In February, Jessie and I took off for a tour of Japan.
Being wiser than wealthy, we decided to go by boat.
Below are a couple of shots showing the port of Busan, where we landed
after 11 hours aboard the Cozy Island Ferry from Jeju Island.

That's the Cozy Island moored there, and a fine old tub she is, all-night noisiness notwithstanding.
This next shot is Jessie kicking back on our floating picnic blanket (courtesy of Korean Air)
and enjoying the cheapness of the ride.

After an unfortunate 5am ripoff cab ride (10 bucks for 100 meters) from the domestic to the international
piers of Busan Harbor, we upgraded to the hydrofoil that would whisk us to Japan: four times the speed
of the Cozy Island at only twice the price. And well worth it for the ride, which felt more like travelling
in an airplane than on a boat.

At this point I should mention firstly that I'm not much of a photographer, and secondly that I had
only one memory card in the digital camera I took along on this trip. These facts have a lot to do with why
this travelogue jumps abruptly to... Osaka

We arrived at early morning on the outskirts of Osaka on yet another ferry, to which we'd connected via
a quick train and bus leg up the coast from Fukuoka. That (third) ferry was run by the Hankyu company,
and it was a high-end liner. We shared a stateroom with only one other passenger, and made good use of the
onboard spa. It's extra-luxurious, let me tell you, floating in a hot tub on the upper deck of a floating...
Well, you get the idea. The old double-float. The only drawback to the deal (truly a steal) was this:
no public transit connected to the dock on the Osaka end. No bus. No train. What to do? We were stymied
for about 5 minutes, then found a friendly clerk at the terminal there who threw us into his own car and ran us
lickety split fifteen minutes up the (wrong side of the) road to the nearest train station. He wouldn't accept
the ten I tried to pay him... and so we set out into Osaka rested and refreshed from the cruise-class ferry,
as well as karmically reimbursed for the dough we'd lost to the taxi-shark in Busan.

We were in Osaka mainly to catch an exhibition of paintings featuring about fifty of Korea's top artists,
including my good friend ChangHan Kim, from whose skyline hotel room I took the photo above. The setup of
the exhibition was a little too cubicle for comfort, but a lot of the work was wonderful. Here's ChangHan.

Again, I should really have more photos to show the scope of this art show, the mad sprawling seaside
architectural contortion of a building which housed it, and some of the incredible pieces there, but...
Well, Jessie forgot her camera. That's the thing. Realized it in the cab to the very first ferry. She
was broken-hearted, being an actual trained and gung-ho photographer and all. It was a damned shame.
Anyway, we got a chance to tour a few of the local sights with ChangHan, including...
Osaka Castle

That's Jess and me in the bottom of the photo there. I borrowed a few of ChangHan's shots to pad out the
presentation. And do you see those golden ornaments on the corners of the roof of the castle there?
Well, I cleverly included one of them in this shot from the top floor of the castle, looking out over
the grounds and the moat and into the heart of the city.

The walls of the compound are composed of some truly gigantic stones. We learned in the museum about
the planning and suffering it took to haul them in from the quarries far out in the countryside.

We were also grimly interested to learn a little more about Japanese invasion and occupation of Korea.
It was bizarre yet appropriate to have made a pilgrimage to the homeplace of the man who'd given the
order to wreak unholy havok on our host-country. Burning temples. Stealing people, art and culture,
not to mention any material resource worth anything. Living in Korea, a country that never once waged
war against another nation, it's hard not to judge Japan pretty harshly. But of course that's history.

Anyway, the castle grounds were nice. And the water was delicious.

I'm lucky to have these shots ChangHan took, because I tend to take non-narrative sorts of pictures
of random details that interest me along the way... like these padlocks we found on the seaside
outside a mall. They are love-locks, inscribed with Yoshi loves Chachi and such. And then there's
the umbrella lockup, which is probably the same all over the world, but struck me as a quirky kind of
thought-provoking leitmotif.

The umbrellas were in the entrance to the Osaka City Museum, where we took in a special exhibit of
Chinese painting. It occurred to me that I was having a very pan-Asian experience, appreciating
Chinese paintings with my Korean friend in a Japanese museum. Well, pan-north-Asian anyway. It was great
hanging out with ChangHan. He's the kind of fellow who can be an authority on a subject and still manage
earnestly to consult everyone around him as if they were the experts. And his perspective as a working
painter brings another dimension to viewing art with him. For instance, looking at the long scrolling
cloths that are the traditional backing of Chinese paintings, he commented on how much easier they are
to transport than Western-style frame-stretched canvases. Not something that would have occurred to me.
Also on display were galleries of centuries of art from all over Asia, including a selection of
Buddhas sitting with one leg crossed sort of cowboy style, with the ankle on the other knee, while the
other leg just dangled. Very casual and interestingly Western-looking. Emerging from the museum, we took
a turn around the huge park there, where plum blossoms and various other flora were just waking in the
early sun. For some reason, spring tends to come a little sooner to Japan than Korea.

On our second day in Osaka, we were able to meet up with one of Jessie's old friends -- Darelle. After
passing a couple of hours with us among the booths of the international painting exhibition, she
showed us her apartment and led us to a fantastic restaurant nearby. Funnily enough, her favorite dish
there (and the one we wound up having) turned out to be a Japanese fusion spin on the traditional Korean
KimchiChige. We'd come all the way across the East Sea to have one of the most common dishes from home:
cabbage stew. It was great -- not quite like a Korean mom would make it, but it helped that the manager of
the restaurant had a burnin yearnin for one of Darelle's friends and so kept bringing us complimentary
samples of expensive cuts of meat and sake sake sake. The ricewine fueled us for the long haul (in full
packs) to the random parking lot (had to ask directions twice along the way) where we met our nightbus
for Tokyo.

I have no establishing shots (as they call them in the biz) of Tokyo. We did our share of gawking at the
futuristic cityscape. Also we visited a nice park full of museums in the Ueno district, and walked around a
reedy lake of ducks. But again, all I came away with were some diverting details: a rack of manhole covers,
a young Japanese lass getting comfortable with contemporary technology, a funnily named fast food joint,
and a firm of international professionals just begging to take me on as a junior partner. Interestingly,
while getting this last shot, I was shooed away from the building by an angry guard yelling 'No photos!'
No telling why that may be.

Easily the craziest experience of our trip was the evening of Kabuki and Noh theatre that we'd reserved
for our second day in Tokyo. Well, actually my friend Kaoru had reserved it for us. Kaoru also gave us
inside assistance with most of our travel and hotel arrangements. She's a tour-addict herself, a world traveller
whom I met in Cambodia a couple of years ago. Without her, we would have been paying a lot more for a lot less
this time around. And we would have missed the theatre. Tickets are hard for foreigners to get, and there
is no English translation or program offered. Kabuki is the Japanese melodrama where men play the parts of
women. Noh is sort of the Asian version of existentalist theatre. Kabuki is soaringly emotional, whereas
Noh is more conceptual and often humorous. Both are all-singing, all-dancing, maniac and utterly
incomprehensible (to Jessie and me anyway) excursions into the gap between Eastern and Western aesthetic
sensibiliy. From the three hours of outrageously intricate costuming, wild arhythmical chanting and
twanging of plinkity plonks, nasal whining and belly-rumbling moansongs, I brought back one photo which
I think fairly captures the ultimate understanding Jessie and I reached of these phenomena.

We did some shopping in Tokyo, and ate some Western food we can't find here on Jeju Island. In the famous
discount electronics district, I bought some gratifyingly huge new headphones. At an outlet mall on the
outskirts of the city, we bought shoes and a couple of gifts for the cat. We ate quasi-Indian food there
and in the city found a Wendy's (almost like home), a Denny's (nothing like home), and Subway sandwich shops
(just like home). Also we found Tokyo's second largest 100 Yen Shop, which is the Japanese version of the
Dollar General Store. That was good fun. Of course I have no photos of any of that, nor of the daytrip we
took with Kaoru to a pricy resort town where we rode a cable tram off the peak of a gurgling, steaming
sulfurous volcanic peak. Great view of Mt. Fuji from there. Also on that side-trip we visited another
castle (Odawara), the grounds of which have been converted into a zoo. We saw an elephant and lots of
birds and little squirel monkeys and bigger Japanese Macaque monkeys... and also we joined in a traditional
tea ceremony. Instead of documenting any of that, I photographed this warning sign from the train reminding
commuters to keep their tails away from the doors.

From Tokyo, we took the only airplane ride of the trip. With Kaoru's help and by booking online and
agreeing to fly first thing in the morning, we found a domestic flight to Fukuoka which cost less than
the bus. Considering the bus takes over half a day while the plane takes half an hour, this was a real score.
Arriving before the shops opened, we lugged our packs to a coffeehouse and sipped chai while the sun found
its way around the office buildings. We learned that the layout of most Japanese cities involves careful
consideration of who's blocking whose sunlight. Ideally, everybody gets some sun. Anyway, we were back in
Fukuoka -- this time with two days to spend. We took in the city museum -- great modern art collection with
a Basquiat and a Dali, work by Warhol and lots of other greats --- and had fun shopping in backstreet shops
where food doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Walking around, I was taken by a great delivery truck logo,
a pull-down-pump gas station, the company truck that sends the right message, and another weird little car.

We scouted around for good clubs to check out that last night in Fukuoka, but unfortunately it rained.
Actually, we only went to one bar during our whole stay in Japan -- an unremarkable little blues spot in Tokyo.
I guess this trip was mainly about looking at art. And just getting over to Tokyo. Couldn't live in Asia for
several years without being able to say we'd been to Tokyo. But really it's not so much about bragging rights
as about feeling like we'd be missing something important if we hadn't gone at some point. Not that it was very
different from Seoul when all's said and done. Except for that Kabuki. Whew. So yeah, art, catching another of
ChangHan's exhibitions, Tokyo... and travel. This was a trip about travel. Boats, busses, taxis, planes,
trains above and below land and water... even a cable car. And with all that travel, just hanging out in
a hotel room on a rainy night felt pretty good. We were dismayed to find that no delivery service was
offered from local restaurants. I imagine that it might just not be cost effective in a country with such
a high standard of living and such spendthrifty people. That's one of the great differences between Japan
and Korea; Koreans can stretch a dollar with the best of them, but generally they're generous and
free-spending. In Japan (as in most of the rest of Asia), lots of folks ride bikes to save money, whereas
in Korea, you hardly ever see anyone on a bike unless it's for sport or recreation. In Japanese restaurants,
you're given a couple of small side dishes with your meal. In Korean restaurants, you're given a whole
tableful of side dishes that are replenished as soon as you finish one. One thing Japan seems to be
more on top of, though, is coffee. Korea's pretty sold on the instant 'Folgers Crystals' style joe.
Japan has more of the real thing. Check out this innovative pour-through technology from
our hotel room.

One thing we wanted and intended to do while in Japan that didn't happen for us was visiting
a hotspring. Apparently tattoos are seriously taboo. Mostly only gang members (yakuzi) have them,
and so most hotsprings don't allow them. Despite rumors of interesting 'yak-friendly' spas, we didn't
manage it. I was put in mind of that particular predicament by this poster from the 'Core' shopping
mall in Fukuoka.

The lunar new year occurred while we were there. Here are a couple of the signs of the season, so to speak.

I'll leave you with some temple photos. The lovecats are from a shrine in Tokyo, where I also saw
a touching monument to two newspaper giants -- one Japanese and one American -- who worked together
to promote free exchange of information between east and west, healing the gap some after the bad old days.
The rest of the temple shots are from our last morning -- and a lovely morning it was after the rainy night
prior -- before boarding the jetboat back to Busan.

Don't know when we'll get back to the land of the rising sun, considering that for the same
amount of dough, even after all the corners we cut with boat travel and nightbusses and whatnot,
we could have lived like high rollers just about anywhere else in Asia. But there are still
places I'd like to see in Japan, like Mt. Koyo and Kyoto and the far north where the snow monkeys
live. It's a beautiful and fascinating and confusing country. We had a great trip. Thanks for
reading my little ramble about it. Many blessings in the year of the rooster!