A couple nights ago, Tristan, who loves baseball despite being Australian, took a bunch of us from the hostel to a Darvish, who is Iranian Japanese, wasn't pitching that day. Among our group were these four super cool British guys who were one month into a year long trip through Asia and Australia, Jim, John, Mike and Tom. At one point, the entire crowd blew up these long white balloons that looked like condoms, and let them go at the same time, and they all flew whistling into the air.
Yesterday, I went with Sophie, a lady from Britain who is nearing the end of a nine month trip also through Asia and Australia, to Nikko, to see the tomb of Tokugawa Ieyasu. It was a dazzling display of Chinese-influenced Japanese architecture. Despite being a hotspot for tourists, it was exhilirating to be in the posthumous presence of one of the most important figures in Japanese history, a man whom I have read so much about. When we entered the main shrine, Sophie was mobbed by Japanese school children who were apparently on a field trip to the shrine, and as part of their assignment had to accost foreign tourists and practice their English. Fortunately, they spared me... I wonder why.
We then went off the beaten path and lost ourselves in the quiet side streets of the surrounding town. It was raining all afternoon and we didn't have umbrellas. Soaked, we ended up in a mysterious cemetary inhabited by small statues with red hats and scarves. The mountains in the distance were densely covered by enormously tall trees that covered the entire area in a dense fog. It was like a scene out of a fairy tale. I felt as if we were being watched by curious little spirits.
