entry nº 5 // 20161017
Clouds hearken to the will
–“Past 3 Years Diary” cover inscription, stationery store, Fukuoka, Japan
of the dragon and the wind obeys
the tiger.
The moon is often hidden by clouds,
flowers are often scattered
by the wind.
holy shit a month? or like over a month what the heck is happening out here. time just goes goes goes and you have to totally watch yr back otherwise it will creep up on you ’n shit. seriously what the heck. almost three months since i got here which = only three months left to go before i have to go back because immigration laws. lame. i would stay here way longer if possible, though, that’s for sure. working on it. (hi mom! hi dad!)
saw a dude wearing a “black slag” shirt the other day, with the black flag logo and everything. it was all worn out so it’s obvious he’s been into black slag for a pretty long time. actually, i saw him probably in mid-august or so, which gives an idea of how time’s been rushing by or whatever. he was in a department store. so was i. haven’t seen him since.
anyway, japan? huge cash culture out here. got cash, want to make a transaction? no problem. no cash? dude. wow. really? yikes. very embarrassing. seriously.
shoko and i have made friends with a three-legged neighborhood cat lately. oscar. shoko claims his full name is “oscar de la renta”, though i don’t know how she knows that but she says it with total confidence so i have nothing other to do than to go along with it. he kicks it down the block underneath the apartment-building-water-tank things next to the blue vending machine. super friendly cool dude. why is he missing a leg? one thing for sure is that he doesn’t seem to give a fuck. often we walk by on our way home and look out for him but he’s not there: out hustling, obviously.
here’s a couple things i’ve seen or done lately, in no particular order.
•seen a giant bronze reclining buddha statue at nanzoin temple (you thought: “wow, kevin def. knows his exotic temple names.” but really: i totally forgot the name and had to look it up while writing this). small pond chock full of turtles. magical path up into the forest, small bridge over a stream, little bursting-red-orange torii gate in the clearing next to it. anyway, you would just not believe this giant reclining buddha. very legit. apparently one of the head priests of the temple won the lottery twice and used the money to fund the construction of the reclining buddha. can’t fuck with that, can you.
•gone to the nakasu jazz festival, where we watched some good + bad bands, people watched, and generally soaked in the night life. bought beers at the convenience store and drank them openly in the street while walking around, because this is a sane country and that’s legal here. we do it all the time: it’s one of my favorite things about being here, quite frankly. got my photo taken with some famous japanese jazz singer. nakasu-kawabata is i guess the red-light district here, so it’s all full of hostess clubs where you can i guess go and get flirted with by attractive female waitresses? there are SO MANY of these places around this neighborhood and they have hilarious names and signs and “touts” down in the street who try to get you to go up there.
•checked out isla de salsa, a big roughly latin/caribbean music festival on the island of nokonoshima, which is actually right across the bay from our place and which i basically stare at many times each day. took the ferry out there. it was super fun. this was like, mid-august, so it was hot as balls and there was basically no cover while watching the bands at the main stage. sweated it out so hard and saw some really good bands and ate shaved ice and got sucked up to the head of a major conga line. this band “jizue” crushed it so hard and i rocked out and totally had music joy tears in my eyes the whole time. later on, i jumped in the ocean in my shorts and swam out to this floating tall dock and boosted a backflip into the bathtub-warm water. such a good decision. summertime. the headliner was this salsa orchestra called “tromboranga” that also put on way too good of a live show. late that night, walking back from the ferry terminal to the train station, we randomly met some kid, shawn/sean/shaun, who was from hawaii, who went to school at UNH, and has family in derry, new hampshire. what the fuck?
love,
kevin
