Japan

Last day in japan. Instead of packing my stuff, which is utterly important, I´m thinking about new years resolutions, books to read and I even started again with "Anna Karenina".

The almost last day in Japan again. Traditionally we went out tonight. This time for an all-you-can-eat buffet. I considered the costs for this buffet as a bit high. 1500Yen for all you can drink and 3000 Yen for all you can eat. But with time limitation. We had 90 minutes. But anyway, I received several recommendations for this place but I had my doubts, because normally the food at those buffets is not that great. Needless to say, I was surprised. The quality was excellent. The service was really nice and them atmosphere was good as well. I enjoyed and think it was worth the money.

Before I went, I did a quick research on the net to find a strategy for how to get the most out of such a night. I would have never thought that something like that would actually exist, but giving it a try with the favourite search engine, I found this page.
There was nothing really new to me, but it was good to see someones thought on the same topic.

I ended up having this:


Now I´m stuffed and I feel the urge to move. I think it´s the sugar.

I hate myself.
Today I found a poster of a movie which just came out yesterday: Norway no mori.


It´s based on the novel of Haruki Murakami and in my opinion the most beautiful lovestory I have ever read.

Now I´m sittin here in my hotel room, looking at the pictures from the movie and the whole story pops up again in my mind. It´s like a movie which doesn´t stop. Tears are running down my cheek and only today I capture the whole meaning of this book. When I read it last year it was a very good book and I loved it, but only due to the experiences I made during the last couple of weeks I´m able to understand the story, to understand the feelings of the main characters and their decisions.
Can someone please hug me?

Mabye there is nothing wrong and everything is alright, but I´m worried. Why am I? I even have never seen her. Neither did I speak to her. So why should I be worried about somebody with whom I had a written conversation by pure coincidence? But maybe it´s my destiny to have met her and now being worried. I hate to be worried.

The last information from her was that she wanted to see the doctor. This was yesterday morning. No message since. No sign whatsoever.
This morning I decided to give her a call if I don´t get anything by this evening. I called. The answering machine just told me that she is not available. Damn!

Found those things during the last couple of days. I just like them.

If he continues talking I will go mental. I´m listening to this guy for the last 90 minutes and he doesn´t find an end. I love to listen to stories, I love to dive into the fantastic world of dwarfs, goblins and magicians or into the world of some antihero in one of the novels of Murakami, but I hate to listen to somebody who doesn´t get to the point.

While he is still talking about a topic, which is of no interest to me, I´m dreaming.

Thinking about kidney stones, the cancer of my aunt in law, the duration of life, the meaning of having kids and being marrried and I´m thinking about violence. Thinking about things I like and things I would like to do once in my life. Thinking about the next weekend and AJ, the hike I would love to do since years and if she might be the right person to join us. Also thinking about what music I would play on my guitar once I return to Germany and how I can improve my chess skills.

He is still talking...

Tomorrow, the 8th of December, three years ago I was at Matsumoto castle (3 years ago).

Funny, that yesterday I went with some of the people, which accompanied me on this trip, for dinner.

It was a fun night. Lots of good japanese food and some really good conversation. It makes a huge if you go out with colleagues you like or or just someone from work.

Remember: You can choose your friends, you can´t choose your family and you can´t choose your colleagues, but you can choose with whom you spend your time with.

Yeah, I´m good, I´m the best...;-)

It´s laundry day. When I came home I checked the washer and the dryer, both were empty. No time to lose. I went upstairs got all my laundry and went down again. But what did I see. The washer was running. You have to know there are two washers and only one dryer. So the only possibility for me was to beat the other guy. Which was no problem. Because of my extensive knowledge of the washing and drying times of these machines I was able to calculate the exact time, when I have to be downstairs again, just to get my stuff out of the washer and into the dryer.

I got him. Just when I pushed the last coin into the slot, this guy came around and was pissed, of course. But hey, it´s me, I know how to fight.

This morning I had the feeling that a cold is coming up, but it might also be the aftermath from last night, which was very short.

So I wanted to have a relaxed day somewhere and went Geocaching in Omiya. The weather was fantastic. And still there are some leaves on the trees remaining, which are now beautifully coloured.

Three years ago I didn´t attend this festival, because the 3rd of december, when the festival is held was a monday. Mondays usually involve work. But this time everything seemed to fit.
We finished very early that day (15:30) and this gave me enough time, to head back to hotel on my beloved mama bike t get a quick rinse at the Onsen and then heading towards the station.
I was supposed to meet some of my colleagues there, but somehow we missed each other. Didn´t matter, since I rather spend my time alone somewhere than in a group with colleagues. Don´t get me wrong, I love company, but I want to have people around, whom I like, not with whom I work with. Actually there are some colleagues which I would have loved to take on tour with me, but those guys were not here at the time.

However, I arrived in Chichibu. At the time I was still looking for AJ, who should have been to the same festival, but when i stepped outside of the station, there were more people than I would have ever expected. Soon I realised that there are even an uncountable number of foreigners on the streets. No chance to find her anyway. So I gave up.

For the festival I had the same strategy as always in japan: Follow the crowd and if you don´t like what you see turn left or right. It worked again. After a couple of minutes I witnessed one of the floats being prepared for the parade. When they started to move this colossus the drums started to play and the people began shouting. Just like a japanese festival I thought ;-)

I further followed the stream of people, when I realised that my stream was outnumbered by the people coming my direction. I love being different, so I continued my way. The street was getting more and more crowded and to both sides of the streets food was offered. Not always japanese style as the following picture shows. A british guy selling turkish Kebap at the chichibu night festival in Japan. Later I found several more Kebeap places in chichibu. Maybe these guys were the japanese Kebapmafia.

After sighting another float, I decided to turn into the next street, as there was more food to come. The next street turned out to be a very small one to my left side. Less crowded and it appeared that the people living n this street had their own private festival. The offered homemade soup, their handcrafted stuff and they all seemed to have their own party. When I was passing by a rice shop I stopped for a seccond, because in there were a couple of gyus enjoying themselves. One was playing the guitar another the flute and two other gyus were singing and dancing. I watched them a couple of blinks. And then the wanted me to come in and join them. Alright. This was the best decission during this evening, to join their party.
I played some songs for them as well, although I didn´t play the guitar at home for a long time. However, they appreciated my attempt to rock the street. It turned out that the rice owner was Haiku-Poet while another one was a painter who lives part time in Paris. Later on their wifes joined as well and was just great to talk to these guys. The have known each other for more than 37 years. With my little japanese and their pretty good english and french, we managed to have a really good time.

Much later, one of them was distracted by some people outside the shop starring through the window. My colleagues. The picked up another two seventeen year old boys (from denmark and switzerland) and one of them saw me sitting inside the rice shop drinking wine and chatting. They were invited as well and so we had a pretty awesome time.
Eventually, when we left the shop, we went ffurther down the road to the place the rice shop owner recommended to me to watch the fireworks. It was amazing. I have never ever seen such a deeply moving atmosphere during a firework. Imagine hundreds of people on the street, chatting, singing, being normal. Then suddenly the first effect in the sky followed by absolute silence on the street. Everybody stopped just watching towards the sky.

Last Sunday I went to Takasaki. I didn´t know what to expect.

Just in the morning I asked my good friend Google for help. The pictures of Takasaki did suggest that there must be a statue somewhere. Asking google earth and geocaching.com did reveal that this statue is even connected with a geocache. Alright, this was my plan.
Actually, Takasaki is underrated. I like this town. It´s not very big, not very busy, but still has everything which is typically for Japan.
But see yourself:

This morning I was going to work b bike like the days before. Something was different today. Normally I meet a lot of people during the ride. Most of them are pupils, going to school, one guy is always preparing his truck for the day, he´s polishing the chrome bumper and at the recreation area the old people are setting up their special course in which they will train for the next few hours. Every morning I see the mother waving to her childs when she´s leaving home, the old guy in the garden who takes care of his leek plants, the one woman who brings out the trash.
Nobody ever pays attention to anything what I´m doing or where I´m going. Unless today. At one of the balconies at the apartments I pass every day, an old woman was waving and smiling. She looked so happy. I´m not sure if I´m already part of her daily scene, when she´s on the balcony watering the plants and I have no idea if she waved at me the days before as well and I just didn´t recognize it or if this was the very first time. It´s a good feeling to know that somebody recognizes me.

I thought the blues got me already on the first day here in Japan.
The feeling that life is worthless, that there is no fun, that nothing makes sense. Yes, I felt like that yesterday already. I know that this feeling comes in Japan. It will hit everybody someday, but on the first day?
Today I did whatever I could to escape this terrible trap. I was successful.

But why have I been so depressed already? I don´t know for sure, but I have my suspicions.
However I´m over it. I had Gobo salad, garlic bread, an hour in the Onsen and in the Sauna and I rode my bike in the pouring rain. LG- Life´s good!!

After the disaster from the last time, I tried to do everything right this time. The good thing is, i did not end up in prison, like the last time. The bad thing is, it took almost as long as three years ago.

After a fantastic breakfast with the californian angel, her husband and the cutest little american boy I´ve ever seen, I went to the airport to return the car. The drop off fee I had to pay. They didn´t even want to discuss.
The american immigration officiers were this time very nice. Maybe it was because I was not travelling with a muslim?! However I had the great honour to experience a body scanner. Not sure if they have stripped me on their monitor.
I also had the great luck to travel with Delta. OMG. If you have ever travelled with Ryanair, then you can imagine how this 11 hour flight felt like.
But I was lucky. I had one the first seats in the economy class and therefore I was out of the plane almost immediately. I made my way to the japanese immigration office and guess what, I was the 3rd person in the lane. Then I was turned back, because my immigration form was filled with a red pen. Japanese immigration likes black. So I had to refill everything. When I was finished, at least 50 persons had queued up. So I had to wait and wait and wait.
I picked up my luggage and merged the two bags, which I split before, to avoid excess luggage, into one.It was quiet hard, because I had to remove almost everything from the big bag to get my sleeping bag and the therm-a-rest into the right position.
The next big step, was to go through the customs. I had the choice between an ugly man, who made two girls to unpack everything, and two other nice looking young ladies. Ok, I went to one of the ladies. She was impressed, that I could understand her question, although I didn´t answer them in japanese. But I guess this made me suspicious. When she then recognized that I departed from SanFran, as a german citizen, she made me to unpack e-v-e-r-y little thing. Of course the check was done very quickly. I didn´t even had dirty underwear in there. But the packaging again took ages. She then felt sorry with me and started to sort my pants into the bag, but when it came to the sleeping bag she withdraw. She called for backup, so another guy came over to help me to get the bag closed again, which was a hard job. If everything is packed well it´s easy, but not if a japanese woman inspects your underwear.
I finally made it through there as well and ended up in the arrival lobby of the airport. Eventually I also found the cashmachine and purchased a ticket for the skyliner.
When I figured out that the skyliner even has a power socket at every seat, I was brave, a real hero so to say, opened my laptop and started to type. Until I saw the perfect possibility for a selfportrait with a japanese couple.

The last entry in this blog was published almost exactly 2 years ago. At this time I didn´t know if I will ever continue with this blog, as this was thought to be my notebook during my stay in Japan.
Two years nothing happened, I stayed at home, no travel activities whatssoever.

Now I´m on the road again since the 5th of november and a LOT happened. But wait, we start from the beginning.


The original idea was to be away from home for six weeks, while one week was covered by some training class in Portland followed by a week of vacation and another four weeks in Japan.
The week of vacation I wanted to spent in between Portland an SanFrancisco, going down Highway 101. Instead of chosing hotels I wanted to couchsurf. This was the plan.

However things have changed and I exented the first week of training by another two days. Which would give me just enough time to go down to SanFran, see the californian angel again and say hello to my bike fellows, which I haven´t seen for 4 years now. To get at least some experience with the couchsurfing I had a look at the map of Oregon and figured out, that I haven´t been south of Portland yet. Eugene sounded fun. So I placed a couch request a for a couch somewhere in Eugene. At the time I had no idea waht exactly I was expecting.
I have no idea why I have chosen exayctly this couch. The only thing I remeber was, that another guy from Eugene area also had a couch available but he described himself as a kind of fanatic christian. No thanks.

The couch I wanted to surf was hosted by agirl and her roommates. Since I get along with women always better then with any group of men, I thought this might be it. Request placed, request accepted and so I made my way down to Eugene the one weekend, not knowing that this will change my life.

I arrived at around 10:00 at the place, but I think we agreed on meeting around lunch time. I was early I knew that and I felt guilty, but I thought I give it a try and rang the bell. What I didn´t know, my lovely host just returned from a nightshift a couple of hours before. I screwed up.
To make the story short, we had nevertheless a great day together. I got to know her father, have seen where she grew up and I enjoyed her company. The night was kind of short. We went to bed around 2is, ifd I remember correctly and I was awake at 6am again. I said goodbye the day before and made my way back home, in the assumption I would have the possibility to go back Highway101. Howerver, fortune was not on my side. I rode my car along the streets of Oregon for 1 1/2 hours to end up in fornt of a sign which said that the highway towards the coast is closed. Damn it.
An alternative route would have ment another 4 hour drive, to get to the same place where I almost was. So I decided to go back to Portland and call the day a day. After 5 hours in the car I was tired enough not to have any strange ideas anymore. I slept most of the day.

What a surprise the next day, when N. added me as a friend on facebook. I was really surprised. I think I was surprised, becaise the day before we had some discussion about the meaning of friends in Facebook. Not that I didn´t like her, so of course I added her.
Over the next couple of hours a new plan developed. Instead of being in the car for 12 hours on wednesday, I could already go down to Eugene on tuesday and go from there to SanFran. Which is then only a ten hour drive.She liked the idea, I liked it, another couchsurf attempt was on. Deal.

So I cam to Eugene and it happened that this was also the birthday of Sheryl, a chinese exchange student. The evening was awesome. After dinner, we occupied a place in the Diablo's, a Karaoke bar. I had never done it before. It was fun, but I sucked, hat´s for sure. However, I sang with N. the Oregonian angel "Losing my religion" it was definitely fun. Yes, alcohol was involved as well.
The night stretched out quite a while and I don´t remember that I had any sleep at all.
Hundreds of thoughts ran though my head and I wasn´t sure myself if I tried to catch up on things which I might have missed before... Not sure.

The morning was odd. I had so much fun in the night before that I would have loved to stay longer in this bubble of happiness and joy. I just had the feeling that the time we spent together was not enough to say everything which should have been said, unlike the last time with the californian angel (https://wakuwakudokidoki.blogger.de/stories/1044520/) and so she left to work and I got into the car to make my way to SanFran.

Luckily it was only a 9-ish hour drive, but still long enough after this very short night.
I hate my sentimentality. When I saw the first couple of familiar thing in the bay area and when I smelled the water, I had tears in my eyes. It was like a coming home.

Nu ist sie weg, meine geliebte Cindy.

Nach Japan, wo ich endlich wieder das Haareschneiden lieben gelernt habe, hat sie mich in die deutsche Handwerrkskunst eingeführt, obwohl sie noch in der Ausbildung war. Und nun? Verlassen.

Gestern wollte ich einen Termin machen: " Nein, die arbeitet nicht mehr hier." "Ja, wie? Warum denn das?" "Weiß ich doch auch nicht, wollen sie stattdessen einen Termin bei jemandem anders?" "NEIN, danke."

Sie war die Einzige, die es mit japanische Sorgfalt aufnehmen konnte und einen Kurzhaarschnitt inkl. Fasson gänzlich OHNE Rasierer hinbekam. Ein Harrschnitt bei Ihr war wie ein Kurzurlaub im Wellnesshotel.

Schade, nun krieche ich auf Knien wieder zu meiner Vorjapan Hairstylisten zurpück, der mit dem Rasierer besser umgehen kann, als mit der Schere. Vielleicht werde ich ja aus Protest ein langlot´scher Bombenleger.

der Leberfleck.

Da habe ich mir doch tatsächlich gestern bei der Feinjustage meiner Radschaltung den Leberfleck auf dem Rücken durch eine äußerst dusselige Bewegung aufgekratzt, sodaß dieser fast schon abfällt. Eigentlich sollte ich da nicht traurig drüber sein, aber Sorgen macht man sich ja schon.

Nur jetzt ist Wochenende, Notaufnahme ist für den Fall übertrieben und so warte ich wohl bis morgen um dann den Dermatologen meines Vetrauens aufzusuchen.