entry nº 22e // 20180811

[part 5 of an ongoing series]

•it’s jan. 22 now, of course. what’d we do last night? ate gyoza, then met up with matt + co. maybe at some kinda obnoxious smoke-filled expat bar and i drank arguably more than i should have, which resulted in a pretty tenacious hangover, and all my clothes reeked to the point where i was starting to look up coin laundry spots online the next day. either way it was fun, and at some point we ended up talking to a group of international students who were studying at a university in kyoto, and i remember being just, like, so curious about what they felt like, what their plans were, how they felt about life, the world, etc. it was positive and interesting and exciting. youth. 

•so heather and i get on the train to NARA, which is about 30mins away and was once (even before kyoto!) the capital of japan. good sleepy spaced out train conversation on the way. it’s chilly today, drizzly fading into snowy. 

•get out of the train station and walk over toward Tōdai-ji, a giant temple w/ an enormous bronze buddha statue inside. nara, on the walk over, feels small and walkable and pleasant. the temple itself is incredibly imposing – apparently one of the largest wooden buildings in the world, i’m told. and yeah, that giant buddha inside: wow. yeah. it’s something. 

also, there was a little display around the back of the main hall, there, of places where tourists had carved their names into some of the pillars inside the building? like, holy shit. americans, of course. i think it was from decades ago, and those places had since been chopped out and restored, but damn. i guess everybody’s different, in terms of what they think or were taught or otherwise impressed to think is okay. yeesh. 

•on the way there, though, you walk through Nara park, a huge open green space on the east side of the city. it’s filled with deer. like, tons of deer. fully acclimated to humans, so they kind of just hang out and follow you around and nip you in the ass if they think you’re carrying food. there are little spots that sell crackers you can give to the deer. heather bought a ton and we went around feeding them. it’s fun and weird and charming. i would describe it as deer madness. 

•total highlight of the day, though, and certainly of my time in japan, was Isuien garden. it was steadily raining by the time we went in there, and so it was deserted, fog rolling through the hills in the distance, and dreamy to the point of becoming basically unbelievable. there’s this one spot where you can see the roof of Tōdai-ji in the background, and behind that Mt. Wakakusayama, and i stood there for who knows how long, breathing deep and slow and feeling like i was on the verge of kind of gently dissipating, condensing up with the raindrops gathered on what leaves remained on the trees above, or seeping down into the moss below. 

to be continued