Christmas, Nikko, New Year's Eve and The Trip of Losing Things

On Monday, I returned home from a few days of adventuring and trains and fully intended to sit down and do the writing thingy and post photos and generally try to hold onto the head clearing and "why do you waste so many hours watching television, when you could be doing something USEFUL?" that comes with even a brief bout of gallivanting.  Needless to say, my bags still sit half-unpacked and I spent roughly thirty-six hours in my pajamas, barely moving from the same spot - except to acquire more refined carbohydrates/ wine/ cigarettes - binge watching British period dramas.

December was the bringer of endings, it seems.  Several couples/ relationships/ lovers/ fun partners I know have parted ways.  The cycle of my birthday-Christmas-New Years has had me re-evaluating many of my relationships (here I use relationships in a very general sense, not specifically for romantic entanglements) past and present.  It hasn't been the most super fun time, but it has been good in it's own way.  And so, the (slightly redacted - some things nobody needs to read) notes from my journal:

SATURDAY, 24 DECEMBER

Spiced chocolate cake.  Thank you, Nigella!  There were also black pepper gingerbread cookies and a whole roast chicken(I found the last one at Seiyu) that deserved photos but they were in bellies before I remembered.

We had a small gathering of some of the strays still wandering the streets of Sendai at my apartment.  At first, I was hesitant because it seemed like it was going to be me and a group of boys.  I used to think that I was OK with this, you know, cause I'm super cool and hang with the guys just like...well, a guy.  However, a disastrous trip during Golden Week in May taught me differently.  Let's just say that there were tears, a lot of them.  In a combini parking lot.  At 4am.

Anyway, Christmas was wonderfully civilized!  As requested, the boys all contributed real food.  The wine and conversation flowed.  There was only one incident of accidental self-mutilation involving my left middle finger nail and an over-enthusiastic potato peeler.  The roast chicken turned out ridiculously well, if I do say so myself.  The night ended with half an hour of YouTubing dolphin rape videos.

WEDNESDAY, 28 DECEMBER
Whilst clearing out my SMS inbox I discover that I should learn to read my messages properly, when I read a friend from South Africa's Christmas text and learn that a former mentor and someone who helped me out of a very dark period had died, but in the Christmas Eve cooking rush I hadn't read it and four days of bronchitis had interfered with my "I'll read it tomorrow" memory.   Although we had not seen each other in five years, I had always hoped that we would meet again, shoot the breeze, share cigarettes and coffee.

THURSDAY, 29 DECEMBER

The new smoking section at Sendai Station.  A glorious row of people staring out into the distance, like pilgrims watching a sun rise.

An unusually smooth morning in which I leave my apartment at the intended time and in an immaculate state.

For the first twenty minutes, I'm full of : Ah!  The thrill of travel!  Of moving forward and starting fresh.  A psychic cleansing!

Change over #1: Fukushima Station.  I travelled using the Seishun 18 kippu.  Highly recommended if it's the season and you have the time!

But then: I try to read but my head is filled with angry, unsaid words.  I try to write it out, devise strategies, attempt to see the positive.  All the words you wish you'd said but didn't because you thought you were done, but the Words clearly aren't and they waited until you're on the train - the moment when you're Going To Get Away From It All - and they decide they're coming to visit, all the shit that has littered your life for the last six months.  Things you hadn't thought about for a week, now, when you're trying to read your holiday novel, decide to come rattling around and they bring they're extended family too.

Enough with Pain and Anger! I write.  Travel!  I try to focus on.  The cleansing of the system, the getting out of routine ruts and stale boredom.  Waking up and setting off before the world has been used up by other people.  Scaling down your consumerist life to what you can carry on your back.  To feel, physically, the weight of all that you carry with you.  Like when you're hiking: you can only take what you can carry, but the more you carry, the stronger you are when your muscles recover.  The more strength you gain from having walked the more difficult path.

Change #3: Utsunomiya 

How those who do not take the time to travel alone cheat themselves!  The space to think and explore, to pit yourself against The Unknown and realize that it's not as frightening as you thought.  Hiking alone, although generally not recommended, is such a thrill - to have to pull yourself up when the road is hard and you're sweaty and tired and want to turn back; to have to break through those blocks, even when every part of you is screaming, "NO! MORE!";  having to face the experience rather than running from it or distracting yourself.

AAH! Trains!  The best of all travel!  Invented at a time when the idea alone must've blown people's minds.  Granted, I do have an affinity for steam punk, but the clackity clack!  Fast enough to be efficient, slow enough that you have time to absorb the distance you are travelling.

We're up the mountain and I feel like I could be anywhere, watching the purple haze of winter forests and villages below, ears popping and locking with each whistle as we enter a tunnel.

Nikko is just too lovely!  Yes, I got lost because I relied on my shitty map from the lodge where I was staying and ended up walking 40 minutes in the wrong direction from the station.  But!  I saw a steakhouse called Enya that made me laugh and the air is full of wood fire smoke and the calm of Hogsback.  I think that the smell of wood fires will always have a hold on me - all that bliss on top of a mountain with Ruby.  And here I have brought myself to the opposite end of the world and lost my hat along the way.

Book into the lodge.  Bunk beds: the top is such a hassle, but how you gonna choose anything else?

Nikko Park Lodge.  Super highly recommended!  Great food!  Great fireplace!  Don't trust the online map.

A wonderful vegan dinner by the fireplace.  Mr S and I always complain how difficult it is to get good, wholesome food when travelling in Japan, but Nikko did not disappoint.

My head continues to jabber through the evening.  I try to sift what are other people's issues and what are mine, what are the things I need to work on and some resolutions are made. 1.  Need to speak up earlier about things that bug you, instead of hoping they'll magically right themselves, 2. Giving people time to digest what you've said, 3. Acknowledging want you want and deserve in relationships rather than judging and trying to suppress, 4. What people DO should be assessed before what they SAY

Again, I try to read, have some cozy Claudine Time by the fireplace, but, well, replay the paragraphs above about thoughts and their extended family.

The walk to the temples.

A nice chat with a Frenchman on a cigarette break eases the inside of my head.  Also, I totally scored the dorm to myself for the night.  Can I get a whoop whoop? (This actually happened both nights.  Double whoop whoop?  Whoop Whoop Whoop Whoop!)

FRIDAY, 30 DECEMBER
A morning of gaudy temples and people taking pictures of all the same things.  Mr S's words drift up through the mess, "You're so afraid of being alone that you accept shitty relationships, which, because you eventually realize are not good enough for you, leave you alone."  For someone who thought that they were totally cool cool with Aloneness, these words from a few weeks earlier came as a shock. So, amongst the shrines and cemeteries, a solution presents itself: embrace being alone, learn to love it hard and deep, and realize that in it you are both totally alone and not.  That way, you don't have to settle for second best in any kind of -ship, hoping that it will lead to love.

I think I'm all shrine/ templed out!  But, slowly, the heart is feeling lighter and the thoughts cleaner.

These temples are crazy!  Hoards of people, boxes where you draw out lucky charms -  the pre-mechanical vending machines, everywhere!  People rolling their 100 yens into collection boxes before the statues of gods.  When did they all get so poor?  What, no money, no luck?  At first I thought, "Shrines are expensive to maintain.  All that gold!"  But, it's a National Heritage site and you pay over a 2000 yen to see all the main spots.

People waiting in line to take pics of the famous monkey carvings.  Google them and you'll get better pictures than these people did.

Red Jacket Girl is taking pictures OF PICTURES of the monkeys 

Man!  After a while, no matter how glorious, shrines and temples all start to become a bit samey.  Though, I'm sure the people who lugged massive blocks of stone and wood up the mountains, or who spent years carving and painting might disagree.

One of them, Fu...something something, though, had a completely different atmosphere.  So much more fun!  There were old timey games and a wall full of hearts, prayers for love, I suppose.

Sacred tree where people were praying.  The green sign is an add for lucky charms that YOU TOO can own.

Had a great second lunch in a tiny restaurant covered in Thank You notes from around the world.  They were cool enough to seat two women at my table, because there wasn't one free one for them.  The Thank You notes are fascinating, like all those people taking photos of things that they could easily find better pictures of online.  That need to leave your mark.  Some proof THAT YOU WERE THERE.  That your existence mattered in some way.  That you did something, went somewhere and even when you go home, there is a small part of you there still.  Did I mention that I had been reading "Slaughterhouse Five" on the way down?

Futara-san Shrine, my personal fav

Later that night, back at the lodge.  Oh my god!  I'm watching two deers walk through the trees, maybe 5 or 6 meters away from me.  And now, they're gone.


I took two pens with me on this trip.  The first one ran out of ink.  I lost the other one.

An impractically big sword

Your luck in a vending machine

The Shinkyo Bridge. 

The awesome thank you note restaurant

SATURDAY, 31 DECEMBER

JR Nikko Station, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright

Waiting for my first train to Tokyo.  I appear to have lost my water bottle.

The trip into Tokyo was pleasant and generally without incident, except for Purple Jacket Man at Tokyo Station who bumped the wheels of his rolly bag three times against my ankle.  The last bumped me into an on-coming bag.  He barely "Sumimasen"-ed past as I cursed myself for not turning around and not "What the fuck"-ing him, a bird flipping being my only small revenge.  But then, a station person of importance ran after him and berated him loudly for what he'd just done and all was right with Tokyo Station again.

Check into the capsule hotel.  It's not somewhere I wish to spend a lot of time, but charming in a sleazy kinda way.

I had bought a pen in Nikko due to the previous loss of the others.  I lost it sometime on this day.

The Golden Donut at Kinshicho Station

MONDAY, 2 JANUARY
Well, New Year's Eve was what it was.  An OK dinner at Alcatraz, drinks at a standing bar, debate with Mr S if we should go to the pre-organized club or not, ended up with "Yes" after being coaxed by another one of our party, awesome train ride to the club (seriously, I think the train rides on my Tokyo party nights have been the best part of every time there - beer buzzed and still full of hope before you reach the OK, but let down, of the PARTY!).  Reveled in the pretentious fun of the club for a while.  It reminded me of all the shmodel clubs in Cape Town that I hated when I was there, but made me giddy with the easing of a little "Aaaah Home!"  Somewhere around 3 am I started spiralling into Anger and Sadness and left in a pool of tears and self-pity.  While I was waiting for the train, I hung out with a rat trying to eat a plastic bag, then ended a friendship that I'd been trying to make work for the better part of a year, but being some one's warm blanket has never been my style.  Get back to the capsule hotel and try to cry as quietly as possible.

Most of what I was able to capture of Alcatraz

The New Year is rung in with a raging hangover and a not-worth-the-calories-burger.

On then, on the train home, a realization and culmination of weeks of searching: the source of so much of the recent sadness - the sadness for the person who decided/ believed for so long that this was all she deserved in Ships; cool people, that were awesome to hangout with, but careless and selfish.  This was a wee bit of a shock to someone who considered themselves to sooo not be That Kind Of Girl.  And I cried again on somewhere between Tokyo and Ustunomiya.

It was the trip of losing shit.  Ruby and Mr S would probably say of "letting go".  Mostly of pens.

The Capsule

And, because it's the Year of the Dragon 

HAPPY NOT-QUITE-SO-NEW NEW YEAR!