go in about 6:51 and shower very nicely with the multi-functional apparatus, but still feel a bit of what I'm now calling KLS, for Ken Levin Syndrome: the tiniest remnant feeling of the room rocking slightly, as if still on the ship, now two days afterward. Out at 7:08 and he's still in bed, so I take the AlphaSmart and start typing to be greeted with him at the door saying "You can type outside now." And I do and he goes in. Bathrobe is quite short, with no beltloops, but still suffices to start me into the day. Had to use one of their two-ended (one rounded, one pointed) Q-tips for a clogged ear. Finish this at 7:15AM as Ken shaves, and I have lots of time to get my suitcase out before breakfast. Pleased to see that underwear ends up perfectly: two clean shorts and tee-shirts, three pair of socks: one set today, one set before flights home. Pack satisfactorily until 7:39, Ken antsy for breakfast, but I still have to dress. Ken announces from The Japan Times that all of Japan is suffering lower than normal temperatures. "This has been the world's warmest winter since record-keeping began more than a century ago." To breakfast 7:50, Ken asking John and Bonnie to join us when it seemed to me they would much rather have eaten with people who will NOT be going on the extension, but I didn't bother to bring it up with Ken then or after. Another perfect omelet, but had to wait for more hot chocolate, Bonnie supervises my getting it, to her credit: "I'm a woman of my word." We seem to be 10 on the extension, including Mary and Yoshi. Chat nicely and I leave Ken at the table alone at 8:45, fearing he'll talk them to death when they really want to get to the Internet and say goodbye to their friends. I'm back up to shit a thankfully softer shit than a few days before, maybe thanks to all the fruit I've been eating for breakfast, and brush my teeth and read some of the paper and pack my dop kit neatly into my carryon bag, my shoulderbag containing only my sweater in case it really IS snowing where we're going, as some have been saying. Clear out everything while Ken hogs the paper, and finish this at 9:11AM, quite ready for the next phase of the trip. Down at 9:15, check out keys 9:20, and all are gathered by 9:25. Don and Nancy August come by sweetly to wish everyone goodbye. Going by TRAIN to spa. Onto BLUEGRASS bus 9:35! Train 10:35-12:30 to Kinugawa. Shinjuku Station largest and busiest in world: 700,000 people/day. To station 9:53, a whelter of signs and flashing announcements and streams of people and Metro and long-distance seemingly mixed on the same platforms. Only TWO attractive young men among the milling throngs. To platform at 10:03, me blithely doing crossword while Gaylen blathers on and on and I simply ignore his fat red face, letting him address Ken. Leave 10:35. I get window, better for not having high bullet-train siding along the track, and it seems to take a half hour to leave the crowded towers of Tokyo. Video "average" countryside for about ten minutes around 11:30. #33 VERY distant snowpeaks from train 11:45. #34 crag 12:08. #35 lots of snow 12:11. #36 whole range at 12:14. #37 river 12:20. Roll 10. Arrive 12:37, 12:52 WALK to Trattoria Camino, told about website chowhound.com. Salad, spaghetti, panna cotta and lemon tea to 2:05, John and Bonnie holding forth, Yoshi not saying much. Pee at 2:15 for second time. To hotel 2:02-2:25. Tea in lobby, introduction (very complicated) to bathing to 3PM. Ask Tanaka to show us a 50-minute walk and we do it 3:30-4:20, almost pleasant, but Ken refuses to walk down stairs to river. I dress in clothes and go down to bathe (described in file 7: 5:55PM: Day has been so bizarre since 3PM I can only go by feel: angry as hell in the room: no idea where to put anything, where NOT to put anything, CONFUSED about exactly how to take the baths, but I sort of pushed through it, thought "If I do something wrong it's THEIR problem," and dumped things around telling Ken I was going for a walk in ten minutes, and he decided to come with me, so I went down first and Tanaka fairly twisted himself into knots to find what I wanted, got me maps, started to explain when Ken came down so he LED us to the top of the bridge, at the bottom of which Ken turned to see depicted Oni, the first character of Kinugawa; angry, the second character of Kinugawa; which was the name of the river, which was the third character. Tanaka directed us on a square route over two bridges, I took photos and videos in the sun-setting-early sky, and went up a rather dead street, took a short-cut rather than going along the "long way", and resolved to take the walk down to the river tomorrow morning. Left 3:30, having asked for a 50-minute walk, and got back at 4:20. To room to change into Tabbies (two-toed socks that Ken put on so incompetently I burst into laughter and ran for the camera), kimono (mine bigger than his, almost reaching the floor) and gitas, flatter than the ones John and I wore in Kyoto. I went down to 1, sorry to see KIDS, including a four-year-old girl, there, and washed somewhat cursorily, though the father of the boy kept looking at me and he was just BEAUTIFUL to look at with his flawless white skin, black hair, and nicely flexible body and pretty white cock, got into the first hot pool with a talky John, and became enamored of the sight of a tall EXTRAORDINARILY sinuous body with HIGHLY muscled upper and lower legs who KEPT washing and washing and rinsing, and then obscured his genitals with a wet small towel when he got up. I went outside, enjoyed the coolness, watched the sun set behind the Kinugawa Kanko Hotel, where two people came out on the balcony to stare down at us in the pools, and then out to dry off, but then the kids LEFT, so I took my dry body to the sauna, where John joined me for a bit, then rinsed off as I supposed I was supposed to, and got alone into the outside pool until an older gentleman joined me, I began to feel overheated and dizzy from the water, even though I was only sitting on a rock with 3/4 my body out of the water, and when I went back to the drying room I found the massage chair empty and sat down, tried A, and the chair became SURPRISINGLY forceful: at one point I even had the fantasy that it was trying to eject me, and it KNEADED, and SQUEEZED my calves and feet, PUMMELLED my neck, and I tried various cants to the chair, lying back feeling better, and tried for about 20 minutes, then looked at private dining rooms, went to the Rest Room and accepted beer and chatted with Bonnie until two kids started SCREAMING and, when I cupped my hands to my ears, my hostess smiled and took away my tray. Oh, while dressing in our room I noticed the tea on the table, drank it, opened the purple jelly and ate that, then the rectangle was a DELICIOUS fig-like fruit which Ken's was NOT when I encouraged him to try it. Ate a few pieces of pickled vegetables, and came back up and started typing SOMETHING, now finishing at 6:23 because we have to meet for dinner at 6:30PM.) Get fagged out, riding in massage chair, and up to go down to dinner without blue surcoat, back up for it, back down to dine on VERY Japanese food: packed appetizer I eat little of, lots of spicy vegetables, all mixed together, sitting on floor better with three pillows, sharing Ed and Laura's Ginjo sake, better than Ken's Junmai, but my 1000Y glass of sparkling local wine is like mediocre champagne. Dine to 8:31, stoned on sake, down to pools hoping for privacy, but the self-absorbed pudgy husband with the 4-year-old girl is back! DAMN! Look at empty chair, but when I get out someone's in it, so I sit on the next chair and he gets the idea, gets out, and I experiment for about a half hour, getting really knocked around while girl leaves, then three unattractive young men come in and I decide to leave anyway, up to bed with Ken snoring already at 9:40, calf sore from mechanized mauling. No trouble getting to sleep on the hardish futon with filler-less sheet and pillow obscuring video-light.
SUNDAY, 3/18/07: Up 6:35, dream earlier, AGONIZE about walk in daylight, but see from the schedule that we're back here in early PM, so lay back down to try to Actualize, getting through whole session by 7:40 (after answering wake-up call at 7AM), Ken prods and leaves with Sunday paper, go down with daughter but NO one's on 2, gathered on 3 for coffee. Sit with gloom at 8:02. Breakfast down on 2, thankfully at a table, but horribly completely Japanese and very muushy 8:05-8:30, awful but for sweet dessert. All go upstairs, I work on puzzle and get Mary to promise to give Ken her copy if he wants it (he sorts through my pages and lets me have it), and there are LOTS of interesting articles on sex and gay stuff and photos and a complex puzzle. To bus at 9:05 that goes at 9:14. #9 start up Iroha Mountain's 48-turns (as many characters as alphabet) highway completed in two loops only 17 years ago, at 9:57. Hinoki = cypress = cryptomeria (scientific name), built longest-lasting temple in Nara 1400 years ago, resistant to "white ant:" termite. Look at Mount Nantai 10:30, lots of picture and video attempts. #19 and 20 Chuzenji Temple at 10:29, no photos inside, good photos outside, later good Nikko book for 500Y INCLUDES this. Lake Chuzenji 11:21, for snowfall number 4: Kyoto early, Niigata, later hills, now Lake. WAS I here before? It all seems new. Leave Kegon Falls 12:11. Lunch in Lakeside Hotel 12:20-1:35 after everyone but Ken and Carol brave icy paths for road down to Dragon's Head (#??) falls behind souvenir shop, going way back up road to pee. Along in lakeside room, sadly next to Carol but across from chatty Jim (we talk of Salinas!), for rainbow trout, salad, steak and mushy carrots of french fries but crisp peapods, draft beer, and good melon ice cream for dessert. Pee again. Leave 1:57 to Kegon Falls, very close, 2-2:25, people shopping at end, I missing younger of two macaques angry at falls. For some reason stop at mid-highway supermarket 3:05-3:25, told that dinner tonight is at 6:30. Back to Kinugawa 3:40 and I leave directly to walk to stairs down in two minutes, to further stairs in two more minutes, down before and after others, taking photos and videos I don't bother to record since they're so sequetial of the Kegon Falls and the road back to town and the trail back to the river below. Start roll 11 at Kegon Falls #1-??, river #?-#6? Back up to road at 3:55, to room 4:05, video whole place inside and out and take tea and snack to 4:30. Read great Nikko book to 5PM when Ken returns from baths, not much going on. I go back to finish Sunday puzzle which I FINISH at 6PM, feeling triumphant despite the fact that the SOLUTION is right there, but at dinner John said he hadn't quite finished yet. Dress and down to dinner 6:35, starting with a GOOD crab-potato salad, a vegetable course, what they call sukiyaki with lots of bubbly stuff dipped into raw egg, and when later both broths are combined, they're quite good. Then sushi, too much, then tempura with a fish I didn't touch, ordering a second bottle of sake for 2000Y (which Ken says is very cost-like his 2100Y 20-minute foot massage from 8:35-8:55 which he thought was good), and dinner over at 8:10. I start typing as he leaves, and continue when he returns at 8:55, when we chat, and I finish this at 9:18, content to be finished, having to pack totally tomorrow by 8AM breakfast, but no problem since I wake with the dawn-light, and get to bed at 9:32, comfortable, and Ken turns his bright light off quickly and his dim light soon after and I fall right asleep.
MONDAY, 3/19/07: 2:31AM pee. 5:47 wake with three dreams and pee and type out all three, still in file 8, by 6:07AM, relieved not to be disturbed by Ken, and then look at the still-dark valley outside and the coming dawn-light to the southwest, and catch up with THIS file by 6:18AM, Ken not up yet, and me ready to lie and doze off. Up at 6:28. Then Ken's up and I tell him about my putting my socks over tabbies to protect against cold floors, and HE says he told me last night HE was going to put his tabbies on over his socks, which I say I don't remember at all, and anyway the socks don't have tabby-cuts, so putting tabbies on TOP of them would be awkward. He shaves (saying he's not succeeded in recharging) while I start discarding newspapers at 6:44AM. Finish discarding Saturday by 6:48, and start on Sunday article-tearing-out. Clip SIX pieces from Sunday's "The Japan Times" by 7AM. Get everything packed by 7:15, but no other bags are in hall: either they're not put out yet or have been picked up already. Ken REALLY gets to me with his INCESSANT throat-clearing as he hogs the entire Monday's paper, as if it were natural. I get out Saturday's puzzle to do as I watch the sun-line moving down over the east-facing hills out our windows. Filled (I guess with hot spa-water) pools across way never occupied. Finish Monday's The Japan Times at 7:30 by commenting to skeptical Ken that it's FAR more interesting than The New York Times. Start on Saturday's puzzle and go down at 7:58, putting my bag out, to be first into the American breakfast room and start in on my cold scrambled eggs under streamers of ketchup before the others come down. Intense apple juice, odd "home fry" cake of potatoes, enormous thick slice of cold toast, butter and honey in separate containers, a salad of slivers of gourd-root with prosciutto and caviar and greens and a vinaigrette, other spicy vegetables, a wonderful "consomme" that turns into a beef bouillon of such wonderful taste that when I recommend it to John, to whose taste it isn't, Bonnie INSISTS I finish hers, which I do, and get upstairs at 8:40 to finish this to 8:46 and try to find my melitonin instructions which I'd meant to find earlier. STILL the odd moment, like when I put this down and started to get out of my chair, of SHIP movement retention: VERY odd! FIND melitonin AND instructions that apply (1/2 mg 2PM day before flight, which today IS), and finish repacking by 8:58, time for last pee and take key and leave room. On bus last at 9:05, all employees bowing and waving as I clear stuff away from very last seat on left since others are sitting at windows I know to be flawed and they've filled the GOOD-window seat behind the water with BAGS, too many for me to move, while in the back I can easily pile things away from the window and rest my arm against my suitcase and have a clear window. #7 LAST bridge into sun at 9:15. All PLUMS in blossom. #8 shrunk river 9:26. #10 Cryptomeria lane 9:42, which off-bus session goes through to #19 Nantai, cemetery, cryptomeria to 10AM. Bus goes at 10:05. #20 Snake bridge FAST from bus at 10:15. Start with #21 Sonbutodo at 10:21. #28 Welcome to Nikko sign at 10:45. Take #33 at 10:52, picture-taking becoming increasingly difficult: the low-battery sign is always on, and sometimes I can't take a picture until I turn camera on, then off, then on again and snap quickly, which gets more and more chancey JUST as we're at the heart of the Toshugu Shrine, so I manage to squeeze off the last of Roll 11 and eject it (which the battery seems to have no trouble doing), and then, while Mary urges me onward, replace the old battery with the new battery, the VERY old BandAid mercifully still working, and I start furiously snapping away #1-19, delighted that everything WORKS and there's lots to take photos of, and we're ready to leave when I ask Yoshi where the "sleeping cat" is and he indicates it's beyond another pay-point that we're clearly not going beyond, and he says there's a PHOTO of the cat for those who want it, so I take #20 of PICTURE of "sleeping cat." To #25 by 11:31, trying to keep track of numbers and times in the smaller Nikko book, meanwhile spending 1200Y in some shrine for a larger Nikko book with some duplicates but many "forbidden" shots, and #29 exit gate 11:35. #30 incense on entry. Onto bus at 11:45 (so much for early lunch at 11:30), Yoshi mad? Stop for lunch 11:51. #32 waiter and waitress 11:57. Pumpkin soup, salad, fish, cheesecake, beer, to 1:15. #32 Yaketa, "Meiji villa" 1:24. Walk garden, to bus 1:32. 1:40 to Rinnouji temple (Taijun). #34 and 35 gate 1:43. Roll 13: #10 Ieyesu's tomb, 3rd Shogun, 2PM. #13 fun lion outside main temple 2:07. #16 temples beyond temples 2:24. #17 last panorama from exit 2:25. #18 entire unseen area 2:30. [6:30 dinner, 8AM bags out, bus leaves 9AM tomorrow.] To room 110, upstairs, dump stuff on bed and table at 2:44, and get map from desk and walk to station (NOT Frank Lloyd Wright!) 3:10-3:55, #19 station 4PM, walk back, exhausted, into sun, Ken trying to shop but finding nothing, passing other tourists, finally slog up the hill at 4:45, he says he shops and drinks, I look into melitonin and take it at 4:50PM today, should at 4:50PM tomorrow, and with 8-hour difference take it at 11:45PM in flight to San Francisco, but more probably 3g before trying to sleep on night-plane. Ken back at 4:55: shop no good, bar open 6PM ("How can they DO this?"). I should get light in mid-day and NOT in AM. Checked files to find that I started with roll 11 today and went to rolls 12 and 13 so far. Start typing 5:10, talk with Ken, shit to 5:24, starting the Stephen King book, then argue with Ken about taking sake with Gaylen until he convinces me it would be a horror, which of course I knew it would, so now I'm obliged to go with him ("Of COURSE I don't want to drink ALONE!") and finally I have to say "I guess I have to change MY mind," and he accepts it. Sits and coughs as I finish this at 5:56, sunset doing nothing spectacular to Nantai and the other snow-peak out our window. So I'm caught up, and only the trip home left! Leave at 6PM for bar for our drink. One door isn't open yet at 6:02, but the other door is open and finally there's a bartender who takes about 20 minutes to make 7 or 8 drinks, and poor Yoshi hangs around until we finish and go up to dinner at 6:50. Ken now INSISTS that he sat down before Gaylen was "anywhere NEAR the table," though I SAW him go TO the end of the table where Gaylen was standing. Wonderful salmon mousse best of the lot, then the cream of corn soup was too sweet and "corny," the dorado fish was inedible for me, the steak quite good though I didn't finish, and Gaylen continued to whisper his awful questions across the table as we pretended to be engrossed in other conversations. Mary pays for two large bottles of sake, which helped, and then the dessert was a melange of ice cream, fruit, whipped cream, with a cake-like bottom. At 8:15 I suggested we leave and Ken agrees, so we leave first, figuring to return to the same place at 8AM for breakfast before leaving at 9AM for the airport, which should get us there about 12:30, and our trip home begins. Type this to 8:25 and figure I'll do another puzzle to let dinner settle down a bit. Monday's puzzle is a snap, finishing at 8:40, and Ken's getting ready for bed! Then as I go into bathroom, he turns on TV and so I brush teeth in bathroom, as he wishes, and JUST come out with other three appliances when he shuts off TV! I complain: "Every other evening you say you can't go to sleep on a full stomach and stay awake for an hour. The ONE time you turn on TV and I think I can do my thorough cleaning while watching TV, you turn it off!" "Do you expect me to read your mind?" he explodes; "Do you want to be unpleasant ALL this last day of the trip?" "I've done nothing but cater to you all day: walking to the station, taking a drink in the bar," and all I want is ten more minutes to TV while I silently finish my teeth." "Oh, it's NOT silent," he fumes, and I shout back, "It's no louder than my snoring, I'm sure, so you can use your EARPLUGS!" He fumes, I do my teeth as quietly as possible while filing through the 12 boring channels, and when I finish and ask if it's OK with him if I shut it off, he's SLEEPING! Go into bathroom and come out to find all the lights off. Go to bed about 9:02PM and fall asleep rather quickly, but maybe not.
TUESDAY, 3/20/07: Pee 2:36, then no sleep, fretting about packing, flights, NYC business. Pee at 4:07, think to try Actualism, but my mind wanders, maybe I nap, fret more, pee at 5:03, still feeling slightly rocky from the ship! VERY depressing! Note from bathmat that we're in the Kanaya Hotel. DREAM, recorded in file 8, so I know I slept, when I pee for the fourth time at 6:04. Back to bed, maybe nap, having brought up quilt to be warmer, and wake at 6:45 to find Ken still asleep, so I go in to shower, find no shampoo, maybe outside but I don't want to search room with Ken sleeping, but I find shampoo in my dop kit, having previously moved my knife out so I can carryon my dop kit, and take good shower to 7:10, when Ken's still asleep, so I take writer into john and type until he knocks at 7:20AM and goes in and I finish this outside at 7:25, having decided to carryon shoes, dop kit, sweater, and pack everything else into a jammed suitcase. Of course Ken is in the john when HIS wakeup call comes at 7:24 and I have to answer it. Took Valium at 6:45, happy to know I'll have it with me all day, along with Ambien for sleeping and Vicks for nose and earphones for movies and books and puzzles to occupy my time. Stop now at 7:27AM to change to last clean underwear and socks and start packing for luggage out at 8AM. #20 view from room 110 at Kanaya at 7:28AM. Pack hard and sit on each section and on the whole thing and manage to get it closed by 7:55, when I put it outside. Breakfast 8-8:35, sitting inside with Laura and Ed, and later Mary joins us, leaving a single with Gaylen and his wife and one other. Omelet, bacon, tea, toast and butter and marmalade good, and unpleasant people absent, thank God. Ken monopolizes bathroom until 8:45, then I brush teeth and pile everything into carryon, carrying both sweater and jacket and somehow misplacing New Yorker. Leave room 8:55, turn in key, bus leaves 9:07, me in front seat. Onto Expressway 9:15. $40 one-way for a car from Tokyo to Nikko! Just under $40/person by train. $700 most expensive Tokyo dinner. NO singles in Kinugawa: $300 per person, including dinner and breakfast. #21 Mt. Fuji---140 miles away at 10:04. #22 Fuji through bridge? 10:10 Stop 10:26 (20 minutes) at rest stop. #23 baker smoothing cocks 10:36. To bus 10:42 ("by bathing ape" jacket unexplained). Bus goes 10:48. See Fuji from Tokyo only 40 days/year, a tad better than Denali's view from park 3 days/month, and only in winter. Traffic jam starts 11AM. We're never less than 60 feet off ground on elevated roadways. #24 cloud-sided Fuji 11:05. #25 Fuji blocked! 11:19. #26 triple-deck bridge (not really: double and another bridge lower) 11:34. #27 homeless blue huts, river, Tokyo 11:44. #28 still Fuji 11:55. Video: Tokyo Tower and Fuji---in 3 years, NEW tower will be built 2000 feet high, over 600 meters! 12:11: end of 11-mile traffic jam. #30 tower and ferris wheel 12:12. 16 million people work in Tokyo every day. One square meter $140,000 in Ginza; $340,000/square meter for commercial. $460,000 for 870 square foot apartment, one unit in a condo. 1978 Disneyland, first outside USA, bigger than Anaheim and then expanded twice the size with a Sea-World extension. 90,000 visitors in one day. Too far away and too scattered for a photo, city and river and houses and roads and bridges stretching away to infinity in all directions, with Fuji almost constantly in the background, with an enormous 60-70 story apartment house north of Tokyo. 12:55PM to airport. Last common meal unless we chance to meet in the airport, unlikely since it turns out that everyone else on our flight: Carol and John and Bonnie, are in business class. Hug goodbye to Marsha and daughter, shake hands with others, particularly Ed, [start file 4 on FIRST TUESDAY, 3/20/07, at 3:45PM in airport] stop, NO checks made though Yoshi said they might check MY passport, in front, as representative of all. Bags off-loaded 1PM. Marsha and daughter go off to the nearby ANA Hotel to wait for relatives, Laura and Paul do the same, Yoshi takes off, Mary has her own plans, leaving John and Bonnie and Carol to check into BUSINESS class, leaving only Ken and me to go to the Economy class line at 1:11, slow-moving. Through at 1:40, Ken being changed from 47A to 41A, away from me. Ken commands that we have a sit-down lunch, so we end up with my having a good pork and cole slaw lunch for 1000Y, he a difficult-to-eat crab and spaghetti and large beer for 580Y and 1100Y for the meal, no tax, and I'm left with 252Y after buying two batteries for my camera for 900Y each, maybe expensive, but not as dear as taking the cash back with me, seeing as I've used what I believe to be my last fresh battery. Pass a vending kiosk and see a Haagen-Daz vanilla and almond bar for 250Y, get a 10Y piece from Ken for my 2 5-yen pieces, and get a good bar and left with precisely 2Y, with more put away before. Take Valium #2 at 2:22 (ha) and onto passport line 2:52, past at 3PM, having to empty out my computer, camera, video, and binoculars. To gate 31. Ken goes to shop and gets something for every last yen he has with the balance on his Visa card---I think a wallet for 7000Y, just what he needs. I type this til 3:55, flight delayed from 4:30 to 5:15 for no reason, and the clouds keep piling up on the horizon. Temperature earlier was 10E Centigrade, about 50E Fahrenheit, which means that EVERY place we sit is quite warm. Contretemps at check-in because I somehow had the idea we were United all the way back and I could check my bag through to NYC since I didn't need anything beside what was in my carryon. Automatic checkin doesn't work for either of us, but we're finally on. He at last tells me we're on a DIFFERENT line going back from San Francisco to NYC and HAVE to get our bags back, as we did coming OUT, as if I remember, which means I can get my New Yorker out anyway, though I'm loath to break the seals on my baggage. Who knows if his request for early checkin will work? Who knows if we'll get there later than our delayed takeoff would warrant? I have my book to read, hopefully a lot of unseen movies to see, and puzzles galore if I don't feel like sleeping. Bored with this now at 4PM, still 75 minutes until departure---but at least 48A is WAY in the back. Quickly look through the Herald Tribune and someone's already filled in the puzzle! Have to rely on my own time-wasting. Second Valium seems to have taken hold, just have to remember to take the second melitonin---was it in file 8?---at 4:50PM, just under an hour from now. Take melitonin at 4:45, and board at 4:50. 8:10 flight. Move back out at 5:19, off at 5:30. Some remaining light along the Japanese coast, but nothing worth taking a picture of, so it may be that the last roll of film is in my camera already, 13 I think. Look out until we're over the ocean, then the clouds get boring, I'm not hungry so I don't feel like dinner, so I take TWO Ambien and 3g melitonin at 5:50, put on my beret over my eyes since my request for an eyemask didn't come through, and lay my head against the window and start Actualism and fall RIGHT off to sleep, just like the two to my right. No memory of them serving dinner, which Ken had and just said was "all right," with a shrug, and nap to 8:40, almost three hours. "Happy Feet" is on the single television, so I watch it, and it's worse than I would have thought, seemingly based on black-white differences (though the penguins are the cute black-and-white faced young and ugly-looking takeoffs on Kings with dark blue evil-seeming faces. No REAL idea at the end how a penguin, dancing to make onlooking humans dance, could restore their fish-food, but that's all there was to it. Took Valium number 3 at 10:41. 3 hours to go. "Happy Feet" over at 12:02AM and we begin our
SECOND TUESDAY, 3/20/07, at 12:02AM. 12:48AM took NIGHT pills with the awful breakfast of omelet, sausage, and potato stick in lieu of ANY bread and butter at all, with orange juice, and change my watch to the new time: 9:07AM, down in about 45 minutes. Still over ocean, though clouded surf-whitened northern California coastline appears to harken our arrival time. Told at 9:30 that fog has cut the number of available runways to one, so we'll be circling for another 30 minutes. Start down in clouds at 9:40 and land at 9:57, lightly raining. In the fuzzy fuss to get out I leave my cashmere sweater in the hold above, and don't realize it until I've passed through baggage check, but clerk allows me to go back to desk and woman phones out to plane to find it's still there and will be delivered here! Great! Get bag at 10:36, long wait since we were clearly loaded near the first. Out to shuttle area 10:40. Onto shuttle at 10:48 after Ken tries numerous times to phone to hotel; most of the time he says it just rings and rings. To Holiday Inn Express at 10:55, room IS ready for us, and in at 11:02 when Ken wants me to come with him to Max's (Opera Cafe doesn't appear on the Visa slips) for a drink! I say I REALLY don't want to drink in the morning, since it'll make me even sleepier. He says he didn't sleep at ALL, but somehow intends to sleep across the US and stay awake enough to attend his musical concert tomorrow night. He leaves, giving me his eyemask, bless him, and I take everything off but shorts and sink into the blissfully soft pillow at 11:11 and seem to fall right to sleep, wakened only at 12:18 by the asinine clerk phoning to see if everything in the room was OK. Ken was in the shower and didn't even answer. Fall RIGHT back to sleep, no trouble at all, and Ken wakes me at the dot of 1PM (he wanted earlier for his purpose, but I insisted on 1 at the earliest). I wake in a fog, even forgetting to put on my tee-shirt, and we go over in the light rain to Max's for lunch in a crowded, baby-filled place for his chicken-liver and something else enormous sandwich with three small sides, and he has a too-sweet Cosmopolitan and I have a zippy Maxarita with boneless chicken with tangy sauce and limp celery, which feels like QUITE enough food for the meantime. Get back to room about 2:10, he doesn't want to do anything, has read all the papers, so I settle in for a long read with two puzzles and many sudokus that takes me to 4:33, when I throw them away, wash my hands of newsprint, look out onto the sunny dirty waves with apparently contented birds swooping in and out, and then catch up with this by 5PM, contemplating, as ordered by Ken, a 6PM dinner and early bed for a 5AM wakeup for a 6AM bus for our 7:30 flight that gets in about 4:30PM, but the weather map shows rain and clouds almost all across middle America, so I probably won't see much, and probably wouldn't anyway with seat 18 which is probably right over the wing. Can't imagine opening my suitcase, but will repack my carryon to try to maximize my reading material for the flight: not bothering to get out my New Yorker. Now to file 7: 5:03PM: At this time tomorrow---well, three hours BEFORE this since it's now 8:03PM in NYC---I'll be HOME. Lots of recent thought to 1) paying up the IRA, Keogh, and Roth IRA amounts, 2) getting back to website, 3) making sure to get a CD as well as slides of trip, 4) back to proofreading, 5) all the mail and catching up with stacks on coffee table, 6) newspapers and puzzles and magazines, 7) will the plants have survived? Tend to downplay the trip: not a great group of people, though Ed was nice when I got around to getting BACK to him, but the unpleasant Gaylen and Carol and some of the others tended to undercut the pleasures, not to mention the rushed-ness, the coldness and lack of spring blooms, the "lack of freshness" as Hisa described as satisfying curiosity, and the crashing awfulness of much of the Japanese food---not to mention the incessant sound of the entirely foreign language. Will be glad to be on an American flight to NYC, flying over the US, getting back HOME to comfort, licking my wounds: 1) extreme fatigue too much of the time, 2) sore knees from the high steps at the Toshugu Shrine, 3) snippiness with Ken which neither of us enjoyed, 4) worry about tolerance of future trips. At least my 66,990Y bill is so enormous that Ken has to pay for everything else. Part of the incessant clunks outside might have been from sexy-maybe skateboarders. Surely VERY few sexy Japanese and both Ken and I lingered on the hunk at the airport today, with some unremembered sport's name tee-shirt showing muscled arms under a VERY attractive face, even though it WAS constantly attached to his cell phone. Now at 5:12 I'll thumb through and probably discard the three San Francisco brochures I picked up at the airport which we won't be using. Looked through brochures and threw all away except map of San Francisco for future reference. Washed face, Vicksed nose, put US coins back in coin purse, got out house keys, resorted carryon stuff, put out pills for tonight and tomorrow, and feel Ken getting ready for dinner now at 5:50PM when I finish this. Then Ken says he's willing to wait until 6:30 for dinner, so I get out "Thinner" and read that until we're over to Rex's for his Caesar salad and brownie sundae and my wontons stuffed with pork and sauces and "classic hot fudge sundae" WITHOUT the marshmallow sauce and candied peanuts, with an awful pianist singer, and a $34+ bill, and he only had iced tea and me lemonade. Dinner 6:30-7:40, Ken leaves a 5AM wakeup call, and I finish this at 7:55PM, prepared for more reading before bed. Shit just a bit, getting rid of awful crack-paper that had sat there for more than a day, brushed my teeth, Ken's ready for bed, so I undress and crawl in at 8:21PM. Fall asleep almost instantly.
WEDNESDAY, 3/21/07: 12:21AM (That magic number again.) Wake at 12:12 with a clear memory of a dream that I get up to type, but, ironically, can't find my eyemask until I search my bedclothes! Pee and finish this at 12:23AM, feeling very good and rested. 3:58: But then I can't sleep for a bit, looking at clock at 12:53 and then 1:45, but then sleep and wake at 3:56 with another elaborate dream. Thought to shit, but just peed to 4:05AM. Tried to get back to sleep, went through an entire Actualism session, but looked at the clock at 4:15 and 4:30 and 4:40, and then Ken got up and started doing things with the bathroom door open, and I finally took out an earplug and said good morning, and went into the bathroom in time for him to finally take the wake-up call that I usually end up taking. He's packing as if he's going to leave in the next three seconds, and he says "I'm ready when you are," and I say "In a couple of minutes," and he replies, "If you really mean a couple of minutes I'll wait for you," and I finish this, much more tired than I was earlier this morning, at 5:10AM, sadly aware that it's 8 hours earlier in Japan, or 9PM, so I WOULD be sleepy now. 5:57AM: go to breakfast downstairs, after going for my coat and Ken reminding me that breakfast is in the building. Have apple juice and a small Sugar Frosted Flakes, then a good hot sugar-bun with butter, then oatmeal with apples and cinnamon with an orange. He leaves at 5:40, insisting that we have to be down at 5:55 to catch the 6:01 shuttle. I finish at 5:45 and get upstairs to find him off the phone with Continental: the flight has been delayed another hour, but they say "Check in at the original time, since timing may change." I ask him what the original check-in time WAS, but he doesn't know. I phone Continental back and they say that it HAS been delayed an hour from 8:30 to 8:40, but the checkin time is still 7:40. Ken insists on catching the 6:01 until the desk clerk informs him that the 6:01 was the arrival time of the 5:55 shuttle, which has already left, so he'll have to catch the 6:15 shuttle, for which he decides to stay downstairs while I go upstairs prepared to take the 6:40 shuttle. I'm typing away at 6:02 when he comes back in the door to joke that I probably wouldn't have brought his suitcase with me, and we both laugh as he leaves. He's constantly worried about making his musical concert in NYC tonight. I find it's Gate 35 in Terminal 1, and now the thought strikes me that IF 18F IS over the wing, I'll have a far poorer chance of changing it the later I get there, but since the forecast is for rains and clouds and storms over most of the central US, there probably won't be much to see anyway. I just hope that seats have individual TV sets, rather than the awful common one on the United 747 from Narita to San Francisco yesterday. Not even BEGUN to get light outside as I finish this at 6:06AM and go to brush my teeth. Could we have changed to daylight savings time? But the TV and clocks here agree with my watch at 6:07AM. Brush my teeth thoroughly while watching TV news, pack, and finish this at 6:37AM, way ready for the 6:40 shuttle. But I wasn't way ready: couldn't find my ROOM key, and tore the place apart and decided to say I left it in my room, but then found it in my breast pocket when I got to lobby at 6:41 and found the shuttle had LEFT. So I gave in the key, the clerk says, "Did you miss the 6:40 shuttle?" and I said "No, decided to catch the 7:05, more than enough time for the 7:40 check-in time." She agreed. I sit and type this to 6:46, JUST beginning to get light outside. Pick up a newspaper to read and type this in the lobby, dry-throated and HOPE nothing happens by my being "late" for the check-in. Then get down and I forgot my suitcase!! Ask for key for room 310, of course I have to return to ask for 334, and put lights off and leave room in good shape and exit---and STILL have to go back in for my SUITCASE! Get sympathy from everyone in lobby and finish this, sweating, at 6:59, ready for 7:05 shuttle at LAST! It pulls in as I stand at door, and I board at 7:02, guy putting my bag in rack so I get out my $1 for a rare tip on this trip. Stops at a few places, but there's NO one in check-in, though the automatic system says I should check in at DESK, and someone comes to my rescue and checks in my bag at 7:18, flight still scheduled for 8:57! Get just to path to gate and I DON'T have my sweater! Go back to find I'd dropped it in the hall even BEFORE getting to check-in desk. REALLY LOSING IT! Through security at 7:24, having to take off my SHOES for the first time in ages, lie and say I have no toothpaste, which I do, and put away computer and get to gate 35 at 7:31, finding Ken seated between what looks to be a married couple, chatting gaily with both, nearby gate-areas JAMMED with teenagers in bright, brisk, loud, annoying conversation. Point to Ken that I'll be sitting somewhat apart where there are more seats and more quiet, and get this out and finish at 7:36AM, really weary, probably more than a hour before boarding, but with a daily paper to occupy some of my time. Try for a seat NOT over the wing, but he says EVERYONE is checked in, no windows left, and 18 "is actually just behind the end of the wing," and I joke, "So I have to crick my neck back for five hours." He doesn't respond. Lather my lips, slowly recovering, for the third time today. Board 8:20, EXACTLY in MIDDLE of wing, plane jammed, "All exit doors are over wings," said with an ironic smile. 4:54 flight. Back out 9AM, off 9:10. Breakfast is a cheese omelet PITA at 9:45. Clouds below, with some snowy mountains breaking through. Puzzles, newspapers, and it's 11:20, two hours gone. Try for nap at noon, two hours left. 12:12 start reading King book, absorbing. 1:55: will land at 2:20, 5:20 local time. Change watch to 5:17 and land at 5:20. Have to be TOWED to gate. Dock 5:32, and pee at 5:45, ONLY time since boarding, and then shit SUBSTANTIALLY til 5:52. Grab bag at 5:55, hoping to help Ken get to his evening musical performance at the YMHA, and onto LONG taxi line at 6PM. Onto taxi 6:17, $80 trip to 7:10 at Ken's, long traffic tieups at Holland Tunnel, but not as long as the hour delay going the OTHER way. Home, tired, on subway at 7:35. Watch TV to 9:30, then cum, bed at 11PM, completely used up.
THURSDAY, 3/22/07: Pee at 4AM, take 1/2 mg melitonin, dream-type to 4:15. Try Actualism to 5:15, but it doesn't work so I'm up to j/o again and finish watching Masterpiece 35 Years' Best to 7AM. Look through ALL of mail by 8:11AM, big pile to throw away, lots to process. Continue mail in detail, mostly magazines, to 10:50, breakfast of three slices of buttered whole wheat toast and a glass of newly-made apple juice. Cum again to 11:52, feeling sick and tired. Nap to 3:25 and start looking at 40-some e-mails at 4PM. Four phone messages: 1) Mildred "Have a good trip," 2) Carolyn "Great St. Patrick's Day," 3) Marjorie Grimm "Can I present slides 3/27?" 4) John "Just back from Cambodia." Spider 4:35-6:50, doing lousy, look at more mail, call Spartacus, go out to order egg foo yung, which is just delicious, filling with ONE pancake and rice and juice and pills. Change all clocks meticulously, then more Spider 11:35-12:30, then search for eyemask, dim sum places for Sunday at Ken's ridiculous insistence that WE come to HIM for Sadahiro to translate his Japanese for him, and other details, finally getting to bed at 1:30AM, feeling absolutely drained.
FRIDAY, 3/23/07: Actually wake at 9:25AM and wait to pee to 9:30, exactly 8 hours after getting into bed! Feel better, mostly psychologically, because of that minor feat. Up 9:50, determined to do 10 things today. Put some things away, transmit AlphaSmart into WP51, then start on 10-list: 1) call for prescription for 3PM when I MUST go to the gym, 2) call John and leave word at 11:45AM, 3) call Marj at 11:50AM, who's waiting for a guest at noon, WCB tomorrow, 4) call Mildred and talk 11:50-12:25, 5) call Bill Petersen and talk and pick up NY Times---offering to PAY for them, and HE has to remind me that they were DELIVERED TO MY DOOR! We console each other on BEING (not even GETTING) old! 6) call Mark Morrow and leave message on his cell phone for evaluating my stamps, bringing me up to date at 1PM, feeling good about THAT, at least. 7) Fuss more with mail, 8) go to gym, 9) John calls back 5-5:30, and in desperation put in the AlphaSmart transmittal as 10). Take melitonin and get to bed at 11:20.
SATURDAY, 3/24/07: 3:43AM: Type dream after pee. fret to 4:52, start Actualism, but at 5:17 get out vibrator and j/o and TV to 7:30, puzzles to 8:40, then, exhausted, to nap to 11:15. Marj calls 11:20-1:05! Put some of the papers away, and left word with Tristan, Carolyn, Fred, Sherryl, and Shelley (doing that AGAIN in a few days!), Steve Hayes (that was yesterday, to check to make sure MAN wasn't this week but next week), make dates for Brooklyn Restaurant Week with Mildred for Chipshop 2PM Monday and Petit Marché 6PM Friday, played Spider 4-5:15, then tackled three Times puzzles from the first week, & bed midnight.
SUNDAY, 3/25/07: Pee and type at 7AM. Up 7:52. Do second set of three TImes puzzles and read associated news, take three photos, #32 ten stacks on table, #33 tenth stack into FIFTY additional tasks, #34 table with unsorted Japan material. Talk to Tris for a long time, but can't promise anything on website, indulge in Spider 8-12:50, have three slices of toast for "dinner" at 1:15AM and get to bed at 1:40AM, TIRED!
MONDAY, 3/26/07: Up at 10:48AM, do third set of Times puzzles and read associated news, went to Chipshop with Mildred and checked I have 600-650 square feet of apartment, worth maybe $400-$500,000, buy groceries at last, go to the gym full weight, talked to a number of people on the phone, and got to bed at 11:55PM.
TUESDAY, 3/27/07: Pee 7:45AM, up at 8:10, STILL tired, but not EXHAUSTED. 2:30 finish last Times with only two puzzles (they didn't give me Saturday's paper when I asked them to), do Spider 2:30-3:25 to a new high of 48.89615, have lunch at 3:30, try looking at stack of 50: get discouraged and sort through travel pile, taking last three photos on roll 13, #35 of living room AFTER Japan-stuff sorted, #36 of my desk DURING that sort, and #37 of my closet at 6PM. Fill new big Japan file including souvenirs from 1964, and bed 11:15, choosing not to take melitonin in the hopes that the gym yesterday and more sleep will make me feel better.
WEDNESDAY, 3/28/07: 12:54AM pee and note dream, 5:12 pee and note dream, 6:18 pee, good Actualism for ENERGY 6:34-7:04, up at 7:07 to watch two "Air Emergencies" to 8:50, when I call Paul MacLean for Maya trip and he says he'll call me back "in a few minutes," which he hasn't done yet by 10AM. When he does, he decides he doesn't want to go, so I call for the trip MYSELF for June 10-28, for $3200+ and THEN open the letter that says the IRS has FORGIVEN my $2300+ penalty for late-filing my Form 5500EZ! Phone people to tell them. Then Carolyn calls, we go to Atlantic Chipshop for lunch, I get back to read current mail before leaving for Sharon at 5:05, then watch TV and bed 11:20.
THURSDAY, 3/29/07: Pee 6:34, up 8:30, do things, watch TV, look at Scott's stamp volume 6, move more mail around, open Rita's package and get caught up in anagramming "The prophet Mohammed" and writing a letter to Rita to about 10:30PM and then watch TV until after midnight, reading a bit to digest TV popcorn.
FRIDAY, 3/30/07: Get to bed at 12:58AM. Pee and note dream at 7:50AM. Write a list of things to ask Chin, since he's in today at 8:30, do good Actualism until just after 9AM, phone Chin to be told at 9:23AM to "come in now," and arrive there at 9:34AM, check-in at 9:38, not many people waiting, and seen at 9:50 and I go through list: 1) prostate: PSA will be checked, 2) loofah can be used LIGHTLY on head and body excrescences, 3) ENT recheck noted, 4) asked for dermatology appointment, 5) got sheet for blood and stool tests, 6) reported fatigue and melatonin and therapy, and he said I might have "thin blood," and tested blood pressure at 126/80, which he said was due to tension, and I didn't ask about 7) foot control unsteadiness, since it didn't seem to happen today, and forgot to ask about 8) shingles shot. To blood station at 10AM, few people, in at 10:20, out at 10:25, told to phone on Monday for results. Walk to bank and remember dermatology appointment, so back at 10:28 to wait in room and think to query HIP payment, and at 10:38 ask Center Assistant Director Pagano, who says "Maybe they want you to fill out YOUR portion of form; no need for MD or pharmacy to reply, but only 55 Water processes finances." Out at 10:56 with 4/3 dermatology appointment---THIS YEAR!---and a "Happy Birthday" from Yvette, and home at 11:05 to check my birth certificate and find I was born at 11:02AM, so I'm officially in my EIGHTH DECADE OF LIFE! Play Spider 2:10-2:45 to a new high of 48.91916. Type up a few more notes and finish this at 3:07PM, ready to CLEAR UP LIVING ROOM piles and put EVERYTHING into bedroom to process! Put lots of things away and get list down to 18, but with the stack of 10 still on the coffee table. Mystic calls to say he'll be here sometime Monday through Wednesday of next week. At 5:55 meet Mildred at quite-a-bargain Petit Marché, out at 7:05, and I'd forgotten to bring subway card! To Center for 25-audience for 8 pretty poor plays, bed STILL tired.
SATURDAY, 3/31/07: Do three puzzles quickly from 8-11. Arrange to meet Charles at noon, but take local 3, not realizing that 2 was still going express until 18th Street, and get there at 12:15. Europan lunch, his omelet better than my quiche, guy teaching him that a good smoothie is mostly ice. "Egyptian Helen" isn't very good, but it's over at 4:16, which gives me time to walk to MAN by 4:55, good merlot, only 59 people, mediocre dinner, leave 6:55 after saying hello to Steve. Back to watch "I, Robot," having thought Planet Earth was TONIGHT rather than tomorrow. Bed early, I don't remember, but watch TV early.
SUNDAY, 4/1/07: Watch "The Last Emperor" 7-10, don't read the Times until Monday, meet Spartacus at 2:10 for "Oliver Twist," not good until the hanging in Act 2, and back to play Spider 6:25-8:50 to new high of 48.92854, finish Bachman (King) "Thinner" to 11:55PM and bed tired.
MONDAY, 4/2/07: Change calendar page, wash dishes, read Times, add more items to do-list, pay $25 to have guy cash in all $16,000+ in Schwab One to pay bills, get a call from Mark who says he'll be here between 9-10AM tomorrow, mail two bills, go to gym, deposit $100 cash to build up HSBC account, get groceries, talk to Marj and Rita (again), set up stamp table for tomorrow, tape last "Prison Break" so I can watch prelude from Arnold, and finish proofing MC\JAPAN and catch up with this at 8:17PM, prepared to watch "Aimee" at 9PM, so I'll do Spider until then, feeling justified for a bit of play, having powdered my VERY sore groin before 3PM dermatology appointment tomorrow.
TUESDAY, 4/3/07: Awake 4:44-6AM, thinking: 1) website: a) Tris, b) Marj; 2) stamp evaluation; 3) travel; 4) NYC: a) ballets, b) operas, c) museums, d) botanic gardens, e) Macy's flowers, f) restaurants; 5) my play productions; 6) my heaven and my longevity. Mark Morrow phones at 10AM to say he'll be here in ten minutes, arrives, pronounces my collection almost worthless, certainly under $10,000, and leaves in half an hour. Depressed: I phone Mildred and Spartacus and Sherryl, leaving word with last two. Play Spider 12:30-1:30, have lunch, phone Henry Gitner Philatelists, Inc., and HE says he'll come toward the end of the week! To dermatologist at 3, seen at 3:30, wait til 4, out at 4:30 to CVS to pick up prescribed antifungal for feet and anti-acne for neck-back, and perversely pick up two pizza slices from Fascati for a snack. Spider 5:30-10 for new record of 48.93202. Watch TV 10:30-12, at which time I put on two prescriptions, making note to get bacitracin for freezes tomorrow.
WEDNESDAY, 4/4/07: To Schwab to 1) fill out form and 2) leave $5000 check for Roth IRA, 3) get told, with no funds in it, the "other" account will be closed by itself, 4) forgot to bring AMOUNT for check for Keogh, so go back home via CVS for bacitracin and two camcorder tapes to redeem my $2 discount slip, and phone Spartacus to pick up DVDs and finish this at 12:50, ready to write check for Keogh and get DVDs.
JAPAN SUMMARY PAGE
FRI,3/2: Fly Newark to San Francisco 1:15-6:37 (5:22 time). Dine at Max's Opera Cafe, sleep early at Holiday Inn Express at 7:35 SF time, 10:35 NYC time.
SAT,3/3: Leave San Francisco 11:45AM, 10:27 flight announced. Watch four movies: "The Prestige," "The Fountain," "Night in the Museum," and "Marie Antoinette," all awful. Seven-hour time difference. Lose a day.
SUN,3/4: Land in Osaka 3:20PM: 10:35 flight. To Kyoto Hotel Okura for dinner.
MON,3/5: Nijo Castle, Kinkakuji Golden Pavilion, Ryoanji Temple, Shozan Kohotsu Art Village lunch, geisha reception and dinner in Gyuon Room at hotel.
TUE,3/6: Stroll across river toward Heian Shrine, Restaurant Fujita lunch, to Sahoji (Kokadera) Temple for Moss Garden, Irifune dinner disaster. Okura-Hotel.
WED,3/7: Day to Nara: Horuji, gates, pagodas, museum, lunch; drinks in fancy Chippendale bar, because Ken wants them. Dinner in Tawaraya.
THU,3/8: Walk to Heian Shrine, Kyoto Museum of Contemporary Art, bus to Himeji Castle, dinner in Chateau Restaurant in Himeji Castle Hotel, to Spirit of Oceanus and unpack and sleep.
FRI,3/9: Ship to Kurashiki and Ohara Gallery and toy museum, ship for reception and dinner.
SAT,3/10: Hiroshima, Memorial, Peace Museum, garden, to ship for lunch, zodiac to Izo Korima Shrine and torii gate, up hills to many temples, Melanie's talk on Natural History, and "Children of Hiroshima," from Aaron, after dinner.
SUN,3/11: To Hagi for ceramist, Hinado house, Kaseki lunch, Toko-Ji Temple for lantern-gardens, Hisa talks on health, video islands. Leave dinner seasick.
MON,3/12: Leave ship at Ulsan, South Korea. Shrine up 99-turn road, down for temples, Korean dancers at buffet lunch, Craft Village, Tombs, Museum, to ship.
TUE,3/13: Lose facemask. Aaron talks, dancer dances, Hisa talks, lunch, bus to Matsue Castle, flower gardens around: lost again. Ma-Mian. Dinner; Leon pianos.
WED,3/14: Kanazawa Castle/Garden in morning: Tea Ceremony; Lord Mother's Mansion. 21st Century Modern Art Museum great through Ken. Kanazawa Hotel lunch, Shima Garden, walk town and up hill. Gold-plating shop. Bridge; Aaron talks about pleasure places in Tokyo. Pack, missing Leon's piano.
THU,3/15: Boat to bus to Niigata for train to Tokyo with box lunch. To Edo-Tokyo Museum. Imperial Hotel drinks in Old Imperial Bar, Sadahiro here, taxi to Aoyagi Restaurant which Ken chose; I pay 66,990Y bill with Visa: 3 @ $569.41!
FRI,3/15: Bus to Tokyo National Museum, we stay after tour leaves. Lunch in L'Accord restaurant; more Museum buildings: Treasury and Maori. Taxi to hotel to type lots 4:52-6PM. Bus to New Otani Hotel for Teppenyaki Garden Restaurant.
SAT,3/16: Bus to Shinjuku Station for train to Kinugawa. Lunch at Trattoria Camino, bus to Kanaya Hotel, as old as Fujita in Miyanoshita. Walk through town, try the bathhouse and massage chair, dinner, more bath and massage chair.
SUN,3/17: Breakfast, up Iroha Mountain's 48 turns for Chuzenji Temple, bus around lake to Kegon Falls, lunch in Lakeside Hotel in enormous room, more falls, back to Kinugawa and walk stairs down to river, Puzzles, dinner, bed.
MON,3/18: "American" breakfast, bus to Cryptomeria lane, Nikko for Sonbutodo and Toshugu Shrine; to Yaketa "Meiji Villa" lunch in private room, walk garden, bus to Rinnouji Temple (Taijun), enormous areas. Bus to hotel and walk to a non-Frank Lloyd Wright train station, exhausted, to bar for drinks, poor dinner, We argue about trivia; I'm eager to get home.
TUE,3/19: Pack last time in Japan, Long bus through Tokyo (view of Fuji!) to Narita Airport, stopping in shopping mall. Lunch at FaSoLa Akihabara, I buy batteries and ice cream bar for last yen. Off at 5:30PM for 8:10 flight.
TUE,3/19 (#2): Watch "Happy Feet" on TV, and land at 9:57AM, almost lose sweater, and shuttle to Holiday Inn Express. Lunch at Max's, nap almost two hours, puzzles and sudokus to dinner at Max's, prepare packing, bed at 8:21PM.
WED,3/20: Up at 4AM, breakfast at 5AM, forget luggage and miss shuttle, to airport for newspapers and puzzles, 4:54 flight 9:10-5:20. Taxi & subway home. THU,3/21: Cum, mail, nap, e-mails, phones, change clocks, bed 1:30AM, drained. FRI,3/22: Wake 9:20, do many things, take more melitonin and bed at 11:20PM.