A day in Tokyo. Negotiations continue with Nagata-sensei; looking positive, though things could still go either way. Over some non-existent (call them metaphysical) beers last night, Dr. Satterwhite clued me in to an intriguing lead re: a Minka enthusiast (leading preservationist is more accurate, leading enthusiast more exciting) in Kamakura. I'm very interested to see how that plays out, if things with Nagata-sensei do not come together. However, still lacking anything concrete to do with my life, I continue to wander about Japan, photographing and photographing and photographing and cursing myself for not taking the time to blog it all. Today, I will go to the aquarium (designed by Taniguchi), before hopping on a 5:56 shinkansen up to Aomori to crash and hang out with the illustrious Beau Buchanon, Noah, and Chikako. Peak fall season hits Aomori in about a week ^___________^
Whenever I come to Tokyo, I stay in Asakusa, old Edo, all of which orbits around Asakusa-dera. Asakusa-dera is a beautiful temple and, perhaps because it was under reconstruction and under wraps for the first nine months that I was living in Japan, has the mystical sensation of seeming to grow larger every time that I visit, always shrinking in my memory and reappearing in massive, larger than life proportions. Maybe it really is too big to imagine. Asakusa-dera is simply too big, and a beautiful example of temple construction; yet it is always here, in the heart of Tokyo, that I overhear jaded tourists muttering, hands shaking with the effort to lift their gargantuan guidebook once more to bloodshot eyes, skin baked by the intense neon of the Tokyo streets, tongues deadened by the subtle flavors of Kansai-ryori, 'Just more of the same, isn't it?' It's okay, I understand. Japan can be exhausting. I do not correct them with violent exclamations, though Asakusa-dera is most definitely not 'more of the same'; and if they ever return, I imagine that they too will have the thrilling sensation that Asakusa is larger than life, and that the beating heart of Japan is in the temple's smoking censer.
*shout out to Andy + April, the woodblock print that Mom and I gave you last Christmas is a winter scene of Asakusa-temple. Cheers!
