I just sat down and ate a whole mango, and it was freakin fantastic.

Last night I joined the rest of 21 century Japan and let my phone dictate my agenda for the evening.  After a surprisingly authentic salsa burger at "Freshness burger", I felt like seeing a movie. "If only I had the internet, so that I could look up movie times" I thought to myself. Then I remembered my handy little cell phone. I looked up the movie times, got directions to the theatre, and also the name of an English- speaking therapist to help me cope when I get my phone bill next month.

For a big city, Tokyo is crap for movies. And that's not just because regular admission price is about $18. Maybe I'm just biased, or haven't given them a chance, but most Japanese flicks are either cartoons or sentimental drivel.  Take this film, about a boy and his pet fox. The boy rescues the orphaned animal, which turns out to be blind and deaf, and they become fast, life-changing friends. I didn't actually see this movie, but I'd bet my spleen that the plotline involves 1) saving the little boys life in some way and, towards the end, 2) one dead-ass fox.

During the previews for the movie I saw last night, there was one gem called "Sou ka mo shirenai"- "probably". The plot of this story centers around a husband's sufferings while caring for his wife, who is slowly deteriorating from Alzheimer's. During the preview, a nurse rolls the wife up to her husband, who has come to visit her. The nurse says "You know this man, don't you? This is your husband!" And the wife, whose face has become slack and vacant says "Sou ka mo shirenai"- "probably".

Honestly, I think there were people crying during the preview.

Anyway, if you avoid the Japanese tear-fests, you're not left with a lot of choices. Although video rental places have a huge selection of American movies, in the theatres you're mostly left with the big action blockbusters. These blockbusters come in two varieties: the ones that were guaranteed to be huge hits in America- Superman, Pirates of the Caribbian, etc., and the big-budget, box office flops like Flightplan, which hit Japan a few months after their American release, presumably in an effort to recoup expenses.

Anyway, it was almost blind luck that I stumbled across a theatre in Ginza that shows indie movies, and I made it just in time for Transamerica. Lucky for me, it was "Ladies day", and so I could buy my ticket for a paltry $9. Still, as I was buying my ticket, I saw a fishy sign by the movie times- a sticker that said Á¢ÒElt;/SPAN>. Praying that that could not mean what I thought it meant, I bought the ticket anyway. But, of course, the ticket lady and the ticket taker both confirmed my suspicions, and directed me to the door leading to the second floor balcony. Every seat in the theatre was filled with OL snacking on sandwiches and onigiri. Á¢ÒElt;/SPAN>, of course, meaning ¡°standing room only¡±.

I camped out on the ground at the front of the balcony with some other OL and waited for the show to start. During the 20 minutes of previews, I managed to find a position that didn¡¯t make my butt fall asleep, rested my arms on the low balcony ledge so that it was no longer in my field of vision, and enjoyed the show.

Somewhere in the middle of the movie I realized that I had no idea who I was, or that I was sitting on the ground in a movie theatre in central Tokyo.  I had reached that state you can occasionally reach in a movie- my emotions and experiences had blended with that of the characters on screen. I had not become them, but I was with them, and I was reacting to what they were going through in a way that was specific to me.

Movies always affect me that way. I have always maintained that I am the dream audience for movie producers. I will (and did) pay 18 bucks to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2 even though I knew I wouldn¡¯t like it, just to reach the state of transcendence that you can really only get in a movie theatre.

This sort of out- of- body experience is especially important in a foreign country. You¡¯re no longer surrounded by a foreign language and foreign people (that you can see, anyway), and you get to feel normal for once. The only tricky part is that the movie eventually ends, and coming back to reality isn¡¯t always a soft landing. But I had all through the credits to stretch the feeling back into my legs and put my gaijin armor back on, so that I could be all ready by the time I was back out on the warm streets of Tokyo.

Walking the ginza at night is quite an experience, if you¡¯re into that whole neon light, gucchi store window kind of thing. I walked by ugly LV purses and pictures of beautiful women holding them, crossed the street on a kitty-corner crosswalk like in Beverly Hills, and saw a sign announcing the national shift to Digital TV broadcasting (July 24, 2011). I saw wedding dresses that could probably buy me an apartment, and I saw weird looking bugs clinging to the window that separated us.

Like an onsen on a cold day, I suppose a proper Tokyo experience is being in it and out of it all at once, and finding total respite from it in its most stereotypical neighborhood is just part of its charm.

I am writing this from an internet cafe, not because my internet at home is at all faulty, but because I am. I suppose I could blame my one, tiny, uncomfortable chair, or the fact that my internet cord isn't long enough for my laptop to comfortably reach my bed, or perhaps all those wonderful episodes of Arrested Development I downloaded, but the fact is that when I am in my room I really can't stand to spend any length of time typing on my computer.

Its a beautiful day today. Sunny and breezy, and not as much humidity as usual. Really, I'd like to be typing this from a nice, open air cafe with free wireless, but I couldn't even find one with non-smoking seats near a window.

I guess because the weather in Japan is so unpleasant about 3/4 of the time, there aren't a lot of places willing to invest in open-air porches, or tables on the roof. Generally, you have to settle for plastic lawn furniture in front of a Starbucks, if you can find it.

And forget wireless. I spent all morning trying to figure out where I could find wireless hotspots; turns out there are plenty in and around Ueno. You have to pay for it, but I don't mind that. All you have to do is get a pre-paid card for 500yen and you're good for a full 24 hours. And, the next time I happen to be at the Shinagawa Prince Hotel, or the Osaka WTC Cosmotower, I'll be sure to pick one up. Cripes.

Where do people go to be in nature? Where can you eat outside? I need to find a hangout. Someplace not too far where I can relax either outside or near a window, without being choked to death by cigarrette smoke. Is that so much to ask?

This internet cafe isn't so bad, though. I get my own tiny booth, which includes a TV, playstation, and headphones. I can drink all the soda and oolong tea that I please, and if I decide to camp out here for the night I can always use their free shower facilities. Sleeping here, by the way, is totally an option, considering I got what I would consider to be the tatatmi-mat version of a computer booth. You take off your shoes before you go in, and then step up onto what feels like a big gym mat. The computer and TV are on a shelf about 3 feet up from the mat, so you can just sit on the floor, lean back against the pillow provided, and type away.

Now, please don't confuse me with one of those Japanese romanticists who wets his pants everytime he finds some example of how ancient Japanese culture influences their daily lives... but when I had kicked of my shoes and was sliding the door to my private internet booth shut, it felt just like rolling aside a shoji screen. That's all I'm going to say.

I spent yesterday wandering around Ueno park, looking at the weird flea-market shit people try and sell by the lake, and the lake itself. The cicadas were screaming, and couples on the lake were paddling around in swan boats. Despite the ominous warnings about "crocodile turtles" that were posted everywhere, it was very peaceful. As I walked, the overcast sky began to clear up, and the sun lit the lake. It got sunnier and sunnier, and then it started to rain, even as the sky kept clearing. I thought it ironic that the people in the middle of the lake in the covered swan boats were the most immune to the sudden, weird change in weather. I sat on a bench for a while, enjoying both the sun and the cold, fat drops of rain, and watched a man throw curry flavored popcorn to the koi fish and turtles in the shallow parts of the lake near the edges. A little boy and his father came up and watched too, as the koi fish popped up out of nowhere to claim the popcorn, while the turtles were too slow, and had mouths too small to do the same. The mother came up later, to confirm that the turtles all seemed to be normal turtles, and not the dangerous "crocodile turtles" from the signs.

At one point, the boy climbed over the rope and leaned over the water to get a better look at the fish, which made me gasp and shoot dark looks at his father, who didn't reprimand him. I shook my head, but then remembered my own childish yearnings to be as close as I could to something that interested me, even to the point of doing something stupid.

We had a solid week of cold, unseasonable rain. I think that it is finally over, which means that Summer has finally begun.

Most of life's little mysteries will remain unsolved...

In the bathroom, on the right side of the wall (that is, if you're sitting on the toilet) there is a small metal door. The small metal door is locked, but the lock doesn't really need a key. It consists of a metal button, behind a saturn-shaped opening. All you need is something long, to push the button, but wide enough so that you can turn the saturn-opening while pressing it.

It was almost like a video game; if you see a lock, you know the key must be around somewhere. As I tapped at the metal door and looked around, I spotted the mysterious rogue fork. Holding it delicately by the neck, I pushed the handle into the lock and turned it, immediately opening the door. I looked at the fork as though I suddenly saw that it was made of gold. There was no reason why I couldn't have spent the rest of my life not knowing why someone put a fork in my bathroom.

I used the rogue fork to lock the door again and placed it delicately back on the toilet paper holder, where it belongs.

Too much communication makes me place my heart in places it can't be, namely Home. Conversation gets past overpunctuated I miss you toos and into details and suddenly I can see and taste the world I left.

And that just makes me sad.

I have a tendancy to get wrapped up on my own world, writing too much about myself and generally investing a lot of time in my own routine. I can and have been subsisting that way for a while now and have been very content. But when I start dipping back into email and ancient unanswered myspace messages, I remember what it was like to erase the edges of myself, and let my awareness escape into the universe.

Japan, and Tokyo in particular, requires a thick skin to survive it. I got used to that and don't notice it so much anymore. But thoughts of home make me remember what it was like not to need it, and it suddenly seems heavy and difficult to maintain.

Coming back to Tokyo after my business trip to Cali, jetlagged and fatigued, I could feel Japan building up around me as I walked from the plane down the ramp and into Narita airport. I was way too tired to deal with my Gaijin skin, and as my psyche rushed to assemble it, I suddenly felt how burdensome it was and nearly collapsed beneath it.

For the purposes of my own sanity, I can't think about all the things missing from my life here, because my life seems complete when I don't.

There's a fork in my bathroom

The fact that I live in a shared apartment is basically the only reason I can afford to live a mere half hour away from work, in the heart of freakin' Tokyo. But, as everybody knows, living with other people can suck, a lot.

One of my apartment-mates has moved out (I think) and her dresser, folding table, ironing board, and bath towel are now in the kitchen and bathroom, respectively. Is she coming back for them? Did she make a present of them? I don't know, but I have my eye on that ironing board.

Also, the facewash that I kept in the shower, and the handtowel that I kindly donated to the bathroom have both gone missing. I was sure that my facewash had been knocked out of the bathroom window, which would make my roommate/the culprit clumsy and cowardly, rather than downright thieving. However, when I stuck my head out the window in daylight and looked down, I could see that that wasn't the case at all.

The same day I discovered that the handtowel was missing was the day I found the fork in the bathroom, resting flat on the toilet paper holder. I laughed out loud, trying to imagine what on earth someone could have been doing in the bathroom that required a fork.

For your edification, the following ten objects make way more sense when found resting on a toilet paper holder.

1.) A half- eaten muffin
2.) An unused maxi pad
3.) A hairclip
4.) A pocket-sized copy of the communist manifesto
5.) A dead caterpillar
6.) A receipt from a convenience store
7.) A used maxi pad
8.) A small 100 yen umbrella
9.) A toy soldier
10.) A spoon ( I don't know why, but a spoon would have surprised me way less)

At a yakitori restaruant in Kyushuu a drunken man told my drunken self that all people were basically the same at heart. I was very moved and today I remembered why.

On the express train with my co-workers I was eating ice cream with the secretary and our technical advisor said:

"Oh, Americans love ice cream, don't they"
"Yeah, I guess..."
"When Japanese people eat ice cream, they get a headache."
"That happens to Americans too. We even have a word for it: "brain freeze". It happens when the roof of your mouth gets too cold. If you put your tounge against the roof of your mouth it"ll go away"
"Oh, so it happens to Americans, then?"
"Yeah."
"I guess Americans really are humans too, then huh?"

I hit him on the leg.

I'm still alive.

Today I was walking through okachimachi, realizing how much okachimachi looks like Tokyo. Then I realized that Tokyo was not a constant in my life but rather something that would eventually fade away, one of those things that will eventually take effort to remember. And when I remember Tokyo, I will probably think of it as looking much like okachimachi. So when I was walking through Okachimachi I was walking through a place that looked like a memory. So as I saw it, already I missed it.

The pure present is an unstoppable advance of the past devouring the future... In truth, all sensation is already a memory.

For those of you who didn't know and couldn't gather, I just took a trip to Hong Kong to visit this crazy lady. I took enough pictures to have an account of my adventures be told in installments, so here goes the first chapter.

View of the street from the top of a double-decker

The streets of Hong Kong are exactly what you would expect. The summer (yes, summer in may) humidity is stifling and catches everything airborne like fish in a net, so that the gasoline fumes, the disel, the smell of food, and the running, loping, smacking sound of Cantonese all hit you in the face as you move through the city.

Living in Tokyo, I am used to a garish assault on the senses, but Hong Kong has Tokyo beat in that they actually mount advertisements perpendicular to the buildings, so that they are hanging over the street.

Moreover, the strong emphasis on politeness and consideration for othera that keeps a crowded city like Tokyo from the brink of social anarchy are barely coming into style in Hong Kong, so no one keeps to the left or gets out of your way when they sense you hovering behind them. Carol had the annoying habit of wending her way through the crowd and ending up 20 feet ahead of me before I finally learned to start shoving people.

There are thmree ain modes of land public transit in Hong Kong: the MTR, the Double Decker busses, and the light busses. The MTR is the metro, and is very user-friendly. I, of course, had a native guide, but even if I didn't I feel fairly confident that I would have figured the trains out after a couple of days as there was lots of English sinage and few train lines. Plus, they were much less crowded than Tokyo JR lines, although to be fair I never rode one at morning rush hour.

The double decker busses were completely awesome. Besides the fact that you could go pretty much anywhere on them, they also afford a great view and a little adventure if you sit on the top deck. From there it looks like the bus has already ran into things it's still five feet away from, and you get tossed around twice as much on bumpy roads.

Those yellow vehicles on the left are the mini busses, which weave through the city and crisscross through traffic while their passengers purse their lips and grip the laminated seat in front of them. They're very convenient if you know how to use them; you can just flag one down and yell at the driver to pull over when you want to get off. The only problem is that you have to be able to read chinese to tell where the bus's final destination is, you have to know the city well enough to tell what route the driver's gonna take to get there, and you have to be able to speak Cantonese to let the guy know you want to get off.

Hong Kong is famed for its skyscrapers and nightscapes, and I won't be leaving those out, but for the first few days I was more than satisfied with the old crumbling apartment buildings and their many air conditioners. Looking up at this one made me dizzy. It may make you dizzy too.

Too many people...

Like every tourist, I was perpetually seeking the "real" Hong Kong, the essence and life of it. I wanted to eat it, buy it, and breathe it in. Most tourists mistakenly attempt this by trying to find "culture", and by falling into the past- no matter how much the natives have forgotten it. But the times when I felt the most like a part of the city was when I was on the top deck of a bus looking out over it and moving through it. The jumble of old and new, of neon lights and dark corners, English and Chinese turns flat onto the window, and it all seems manageable somehow.