Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe

I'm three days into Japan and typing this on a Japanese Mac which has the punctuation in weird spots and is probably going to make this a little incoherent. The reason for this trip is that my cousin is getting married on on Sunday to a lovely Japanese woman name Yuka. I'm here visiting along with my parents. Until the wedding our days are being filled with an intense campervan ride around the country. I arrived on Monday and we didn't have much time to do anything except drive to Kyoto and book into an intensely traditional hotel. We had to take off our shoes and kneel on the floor for dinner etc. which was fine by me but my dad didn't seem to appreciate the strain on his knees very much, and I got the most severe pins and needles of my life after about twenty minutes and had to resort to cross-legged stance. We saw a guy walking the streets tapping a piece of wood which is apparently a reminder to be careful with fires. This seemed quite strange until the tour the next day when most of the city that we saw was constructed of wood and quite condensed - a big fire would decimate the place easily. Kyoto seems to have resisted westernisation and is really beautiful - kind of a time warp and pretty eye-opening culturally. We visited several shrines, temples, and gardens. I had my fortune read - this was done by shaking a barrel full of sticks and removing one from a small hole which I appreciated as it seemed to be a bit more honest about the lottery nature of these things. The stick had a number on it that corresponded with a slip of paper with the fortune on it. My cousin translated it for me and he says I got "supreme good luck" which is supposed to be the best one - I'll have a long life, be happy in my career, and most importantly perhaps, my career will satisfy my wife. Good news. There was also a fountain coming down off Mount Kiyomizudera that had three jets shooting over a balcony. You can drink the water from this by standing underneath the balcony and sticking out a kind of tumbler on a pole. You're only supposed to drink from one of the jets as they magically make you either more intelligent, better looking, or give you good health. I went for the good health one as I'm kind of satisfied with my intelligence and I feel more unhealthy than ugly most of the time. It seemed like a bit of a laugh but some people obviously take it seriously - I saw one woman filling up what looked like a 2 litre bottle with water from the "beauty" shoot. My mum saw this as well and said she considered yelling out "you're not that ugly" at her. Would have been awesome if she had but then again they seem a bit sensitive about honour and stuff like that here so maybe not.

From Kyoto we went to Osaka, which is totally different again. MASSIVE - 6 million people which I think is actually smaller then London, but London doesn't have the sprawl of skyscrapers and lights to show for itself that Osaka does. Nor the dense smog covering the city. We had dinner with the boss of the brides father at an ultra fancy restaurant. It was unlike any Japanese food I've had before and I have to say it tested even my usually adventurous tastebuds. I can't really describe much of it because I have no idea what is was, but the presentation was impressive and the sake was good. Also the desert had gold dust sprinkled on the top of it. Mine had formed the shape of a horse which I interpreted as a portent of good luck, and the locals seemed to agree with me. Today we woke up and did some more exploring and went up the Osaka Sky Building which is the tallest building around (sorry, I'm totally ignorant on the specifics - google it yourself if you're bothered). Really amazing views. Imagine the heart of the Auckland CBD cut out and tiled about a hundred times. I couldn't see to the edge of the city as the smog was thick and the buildings just faded into it in the distance in every direction. From there we came to Kobe. If that's ringing any bells it's probably because Kobe had a really major earthquake in the 90's. Which is interesting because I'm sitting here on the thirteenth floor of the hotel writing this and about 10 minutes ago we just had a bit of a tremor. Nothing major but the glass shook and made some noise and I felt a very definite sway lasting about 30 seconds. Kobe is hot. Really nice clean modern architecture, upmarket types of people and places, very urban, but built on what seems like a relatively small space right between an island spotted sea, and deep green mountains. The hotel we're in is uber-swanky - it's built right out onto the sea (like the Auckland Hilton but three times taller, a more interesting shape, not surrounded by ugly dock stuff and loaded hog patrons). The hotel has its own cruise ship that we went out on for dinner and viewed the city lights from. Fancy.

It's 12:45 here and I need to sleep as we've got another big day tomorrow, but I'll put some more down soon.

Zài jiàn
( 再见)

D.O.

Amsterdam

I know I haven't posted anything in ages. Sorry. I have a proper job now and more going on in my extracurricular activities as well. I just got back from a week in Amsterdam. It's pretty good over there, you've probably heard. I'm going to focus on the shopping angle now though. These are the sweet treats I scored.






Those are all designs by Parra; my favourite contemporary designer/illustrator/artist for quite a few years now. He happens to live in Amsterdam and these are all from the Patta skateshop that's right underneath his studio. I didn't meet him or anything although I did get a proper Dave Grohl recognition from one of the guys in the shop (where it's not a case of "you look like DG" it's more of a gaping "holy shit DG just walked into my shop!" - these are very rare and have been mostly limited to BDO drunks up till now).

Also I went to the RushHour records store, which is an Amsterdam based record label that has an imprint called Kindred Spirits, which was one of my favourites back in my wannabe DJ days. Not quite as exciting as you can buy their stuff in Conch in Ak anyway, but I haven't figured out where to go in London yet so was still pretty cool. Got a couple of nice CD's (would have bought vinyl but there's not much point while I'm living here. They have nice cover designs.

They don't really show up that well online, but they're nice well printed digipacks, and look quite nice sitting on top of the stereo.

There's a lot more to Amsterdam then this stuff. For example did you know that for every prostitute in Amsterdam there are 3 Argentinian Steakhouses? Neither did I before I went, but it's totally true. Also there's no such country as Holland - that's actually the name of a region of the country of the Neverlands. And "Dutch" isn't really the name of the language either - only English speakers call it that. I can't remember what it's actually called but I tend to take the line that English speaking countries are generally right about everything so I kind of switched of when that particular cheese-head was whining at me. Also if you like smoking dope apparently it's the place to be. As I don't I didn't. But I could tell how stoked the people who were into it were by the awesome t-shirts - "Take me to your DEALER"!!! Hilarious. Also it's a brilliant city for riding bikes in. Actually I'm being really useless because I was there for a whole week and there's heaps to say but I'm way to lazy to bother, so I'll just say that Amsterdam is totally sweet even if you aren't into hookers, gays, or drugz. If anyone wants to go again sometime I will totally come with you, I've even got the hookup for a really nice place to stay now.

I'm going to Japan on Saturday for a week. I'll write about that as well. Then I'm moving into a rad converted warehouse apartment right beside a canal at the arse-end of London's trendy Shoreditch (I think it may actually be Hackney). Everything's coming up Milhouse.

PS. On the subject of hookers; they actually look really lovely sitting in their little red windows, and it was particularly difficult not to stare at them as I walked past. The B&B I was staying in was next door to a brothel with three windows, and across the road from one with four. The girls on the other side of the road were a lot younger though, and yesterday I saw one of the girls leaving next door sans-redlight and she looked pretty hagged. Was kind of sad. I'm not so into paying for sex though, although I do always end up paying for it if you know what I mean for crying out loud ("if you know what I mean for crying out loud" - this is a great way to end a joke. We went on a bus tour and the guide taught me it). Anyway the moral of the story is that presentation is key.