loneliness - faqjapan.com

Today is different. For some reason I dont feel like myself, I cannot explain how I feel. I just dont feel right. I decide to sell my second camera, a Nikon. Never used. My Samsung camera literally takingall of the action.nI take a bicycle. Thirty minutes later I am at Reisen Park. I go into the, We buy and sell any camera shop, and plonk my bulky Nikon on the desk. I hand the manall of the wires, still locked inside the opaque plastic. Charger? he asks. Oh. I forgot the charger.nOne hour later I am back at Reisen Parkwith the charger, and the sale concludes. In the park opposite, a stage looks like it is being taken down. Iswing by a bookshop and purchase a bookwith some of my camera money; so many books I needto read.1160 for the one I choose, Kafka on the Shore.nnnnnOutside the raindrops like scattered gunfire, but you probably dont care about the weather. I decide to grab an early lunch from the second floor of Hakata Station.I deliberately go via one of the shortest escalators in the world. Just for fun.nnMost restaurants in Japan have plastic models of food outside. These models are so well made, that you could mistake them for real food; if you didnt know any better. The detail is incredible. I take a gamble and go into a restaurant without any plastic models. I have no idea what food is on the menu.nIt is one of those restaurants where Japanese is the only known language, fine by me. I order a set meal of tuna on seaweed and rice, the closest thing to coleslaw I have ever had, but it isnt coleslaw, miso soup, horseradish spicy green thing, the name has escaped my memory; and a delicious red bean cakefor dessert. A nice meal.nAfter I leave, a woman chases me out of the restaurant with my forgotten umbrella.nnI return the bicycle to the hostel, just as the rain stops. I sit on the roof terrace and read eighty-six pages ofKafka on the Shore.nAfter reading, I take a stroll around at dusk. I walk toward Tenjin. I take aphotograph of the city from the river and then walk back. I was going to fill up space by talking about wasting electricity with all thisneon, I will instead waste words telling you that Fukuoka is the sixth biggest city in Japan.nI realise on my walk back that I havent been on a train orbus for three days. Maybe I havent done anything but reading for two. A Chinook passes over me. And ironically, I am on my way to meet a helicopter pilot.nnAt the bar, the manager pours me a free glass of ice cold rice wine. The helicopter pilot is with his wife. I talkto him for ten minutes, before sitting at the bar with my book; not to disturb himas his food arrives. The helicopter pilot is Japanese, I met him last night in the same bar. His English is good. He told me to come back again today, Not a problem, I told him. The bar is five minutes from my hostel.nI sit at the bar for a while, gazing at all the skewers of meat that sit atop the glass counter. Eventually, the helicopter pilots daughter shows up. She is at university studying English.I spend the next two hours at the bar talking to her in English. Her eyes brown,profoundly deep-set. Her hair strikingly black; it has an odd texture to the touch, itfeelslike straw.nI agree to meet her tomorrow over a bowl of Paella. She leaves.I pay for six Highballs and her orange juice,2345. A nice clean number.nAs I wander back via a Lawson Stores, I see these odd workers:nnI see them everywhere, actually. They stand on roads, at entrances to car parks, and next to building sites. They wave on traffic and pedestrians with their orange Lightsabers. Sometimes there will be three or four, all standing on the quietest street next to a cement mixer or ladder. A very strange job.nBack at the hostel, I have a craving for Salt and Vinegar crisps; another thing that I cannot find here.I sit in the lounge with a few cans of Suntory Highball and talk with the Koreans. There is a Korean woman who is both the same age as me and two years younger. East Asian age reckoning.nIt becomes one of theKoreans birthdays; an amazing cake duly arrives, bang on midnight.nnOne of the Korean girls isstudying philosophy and is incredibly intelligent. We talk about philosophy, another thing I really miss doing. She quite likes my discussion onM-theory. We also talk a lot about sentient pigs. I found out a few months ago that I had been pronouncing the word sentient wrong for my whole life. SenCH()nt.nWe eat cake, we drink, and to end the night, the intelligent Korean girl tells me that my eyes look lonely.nRead the next part of my Journey in Japan, where I attempt to make it to Dazaifu by clicking here.

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