Japan 2024: Ni (二)
Hello – it’s been awhile hasn’t it? (Haha, jokes, I’m actually writing this on the same night but I separated the posts and will publish it with a delay to give the illusion of a break~)
Should I write another haiku? This one is about being back at work:
*Heavy steps and heart
One hundred and thirty six
E-mails wait for me*
Okay, here we go back in again:
Day 7: Leaving for Takayama. We foolish, confidently tell the man at Kamikochi to send our luggage to Kanazawa two days later. What were we thinking?! I guess, we weren’t. Pleased, we go off for a little walk and get on the bus to Takayama. Where we have maybe one of the best beef meals of our lives… I feel a little guilty – I’ve been trying to eat less meat cos you know, the environment and all that. And I think it does get to me — like, for some reason, when I was eating the meat I kept imagining the cow being killed and stuff. But I still ate it. Sorry it got weird. I finished reading Yukio Tsushima’s Territory of Light right about now. It was poetic and haunting.
Day 8: I woke up and realised that we made a mistake with the takkyubin :’) Sigh. So we went to the market and ate like 2 croissants and a bunch of other snacks. Got to Kanazawa just fine. That night as my mother is snoring, I wake her up multiple times and ask her to clear her throat because I’m convinced her airways are blocked and she’s going to die or something but she’s is confused because she’s actually totally fine. It’s just snoring.
Wait, I think we went to the bookshop during the daytime and I found this:
This woman wrote a book about how she uses NINE notebooks to manage her life… NINE! This book is single-handedly responsible for me wanting to relearn Japanese – I must find this book one day to understand how she lives with herself. How can I be more like her? How can I accept that it takes more than one system to truly organize my life? How can I accept living with NINE notebooks on the go at any one time?
Yep. Started reading Inspector Imanishi Investigates by Seicho Matsumoto. It was a bit grisly and quite bizarre. My mother disses him slightly in conversation and compares him with Keigo Higashino.
Day 9: We went to the Kanazawa castle where we met the volunteer guide because… I was too cheap to book a real guide. Oops. He told us about… erm… ninjas. And then we went to Kenrokuen Gardens. My mum hyped it up too much. After I went to Kamikochi, it kinda fell a bit flat. So. I decided not to post a picture of the gardens — because it’s a UNESCO world heritage site. You can google a pic.
I wanted to plug Hana Coffee Stand – an oasis in a desert of closed shops while we were waiting for our next appointment. They had so many cool magazines that I still want to read, the music was weird, and the owners were sooooo sweet. When we were making to leave, they were like – Wait! Wait! The guy owner was frantically glueing something and he gave my mum and I a little coaster sized photo and card of us at their cafe to remember them by. That’s worth a visit 🙂 Plus their ice chocolate is sooo good.
We went for a tea ceremony, which was pretty cool. But the room was kind of dark for some reason and my mum almost fell asleep while the lady was talking. she said her name but I can’t remember what it is. I want to read more books abt cha-do, the way of the tea ~
Day 10: We land in Tokyo and shopping commences. Well, we may have gotten shammed by this fella, who was promoting this phone screen protector thing. It was most impressive – TWO ball bearings were personally dropped onto a screen to test the strength of this product. Needless to say, mum and I were sold!!!!!!!! We left our phones with him for 30 minutes, so he could 100% have cloned our phones, but …. nvm! anything for “stronger triple”. Dude was such a good salesman, he had a great voice. When we got our phones back, he was like, “look at the last picture you took…. veeeeery clear.” We were all like, wow yah clean… We didn’t ask him how to remove the cover after 3 years, but that’s a problem for future us to handle.
Mother complains that I take too long to buy stationary, I touch all the notebooks at least 3 times. She’s actually not wrong – I kind of made her visit ALL the stationary stores (because we could?). Also, there’s nothing more satisfying to me than finding a notebook that is right for your circumstance. You know what, I might actually write a whole post about the joy of notebooks. I should just embrace it. Just like that woman with her 9 notebooks. She is so proud of them! Be like her.
Day 11: The battle of the French Toasts — We didn’t realise how popular Sarabeth’s would be so we stood in line for 20 mins before giving up and going to Hoshino’s. We booked for the next day though. So Hoshino is actually from Day 10. (top pic). Hoshino coffee was better, French toast was okayyyy for 880Y. Sarabeth’s French toast was obviously kind of the bomb but the coffee was very average.
Standing in line was the theme of the day. Waited for tsujihan too. Was almost at my wits end by the end of the line. My mum was so sympathetic to like old people and children in the line, which is how I knew I was not being my best self because I felt like throttling all of them. Got in, ate quickly and then left because. Idk, queuing is tiring and energy-draining. Would not recommend.
Day 11: Time to gooooo. Early earthquake warning while we were shopping which was scary. I should have bought this broom for Hugo but alas all he got was a treatball that he pushes around half-heartedly now. I feel bad for him cos the treats don’t come out so fast so I always end up plucking two of the treats out for him.
I was glad to be heading home at the end of the trip, feeling a little bit tired from the transiting and recycled hotel air. Watched Mrs Harris goes to Paris (meh but okay, I cried when she got her dress), rewatched Perfect Days (inspiring~) and started watching the Toto-Chan movie, which was pretty excellent but couldn’t finish before we landed.
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Now that I’m home, work has been a little bit difficult to face (for reasons that may not have to do with my holiday). I wanted to be like the man in Perfect Days – accepting of all that came his way and being able to wake up the next day, smiling at the sky. change is hard. but I think that’s a post for another time.
Okay. That’s it for now.
Bye.