Hiroshima, Nagasaki

As I mentioned in my previous post, I stayed in Hiroshima for a couple of days. For most, the name Hiroshima calls to mind only the dropping of the first atomic bomb. In Japan however, mental associations are equally likely to include the wide boulevards of the rebuilt city, the popular local baseball team and Mazda cars. Nevertheless, the centerpiece of the city is the Peace Memorial Park including a museum, located in an area that was formerly the downtown business core and which contains the iconic atomic dome of the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, one of the few buildings to survive the blast and subsequent conflagrations.

According to the textbook version of history taught in the UK, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were unspeakably tragic but ultimately necessary evils, the tremendous destruction they wrought being the only means of avoiding an even more deathly invasion of the Japanese mainland. Over the years I've found that many things learnt in one's youth are not so much analysed and integrated into a coherent world view as they are neglected in a dusty corner of the mind, allowed to slumber undisturbed until they again bear relevance. From the reading I did on the subject prior to and during my visit to Hiroshima it seems like the issue is far from cut and dry, and it's hard to shake the conclusion that the bombs were dropped to justify the vast development expenses and to serve as powerfully demonstrative opening shots in the cold war. In my view, Hiroshima and Nagasaki attest in heartbreaking fashion to the fact that, with regard to measures proclaimed by governments as necessary in times of conflict, there is often room for heavy skepticism.

While I stayed two nights in the city, on the second day I took a daytrip with some folk from the hostel to the nearby island of Miyajima, famous for its shrine that appears to float at high tide and with a giant Torii (gate) that rises from the water until the waters recede, exposing its base. After checking out the shrine and a cool wooden temple, we climbed a mountain for some 340+ degree views crisper than a can of Asahi Super Dry beer™.

Pupils (somewhat worryingly) still dilated, I boarded a bullet train for the first, and likely last time, en route to Nagasaki, where I deliberately planned a slightly longer visit in order to relax a bit from shuttling between attractions. It's a pretty great way to travel. I'd say 'get on it Israel' but I recognise that it would be an overreach - I'll settle for literally even the most minimal improvement to the public transport infrastructure.

As with Hiroshima, Nagasaki is about far more than the devastation of August 1945. This is all the more so given that in Nagasaki's case the hypocentre of the bomb was relatively distant from the centre of town. This allowed the harbour town to retain much of its cosmopolitan charm, a legacy of the two centuries during which it was Japan's sole open port and conduit to the outside world.

I did take it a bit slower, but there was plenty to see: the fantastic views of the harbour from Mt. Inasa, the atomic bomb museum and memorial, Dejima (an historical artificial island, now connected to the mainland, to which Dutch traders were restricted). I also enjoyed just strolling around, particularly alongside the Nakashima river, under some of the oldest Western-style stone bridges in the country.

Perhaps the most interesting attraction in (or more accurately, near) Nagasaki is the island Hashima. Popularly known as Gunkanjima (battleship island), due to its appearance from a distance (see photo below) Hashima contained a coal mine and a population of some 5,000 (miners and their families) from the late 1800s until its closure in 1974.All that remains now are the ruins of the settlement, a looming concrete behemoth emerging from the choppy waters.

The tour I took included a landing on the derelict island on which dragonflies swarmed like dogfighting spitfires among the crumbling buildings. Unfortunately, due to safety concerns most of the island is off limits, which is a shame, because it would be a great place to play hide and seek, or better yet, paintball.

One of the items on my informal checklist for Japan was to watch a local baseball game. I've always enjoyed going to games in North America and wanted to see how the experience compares. The sport is extremely popular and sellout crowds are not uncommon, making it unwise to simply show up at the stadium expecting certain entry. Game tickets can be purchased in advance online and at convenience stores but the UI is exclusively Japanese. Knowing the above and with the help of a local hostel employee back in Osaka, I booked a ticket to see a Fukuoka Softbank Hawks, building a one night stopover in the city into my itinerary to this end. I took a train from Nagasaki to Fukuoka yesterday morning and had a few hours to explore before the game. The modern city is large and looks like it would be a nice place to live, but I can't honestly say I saw all that much of it before heading to the ballpark.

Interestingly the date yesterday was the 23rd of August, ten years to the date from the day I moved to Israel on what would become a permanent basis. I'm fairly sure that had you asked me where I thought I would be on the tenth anniversary of moving to Israel, I would have said 'Japanese baseball game, probably in Fukuoka'. Sigh. Life is so predictable.

The baseball game was an enjoyable experience. The familiar is speckled with incongruous reminders that one is not at the Skydome or Wrigley field - fans consuming rice balls and ramen alongside more traditional ballpark fare, crazy 'only in Japan' visuals on the big screen and between innings entertainment and people cleaning up after themselves at the end.

The quality of the game play itself wasn't spectacular. My beloved Softbank Hawks lost 3-2 in a dragged-out game with lacklustre batting. Even though as a rule I'm courageously outspoken on Japanese professional sports, I've kept my silence on this hot button issue for too long and now I'm going to give you all my two Yen. I'm taking a firm pro doping approach with respect to Japanese baseball - I want hits and I want lots of of hits - juice 'em all, I say.

In general:

1. The past week has been more social than the previous two. I'm not sure if it's connected to the cities and hostels in which I've been staying or maybe it just took some time to get back into the backpacking groove as I'm not naturally the most extraverted person.

2. Amazingly, each place I arrive feels like it's hotter yet and even more humid.

3. I discovered a new pocket in my backpack. I'm dizzy with all the possibilities this has opened. I'll be sure to update.

Anyway, as I write this, I'm on a flight to Nagoya, back in the centre of the country, from where I'll move on to Takayama in the Japan Alps. After that I have a few days I haven't planned yet before I'm due to fly to Seoul on the 6th of September.

For those of you commemorating, happy Wednesday.

Love David

The Atomic Bomb Dome 

The Torii at Miyajima 

The shrine at Miyajima 

The Torii at low tide

Stone bridges over the Nakashima river 

Gunkanjima 

Self explanatory 

Entertainment between innings. I don't think this counted points-wise... 

Kansai

As I write this, I'm at a hostel in Hiroshima. I arrived here yesterday evening and have already spent a full day here, but I'll write about that in my next post, for this post is about the previous week, spent in Kansai.

It's been said (by the good folk at Lonely Planet, in gushing prose) that if you had to choose but one region in Japan to visit, it should be Kansai, and I'm inclined to agree. If you seek the ultra-modern and sometimes bizarre urban experience, then Osaka more than fits the bill, while Kyoto and Nara contain some of the country's finest cultural treasures, thus collectively they provide the quintessence of the Japan most travelers are seeking. I stayed in both Osaka and Kyoto, and visited Nara as a daytrip.

Due to the region's valley location, the heat and the humidity are a step up even from Tokyo. Most of the time I felt like a sweaty mess of flesh with sunglasses. Undeterred, I pounded the pavements, blitzed the buses and, er, surfed the subways in an effort to make a nice sized dent into what was on offer.

Osaka is the second largest city in Japan, so it may seem strange to say that after Tokyo it felt a bit laid back. While Osakans(?) are known in Japan for being business minded and a little rough around the edges, compared to the immensity of Tokyo's endless chaos, spread as it is over a number of distinct downtown areas, Osaka was more manageable to navigate and generally easier to digest. Without detracting from the city, there aren't so many things to note here about Osaka. I was happy to roam around the city, but this blog has already touched on the more noteworthy elements of the Japanese metropolis. One cool attraction was a museum that contained a full size representation of a typical Osaka neighbourhood from the Edo period (more specifically the 1850s-60s), with an informative audio guide.

Perhaps my favourite day in the past week was the one I spent in Nara, which is a smaller city not far from both Kyoto and Osaka. The capital of Japan before being replaced by Kyoto (which was subsequently itself  replaced by Tokyo) due to religious clergy involving themselves excessively in matters of state to the emperor's chagrin (I guess some things are the same across time and distance...) Nara contains many temples, shrines and other historical and religious sites, most of which are located in a beautiful park through which tame deer roam freely, captured only by camera lens. Most notably the park is home to Tōdai-ji, a temple that is the home of the legendary Daibutsu, or 'big Buddha', the largest indoor Buddha I've seen in my 28 years by a country mile, and Kōfuku-ji (ji=temple) with its elaborate wood-carved statues and magnificent seven story pagoda (some pictures below). I spent the day contentedly exploring the extensive Park grounds, particularly the less heavily trafficked paths in between some of the busier areas. As a bonus, by chance I visited on one of the days of a 10 day festival in which, come nightfall, glasses containing candles are lit all over the park and the temples are illuminated, to beautiful effect. I felt like a child at a Japanese festival.

Kyoto, where I moved after Osaka, is chock full of historical buildings and monuments. These include some of the most famous Japanese tourist draws such as Kinkaku-ji (the 'golden pavilion') and Ginkaku-ji (the' silver pavilion'). Mentally I had pictured Kyoto as being something like Nara Park actually was, a concentrated area full of all the key places with an 'old city' kind of feel. In reality, Kyoto is much like a regular Japanese city (albeit a smaller, slower-paced city), with the sights dispersed broadly across the city, necessitating a certain amount of legwork.

While I couldn't help be struck by the beauty of the golden pavilion and the carefully manicured sand garden of the silver pavilion, Kyoto is blessed with many visitors (primarily Japanese tourists from other areas of the country) and there is a feeling of being herded through the prescribed route that somewhat diminishes the experience.

Whether I like it or not, my ability to appreciate beauty is affected by the level of solitude and space I have in which to encounter it and I suspect that the same is true of most people. Perhaps not coincidentally, my favourite places in Kyoto were the philosopher's walk and To-ji. The philosopher's walk is a 2km pathway abutting a canal from the late 19th century, and along which a professor from Kyoto University was accustomed to walking meditatively. The trail is appointed with small restaurants and boutiques and leads to many temples and shrines. To-ji posesses the tallest pagoda in the country and an incredible three dimensional mandala (representation of the cosmos) formed of statues, which one is unfortunately not permitted to photograph. These places were significantly less crowded than the golden and silver pavilions and allowed the space and quiet necessary for meaningful contemplation. Nara also had lots of empty nooks and crannies. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't think that anything can be taken in isolation. Beyond the simple spec list of what's on offer at any given place, the total enjoyment I have tends to be derived from a complex mix of factors, from the highly subjective (what was my frame of mind that day, did I have a headache etc.) through prosaic but important objective considerations such as the weather conditions and whether there were throngs of other people.

I don't really think there's a simple solution to this issue. The fact is, we live in an era where there are enough people with sufficient discretionary income to visit places that are, understandably, major draws. Pricing could be used more extensively to regulate demand and keep admissions manageable, but that raises ethical quandaries about the desirability of letting markets encroach on every facet of life (for a far more in depth treatment of this, 'What Money Can't Buy' by Michael Sandel is highly recommended). That being the case, while I don't have a strong enough non-comformist streak to spurn the places I know will be bursting at the seams, if they are universally acclaimed as unmissable (and actually by no means regret visiting the pavilions), going forward on this trip I will definitely try to keep some kind of balance between A-list attractions and less crowded options.

Anyway, I'm not a religious person, at least in the commonly accepted sense of subscribing to the belief system of any particular religion, and obviously that includes the superstitious and dogmatic elements of Buddhism. Nonetheless, the temples I've visited succeed in creating an atmosphere that makes it near impossible to hurry which is no small feat and definitely furthers my own effete, liberal Tel Aviv excuse for spirituality.

Before I leave you with some pictures: At all the temples I've visited here there have been representations of different Buddhas, such as Buddhas for good health, livelihood etc. I've decided to start a new feature 'Buddhas for backpackers', in which I invent Buddha's for matters important to the low budget traveler. The first is 'the Buddha of finding electrical outlets in public places'.

Well, that's all the news that's fit to print. I'm heading down to Nagasaki soon, after which I hope to post again.

Wishing you air conditioning with the strength of one thousand oxen.

Love David

On the river in downtown Osaka 

 Deer roam in Nara Park. It's pretty cool, though, as the saying goes, you can't have free roaming deer without having deer shit everywhere 

Big Dave meets the big Buddha 

Japanese girls wearing kimonos at the festival in Nara. It seemed to be popular among Japanese tourists in Kansai to rent traditional clothing. It would be cool if you could rent full Hasidic garb on heritage trips to Eastern Europe 

The garden at To-ji with the pagoda in the background 

The philosopher's walk

The multitudinous orange gates of Fushimi Inara, and almost as multitudinous photographers 

I hear that the competition was particularly tough in 2014 in the category "2016 Japanese site popular with foreign tourists" 

Bamboo grove in Kyoto 

The golden pavilion 

Mt. Fuji ('the big Fooj')

While I had generally planned to post on a roughly weekly basis, I feel like the Mt. Fuji climb deserves its own post, both because it was a kind of self contained day trip and because there is a fair amount to say and to show through pictures.

As I write this, I have been awake for coming on 40 hours, save for a couple of bus naps and a couple of hours trying to sleep at the freezing summit of Fuji (more on this below). Since I got back to Tokyo at lunch-time and am about to board a night bus to Osaka, it wasn't worth paying for a night's accommodation for the intervening hours. Instead, I spent the last few hours relaxing at a 'Manga Cafe', essentially a supercharged Internet Cafe where you have your own cubicle with a little safe box, there is free coffee and soft drinks and (much needed post-climb) shower facilities are available. I didn't actually sleep on the comfortable chair provided, but it was a great environment in which to keep myself going on a low burner until hopefully crashing out on the bus.

The Climb:

Yesterday (Sunday) began when I checked out of the Shinjuku capsule hotel in which I had stayed for a night, thus achieving both proximity to the Mt. Fuji bus and, much like the Manga cafe, another uniquely Japanese experience in itself, only to an even greater degree. On the face of it, the capsule hotel would even justify a post of its own. Ultimate though, it was more of an immersive experiential thing, so you'll have to suffice with the picture of the capsule itself, below.

The plan for the morning was to take it easy and to gear up for the trip, buying any necessary equipment and provisions and otherwise taking it easy, in anticipation of the long night ahead. Of course in practice everything takes longer than expected and I ended up at the bus station, having missed the bus on which I had originally planned to travel and fairly wiped out from running around in the heat and humidity.

As it happens, it worked out for the best that I got the later bus because I didn't really need any more time than I had at the 5th station, the start of the climb for the vast majority of climbers, and from which I set off at approximately 20.15. Climbing at night, there are not many views, though the stars are highly visible. Similarly, due to the tremendous volume of people who climb in the open season of July-August, there isn't that much solitude either. In fact, while at later stages of the climb I found myself alone for stretches, for much of the climb I was sandwiched between groups of Japanese climbers sprinkled with a significant minority of foreigners. There are even queues to ascend certain narrow passages of the route. The real fun of the climb is to be a part of this kind of surreal moving carnival.

As I mentioned in the previous post, the goal is to reach the summit by sunrise, which was scheduled for 5.00 (and would you know it, showed up exactly on time). The internet said that the ascent can take between 5-7 hours, and I had figured I may want to rest at the stations spaced out over the course, especially because the body's adjustment to higher altitudes can take some time. As it happens the climb was quite easy (there are loads of older people and children who complete the climb, though some don't climb straight through the night, instead starting earlier and breaking for sleep at the 7th or 8th stations), and I completed it in a whit under 5 hours. This left me with approximately two and a half hours until just before 4.00 when dawn would break. I lay on a bench and tried to sleep but was largely prevented from doing so by the cold. I had heard accounts of the low temperatures and winds at the summit, even in August. Though I did bring a hat and gloves from home and also bought a nifty lightweight down jacket for the occasion, I had largely dismissed any concerns from the vantage point of a steamy Tokyo day, in a classic example of the problem of affective forecasting. It was COLD. Half my kingdom for an extra pair of socks! Warming myself with an overpriced can of cocoa from the vending machine (!), a tinny and sickly sweet beverage that at that moment may as well have been the nectar of the gods, I silently cursed my nonchalant past self (and for good measure pre-emptively directed some disgust at my future self in anticipation of inevitable further misjudgements).

As I intermittently dozed on a spartan bench, the surrounding area filled up with lesser human beings, those who aren't such f***ing climbing superstars, and we were all treated to a sunrise the stuff blog posts are made of.

One can walk around the whole crater in about an hour and a half (Mt Fuji is a dormant volcano) and at one point ascend to the actual highest point where there is a sign marking the summit. Many people were photographing themselves by the sign, but I ascended for merely a moment, cooly declining the kind offers of others to capture the moment for posterity. The message (which I have elegantly undermined in this post in general, and this paragraph in particular) was crystal clear: This moment is enough (callback to first blog post for late adopters).

The descent was kind of tiring and a little frustrating after the long night - most of it was enveloped in cloud, and the pathways are slippery volcanic rock - complaints have been lodged with the Judeo-Christian God and the National Council on Fujisan World Heritage. It was however punctuated with some nice views when the cloud coverage broke and some vegetation on the lower reaches. 

Anyway, your patient tolerance for my sleep-deprived ramblings has earned you some pictures.

Will hopefully follow up soon with a post about Kansai.

May you be exhausted only for good reasons.

Love David

The capsule 

A congested part of the climb

Yen coins stuck into the gate near the summit (the mountain is holy to the Japanese) 

The gate itself. There are a number of these at the site. 

The only Zen you can find at the top of Mt. Fuji is the Zen you bring up there. Soft drinks however, are available. 

Watching the sunrise 

The crater 

The Fooj casts a mighty shadow

Tokyo - First Impressions

Well, it's been five days since I arrived and I've come into a spot of WiFi, so this seems as good a time as any to upload a post.

Japan, the land of the rising sun, sushi, bullet trains, karate and advertisements with endless viral potential. The last time I saw this much ethnic homogeneity was the series finale of Friends! Ba dum. Seriously though, this place is certainly among the most interesting or at least the most different in which I have ever been. India, despite the poverty, felt more familiar in certain ways. While most of Tokyo (the only place I've been so far) superficially bears the trappings of major cities in all regions of the world - skyscrapers, subways, international fast food chains - everything has some kind of a spin on it that can delight or unnerve (sometimes both), from the bells and jingles heralding the arrival of a train to a station or the changing of a pedestrian traffic light from red to green, to the endless mascots and cartoons gracing the (numerous) public service messages.

One of the key messages in a history book I read before I came was that the process by whichJapan modernised/westernised was undertaken, for the most part, at its own discretion and not not via colonialism, and one can definitely perceive the legacy of that distinction. With certain notable exceptions such as signs on public transport, things are labelled almost exclusively in Japanese, and much of the English one does see appears to be merely for stylistic purposes, or as a gimmick, and not for the purpose of conveying information ("sure, I'm glad this will give me a happy and refreshing life, but what is it?!!"). I guess literacy is something that I usually take for granted. I suppose if I was in a rush to get anywhere or do anything in particular this all might be annoying, but so far I've been happy just meandering and stumbling upon points of interest.

In any event, the language barrier can cause Japanese culture to seem somewhat inscrutable; I spend a decent amount of time trying to imagine what the experience of other individuals is like, even in my own native culture(s). Being here, that general wondering about other peoples' consciousness and values is writ large, as I look at the people around me on the streets and in the subway and try to imagine what their lives are like and what makes them tick. I spend most of my life thinking (implicitly or explicitly) "I look 'normal' , my dietary habits are 'normal'" and being here (as is often the case in foreign countries) I realise that's highly subjective. It's very humbling and I'm already a pretty humble guy.

Before I briefly describe what I've been doing so far, I want to mention how great it has been reacquainting myself with travel and particularly the sense of living in a giant interconnected world. Say what you will about the ills of globalisation, but to me it will always seem incredible to consider that we live in a day and age where one is able to stand at a street corner in Japan with a Chinese mobile phone capable of accessing most of the information ever known to mankind, and to do it while drinking a can of coke. While I recognise my tremendous privilege, I'm no prince, just an ordinary middle class person and the fact that these experiences are available for any humans at all is, frankly, pretty cool in my book. Nice one homo sapiens.

What have I been doing:

I've really been running around the city a lot, taking advantage of a metro pass, and visiting the various famous neighbourhoods, each known for its particular character:

I roamed Shibuya, with its 'Times Square on speed' vibe (see the famous zebra crossing featured in Lost in Translation) with mouth agape at the sensory overload, strolled through high class Ginza (kind of Fifth Avenue vibe), perambulated about  Akhibara, or "Electric town" and joined a walking tour of the scenic Imperial Gardens on the grounds of the old Edo Castle, framed by the steel and glass office blocks.

I explored the packed main street of Harajuku, one of the centers of Japanese youth culture, where seemingly every teenager in the land comes to buy the latest clothes and accessories. I suppose to a certain degree I've always had a sense of not being a hip Japanese teenager, but the feeling was certainly more acute at Harajuku. It was certainly something to see, but I preferred the quieter side streets with a slightly more hipster-y feel.

I've visited a couple of the Shinto shrines that dot the city providing a welcome refuge from the frenetic chaos of their surrounds, and I've tried to plumb the endless depths of this ancient spiritual tradition by casually watching some locals in worship. I think I've pretty much got it.

What next? 

Tonight I'm planning on climbing the iconic Mt Fuji, a couple of hours outside of Tokyo (common practice is to climb at night to arrive at the summit in time for sunrise). Almost immediately following my return to Tokyo, the plan is to move on to Osaka and spend some time in the Kansai region (Kyoto, Nara etc.) before heading down to Hiroshima.

Below is a sampling of photos with no particular uniting thematic thread.

Hope to post again soon.

David

I'm don't know exactly what this is, but I'm pretty sure Leviticus forbids it

Cool foot pressure walkway near Ginza 

Used book shop area in Kanda. There's something comforting about browsing book shops, even if they mostly contain Japanese books

 

Since the advent of the Tamagotchi, many have been disposing of the formerly common pet bottles

Small shrine in Shinjuku 

This place in Harajuku where you could write down a wish and hang it. Obviously I asked for unlimited wishes. It's like they haven't even seen Aladdin 

Sake barrels offered as tributes - at the grounds of the Meiji Shrine 

Extensive grounds of the Meiji Shrine. Forest calm in the middle of the city 

Arms storage building at the Imperial Palace gardens 

The First Post

Well, there's a lot to say, so naturally I found myself sitting dumbly, one and a half hours into a flight to Tokyo by way of Tashkent, a thousand thoughts swimming through my mind, unwilling to be pegged to paper for posterity. As a person who has always, in a rather affected way, considered himself to have the 'soul' of a writer, my opus is so impressively small as to almost entirely escape detection. You might say if my opus were a sim card it would be a nano sim card [Note to draft: replace with better example before posting].

Essentially, the last time I wrote a meaningful amount with any degree of consistency was when travelling India and Nepal back in 2012. A number of people have requested that I keep them in the loop this time around and once again this seems to be the best way to do so, as well as constituting a method of prompting myself to take a step back and look at the trip/life itself with a more editorial eye.

A little background: The most significant travelling I've done to date is the aforementioned India/Nepal trip of 2012 and a two and a half month trip to Australia (with a week in Hong Kong) in 2014. Since shortly after returning from the latter, I worked as a corporate lawyer back in Tel Aviv, specifically in the field of high tech (venture capital investments and such). I gained a tremendous amount of knowledge and professional experience and worked with some fantastic people. Nevertheless, I was unable to shake the feeling that I was living life according to a course charted when I was 18-20 years old, and in many ways an entirely different person with accordingly divergent priorities and goals. I witnessed just how rapidly time can pass while cruising on autopilot and began to feel restless, eager to live life at a more intentional pace and in a more self-directed manner. I found my mind perpetually returning to one of those memories that seem to serve as an anchor for broad concepts and emotions, the recollection of sitting on a plane from Istanbul bound to Delhi, about two hours prior to landing. I had just woken up and my eyes rested on the flight map softly illuminating the darkened cabin. I was overwhelmed by this incredible sense of freedom, opportunity and no small amount of anxiety as I contemplated the next 6 weeks alone on the subcontinent. As I found myself mentally returning to this junction with the corresponding flow of associations from that period, I resolved to once again embark on a trip and encounter another region of this world.

There were many places that inspired interest but ultimately, as they say, "you can't dance at every wedding" (#ashkenazi) and I decided to visit some of East Asia and Southeast Asia, with the plan being to start in Japan, move on to South Korea and subsequently Thailand and certain of the other countries in that region.

What I'm looking to get out of this trip: In a word - nothing. To elaborate somewhat, the idea is that this is an opportunity to try and live life as an ends and not a means (within the natural limitations of human nature). That is to say, yes I have an ego and that leads me to want to see the 'must see' sites and attractions of the places I'll visit and get the coveted forced perspective Mt Fuji photograph etc. Equally there will always be an eye on the story, how it all fits into the narrative of 'David Adler'. Nonetheless, I'd like to think that as time goes on I've gained a better understanding of the primacy of the present moment and the illusory nature of past and future, in a 'two steps forward one step back' kind of way, even if the application of such knowledge is probably the most difficult task of all and perhaps the most elevated goal in life itself.

Whew, that got intense. I promise that future posts will be lighter on existential navel gazing and heavier on photos, anecdotes and culturally insensitive jokes.

After a somewhat stressful connection in Tashkent Airport (which is EXACTLY how you imagine Tashkent Airport to be, only moreso) I landed in Tokyo on Tuesday morning and by the time I've managed to post this I'm most likely already feeling utterly confused and overwhelmed but in a good way. I'll try to post first impressions soon.

Much love,

David