A contented mind is a perpetual feasts

Sorry for the long absence faithful readers, all 3 of you, but I have been living the guu raifu for the past couple weeks in my second home, Japan. And when I say "second home" I mean that in the way that the orphanage was a second home to Oliver Twist. Or at least it used to be. Imagine Oliver, all grown, returns to that grey-bricked prison locked in the busy, angry cold of London one day to find all the children laughing, running barefoot and smelling of patchouli, and the nuns strumming guitars and singing Joan Baez. My return to Japan was something like that.

I lived in Japan for almost 4 years, and only two of them had been whole heartedly voluntarily; the last two years were consigned to love and money, neither of which held their market value, and I left oh-so bitter like so much chinese melon, never daring to return and least of all to give Japan a single more red yen. All the time I lived there, I also did preciously little in- country travel, since it would have meant giving my money to the bastard Japanese. The list of things I hated about that country would have covered the circumfrance of Rita MacIntires waist several times around, but I am relieved to say that after a 2 year break, some perspective and a Japan Rail Pass, I am ready to let Japan, causiouly, back into my heart again. Platonically.

I started out at my friend Tanya's place and got the usual ears full of what was going on and how annoying Japan generally is to those still living there. I spent the next day perusing Tokyo for good eats. Tokyo is the kind of city that has so much of everything that is singularly impossible to find or do anything. Take book stores for example, which was another thing I was looking for. Any attempt at hyperbole would be ironically accurate, cause Tokyo has, like, a million book stores, so many that no knows where one is. In my mind, no where should need more than 3 books stores, one for new books, one for used books, and one for comic books and magazines, and perhaps a 4th for all their massive stash of pornography. But that is it. Nevertheless, the city boasts only 5 vegetarian restaurants, and only one of those serves raw food, so I didn't suffer too much searching it out. After I had my fill, I then had to do something with the rest of my day, and the only thing I saw from the train ride in that was large and singular enough to make a good target was the Edo-Tokyo museum. This is the bitch.

It looks like a giant lego tortoise.

As I headed up to the stair case, I had the vague feeling that I had been there before, which was offsetting, because not remembering a trip to a museum, by definition an exhibition house of all that is most interesting about humanity, almost certainly means the museum is duller than King Georges' tomb, and my lack of memory served me very right in this case. Edo Tokyo museum has about as much history and atmosphere as a your average McDonald. There were several displays that were really grasping for the most tenious connections to Japan, as Japan, despite boasting almost 1300 years of civilization, either couldn't or wouldn't fill their museum with their OWN history, and had turned over the main exhibition hall to nothing less than David Bowie! Why? Because he had performed in Tokyo in 1972 and wore some pretty funky outfits. Like this one.


I was way to mature to notice the bulge.

Or perhaps not, because the next stop was the porn shop I noticed right outside of Ryogoku station; entered somewhat accidently as the sign read "book store", catergory 4 obviously. Porn stores with proper toys and things are also bizarrely difficult to find despite Japan's international reputation for perversion, and this one was truly a blessed find. For 1500 yen, I managed to walk away with a "very comfortable item for the woman", the flashing magic eight pleasure. I seriously contemplated grabbing a DVD while I was there, but I had just gotten back and should well have remembered how bad Japanese poor is, all full of eels, "ouch ouch it's too big", and cold cum. I actually ran into a monk upon exiting the shop. Bad karma.

And so ended my first day. More adventures tomorrow. I had pumpkin for dinner, and now to bed.