We had a week of rainy days, and during that week I noticed the front wheel of my bike started to make a funny noise. And a bit of a vibration. Hmmm, not cool. Im not willing to let my main mode of transport get out of order so I took it pretty promptly to the bike doctor. I suggested there might be a problem with the axel-thing-whatever-its-called, or maybe the hubs, whatever they are, maybe the rain had created a situation where some mud got flicked in there or something? Bike doctor dude looked at it for a few mins and then he says he thinks hes figured it out. We go out to the car park and sure enough the noise has stopped. The cause was not rain or mud: the reflector light had moved and was now vibrating against a spoke, making a bit of a noise.... He didn’t even charge me. How embarrassment.

I got these stupendously fab new shoes. Red ones, for work. Sooo cool, and very well padded and supported inside. The soles are quite thick. I noticed when I was driving the car in them (cos in the week… er, weeks since I bought them I havent really taken them off) that the car was all kinda chuggy and uneven and I figured that it must be due to my new shoes. You know, cos its a manual and there is a lot of foot action going on, and I was obviously just not quite feeling the pedals thru the soles or something. Whatever. And then the car died. Totally died. It was the alternator, not the new shoes.

Im just so not very good with all this mechanical stuff… and hooking the problems up to obvious changes in the environment seems not to work very well in the problem-solving department. 

For this long weekend, Mum is visiting and staying with me, and we are having a girly detox and luxury relaxation weekend. It has been lovely so far! We started yesterday after Mum finished work, she came over with all her stuff and we had a simple but yummy chunky vegetable soup. We went for a walk in the parklands after that and then came back for a pasta dinner, not exactly detox but hey, there is also a luxury component here too, don’t forget. We looked at the lolcats for a while and giggled until an earlish bedtime at 11pm. Then we got up at 8 this morning and had hot lemon water and fruit for brekkie, then off to Janesce on King William Rd for 1.5hr detox body wrap treatments, mmmmm, now that was nice! That was my birthday present, arent i spoilt!?!

I still smell all yummy! Despite feeling all warm, fragrant, relaxed and somewhat jelly-like, we headed into the Central Markets for brunch (hmmm, Zuma’s full on breakfast could hardly be considered a legitimate part of a vegetarian detox weekend, but we will just skim over that bit perhaps) and then did a bit of shopping for the rest of the weekend’s menu. This afternoon has been spent reading and talking, and dinner was grilled salmon and mixed grilled veg. Ive stayed away from the computer for most of the weekend, but finally got bored of reading tonight and here i am blogging instead.

Tomorrow will be yet another day of quiet and healthy - we will start off with the same brekkie, and lunch is salad.... and then Mum heads back home. We have a garage sale to plan and more quiet music and reading, maybe a walk perhaps… I love having a quiet weekend, but having Mum around to have one with is a special treat!

Hachiko at night

Still on the topic of books, Ms. Frangipani had a quick chat where I recommended Finite and Infinite Games, and she recommended the Inland Sea by Donald Richie. We both had the books with us, so we swapped for a moment. Maybe it was the atmosphere that made the pages I read seem so significant - huddled in our warm jackets outside the tiny Ni-chome bar, sitting under the awning in the pouring rain, second beer into BeerBlast, and I’m having a quick read! The writer asked a great question; instead of “How do I like this place?” he suggested “How do I like who I am when I’m here?”

Mmmm, there were a few things I didn’t like about who I was while I was in Tokyo.

Hayfever + the weather + my attitude to the crowds = x, and soon x is starting to have an impact on how I deal with people I like and how much energy I have… And the timing wasn’t good either. It was based on the Faraway Boy’s holidays, I would have preferred to be there after MJ had her baby, or in conjunction with a camping trip or hanami or a festival…

I didn’t like the way I slipped back into grumpiness in all the press and push of the crowds. I hated all the commercialism and the way it squeezes out everything else around it, and yet I did little but go shopping. Oh, and take photos (but so few that I like, and many I missed because of the rain). Attitudes I used to wear, conditioned responses built up over a long period of time took me over and surprised me, because it had been so long since I had felt that way. Most of this happened in train stations, or at least it was most noticeable in train stations, but I started wondering about how much of my attitude to my environment is a conditioned response? Of course, if I learned to behave this way then I can surely learn to behave differently, but I never noticed it before! So now I’m wondering about what my conditioned responses are here. Do I automatically brighten and perk up when I get on my bike and head for the markets? In all the press and noise of the Central Markets I certainly don’t experience the same frustration I feel in Shinjuku train station. Nor do I feel murderous in the Mall on rainy days, not the way I do in Shibuya…

While I was there I trod mostly familiar paths, I think I was trying to experience as much natsukashii (nostalgia) as possible, trying to recreate who I was just before I left. It was quite a weird feeling. I loved seeing all of the friends I have missed so much over the last few years, those open-minded, adventurous people I have learned so much from, but I couldn’t wait to go home. Breaking up with the Faraway Boy contributed to the gloomy mood as it became clearer and clearer that our futures lie in different countries, different directions. Yeah, that didn’t help.

Initially I wrote here “I’ve never had a holiday like that before”, but now that I think about it, the truth is that I tried to recreate my old self each time I came back to Adelaide on holidays. I love that feeling of being in two places at once, two lives at once. I love the gap, the mental discord, the experience of chinks in the integrity of my personality. It’s such a weird experience. I keep repeating it.

No, it would be more accurate to say that I have never been on a holiday that I didn’t want to be on before. I was so glad to get home, and it was such a pleasure to discover how happy I am here. I am pretty sure that I will visit Japan again in the future, but I believe I will be much more of a tourist next time; far less interested in indulging in nostalgia and much more open to the new.

Another idea that is rocking my world at the moment, also in the healing/growing/conflict/psych fields, is a small book called Finite and Infinite Games by James P. Carse. Imagine if everything was a game, well here is the rule book. I keep recommending it to people but have found it hard to say what its about. I guess, fundamentally, it’s a paradigm, a lens you could apply whenever you felt like it. Basically its about maximising creativity and play, but of course games are also a lot about conflict. There are sections on war, health, sex, society, culture… and its old too, from the 80’s! Its not exactly easy to read, but i have found the ideas very useful and I’ve been applying them pretty frequently. I want to lend the book to everyone, but at the same time I can’t quite let go of it.

Heres a sample:
Because infinite players prepare themselves to be surprised by the future, they play in complete openness. It is not an openness as in candour, but an openness as in vulnerability. It is not a matter of exposing one’s unchanging identity, the true self that has always been, but a way of exposing ones’s ceaseless growth, they dynamic self that has yet to be. The infinite player does not expect only to be amused by surprise, but to be transformed by it, for surprise does not alter some abstract past, but ones own personal past.
To be prepared against surprised is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated.

(...)

Since a culture is not anything persons do, but anything they do with each other, we may say that a culture comes into being whenever persons choose to be a people. (...) A people, as a people, has nothing to defend. In the same way a people has nothing and no one to attack. One cannot be free by opposing another. My freedom does not depend on your loss of freedom. On the contrary, since freedom is never freedom from society, but freedom for it, my freedom inherently affirms yours.

(...)

The infinite player in us does not consume time but generates it. Because infinite play is dramatic and has no scripted conclusion, its time is time lived and not time viewed. (...) Time does not pass for an infinite player. Each moment of time is a beginning. Each moment of time is not the beginning of a period of time. It is the beginning of an event that gives the time within it its specific quality. For an infinite player there is no such thing as an hour of time. There can be an hour of love, or a day of grieving, or a season of learning, or a period of labour.

Last night was so much fun! I havent had that kind of fun in Adelaide for a long time! We went to Salt at Glenelg, and while the food was very nice, the atmosphere was a bit full on. There was a big wedding party in, and half the restaurant in a bar so there was a real night club feel to it as well. we just wanted a quiet space for a good catch up.... Never again will i confuse ‘intimate’ with ‘quiet’. Still, there was quite a bit of goss to go round....

Today im taking it slow, ive just been out to the supermarket to buy as many vegies as my little arms can carry, and tonight im cooking up a storm that will last me thru to Wed i hope: green lentil and brown rice pilaf with onions (oops, forgot the yoghurt), roast vegies with mint sumac and garlic (for tonight and for sandwiches), and pumpkin and spinach mild coconut curry. Yum. I think by the time its all done I will be full just from the smells!

On a different note, im having a bit of an ideas fest at the moment. I’ve always been interested in the way the brain works, and while i was surfing around in the latest batch of Ted Talks i found this talk from neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor and how a massive stroke helped her better understand brain function.

I love the way she uses her whole body throughout the 20 min presentation, and the description of the two personalities in us seems intuitively right. I found it quite amazing!

I’m feeling much better these days, mostly recovered from the nasty cold and all the snot and tiredness. Looking forward to a girls night out tonight with the Riotous Redhead and Ms. Journogal. My biggest dilemma is whether to drive or catch the tram. If i catch the tram, i have to walk a bit to and from, but then i can drink at the restaurant. If I drive, i can wear sexy shoes and avoid any potential rain, but i cant drink. Doshio....

You see, it all comes down to the sexy shoes eventually....

sick of my nose
sick of my throat
sick of my heart
sick of goodbyes

sick sick sick

While in Tokyo I was hoping to get a chance to have some good yakiniku, and so at the earliest opportunity Ash and Ms. T took me and a few others to Mon Cheri, a proper Korean yakiniku-ya in Shinjuku for the real thing. I never made it to Gyu-Kaku, but I dont think I missed out on the whole grilled meat experience! It was a fun night!

When I woke up the first time this morning, I knew I was in my own bed, but I was entirely unsure what country my own bed was in. I mentally bounced between Japan and Australia for a second or two, decided on Australia and went back to sleep. Its good to be home.

Home again. My suitcase has exploded in the livingroom, all the new technology has successfully been hooked up, and i feel at home again. Tomorrow i will start packing away and cleaning, and then start editing the great multitude of pics. I have lots to write about, and pics to go with it all! What a headspin of a trip! It didnt quite go as i expected, but the full story will come later when i am not so sleepy!!!