Three views of Japan

Summing up an entire country with a single anecdote is even more stupid than letting one story stand for a person, so I'm not even going to attempt it.

Sometimes, though, a single moment can serve to illuminate a country or person, to show some of the place's or person's complexity and character.

Here's a moment that did that for me in Japan.

Standing in the center of the overpass right behind the Harajuku station, facing the station, you can watch the famous Harajuku girls posing. Some stay in character through endless camera clicks; others huddle behind ropes and take their roles only if you ask and they grant permission for photos. You can't help but be aware that you're standing in the presence of manufactured culture, but there's also an underlying deep reality, that of teenagers everywhere struggling both to find and to hide from themselves.

Look to your left, and you can see the road leading to the torii gate that marks the entrance to Meiji-jingu, the Shinto shrine in memory of Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken, his wife. The forest begins just before the gate, stands tall and dark and cool on either side of it, and extends backward on either side of the main road for a very long way. The place reeks of power, calm, and spirituality.

Stare to your right, and the road extends up a slow rise and beyond the edge of your vision. Lining it on both sides are high-fashion stores boasting the names of designers who sell in only the richest cities around the world, high-end installations of American chains, and restaurants catering to hungry and thirsty shoppers.

And, making its way down the left side of that same road on the day we were there, a Sunday, I believe, was a shrine parade that featured drummers, chanting, and a large gold bowl riding atop poles carried on the shoulders of a couple of dozen people, mostly men but here and there a woman, too.

My camera's battery died before I could photograph all of this, and at the time I was annoyed at myself for not remembering to charge it the night before, but now, I don't care. I take photos with the small digital camera I call blogcam, and I am learning more about photography, but what I most care about, what I collect, are moments and the stories that surround them. I treasure this one.

My new friend, jet lag

I've always been basically immune to jet lag. In April, Sarah and I flew home from Rome, ate dinner, and went to see the late show of Grindhouse. No problem. I routinely go to the West Coast, work until two or three in the morning (Pacific time), and get up at normal hours to work. Again, no problem. I come home from those same trips and follow my normal routines, and I barely feel any effects.

Even the trip to Japan didn't particularly affect me. I didn't sleep at all, had a longer flight there than the one home, spent tons of time on trains, subways, and walking as we wound from Narita Airport to the Grand Hyatt Intercontinental in Yokohama, but then had dinner in the hotel, went to bed at a normal time, and immediately resumed a normal schedule the next day.

Jet lag has never bothered me.

Until now, until this return trip from Tokyo.

Now, jet lag is my new friend and constant companion. I haven't let it affect my schedule--I'm still working long days, going to bed very late, and so on--and my energy, though not quite up to par, is generally fine, but my sleep sucks. I have trouble falling asleep, and I'm up every 45 minutes or so, until after about four and a half hours I give up and get out of bed.

I'm sure looking forward to being over it.

Of course, I'm not helping myself by leaving in the morning for a business trip in San Francisco, but so it goes; I'm committed to going.

I just hope I can sleep when I get there.

Why I didn't blog while in Japan

The answer is easy, if multi-part: Google/blogspot was both too smart and too stupid, and I was too lazy.

Google/blogspot was smart enough to detect I was signing on from a Japanese IP address, and so it switched all my prompts to Kanji, which I can't read. Posting and reviewing and inserting URLs and all the rest while having no English text was a huge pain, as I learned the one time I did it.

Google/blogspot wasn't smart enough to give me an option to say, "This computer should always blog in English." Or, perhaps, I failed to find that magic setting; I doubt it, but it's possible.

I did find the setting to switch the language, but it was a pain to get to and didn't stick across sessions.

So, with touristing, many hours of PT work, and writing every day, I was busy enough that I blew off blogging.

Sorry about that. I hope you resume reading. I'll try not to let this happen again.

When the heck am I?

It’s 6:50 p.m. Tuesday in Chicago, 7:50 p.m. in Raleigh, still Tuesday of course, and 8:50 in the morning Wednesday in Tokyo, where we’re heading at about 560 miles an hour airspeed. We’ve got about six hours to go and have been traveling about six hours.

I know all this courtesy of the MacBook Pro in whose glow I am illuminated, some basic math, a nice tracking display that American Airlines provides, and a friendly flight attendant.

My body, however, knows none of this. It knows that it is mightily confused. I slept a little less than 2.5 hours last night. I’ve eaten heavily and surprisingly well--aside from the overcooked mini steak, all the food on the plane has been reasonable. I’ve dozed what seemed like a fair amount in my plush first-class seat, it the product of years of accumulated airline miles. The covers are closed on the windows.

I have no clue what time it is, even though I know what time it is.

Interesting sensation, and one I expect to get only weirder. I didn’t particularly care for the movie, Lost in Translation, but my friend Jorge has told me that I’d appreciate it a great deal more once I’d traveled to Japan. I’m beginning to wonder if he might not be right.

This experience has convinced me that I wish I were rich enough to fly first class all the time and not break my personal bank. The seat is spacious and reclines fully into a bed. The flight attendants are great. We get Bose on-ear, noise-canceling headphones, and so on.

And now to take my increasingly disoriented brain and focus it by working, first on PT stuff, then on Slanted Jack marketing tidbits, and finally on Slanted Jack itself.

And the luggage winner is...

Jennie! In a surprise development, Jennie, owner of perhaps the largest wardrobe in our group, won the weight contest at the American Airlines counter this morning with an astonishingly light 26-pound suitcase. I collected the embarrassing award for heaviest bag, with a 47.5-pound monster. I plead a heavy suitcase to start with, a ton of electronics, and packing at 1:30 in the morning the night before the trip. Still, it's clear: Jennie FTW in packing, me FTL. (Gina's bag came in a full 3.5 pounds under me, though still way over Jennie's.)

The shame of it all.

On the road again

Tomorrow morning, I have to get up at the unholy (to this night owl) hour of 6:30 a.m. to shower and head to the airport for the long trek to Yokohama, Japan, where I'll be one of the U.S. SF writers speaking on panels there. Thanks to the miracle of the international date line and the sheer length of the trip, I'll reach the hotel in Yokohama about 24 hours after I get up. I expect to be very special at that stage, in that nasty, no one wants to be near you sense of special.

My first panel is the next day at 1:00 p.m., so I better acclimate fast.

Sometime late tonight, I'll start packing. I wish it could have been different, because for a trip this long--I won't be back until late on Sept. 13--I would have preferred time to go, but that's not the reality of my life.

Tech and stamina permitting, I hope to send updates from this journey, my first trip to Japan.

Watch this space.