Glimpses of Familiar Japan - Retrospective

Recently I posted a journal I had written over the course of my two week visit to Japan.   "Glimpses of a Familiar Japan"  was quite fun to recount and explore.   It is hard to imagine myself traveling to Japan now, strange as it may sound.  It was strange and surreal being there. I wanted to go down every darkened street, see all the lights, taste the food, explore Tokyo.

To explore every facet of Tokyo would take a lifetime, several lifetimes, and the city is constantly changing.   It is very much like a butterfly in that effect, constantly metamorphosing into something even more strange and strangely beautiful.  There are people who have lived in Tokyo all their lives as natives and still haven't experienced all there is to offer.

 Let us not forget that there is a country beyond Tokyo itself.  There was Nikko, Nara, Kyoto.   I never got to see Osaka or Sapporo, never ventured to Kamakura or Hiroshima.

 People who read my journal will notice the obvious lack of one of the most obvious stops on every tour itinerary people take when they go to Japan.  For now, this next part of the journal is me going back and exploring smaller details of each day.  Things I observed, places I saw, general ideas and thoughts about Japanese culture.  I will also draw these experiences back to my book, Kitsune Matsuri, after all this entire trip was partially for my research.

I find it strange that it took me until writing Kitsune Matsuri to go to Japan.  I had wanted to go all my life, and yet I'd never taken the opportunity.  It was always too far, too hard.  There was the language, the crowds, the simple fact I wasn't sure where to go or what to do.  There are people who could drop everything in an instant and go there, and I wish I was one.   If I had the money, the time and opportunity I would.   I would drop all I had and did and go there to write, to blog about my experiences, and hone my craft.

Alas, life is not quite there yet for me.   For now I can resolve to do this retrospective.

Glimpses of Familiar Japan, Day 12 - Part 2 (Fushimi Revisit, Final Thoughts)

Fushimi at night, is a world apart.  As the light fades, the lanterns start to glow and the pathways fall to shadow.  The great gateways and tunnels of tori become a maze of twisting intertwining shapes like the spiders webs inter-weaved among them.   It is a time of spirits, of the kitsune who guard this place.  You see them there, shapes in the dark, fearsome faces and eyes that catch just enough light to make you feel you are watched.   Here and there, candles glimmer, only to flicker with a wind as something unseen passes them.   It is unearthly, otherworldly and totally dark.  

Of all the things we did, I wished we could have captured the atmosphere of evening Fushimi.  No camera could accurately capture it but I should warn readers that the paths up into the mountain are not well lit.  There’s a lot of stairs and jutting stones just waiting to catch you off guard.  It is something to definitely do when you are in Kyoto and I would do so again.  

It was the perfect end to our journey....and we returned to the hotel to rest for a long, arduous return trip the next day.  

This is the end of our journey, the end of my book as well.  At the end of Kitsune Matsuri, my title character meets his kitsune friend at this very font.  This was one of the images that will stick with me.

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The End of the Vacation

It is not easy to leave Japan, and when you do, you leave a part of yourself behind.  On the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto, I looked at our maps and realized how much a tiny sliver we’d truly seen.  Even in Kyoto, Nikko and Nara which were relatively small by comparison to Tokyo, we’d only seen a fraction of a fraction of things I’d wanted to or were there. 

Meiji Shrine courtyard video

If the journey to Japan was a pleasant serene experience though, the Journey home was a sobering, awakening.  Looking back on it now, almost two years later, I can finally reflect on the journey as a whole.

Shibuya crossing video

Japan is a land of mystery, where magic still indeed exists.   The spirits and gods of this land are real, and waiting.  They lurk in the shadows of shrines, behind tori gates, in little alleyways and dark pools.  They are in the trees, in the ground, in the sky and in the people.   The spiritual world is the soul of an ancient country.  Juxtaposed, is the modern nation, with her great skyscrapers bustling streets and gaudy commercial enterprise.   It is a place of rampant change, still searching, yearning for an identity in constant transformation.  

Tenryuji Garden Video

Japan cannot be captured in a picture or through words, in truth, it is as elusive as the smoke that billows from temple censors.  I happened there in a perfect time, upon the crest at the end of Autumn.  My parents and I shared an adventure a lifetime in the making.   We saw such wonders, and yet we know even to this day that there is so much more.  Again and again we look at our pictures, at articles on Japan and we say, “I want to go back.”   

Teramachi Street (Sorry for the weird angle..don't know how to fix it.

I hope to go back and explore different things that I remembered, focus deeper on some of the wonders and questions I now have.  

No idea, but it looks cool

This is not the end of this journal, but the start of new adventures.  I hope to touch on other things I observed, little things about Japan in general and post more pictures.  

Ryuzenji Falls, Nikko

I cannot wait to begin.