Life seems to haunt us with lessons we are not prepared to meet with grace or the passion often required to rise to the occasion. How so? How can passion and haunting lessons be mixed together in the same sentence? It should be no surprise to any of you that lessons are there for our own benefit, otherwise we'd call them something else, like tragedies. But what could be more tragic than a life without lessons? A life devoid of growth? Such things do exist, and never so much as now, for at the same time we are capable of living lives devoid of choice, following a prescription that one facet of society or culture has set, we are also creating machines with unchangeable programming that act in our world, changing it as programmed. Yet we are not so perfectly static as them, not yet. Our programs can change the moment we recognize them as merely that and chose a different way.
Chapter 9 : Dinosaurs and Ramen
Now that we’ve laid the ground work for my relationship to travel in the past and my feelings as they’ve changed in this massive city, lets get down the business of exploring the people and the culture of japan as I’m experiencing them. My first order of business after overcoming my extreme lack of sleep and loneliness was to explore Tokyo, a total impossibility I assure you, as neither my time in Japan nor my wallet would allow for a complete trekking of 845 square miles of super city above ground, 300 kilometers of railways underground, along with 18 kilometers of shopping malls built into that 300 so... yeah, you have to pick and choose your battles.
Chapter 7 : Lost in Translation
Ever see that movie Lost in Translation with Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson? Probably not. I only saw it once and felt so alienated by its theme and pace that I hardly remember it all. But if you've ever dropped from a high place into darkness, not knowing whether you'd live or die, but knowing either way you'd be all alone with no one and nothing to bring you back but yourself, then you get the movie.
No Plan Japan 6 : The Capsule Corporation
In true form to my mission statement for this trip the first plan I made was not for me, Unplan hostel was too far and to expensive for my liking. There's no way I'm spending $50 a night for a bunk bed. I may not be slumming it as I did when I traveled the world an age ago, but I'm not high balling it either. My sister tried sending me to the Cerulean hotel, "where all the models go." That would have been cherry if I had invested in Bit coin on the ground floor back in 2011, as I had been ready to do but didn't, such is life. Since I'm not rich the super models and their $900 a night suits on the 48th floor above the Tokyo skyline will have wait, perhaps indefinitely, and that's fine. Its not my scene anymore anyways.