Autumn Struck

like a lightning bolt, quickly and beautifully. It wasn't until it was almost too late that I realized I needed to go out and see the momiji (autumn leaves); lately I've been busier than ever living my dream.

Two days ago...I unexpectedly received a call from Koichan (one of the younger kids in the dance circle - I'm very happy he's there, because he's one of the few people I can see myself hanging out with in the long term who's not graduating and moving in April). Doubly unexpected, because Japanese people don't make phone calls that often. Or at least not compared to e-mailing on their phone, which I'm estimating goes at an average of 20 messages per day per person - I go beyond that more than occasionally myself. So anyway, he was planning a dinner with "a girl I know, Bitawan-san and Purukogi-san [two dancers from the circle I know quite well] (...)" and was wondering if I had time. After I sent three people messages to see if they could move my appointments with them I realized the after-effects of the Zombie Punch were stronger than I thought, having me mistake Tuesday for Wednesday. Cancelled the cancellations and told Koichan "sure!".

The dinner was last night, and it was a blast. Purukogi was replaced by a buddy of Bitawan's (who knew no-one else) with who got along well from the start, and to match the four boys there were four girls, one of which was a co-worker of Koichan's at the trattoria he works at part-time. The others were school friends of hers, some of which hadn't seen each other in more than a year. The restaurant was another one of those places with a very fine atmosphere, like I am starting to believe there are literally infinite of in Kyoto. But our private room could only be reached by sliding down a rope to the basement (in the way firefighters slide down poles) and then crawling through a small hole in the wall, only to end up in something that could definitely double for a treasure room in a movie. Fantastic! Every single time the waiters came or left I was injected with happiness: of course they won't turn their back to you when leaving, so as they say "sorry for having interrupted" while moving backwards through a small hole in the wall...you can picture it, yeah? And when we commented about it to our main waitress, her "oh, I'm used to it" was so honest I wanted to cry. An evening to treasure, and Bear-chan's phone number as icing on the cake.

Back to autumn! Let's blast off with the scenery - I think you're going to have to agree Japan lives up to its reputation in this regard.








I only went for actual "sightseeing" to the leaves once, in Arashiyama (half an hour from central Kyoto), with Momochan (the ex-substitute-bassist of Jungle Mic), whose family lives minutes away from a major sightseeing area. That's where the above pics are from. Below, then, just a couple from Northern Kyoto: the entrance to the shrine next to school, a tree-lined stream a bit more to the North, where I got lost on the way to Ikeyan's university for dance practice, and an urban scene that made me feel quite nice when I encountered it.



Next, some November dancing:





And finally, other miscellaneities, including some older ones:

The bar at which the geisha encounter happened...


Jungle Mic in the lounge area of a rehearsal studio and at my apartment, where we had the first nabe party of my apartment...


My first calligraphy lesson - that means 'tail' by the way - (I sucked)...


After receiving a temporary replacement, before sending out mine for repairs (just heard I'm getting a good sum of money to replace what I claimed to be my irrepairably-broken-by-the-car-crash keyboard, whoopdeedoo!)...


Some famous face...


Ikeyan in a club...


...and of course, various kinds of too-good-to-be-true-I-LOVE-YOU-ALL food...

Blowing up balloons with Destiny

Not that much happened since last week, really ..

.. just kidding :)

*sips powder-made green tea*

After the cute first teacher came the hilariously energetic second teacher. Seriously, between the two of them, they've probably got language education covered as well as is possible. I look forward to 18 weeks of being taught by them. The third teacher I met is much quieter, and the classes are smaller as well, so I fear they might be less inspiring. But the first two are more than enough to keep me going anyway. Tomorrow I get to meet the last of my regular teachers. Enough of teachers...

(damn, I'm hungry and I have nothing, plus the supermarket 10 minutes away is closing in 18 minutes ... I'll just drink lots of tea)

Earthly things aside, every time I stop to think about it, an interesting paradox pops up. More than anything, I feel like I'm fulfilling my destiny. It's fresh, it smells great, but it has a dusty feeling to it, like the word "destiny" itself. It's very motivating - along the lines of .. check this out:

"There is no time or place I would rather be - this very second, today, this year, this life - than this. I realize that, even though all I experience is my personal reality and it can be very hard to imagine other people's realities, any sane person would say I am in an extremely fortunate position right now. I have nothing to complain about (this must be some sort of chemical reaction gone awry, right? If I recall my ethics discussions with Borgir correctly, it contains some deeply rooted egoism), and a lot to be grateful for (this, at least, is 'simply a fact' considering that anyone would say so). Furthermore, these are not just rational observations, but they run parallel to a feeling of deep, dusty, satisfaction."

The paradox lies in the fact that, as far as "destiny" is a tangible something that my head has given shape to, it is truly an indifferent actor. It's simply there, and doesn't care, yet the consequences for me are quite positive by anyone's standards.

Coming back to Earth, I am continuing the decoration and equipping of my dorm because culture shock level 2 is sure to arrive any day now. If I'm REALLY lucky, I might skip from level 1 - Everything Is Wonderful - to level 5 - Permament Chillmode. However, I fear it might not be that easy, especially considering ....

... affairs of love, which I have gotten myself into to an impressive degree, considering the amount of time I've spent in Japan so far. It's the "a little more than a friend" girl from last week (last week's pix). The 'problem' is that we barely know each other well enough to consider ourselves as 'officially going out' (no problem in itself), but we're also hanging out in times and places that show the outside world otherwise (remember, image is very important in Japan). Anyway, she's very busy this week and I have plenty of other things to 'worry' about (fortunately, that word carries much more weight than I have felt for a long time), so we're just going to take it easy for ourselves, and let the outside world consider us as friends in any case.

Last Saturday, another girl that lives around here (sat next to her on the plane, hahaa) took me to a place on the sixth floor of the department store inside the ultramodern Kyoto Station, where we enjoyed the absolutely marvelous tastes of maccha parfait - basically a parfait-style thing with a ton of green-tea flavored deliciosities as well as some adzuki (sweet red bean) and fruity lovelinesses - while overlooking the splendid greyness of Kyoto's somewhat modern urban business center on a cloudy afternoon. After that, I took her to the place where the dance circle I unofficially joined regularly practices (she's a dancer herself as well) so she could check it out (she's studying in Osaka - I'm hoping she can show me the Osaka scene as well). I practiced a bunch with one of the only two housedancers I've met so far, and after practice we went to a Japanese-style Western restaurant with about 15 people. Ate a lot; they were playing a bagful of Stevie Wonder.

And then to Grind, a somewhat popular club around here. Every second Saturday (of the month, I presume) there's a funk/disco/R&B classics night in there. SWEEEEEEEEEET. This night, there were some 10 shows of varying dance styles (including one by two of my new buddies), and for the rest it was basically the epitome of what a slightly pro-active dance scene can mean: I felt like I was in the US in the 70s, except everyone's Afro plus one more length of Afro had been deducted. I still have to laugh of glee when I think about it - almost an entire club's worth of people was locking, funking, souling and popping to history's most classic grooves, having fun in a movingly sincere way. AWESOME. I love these people.

To conclude, two brief pieces of information: 1. I went on an official sightseeing thing for the first time, with my Jordanese buddy. Heian shrine. It's about 100 years old, a 2/3 size replica of something that must have been even more beautiful back in the day. 2. Heated-seat, shower-style toilets are really nice.