The view you see above is the one I saw every day for the past 4 years.  It was the view from my 11th floor Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan apartment.  It was a view I paid a lot to have.  To me, it was totally worth it.  It was the last of many places I called home while spending the past 9 years abroad in Asia.  I first lived in Pusan, South Korea.  After 3 years in various cities in that country, and several trips to southeast Asia, I took a 2 month pilgrimage in New Zealand before settling on my final Asian destination:  Japan.  That country was my home for the last 6 years, a period of time so long I came to believe I never actually had any other home and it was perfectly normal for me to be living in a place where I could not read any sign nor talk to any person.  Though I thought it was forever, like all things, it was impermanent and lo, I have returned to Florida and my mind is still processing everything from my decade abroad.

I will not go into full detail here of my decade abroad (perhaps that will be a book someday) but just give a brief summary of the recent present.  But do not expect any sweeping conclusions or grand insights about Asia, for it almost already feels like I have closed that chapter in my mind as it once again bends toward the West.

I had a good farewell to Japan and Asia in general.  I spent the last month there living in Aya’s parents’ home with them.  I visited all my favorite Tokyo spots for the last time and ate at all my favorite restaurants saying farewell to the waiters and waitresses that knew what I wanted without me having to say anything.  

I spent my final day in Tokyo simply:  hanging out in Yoyogi Park with a few friends.  My last night in Tokyo there were no LOST IN TRANSLATION moments of any kind.  I felt nothing really.  

Then after enduring the horror that is air travel I was back in the Sunshine State, back to where I lived the majority of my life, back to where I had escaped from 9 years earlier, back in Florida.  

And that’s that.  

I had two farewell parties in Tokyo, one smaller one for just a group of students who were like family to me while I was in Japan, and then a large one where all friends and students past and present were invited, as well as Aya’s friends.  I was very flattered that over 50 people attended that one.  

I will let the photos below do the talking for how those farewell parties went.  

And as for the future of Jack-in, well, I still have some things to post on Japan about, and my fiancee/wife is Japanese after all, but undoubtedly things will take on a much more Florida tone besides all the usual movie and TV reviews and sports stats reports.

FAREWELL JAPAN HELLO FLORIDA PHOTO GALLERY:

I now have ample time with nothing to do on Tuesday afternoons in the Shibuya area.  Naturally I carry my trusty Nikon D80 (edit:  Nikon D300 from now on!) with me on these occasions.  As I walked around a corner and onto the main street leading toward the Hachiko area of Shibuya Station, from afar I noticed someone gesturing peculiarly to someone else.  I got a bit closer and saw that it was a rather creepy looking punter, but with an innocent air about him, trying to convince a woman of Buddha knows what.

I stepped over to the side and began shooting away.  This guy was going on for over 10 minutes!  Seeing no end to this conversation I walked on because I wanted to see the face of the woman he was talking with.  Who could ever trust this guy?  The woman is pictured below.

KIT USED:  Nikon D80 with Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm lens

This was a return to a place upon first leaving I thought to myself, “this was a fell place.  I do not wish to return, ever.”  Yet one year later I returned to the abandoned mining town in Gunma Prefecture, Japan.  The lure this time was a previously overlooked doctor’s clinic that held rumors of such oddities as  a “preserved brain” in a jar and decaying surgical instruments.  All the rumors, it turned out, were true.

I do not believe sunshine ever touches the fell valley where the haikyo mining town sits in an omnipresent overcast mist.  No rain was falling this time, but it was cold and grim as ever.  Even knowing that the doctor’s clinic existed did not make it any easier to find this time.  There were no big red crosses nor blue ones.  No medical insignias upon sign posts.  The first clue that the building was the doctor’s clinic was only found in the building itself in the form of a narrow stretcher, listlessly lying upon rubble in the middle of a sagging room.  

Solid confirmation came when I saw up close the much rumored “preserved brain” as seen in the photograph above.  Discovering the brain was almost like discovering the Holy Grail so much had it been discussed previously among my haikyo enthusiast friends.  I looked upon it transfixed fighting many urges to remove it from its jar and hold it in my bare hands.  The urge to take a bite of it even entered my mind!

The other rooms of the doctor’s clinic were all horror movie set ready.  Rusted instruments and a terrible examination table decorated rooms with sunken and rotted floors.  If all that were not enough, the end room belonged to a dentist whose floor was littered with broken teeth molds.  They crackled under foot as I blindly trod upon them at first.  

I can now safely declare, that never again shall I visit that fell valley.  Never.

DOCTOR’S CLINIC RUINED IN BLACK & WHITE PHOTO GALLERY:  

Aya and I happened to be in the Nihonbashi area for a festival, so only by chance did we come across Candle Night at Kandagawa.  This was 700 candles floating in cut off 2-liter plastic bottles all put on display by university students to promote environmental awareness (the irony of using so much plastic is not lost on me).  We passed by while it was still a bit light out and they were setting up.  We were given a flyer and told to be sure and come back after dark.

When we returned not all the candles were lit.  There were not that many students performing the lighting, and I felt like I almost wanted to help them get the job done!  There were not that many onlookers, so maybe that’s why they appreciated me taking the time to take so many photographs of the candles.  

There was a video being projected on a street wall showing the surprisingly complicated apparatus they designed for housing the candles.  The 2-liter bottles were filled with water so the candles would float prettily, but also in case the bottles fell over the water would douse the flame.  

Candle Night in Kanagawa was the cap to one of my best days in Tokyo actually, mostly due to the amazing festival we had witnessed earlier.

CANDLE NIGHT AT KANDAGAWA PHOTO GALLERY: