fractal mindscape

2011-12-08T16:10:00.000-08:00

Today's topic is something which has provided clarity of vision, is called upon in troubled times and works tirelessly and thanklessly, sweeping aside that which threatens us with disaster: The windscreen wiper. Sometimes we forget the importance of the little bits of rubber that protect us from fluids that can mean the difference between life and death.

The windscreen wiper was invented by Mary Anderson in 1903. Well, all she really did was come up with the idea and then get somebody else to design it, then take all the credit. She was told by the company she asked to market the idea for her that "we do not consider it to be of such commercial value as would warant our undertaking of its sale". Serves her right I say. I bet those guys would feel like idiots if they knew that a hundred years later the Bosch corporation in Belgium alone churns out 300 000 of the things every day.

A windscreen wiper blade is held in place by a structure known as a whippletree, the kind of ridiculous name reserved for very important things that nobody thinks about, like uvulas (that thing that dangles from the back of our mouths) and aglets (those bits that keep the ends of shoelaces together). The whippletree is connected to the car by a long arm, and since windscreen wipers are a legal requirement in most countries, every time you go for a drive in the rain you have the long arm of the law in front of you. Waving a blade in your face. On a whippletree.

Don't ask.

Presence

2011-09-17T16:13:00.000-07:00

Things have changed pretty drastically over the past few years; within our own lives and in the outside world. The Earth rumbles and shudders just as you would with your skin teeming with so many parasites sucking from your being. Upheaval is everywhere.
I'm sure you have your own story to tell, of how you or those you know have been affected by the inevitable global recession, crime, war or disaster. Mine goes like this: Almost a year ago, I walked away from a very comfortable life. An easy job, a beautiful relationship, a house in the country, a nifty car and an enviable schedule. I had reached the event horizon of an unsustainable situation. Within a few days I was sleeping on a friend's couch, single, bewlidered and on the other side of the world.
But in a matter of months, everything has changed again. I have been a researcher, set builder, production assistant, student, editor and a pizza delivery guy. Now I am back in Japan, busier, riding my bicycle between challenging appointments in the city. I am learning to accept that my partner of five years now lives with another man in another country. We will likely never see each other again. On Monday I was in London. Tuesday, Kuala Lumpur. Wednesday, Osaka. Yesterday morning I gave a speech to a hundred children. In Japanese. That evening I was in a classroom with people from Indonesia, America, the UK, Australia and China. I had supper at a Nepalese restaurant with people from Canada, Ireland and Jamaica. To say that life is a blur would not do justice. It feels more like a fruit salad.
Surprisingly, I feel fine. I have stumbled across a mental faculty that helps me still my noisy brain, my monkey-mind filled with the chatter of conditioned responses and if-then scenarios. It is Presence, and we all have it, to some degree. Another name for it is Awareness, something which exists neither in the past nor the future, but in the all-encompassing now. I have heard it said that there is nothing to prove that we haven't arrived at the present moment preformed with ready-made memories, that the past never happened in the way we presume. I don't give this idea much credit, but I am in no position to discount it. Because all we can really know is right here right now, and our proof for this is in our direct conscious experience of it, whatever it may be: an arrangement of atoms, a computer generated matrix, an idea in the mind of God, all or none of the above. Descartes thought, therefore he thought. He made an assumption that existence could be derived from thinking. But thinking is an inevitable consequence of being alive and having a brain. I am, therefore I think. I Am/To Be requires nothing but awareness. Not even thought. Much less a cartesian a distinction between mind and body, for these are functions of each other. Awareness is that which observes thought. And I have a suspicion that it pervades the universe. Rather than flail around labouring the point trying to tie this up, I will call upon the eloquence of R Buckminster Fuller: "I live on Earth at present, and I don't know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing—a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process—an integral function of the universe."

The Secret SOTU

2011-01-26T03:48:00.000-08:00

John Effer, Foreign Policy in Focus contribtor, recently composed the State of The Union Address as what would be going through Obama's head, rather than what he would be reading off the teleprompter. I had to repost!

I feel entirely qualified to look into the president's eyes to get a sense of his soul. Here's what I believe President Obama will be thinking as he reads off the teleprompter:

I stand before you tonight to say that in my next two years in office I will focus like a laser beam on the economy, to make sure that America is competitive, that we are growing, and that we will create jobs not just for today but for the future.

Well, I had to say that, didn't I? Frankly, I wish the unemployment rate was not at 9.1 percent, that Congress had passed a larger stimulus package followed by a job creation bill, and I didn't have to stand before the American people and pretend that I can change the economy during the rest of my term. The Republicans don't want the economy to improve over the next two years because that would kill them at the polls. The more people suffer, the more they vote tea party. So the next two years, on the congressional side, will be all about deficit reduction rather than preventing the economy from going into a deflationary spiral. Don't look to Congress for help with jobs, people! Trying to create jobs with no federal money is like fighting a gun battle with a knife.

Honestly, I'd rather talk to you all tonight about foreign policy. That's where I can excel. I don't have to deal with crazy Republicans or back-stabbing Democrats. I can just behave like an executive should behave – decisively. Look how I handled the recent state visit with Chinese leader Hu Jintao. Sure, there was lots of blah-blah-blah, but in the end I extracted $45 billion in Chinese investments, which translates into 235,000 jobs. It's a sad comment on American politics that it's easier to enlist Beijing's help for job creation than to get Congress to pony up the funds.

What I really like doing is going abroad, meeting with foreign dignitaries, and making landmark speeches. People in other countries don't ask me about jobs, don't treat me like I'm some glorified employment counselor. As soon as I leave the country, I can talk about the big picture. I can talk about the abolition of nuclear weapons. I can talk about new engagement with the Muslim world. It's a shame I can't do that in a State of the Union address. I have to stick to the economic numbers, like I'm the Accountant-in-Chief.

What really gets my goat is that when I do go abroad, the U.S. press can only focus on the little things – did I bow correctly, whose hand did I shake. I scored a deal with Medvedev on arms control. I managed to improve relations with India without upsetting Pakistan. We were able to put together a government in Iraq. I won the Nobel Peace Prize, for crying out loud! And the press goes after Michelle for touching the Queen of England's shoulder? Tell me: if we were white, would they pull that nonsense?

The world's people are hungry for a new kind of American leader. But back home, a quarter of all tea party sympathizers think I'm the anti-Christ, literally! I've continued almost all the major elements of the Bush counter-terrorism policy. We increased drone attacks in Pakistan. We surged in Afghanistan. We kept in place extraordinary rendition and endorsed military tribunals. And somehow, all of this translates in the minds of an appalling number of Americans into my being…Muslim.

Then there are the progressives. I never promised to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan. They greeted my surge plan as if it were some great betrayal. I said all along that we were fighting the wrong war in Iraq and we should shift our attention to the right war in Afghanistan. Sure, I prefer diplomacy to war. For one thing, it's cheaper. But I'm no pacifist. We'll start pulling out troops from Afghanistan in July, and I'm emphasizing that in this speech. But as any strategist knows, you have to put down cover fire before withdrawal, and that's what the surge is all about.

Meanwhile, we haven't gone to war with Iran or North Korea. True, relations with those countries haven't exactly improved. But I haven't given any easy ammunition to the right by "appeasing" those countries or risked overextending our military capabilities by attempting more aggressive measures.

I'd love to talk about climate change and renewable energy and trade policy. I'm a wonk at heart. But I learned during the campaign that Americans are not interested in the details. They're like consumers who buy complicated electronics, don't bother to read the instruction manuals, and then complain that things don’t work. They want me to fix the economy like they want the plumber to fix the leaky faucet or the electrician to repair the porch light. At our December press conference after the tax deal, I let Bill Clinton handle all the details of the package with the press. Bill's better at that, anyway. People don't feel he’s lecturing. Maybe it's his accent.

After the attack in Tucson, some Democrats and Republicans are sitting side by side tonight in the chamber. Don't be fooled by this show of temporary affection. The next two years are going to be ugly. So, even though I'm not getting into the weeds with foreign policy in this speech, look for me to focus on international relations in the second half of my term. Like I said, I like to travel. And frankly, Afghanistan and Pakistan are looking a lot safer these days than Washington.

Thank you. I'd better add that God bless stuff or else even more Americans will think I'm Muslim. And good night.

Hippie Killing Machine

2010-04-21T05:53:00.000-07:00

I recently found out that President Obama has announced the release of the new F/A 18 Hornet strike fighter that runs on a blend of conventional jet fuel and biofuel. The first flight, scheduled for Earth Day, will burn several thousand pounds of biofuel derived from the Camelina Sativa plant, a close cousin of Cannabis Sativa, an illegal plant in the USA and much of the world. The aircraft has been dubbed the "Green Hornet", even though it is the most prodigious fuel burner of all US naval aircraft.

I trawled the web to find some fuel consumption stats to compare them with, say, a fleet of hundreds of humvees tearing down the road at full throttle, but alas, such information appears to be classified. Needless to say, this thing's engines are thirsty. It is therefore hardly surprising that Mr. Obama, in his prudence, has paid lip service to the benefits derived from making this thing burn plants that are a few weeks, rather than a few million years, old.

That said, hasn't anyone noticed the blatant subversion of the ecological movement by labelling this thing 'green' and launching it on Earth Day (when it will fly around and add several tons of CO2 to the atmosphere)? It is a killing machine. If it was plugged frontways into your house it would drain it of air in less than a second, and backwards, in just as much time, fill it with more than enough noxious gas to kill your entire family. And yes, even when it's running on biofuel.

This is part of a pattern that George Orwell first brought to our attention. In the same speech, Obama actually said the words "clean" and "coal technology" in sequence. He also said "We will not be guided by political ideology but by scientific evidence" when referring to expanding offshore oil drilling. Last time I checked, ramping up fossil fuel production meant bringing ecological collapse that much closer and an obvious nod to the oil cartels which actively squash (by means of coersion and murder) real clean technologies (the pefectly viable kinds that run on water, geokinetics and sunlight and produce no pollution).

The teabaggers (bless their misguided souls) are right on one thing. Obama is a liar (it comes with the job). But remember, he is just a mouth. A puppet. He does the bidding of others, hidden behind his charisma.

We, as people who would like to leave a healthyish planet for our children to inherit, can subvert these hidden monsters dressed as men by refusing to buy their bullshit. We create our own truth thank you. We create our own intentions. We are insulted by such oxymorons as 'a greener military' and 'fighting for freedom'. What a load of crap. We envision a future in which these monsters and the machinations of their war factory are exposed for all to see. Manufactured enemies and conflicts will then have no sustenance, and war itself will die.

How to Recognize a Globalist Agenda When it Slaps You in the Face

2009-10-13T17:25:00.000-07:00

The nomination and awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama has been met around the world with expressions of disbelief, confusion and incredulity. Rightly so. After all, how can the figurehead (I hesitate to say leader) of the world's biggest arsenal of nuclear weapons, world's largest and most complex military, world's most beliggerent country which not only overtly invades sovereign nations on flimsy pretexts, but covertly supports bloody coups and insurgencies elsewhere, be even mentioned in the same sentence as the word 'peace'?

The Nobel Peace Prize, as most of you know, originated from the last will and testament of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite. Although dynamite was not used on battlefields during his lifetime, he knew that it would be, and was so appalled by this that in mitigation he called for the establishment of a prize that should go to "the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses."

Despite the fact that Obama was nominated for this prize less than two weeks into his term, there is one glaring point that should have disqualified him immediately. He has increased the amount of troops in Afghanistan, and has authorised the use of drones to fire rockets into villages in nuclear armed Pakistan, killing people who had no idea of what is even going on. This creep into Pakistan is a spreading of the fiery part of America's global war on terror (WW3). There goes "reduction of standing armies" and "fraternity between nations".

To be fair, Obama himself said that he did not think he had done enough to deserve the award, or to be in the company of the transformative figures who had won it before him, though he did not have the conscience to decline the prize, as Le Duc Tho did in 1973. His Cairo address marked a shift in America's attitude to the Arab world, at least rhetorically. The same can be said of the disapproving murmurings about Israel's Apartheid style treatment of Palestinians and Nazi Liebensraum style expansionism. Talk. And talk is cheap. Iraq is still hell, Guantanamo is still open, the atmosphere is still the USA's gaseous garbage dump, poor people in America are still denied healthcare. More proof that campaign promises are the poorest kind of promise. Symbols say more than talk. Take a look at the presidential seal of the United States. The star of David made up of thirteen stars hovers above an eagle grasping a thirteen leaved olive branch in one claw and thirteen arrows in the other. The Cairo address may have appeased some Arabs and Muslims, but most of them know which star this bird is following and that its not going to let go of those arrows any time soon.

So who decided to award this warlord the world's heretofore most respected peace prize? Nominations are only accepted from previous prize winners, a very small section of the world's intellectual elite, and the world's political elite. The committee is comprised of five people, all of them members of the Norwegian parliament. The chairperson is Thorbjørn Jagland, also secretary general of the Council of Europe. Although not a member of the EU, Norway is a member of the European Economic Area and complies with many EU policies and stipulations for this reason.

This is just a rough sketch of the visible power structure of who decides where the prize goes, but take a step back , and try to describe this whole idea of war-spreader-gets-peace-maker-prize in one word...

... That's right. Orwellian. And Orwell's famous maxim from 1984 immediately springs to mind:

"WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH"

And you are watching Big Brother. Do we need a bigger wake up call than this to show us that there is a globalist agenda at work here, conflating archetypes and attempting to subvert our very ideas of what peace, freedom and strength mean? That the war of terror is a war on Terra, the very consciousness of our planet and the basis of our remaining sense of human unity? That these would-be world controllers not only control our parliaments, media, industry and 'healthcare', but also seek to control our minds?

I think they've dropped the ball on this one though. Awarding Obama the Nobel Prize for Peace is a step too far. They've jumped the gun. Too many people are standing up and saying "WHAT!?" and the hits on David Icke, Michael Tsarion, Drunvalo Melchizedek and Credo Mutwa's websites just keep soaring.

Are you buying the lie?

Fire in Peacetime

2009-02-14T18:25:00.000-08:00

A fire burns off dry reeds in a wetland near Praia do Tofo. This fire lasted for three days and though the flames reached the height of a three storey building at times, no one seemed too perturbed by it, least of all the people living in grass huts right next to the wetland. A mild onshore wind kept it going but also stopped it from getting too close to any buildings. No attempts at firefighting were made at all.

Mozambique

2008-12-21T03:57:00.000-08:00

This past year has been a tough one, especially for my partner Megan, who had to deal with the culture shock of the diminished freedom of inner city Cape Town after the freedom and safety of two years in Japan. We lived, and she worked and studied, in Woodstock, South Africa's oldest suburb and one of its most notorious for gangs and associated crime. After eleven months of living in high security contexts and street life reminiscent of downtown Detroit, the dirt and depravity of the area had put an unnecessary strain on our relationship. We needed a holiday, and with a bit of gentle persuasion from Megan, I arranged for us to spend three weeks in Mozambique. I had been there before in 2004 and piqued her curiosity with my stories.

We took the train from Cape Town to Durban and only found out on the first morning that it was a two day trip, rather than overnight as we had expected. We hunkered down for another 24 hours, grateful that we had access to a dining car. We stayed with my parents in Durban for a few days and then took the Panthera Azul coach to Maputo via Swaziland, where a customs official on the Mozambican side was bribed to abandon the search he had embarked upon for that very purpose. Despite our best efforts to avoid it, we were swindled by the taxi operator who took us to our first point of call, Fatima's Rest Backpackers in Maputo. It was election day on our arrival, so nothing was open, meaning we had no chance of changing money. We went for a walk in town and came across an agitated group of people. Two policemen had stopped three South African travellers who had just arrived and demanded to see their passports, which they didn't have. They refused to accompany them on the short walk to the backpackers to fetch them and threatened them with arrest. After showing the cops our passports, we said we would fetch the travellers' ones for them. I went to Fatima's and told the receptionist what had happened. "Those bloody cops!" he exclaimed and marched out to give them an earful. They duly abandoned their harrassment of the travellers. From Fatima's we had to get up at dawn the next morning to take the chapas (minibus) taxi to Tofo. We had to wait for several hours in a throng of people and vehicles for it to fill up with passengers before we could depart. One of the things I was happy to see on the arduous and uncomfortable journey was the field before the bridge over the Limpopo on the way into Xai-Xai had been cleared of landmines and was now under cultivation. After several hours of bone-jarring journeying, we were dropped off at Fatima's in Tofo, relieved to be done with all the driving and happy to complete the last kilometre of the journey on foot. We finally made it to Bamboozi, the lodge I had booked at and were shown to our hut. It was made almost entirely out of natural materials and was better than I expected, with electricity, beds and mosquito nets. We made our way up to the bar to be shocked by the prices. They were about double South African prices, close to quadruple the prices I paid the last time I was in Mozambique, four years ago. This may have something to do with the fact that this country has experienced an incredibly high growth rate since it was a bit of a Zimbabwe case in the nineties, having suffered two long debilitating wars which only ended with the collapse of Apartheid and the drying up of South African funding for the right wing terrorist organiztion, RENAMO. Several zeros have been knocked off the Metacais which also seems to have propelled the currency to its present value.

Mozambique has been run by FRELIMO, a socialist party, since independence from the Portuguese. The colonialists' language is still the official language, a unifying factor for the many different tribal and language groups which inhabit the country. The ruling party is a kind of benign kleptocracy, if you'll excuse the oxymoron. Mozambique has a functioning democracy and FRELIMO is always voted back into power, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that the style of government is distinctly African, running on favours, gifts and commissions, a system known to hoodwinked westerners as "corruption". The lodges had to pay a kind of tithe to the government through a convoluted process of compulsory donations.

Tofo itself is a small seaside village which derives most of its income from, and even owes its existence to, tourism. The centre of the village is the marketplace, close to the main beach, usually a quiet tropical idyll, but come mid December, a noisy playground for drunk Gautengers on jetskis and quadbikes. Luckily we escaped the worst of it by going home before most of them arrived.

Our typical day was waking up with the sun at around 6am then walking into the village for coffee and to buy food for breakfast at the market. We'd then take it back and prepare it in the most rudimentary kithen I've ever used. There were two pots and a broken plate... that was about all the cookware. A blackened gas stove, a dodgy sink and a fridge we christened the 'Black Hole' for its inability to store food, were the only amenities. We bought a knife at the market which we had for a while but then that was stolen too. I blame backpackers for this rampant kleptomania, since the locals would have had a hard time hiding all the stuff.

Unfortunately, due to the ridiculous prices and the impotence of American Express travellers cheques, we were unable to experience any of the ocean tours or scuba diving on offer, so the only sealife I saw was a gamefish that streaked underneath me when I was surfing one day. The area is famous for whalesharks, which I saw last time I went, and turtles, manta rays and dolphins. The wildlife tasted good tough. Our favourute dish was grilled barracuda.

Altogether, we stayed just under three weeks at Tofo and in that time found out which were the best beers and how much one should pay for them without getting ripped off. We learned how to get rid of the legions of little boys who tried persistently to sell bracelets made out of seashells and beads (Mimicking their sales lines and saying we weren't from Gauteng usually worked). We found the best place for coffee and breakfast when we were doing well with our budgeting (The Waterworks surf and coffee shop), made a few friends and received an offer for a job in Japan over the internet at the village's only internet cafe. It was a happy ending to the Southern African chapter of our international journey together and a great place to rest before we started the next chapter; in Shikoku, Japan, where I am writing this from!

The San Clan Burn

2008-11-06T07:49:00.000-08:00

This was the centrepiece of AfrikaBurn, a sculptural representation of a San rock painting representing community and unity of intent through its many heads and many legs running in the same direction. This burn, the equivalent of Black Rock City's "Man", happened on the Saturday night and was preceded by the release of several floating lanterns which rose steadilty into the empty, starry desert sky.

Afrikaburn

2008-10-29T04:44:00.000-07:00

After months of indecision, I was finally convinced by two of my housemates to make the trip with them to Afrika Burn, the festival in the Karoo semi desert inspired by Burning Man in the United States. I hurried to the shops to buy four pockets of oranges, since we were on our way to a cashless society, a gift economy in which everyone contributes and everyone benefits, I decided that oranges and goji berries would comprise my contribution. I had been put off by the high entrance fee and the vast amount of fuel needed to cover the distance from Cape Town to Tankwa Karoo, but once I had reconciled myself to paying for these, I was happy and eager to experience life in a cashless society, if even only for a few days.
Our first glimpse of this grand social experiment, in its second South African incarnation, was from a few kilometres away as we made it over the top of a ridge. It looked like a sci-fi moon base from far away. A great white dome and a red tower presided over smaller structures, which revealed themselves as art installations, tents and vehicles as we got closer. A light aircraft circled overhead and came in to land at the adjacent airstrip just after we arrived at the gate. Here I met Monique, someone who I knew from my Anthropology class at university, and was surprised to find out that the event (or invent, as the organisers would prefer to call it) was her brainchild. She had abandoned her Masters to focus on last year’s project. “What else would you do with an Anthropology degree?” she asked, half smiling.
We entered and made our way round the Binnekring (inner circle) street to the large red tower, which turned out to be a giant post box, about three stories high. This was Burning Mail, the theme camp we were involved with. Anyone could write a postcard at Burning Mail and have it sent for free to anywhere in the world, including within the festival. I did a stint there, answering the phone, which was linked by a direct line to a London telephone booth standing by itself in the desert within the Binnekrig. Most of the callers asked for jokes and I ended up having to come up with my own because the joke references we had been provided with for the purpose were generally pretty bad and dirty.
I set off to explore the other theme camps and found camp Vuvuzela, just after dark. Huge lights made out of hundreds of cooldrink bottles illuminated the windswept dancefloor as revellers grooved to Eastern European beats spun by the famous Toby Two Shoes. The area was intermittently warmed and lit by sudden jets of fire emanating from five meter high vuvuzelas (loud trumpets associated with South African football).
In the distance, the massive white dome, which I learned was called The Wish, eerily shone in the soft coloured lights that faded on and off around it. The Wish was constructed out of wooden circles within circles, a magnificent reinterpretation of the classic Buckminster Fuller spheroid buildings. Over the course of the weekend, it was a trance party venue, a jungle gym, a wedding chapel and a fornicatorium. As far as I know, it was the only flammable work of art that was not burned.
The most spectacular burn was that of San Clan, a towering multi-headed and multi-legged statue representing the interdependence of humanity and the spirit of uBuntu. Most of the population of Tankwa town, the name of the temporary town that was itself the festival, turned out to see it. A mobile sound rig arrived to lend some beats and party atmosphere, and the art cars shuttled people from various other places on the Binnekring. I got a ride on the back trailer of an interlink towed by a tractor. There were about eighty litres of Sangria on board, and although it was free and well advertised, the benefactors were having a hard time giving it all away. About an hour before the San Clan was lit, a dreadlocked team was wandering around The Wish with a tray of psychedelic hash brownies, and the spectacle of the San Clan going up proved to be the event that sent many partaking participants over the edge.
One popular theme tent was the Desert Rose, a free cocktail bar. It had a kind of Mexican Dia de los Muertos theme, playing cowboy tunes to the dusty rabble rousers on the covered dance ground. Skulls, cacti, saloon doors and strings of chilli lights accentuated the theme. Between the Rose and Burning Mail was a green army tent amidst a laager of RVs called M*A*S*H*E*D. These guys from the UK had an old flatbed truck done up like a field ambulance and it made excursions from time to time with their band, including a full drum kit, mics, amps etc, playing beer fuelled punk rock to whoever they drove past. We received our first gift of the event from them; a large pot of rice and a large pot of mince, which a man in a surgeon’s uniform donated because they had overestimated how hungry they were. Further round the Binnekring was the information tent, which had photos from the previous year as well as an array of coloured pens which could be used to write or draw in the spaces between the photos. On the other side of the Binnekring was Camp Partycipation which consisted of a chill area with free food and a large sound rig playing psytrance, accompanied by musicians or the similarly inspired on a collection of musical instruments on the periphery of their dance ground. One of the members of Partycipation lent me an article on how DNA could be altered with special laser technology. I felt that the information itself was a valuable gift. I left him a pile of goji berries.
Arbi and Patel’s corner store was nearby, offering the kinds of goodies one would expect to find at a corner store, but all for free. Customers were encouraged to leave gifts on the table to maintain the quantity of the inventory, while having the quality in constant flux. Next door to Arbi and Patel’s was a chai and roti shop, a welcome stop for the desert-weary wanderer. I noticed that near the end of the party everyone seemed to have oranges, and fewer and fewer people were accepting them from me. This was not really a problem (Mark made orange juice when we got home) because the nature of a gift economy is that the gifts are unconditional, as opposed to a barter economy, which is still an economy of exchange. I was able to keep myself well fed and entertained by virtue of other peoples’ philanthropy. Some had special touches to contribute, like Polaroid photos and little crystals.
I had experienced a society of abundance, and I kept in mind that it was only possible because the participants were predominantly from well endowed sectors of the economy; in other words, you have to be rich to live in a cashless society, as things stand, and you can only do so for a few days a year. But the amazing thing is that despite this unfortunate exclusivity, those of us who were able to, found a place out of time. Along with the cash went many other cultural imputations, leaving behind a more joyously giving, gracefully receiving and enthusiastically participating breed of human, living for, creating and being in the moment.

The Trip Continues

2008-06-04T09:30:00.000-07:00

I have just finished a long holiday. I lived and worked in a foreign land for two whole years and this equipped me to spend every day for the next few months almost exactly as I pleased. I am happy I was able to do that, but its over now. I read, surfed and hung out with friends. I bought a car and lost it two days later. I joined a band but we never really got that serious about our music. My girlfriend arrived from the United States. This is when things started to get interesting. This is the first country she has been in where it really is as dangerous as people say it is. Bearing witness to the difficult adjustments she had to make has been a valuable learning experience.

I now find myself in a small apartment in a security complex, driving to work just before rush hour starts and coming home just after it ends. My dreadlocked previous self would be horrified. This is just a phase, though, like any other. I have changed and I continue to change. I am happy to say that I still have the same friends. I just have to wait longer to see them. Life goes through cycles of contraction and expansion. We all grow older and wiser, some faster than others. The trick is to get wiser faster and older slower.

Berg en Dal by Starlight

2007-11-17T08:10:00.001-08:00

Berg en Dal Night
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull

I lived here! (and may again).

Berg en Dal

2007-10-23T09:54:00.000-07:00

The name, for those of you unfamiliar with Afrikaans, means mountain and dale (valley). It is where I spent most of September volunteering as a WOOFer (willing worker on organic farm). Berg en Dal is near the small town of Ladismith in the Little Karoo, a semi arid mountainous region famous for its surprising diverstity. Four people stay on the farm, developing a living system to sustain themselves based on the principles of Permaculture (permanent agriculture) developed by Bill Mollison.

All drinking water comes from the sky and all electricity comes from the sun. Flourishing gardens provide residents with fresh vegetables year round, as well as supporting an organic seed business. I spent my time weeding and clearing plant beds, doing building repairs and cooking for the students of a Permaculture Design Course held there. I rose with the sun most mornings to spend the day preparing for and later helping to sustain the PDC. I was fortunate enough to sit in on a few classes and came away inspired to learn more about living sustainably within one's chosen environment, feeding into and drawing energy from a cyclic, dynamic, fractal system. Life at Berg en Dal brought me back to nature in a way that made me realise how far away I had drifted from it in Japan. Being on the farm brought me round to remembering that I am a part of an eternal interplay of energy, my self does not stop at my skin, it fuses with and is a part of my community, what feeds me, what houses me and sustains me on the multitude of dimensions that shape human experience. I create and live within and among my creations, and they shape me in turn.

Back in the R of SA

2007-08-02T05:19:00.000-07:00

My two years in Japan have come to a close, and after an exhausting series of flights halfway across the planet, I have made it back to South Africa. I have many more stories about Japan yet to tell, but I am taking the time now to let those of you who read this that I am back in the land I call home. I was lucky enough to have enough time in Hong Kong to visit my school friend Eddie, who took time off work to show me around. Unfortunately, I had to leave a suitcase behind as I was way overweight for SAA's regulations, but that's easy to do, especially given the fact that I was away for two years.

I am beginning to adjust to the cold, dry weather, the reality of the crime problem and being in a country that does little to hide the fact that the government is predominately populated with gangsters. The food feels more wholesome, though; the air cleaner, the sea more energetic. Its interesting to be able to eavesdrop on whoever I want without the hindrance of a language barrier. I hope those of you who I left behind in Japan are all well and enjoying what you are doing. One day I shall return, but now is the time for me to land in my own country and get my hands and feet in her soil.

Kinkakuji

2007-05-15T22:46:00.001-07:00

Kinkakuji
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

The famous Golden Temple in Kyoto. Note the gloden colour of the leaves in the background.

Miyajima no Torii

2007-05-15T22:44:00.001-07:00

Miyajima no Torii
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

Onomichi Castle in the Springtime

2007-05-15T22:43:00.001-07:00

Onomichi Castle
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

The first stop on Ha-sama's great adventure.

Visitation II

2007-05-15T19:48:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of April, my father decided to book at flight to Japan from where he was in Bangkok, leaving the following day. I received a phonecall from him as I was preparing breakfast one Sunday morning, and he told me he was in Okayama, fory minutes away by train. That was my advance warning. He had timed it just right for the Sakura, Japan's famous cherry blossoms. Our first stop was a matter of hours after he arrived, in Onomichi for a hanami (flower viewing/drinking party) on top of the hill in Onomichi with Matsuura-san's international society. Children frolicked and adults chatted, drank and passed out on blue tarpaulins, which are apparently a standard requisite accessory for hanami. We were plied with alcohol and left with twice as much as we had arrived with. In my semi-inebriated state I decided it would be a good idea to take my father (hereafter referred to as Ha-sama) to Miyajima, a World Heritage site in Hiroshima Prefecture. It was further than we had thought but at least we had beer and a lax drinking policy on public transport to tide us through the unexpectedly drawn-out train ride.

The famous Torii (sacred temple gate) was the first part of the site to come into view on the ferry ride. Unfortunately it was low tide so it was standing on a bare mudflat instead of rising majestically out of the water. I was surprised to see deer wandering around as if they owned the place. We sauntered inamongst the sacred buildings nestled under a profusion of flowering cherry trees and watched the sun set behind Hiroshima's hills from across the inland sea. We left after dark and headed to Hiroshima station to catch the Shinkansen to Fukuyama. The Shink arrived at Fukuyama at about 300km/h. Safe to say that we did not get off. It bolted just as fast through Shin-Kurashiki, a minor station even closer to my house and finally decided to slow down before stopping at Okayama. Ha-sama was drifting in and out of consciousness and I was feeling like an idiot for choosing the fastest of the most super-express trains for our ride back. More haste less speed, apparently. I chose another shink back to Shin-Kurashiki rather more carefully and we finally got a local home from there.

I phoned in to work the next day to politely inform them that I had more important things to do, like drinking copious amounts of coffee with Ha-sama at breakfast, a long-standing family tradition. We were whisked off in the shink again, this time with Megan, to see what we could see in Kyoto. Our first stop in Kyoto was Kinkakuji, the Golden Temple. We stopped close by for Ha-sama's introduction to tenpura-udon, then made our way to Giyon, the famous Geisha district, where Megan had been wanting to go to catch a glimpse of the beautiful Maiko hurrying between their appointments. We saw a few but they were evidently well practised at evading camera lenses. We wandered between temples and under Sakura, stopping to take some pictures with a group of Japanese people Megan and my age who had decided to be our friends for the hour, next to one of the oldest cherry trees in the area. We waited for about an hour in Giyon as the sun was setting for a bus that didn't even serve that stop. Once we realised this, we headed to the undrground railway instead, which took us to the shink.

With the previous two days having been spent filling Japan Rail's coffers with my hard-earned cash, I decided it would be a good idea not to take another trip across vast stretches of the country. We went to Okayama city instead and visited the Crow Castle and the famous Korakoen garden at its best time of the year. Ha-sama was alerting me to the fact that I was quickly exhausting him with my hastily formulated itineraries, but we had one more thing to see. We rushed to Kojima to get a view of the longest multi-span bridge in the world, the Seto Ohashi, connecting Honshu with Shikoku. It was dark and raining when we arrived and the taxi driver tried to talk us out of it. He shook his head like we were crazy when we insisted and he drove us to the viewing point. We got out, got wet, and saw a few pairs of strobes disappearing off into the darkness. Ha-sama had finally seen this famous bridge with its lights off, at night, in the rain. We felt rather stupid but we were too tired to let it bother us. The incredulous taxi driver took us back to the station; he obviously couldn't wait to go home and tell his wife about us.

I had to go to work at last, but I was smuggled out for a really nice lunch with Ha-Sama and my Saturday Afternoon Eikaiwa students, who are mostly his age, so they all got along like wildfire.
I got a few raised eyebrows when I slipped back into the staffroom an hour late but everyone conveniently forgot about it.

The following day, Ha-sama was allowed out by himself to explore Hiroshima while I was at work. We went to the almost-fancy restaurant in my town that night and I bade him farewell early the next morning as he began the westward stint of his world jaunt, heading home through Bangkok, Dubai and London. It was an interesting visit with the usual father and son stuff, and I alternated between wanting to bash my head against a wall repeatedly and being happily engaged in the uniquely fascinating conversation that we share.

Octopi

2007-04-02T17:28:00.001-07:00

Octopi
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

One of the many weird and wonderful things on Naoshima: a room full of stuffed octopuses.

The Glass Staircase

2007-04-02T17:26:00.001-07:00

The Glass Staircase
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

Part temple, part artwork, this testament to reincarnation descends beneath the ground, carrying light into the cavern underneath through the glass stairs. The white pebbles represent mortality as they are the same size and shape as human skulls

Seen/Unseen Known/Unknown

2007-04-01T19:15:00.001-07:00

Seen/Unseen Known/Unknown
Originally uploaded by Telstar Logistics.

The spheres on Naoshima, housed in a disproportionately large buiding built exclusvely for them. Thanks to Telstar Logistics for the photo. Artist: Walter De Maria, 2000

Naoshima

2007-03-25T18:00:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, two American girls, a Japanese girl and a South African guy set out from Kurashiki to a famous and unusual island in the Seto Inland sea by the name of Naoshima. Megan, Caitlyn and Akiko all work at the same branch of Amity Language School, and had been planning this trip for a while. I was lucky enough to be invited along. Getting to Naoshima entails a short ride on the ferry from Tamano Port. Megan and I opted to spend the trip on the top deck because the cabin was infused wihth the unhappy union of marine diesel and stale cigarette smoke. At first glance, Naoshima looks like a bleak wasteland as a large part of it is taken up by an environmentally unfriendly processing plant owned by Mitsubishi, but the ferry continues around this gloomy headland to a more habitable part of the island where we disembarked.

Naoshima is an anomaly, a kind of playground for Japan's artistic elite. Ignoring the Mitsubishi side of the island, it appears to be like anywhere else in peri-urban Japan with ancient houses and temples existing side by side with more modern structures sprinkled with the ubiquitous vending machines and fading prefab buildings. Take a closer look though, and one notices that within, amidst and hidden behind this apparent banality lie gems of creative expression, turning a visit to this place into a rich treasure hunt for the fantastic, exquisite and bizarre.

After a few tentative forays inland, turning around each time more because of underconfidence in our mapreading abilities than actually being lost, we found the first art house. I was amused that this house, acting as both a gallery and itself a work of modern art, would not look out of place in Khayelitsha or Gugulethu. It's a double-storey structure with a blue room, a black room, a seven meter high Statue of Liberty and a very interesting toilet. One can be forgiven for loitering because the floor is transparent and contains hundreds of little items like old foreign banknotes, bus tickets, coasters, postcards, doodles, scribbles, pin badges and other useless but fascinating stuff. After getting lost for a bit near the harbour, Megan and I found Akiko and Caitlyn in a white room straight out of some Taschen or Conde Nast arthouse mag. We took pictures of each other on the stylish chairs, pretending to be aloof supermodels or self absorbed architects. Even the potplants seemed to be imbued with some kind of ubermode superiority complex. We left this place with a small group of Japanese people and a guide with a strange haircut who closed his eyes when he spoke. He took us to what looked like a conventional traditional Japanese house from the outside, but inside it was dark, and filled with water. We were led along boards around the edge of the main room and we sat with our backs against the wall, staring bemusedly at red, green and orange digital numbers counting from one to nine, turning off, and then starting all over again, at different speeds just beneath the surface of the water. There must have been about fifty of these little units and they were the only lights in the room besides some very faint sunlight that found its way in through the entranceway. I tried unsuccessfully to understand what the guide was saying but later Akiko told me that he had said that the lights represented reincarnation, counting to their limit, going out and then starting all over again. I found it interesting that they all seemed to go at different speeds. We left this dark electronic hydro metaphor room and proceeded to what was once the kitchen. It took me a while to notice that the window also had digital numbers on it, also following the same 1-9 sequence at different speeds. There were three of them, each one about seventy centimetres high, a huge liquid crystal screen, except instead of the usual calculator/cellphone LCD, this was frosted and the numerals were clear rather than black. Seeing this random number generating window inside an ancient Japanese kitchen with an earthen floor and passers-by through the clear numerals was, in a sense, quintissentially Japanese; the juxtaposition of hi-tech and ancient heritage. It was more than that though, but I'm no art critic and I could get lost trying to identify the unfamiliar feelings this unexpected digital kitchen window aroused within me.

After leaving the reincarnating digital numeral house we climbed the 108 (there's that number again) steps to the temple on top of the hill. This was no ordinary temple though. An artist had bought a temple that had fallen into disrepair on the site from the locals who could not afford to maintain it. In its place, he had constructed a modern version with a much crisper aesthetic than the traditional style. It was set inside a huge rectangle of gleaming white rocks, each about the size of a human skull, which is what they were meant to represent. The staircase was made of huge slabs of glass that descended into the rocks. We were led around some trees and off the top of the hill to a concrete passageway going into its side. I could only just walk along it; it was exactly my height and exactly my width. Thank God I have dealt with my claustrophobia issues already because if I hadn't, this place seemed purpose-built to set them off. The passageway ended beneath the temple, revealing that the glass staircase continued beneath the white rocks into a little pool in a cavern below, conducting sunlight from above to illuminate it with a very dim, eerie glow. Caitlyn felt something crawl across her foot and freaked out. The girls all left this place in a hurry and I was left alone underground to contemplate the incomprehensible; the grand old questions of life: What? Why? One of my favourite artists once said that art is not supposed to say anything in particular, it is supposed to create impressions. This super/subterranian temple did just that and I resolved not to try too hard to assign meaning to what this large and obviously very expensive piece of work was telling me. Maybe the stairway to heaven and the stairway to hell are the same stairway? Whatever.

The girls had all prepared some food and we took time out from our surreal wanderings to have a picnic on the harbour wall, watching red gossamer jellyfish swooshing languidly around in water that was surprisingly clear for the Seto. An old man who had lived his whole life on the island wandered past and he decided to tell us how he used to swim to another nearby island as a child and how things had changed over the years.

After lunch we found ourselves at a large black rectangular building, the the work of a famous architect. We were led inside between carefully placed walls which completely sheilded the interior from light, where we were told to wait until we could see a faint rectangle appear in front of us. When we could, we were encouraged to move toward this rectangle and reach out to touch it when it appeared close enough. Before the rectangle appeared, the darkness was total. We saw the same things with our eyes closed as with them open. It was an unfamiliar but strangely comforting feeling. When the rectangle appeared, I could just make out the silhouettes of people moving towards it , yet it was still so dim that it was difficult to determine how many of them there were. I got up, walked toward the rectangle and reached out to it but it was as if my hand was passing though it without any sensation. The dimness had helped to create an optical illusion that made the rectangle appear much closer than it actually was. I reached a barrier before I was able to touch anything, and by this time I had my whole arm beneath what appeared to be the surface of the rectangle.

Our next stop was at an installation in an otherwise normal neighborhood that looked like a stand of large metallic waterlilies as viwed from the bottom of a pond, floating on an invisible surface about four meters from the ground. After so much walking around and getting immersed in sensory abnormalities we were happy to get in the car and relax for a bit as Akiko drove us to another part of the island. We stopped for a bit at a gallery called the Barber's Shop, since that is what it once was, where we saw hundreds of fuzzy octopi piled into a corner, and a huge one sitting in its lounge listening to the radio, its tentacles spread leisurely over the furniture. Naoshima is also famous for its cats, which wander freely around the island. On the way to the other side we saw one which must have been totally wild because it was far away from any of the built up areas. We descended into a pretty bay lined with palm trees and found a pumpkin the size of a small car at the end of the peir. Odd post-modern totem-poles punctuated the lawn we walked (and cartwheeled) across. We came to a small spit of land and found a painting halfway up the cliff. An imposing concrete structure loomed close by. It must have housed something important but no entrance was immediately evident. Akiko found it tucked away to the side and we followed her in. We were a little puzzled to discover that the only internal room in this enormous building was about the size of a two car garage. The only things in this room were two identical and perfectly spherical stones about six feet in diameter. And that was that.

We wandered up the slope to an even more impressive building partly sunk into the hillside. It was called the Benesse Art Site and it was designed by the famous architect Tadao Ando. It housed many works by famous artists like Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns. I was able to see one or two modern art orginals that I had only ever seen in text books at high school. The building itself felt like a work of art with its cavernous galleries, sweeping curves and enormous picture windows. The famous neon "100 Live and Die" had a huge gallery all to itself with the most incredible acoustics; better reverb than I've ever been able to achieve with any of my digital instruments. It was dark by the time we left, fatigued and a little awestruck by what the Japanese call "the art island". We saw a tanuki, a kind of raccoon/dog/cat thing that is only found in Japan, on our way out. It was the first time I had ever seen such a creature in the flesh, and I can say the same of the island.

Snap

2007-03-16T03:01:00.001-07:00

Snap
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

Same of my Sannensei students on graduation day

Things I never thought I needed.

2007-02-21T21:17:00.000-08:00

I have noticed a little meme that has popped up on the blogosphere lately. People are typing their name and 'needs' into a Google search and publishing the unpredictable, weird, funny and uncanny results. I gave it a go:

Dylan needs rescuing.

Dylan needs to remain our top priority.

Dylan needs to chill from Independent

Dylan needs to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch.

Dylan needs to hope in this, but falls too quickly into the despair of his namesake, Dylan Thomas, who drank himself into the dark night.

Dylan needs a Black Woman

Dylan needs a new producer, or just to ask for approval of the master.

Dylan needs to repent and turn back to Jesus and Christianity

Dylan needs to go to the bathroom.

Dylan needs to speak out.

Dylan needs that money.

Dylan needs a lot of social stimulation.

Dylan needs treatment right away or his condition could kill him.

While I was doing this I felt a little strange, not only because of the untrodden paths of introspection that this little game threw in front of me, but because I actually dont feel like I need anything. Right now, I have what I need, so I decided to bend the rules, and searched "Dylan has":

Dylan has lived an unbelievable and, at times, an elusive life.

Dylan has all your fucking money, kid!

Dylan has been kidnapped and replaced by a digital copy.

Dylan has a way with words

Dylan has approved a film documenting his life.

Dylan has complete creative freedom.

Dylan has had a problem with behaviour since he was two.

Dylan has achieved something few ever attain.

Dylan has always positioned himself as opposed to those in power.

Dylan has created an almost unlimited universe of art.

That's better. I was named after two people with the same name, one of whom is famous and the other is really famous. Unfortunately this skewed the results somewhat. You should try this too if you really have nothing better to do, or in my case, if you're putting it off til later.

Tora Tora Tora!

2007-02-14T22:55:00.001-08:00

Tora Tora Tora!
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

Tiger Tiger Burning Bright
In the Forests of the night
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

(William Blake)

Ice Embassy

2007-02-14T22:53:00.001-08:00

Ice Embassy
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

A life size snow sculpture of the Thai embassy in Tokyo. This was one of the biggest sculptures at the Sapporo festival, symbolizing Japan's ongoing friendship ties with Thailand.

I'm not a %$#!ing Snow Leopard!

2007-02-14T22:50:00.001-08:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/34945603@N00/390886691/
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

A permanent resident of Asahiyama Dobutsuen looking like it wants to kill something.

Sapporo Yukimatsuri

2007-02-14T17:23:00.000-08:00

Ever since I was a little kid I have known about and wanted to visit the Sapporo Yukimatsuri. Ya-Chan called me up a few months ago to tell me that he had come by a handful of bargain plane tickets to Hokkaido during the time of this famous winter festival and I jumped at the chance. We left Okayama early in the morning of the 8th of February and travelled by bus with his friend Yuuji to Kansai airport. The plane tickets were like hot potatoes, being passed from one person to the next until I left them on the table at the restaurant where we had lunch and we were chased down and alerted by our waitress. After acknowledging that, had this been any other country, those tickets would have sent three waitresses on holiday instead, Ya-Chan decided it was best he didn't delegate responsibility for such important items. Somehow I ended up with them again, though, and I nearly left them on the plane.

I have seen snow before, but nothing like in Hokkaido. The landscape was white, punctuated only by trees and buildings, which were mostly white. Some of the roads were well enough travelled or cleared to have visible tarmac, the others were only recognizable by the fact that they were long and flat and had things like roadsigns near them. I wondered how people could tell which mound of snow was their car and which was a shrub or dog kennel when they woke up in the morning and dug their way out of the front door. I figured that one out when I saw mounds of snow with windscreen wipers sticking out of them. On the train from the airport to Sapporo we rolled through fields of pristine sparkling white and I realised why people put the words 'winter' and 'wonderland' together.

We set about searching for the Hotel Doreal, our home for the next few days, when we reached Sapporo. Treading gingerly down icy sidewalks past mounds of snow with windscreen wipers was interesting for a time, until we realised we actually had no idea where we were going, so we hailed a taxi. We found our hotel, a real bargain for what we paid, then set out to buy skipants for snowboarding, which we'd planned to do as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the evening yielded neither skipants nor skislopes. Instead, we took our cameras to Odori, the main festival area and snapped away like real Japanese tourists at the various interesting snow sculptures.

The next day we were up bright and early to find our pants (The reason for this pants mission was that it is actually cheaper to buy ski gear than to hire it, and we were sorted for jackets so hiring would have been a total waste of money) I was so pleased with the price of the pants I bought that i decided to buy a classy looking pair of jeans too, only to find out later why they have changing rooms in clothes shops. Besides the jeans, everything else fitted, so we headed to the slopes. The place was called Bankei *waits for South African readers to stop sniggering* and it was on the side of a small mountain barely outside of the city. We got into our gear and headed up the ski lift to the beginning of the beginners slope. I thought someone had made a mistake. This slope looked something more akin to what I saw in the iMax Extreme Snowboarding video. How could beginners possibly hope to begin on a slope like this? I slid down on my backside and as it started to level out I got braver and tried standing up. The next time down it didn't seem as steep and I managed to start off standing up. The third time I was picking up speed and wiping out into tumbling powderbursts, wondering why I had been so chicken the first time. Then I found out that snow can actually be quite hard if the back of your head travels into it at a high enough speed. My whole brain was ringing and I was seeing green and orange stars. It was time for a break. I hobbled into the building and bought myself some chocolate and a can of tea, and even though I still felt like I'd been sat on by a yeti, I got on the lift and headed to the top again.
We boarded into the night, with floodlights illuminating the slope. Our next stop was an onsen (Japanese bath house) which provided a welcome, if temporary, relief from the pain.

The following morning I felt like the yeti had got off me, kicked me down the stairs and then run me over in his truck. Ya-Chan and Yuuji were keen to head to another slope. I wanted to die, but I didnt want to be a killjoy, so I agreed to go with them, even if it meant just hanging out and trying to breathe normally while they snowboarded. We stopped at Starbluech's under the false assumption that a good shot of caffeine would ease the pain. Yuuji and Ya-Chan were feeling it too, though not to the extremes that I was enduring. The coffee was terrible, and to add insult to injury, there was bacon in my croissant. In Japan, it is necessary to but bacon in almost everything, unless its seafood, in which case its necessary to add chicken. I managed to eat a meat-free corner of the croissant and gave the rest to Ya-Chan to finish off. I tried meditating, stretching, thinking positive thoughts, the works, but the pain would not go away. The resort was about an hour out of Sapporo, called Teine Highlands (or to be more specific, since it was spelled in Katakana, Teine Haairanddo.) It was majestic, commanding sweeping views of snowy Hokkaido and the sea and covering the best part of a fairly large mountain. It had slopes for all inclinations and levels of sanity. The equipment rental was even pretty cheap (I use this term very loosely in Japan). We had tako (pasty fried dumplings with octopus tentacles inside) for lunch, and suddenly and inexplicably, I felt great, ready to send myself hurtling down the nearest slope, which we did, repeatedly. I took it gently to start with to avoid any more trauma, but soon the desire for speed and learning new manoevers had me tumbling around like a joyously masochistic ragdoll. The snow was much softer and more forgiving here, but there were more people, and a collision with another beginner on the natural course had me worried for a bit. The natural course started at the very top of the mountain and meandered down through the forest. This guy didnt know how to stop and he crashed into me with the sharp edge of his board hitting my wrists. It was sore, but the cold was forgivingly numbing, so I didn't think much of it until my next wipe-out, when I looked behind me to see a streak of blood through the snow to where I was lying. Thankfully, the wound froze shut and I could continue with ironing out the glitches in my newly found style. My last few runs were fantastic; I was surfing a mountain!

On Sunday it was unanimously agreed that further snowboarding was impossible. We were doing things like lifting our legs with our hands so we could put our shoes on. It was time to visit the zoo. Asahiyama Dobutsuen is Japan's most famous zoo, about an hour and a half out of Sapporo. Apparently its famous because the enclosures are like the animal's natural environment, but I think the person who came up with that idea has never left their house, opened a book or turned on the TV. Zoos are always sad places, even if people think fiberglass rocks constitute an approximation of a natural habitat. That said, it was fascinating to get up close to animals I would never have seen otherwise, like polar bears, a tiger, a snow owl, arctic foxes and even a jaguar. I saw a lion too. He was the darkest maned, best fed, unhappiest lion I have ever seen. I have come across evidence of leopards in the wild, even hearing one purring in the bushes a few feet away once, but I'd never laid eyes on one until this day. I made eye contact with one and it told me "If those bars weren't there I'd kill you and eat you without hesitation". They are beautifully deadly creatures.

Back in Sapporo, we climbed the TV tower to the obsevation deck to look down on the festival's proceedings. The people who opted to climb the stairs instead of taking the elevator were given a cup of warm milk as a reward, and we sat around with Kana, an interesting girl Ya-Chan had met on the train, drinking our milk and discussing Japan's future. Kana left and we made our way to the ice bars, built entirely of, yes, ice. The roofs were the only non frozen parts of the structures. Each one sold only a handful of specialty drinks and one led straight into another. There was even ice karaoke. By the time we reached the end of our freezing pub crawl we were in high spirits and ready to party. We ended up at a club called 'A Life' and became the guests of honour at a crazy Japanese birthday party. We headed downstairs just as the featured DJ hit the decks, playing average, but danceable progressive trance. Ya-Chan made friends with the bartender, who proceeded to get him very drunk. The evening descended into a weird blur involving a busking ninja, a medical emergency trying to proceed through a language barrier, Ya-Chan becoming a snowman while running around in a blizzard with no jacket on and a dreadlocked westerner flailing his arms around in a wild attempt at proving something. It didn't stop. People passed out and woke up again and I eventually found myself in my hotel room furiously scribbling revelations onto little pieces of paper and stuffing them into my camera case, wide awake, unwilling and unable to go to sleep. A taxi came to take us away and soon we were on a plane, leaving a raucous, painful, exciting, bewildering, fascinating experience behind us. Whatever insanity had gripped us on that last night was safely stashed in the snow on the other frosty side of Japan and we are safe to proceed with our lives, haunted only by what little we can clearly remember.

One Day It Returns To House

2007-02-05T20:10:00.000-08:00

This morning I signed on the dotted line to formalize my intention to leave Japan at the end of July. I have decided not to recontract for a third year even though things have eased into a kind of cushy continuum here. Japan has become a kind of comfort zone for me, as improbable as that sounds. I have not so much learned the language as learned how to guess the best simple reply to complicated sounding comments or questions. I have not so much learned how to pepare Japanese food as learned how to incorporate aspects of it into my own culinary creations. I have learned how to predict when trucks are going to jump red traffic lights and how to guess which kinds of restaurants feel compelled to include chicken in their seafood dishes. I have learned which classes respond well to my crazy far-out lesson plans and which ones require a more conservative approach lest the kids start breaking windows and escaping the school grounds.

I have been here for a year and a half, serving under two different prime ministers, Junichiro Koizumi and Shinzo Abe, and I have seen Japanese society change in this time. I have seen rice paddies become housing complexes. I have heard the preferred genre of background music in shopping malls change from street punk to gangsta rap. I have witnessed the government continue in its constitution-eroding move away from pacifism to militarism, the rising sun getting dimmer in the darkening shadow of the stars and bars. I travelled to the other side of the world, but I still managed to witness the South African government squandering millions of rands (see The Honeytrap in fractalmindscape archives). I experienced one dreadfully cold winter and one relatively balmy one; one sweltering summer and one rediculously sweltering one. I have been both impressed and frustrated by Japanese people, and I have concluded that they are fundamentally just like everyone else. One thing to note though, I have never had anything stolen here in these 18 months, despite often leaving things unlocked and lying around. As my South African readers know, such a thing is unheard of back home; it's technically not possible.

So, eighteen months down, six to go, and its official this time. I could stay here another year and in fact I wouldn't even mind, but there are places to go and things to do, like eating real bread and surfing real waves, lying in a different kind of sunlight and reconnecting with good old friends. Sheesh, I'm sounding like I'm finished though, which I'm not! Six months is not a long time, but it is a fairly substantial amount of time. I'll be busy and I'll be going places and playing host to international travellers, so there's a lot more to write about. This is not the end. This is not the beginning of the end. It is not the end of the beginning either. Its around about the part before the beginning of the end of the middle.

Let's Diminishing

2007-01-21T20:57:00.000-08:00

The number of babies born in Japan in 2006 likely increased by 23,000 from a year earlier to 1,086,000, marking an upturn for the first time in six years. The nation’s total fertility rate (TFR), or the average number of children born to a woman aged between 15 and 49, hit a record low of 1,26 in 2005. It is expected to have risen to around 1,29 in 2006. The estimates are based on preliminary figures of the number of births and deaths registered at municipal offices between January and October. Despite the increase of births for the entire year, the annual total would be the second-lowest following the all-time low of 1,062,530 in 2005. The number of deaths is estimated to have reached 1,092,000, which will surpass the births by 6000. A ministry official attributed the increase in the number of births to improved employment conditions due to recovery in the economy that resulted in more women getting married in their late 20s. The natural population decrease, derived by subtracting the number of deaths from births, came to an estimated 6,000, marking the second straight year of decline. The population shrank for the first time in 2005. With thanks to Seichi Matsuura

It Wishes You a Happiness New Year

2007-01-18T17:43:00.000-08:00

I always wanted to have a White Christmas. I finally got to a cold enough country and decided to stay in it in December... but I was too late. The globe had already heated up too much, making it wet rather than white. Christmas didn't really feature here anyway. I had to begrudgingly go to work like all my other culturally indoctrinated western friends. We got together in the evening though and played Monopoly (such an apt way to celebrate a Christian festival).

New Years, on the other hand, is big in Japan. Having gone to the worst New Years party in the world last year (celebrating mankinds ability to trash its pristine environment by mixing bad music, buckets of alcohol and motorbikes... see "Trouble in Thailand" in last years fractalmindscape archive), I thought it would be a good idea to go to a party that doesn't measure its success by the size of its death toll. It was at Myouin temple, 5 minutes walk from my house. I was given a free cup of steaming udon noodles upon my arrival. There were less than 150 people and no music, just the intermittent donging of the large bell that is rung the auspicious number of 108 times to bring good luck to the new year. Every now and then a priest would chant something over the PA system. I have picked up a bit of Japanese since I've been here, but the language goes all funny at this time of the year as all the annual wellwishing phrases come out. One is supposed to wish happy new year one way before the fact, and another way after. I met up with some of my young students dressed to the nines in what Eminem was wearing in his last music video, smsing each other on their keitais (mini laptop computers, the advanced version of what we know as cellphones). It was funny to see them faithfully following the motions of this cultural event dressed like gangsters glued to cyberspace. I joined their little group for the bell ringing and was given a little ceramic inoshi ishi (wild boar: 2007 is the year of the boar) for my troubles by one of the temple elders. Midnight passed and no-one noticed. At that very moment, people in Sydney were pouring alcohol all over themselves in a drunken frenzy, hippies in Cape Town were scoring acid at trance parties so they could say Hi to God at midnight and New Yorkers were having their morning coffee before going out to book their piece of pavement in Times Square. At Myouin, only the bell and the priest made any noise louder than the muffled voices in the cold evening. I could even hear the beeps on my students cellphones as they played mahjong with people just like them in Nagoya or spread some rumours about other kids they didnt like. I wondered back home in the chilly moonlit night, safe in the knowledge that I'd be waking up the next day without the crashing hangover that so many millions of my western brethren would be experiencing.

Geisha Ningyo

2007-01-11T00:05:00.000-08:00

Geisha Ningyo
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

I just bought a Nikon D40. My first REAL camera, so I get to play with zoom and focus and shutter speed etc.at last!

Momotaro

2007-01-10T22:31:00.000-08:00

Momotaro
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

Momotaro is Okayama's boy hero. He was born from a giant peach floating down a river. This statue outside Okayama City station depicts him, his dog, his pheasant and his monkey (plus a real life pigeon along for the ride) off to Oniishima together to defeat the demons that plagued the region in his time.

Let's User Friendly

2006-12-03T17:21:00.000-08:00

You may have noticed that this blog has changed somewhat, in the interests of avoiding the optical trauma that comes with reading white text on a black background. I have become aware that it's an unpleasant format for some people, at least one of whom is a reader. Personally its not a problem for me, but maybe that's because my eyes have been desensitised after over a year in flourescent neon strobe-light land. Another addition you may have noticed is the use of Engrish titles, which is relevant since I'm learning Japanese and teaching some other language...

Where Was I?

2006-11-27T22:55:00.000-08:00

I have been snooping around on other people's blogs and finding out that many of them are a lot more diligent than me at keeping their readership posted, so I have resolved to be more active in this space from now on. If I used the excuse that there wasn't much to write about, that would be a lie, so here's a short story of a day in the life of he who has just returned from an amazing journey who thought he'd have nothing left to write about:

Halfway through the financial year, all JETs and some of their unlucky team teachers are required to attend a prefectural conference, known as the mid-year conference. Boooriiing, one might say, but its not so bad if you pay attention. The keynote speaker was a geneticist on some 'who's who in the world' list and was pretty fascinating. I think he chose to speak in English because if the Japanese people present could understand everything he had to say about how Japanese culture impacts on the education system there might have been a bit of an uproar (if such a thing were possible in this country).

Ja-Chan had arranged to give me a ride in his RX7 pocket-rocket that evening, which he eventually did after I had been loitering at various intersections in Okayama waiting for him to show up. I folded myself into the front seat and we set off for the motorway for a bit of illegal speeding, but unfortunately the road was too busy to open up the throttle to any fun degree. We left the underutilized little sportscar at his house and took the bus to where we thought the evening's nomikai (drinking party) would be. After more loitering and a few phonecalls we eventually found the place and set about getting to know some of the new JETs and one or two of the braver Japanese team teachers. The beer flowed freely but we soon had to cut short our inetersting rants about commercialism (I had a Nietsche reading marxist to my left and a shareholder of McDonalds and Starbucks to my right) as the bar was closing up. I set off for the station, but was caught up in a mob heading to Karaoke. After yelling a few punk numbers with my drunken colleagues, I tried to leave again, but ran into Amy of the famous Moscoso couple who offered me their living room floor for the night if I came back to Karaoke. I did, yelled another song or two and then caught wind of a situation developing. Apparently one of the first years had got himself paralytically drunk and had to be transported to the Moscoso's because he was in no state to look after himself. I set off with Herb (the other Moscoso), Bob and Eric, stumbling back to the flat. We lost Eric somewhere along the way, which though unlucky for him, was good for us as we had a bit more breathing space in the Moscoso's tiny apartment (there were seven of us squeezed into a space that was small even by Japanese standards). The drunkard was sprawled across the only bed, swearing intermittently, so all the other visitors had to make do with the floor. Somehow, we all (including the drunk guy) managed to make it to the seminar the next morning less than half an hour late, maintaining some sense of dignity.
There were a few unanswered questions that came to light later on in the day: Namely, Where was Eric? He found himself a hotel (we had pictured him on a park bench under newspapers). Would the loudmouth from last year ruin the Q&A session? No, they cancelled the Q&A session to avoid similar disturbances. And who paid for the karaoke? Apparently, no-one.

Habib and his Horse

2006-11-08T18:20:00.000-08:00

Habib and his Horse
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

A man who can convey much meaning with few words, and who never has to buy petrol.

Kashmiri Himalayas

2006-10-25T00:13:00.000-07:00

Kashmiri Himalayas
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

Kashmir

2006-10-15T18:14:00.000-07:00

A few months after I arrived in Japan, I was walking through the streets of Kurashiki, a city neighbouring mine, with my new friend Lee. We had just been celebrating another friend's birthday. We were approached by two beautiful blonde western girls who asked us for directions to the club we had just been at. One of them was petite with big green eyes which held mine for longer than a stranger would, and I was instantly smitten. I vowed to return to Kurashiki the next weekend to find her, which I did. Megan and I got together on the Spring Equinox and began to explore the intricacies of a relationship in which both people come from different countries and meet in a third. In June, she asked me if I would join her in India once her contract finished, and after a bit of negotiation with the headmaster at my school, I said yes.

We arrived in New Delhi at 10pm after a ten hour flight on the dirtiest plane I've ever seen that still flies, with a short stopover in Hong Kong. The plane looked like it was going to fall to pieces. Inside it actually was falling to pieces. It was so old that it still had ashtrays and those pneumatic earphone jacks in the armrests. The inflight safety briefing sounded like a death metal vocalist with bronchitis. Sometimes it just degenerated into horrible noise. My neighbor thoughtfully translated this for me after I got back: "Dont even bother trying to listen to this safety announcement. If this baby goes down, we're fucked." The flight attendants were serving double servings of triple whiskeys and then coming around later and offering more. I took advantage of this thoughtful service and the peace of mind it afforded. Needless to say, we were happy when it landed and stopped and we got out.

I had sent a few emails to hotels in the dubious yet popular Pahalganj area asking if they had rooms, yet none of them had replied by the time we left. At the airport, I phoned a few of them and found one that had an available room. We were pestered by taxi drivers offering bargain trips, but I had read that they had alterior motives (they receive commission for taking you to places you don't want to go) and opted for the more expensive government taxi instead. In a little over ten hours, we had come from ordered, efficient Japan and descended into the smoky chaos that is New Delhi. The taxi turned left out of the airport and straight into a midnight traffic jam. All the cars had dents and dings, even the new ones, and we soon found out why. Following distance is not a recognized concept on Delhi roads. Our driver performed manoevers that would make even South African taxi drivers jealous. A police van was on our tail with the driver screaming in Hindi over the PA system. I thought he was screaming at us, as we had perpetrated about ten traffic violations in as many seconds, but it turns out he was screaming at everyone to drive as fast as they could. When we passed the pile-up, the traffic eased a little. We made it into Pahalganj eventually, but the driver said that he couldn't find our hotel, as the address that I had given him was inadequate. He may or may not have been in on the same type of scam as the other taxi drivers, but what happened next is literally a textbook case of what travellers are warned to watch out for and avoid when arriving in New Delhi.

It goes something like this: Your driver will tell you that he cannot find your hotel. He will then take you to a travel agency (which is mysteriously still open at midnight) in order to better locate said hotel. The travel agent will be a smooth talking Kashmiri, and you will feel like he is your best friend within a few minutes. He will call your hotel, pass you the phone, and they will tell you that they have become booked out in the time that it took you to get from the airport to his office. He will helpfully offer to find other hotels for you. Their prices will escalate with each phonecall, but rooms will only become available to you by the time the prices are at the stratospheric level. He is the one dialling the numbers, by the way, and you are the one talking to whoever it is on the other end. You now have three choices. Wonder around in Pahalganj until 6am when the trains start running to the places you had planned to go (not really a choice at all, considering jetlag, luggage, spooky people with long fingernails etc.); Spend your entire budget for a few hours rest with the CEOs, politicians/drug traffickers and movie stars... or drop all your plans and buy a package holiday in Kashmir! In which case a decent hotel for the night will materialize out of thin air.

Megan and I are both easygoing people and a year each in Japan had primed us to expect the unexpected, roll with the punches and take things as they come. We had actually got so good at this kind of thing that we were pretty much the perfect candidates for What Not To Do When You Arrive In New Delhi.

To be fair, I had wanted to go to Kashmir since I had called my friend Roger, who had spent a year travelling India, to ask him for advice. After telling me several times that two weeks is just not enough time to spend there, he suggested we go to Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir, and stay on a houseboat. Megan was keen on the idea too, until she heard about the American travel advisory to the region. As Operation Catastrophic Doom (a rose by any other name would smell just as bad) marches on, more and more places around the world become unsafe for American citizens, and now since the suspension of Habeas Corpus, America itself is one of those places (as an aside, I would like to point out that the misuse of the "T" word has grossly exaggerated the actual danger of a random attack by a group of dispossessed and/or CIA sponsored killers. Statistically, you are more likely to die from falling off your chair or being stung by a bee. I eagerly await the War on Chairs, but that's for another blog). We had decided to go to Uttaranchal instead, since we both wanted to go to the Himalayas and this was another state that the range intersected. Our first two hours in New Delhi, however, brought us back to Plan A.

The hotel that Yakub the smooth Kashmiri travel agent found for us was small yet clean and comfortable. Our room had a marble floor was taller than it was wide, which made it feel as if gravity was at right angles and we were sleeping on the wall. We were preparing for the worst, having re-read the guidebook to find that we had done exactly what they had warned against. We were both a little worried that we had been sold a dud hoiliday, that we would be asked to pay for the hotel in the morning and that our plane tickets to Srinagar would not materialize.

We were pleasantly surprised to find our fears unfounded. We were given our choice of breakfast, we didn't have to pay for the hotel, and we were driven to the airport in a car with only three or four dents in it (which meant it was very nearly brand new). The domestic flight to Srinagar was on the best airline either of us had been on, and even though it was only a little over an hour's flight, we were served a delicious meal of curry and basmati rice. Srinagar lies in a valley between the Pir-Panjal range and the Himalayas, and we were running around the plane like little kids trying to take in the view of the snowcapped peaks from either side. Landing in a Himalayan valley in an Airbus is really fun. It involves a series of steep dives interspersed with G-pulling level-outs, kinda like being on a five mile high roller-coaster in slow motion.

Srinagar airport is better described as a military base that allows civilians in. We were greeted by a group of soldiers with assault rifles who asked us for our names and then misspelled them so badly that they couldn't find us on the passenger list and started to get excited that finally they might be able to shoot somebody. Luckily a senior officer recognized our names from our passports and ushered us out to meet Ibrahim, the guy who would be driving us around most of the time. On the way out of the airport we passed a sign that said "Welcome to the Paradise on Earth". I have been lucky enough to visit a few kinds of paradise before, but Praia De Tofu, Ko Tao and Grande Comore (though each having suffered through a coup or civil war or both) were never as heavily occupied by military force as Srinagar, Kashmir. Soldiers were everywhere. Literally. Everywhere we looked, there were soldiers. They were stationed every hundred metres or so on the road into the city, and in greater concentration in the city itself.

We were a little on edge as Ibrahim parked the car. We slid off the leopard-print seats and onto the dusty street wondering if we had just become the latest hostage story that no-one would hear about. We had arrived at Dal Lake after having driven through the city down poplar-lined avenues and past impressive new houses for Indian CEOs, politicians, generals and/or drug traffickers. Almost every civilian had amazing green eyes. None of the soldiers did.

Once we stepped onto the shakira, which is Dal Lake's floating equivalent of a taxi, our anxiety subsided with the noise of the heart-shaped paddle dipping into the still clean water. We were paddled through the floating town (the quietest town I've ever been in) and greeted by Kashmiri schoolkids and colourful Indian tourists on passing shakiras. It took about five minutes to reach The Wild Rose, our houseboat and base for the next two weeks. The Rose was the size of a modest house, with two bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms, a rudimentary kitchen, a dining room, lounge and a balcony hanging over the stern. We even had a nice view (actually spectacular on clear days). It was built entirely of wood, like every other of the few thousand houseboats on the lake. We had chosen the budget option at Yakub's recommendation. The other options were DeLuxe and Super DeLuxe. The Wild Rose was a little rickety, but comfortable and fully carpeted, and judging from that, I can only imagine what opulence the Super DeLuxe dwellers languished in. We were relieved to see it, and hear that we would be given three home-cooked meals a day. We hadn't been swindled (that badly) after all.

Having left our crazy Japanese working hours behind, we were both relieved to have a whole day of doing nothing. Nothing except parting with large sums of money. Ibrahim managed to talk us into a trekking expedition and a series of day trips. The accommodation itself was a fairly good deal, but we were to discover that trekking in the Himalayas comes at quite a price. Beyond the budget kind of price. An opportunity to do this thing doesn't come around very often though, so we took it. I felt bad for having helped drag Megan into this mess, but it really was a beautiful mess.

The next day we were taken to visit some gardens laid out by the old and very rich Mughal family, who had pretty much run Kashmir for several centuries before the British came and messed everything up. The gardens were spectacular. One had a gigantic snowmelt-filled water feature that ran down the entire length of the garden to the lake. The trees were magnificent; huge lush sentinels that had stood for hundreds　of years protected by a Mughal decree forbidding their felling. Our guide's name was Althalf or something, but we called him by his nickname, Shoga (which means ginger in Japanese) instead, as it was much easier to remember and pronounce. We took a crowded bus around the quieter parts of Srinagar (still heavily militarized) and were stared at by schoolboys who looked like they thought we were the most interesting things they had seen all year. We had lunch on the shakira in the shade of an 800 year-old bridge that was all that was left of the original road to the city across the lake. Our next stop was at a pristine white mosque, one of the most popular places of worship in the area. Every Friday the building and grounds are filled with around eighteen thousand people. Megan was given a green cloth to put over her head and we had to take our shoes off and hand our cameras in at the door. It was the first time either of us had ever been inside a mosque. And who did we see inside the holiest of holies but an Indian soldier with a loaded assault rifle. If that doesn't say "Fuck You"
louder than anything except explosives going off, I don't know what does.
The visit was interseting, if a little unnerving. We saw some pages of the first Koran brought into Kashmir from Arabia. They were very large, very ornate and several hundred years old. We left the mosque and wandered around the area watching craftsmen silver-plating bowls and decanters at their streetside workshops while pigs, sheep, dogs and chickens scrabbled around in little piles of rotting vegetables. Nearly every building was at least a century old, and contained several small enterprises like chai shops, spazas and mechanics' workshops.

After another day of doing very little, Megan and I left the houseboat to travel up the Sonomarg valley and into the Himalayas. We passed huge herds of goats, huge convoys of army trucks and little villages in which little had changed for centuries. The water in the river was a milky aquamarine and the broadleaf trees gradually gave way to alpine conifers as the valley steepened. We eventually turned onto a road that had a gate, a guard and a sign saying 'No Vehicles'. Some money changed hands and our vehicle proceeded along the road.

Our first campsite was in a valley presided over by a glaciated 5000 metre mountain. The grass was very green and very short, as a result of sheep poo and sheep teeth respectively. We walked up the valley for an hour or two, following an ancient pilgrimage route known as the Yatra. At the turning point of our journey we came across a weird formation that looked like the ground on either side of the river was reaching upwards to try to touch itself again a few metres over the river. Shoga explained that it was the remnants of a glacier from the previous winter. The ice had been stained dark brown by the soil and debris, and the river had bored a tunnel through it. We had evidently arrived a few days after the roof of the tunnel had melted away, leaving the sweeping arcs behind.

The next day, after the airforce had temporarily ruined the peace in the valley, we started the real trekking. It was pretty tough going walking continuously uphill, especially after a few days of doing almost nothing, but it was excellent to be out in nature amidst the soaring mountains. It was like walking through a huge mountainous park, though it was hardly 'a walk in the park'. We got to our campsite just before it started raining. The next morning the valley was illuminated with golden light and the clouds clung to the side of the mountain just below us. In the time it took us to eat breakfast though, it had started snowing! We had to delay the start of the day's trek beacuse of this, so we waited a few hours, drinking sweet tea. The sun eventually came out and imbued everything with brilliance (we had been sampling some of Kashmir's best while we waited, which may have aided in the perception of this brilliance). Each little melting snowflake cast tiny rainbow spectra. The squelchy meadow shone bright green and the mountains across the valley glared brilliant white against the blue sky. I cant think of any adjectives for that one. It was just blue. I put on the rediculously large and heavy snowboots that Ibrahim had lent me before we left, and we set off for the ridge, about eight hundred vertical metres above us. Habib, a local of Sonomarg valley, and Shoga accompanied us, along with a pony that Megan accepted a ride on. The first half an hour was very steep and hauling those heavy boots uphill in thin air started to take its toll, so when Megan offered me the pony, I accepted. I could virtually hear the thing thinking: "No! Not the big one! Not with those boots on! Can't he just walk?! Noooo!" Afterwards I looked at a photo Megan took of me riding it and it just looked rediculous. Poor animal. My feet were nearly dragging along the ground! Needless to say, after a few minutes it just stopped and refused to respond to any encouragement, so I duly got off. We reached the ridge at about lunchtime and awesome vistas opened up to us on the other side. We stayed there for about two hours, eating, resting, meditating and just soaking it all up. Words can't really describe what it was like. Suffice to say that we were in the Himalayas, almost completely surrounded by snowcapped peaks separated by emerald valleys while eagles soared above and below us.

By the afternoon of the next day we were back at the bottom of the Sonomarg, both bearing evidence of exposure to the elements on our faces. It was the most expensive four days that either of us had paid for, yet one of the most memorable, and worth every dime (we paid in US Dollars). After a day's rest on the houseboat, we headed into Srinagar to visit the biggest Mosque in Asia with a capacity of 33 333 people. We were told that some days it is filled and thousands more worshippers have to stay outside. The roof is supported by about 347 huge wooden pillars, each once a single tree. The mosque is 700 years old and has burned down three times in its history.

The following day, we were back on horses again, this time in Gulmarg, home of the world's highest golf course. We were taken on a hair raising ride down the side of the mountain in which my feet got knocked out of the stirrups a few times as the horse passed too close to boulders on the side of the path as it tried its best to stop itself from slipping. We were happy to get to the bottom of the valley, as were the horses, which took off for home at a gallop at one point. It was the first time I have ever had to hang on to a galloping horse, but I got the rhythm so it was more fun than scary.

Our next adventure was in Pahalgang, a chilled horse ride though a pine forest and across a large meadow to the head of a beautiful valley. The horses had grown up together so they played along as Megan and I raced and tried to run each other off the path...or maybe Megan and I played along as they raced and tried to run each other off the path...

We listened to the chorus of Imams calling the faithful to prayer again on our last evening together. Their voices mingled over the lake very much like the voices in 2001 Space Oddyssey when the monolith is discovered. Often we'd hear congregations from two different mosques chanting in unison. There is no noise pollution on the lake, for the obvious reason that there are no cars, so these chants and prayers pervaded the dewy evenings and early mornings uninterrupted by any other sound.

The next morning it was time for me to go. Megan left the following day, yet she is staying in India until nearer to the end of the year, learning the secrets of Reiki and Yoga.

Sure, the Americans don't want you to go there. Sure, there are a lot of guns, bombs, jets, soldiers and other such bullshit. Sure, its the only place on Google Earth where you will see a red border instead of a yellow one, but Kashmir is something special. It is a land of people under occupation. They are obviously unhappy about this, yet the natural beauty, their faith in their religion and the grace with which they live their daily lives seem to combine to create something that stands victorious over the fact that it is a flashpoint for a potential nuclear war. India, Pakistan and China all own atomic weapons, and they all think they own Kashmir. But none of them do. The Kashmiris own Kashmir, and they always will.

Halfway Home

2006-07-30T18:57:00.000-07:00

I have now been in Japan for a little over a year. My new contract with Asakuchi City Board of Education has just begun, and as far as I can tell this will be my second and last year in this country. Looking back it can be likened to how some soldiers describe trench warfare: 95% utter boredom and 5% sheer terror... though I may be exaggerating just a little. The sheer terror is pretty minimal, mainly restricted to cycling, bank transactions in Japanese and incidents involving police. Riding a bicycle here accounts for a lot of the terror, what with relative interpretations of red traffic lights, sidewalks that pass as traffic lanes and people who are worse than South Africans at SMSing while driving. Risks such as earthquakes, floods, typhoons and proximity to nuclear-armed enemies (especially North Korea, which amuses itself by firing ICBMs at or over Japan every so often) are more exciting than terrifying, really. The scariest bits are aspects of everyday life.

A lot of it is fun, I must add, which trench warfare most definitely is not (unless you're more than a bit unhinged). New cultural experiences, both with Japanese and other internationals, parties, fun classes at school (they do exist) and travelling are all tanoshiimono (enjoyable things). I got to chat with two of my best friends in London last night via webcam; something which, though possible in South Africa, would be very difficult for me to arrange (It would have to involve theft and fraud). I can do it here legally on equipment that I own and both my conscience and criminal record are clear. I have been using some of what little free time I have to reflect on how my life has changed since I got here:

I drink more than I did in SA;
I smoke less;
I earn more;
I sleep less;
I work more;
I exercise less
and I eat more sushi than i ever could have dreamed of.
All of these parameters might better be described with a 'much' before the adjective.

Some good, some bad. Another great thing being in Japan gives me that trench warfare has only limited use for is the opportunity for exploring other countries in Asia. You can read about what happens when JETs visit Thailand in the archives of Fractalmindscape. Next up is a short trip to India, which I'm sure will yeild blogworthy experiences galore.

So, with 372 days under my belt and about the same still to go, this is a slightly more Japanized version of the Dylan you once knew signing off till next time.
Sayonara!

Kasanomaru

2006-06-21T01:29:00.000-07:00

Akainomaru
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

The title is a play on Hinomaru, the name of the Japanese flag, which means circle of the sun. Kasanomaru is circle of the umbrella.
It belongs to a Japanese girl who sat meditating on this rock for about an hour after the previous day's waves had disappeared.

Dusk in Hogi

2006-06-21T01:24:00.000-07:00

Dusk in Hogi
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

Hogi beach, home to the San-In beach party in Tottori.

Tottori

2006-06-21T00:52:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I traversed Western Japan from the Southern coastline, where I live, to the Northern one, which separates the prefecture known as Tottori from the Sea of Japan. The reason: sun, sea, sand, surf and psytrance. The long journey was necessary because the few of the aforementioned items that can be found in Okayama are of poor quality, mainly thanks to the Kurashiki industrial zone which pours crap into the sea and air in such vast quantities that both are frequently a dismal shade of yellowy grey. The Seto, being an inland sea, is both a pollution trap and flat as a pond.

Thank heaven for the San-In Beach Party! Tottori is blessed with a clean ocean that actually moves! There are people there who allow visitors to take advantage of this fact (they lend their surfboards)! There are people there that put on outdoor parties and actually know what to do and play at them!

After a series of conflicting weather reports, the weekend turned out to be almost entirely gloriously sunny. The air was clear and so was the sea. Did I mention that the sea was clean? Bliss. I even had to dodge ocean wildlife while I was swimming! (not the five ton toothed kind you find in Cape Town, thank goodness). I haven't had an early morning outdoor stomp since Thailand, and that didn't count because it was inamongst the Eurotrash and their trash on an overexploited tourist beach. I have seen lone Japanese people at trance parties before in Cape Town, but at this party I finally experienced being the minority, jamming with a bunch of crazy and free-spirited Oriental hippies.

I'll still be here when it comes around next year. I have only two scheduled events for 2007 so far. One is the San-In beach party and the other is returning to Cape Town where the things I had to travel so far for here are there in abundance!

K.O. in Kobe

2006-06-21T00:32:00.000-07:00

K.O. in Kobe
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

A JET participant suffering from the effects of the 2006 Recontracting Conference.

Beam Me Up

2006-06-21T00:30:00.000-07:00

Beam Me Up
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

The cavernous lobby of the Kobe Portopia, host to the 2006 JET Programme Recontracting Conference

Kobe

2006-06-20T21:15:00.000-07:00

The administrators of the JET Programme love hosting conferences. It means they get to book out large luxurious hotels and fill them with hundreds of unpredictable young foreigners. The most recent one I attended was in Kobe, the city of the '95 earthquake fame, at the grandiose Portopia hotel. The name is apparently an amalgam of 'Port' and 'utopia', two words which, I'm sure you'll agree, somehow don't really go together all that well. The occasion was the West Japan JET Programme 2006 Recontracting Conference, a gathering of young internationalists who have decided to sign their lives away to the Japanese government for another year. Nobody really remembers what it was about. There was an opening ceremony, a few flashy buffets, some speeches and a few seminars that felt important at the time. The real memories are from the evenings, when we decended on Sannomia, Kobe's party district. Clubs and bars threw their doors open as wide as possible in anticipation of the influx of people who are generally understood to have a much better alcohol tolerance than their usual clientele. Needless to say, much was consumed and much madness ensued.

Ja-chan and I decided to go for the budjet option of attending the clubs but only buying booze at the much cheaper convenience stores dotted around the district. By the end of the second night, many had cottoned on to the idea and the perplexed locals carefully avoided the worrisome looking little crowds of drunk foreigners that were gathering on the streetcorners. I only saw one person get arrested, but luckily for the organizers, it wasn't a conference participant.

Kobe is much more vibey than Okayama and a lot more chilled than Osaka or Tokyo. Nestled between The mountains and the sea in the Kansai area, it feels more like an overdeveloped holiday resort than a city. Nearly every view includes either greenery or water, which is much better for the soul than the neverending urban vistas of Tokyo. Ja-chan noted that the girls are prettier and less snooty than in Okayama. I think he's right. He was able to strike up several conversations with locals on the street. We watched a fully amplified three piece band (guitar, bass, drums) playing classic covers on the sidewalk while passers by stopped for a little jive. If that happened in Okayama, everyone would probably be arrested!

Uncle Sam and the Kids of Japan

2006-06-20T20:35:00.000-07:00

Uncle Sam and the Kids of Japan
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

Some of my students fooling around in the face of Death.

Okinawa

2006-06-01T19:04:00.000-07:00

Every year, the third graders at my school go on what they call 'Graduation Trip' which is a bit of a misnomer because they'll only graduate next year. Anyway, the destination is Okinawa, Japan's southernmost prefecture: a group of pretty subtropical islands ridden with U.S. airbases and their attendant squadrons of airborne pollution factories and legions of braindead servicemen. Graduation Trip is quite an undertaking. You can imagine the logistics of moving a hundred and eighty Japanese teenagers, many of whom have never even left Okayama, let alone been in an aeroplane, though airports and hotel check-ins and the like. Feeding them and keeping them out of trouble is another story. Luckily, the third graders are generally well behaved. Its another year before the little gangsters in second grade will get the opportunity to go on this trip, and I think I'll politely decline to come along. In fact, the biggest trouble causer was probably yours truly, the token gaijin, who repeatedly set off airport security alarms, got lost at Ryuku castle, and scared a bunch of Americans at the Starbucks on the International Street ("Do you think he's a spook?" "I donno man, lets get outta here!").

We visited the cave that was used as a hospital during the bloody Battle of Okinawa (a.k.a. the storm of steel) in WW2 and learned how schoolgirls were drafted into taking care of the multitudes of wounded soldiers with little or no medical training and inadequate equipment. I visited the only war memorial I've ever seen where soldiers from both sides are honoured in the same place. For all their NIMBY environmental destruction and previous military and present economic imperialist compulsions, the Japanese are pretty good at making Peace a priority, or at least appearing to do so (though I do wonder how on Earth sending troops to Iraq constitutes 'self defence'). After a pretty heavy day of travelling and learning about war atrocities, we checked into the hotel on the beach, had supper. listened to an emotional speech by a woman who was one of the schoolgirls in the hospital cave. Afterwards, the teachers convened for a meeting/midnight buffet feast in a private dining room with silver cutlery and chandeliers and stuff. I felt like some sort of upper-class conspirator, though I couldn't really understand what anyone was saying. We got to bed at 2am, a full 22 hours after waking up; slept for a bit, then got up at 6 for a full day of marine sports, including sunorkeruringu (snorkelling); glass-bottomed boat trips, doragon borto (riding a big inflatable banana thing towed behind a jetski - the highlight for most kids); and baray (beach volleyball). My headmaster kindly paid for me to go suidosukiisha-suru (wakeboarding, which was probably the highlight for me). The coral reefs looked a bit battered, but there was no shortage of freaky looking tropical fish eager to munch the zero-nutrient fish food that the tour operators provided. They got so close to the boat that Akita-kun managed to catch one with his bare hands. The headmaster had offered a 300 yen reward for anyone who caught a fish, bu the boat driver told him to throw it back before he could claim his prize.

After playing in the sea, we went to the Ryuku historical village. The Ryuku were the peaceful indigenous inhabitants of Okinawa who got rich through trade with China for many centuries before they were adopted for Japan by Kyushu warlords about a thousand years ago. We saw many Sheesa, stone guardians that look like rabid dogs on nitrous oxide. Okinawa is famous for Sheesa; they come in many forms and shapes from different periods in history, and their main function is to scare away evil spirits (or maybe make them laugh so hard they couldn't possess anyone). Ryuku castle was impressive, and it was special being allowed into the inner courtyard, and then the inner inner courtyard, and then the inner inner etc and so on for about eight times to the inner sanctum where we had to take our shoes off and were allowed a glimpse of (a replica of) the throne of the Ryuku Kingdom.

On the last day, Kamochu third graders were let loose in Naha, the capital city. The teachers skulked away to drink beer, which we had to hide under the table when some of the students found out where we were. Anti-American sentiment was understandably quite visible on the International Street in Naha, though playfully expressed with animatronic larger than life statues of suicidal Uncle Sams, Uncle Sam skeleton demons, hot-dogs about to eat themselves (you'll understand when you see the photo); T-shirts asking for their sky back and (USA) stencilled under STOP signs.
We went to the top of a building overlooking a US airbase and watched fighter jets taking off one after another on and on until we got bored of all the noise and wondering where the hell they wer all going (my best guess is nowhere).

After waiting for all the fighter jets to get off the civilian runway, our plane eventually took off for Horoshima, an hour and a half away over the South China Sea.
Japanese domestic planes have a video camera in the nose so you can see where you are going, and as we came in to land I realised that I knew a little too much about runway lights for my peace of mind, and our 10m/s rate of descent was a little too much information on the screen. Our approach was too fast and too high and there was a moment when I thought 'Oh well at least I'll die having seen Okinawa' but the aircraft stayed in one piece when it dropped out of the sky and bounced onto the runway, and I realised that I was still alive amidst the cacophony of screaming teenage scoolgirls, who then broke into applause for no apparent reason.
It was a fun three days, and if the second graders somehow learn some manners, I might just join them next year.

The Honeytrap

2006-04-30T18:33:00.000-07:00

The Honeytrap
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

The South African Freedom Day Celebrations at Tokyo's Hotel New Otani was a schmoozefest extraordinaire as politicians and businessmen worked the floor and the mic to lure Japanese investment. Kaftans mingled with kimonos as extravagant food was cleared of gilded plates and Cape wine was quaffed by the gallon.

Schmooze Cruise

2006-04-24T23:05:00.000-07:00

Last week I attended a glitzy function in the middle of Tokyo at the Hotel New Otani. The occasion was the South African Freedom Day Celebrations in Japan. The event was hosted by Phumzile Mlambo Ncguka, the Deputy President, successor to the fantastically loathsome Jacob Zuma. It is not often that expat-proletarians/pseudo-cogniscentii like myself get invited to such extravagant shindigs at the behest of their government's ambassador. Usually one needs an inside line, but I suppose I have one by virtue of the fact that I am a South African representative on an internationalization programme. So, even though I usually get around by bicycle and live in the backwaters of Japan's forgotten prefecture, I donned my Chinese silk shirt (R20 from Adderly street) and boarded the Nozomi, Japan's fastest bullet train, from Okayama to the heart of Tokyo. I felt like a spare part most of the evening, amidst the ice sculptures and chandeliers and gilded china. The only other member of the JET Programme that I came across was an inhabitant of an island off Kyushu, so she had flown in especially. I thought I was the extravagant one taking the Nozomi. She was having loads of fun getting photos taken with various politicians, but I only managed one with the KZN minister of Arts, Culture and Tourism, who didn't seem to have any idea why she was there (I didn't either). The Deputy President gave a tongue-in-cheek sales pitch on South African platinum after ever so briefly mentioning the Millenium Development Goals. The audience soon lost interest and began eyeing the buffet, taking the time to schmooze to the background noise of diplomatic rhetoric. After the speeches the band (flown in especially from South Africa) played groovy Azanian music and the guests tucked in to the Otani's ostentatious buffet. I thought that the evening would have presented good opportunities to meet South African politicians, but, even though there were at least fifteen of them there, all I got were photo ops and a conversation with the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs that I could not make any sense of at all ("Who arrre youhh?..Aaaarrrr... heh heh heh.." with the lazy eye on me and the good one on the cleavage of the pretty young woman nearby). I did, however, score business cards from more interesting people like the Second Secretary of the Mozambican Embassy and the Administrative Coordinator of the Goi Peace Foundation. As the delegates and businesspeople and hangers-on moved off to their flash hotel rooms, I decided to go off in search for one of my own, having thought of the issue as too trifling to pay much attention to beforehand. Alas, I was soon to learn that I was in the middle of one of the world's most expensive and populous cities, so even if I was prepared to part with a weeks pay for five hours of rest, I wouldn't have found any available rooms anyway. I whiled away the evening wandering between convenience stores and coffee shops in the city that never sleeps, turning down offers of expensive company and wondering if I could really bring myself to sing karaoke alone to while away the hours (I couldn't). Dawn finally began to illuminate the forest of steel and glass and I was whisked back to Okayama on the Nozomi and a torturous afternoon of trying to stay awake at my desk at work. I did it for my country.

Visitation

2006-04-12T01:13:00.000-07:00

Potter DNA in Hiroshima
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

I am privileged to have a sister with a large overdraft limit. She found some money to send herself and my mother over to Japan to join me for spring break at the end of March. Here we are in Hiroshima. We visited various temples and shrines in Okayama prefecture, Bikan historical quarter in Kurashiki, the Ohara museum (home to originals by Picasso, Matisse, Monet, Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol), the world's longest multispan bridge, the Seto-Ohashi, between Honshu and Shikoku and the Okayama Korakoen (one of the top 3 gardens in Japan). I managed to clock up six trips on the Shinkansen in ten days, which is just totally extravagant. We're all back at work in our respective countries now, and I can walk past shoe shops in peace.

Kiss Gets Busted

2006-03-12T21:06:00.000-08:00

Kiss Gets Busted
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

Okayama police enforcing regional bylaw no: 2547//9B-22: "No Seventies Rock Group Impersonations In Public Places Act"

Another Lap (Dance) Around the Rising Sun

2006-03-12T20:06:00.000-08:00

The people who run the JET programme very cleverly set the date for the decision whether or not to recontract at the beginning of February. It is cold, it is dark, most people have just come back from holidays in brighter, warmer, more Englishey places and it is just about halfway through the first year. This makes the decision a very tricky one if it has been delayed up to that date. I got to the point where I was at such a loss about what to do that I called friends and family to help me with this difficult choice which would determine how (or most importantly where)I'd spend the next 18 months of my life. I got an overwhelming STAY vote, so I recontracted. I will be here until July 2007. The friends who had helped me with this decision then happily informed me how good the waves are, how beautiful the girls are, how nice the weather is, etc. etc. back home...once it was too late. I went from being about halfway through my tenure, to about a quarter of the way though, by signing on the dotted line. I've had to renounce several things that I enjoyed in order to come to Japan, but some things I have exprienced here are just inexperiencable elsewhere. A few weeks ago, I witnessed a moshpit in a karaoke booth (karaoke in Okayama is a bit more hardcore than what you see in Lost in Translation). A bit later, I saw people getting in trouble with the police for impersonating the rock group Kiss in public. Last weekend I was party to a foodfight in an Izakaya (traditional restaurant). I was on TV, and the programme was about me! (giving a speech on South Africa). I was invited to play at a club in Okayama when I was trying out a Japanese Stratocaster at a music shop, but my weekends are booked out as far into the future as I care to look. I treasure Monday nights, because they mean being able to make up some of the sleep lost on the previous weekend, but lately there have been parties on Monday nights too! (Kasaoka International Exchange Association works hard and parties harder afterwards). Last weekend's party was held by the Kiwis and was also televised! I wonder how many people watching would have noticed that the hippie with the guitar sitting by the fire was the same person in the pinstriped suit giving a powerpoint presentation the previous week...
I really miss the people and the fun stuff in Cape Town. Another year is a long time, but all things pass. No waves, no tanned babes, little glorious weather...but where else can you tell a roomful of pensioners about quantum physics and Swazi cash crops and then get paid for it?

Haad Yao

2006-02-28T23:13:00.000-08:00

Haad Yao
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

killer hallucinations

2006-02-28T23:11:00.000-08:00

killer hallucinations
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

This almost sums up Thailand... glittery, bizarre, dangerous.

Banyan Dream

2006-02-28T23:09:00.000-08:00

Banyan Dream
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

The Reflection

2006-01-16T23:35:00.000-08:00

The Reflection
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

My camera's final act of narcissism before it gave up the ghost.

Trouble in Thailand

2006-01-11T21:39:00.000-08:00

JETs are expected to be upstanding citizens and outstanding ambassadors of their respective countries. They live in Japanese society at great expense to the taxpayer, so it is understood that they approach their task of internationalization with professional acumen.

Then they go on holiday.

They crash motorbikes, they have to be coaxed out of trees by concerned barstaff, they get lost in the bushes at outdoor parties, they convince people to take hallucinogenic substances and then abduct them, they crash bicycles, they intimidate taxi drivers and then smuggle all manner of contraband substances back into Japan. It takes great skill to be so evil while looking so good.

I refer to my recent trip to Thailand with six friends, all Okayama JETs, who, for their own protection, I will assign pseudonyms. The brains behind the whole scheme is Mary Jane, a Texan, who suddenly decided one day on a bus that it would be a good idea to do Thailand, and do it good. The Numbers Guy is from Boston, and it was up to him to arrange the most diverse accommodation possible, from a cupboard crammed with bunkbeds to a 5 star luxury hotel with a pillow menu. Ya-Chan the OzPole organized the transportation: trains, planes and catamarans. He was also the official tech manager with roaming cellphone, DSLR camera and portable hard drive for the gigabytes of mad photographic evidence we managed to amass between us. Metal the Englishman tested the hottest food Thailand could offer (only one dish was ever hot enough) and was fascinated by the colour green. Clockwork from Melbourne scored us great places to stay and did her best to keep the boys under control, and Wednesday (forgive me) from
f%!#$ing Scotland kept us on our toes by getting tanked on vodka and disappearing every couple of days (and threatening taxi drivers when such services were required of her).
Then there's me. I guess my role is writing about it on this obscure blog (although I did play central roles in the tree incident and the abduction).
Supporting roles: Rosycheeks (who knows what would have happened if I had taken the narcotics she so persuasively offered me?), Braces (takes the 'guide' back out of 'tourguide') and The Hustler (aka Speed Demon), from Chiang Mai; The Oaf (who amazed us with his skills at staying alive &/or out of jail for so long) and the Disturbance (another JET, who found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, as usual, and was persuaded to imbibe a magic milkshake and then abducted and tortured with various hilarious mindgames).

Mary Jane, Wednesday, Clockwork, Metal and I arrived in Bangkok the day after Ya-Chan and the Numbers Guy, who had just been bounced from the Grand Palace for being so scruffy, then survived a ride with a rehab dodging taxi driver. We stayed at a very small backpackers, and Metal, Wednesday and I all managed (in separate incidents I must add) to lock ourselves in the tiny smelly bathroom. We went out for dinner and received several offers to visit sophisticated establishments with names like 'Super Pussy' to see ping-pong shows. Not being very interested in ping-pong, Metal and I turned these offers down.

Consensus had allowed us three doses of Bangkok on the trip, and thankfully none of them were longer than 48 hrs. We escaped to Chiang Mai on a little Air Asia jet, and Mary Jane attempted to win us a pillow in the in-flight trivia contest, but was trounced by a five-year old who then proceeded to sing 'Yes, Jesus Loves Me' over the aircraft's intercom. Whatever happened on the night that we arrived must have been good, because nobody remembers it. The restaurant we wanted on Christmas eve was booked out, so we went to one of the best restaurants in all Asia instead (by accident). They had live Thai music, a view over the river, and a picture of Hillary Clinton's armoured car on the menu (she ate there once). Someone even brought along one of the cute waitresses from the guesthouse, which made the meal even more of a feast for the senses. We did several different things between us during our time in Chiang Mai, only occasionally regrouping for things like meals and drinking binges. These included dealing with drug addled guesthouse employees, a downhill extreme bike trek (complete with injurious wipeoput on video!) elephant rides, bamboo rafting, a cooking class, a dinner and dance at the cultural center, foot massages, a trip to Laos over the Mekong river (getting served shots of cobra whiskey by exquisite Laotian girls and practicing Japanese with a blonde Korean recovering from her last facelift... having my hair pulled out by a furious monkey, losing vast quantities of money and meeting the hilltribe women with the long golden necks, doing a gemstone deal, losing even more money in a brilliantly conceived Burmese currency swindle etc etc...it was quite a day); meeting a girl called Jonothan (!) Ya-Chan and I getting kicked out of bed on two consecutive nights because of The Numbers Guy and Metal bringing Thai girls back, watching Muai Thai boxing, going to a club called Porn Bubble (not as bad as it sounds), stumbling across Thailand's hottest hip-hop act, Thaitanium, getting offered ecstasy by the receptionist of the guesthouse and meeting Buddhist monks who listened to punk rock in their temple... and that's just the stuff I can remember.

Dazed on confused, we caught a plane back to Bangkok, where the Numbers guy had organized us rooms at the Pan Pacific, a five star hotel that trains their personnel not to look too shocked when a tribe of bleary-eyed international backpackers stumble through the doors as if they could really afford to stay there. (We could, because even though none of us look like it, were all Japanese...at least for the time being). We drank real French wine, smoked real Cuban cigars and wore real fake Versace sunglasses indoors, while being serenaded by a beautiful singer and her skilled accomplice on a grand piano. After flipping through as many sattelite channels as we could in one go, we went out to an awesome concept-club called Bed, which was something of a cross between a huge bedroom and something out of the Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy's Improbability Drive. Somehow, after Bed closed for the night, we ended up outside a club that was so dodgy that not even Wednesday wanted to go inside. Ya-Chan and the Numbers Guy ditched their gold-digging dates, we avoided the Khmer-Rouge bouncer (thankfully I resisted the urge to say "We go already. Why you so horrible?" to him), and we got the hell out, all crammed into a tuk-tuk that I didn't fall out of, even though it seemed unavoidable at the time.
We were all rewarded with the most comfortable night's sleep we'd had all year, perhaps ever.
(and we didn't even use the pillow menu!)

The breakfast at the Pan Pacific was so exhorbitantly expensive that not even rich Japanese people like us could afford it. The staff breathed a well suppressed sigh of relief as we left, destined for the Bangkok train station via the cleanest, most astonishingly hi-tech underground railway I've ever seen. It even tops Tokyo, and just outdoes Paris, and even though I've heard Moscow has chandeliers, I'd bet it doesn't have synchronized glass doors between the platform and the train. In keeping with the yin/yang theme of our trip, our next train was an overnighter with a green and brown interior, and I still haven't been able to figure out which colour was the paint job and which was the.. uh... nevermind.
Luckily I fell asleep before that big drunk American bundle of obnoxiousness started throwing up. My heart goes out to Mary-Jane and Metal for having to deal with that one. Foolishly, I ordered breakfast on the train, but luckily the worrisome stomach cramps had subsided by the time we managed to scramble onto the ferry, moments before it left for Ko Pagnan.
We were accompanied on the ferry journey by a bunch of louts that had probably been dredged out of the gutter of some British football stadium and shipped to Thailand as a cruel joke on the international backpacker set. Having survived that, we made our way from Thong Sala to our bottom of the range beach bungalows 20 minutes walk away. It was an interesting amble, especially for the Numbers Guy, who did his best to ignore the ladyboy that kept riding past us very slowly, making eyes at him. After an actual swim in actually warm water that you could actually see your hand in front of your face in (Aaaah! at last!). We had supper with a Thai family who had turned their balcony into a restaurant called... Restaurant. Fed, we daringly taxiied to Had Rin, the legendary party beach, to risk our lives and our sanity with the rest of the Eurotrash that had been imported from all over the world to make the event as devastating as possible. The prize for the most popular product of the evening went to the beach bucket fillet with a can of coke, a bottle of red-bull and a bottle of vodka. I made it through the evening on three little bottles of red bull, which more closely resembles cough syrup in Thailand than the caffeinated marketing bomblets we're used to in other parts of the world. Thankfully, we were all part of the 99.5% of the partygoers that actually managed to survive (seriously). Us boys all thought we were going to see our life expectancy jump back up again (being Japanese and all) after we left that most dangerous of New Year's parties, but we still had to survive a taxi race. A nerve shattering experience indeed at 6am after a night of risky partying.

After a brief period when sleeping and waking and night and day blurred into one amorphous haze, we decided to bust out of the ultra budget jungalos (nice word, Ya-Chan) and get ourselves somewhere a bit more decent. Haad Yao was next. It was beautiful. The bungalows were really close to the pristine beach. Palm trees swished languidly in the warm breeze. The staff acted as if they were coming cold turkey off an all-week crack binge. We hired motorbikes and drove them dangerously (Ya-Chan sent himself to hospital with a broken arm and a hole in his head).
Most of us set out to Thong Sala to sample the legendary milkshakes at the superbly positioned Amsterdam bar. It was here, in the midst of the wonderful shake-up, that I decided to climb a tree, sending the bar manager into a panic and prompting some of the more sober clientele to nonchalantly raise a few eyebrows. I had escaped up the tree to avoid the man that has since become known as the Disturbance. He of the worryingly psychopathic slam-poetry who travels alone, "glooping" (his own word) onto other groups of people for hours or days at a time. He was too stoned to make his own decisions, so in my wonderfully frothy headspace I managed to convince him to have one of the special shakes and come with us to Haad Yao. He did, but as the taxi sped along and his neurons started to fire in decreasingly predictable patterns, he started to worry. We were all having a lot of fun by this time, with Bach playing in our heads and fascination with the colour green leading to sophisticated and groundbreaking philosophical theories. We were realising some of the truth behind the foundations of the universe, and we had a panicking headcase with us along for the ride. By the time we got to Haad Yao, he was convinced that we were psychopathic Nigerians who were just pretending to be English teachers in Japan. His body, his motorbike and his belongings were in three different places on the island, and his mind was in a different place altogether. When we made it to the bungalow, he locked himself in the bathroom. This was where our mischievious abduction backfired, as we had to regain his trust from the other side of the door, explaining to him that it was actually a way out of this apparently terrible situation he had got himself into. All he had to do was go to the big brown rectangle, look about halfway up on the right and slide the little bolt to the left, and he'd be free. It took a while. His head eventually cleared a little and he was sent on his way, finally persuaded that he actually had the wits and the resources to take a taxi back to Thong Sala and find his motorbike.

With the Disturbance behind us, we spent a few days lounging around on the beach wondering how the hell the staff at Haad Yao bungalows could live in such a beautiful place and be so morose at the same time. We swam alot, and even though Metal doubts my mental coherence at the time me, I still maintain that I was attacked by a fish. We borrowed a hammer from a friendly local restaurant to fix Ya-Chan's motorbike, and thankfully no-one noticed any damage when we returned them and I safely got my passport back. I think they were distracted by wondering how The Numbers Guy managed to get so much mud on his handlebars as he maintained a straight face while telling them that the bike had never got horizontal while in his custody. That night, some of us got Wednesday to threaten a taxi driver, and he took us inland to what was supposed to be the New Moon trance party near a waterfall. It looked like a trance party, and there was falling water, but the music was nearly all bubblegum house and the "waterfall" was more like a little weir. Wednesday got lost, and when we eventually found her, she threatened another taxi driver (with violence this time) and he took us home.

The next morning, (expletives deleted).

In my first and only attempt to organize anything on this trip, I arranged for us all to pay return price tickets to Ko Tao, when we were only going one way. We were entertained by The Oaf, who probably got dropped in the sea during the evil football lout prank and somehow floated to Ko Pagnan. We watched him try to board the ferry without a ticket, pick a fight with whoever was close enough, and then eventually get detained by disgruntled officials in a makeshift cage on the pier. We had been in Ko Tao for scarcely half an hour when we heard a familiar "Oi! Aaaargh!" It was the Oaf, trying to form a sentence. He had miraculously made it to the island without anyone noticing. Weighed down by omiyage (compulsory souvenirs for Japanese colleagues) laden backpacks, sleep deprivation and monster hangovers, our motley crew descended on Sensi Paradise. We all looked at Mary Jane in disbelief. She had told us that this place would be sixteen hundred Baht for all of us, yet it was a beach lodge of utmost class, with hardwood decks, impeccably dressed staff gliding around tending to guests' every whim, and discreet signs saying "Guests with plastic bottles will be asked to leave". We hid our plastic bottles before we were approached by a hostess who, if she were any less beautiful, might have looked slightly worried. She tilted her head in the manner that someone who facilitates tropical bliss for the world's elite would ask: "What the f%*!# are you guys doing here?" Mary Jane explained that she had booked seven beds a few days ago and attempted to confirm the price. The gracious hostess laughed politely. "No, that would have been sixteen THOUSAND Baht."

Hopefully, Mary Jane learned the lesson to never again refer to anything over a thousand as "#teen hundred". We hadn't dragged these backpacks, these hangovers, this dirt under our fingernails to the gates of Sensi Paradise (yes, that's actually what it was called) to be turned away by a sixteen THOUSAND Baht price tag. We reminded ourselves that we were rich Japanese people and skilled negotiators, so Mary Jane and I went to look at the room (which was more like a HOUSE) while the others debated the possibility of finding something else at this late stage of the game. Mary Jane and I were thoroughly impressed. Our house was nestled between boulders and palm trees a stone's throw from the crystalline water, and we rushed back to convince everyone that we should stay, (and Jedi mind-trick the management into knocking 4000Baht off the price tag). It was at this magnificent spot that we managed to recover somewhat from the previous two weeks of excess and insanity, use a flushing toilet, snorkel amongst psychedelic fish and coral and treat ourselves to beautifully prepared food. Alas, we could stay but a day and a night. Our next stop was Chumpohn, a refreshingly untouristed city, where Clockwork, Wednesday and I opted to be tortured by an untalented cabaret artist at an a la carte restaurant while the others ate rediculously cheap and delicious food at a sidewalk cafe. We boarded the overnighter to Bangkok, which this time, thankfully, we had managed to get first class tickets for. It wasn't exactly luxury, but at least it wasn't a health hazard like the last one. We arrived in the city and headed to the Grand Palace, as Ya-Chan and The Numbers guy wanted to try to get into again without being bounced. The latter and Metal donned sarongs to cover their legs, but the security guards thought they were ladyboys, so The Numbers guy was bounced again. Finally, they arranged to borrow long pants and we were all let in to see lots of Japanese people and gold plated stuff and an emerald Buddha. Metal finally got his come-uppance in the hot-food department when we went to lunch near Kao San Road. He asked for the hottest thing on the menu, and after the waitress had assessed that he was serious, told him that she'd give it to him, but he wasn't allowed to leave the restaurant until he had finished all of it, which he did. Respect, Metal. I had a taste and it was something in the league of what Dick Cheney might dream up to use on the unfortunates at Guantanamo Bay. Our final night in Bangkok was at the Ambassador, a seventies throwback which Metal and the Numbers guy nearly set fire to while demonstrating how to "go rockstar" on a hotel room. Thankfully the staff didn't discover the burn marks and broken glass until after we had left on the early flight to Kansai the next morning. We all managed to get back into the country, even though some of us couldn't help giggling when we were asked if we were carrying marijuana. Mary Jane managed to convince customs that the sword she was carrying was actually "a toy" and none of the other unmentionables were discovered and/or confiscated. Our only problem was (real) Japanese people trying to usher us out of the 'residents only' queue.

So we're all back in snowy Japan, and we're behaving ourselves again (supposedly).

Bikan

2005-12-19T16:56:00.000-08:00

Bikan
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

Japanese people go nuts for this: the changing colours of Autumn. As far as I know, its the only time all the hotels in Kyoto are booked out with people who have arrived for the national pastime of "leaf viewing". The colours are really beautiful and psychedelic. Some trees go entirely yellow and some go intense scarlet.

The Extremes

2005-12-19T16:26:00.000-08:00

When I arrived in Japan, I knew it would be warm, but I had no idea that it would be so warm that I'd have to jump into a cold shower as soon as I got home, and when I was done, spread myself out in front of the airconditioner set to its lowest setting. I was told that I'd appreciate Autumn with its milder temperatures, and I did, all two weeks of it. My apartment that once felt like an oven now feels like a fridge (and my fridge is now used more as a cupboard than anything else, since its hardly any colder than the kitchen). I didn't use hot water in summer, and I don't use it in winter either, because my hot water pipes have frozen shut! No idea why its only the hot water pipes that froze and not the cold ones. I have to shower at my neighbour's and boil the kettle to have a shave in the morning. I always wear a hoodie to bed and avoid moving my head around in case my face touches a freezing part of the pillow. I have watched my classes steadily thin out as the kids succumbed to flu, just before i got it myself and was laid out for two days.

Before I arrived, I thought the hardest part of this mission would be adapting to the foreign culture, but that was easy compared with having to deal with these mad temperatures!

South Africa and Japan are Almost Alike!

2005-12-06T21:47:00.000-08:00

Here's a little comparative analysis that proves that these two countries aren't so different after all...
In South Africa homeless people rummage in dustbins for food... In Japan, homeless people rummage in dustbins for batteries for their minidisc players.
In Japan, taxi doors are opened and closed by a silent hydraulic system operated from the driver's seat...In SA, taxi doors are held on with bent coathangers and operated by a toothless, tattooed gangster screaming "MaaauubreiKaaaaaap!"
In Japan, criminal activity is carried out by the Yakuza... In SA, criminal activity is carried out by the government.
In Japan, in the event of an accident, the emergency services respond by immediately sending a police car, an ambulance, a fire engine and a diplomatic task force... In SA, the emergency services respond by saying "Call back if somebody dies".
In Japan, trains often run exactly on time... In SA, trains often run off the rails, into each other, or through station walls.
In Japan, most people smoke... In SA, most people smoke ganja.
In Japan, millions of people live in tiny houses made out of highly insulated lightweight materials... In SA, millions of people live in tiny houses made out of highly flammable lightweight materials
In Japan, you can go to a public toilet and flush, wash your hands and dry them without having to touch anything... In SA you flush with your foot, turn the tap with your elbow and dry your hands on your pants because you don't want to touch anything.
In Japan, government officials are rich because everybody works hard and pays taxes... In SA, government officials are rich because they get kickbacks from arms deals and steal money out of the National Lottery.
In Japan, you can get a new cellphone every few months because the service providers like to keep their customers abreast of the latest technology... In SA, you have to get a new cellphone every few months because the f#%*!ng things keep getting stolen.
In Japan, if you get on the train without a ticket, you can pay at your destination... In SA, if you get on the train without a ticket, you can get arrested (that's if it doesn't derail and crash into a wall first).
In Japan, the bank automatically deducts money from your account because it can pay your water and electricity bill for you... In SA, the bank automatically deducts money from your account because it can.

I love South Africa and I'll be back in the not-too-distant future.

Nani...?

2005-12-06T19:17:00.000-08:00

Nani...?
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

I've been going on and on about esoteric mystic ballistic psychosomatics for so long that youre probably wondering when I'm going to post again about this country Im supposed to be in. Well, heres the revised and updated list of things that, as far as I know, can be found...

Only in Japan!

2005-12-06T18:57:00.000-08:00

A Pokemon Boeing 747!

TV news with a Funky House soundtrack!

Computerized toilets!

Supermarkets that play Nirvana!

High calorie bars!

Electric flashing police uniforms!

Psytrance on primetime TV!

Leaving your BMW Z3 in the parking lot WITH THE KEYS IN THE IGNITION and the ENGINE RUNNING while you do your shopping!!

The Wisdom of Moo

2005-11-30T22:31:00.000-08:00

A risk that is not taken has infinitely less chance of success than one that is taken
NICKY MOO COW

From My Window

2005-11-27T22:37:00.000-08:00

From My Window
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

Myouin Temple

2005-11-27T22:35:00.000-08:00

Myouin Temple
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

Genius Loci

2005-11-27T20:13:00.000-08:00

Most of us are becoming aware of the fact that we live in a realm which is only partially evident to our senses. We are realizing the glorious paradox that even though the substance of matter has proven to be little more than nothing, our reality is interwoven with many more than the three or four dimensions we are usually aware of. Those of you who are familiar with the Mayan Calendar will know that our planet travels through a complex yet distinct perfusion of ambient energies in its dance across spacetime. This cyclic phase-shift holds a pattern of manifestation that thousands have begun to discover for themselves, either through time maps like the Haab, or through a direct experience of self-attunement. As far as we know, our course through this field of cosmic radiation is predetermined, but it is up to us to decide how to respond to it. It also teaches us about Genius Loci - the Power of Place.

Every part of the Universe has its own frequency and corresponding thought field which is in constant flux, and the fluctuations range from fractions of nanoseconds to aeons. In other words, every single thing has its own energy signature which is constantly evolving. Planet Earth (Gaia) has her own fluctuating energy system, the study of which is known as geomancy. Many of humanity's sacred sites, like Stonehenge and Glastonbury Tor, lie on the points or lines of this geoidal network. In fact, most of the sacred sites belonging to the temples and cathedrals of the various world religions were selected for their auspicious geomantic signatures. Many of these sites have disproportionate concentrations of negative ions, known for their healing properties, as well as peculiar absences of background radiation.

Two of the most important parameters in the Harvard Psychedelic Drug Research Project were 'Set' and 'Setting'. Dr. Timothy Leary and Dr. Richard Alpert (a.k.a. Baba Ram Das) emphasised these variables, which stood for mindset and place, respectively, as the crucial determinants of the quality of a psychedelic experience. Consciousness is a necessarily psychedelic experience. Drugs such as LSD and Mescaline merely serve as accellerators for certain natural psychocerebral processes like neural disinhibition and cerebral convection, leading to the spiritual euphoria of what has been called 'religious experience' or its dark antitheseis, the cataclysmic terror of a bad trip. Whichever part of the spectrum the psychonaut finds themselves is a result of the interplay between Set and Setting: Consciousness and Space. We are transponsive with space. In other words, where we are affects who we are, and who we are in turn affects where we are. Chemically enhanced psychedelic experience serves to open what Aldous Huxley called the doors of perception in a shortcut to what can also be achieved through the more disciplined practice of meditation. I prefer to refer to these doors as an aperture that lets in as much light as we choose or as much as we can bear. The hippie arguing with a potplant (you know who you are) therefore might not be such a rediculous concept if we accept that consciousness is inherent within every aspect of existence, from the quantum particle to the universe at large; and that our experience depends on how much information we are willing or able to share with our environment.

Zero-Point physicists have pointed out that there is a vast quantity of energy stored in every cubic inch of space, and the same is true of information. Phrases like "getting a feel for the place" or "picking up good vibes" are linguistic evidence of our experience of the mind/space (mindscape) interplay. Geomancy and Feng Shui are established disciplines for utilizing and harmonizing it. The only thing we have to pay for it is attention.

Onomichi

2005-11-10T18:31:00.000-08:00

Onomichi
Originally uploaded by Crystal Skull.

Sunset in the Land of the Rising Sun

Bucky on Bucks:

2005-11-10T18:17:00.000-08:00

Those who make money out of money deliberately keep it scarce. Money is not wealth. Wealth is the accomplished technological ability to protect, nurture, support and accommodate all growful needs of life. R. BUCKMINSTER FULLER

What's With The Name?

2005-11-01T20:50:00.000-08:00

You're probably wondering why this blog is called 'Fractal Mindscape' and what on earth 'res cogitans est res extensa' means. Well, I'm sure you're at least faintly aware that the mystery of our conscious awareness has been hopelessly explained by organized religion and scientific investigations seems to yeild more questions than answers. Not only do we exist within an apparent mystery, but it gets more mysterious as it goes along.

It has been my experience that the best way to navigate this puzzle is by inventing one's own explanation, and this is what I am in the process of doing. It has also been my experience that entire classloads of students at one of the best medical schools in the world have no idea what a fractal is, so dont despair if you don't either. The fractal has been a useful tool which I have used to create my cosmology, for it is an infinitely recursive pattern that is different at every level, yet somehow also the same. Any segment will hint at the nature of the whole, and any piece will contain elements of or relationships with all of the other pieces. You can zoom into it forever and zoom out of it forevermore. Such is the universe. We have got as far as neutrinos on the in-zoom and hypergalaxies on the out-zoom and the main thing we have realized is that there seems to be more space here than anything else. Quantum physicists operating the most sophisticated and expensive scientific instruments ever built have fled to India to smoke hashish and grow dreadlocks because of what they saw when they were permitted a glimpse through the veil of what we assume to be real.

The core of our being is our consciousness, which does not stop at the boundaries of our bodies. We have all experienced information that has filtered through to us from a medium other than the senses we are familiar with. We are intermingling fields of consciousness, our bodies the epicentres of these fields, as much mind as they are physical.

Unfortunately, we have been led to believe otherwise by a man called Renee Descartes, whose insistence that mind (res cogitans) is separate from body (res extensa) has shaped the scientific paradigm for centuries. It has also removed us from nature, giving us dominion over it and the propensity to pick it to pieces to see how it works, as if it were a machine. Science is coming full circle with discoveries in most disciplines that are unravelling systems of thought that took centuries to construct, and systems theory is demolishing the walls we have built to compartmentalize what we think we know. Our increasing familiarity with the atom (still derived from our tendency to smash it to bits) and the universe is leading many on the forefront (no longer just the fringes) of science to conclude that what we once thought of as physical, may indeed be just thoughts in a mind and our minds in its thought, part of an infinitely recursive pattern that is different on every level, yet somehow the same.

Back Online

2005-10-31T22:26:00.000-08:00

Following the tragic demise of internafrica, I have had no online forum for you to keep track of my oriental adventures and mystic agitprop.
That was not the end. That was not the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning....

I arrived in Okayama, Japan from Cape Town (via Johannesburg, Hong Kong and Tokyo) after a total of tenty-two hours in the air. At the time of writing, I am going into my fourth month here, teaching Japanese teenagers about South Africa, Global Warming, Plate Tectonics, Geopolitics and sometimes English. My first bit of exploration took me to Kobe, the site of the most devastating Japanese earthquake in recent history, and then on to Kyoto, home of the famously ignored protocol for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. I had my first experience of an onsen, or bath-house, and visited my first Buddhist temple. It was a gleefully headlong immersion in Japanese culture, enhanced by exquisitely prepared meals of river fish, lotus root, bamboo shoots, sweet bean and gold leaf.

After a week of sitting around at school wondering what the hell I was there for, I set off for Hiroshima on the famous bullet train, known here as the Shinkansen. The occasion was the 60th commemoration of the atomic bombing. I set a lantern afloat on the river to join thousands of others, a glowing constellation of memory. If peace were a substance, it was here that it would be most tangible. It is a beautifully resurrected city. One day I'll return to see what its like on a normal day.

The next adventure was to climb Mt. Fuji to reach Japan's highest point. It was more difficult than expected, especially with a hangover from an all night party on the bus on the way there. Mercifully, we climbed at night by the light of a full moon, which illuminated the cloud cover beneath us. The tops of the clouds basked in silvery lunar illumination, yet they also glowed from underneath with the light of some of Tokyo's many sattelite cities. Two of us reached the summit before sunrise, and that space between night and day held eerie whispers of the unimaginably vast cauldron of geothermal energy beneath our feet as we stared into the dark void of the crater. Its the most scared I've been since arriving, but the fear was soon warmed away by sunrise at 3776 metres.

A few weeks later, I set out on a slightly tamer mission to the World Expo in Aichi prefecture. The theme was "Wisdom of Nature". The irony that the site of several hundred hectares was until recently a forest was lost amongst the teeming crowds. I visited the South African Pavilion, bought rooibos and felt my first real twinge of homesickness while watching a video of a perfectly peeling wave at Llandudno. I also got to see Lucy, the world famous Australopithecine skeleton, and a few robots, which was a nicely significant juxtaposition. Unfortunately, there were so many people present (somewhere in the region of three hundred thousand) that most of the exhibits were clogged by half-hour queues.

I have had a few other minor adventures and one or two misadventures to date, but for the most part I have been inventing things to do in my oodles of free time at school, and learning how to live alone, engaging in such wondrous activities as cleaning the sink, doing laundry, ironing etc. First-World amenities abound, but Orion is upside-down and I am separated from my roots by a lot of spacetime.