While it’s pretty clear what the poster’s trying to say, I thought I’d make an English version for anyone interested. (Click image for full size.)

The overseas media has been, by and large, both delayed and inaccurate concerning things here. In the best cases, they’ve poorly worded things in such ways that it sounds like dangerous levels of radiation have reached Tokyo (they’ve not). In the worst cases, (do I need to even clarify that it’s Fox News?) they’ve listed a night club in Shibuya, Tokyo, among the nuclear power plants in Japan.

Most of the information I’ve been sharing has come thanks to the tireless efforts of a few bloggers and journalists in Japan who really deserve gifts of sports cars once this whole thing is over. Here’s my list of places to get info (mostly twitter – sorry about the weird twitter links, but I wanted to make it easy for people who don’t usually use twitter).

Sandra Barron

@sandrajapandra

NHK News (in Japanese)

@nhk_news

NHK Streaming Video in English

Time Out Tokyo

@TimeOutTokyo

Michael Gakuran

@gakuranman

and his blog with live updates here

Matt Alt

@Matt_Alt

Ambassador John N. Roos

@AmbassadorRoos

Nicholas Coldicott

@coldicott

Roy Berman

@Mutantfroginc

You can also follow me, though it will be mostly retweets of the above and failed attempts at humor

@BalloonCat

A few weeks ago I caught the first suggestion of autumn. It was like a little suggestion of truth tucked between the sentences of a lie. There was a hesitance to the wind, an inconsistency to the heat. The sun seemed to be glancing slightly way. But it was still hot enough feel my shirt sticking to my back. I still couldn’t quite catch my breath in the humidity. Summer really hadn’t given up yet.

But this weekend, I’ve finally been able to pull out and dust off that old adjective, “cold.” I also pulled out all my warm weather clothes. Right now they’re sitting in a few piles around my room. Some are waiting for the wash, others for dry cleaning, and all of them are waiting for me to have some spare time.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in the frozen north, but fall clothes are my favorites. Maybe its the warm hug of sweaters of the swish of vinyl jackets. Maybe its the way girls tug, sometimes nervously, sometimes with excitement, at the bottom of their sleeves. Or it could be because I’m colorblind and fall’s earthen tones are easy to coordinate. But my cold weather wardrobe is by far the largest, and even in summer I wear jeans and shirts with the sleeves rolled up. In a time I can’t remember, my parents tell me, I used to protest shorts and short sleeves alike. Maybe it’s some kind of complex?

This morning it was rainy. It was a cool, horizontal rain that fell sporadically enough to have just beem water blown off of buildings nearby. Today, for the first time this year, fallen leaves were more abundant than rain drops. But now the sun is setting behind the only cloud (albeit a large one) in the sky. The light shining on the houses and briges passing outside my train window is white and clear. It’s unhindered by the dense humidity and haze that have clogged the air since June. It’s definitely time to head out with my camera again.

The actual period of colorful, falling leaves barely lasts two weeks here. Compared to the summer in this part of Japan, autumn is like the swift, accidental touch of someone handing you your change. It might be over before you notice, but it’s something your whole body reacts to. And sometimes, it’s exactly what you’ve been wanting.

Notice: I am posting this with absolutely no attempts to reread or edit—which means that there are mistakes.

I knew as soon as I stepped off the bus that I might not be making the best decision. The driving, relentless winds of Lake Chuzenji below weren’t blowing over the Senjo-ga-hara marshlands, but the bite of a high-altitude winter stayed. Locals chatting with the bus driver when I got on about ten minutes earlier had commented on the unusual warmth of the day. But having just come up north from Yokohama, I was still adjusting to the difference. And really, Senjo-ga-hara was about as far as I could get from the crowds of Yokohama without abandoning civilization altogether. On that day, I was the only person stepping off the bus at the entrance to the SCENIC WALK ACROSS OPEN FIELDS (as it was named by a nearby sign).

To the west, dark clouds pushed heavily at the top of a row of low, green mountains. The forecast had called for rain, but the day had been sunny so far. Now I could see that the clouds were trying their hardest to satisfy that forecast. I decided that I would go until the rain started and then turn back to the bus stop. My camera bag had a rain cover, and with its hood up, my coat was better than any umbrella, so I wasn’t too worried.

Some months before traveling to Nikko, I had seen pictures of the Senjo-ga-hara walkway in a tour book I had bought (the same book which was tucked into my camera bag that day). The walkway consisted of a pair of narrow, dry-looking boardwalks elevated above the marshland. In the few pictures I had seen, the boardwalks, like two twigs floating through a great, green universe, seemed to only exaggerate the lack of a significant human presence in the area. I was expecting to find them in this same condition but with the cosmos bleached white. But really, twigs are such small things.

The beginning of the SCENIC WALK ACROSS OPEN FIELDS was just a dirt (I assume) path beside a narrow little stream. The snow here had been well trampled, and I walked along easily, snapping photos as I went. One of the walkers who had preceded me had been wearing snowshoes, and being from Michigan, I laughed what I considered an unnecessary precaution. Someone else had brought a dog along for a walk. The sun was still shining brightly, though even at two in the afternoon it was a good way through its descent toward dusk. Behind me, I could hear cars and busses passing over the wet asphalt. A bird flew in front of me and stopped on a branch not far to my right, on the other side of the stream. Even though I could see the impatient clouds through the leafless branches overhead, they seemed far and unimportant. I smiled again at the idea of someone walking there in snowshoes.

Before long, I came to the boardwalks. Actually, what I came to was a denser collection of footprints that seemed to be about the width of one of the boardwalks. No one had cleared the snow from them, and all the people had come before me had chosen to pick their way along only one side. Still, it was easy enough to walk along, and I passed an older couple who were heading for the bus stop with little trouble on the path. For a while I let go of my camera and looked at the scenery around me. The marshlands were mostly an empty stretch of pock-marked snow dotted here and there by little bunches of trees. I was just emerging from one of these bunches when a little rest area appeared beside the walkway. It had picnic tables and a raised platform at one end.

As soon as I tried to step away from the walkway into the rest area, my foot sank to about my knee into the snow. From there, I was careful to follow the footprints of others over to the raised platform where I could try to dig the snow from my boots. When I more or less had the snow out, I got my camera ready. I was facing north, and to my right, the volcano Nantaisan sat like a cat in the sun. Unlike the lower mountains opposite it, Nantaisan was framed by a poetically blue sky. When I turned back to the boardwalks, I made a discovery about the footprints I had been following. A light rainfall the night before had “softened” those from the previous day (anything before that seemed to have disappeared longer ago than that).

Just beyond the rest area, the walkway curved to the left, toward the low, cloud-wrapped mountains, and started following a wider stream (I say “wider stream,” but in fact it was the Yugawa River which feeds the huge expanse of Lake Chuzenji). It was scattered with downed trees capped with snow and little islands framed by ice. About the time I came around the curve, I passed the second and last person I would see in Senjo-ga-hara. Coming at me was a tired-looking photographer with at least two top of the line cameras and at least two huge bags of equipment. A tripod was strapped to his back, and he barely glanced at me when I greeted him. He carried one of his cameras by its strap, and its expensive zoom lens hung just inches above the snow. I probably gripped my own camera a little tighter.

I was only a few paces beyond the unfriendly photographer when I accidentally stepped between the two boardwalks for the first time. Happily, my camera hung around my neck so I was able to use my hands to catch my self. And then I used them to once again scoop as much snow as I could from my boot. It was also at this point that I noticed a drastic drop in the volume of footprints. I noticed that Snowshoes had been here as well, though walking in the opposite direction. After that first fall, I spent more time watching. I was growing accustomed to the landscape around me, and the drop in prior travelers made finding the walkway a little more challenging.

The path of the boardwalks sometimes followed the Yugawa and sometimes strayed away from it into the marshy stretches. For a while, the twin boardwalks were replaced by a single, wider walkway of much newer-looking wood. Twenty or thirty minutes had already passed since I passed the SCENIC WALK ACROSS OPEN FIELDS sign, putting me about a quarter of the way along the path according to my tour book’s estimates. The dark clouds were still arguing with the mountains, but they seemed only a little further across the peaks than they had when I had stepped off the bus. I pushed on with the new plan that if the rain came now, unless it was a terrible downpour, I’d push on for the remainder of the SCENIC WALK to it’s final checkpoint, Yudaki Falls.

Eventually, the larger boardwalk split apart again, and I found myself near another rest area. I stopped here to survey the scenery, but it was essentially the same as what I had seen earlier. Before me, the snow was dotted in spots where it had sunk into the marshland, and the landscape remained mottled with leafless trees. A few of these, I saw, would be leafless year-round. I guessed a fire must have happened sometime, and I was reminded of Yellowstone Park where skeletons left by the great fires there in 1988 still linger within the living forest.

While at this rest area, I looked again at the rain storm. Though it seemed to be moving mostly north and staying beyond the dark, eroded summits, I noticed that a greater amount of clouds seemed to have poured over in just the last few minutes. I tucked my camera into its bag and wrapped the rain cover over the whole thing. The bag I have is a sling bag, but it has a second strap which locks everything into a tight Y across my abdomen. With everything secured and my hands free, I took to the snow-covered boardwalks with extra energy. I felt like, by continuing on with no other people around and just a hood and old boots to protect me, I was challenging the rain, daring it to come to my side of the mountains.

For a while, I kept this energy and confidence. The path continued in the open, travelling between the marshland and the Yugawa. Actually, I was walking briskly enough, despite a few minor slips off the wooden path below the snow under my feet, that I grew a little thirsty. I hadn’t packed any water, so I brushed the top layer off the some snow beside the walkway and packed a ball of the clean white powder beneath. I munched on this as I walked, and the cool, clean freshness of it was invigorating.

Then suddenly, it seemed, the path left both the Yugawa and the marshlands of Senjo-ga-hara. It sloped up a bit into a forest of thick old trees. On either side, the trees’ fallen cousins drooped softly under collections of moss and snow. Beyond the looming trunks, the storm had finally stretched a hesitant tentacle over the sun, and the shaded light through the forest canopy cast a surreal, pale green glow around me. I became quite aware that I was the only person around, and as I looked down to find my footing, I found that the number of my footprint companions had dropped significantly. Now I could really only see Snowshoe and maybe only two or three other sets of boots that had been through recently. I briefly toyed with the idea that coming out here had been foolish. But I also realized that I was already closing in on the half-way point. I decided that turning back would really be no different that moving forward except that lure of new scenery wouldn’t be there to inspire me.

As I followed their footprints into the trees, I wondered how the people ahead of me had known where to step. There were no differences I could see in the snow over the boardwalks and the snow beside them, and I didn’t see any signs of people probing with walking sticks or doing any thing else of the sort. Much of the time, the fact that I wasn’t sinking in was the only evidence that those people had even followed the boardwalks at all.

Presently, the path returned to its sporadic flirting with the Yugawa. Even more trees spanned the river now, and here where the trees’ shade had protected the snow from the sunlight, the scene developed a monochromatic quality. The snow stood thick on the downed trunks and branches, but it had melted enough to stain them nearly black with wetness. I looked up at this scenery when I could, but more and more I found I had to watch each step I took. I realized that some time ago I had grown envious of Snowshoes and figured he or she was somewhere laughing at me instead.

I don’t remember how long I continued this way, but I do know that both of my feet were completely soaked with snow that had fallen into my boots and melted when I started noticing other tracks. The first set of animal tracks I saw were those of deer. A small, shaggy sort of deer live in the Nikko area—I had seen photos of them at a nature center earlier in the day—and their footprints were much more petite than those I had known growing up in northwest Ohio. Their prints were also much rounder. I smiled a little at the idea of deer following the same walkways as people, especially when, later, the deer tracks went up and over a wooden bridge made four tourists to the area.

But another set of tracks gave me different feelings entirely. Much as I was doing my best to step in the same, sturdy-looking snow where the hiker before me (despite the boardwalks, moving through this area really was hiking with the snow all around), this new set of tracks had done the same. However, these tracks were in the shape of big round pads with five pinpoints at their front. I had scene “beware of bears” signs once or twice since entering the SCENIC WALK, but I hadn’t thought much of them. Now I really felt alone and far from bus stops or locals chatting about the weather.

I found myself grateful for my solitude in one way, though. I’ve heard before that the key to avoiding bear encounters is to be noisy. So, being utterly alone, I began doing things like clapping, talking to myself, coughing unnecessarily, and singing and whistling. Eventually, I settled on whistling because it took the least effort (and, honestly, if I had come across another person on the path, I’d rather be found whistling than doing any of the other things). And of course, I settled on the best tune I could think of for the circumstances:

In Japanese:

Feeling a little apprehensive and a little excited at the idea of running into a bear, I followed the clawed footprints along with the others. Eventually, though, the tracks I was following became extremely minimal. The bear’s tracks had faded away without me finding him (or, as my darker fears had imagined, the remains of his snack, the previous traveler), and all that were left were Snowshoes, another pair of boots or two, and the occasional signs of somebody having used a tripod. I began falling between the boardwalks repeatedly and actually began to wish they hadn’t been there in the first place. Around me, birds still were chirping as they had been since I had left the bus, but the sunlight had grown even dimmer. The rain hadn’t started, but I began thinking about the fact that Japan’s winter sunset happens around four PM. That meant that if I didn’t continue to keep to the predicted two-hour travel time along the SCENIC WALK, I might not reach the end of the path before sundown. Invisible boardwalks and wandering bears were bad enough when it was light out. Ignoring the water buckets my boots had become, I started to move faster. I fell more, but hurrying seemed worth the price.

Yet for every plan there’s an obstacle. The one that greeted me next at first seemed like a gift. As the path squeezed between the river and a slope, the boardwalks suddenly jutted another half a foot higher from the ground and now stood clearly visible above the snow. However, they were topped with their own considerable white mantles, and their precarious location made the consequences of slipping much greater. If I fell to my left, I would slip down into the river, where the altitude and the season would combine to give me a real risk of hypothermia. Luckily, I was able to keep all my falling to the space between the boardwalks. This saved me from the river, but not from pulled muscles and banged-up shins. The raised height made the walks more visible, but it also made a fall between them a much more significant thing.

Then, after a few sets of slippery, snow-covered stairs, I rounded a bend and came to a place where almost all the footprints disappeared. Snowshoes seemed to have made his or her own path, and the only other consistent pair of boots had taken a different path. Before me was a stretch of wholly untouched snow. For these situations, someone had tied pink ribbons to tree branches where the path was unclear, but that didn’t help me see where to place my feet. Yet, as I looked ahead, I noticed some unusual patterns in the snow. I still don’t know if I had finally become able to read the snow better or if the boardwalks’ presence was just more visible at the surface here, but I was able to walk almost without falling until coming around another curve in the path.

Suddenly I could hear the Yudaki Falls. And, after looking in their direction, I could see a building through the snow. But here I was presented with my final challenge: two equally unappealing paths. One snaked around and around before finally reaching the building. It looked perhaps a little more reliable, but it put much more emphasis on SCENIC than it did on ACROSS. The other set belonged to none other than good old Snowshoes. But the straightness of Snowshoes’ path suggested that it was really only a path for someone with snowshoes. I tried it anyway, deciding that any more snow in my boots at this point would have been like trying to get a bath wetter. As I forced my way through knee-deep snow, I wondered what the other path might have been like.

Nevertheless, I reached a gate next to the building I had scene and sloshed through a puddle of melted snow to a snowy road pressed hard by car tires. The building looked like it normally housed a number of little snack shops, but they were all closed that day—not surprising for a Tuesday. I stumbled down the road and found myself at a little deck at the base of the Yudaki Falls. The waterfall was not extremely tall, but it spread like an apron from its top to its bottom, and the sound and cool air welcomed me like clean, loving hands. I pulled out my camera and tried to take some photos, but I was to worn out to concentrate on my settings. Mostly I just wanted an excuse to stand around there.

As I walked away from the falls and up the street to the closest bus stop, I passed some other people. But in fact, they barely registered in my head. I had been in the company of only footprints for the last two hours, and living voices and the color of human faces came to me like hallucinations. I walked on to a stretch of slush-covered pavement and realized that I could tell if the squishing sound of my steps came from the slush or the soggy mess that my socks had become. My back, too, was almost equally wet, but with sweat. Souping my way uphill, I realized I had scared off the rainstorm—it never did make it over the hills—by drenching myself better than it ever could have.

I’m sad to say that I’m not surprised this blog has not been more successful. But, unlike many other blog writers, my daily life is just that to me. I wake up, eat and take a shower, go to work, and then come home to sleep. On my days off I take walks or meet friends. Every now and then, like this last weekend, I travel off to somewhere like Kyoto.

Sure, there are interesting moments. Coincidentally meeting two different mutual friends of an only friend in as many weeks. Unusual students. My daily exposure to mind-bending fashion styles.

And there are lonely moments, too. Seeing my reflection in the train window and the moment of surprise when it doesn’t look like everyone around me. Visiting tourist spots populated by young couples and laughing families. Cold rainy nights.

But overall, I just don’t feel inspired to write about any of it. The pure joy of arranging words alone doesn’t move me enough, it seems. Thanks to a friend, however, I’ve come up with a new twist to the old Japan Walker formula!

As you may remember from all those months ago, the system required readers to send specific ideas for possible destinations. Now that I think about it, that was perhaps a little too much work to still consider you “readers.”

The other day, that friend challenged me with a photography scavenger hunt. So I thought, why not use the same system to bring J-Walker back to life?

You send a scavenger hunt objective, such as:

• A burned out bulb
• Someone sweeping
• An unusual reflection of yourself
• Something floating
• (Original ideas, please!)

and then I’ll go and take a picture. The resulting adventure will become an entry here on J-Walker.

For now, leave them on the suggestions page!

I thought I’d fill the gap with a look at grocery shopping here in Japan.  Here’s what my last grocery bill looked like (prices in Yen):

• 2 ears of corn—–379
• 1/2 lettuce—–150
• 1 liter of orange juice—–188
• 6 slices of rye bread—–290
• two bananas—–112
• 1 liter of milk—–265
• Kellogg’s cereal—-298 (and the box is about half the size of a box in the US)
• (different cereal)—–298
• ham (5 slices)—–188
• pepper jack cheese—–266
• gouda cheese—–266
• salami—–474
• 10 eggs—–188

Total: 3530

The other night, I was standing at a much less-used entrance while waiting to meet my friend, Ayu. At that entrance, on a Monday night, it might take ten to fifteen minutes for 100 people to walk through the sliding glass door (though another few hundred might pass on the sidewalk). While waiting, I busied myself with watching those people as they went about their business.

One person who walked into the station was a long-legged little girl probably about ten years old. She was wearing blue jeans and a salmon-colored shirt. Her hands were gripped tight to the straps of a light-blue backpack. And just below her home-cut bangs, her eyes were red and streaming tears. (click below to read more after the cut)

She was alone, and I wanted to ask what was wrong. To me, her face very clearly said, “I’m lost.” I remembered making the same face when I couldn’t find my own mother once in the tiny local supermarket of my childhood. I can’t even try to imagine that same feeling among the hypnotizing crowds and endlessly flashing lights of Shinjuku. Evening was close, too, and the night in Shinjuku brings out mobsters and loud-talking high school dropouts. They’re not really a threat to a big beardy white guy like me, but I would hate to face them as a ten-year-old girl. And I realized that a big beardy white guy like me might seem equally threatening to that ten-year-old-girl. So I said nothing as she passed by, half-dazed, into the station.

Still, I was concerned and wanted to make sure the girl got help. After she went into the station, I watched though the glass to see where she might go. She moved out of my sight in the direction of the Odakyu Train Line help desks. I went back to people-watching.

But then, probably less than five minutes later, she came walking out again. She was still crying, still gripping her backpack, and still lost. I watched as she made her way to a pillar beside the entrance to a sort of shopping street which doubles as a passage to the other side of the station. I thought for sure someone would notice her there. Also, between us, there was a young woman about my age who seemed to have just finished work. She was typing away on her mobile phone and glancing up from time to time as if waiting for someone. I tried to catch her eyes and nod to the crying girl. Eventually, the young woman started walking toward the pillar, but as she got close to the girl, she simply stopped and went back to typing on her phone.

As I waited for Ayu, I kept an eye on the girl, all the while hoping that a policeman, station employee, or even one or the city’s many elderly crossing guards would walk by so I could ask him or her to help. If nothing else, I thought, Ayu could say something once she arrived. Surely, though, someone else would notice the girl and help her out.

People often describe the citizens of the Kanto region as cold, with Tokyo (possibly even Shinjuku) as the heart of the freeze. Eye contact is rare and seldom friendly. People here bump, crash, and stumble around one another without a word or glance. In my small, quiet neighborhood, two passing people will only exchange greetings of they’re already acquainted. A cheerful konnichiwa to someone would be met with awkward confusion and an eagerness to get away. Even old ladies on the train will happily body-check someone (me) out of the way to win an open seat.

But I disagree that its coldness. Even the mobsters and drop-outs, if they’re not busy, would probably be kind and helpful to the lost little girl. Most people will turn in things they find, and items like dropped gloves or hand-towels will often end up on the top of a nearby post or bench to keep it off the ground until the owner returns.

I think instead the people here are cursed by a strange sort of nervous, fearful shyness. When faced with a complicated or stressful interaction, like an English lesson placement test, they usually approached the situation with an almost panicked demeanor. They blink rapidly and avert their eyes even more than usually. They stammer. They adopt an expression of nearly child-like simplicity (often with mouths hanging open). And when they pass someone in trouble on the street, they walk by with the thought that it’s probably safer not to get involved.

By the time Ayu arrived, the little girl had wandered around the corner of a department store nearby. I explained the situation, and we tracked the girl down. She was standing, hands still clamped to her backpack, at an empty bus stop. Her red eyes were locked straight ahead, staring at nothing. As we walked toward her, I noticed that an elderly bus attendant glanced at the girl but did nothing. He wasn’t busy.

Ayu talked to her. She was supposed to meet her mother, but something had gone awry and now she was on her own. Luckily, she had her mother’s mobile number memorized, so Ayu called and explained the situation.

After that, we walked the girl to the police box about five minutes away where her mother was waiting. They reunited without embrace and with only a simple exchange of words. Some might call it coldness, but I think it is something much more complicated and more deeply rooted in societal norms than it is in personality. And though I’m shy myself (and the attitude here often suits me), I think I’ll never be totally used to it.

AFTERWARD:

I later asked a different friend what she would do. She’s from a different region which is usually noted for its citizens’ openness and friendliness. But she said she, too, probably would have only done something if she was not alone.

Today is the last day of my Golden Week—a week of national holidays wrapped around a weekend during which most Japanese people don’t go to work or school. Every store, restaurant, and tourist area is crowded during Golden Week. During mine, I climbed a mountain crawling with elementary school students, burrowed my way through almost unwalkable streets in Harajuku and Omotesando, met a former model at a CD release party, and shared sidewalks with hundreds of Yokohama dogs. But for someone who frequently walks 14-plus kilometers across Tokyo, collecting (if not joining) the varied shapes and colors of people and their things, these experiences have generally fit within the range of my experience. They are the sort of events that wash over me and pass by. In all of them, I feel more like a camera than an actor.

Last night and today, though, I’ve had a glimpse of another world, one that’s given me pause.

Let me start with where I am now. Around me is a panorama of a gray, rainy Yokohama Bay. I can just barely see the Bay Bridge by its bottom-lit support columns. In the bay, a lone dinner cruise covered in lights floats like a rectangular will-o-the-wisp, and to my right, Landmark Tower fades in and out of low, swollen clouds.

Out the window beside me, wicker deck furniture sits in a blue-tiled pool with about an inch of standing water. I expect the water would be there even without the rain. The room I’m sitting in is heated to well over ninety Fahrenheit and lined with rich-scented Indonesian floor mats. I’m in a spa’s sweating room, of all places. This snow-lover and hater of sweat is in a spa.

I came for a different reason, though. About two years ago, I found an artist online named Erika. I liked her music, so I left a little hello on her homepage’s message board. During my last two years of college, I enjoyed watching Erika gain popularity through her site. Finally, today, I was able to see her live, and the venue was this spa’s cafe. After the show, we talked a little bit, and she convinced me to try out the facilities. Besides, I had already paid the entrance fee.

The other people in this room are mostly sleeping or reading. A few are talking softly in small groups. One old lady near me is stretching and grunting while repeating, “It’s hot! It’s hot!” Outside, the lights have come on in Yokohama—the carefully designed lights of Minato-mirai and the orderless, starlike specks of condos and offices. But the spa’s patrons and the evening city are not the world I mentioned earlier. What I can see instead is an opportunity to enter a music world.

Today I made friends with Erika and her guest singer and friend, Sui. Last night I had dinner with a DJ and the organizer of the CD release party from last week. They recruited me, as an English speaker and American, to help them organize a similar event Stateside. (The dinner cruise just passed nearby. It looks splendid.) I don’t know if much will come from any of these new acquaintances, but I like the possibility.

This spa is relaxing, this sweat a good sweat. Entrance isn’t cheap, but I could easily afford visiting once or twice a month. My glasses feel hot when I take them off to wipe my face. My pen is warm between my sweating fingers. This is a new place for me. This music idea, too, is new for me. It’s just a tiny taste, like the hint of saltiness when I lick my lips in here. But still, it’s something. It’s somewhere to go, rather than taking meaningless walks through Tokyo. It’s the small chance of a new challenge.

Let’s see where this road leads!

Squirrel

Originally uploaded by Balloon Cat

I met a squirrel yesterday.
I was in Kamakura with a friend, wandering around and absorbing the Japaneseness of the cherry blossoms and old the old capital city.

This squirrel was eating something crunchy off the ground and didn’t seem to mind me standing nearby. I moved closer a few times, but it didn’t run off. Eventually, it let me crouch down and get some shots with my camera in macro mode.

In other news, I’ve been debating lately what to post, but I finally hit on the idea today. I believe I made an update promise which I didn’t keep, and for that I’m sorry. Anyway, I’ll soon be telling you about my sakura/hanami wanderings. For some of you, those words are a mystery at the moment—clarity will come!

Until my next post, enjoy this little rodent’s powerful stare!