two years, four months later....
Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2007 7:21 pm
.....and I'm finally set to go back to Tokyo tomorrow, albeit for two days and a half. I'm also going for a week at the end of april. I'm setting off in about seven hours or so for the airport.
I'm staying up as long as I can so I can sleep on the plane and cut jetlag. Not much else to do except iron my clothes and put a few things into my rucksack. I'll choose my things carefully, not because I'm afraid I'll look daft in my photos in years to come, but because the things you take with you on a journey you enjoy tend to take on some special character, like a childhood toy that brings back memories when you shine a torch on it in your loft. This isn't an ordinary journey, so ordinary things don't get to go.
Preparing for travel has almost become ritualistic in nature. It's the thing that I work for, save for, and daydream about on my daily commute. I know that I'm about to escape reality again for a short while, and the air for me right now is heady with potential.
My last trip to Tokyo has become a sweet distant dream with time. It was the first time I had travelled alone, in a place so alien I couldn't understand the alphabet. I only ate when I became hungry enough to ignore the embarrassment of pointing to food I didn't know and confused words that they nor I could understand. But my alienation was part of the appeal.
Cool and clean minimal design astride weathered history. Cool breeze gently flowing through golden leaves, Kaleidoscope of neon signs and the warm glow of temple lanterns. But I've travelled further since then.
I remember when I got my very first bmx bike for christmas. It gleamed impressively in blue and white, and was just slightly big enough to feel imposing when rode. I loved that bike and rode it nearly every day, untill I eventually outgrew it, and it rusted away in the shed.
I left Tokyo like an excited schoolboy, my appetite fuelled for further travels, but nothing in my mind has quite matched that first trip. I only come back to it on occasion for now, so it is fresh as ever. Some day the temptation will overcome me to stay, and I will grow used to the place, not sure where to look for the same experience.
This time, as before, I'm going alone. I don't want Tokyo to become ordinary to me, and nor do I want to mix elements of my life in England with my experience in Japan, in the same way that a tropical bird wouldn't be as beautiful if it were cross bred with a sparrow.
Japan never truly accepts an outsider as one of its own. You will always be slightly different. Nor have I ever felt the desire to be the same as anyone else.
Tomorrow I'll wake up early, and put LIT in my dvd player. It's becoming a ritual to pause it about two thirds through. I'd like to think I'm carrying on the rest myself.
I'm staying up as long as I can so I can sleep on the plane and cut jetlag. Not much else to do except iron my clothes and put a few things into my rucksack. I'll choose my things carefully, not because I'm afraid I'll look daft in my photos in years to come, but because the things you take with you on a journey you enjoy tend to take on some special character, like a childhood toy that brings back memories when you shine a torch on it in your loft. This isn't an ordinary journey, so ordinary things don't get to go.
Preparing for travel has almost become ritualistic in nature. It's the thing that I work for, save for, and daydream about on my daily commute. I know that I'm about to escape reality again for a short while, and the air for me right now is heady with potential.
My last trip to Tokyo has become a sweet distant dream with time. It was the first time I had travelled alone, in a place so alien I couldn't understand the alphabet. I only ate when I became hungry enough to ignore the embarrassment of pointing to food I didn't know and confused words that they nor I could understand. But my alienation was part of the appeal.
Cool and clean minimal design astride weathered history. Cool breeze gently flowing through golden leaves, Kaleidoscope of neon signs and the warm glow of temple lanterns. But I've travelled further since then.
I remember when I got my very first bmx bike for christmas. It gleamed impressively in blue and white, and was just slightly big enough to feel imposing when rode. I loved that bike and rode it nearly every day, untill I eventually outgrew it, and it rusted away in the shed.
I left Tokyo like an excited schoolboy, my appetite fuelled for further travels, but nothing in my mind has quite matched that first trip. I only come back to it on occasion for now, so it is fresh as ever. Some day the temptation will overcome me to stay, and I will grow used to the place, not sure where to look for the same experience.
This time, as before, I'm going alone. I don't want Tokyo to become ordinary to me, and nor do I want to mix elements of my life in England with my experience in Japan, in the same way that a tropical bird wouldn't be as beautiful if it were cross bred with a sparrow.
Japan never truly accepts an outsider as one of its own. You will always be slightly different. Nor have I ever felt the desire to be the same as anyone else.
Tomorrow I'll wake up early, and put LIT in my dvd player. It's becoming a ritual to pause it about two thirds through. I'd like to think I'm carrying on the rest myself.
