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September 10th, 2024

Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan

I’ve arrived in Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island, in tandem with the first fiery leaves of fall foliage.  Patches of red, orange, and yellow tease me from treetops as I stroll through Sapporo’s landscaped parks.  Chilled winds, messengers of memories from last fall, spawn a frog in my throat.  It’s only September tenth!  Why so soon?  Honestly, I didn’t think I’d be feeling the nostalgic pang of autumn’s creeping onset this year.  My loose plans to flee for equatorial destinations before Halloween have, frankly, been informed by a fantasy of chasing endless summer: I’ve been scarred by too many bleak New York winters and I refuse to endure another hibernation.  Summer’s lush, eternal optimism evokes within me an abundance of time, energy, and potential.  Autumn’s striking beauty, however, is always devastatingly painful, symbolizing scarce, fleeting, withering life, the prelude to dreary frigidity.  This season sees greenery preparing to hang in the town square, its bold sunset hues a declaration of rebellious last words, life’s spiteful grand finale in protest of inevitable execution.  

I thought that avoiding fall meant resisting time’s passage.  But, now that it’s here, I am waking up to the fact that I’ve been living out of a duffel bag since May.  Today is my trip’s four-month anniversary.  I’m not burnt out, but I can’t keep pretending like it’s my first week out here.  Settling into a relaxedly measured pace is necessary for my endurance.  This voyage will lose all longevity if I cosplay tourism daily; I’d much rather live like a local.  

That’s why I asked Rie to introduce me to Takuya, her friend from Sapporo: I hoped rolling with him would bring me closer to tranquil domesticity.  Luckily for me, Takuya was as accommodating, hospitable, and generous as Rie, taking me on an enrichingly meditative stroll all around his hometown today.  We chomped on salmon and sea urchin, wandered through a train station mall, prayed before a Buddhist shrine, and hiked a mountain on the city’s outskirts.  The vista at our trail’s peak revealed a panoramic expanse of urbanism; all of Sapporo was within our sight.  

Innocently, as I stood on the mountaintop and peered down at the ant-sized humans far below, I asked Takuya, “How many people do you think we’re looking at right now?  Like, including everybody behind all those building windows and inside all those cars?”

“Oh, wow, I don’t know.  Probably more than a hundred.  Probably more than a hundred thousand.”

I took a deep breath, contemplating the scale, before inquiring, on a non-sequitur, “Have you ever played iSpy?”

Patiently and curiously, Takuya bit: “What’s that?”

“It’s an amazing game that’s perfect for this moment.  The rules are simple.  You see all that stuff down there?  All those restaurants, rooftops, and radio towers?  You just pick one of those things, and I have to guess what it is.  For example… I spy with my little eye something white and fluffy.”

“Is it the clouds?”

“Yes! Okay, now it’s your turn.”

“Let’s see… I spy inside my eye – did I say that right? – a big silver dome.”

“Hmm… is it that soccer stadium?”

“Yes, it is.”

We played at least thirty rounds, standing atop boulders, squinting into the distance, eternally green.

September 12th, 2024

Otaru, Hokkaido, Japan

I’ve settled into Japan nicely.  During my first week here, I was so overwhelmed by its incredible sights, sounds, and tastes that I ate, walked, and shopped myself past exhaustion, but I now tread at a moderate and sustainable pace.  I’m familiar with Japan’s magic at this point.  We’re intimate, casual.  I don’t have to gorge myself on its beauty; just a daily nibble will do.

Beyond that, I’m now far less intimidated by the nation’s innumerable unspoken rules of social conduct, whereas a week ago I was walking on eggshells.  I never fall short of respect, but I’m liable to jaywalk or eat a rice ball on the curb every once in a while.  You can take the boy out of the concrete jungle, but you can never extinguish the wild-and-free tendencies out of this urban Tarzan.  I’ll always be from New York.  Assimilating to Japanese rigidity doesn’t have to threaten my extravagant personality.  In other words, I’ve decided to ask for forgiveness, not permission, in moments when my instincts grind against Japan’s norms.  And, in those acts of rebellion, I receive far less scorn than I’d expect!  For better or for worse, foreigners are held to a different set of rules here: a few mulligans have come included in my ninety-day visa.  

Most Japanese people, especially my Gen-Z peers, even welcome my individuality as a breath of fresh air.  I let them touch my hair with no complaints, for the giggles they produce as they feel its bouncy texture warm my heart.  I no longer feel shame or wish to shrink myself as they scrutinize my tattooed arms and cropped shirts, nor do I mistake their innocent confusion for malicious contempt.  

So, when I encountered a community piano (Japan, am I right?) while roaming Otaru’s streets tonight, I didn’t hold back.  I slammed on those keys and sang my heart out.  My hurricane of Beatles, Queen, and Eagles covers swept up several pedestrians who stopped to watch me play, but I was too entranced in the eye of my own storm to notice.  My spell of loud introversion only broke once I felt a pile of one-thousand-yen bills forming around the piano’s lowest octave: I was being tipped!  For singing with my eyes closed?  Apparently so!  I interrupted myself to plead with my spectators to re-pocket their tender, but they were set on getting their money’s worth, yelling song requests in my ear!  In a mess of overlapping voices, I understood “Hotel California!  Country road!  Hey Jude!” amid the unintelligible swarm of Japanese accents.  And, I’ll be damned if I didn’t give the people what they wanted.  We belted all those songs and more.  That sing-along lasted an hour!  By the end, my throat was sore and my fingers ached, but that was a small price to pay for such an energizing evening of impromptu musical congregation.  

I’d never before felt so welcomed and embraced by Japan.  It was refreshing to see this citizenry indulge in an interruption of their routine bashfulness.  Perhaps the locals I sang with were just looking for an invitation to let themselves get lost in the music, without a care for being perceived.  I’m grateful to have been their green light.  It’s no secret that I stick out like a sore thumb here, but that’s alright with me, as long as I have some kind friends behind me, cheering me on!  We’re all stronger together.  

September 14th, 2024

Otaru, Hokkaido, Japan

I had an entire bath house to myself tonight.  With my body submerged up to my nostrils, I relaxed beneath the mineral water like a hippo.  Closing my eyes and meditating unmovingly in the placid pools distanced me further from Otaru’s shy, faraway hum, sending me upwards into an immaterial plane.  I was a faintly shimmering star in a dark expanse.  

Admittedly, despite my gratitude for the privacy, I wished to be surrounded by other bathers: traditional onsens always offer superb people-watching.  The silent company of locals certainly would have remedied the intermittent melancholy I’ve been experiencing in Otaru.  

For that feeling, I wholly blame the onset of autumn: the chilly weather alone pains me in nostalgic colors, but the added vacuous desolation of Otaru’s shuttered off-season leaves this big port city feeling like an abandoned ghost town.  The few tourists currently roaming these streets have about as much collective presence as an emptied pot’s last few grains of rice, unreachable by any serving spoon, cursed to be scrubbed into the garbage disposal by a dish sponge.  I’m consequently dealing with a deficit of human interaction.  Such absence of socialization leaves me restless, prowling the streets, sniffing for the buzz of chatter.

These hunts always lead me back to the piano I encountered on my first night here.  Its convenient placement at the mouth of an izakaya alley is decently trafficked by Otaru’s deflated populus – undoubtedly hankering to stumble into a dive bar and find the antidote to their seasonal depression at the bottom of a liquor bottle – so I can reliably expect to make friends in the drunkards slurring song requests.  I like performing for them.  They inspire me to sing proudly, in my most booming voice, like a true showman.  The applause they shower me in at each song’s conclusion satiates me more than any of Japan’s finest culinary delicacies could.  The bottomless mugs of green tea – that my audience members buy me only after expressing disgusted disbelief in my refusal to drink alcohol – also certainly help warm my cold and lonely heart.

Last night, I invited Mae, my hostel mate, to come join the crooning ceremony.  She’s an absolutely dashing traveler from South Korea.  Her Korean name is Bae So Hyeon.  Her bed at Ya Do Guest House is right across from mine.  She looks like she could have been my classmate, but she’s actually ten years my senior.  Her radiant face possesses as much impenetrable agelessness as Jeong Kwan’s.  My face, too, lit up at the sight of her sauntering towards my piano.  Suddenly, I forgot about the crowd that had formed around me, and I sang only to Mae.  No Beatle could ever have possibly felt the lyrics of “I Want to Hold Your Hand” as deeply as I did at that moment.  Time flew by after her arrival, and before I knew it, I’d emptied a cavernous well of audience song requests.

As the singalong wound down, an elderly couple, born and raised in Otaru, invited Mae and I inside an izakaya for some drinks.  They treated Mae to a bottle of Otaru beer; I opted for another mug of tea.  As the only foreigners – and non-retirees – in the establishment, the two of us quickly became the center of attention.  A continuous, overlapping collage of remarks like “Where are you from?”, “Why are you in Otaru?”, “I love your glasses!”, “Welcome to Japan!”, and “Are you two a couple?” left no room for us to respond.  I just smiled, blew kisses, and sipped my tea.  The shower of chaos cleansed me of my prior loneliness.

Our mob of senior citizens started filing out of the bar around ten o’clock, anxious to make it home by their early bedtime, leaving only Mae and I.  We ordered another round.  Perhaps inflated by my musical performance or energized by the elderly inquiring about our relationship, I worked up the confidence to ask Mae, in a spell of harmless, aimless flirting, “So, have you ever kissed an American boy before?”

Shocked, she spewed, “No!  I’ve only ever kissed one Korean boy.  I don’t like fast love.  It’s not for me.  Plus, to be honest, I thought you were gay!”

“I get that a lot,” I admitted bashfully, looking down at my cropped shirt and exposed belly.  “But, no, I like girls.  I don’t really care when people make that mistake, though.  Why should all straight boys need to look the same?  I know who I am and nobody can take that away from me.”  

“I admire that!”

We clinked our drinks in mutual understanding.  

The izakaya clock read two-thirty before we paid our bill and left.  I was grateful for the opportunity to expend my social battery all night, especially with people who understand and tolerate me for who I truly am.  I’m making a note to add candid conversation to my list of daily dietary requirements.  It can be found even on the driest, dreariest, windiest beaches, and Otaru, on this autumn night, is no exception.  

Toyako, Hokkaido, Japan

September 15th, 2024

My decision to fast yesterday was informed by whispered hope that solo-travel and hedonism aren’t hopelessly interconnected.  In that symbolic gesture of discipline, I resisted the temptation to indulge in Hokkaido’s scrumptious restaurant scene, reclaiming my dominance over pursuits of pleasure.  The radical choice wasn’t a reaction to any physical ailment, but instead a proposed remedy to a spiritual dimness: was I using my romance with Japan’s kaleidoscopic cuisine as consumerist escapism from the necessary work of cradling my emotions?  Seasonal depression was hitting me hard in Otaru, and I routinely avoided its frigidity using the warmth of smoky yakitori grills and steamy ramen bowls.  My digestive input was far outweighing my creative output, and I was fed up with standing idly beside that tipped scale.  After all, I’m not on holiday: vacation, more than a geographical condition, is a state of mind that no sane human can sustain for four entire months.  Therefore, while most travelers can use the brevity of their trips as justification for the drainage of funds and vitality that tourists tend to endure, my indefinite voyage must subvert those tropes in pursuit of rational endurance.  I needed to test my refusal to wallow.

It was a sensible idea in theory.  In practice, though, I was miserable.  Confronting my feelings was certainly the experiment’s aim, but, by putting myself in a foodless cage, I created an even gloomier circumstance than the one I planned on processing.  It was a self-inflicted Yom Kippur that left me bored, cranky, limp, and confused.  I woke up this morning with a raging headache.  

Coincidentally, I also discovered dozens of bed bug bites on my arms, legs, torso, neck, and scalp soon after emerging from bed.  They’re bright red, disgustingly large, woefully swollen, and incredibly itchy.  

This moment, more than any other in recent memory, is harshly threatening my stubborn yogic positivity.  Do I fight against despair or let it pass through me?  Neither option is attractive.  How is it possible that none of the techniques on my yogic toolbelt are coming to the rescue?  I must not respond to that paradox in frustration.  Naturally, this deeply personal rut will teach me more about the art of healing than any lecture or ancient tradition could.  The root inspiration behind my flight to Asia was the study of ancient spiritual practices; did I really expect to just prance through these lands, picking pretty daisies to send home, without undergoing any inner pressure or self-doubt?  I’m throwing out the textbook and listening to my heartbeat.  I’m accepting that this turmoil will ultimately make me richer.  Once again, I’m discovering that I know nothing at all.  And I’m fine with that.  

Love,

Etai