Tokyo thoughts

Was talking to Matt, one of Rose's roommates, tonight. "You think the Japanese are polite?" he asked. "They treat you like a celebrity, they treat you like a guest, but that gets old. They're polite, but they're really thinking, this guy's a douchebag."

I can see that. It's nice to be around a polite society -- especially given some of my frustrations with the Bay Area -- but I can imagine that the idea of face would get old if I lived here. Then again, Matt did mention the idea of a "gaijin pass" (exemptions for foreigners), so maybe that would work in my favor. At any rate, I'm not thinking of moving to Tokyo (at least not right now), but I do plan to read some Donald Richie on Matt's recommendation to learn more about the culture.

So far we've been to:

- Takadanobaba, the university area where we're staying
- Akihabara, the huge electronics town and nerd locus
- Jimbocho, one of the largest collections of used bookstores anywhere (unfortunately, not much was in English)
- Shinjuku, the red-light district and watering-hole area
- Shibuya, the more upper-class party area that winds up into ...
- Love Hotel Hill. I'll just smile and leave it at that.
- Kamakura, which we visited as a day trip today. I found a pretty comprehensive blog post about the area, complete with pictures of Daibatsu and Hase-dera, shrines that we visited while in the area. I found Hase-dera by far the most interesting. It's a shrine to the unborn children -- miscarriages, abortions, the ones wanted and not wanted, but all loved and missed. Extremely touching. It's also totally beautiful. Great views, especially getting toward sunset.

Being here, I'm reminded once again of why I love travel: I'm taken outside myself and pulled back in, at which point I get bitchy and crabby as I mull my flaws and how I need to wrangle with them. If you look at it right, it's an awesome opportunity.

One more thing: Adam is an awesome travel partner. We've always done great together. I really do love him more every day.