WRITER VS THE WORLD Copyright © 2017 by David Coyle. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be produced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. Printed in Wellington, New Zealand. First Printing, January 2017. www.davidcoyle.live 1 For Fern. 2 "It is the life for a man; for how otherwise can he come at meaning of the great book of the world than by treading its pages?" The Arabian Nights 3 Japan 4 May 2nd, 2016. Day 1. I went to the airport at 4.30am. Lifting off from Wellington, still in the black of night, we made our way north as dawn pierced the eastern horizon, giving the sea of clouds a gorgeous red glow. The sky above softened to baby blue before we landed underneath Auckland's mist. The Sky Tower was just a faint grey figure in the distance. On the next flight, with a largely empty cabin, I laid across a row of seats and slept. I did some writing when I woke, at times. We flew north between the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean, over Norfolk Island and New Caledonia, into the Coral Sea, then over the Solomon Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia, before skirting east of the American outposts at Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. It was then just an ocean of blue before we struck the heart of mainland Japan, Tokyo. The border official gave me a slightly raised eyebrow when I said I had come to see family, but I soon crossed the threshold into my 17th country where my cousin Jake was waiting for me. I got some yen and we caught a bus into the largest city on the face of the earth. Passing factories and rice fields, we folded into the gigantic depths of the concrete metropolis. Complexity everywhere; layers of urban sprawl, a city stacked and woven into itself many, many times over, exhausting to comprehend. The Skytree loomed ominously, the thick grey fog making it impossible to know how far away it was. We got off the bus and ventured into the subway, the immensity of Japan starting to dawn on me. After several stops, we went back to street level and caught a cab. On a quaint and narrow back road in Meguro filled with the smell of cooking, Uncle Nick waited for us. He welcomed me to Japan and took me inside his home where I saw Aunty Tommy. I had a bath before we headed out for dinner in Meguro. I wrote to Angela that, "I can't help but suspect I've entered the prime of my life". May 3rd. Day 2. In every direction, on each horizon, there's more city; more skyscrapers, bridges, tunnels, motorways, trains, cars, pylons, people. Tokyo heaves with magnitude and motion, a relentless current of metal and concrete. It's without end. Today, Uncle Nick wanted to take me to Kanaya, on the other side of Tokyo Bay, to go for a hike and see some Buddha statues. We walked to Meguro Station, stopping on the way at a small shrine to light some incense, and then caught a crowded train 5 southward. It's Golden Week, so-called because everyone has lots of holidays, so the crowds are larger than usual. My tenuous grasp of Tokyo isn't yet strong enough to know which station we then transferred to another train from. As this train sped along to Kurihama, where we were to catch a ferry to Kanaya, endless waves of city passed by the window. Not for a single moment during the hour long journey did we ever leave cityscape. Everything is compact and tightly squeezed, much like the people on the trains. Monoliths of commerce stand amidst a mosaic of crisscrossing roads and railways. There is no graffiti, everything is spotless. No chewing gum on the pavement, no cigarette butts, not even a stray leaf on a railway platform. 'Tokyo' is a seamless flow of 24 individual cities. We zipped through two of them, Yokohama and Kawasaki, on the way to Kurihama, where we caught a crowded bus to the ferry terminal. The trip across Tokyo Bay offered a nice dose of fresh air. Unfortunately, there was a low haze about so I was unable to sight Mt Fuji. Arriving at Kayana, we set out to the top of a formidable hill. Walking through the woods made me feel at home. The forest had a sweet scent and the birds made sounds I haven't heard before. We climbed stone pathways to a lookout, but we couldn't find the Buddhas anywhere. No Nirvana today. May 4th. Day 3. Uncle Nick and I kicked a spontaneous plan into action this morning and made a mad dash to Tokyo Station in a taxi. Having recently fallen in love with a small town in the mountains called Nozawa Onsen, Uncle Nick booked us a night there in the two- star Utopia Hotel. Dashing and dodging through Tokyo Station, we caught a bullet train to Iiyama. Speeding out of Tokyo into the countryside at over 250km an hour, I caught my first glimpse of the snowy peak of Mt Fuji far off in the distance. At Iiyama, we caught a bus to Nozawa Onsen. Perched in the foothills of the mountains, the cute town reminded me of the cobblestone alleys of Europe, but the smell of the cooking and the architecture of the bath houses were unmistakably Japanese. Hot springs provide the water for the baths and streams of hot water run throughout the town. The sound of their current carries tranquillity. Climbing the steps of an enormous shrine, we met some old women painting with watercolours. When Uncle Nick told them where I had travelled from, they said, "Ah, the land of the sheep". 6 We checked into Utopia Hotel and were shown to our room; a traditional Japanese setting which looks out across snow capped mountains and the valley where Iiyama lies. Wearing our bath robes through the streets, we went to a bath house to bathe in the hot springs. I wasn't aware of the custom to bathe naked. One old man had enormous swollen bollocks. It was a somewhat refreshing soak, even with all the ass cracks and floating pubes. We strolled through the town in our robes again and watched the locals cook vegetables in the hot springs. Looking for a place to eat, we were then approached by an overly friendly local who invited himself to join us for the evening. He was harmless enough. I had some raw horse meat at dinner. It was chewy. With our new 'friend', we then went to a karaoke bar to meet some of Uncle Nick's real friends. I'm not sure if it was specifically a karaoke bar or if all bars here are karaoke bars by default, but the sake and Asahi inspired several renditions of Japanese love songs. I've been sober for eight months, so when I was given the microphone I had to sing something without having had a drop of alcohol to help loosen me up. I sung House of the Rising Sun. I had a great night out with the guys, even though I couldn't understand them. Some things in life are just universal, I suppose, like booze, women, and the word 'hentai'. May 5th. Day 4. Uncle Nick and I had a traditional breakfast of salmon, rice, and vegetables from the mountains this morning. While we were eating, the overly friendly local from last night came into the hotel and asked if we wanted to go for a drive with him. He was evidently stalking us. We told him to get lost. Bathing in the nude again with some more old men, we then got a gondola to the ski resort at the top of the mountain. It was cold, but the views were nice. We left the mountain and walked around the town some more, lazily killing time before our bus back to Iiyama. Legend has it that 1,200 years ago, a wounded bear came to rest in the hot springs and a hunter who was tracking it founded the small settlement. It has a population of just four thousand, most of whom are elderly. The hot water is funnelled through pipes, bits of scrap metal, and gutters. It trickles through wheels and carefully placed alleyways, like miniature canals. It sounds idyllic and carries the smell of sulphur through the town. Catching a rickety old bus down the mountain back to Iiyama, we then caught the bullet train back to Tokyo. It was the last day of Golden Week, so the train was full of 7 people returning from holidays and we had to stand the whole way. Without the window to look out of, I found myself thinking about the Japanese society I've been surrounded by for the last few days. The birth-rate here is in decline and 25% of the citizenry is over 65. I've noticed how few children their seems to be, a somewhat unsettling thing to pick up on, not least of all because this was Children's Day. Whenever I do see a young family, they're usually just with the one child. Speaking of children, it feels like Japan and the West have simultaneously adopted each other.