the International Manga Museum, Rokkaku-dō, and Nishiki Market

A few quick messages before we begin:

1. Yes, I'm a day late with this post. Sue me. It's humongous. And I spent last night down at the Gecko's Terrace Restaurant inaugurating myself into the Shooters Club with an Alabama Slammer, a kamikaze, a mudslide, a yak's milk, a turkey roaster, and a Dr. Pepper. I was a bit too busy to blog.
2. I've told you only a teency bit about the prices and cost of things in Japan: admission fees and whatnot. I have not, however, told you much about the ancillary costs. By that I mean bottles of water (¥105-200), which I bought about once every three hours to offset the gallons of sweat I was shedding in the Japanese climate; snacks (¥110-400), stuff like onigiri (rice balls) or gimbap (yes, they had that in Japan) or sandwiches (which actually didn't suck) purchased in convenience stores; meals (¥800-2500, depending on whether I bought it from a snack stand or a bona fide restaurant), and so on. Just know that in between all the Big Crazy Things I Do In Japan there's a lot of small stuff like munchies and agua.
3. I was in Itaewon (the foreigner's ward of the Yongsan borough in central Seoul—remember?) yesterday and I happened to find myself in a bookshop. I picked up something by Bill Bryson. Now, Bryson's reputation as a grammarian is well-known and well-deserved. However, I had no prior experience with his travel writing. Even a superficial glance at his book In a Sunburned Country revealed him to be a humorous and entertaining writer. Looking back over my Japan posts, I've had the feeling that something was slightly off; now I know what it is. The writing's boring as hell. I need to make my posts funnier. So that's what I'll try to do from here on out. 
4. We're in Kyoto now. It's August 4. I just got off the Shinkansen from Tokyo. It's about twelve o'clock in the afternoon.

Let's settle the bet right now: I'm a geek. I'm not going to apologize for it. Geek is the new sexy. That's why we have TV shows like The Big Bang Theory. It's the reason people who've attended Comic-Con more than once in their natural lifetime haven't been burned at the stake. It's why my mother finds William Shatner attractive when he's in a Star Trek uniform (or rather, the tattered shreds of a Star Trek uniform).

Thank goodness for this new liberalism in the way geek culture is viewed! Five years ago I would have sneaked out of my 14th-floor hotel room in Kyoto with a knotted bed sheet, crept down to the International Manga Museum in the dead of night, paged through a couple of issues of Barefoot Gen, and then hightailed it back to bed and never uttered a word about the affair to anyone. Now I can stand up and boldly tell you about it.

The word "manga" belies any pat definition. You could say it's Japanese comics and graphic novels, but it's more than that. It's a culture. Hardcore otaku (fanboys) wait in lines to buy the next issue of their favorite manga; animation studios make obscene amounts of money turning these comics into animated TV series ("anime" for short); the merchandising industry makes a crap-ton of yen making and selling figurines, posters, lunchboxes, trading cards and other paraphernalia featuring popular characters. In reality, the anime and manga craze is a super-cult of unapologetic geekdom and sanctified nerdiness which has spread across Japan and the entire globe. From its humble beginnings in Japanese newspapers in the early 20th century to the truly massive pop culture monster that it's become (just look at Akibahara, for Pete's sake), manga and anime have become mainstream in Japan, and are rapidly becoming so everywhere in the world. You'll find manga sections in every Barnes & Noble in America. Companies have sprung up in Canada, the U.S. and Europe concerned with nothing else but translating these comics, light novels and cartoon shows so North American and European otaku can get the same kicks as their Japanese counterparts.

You wouldn't think it to look at the International Manga Museum on Karasuma Street in Kyoto, though. It's actually quite humble.

The main building is to the right and in the background (behind the netting which surrounds the open field in front of the entrance).

The resemblance to an unassuming public library didn't stop at the door, though. Photography wasn't permitted inside, but I can tell you that the museum was full of long linoleum-tiled hallways, creaky wooden staircases, glacial elevators, dark-stained and nicked wood paneling, and shelves piled high with faded and dog-eared but still colorful manga books.

It was also full of people. Some were foreigners, like me, making a pilgrimage to what they assumed would be a Manga Mecca; but most visitors were Japanese, young and old alike, sitting on any available flat surface and perusing their favorite titles. There were some English information brochures, but all the placards and posters inside the museum proper were in Japanese. There was little for us foreigners to do but peruse the photographs and the newspaper headlines detailing the meteoric rise of manga to international consciousness, and gaze with thoughtful but uncomprehending eyes at classic issues. I wound up tiptoeing through the halls like a guilty ghost, feeling like I was intruding on a fan club's private session in a public library. I wound up paging through a few issues of Barefoot Gen and then sneaking out.

It was time to stop indulging my rampant inner geek and start actually exploring Kyoto. So, on my way back down the main drag, I took some random pics:

Apparently a few green trees and some mountains in the background is all it takes to make me start liking a city, especially after the urban jungle that was Tokyo. I found myself growing fond of Kyoto within the first half-hour of strolling through it. It just seemed calmer, quieter, less pretentious and...well, greener. I like green. Green is good. We desert rats try to find green everywhere we go. That's why I like Palm Springs so much. More golf courses than Scotland.

I stopped at a Family Mart convenience store for some water and snacks and couldn't help snapping this picture.

If I'm not mistaken, the foreign stuff's on the top shelf (obviously), and all the bottled (er, jarred) sakes are on the lower shelves. Quite a better booze selection than any Korean pyeonuijeom, yes sirree!

Outside the Family Mart, I noticed this sign:

Well, who'd a' thunk it? A Buddhist temple just a few meters away? Why not?

Unlike at Zōjō-ji, this time I managed to get a pic of all the golden shinies in the temple proper. Score!

The hand-washing well-basin-cistern-thingy. Nice dragon!

This was Rokkaku-dō, so named because of its hexagonal shape ("roku" is the Japanese word for "six," so I'm assuming that "rokkaku" is the word for "hexagon"). For such a tiny temple tucked away behind Kyoto's main drag, it actually has some startlingly profound claims to fame. It's part of a pilgrimage route, for one thing. No big deal, right? But then I found out that Rokkaku is believed to be the birthplace of ikebana.

Ikebana, you uncultured swine! The art of Japanese flower arrangement!

And in fact, there was an ikebana equipment shop across the road with all sorts of shears, knives, scythes, and other dastardly instruments in the window. I'd have taken a picture but I was afraid the owner would come out and shank me.

While at the temple, I had the chance to rectify my previous mistake at Zōjō-ji. If you'll recall, I didn't cleanse my hands before tossing in the coin and praying, which probably caused the Shinto deities to install some hideous disfiguring illness in my future. This time, at Rokkaku, I did everything right. I washed my hands, tossed in another hundred-yen coin, rang the bell (there was a bell at this one), prayed, and clapped. If anything went wrong, it's probably that I didn't ring the bell loudly enough. At least the gods would just find me merely inaudible this time around, instead of downright offensive.

A few blocks back down Karasuma and a left on Nishikikoji Street brought me to Nishiki Market. Like a lot of Korean and Japanese markets I'd been to, this one was an arcade, or shōtengai: a narrow street or alley covered by a roof (and the occasional glass skylight) and lined with shops and food stalls. I had heard Nishiki Market mentioned several times as one of the best free things to do in Kyoto, and as it was early afternoon and I was getting hungry, I felt the need for a snack. I meandered and weaved down the arcade's central aisle, taking note of the heavy foreigner presence and all the weird and wacky things for sale. I also tried to do some surreptitious on-the-fly photography, but the results were either blurry or zoomed-in too much. I have got to read up about apertures and f/stops.

Fish snacks!

If you know anything about the Vaunter, then you know I tried one of these (a medium-size one, for 350 yen). And it was delicious.

Eels for 650 yen?! Highway robbery!

I followed the market alley until it T-boned into a full-blown shopping mall with name-brand clothing stores (the last two pictures above), in which I have about as much interest as wood pulp. So I turned around and walked back out.

On the way, I noticed a liquor store and decided to go in. I wanted to find out if they had nigori-zake, or unfiltered sake (cloudy rice wine similar to Korean makgeolli). They did, but it was prohibitively expensive, upwards of ¥3000 per bottle. So I deferred and got a bottle of Japanese-brewed Kölsch beer for ¥456. German-style Japanese beer...fancy that?

I found a convenient place in an alley behind a large garbage can to drink it. Having thoroughly researched things like manga museums, raw horse restaurants and pachinko parlors, I had stupidly neglected to find out whether Japan objects to people drinking on the street or not. So I decided to hedge my bets and wedge myself behind a rubbish bin for a brew. It was refreshing and flavorful (the brew, not the rubbish bin).

And that was essentially that. I got back to the hotel room at about two in the afternoon. I checked my e-mails,sampled the two new whiskies I'd picked up at that loaded Family Mart earlier, and researched my next day's perambulations. The whisky helped with the research. Honest Injun, it did.

I figured I'd best get as much of this crap as I can before I go back home, right? You can't take it with you...literally.

Next up: ARASHIYAMA AND TOGETSUKYO BRIDGE. Don't miss it. This is where things get scenic.

Akibahara Electric Town

Day Three of Tokyo, continued:

What do you think of when you hear the word "Japan"? Is it sushi? Samurai? Karate? Giant hornets? 

For me and a lot of other people, it's anime. I grew up in California, and most youths in that state are exposed to a higher degree of Japanese anime and manga (cartoons and comic books, essentially) than somebody from, say, Iowa. I was no exception. Though I resisted the anime craze throughout my high school years, I started easing into it slowly thereafter, and now I'm a full-fledged nut. Why do you think I put a picture of the cast of One Piece up on this blog when I announced that I was leaving for Japan?

Every single one of these characters could mop the floor with you.

My visit to Tokyo wouldn't be complete without a stop at Akibahara (literally, "Field of Autumn Leaves"), located just north of the city center. It's world-renowned as a geek's Mecca jam-packed with electronics stores, shops full of anime figurines and DVDs, and pachinko parlors lit up like Vegas casinos.

A pachinko parlor in Akibahara. From Wikimedia Commons.

I probably should have gone to Akibahara at night. It didn't look so grand in the hazy daylight. Due to navigational error, I didn't penetrate into the very center of the Electric Town, as it's called. Instead I slunk around the edges and peeked into a few stores (including an awesome toy store with Godzilla figurines from, like, the '60s and '70s).

I also stepped into one of the pachinko parlors. This being Akibahara, almost all of the machines were anime-themed. I tried to snap a few pictures, but an employee caught me and signaled for me to knock it off. I did get one shot of this man-size statue of Unit 01 from Neon Genesis Evangelion in the entryway, though:

This means Shinji would probably be about the size of Tom Thumb.

Pachinko, just so you know, is how the Japanese scratch their gambling itch. It's sort of a cross between pinball and slots. You sit down at a big shiny machine with a lot flashing lights, into which you shoot a bunch of balls. These then cascade down through dense clusters of pins. There are no flippers. If the balls go in certain directions, they may be "captured" and more balls may then be released. The more balls captured, the higher your score. Captured balls (no dirty jokes, please) can be exchanged for prizes.

I didn't play, but next time I will. And I won't bring a camera.

Anyway, here are some miscellaneous shots I took while wandering around Akibahara:

The view that greeted me as I exited the subway station.

 

 

I really should have checked that place out...

Should I be embarrassed that I know exactly what series those girls are from, if not their names?

K-ON!, Vocaloid, One Piece...this place is hitting all the right notes.

This was a display case outside that awesome toy shop I mentioned earlier. Batman Lego sets and plastic Godzilla enemy figurines. Geek heaven!

I was somewhat put out by the pachinko parlor incident, and that combined with the scorching heat soon drove me from the area. From there it was on to my next stop: SHIBUYA CROSSING.

But that's a story for tomorrow...

off to Japan!

You know, a measly month doesn't seem like adequate recompense for 18 long months overseas. I mean, Korea ain't the gulag. Far from it. (It's the lime, turkey, bourbon and Mexican food gulag, but that's it.) But I forgot how easy and comfortable it is to live in one's own country, and how much I missed my folks. Now I'm staring down another 18 months in the LTBMF gulag before I can get back to it all.

That being said...I accomplished a lot this month.

Reunion with my extended family at a lake resort in Iowa? Check.

Eating the hell out of my favorite foods, including fleisch salad sandwiches (my favorite food in the whole Universe)? Check.

Reminding my mum and dad what I look like? Check.

Visiting my old haunts, like Victoria Gardens and Barnes & Noble and Total Wine & More (where I picked up a nice bottle of Hendrick's gin, lovely stuff)? Check.

Driving a convertible under a gorgeous California sunset while wearing a Hawaiian shirt and listening to Led Zeppelin on the radio? Check.

Shooting every gun I own? Check. (Dad and I are going trapshooting tomorrow, so we'll get the shotgun knocked off the list. Leave no gun unfired, that's my motto.)

Flying? Well, no. I'm out of currency. But I did stop by the dinky little Apple Valley Airport and see how everybody was doing. Not much has changed. The same old planes are parked out on the flight line, the same grey heads are chatting in the flight school, and so forth. Somebody's 18-year-old son is a flight instructor now. Jeez.

The only things I haven't done, in fact, would be eating at my favorite burger joint (that's also happening tomorrow) and finding my novel notes. I located my Bowie knife, my binoculars and my violin, but I'll be danged if I can find my piles of notes. I must have hid them so well that even I can't find 'em. Oh well. The outlines and prewriting are easy to forsake—as Stephen King would say, they probably aren't worth a tin shit anyway—but there were some lyrical snippets of dialogue in there, plus a few meritorious vignettes. I guess I'll just have to wing it until I come back to the States for good and unpack all those boxes.

Well, this is it. We're down to the wire. I leave on Monday. I'll lose a day traveling west (go jump in a lake, Phileas Fogg) and arrive in Tokyo on the 30th. I'll kick around town on the 31st—the Sumida River cruise, the Imperial Gardens—until Miss H and Miss J get in from Seoul in the afternoon. Then it's DISNEYLAND on the first of August. After H & J go home on the 2nd, I'll journey down through central and southern Japan in the shinkansen (bullet train), taking in Mount Fuji and Lake Biwa. I'll tour Kyoto for two days, petting monkeys and drooling over gold-plated buildings, then hop the train again for Kumamoto on the isle of Kyushu, spending the next 48 hours meditating in Reigando Cave and finding out who's buried in Miyamoto Musashi's tomb. Then it's to Fukuoka and the high-speed ferry to Busan, South Korea.

One of the other cool things about Kumamoto is that it's where Eiichiro Oda lives. He's the guy who writes and illustrates One Piece, my favorite manga/anime. It rather heavily influenced my magnum opus...

After that? For the month of August (school doesn't start up again until September), I was planning on finishing Novel #3, e-publishing Novel #2, and polishing Novel #1. Not to mention learning functional Korean. I really ought to be able to have a decent conversation by now instead of fumbling along like some chuckle-headed tourist.

There's also a humor site I'm writing regularly for now: Rabble Rouse the World. Check it out if you have the time. Ribald jests and laugh-tastic memes abound upon that literary pirate ship. Come aboard, mateys. Arrrrrrr.

I also intend to spend some of August finding all those charming Korean nooks and crannies that I haven't explored yet: Gangwon-do, for example, where the mountains and lakes and rocky beaches are. I just acquired a Canon EOS Rebel T3i, and after a bit of fiddling I'm sure I'll be a master photographer with it. So there ought to be gorgeous pictures of Japan, Korea, and environs pouring into this here blog come mid-August.

Stay tuned. You're in the front-row seat. You can't leave just when it's getting good!

I can dream, can't I?

It's just as well that I haven't been wailing and moaning about the "death of journalism" or the "lack of openings in my field."

My dad sent me an article the other day from U.S. News & World Report.

Written by experienced journalist and blogger Lynn O'Shaughnessy, the piece categorically states that journalism is not dead, and that the popular sentiment (which holds that journalism is going down the tubes, eclipsed by the Internet and whatnot) is just maudlin seepage originating from old-timers in the biz.

By networking, adjusting to new markets and media, and exploring every avenue now available to us (for there are so many more now than there used to be), we whippersnappers can ride high above the economic downturn and the supposedly-disastrous job market.

That was good news for me. I was feeling rather blue.

Sometimes I wish I hadn't been born in the 20th century.

I figure I'd have been better off living in the 17th, 18th or 19th centuries, when vast tracts of the world were still unexplored. When legends like El Dorado and Atlantis and Ultima Thule might just as easily have been true. When the maps were lumpy agglomerations of continents, oceans and half-dreamt islands. When the map-makers still drew sea monsters lunging out of unknown seas.

It doesn't seem like there's any romance in the world anymore. Every inch of land has been mapped and scanned into the satellites orbiting overhead. There are no more lost cities, no more uncharted islands, no more savage tribes, no more hidden valleys teeming with dinosaurs and cavemen. There's no underwater metropolis filled with fish-men at the bottom of the sea. There are no evil wizards to battle, mutants to destroy, dragons to slay, ogres to wrestle, flying horses to tame, zombies to flee, monsters to fear.

The days of adventure and mystery are long gone, they say. Indiana Jones and Saint George have polished off all the monsters and myths. Gone are the times when you could just board a flying boat for South America and trip your merry way through the jungle, linen suit, aviator shades, flask of brandy and all, dark-skinned porters toting your dancing shoes and swimming trunks. No more do Nazi agents stalk the globe, waiting to tangle the unsuspecting tourist in a web of espionage. Never again will Cthulhu rise from the watery ruins of R'lyeh and drive poor honest sailors crazy with fear. Edward Prendick has done his time on Dr. Moreau's island; he's back at home, out on the streets, suspicious and leery of his fellow human beings.

All the records have been broken; all the races have been run. Lindbergh, Balbo and Earhart have flown across the ocean; Barton and Beebe have gone to the bottom; Cottee has sailed around it without stopping. We've been to the darkest jungles, the harshest deserts, the highest mountains, the coldest tundra, the deepest oceans, even the heavens themselves. Attaining the impossible is no longer a job for Everyman. Pushing the boundaries is the office of scientists, engineers and millionaires now. The Wright Brothers built their airplane in their bike shop and flew it on a public beach; SpaceShipOne was developed as a joint venture between commercial interests, was piloted by a 70-year-old astronaut, flew from the fancifully-named Mojave Spaceport, and required licensing from the U.S. Department of Commercial Space Flight. (And it won the coveted $10 million X Prize.)

The good old days are gone, they tell me. In their place, I have to choke down reality, truth, practicality, rationality, pragmatism, tangibility, fact. I can just forget about roaming the world with my trusty plane and notebook, flying high and low and writing about it, living the dusty, muddy life of a pilot-cum-journalist.

To heck with that.

I can dream, can't I?

Most of you already know what I want to do with my life. For a good chunk of my finite existence, I expect to wake up in the morning in some far-flung place, climb into my battered airplane, deliver a shipment (or even a single package) to a deserving recipient, land in some other far-flung place, take out a notebook and pencil, and pen the day's adventures for posterity. Then I'll mix myself a drink and scribble a few more pages of my novel, and turn in for the night.

When you hear the phrase "a day in the life" what comes to mind? Coffee in the morning? Lazy afternoons with the newspaper and some crackers? The nine-to-five? Brushing the dog? Mowing the lawn? Taking the kids out for ice cream?

Probably, yeah. And there's nothing wrong with that. But I'm weird, remember? I seek adventure. Plus I'm a hopeless romantic. And I'm a little too obsessed with comic books.

So, when somebody asks me what MY idea of a "day in the life" would be, I immediately think of THIS:

(Just so you don't get confused, the guy in the red vest with the stretchy arms is me, your humble correspondent. The ugly dude in the fur coat and buckled shoes is the bad guy, trying to steal my cargo or assassinate my crew or block my novel from publication or whatever. Think of what a cool travel article this would make.)

I can dream, all right. Who says I can't? Who says I can't be a globe-trotting drink-mixing book-writing plane-flying travel journalist with his own airline (and novel series)?

If I'm lucky, maybe I'll have a big plane, capable of taking me to all sorts of amazing locales and exotic destinations. And if I'm really, really lucky, I'll have a crew of like-minded misfits with me.

And how happy we'll be, going wherever the trade winds take us, making deliveries, fighting pirates and thieves and raiders, singing in bars and saloons, lying on beaches, exploring the jungles and caves and valleys. And whenever I get a free moment I'll scribble, scribble, scribble. Travel articles, opinion pieces, blog entries, journals, whichever bits of mercurial effluence drop out of my brain.

But no, they tell me. That ship has sailed. Journalism is dead. Gonzo journalism is long dead. The time of the quick-witted, hard-drinking, hotshot cargo pilot is over. There's no way National Geographic's going to let you in. You'll be flying on a grueling schedule. There's a million wannabe travel writers out there, buddy, and you're competing with every single one of 'em. Travel and excitement? You'll never see anything but the inside of your airplane (and the stale white pages of delivery forms). You won't sleep. You'll hardly eat. The weather will be uniformly nasty. You'll work for peanuts. There's no money for travel budgets anymore. The most exciting thing you'll do is talk to air traffic control. You'll be lucky if you don't get kidnapped and crucified. Your existence will be soul-crushing, sedentary, stuffy. We're a bit short on romance around here, kid. You think you'll discover El Dorado while you're delivering 3200 Playstation controllers to Uruguay (and taking notes for your submission to Budget Travel)? Hah!

Oh, get stuffed. I've got a plan. And I'm taking the steps necessary to execute it. I don't care what gets in my way. Bad economy, hefty competition, ugly dudes in fur coats, whatever. I know where I'm going and I'm going to get there. I've got my bachelor's degree in journalism, don't I? And my bartender's safety certificate? And my private pilot's license? And my first novel written?

That's a start. 

I can dream, can't I?

Here's hoping your dreams come true. On December 25 and in 2011, both.

Merry Christmas, everybody, and a Happy New Year.