Japanese strangeness

Satoru carrying my backpack for me.

I often speak about how Japanese people tend to take things to the extreme...or at least to a level that we in the West just dont seem to go...Here is a pair of girls I saw on the train, decked out in doll costumes. In Akihabara girls in different costumes, such as bunnies, maids, samurai, highschoolers, and office ladies (OL), lined the streets advertisng their themed cafes. We found this OL cafe magazine advertisment at our table during lunch, and Satoru explained to me that "some men want to have a relationship with an office lady, but cant in real life, so they can fulfill that desire at these themed cafes. It`s not sex...The girls just talk to you and drink coffee or alcohol with you and act like office ladies in uniform. It is very strange Japanese culture."

Satoru reading Leigh`s letter

We visited painter Miyazaki Yujiro at the Mizuma Gallery.

tasuku in meditation.

Japan loves displaying male and female genitalia in their folk art. I`m facinated with the differences between Eastern and Western depictions of genitalia in art history--Japan exagerated them, such as in their woodblock shunga prints, while the West did the opposite and made them really, really small, if at all. Pictured above is a mascot for a restaruant in Tokyo. Below is an advertizment I saw near the same place.

Saint Satoru threw a dinner party for me my last night in tokyo, with photographer Kazu Fukuda and butoh dancer Yasuchika Konno. We ate rare fish, they tricked me into trying whale, and we drank sake out of tea ceremony ceramics...incredible experiences and newness is happening all around me, and it's all gift, unasked for, enriching. that mystical, even angelic emotion of gratitude is flowing almost nonstop, making me feel so high and alive. Love japan, great to be back. but i I miss all of you back home a lot. I've thought about everyone, with longing and gratitude. What is strange is that everything is the same as it was over here...i feel like maybe i should have waited longer than a year to return! and yet, since i have changed, everything is also different. I went to an amazing beach party and bbq last night, saw many old friends and made new ones. a group of 15 year old punks joined our party and played frisbee with us. no doubt they were excited when they saw me in my traditional japanese fundoshi.