Sitting on the beach, in the dark. I’m watching the foam of the waves because that’s all you can see. A crab scuttles past, and I write “Ghost crab” in the sand, and return to the silence. The water has carved a gully in the sand, and dried up kelp has piled there, being austere. I see an unusual dead fish in it, and crawl up to examine it, but what I took to be a trumpet fish is just a spine with a tail, though still pretty. There is an angular dark shape coming out of the sand, and I realise it’s the fisherman’s cleaning table I remember from when I was a kid. A tap still pokes from the sand. Archaeology.

I’m enjoying the mood of sitting in the the yellow lamplight, but wonder whether the moonlight would be better. It’s a beautiful moon but I like where I am.

A dog runs up out of the darkness. I’ve always been a little bit afraid of dogs, and a this dog seems ownerless. I wonder if it’s a stray, or feral, but it has a collar. It’s just me and the dog under the light.

It comes quite close, and unsure of the threat, I panic a little, kick sand and stand up. It’s a black and white dog, with a narrow snout and sharp teeth. Friendly looking, but makes me think of dingoes and foxes. It barks cheerily, and runs back and forth like it wants me to throw a stick.

“oh” I sigh to myself, “You’re a playful dog…”

It skitters around a bit, and I smile but do not sit down. It jumps the gully and pricks its ears to a sound I cannot hear. Perhaps its owner is coming. It runs back to me and barks, but the tone is different. Maybe you’re not a playful dog. It barks again and I kick sand. We circle. It runs up the ramp and barks at me, then comes back down with menace. We circle, I wonder If there are other dogs behind me. There are not. We circle, and I back slowly up the ramp. It stands still and menaces. The crest cuts our eye contact. The tension breaks, and I run home through the moon.

So I’ze is sitting on the beach eating a sandwhich, hoping the milk doesn’t go off, when I come across a sleeping pelican. Usually, they sit up on the lamp post or sail through the water or fly low over your head looking imperious and wise. But this is the first time I’ve ever seen one sleeping. Funniest thing I’ve ever seen.

That is all.

Toby is sick. He has a fever. It is hard for him to concentrate. He saw a doctor the other day but fever continues. It is hard for him to sleep. Blanket on blanket offblaketonblanketoffblanketonblanketoff. His jaw hurts and he is dizzy occasionally. he has washed his clothes too many times..

and beautiful dreams

and horrible dreams

This is how I am spending my time in japan. But learning a lot about myself, through fever dreams.

I just completed a journey both perilous and mundane. Still sick and fragile, I have to change hostel, have to gather my posessions together and undertake the terrible journey to a few train stops away. It is daunting to me. Trying to remain calm, like a wounded king on a litter, I go forth into the cold. And disaster strikes, there is more than one station called “Shijo”, for it, I now understand, is not a suburb but a street…

Defeated, but with no choice, my generals converse. My demoralised army marches one foot after the other down the long road. but strangely, they do not lose hope, do not fall prey to dysentery and despair, but almost feel better for getting the blood flowing. for moving, even if prematurely, after being forced still for so long. A giant metal peacock watches me dispassionately. The road is longer than I thought…

and then the hump in the road? the bridge! the landmark I seek, over glorious river, I breathe deep. minor obstacles, a slow moving couple a heavily smoking man, and then the sign of the new hostel, and tremendous, overarching joy.

And the hostel is cool. It is Toby as a building. I am happy. I hope I heal enough to enjoy it to its full extent. But if not oh well. This trip so far could be described as a disaster in some regards, but I’m still learning a lot.

I spent today at the Ryouchi-koen open air museum of Japanese farmhouses. Good wholesome fun. They`ve gone and taken roughly 12 traditional farmhouses from all over japan and moved them here. Thy`re pretty cool. It`s not the most amazing place in the world, but it was just…nice. Really nice. Run by a bunch of old chatty retirees too. An old lady near a defunct kabuki stage said she liked my shoes and gave me a lolly, while an old man built bamboo benches. And spent a long time sitting with another old man by a fire, talking in intermittent japanese and english, and boiling a kettle for purely aesthetic reasons. There was even a tiny, half abandoned shrine, where someone had placed a pretty green leaf and a few chestnuts, and I added my own pretty red leaf.

I dunno, though I wouldn`t tell anyone to cross the world to go there, it was just what I needed that day. After rushing around finding your feet in strange lands, it`s medicinal to sit by fires with old men, and wrap yourself in fragrant smoke.

“SHOT BAR, ”4th AVENUE”
BEER 700 yen I WANT YOU”

As my new hostel is practically in Gion, I have seen quite a few Geisha. Only it’s kind of hard to enjoy, they get hounded by flocks of tourists, both japanese and foreign, wanting to catch a glimpse of one of these Queens of the Exotic. I tried to keep a respectful distance, watch them from afar, but it became apparent that the crowd in front of the Geisha house would be there with or without me, so I went for a closer look.

But the best look I had wasn’t a closer look, it was a brief one, of her face in a taxi window. Floating past, in transit between two other worlds, briefly touching this plane. 

She stares into the distance, lips pursed…

It’s a broad, shallow river, ankle deep and clear. Herons fish there, but being so still against the moving water they don’t look real, but blue-screened in, a special effect. I could be rushing around seeing shrines and temples, castles and kabuki, but instead I sit by the kamogawa river and think both deep and shallow thoughts.

I hear a clatter, two beautiful women have dropped a camera and are fussing over it. I’m on the verge of asking if they are okay, but they move off, chittering, and I go back to the river.

A shrill female voice is echoing bodilessly over the water, it’s probably some spruiker for a department store, but it’s easy to imagine that it’s the river talking to me. There is a slight change in the light, and a rainbow blooms in the eastern sky.

I continue walking. cross the bridge, and hear flute music. A columbian looking man is busking two metres above me. The crickets start. 

I can see inside the building on the opposite bank. On the ground floor a man sits turned away from me. On the second a woman in a kimono changes a light bulb, and a man in a yukata is doing something with curtains. On the third a couple share a romantic dinner. The fourth and fifth are vacant. A slightly chubby japanese teenage girl runs up to me, says “hello” and runs away.

I love this river.

I’m listening to a busker by yet another shallow stream. Honestly, this city is full of canals and streams and little bridges. It has a very venetian feel. Before, I saw the back door of a restraunt, open dierectly to the river. An old woman was chopping inside, with the warm light, two steps from the rapid water. Buckets and pot plants could not have been stacked any more haphazard or quaintly beautiful.

And the stream is full of sculptures. Boxes and lights and carved things and underwater banners, and there are lanters and willowy branches leaning inward. A woman in a green coat brushes past, with tears in her eyes…