Love hotels

So I've kind of dropped the ball on updating again. Since my last post, I've been to Ise-Shima, Nara, Nagoya, Kyoto, Hiroshima, and Tokyo. Unfortunately, lately, I've fallen in to the trap of thinking that I need something worthwhile to write about to post to my blog. I mean, having to been to so many places in Japan, something must have surely happened that is worth writing about. There are writers out there on the Internet, after all, that can turn the most mundane interactions from the daily lives into entertaining prose, and they aren't even travelling across Asia! Unfortunately, I'm not one of them.

I've come to the conclusion, that if I'm going to keep this updated, I pretty much just have to sit down, and write for the sake of writing.

I'm back in Osaka again, until friday, when I take a ferry back to shanghai. I'm living in a capsule hotel, which is in the heart of a few blocks of love hotels. This makes for some pretty interesting people watching.

So I'm standing outside my hotel last night, and notice a man and woman exiting the love hotel next door. The man is a short early 30's Japanese guy, which I know, sounds a little redundant, but I noticed that he was a good six inches shorter than the girl, who was a maybe mid to late 30's Japanese woman. They give each other a bow at the entrance, and then take off in opposite directions.

The guy does, what I like to call the I-Just-Got-Done-Screwing-A-Whore Walk "A" - Cheerful, hop in his step, big huge shit eating grin, completely oblivious to the world around him. I like this walk.

The girl walks five feet the opposite direction, into the building across the street from my hotel, which, although I can't read the signs, I'll assume houses a bunch of different escort services.

A few moments later, I notice another couple walking out of the love hotel. They do the same bow(which kills me btw, the hooker-john relationship here is apparently one founded on excellent manners). The girl is in the same age range as the last one, the guy this time though, is a skinny 60ish businessman. They part directions again, the girl goes into the building across the street. The businessman does, the I-Just-Got-Done-Screwing-A-Whore Walk "B" - "Oh my god I hope no one sees me I gotta get outta here what if the missus finds out... - why is that foreigner giggling?"

So that's the kind of thing I replace movies and books with. Pretty entertaining.

More Japan

I'd really like to get some pictures up, but unfortunatley, most of the internet cafes I go to don't have a usb connection that I can use, or, when I show up to one that does, I don't have my camera or USB cable. So no pictures for a while.

After spending a few nights in Osaka, enjoying the nightlife and playing pachislo(Japanese version of slots), I decided that it was time to get moving, Japan ain't cheap, and a day here costs me as much as a week in China.

So far I've been to Koya-san, Ise-Jingu, Nara, and I just arrived in Kyoto. Not including Kyoto, I've enjoyed Koya-san the most.

Koya-san is the headquarters of the Shingon sect of Buddhism in Japan. It's located on top of a mountain, which to get to after getting off the train, you have to take a trolley that's been built at a 60 angle.

Shingon is the Japanese version of Tantric Buddhism. In terms of doctrine it's closest to Tibetan Buddhism, but a lot less colorful, and without books by the Dalai Lama that sound like extended Hallmark greeting cards.

I stayed overnight at the temple there, attended the temples mediatation, morning services, and fire puja cermonies, then went exploring. Koya-san has one of the most beatufil graveyards I have ever seen in my life(yes, I know that sounds creepy). Actually, I won't try to describe it, I'll put pictures up when I get a chance.