end of days...

tomorrow morning i leave for china, by way of FORTY EIGHT HOUR FERRY!!!!
I'm not sure if i'll be able to blog from China, because supposedly they block everything blog-related. But check back, because i will have lots of time to write in between bouts of seasickness and baccarat, and hopefully i'll find some sort of workaround. (if you can find a workaround for posting -even if its only text - from china, let me know.
oh, and i went to a sumo championship today in osaka.




bye japan...

nine and a half hours on local trains. (round 2)

Also, because i don't feel like devoting yet another post to unoriginal pictures i have nothing to say about, this pavilion is made of GOLD!!!!

so thats what Meg Ryan's been up to

(she's been selling shitty vending machine coffee in Japan.)

update: woah, she's also selling navigation systems.

japanese design and aesthetics blah blah blah

whatever. Tokyo is making me feel disgustingly inadequate and unoriginal. I went to an after show party for this guy last night, and i felt uncomfortable, self-righteous, and very small. (psychologically speaking - physically i felt enormous, because Japanese people are TINY, and all the foreigners do their best to emulate this via eating disorders.)
But I will say that Japan does have an amazing, hypnotic design sense, almost as if it taps into this primal need for control and order, so that even buying this toy made me feel like maybe my life will be a little bit more in control.


(and yes, it comes with replaceable arms and head, so she can eat ice cream or carry a gun, depending on your mood.)
Where does this attraction to simplistic perfection come from? Is it really primal, or is it a subconscious backlash against modernity? And how come the Japanese are so fucking good at it?
While the aesthetics of food and architecture are amazing, its the toys that i can't get over.... its not just that they're 'cool'... but that they're a form of salvation. Live a life of insecurities and failed expectations, go to work at a job you have no control over - and then come home to tangible, compartmentalized perfection.
What separates toys from food, electronics, or architecture is that from an adult perspective, they are 'function-less.' Or rather, their functionality is limited completely to symbols of order and perfection: you don't play with them, you don't use them in any way at all. They sit their and emit cosmic simplicity, universal order.

i wish i made this video...

It's almost like it was scripted... everyone is so happy and unique and AHHH, Japan is amazing.

kyoto walk

i'll post writing soon, really.

How to invade japan

take local trains.

celebrity sightings

hiroshima

bleh. Hiroshima was overwhelming, and i don't know what to say about it.
How do you approach the impossible?


...clock stopped at the moment of impact.


...and this one floored me.

black guy + talking dog = comedy

they're a big happy family...
who said Japan was xenophobic?

um... cute

the toilette as philosophical muse (zizek shall go unmentioned)

Post #1
Its pretty common to see ashtrays in bathroom stalls outside the US, but Korea is the only place i've been with ubiquitous urinal ashtrays. What's more, they often have lighters in them, suggesting a need to light up directly after (before) taking a piss.


Post #2
I'd like to see a cross-cultural study on the average number of post-urinary 'shakes' among adult males. I'd anecdotally peg it at 1-2 for Americans, 6-8 for Koreans.

Post #3
From Japan, this is truly brilliant...

It directs the fresh toilette water through a faucet atop the tank, so when you flush you can use the clean water to wash your hands before it drains into the reserve tank. Saves water and 2 knob turns.

yet another sign of impending danger

I guess un-calming warning ads aren't an exclusively Korean practice after all...
(tears/flop sweat are apparently mandatory.)

japan day 1

After all my talk about the failure of Korea's restoration/preservation projects, i've been a bit nervous about Japan... I mean, Japan holds such a large place in our mythification of Asia that I'm not sure if one can truly remove themselves from the experienced knowledge that they're seeing JAPAN. Will i be able to "objectively judge" (i.e. judge from my subjective aesthetic values) what i see? Or will i be so psyched about how cool Japan is that i'll just fawn away, much like a reporter covering the Obama campaign? (i try hard to keep my material fresh and topical, fyi.)

SO, with that out of the way, i will say that Dazaifu certainly felt a lot more authentic than almost anything in Korea.



Maybe it was the plum blossoms? Or is it a stone vs wood thing? Or maybe its just a "this ain't Korea so Hell Yeah" sort of thing.

One clear difference is the quality/style of things you can buy around the shrines. In Korea the stalls around historical sights were limited to street food and children's toys like battle axes and squeaky hammers. Random.
But in Dazaifu there were stores with enormous beautiful 3000 dollar hand carved wooden sculptures. There were hand made tea pots and intricate tiny cloth dioramas depicting traditional Japanese life. And these weren't kitsch or tchotchke or anything... at least i can't imagine a handcrafted doll the size of my thumb, meant for a home shrine and costing 45 dollars, being considered 'kitsch.'
In Korea, I found the lack of anything worth buying with a 'cultural personality' strange, but i didn't really hold it against the place. I'm ready to do that now.

Also, Japan has this:


btw, that giant Luke Skywalker riding the Tauntaun is only $29... ebay anyone?

so long k town

... and on to japan.
But theres so much i never got around to blogging about! Like the obsession with the word 'story,' or how flashers are called 'burberry men,' or how you can use hongul to make a picture of a man praying or crying. sigh...
At least i got paid and made my ferry.
AND,
look what i found at the ferry terminal, in a vending machine past customs, literally a foot away from the point of no return...

... and you know what? it wasn't even that good.