It was October, 2005. I was in Hiroshima, in the restaurant on the top floor of a highrise hotel, having dinner. They sat me at a corner table, with a corner window that faced the night-lit city. Being that the hotel is on the water, the road stretched out, away from the hotel – I could see for miles.
My dinner companions, as they had been throughout my trip, were my pad and pen. I no longer have the pad, but I remember writing how I felt – the awe-inspiring enormity of being completely alone, thousands of miles away from everyone and everything I knew. Not a soul in the world who could recognize me and know my name knew where I was at that moment. When the waitress approached my table she bowed, placed a cushion on the floor and knelt to take my order. It was the same when she brought the food and cleared the table – bowing deeply before she knelt and when she stood. So so foreign.
Being completely alone, I discovered, is a surreal experience. With no responsibility to anyone but myself and the world – what felt like the entire world – stretched out before me, I was simultaneously a speck on the face of the earth and an entire universe in and of myself. I don’t remember if the fact that I looked out over a city that was once wiped out, turned to rubble, its innocent population murdered in a single explosion of proportions larger than any of us alive can imagine had anything to do with my perception of surreality that night, but I suspect it did.
But I was there. The place I’ve read of in the history books. Hiroshima, Japan. Anything could have happened there.
Anything.
From the restaurant, Grand Prince Hotel, Hiroshima
From the restaurant, Grand Prince Hotel, Hiroshima
A few things I learned about traveling in and around the Tokyo area by train: if you go onto google maps before you head out, you can find out how many stops it is between you and your destination, how many minutes it will take, whether or not you’ll have to transfer from one line to another, and best of all, google maps actually tells you how much it will cost, which is essential information for using the ticket machines. Also, inside the trains there are screens to tell you where the next stop will be with numbers beside the names. I assumed they were stop numbers, but I soon figured out (when they kept changing) that it was the time to the next stop. Very handy in a packed train car when one needs to plan an escape route around all the other passengers. If you visit Japan, you’ll thank me for this.
I left Kamakura with a measure of sadness. I’d grown to love the little town and having never been to Tokyo before, I didn’t have much of an idea of what to expect. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised with the area in which I chose to stay.
Odaiba is a quiet part of Tokyo compared to the other places I eventually visited. It’s off to the east of the city and a great place to stay if you’re planning to go to Disneyland, though I didn’t get close to the place. I stayed at the Sunroute Ariake Hotel.
Under $100Cdn/night, it was very clean and there’s a Lawson (convenience store) right in the hotel, so I didn’t have to go out to get something to eat, nor did I have to eat in the restaurant, which was a little pricey to be dining in at every meal. It was also only a two minute walk from the Kokusai-tenjijou (I always find the longest named-place to have to locate) train station, and it was easy to find! so I didn’t have to lug my cases far. The reason I stayed there was the proximity of the venue in which Buck-Tick was playing – I wanted to be able to walk back to my hotel after the concert. It turned out to be a nice 15 minute stroll.
The morning after I arrived I walked over to Zepp Tokyo to see how best to get there. The one thing google maps is not always good for is guiding one in the right direction for walking. It was hard to tell from the map whether or not they were sending me on a stroll down the train tracks. As it turned out, the fastest way there was a humongous foot bridge.
No cars – bonus
When I arrived there the crews were working on emptying trucks of equipment.
The trucks were at the back, which is where the street is
I was surprised to see dozens of girls wandering around pulling small suitcases. With not a hotel in sight I wondered what they could have been doing. I found out later.
I went for breakfast and decided to head in the direction of Diver City Mall. Then I saw this guy.
Here’s a rare selfie of me beside his foot. He’s pretty tall.
I wasn’t really sad – the sun was in my eyes
I walked around the mall for an hour or two – there was a band appearing live outside for a small concert and meet-and-greet and thousands of rabid fangirls screaming their heads off to wade through when I came out. But I was heading out to meet Susie, the lovely lady whose Etsy shop is NOW OPEN! (click here) and who was kind enough to buy my concert ticket.
While we had a quick chat, I found out what the deal was with all the young ladies and their suitcases. Not a bag was left to be found but instead, hundreds of heavily made up costumed cosplayers, just there to get together and walk around. The area, being Palette Town which is apparently famous, has apart from Zepp Tokyo this,
Giant Wheel
and this,
Mega Web – lotsa cars
as two of its main attractions.
By the time Susie and I said goodbye I was good and tired, so I headed back to the hotel. The next day was dedicated to getting ready for the concert.
I’ve always loved looking at abandoned buildings. I remember going on long car trips with my parents and sitting in the back seat watching the scenery go by; nothing caught my attention quite like an old house with its windows boarded up and ivy threatening to consume it whole, or a broken down barn, its walls leaning off its stone foundation as though a good wind could transport it to Oz. Such sceneries inspired me to wonder who lived there, and what ultimately caused them to walk away. Even better were the houses with the front door left open. Traveling by at 60mph my nose would be pressed up against the glass, hoping for a glimpse of peeling wallpaper inside. Did it burn? Perhaps the dog got out and they ran after it, never to return.
I think for me its mostly about the history I can’t read about in a book. I can walk around somewhere like Canterbury Cathedral and think more about all the shoes that wore the floor into ruts than I pay attention to the plaques, telling me which king or queen was entombed where. That’s what imagination is for, after all. Pure inspiration.
And so yes, for these reasons I enjoy looking at photos of abandoned buildings, taken by photographers who love to go into such places. I’d seen the term “ruin porn” a few times around the internet, but it wasn’t until I discovered photographer Seph Lawless, just yesterday in fact, that I decided to look up the term and see exactly what it means.
According to Wikipedia and another article – The Psychology of Ruin Porn I found, the term “ruin porn” refers to the concept that there are photographers out there who take pictures of abandoned places without documenting the wheres, whys and hows in which the places became dilapidated, thus exploiting them much like pornography exploits its subjects. I beg to differ. And yet, can I?
The third (and final) definition in Merriam Webster’s free online dictionary – and the only one not mentioning sex specifically, is this:
3: the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction
There is definitely something to this in regards to “ruin porn.” In seeing a picture of belongings left behind in the aftermath of disaster, strong feelings indeed are provoked. There’s nothing quite like an abandoned teddy bear left in the mud to bring a tear to the eye. We tend to sympathize inasmuch as what if it happened to us? But what of an empty, abandoned house? Must we know everything about its previous owners and what kind of devastation, whether financial or physical, caused them to leave in order to sympathize with them? Is taking a picture of the structure exploiting their misery in the same way the pornographer exploits his or her human subjects, for the sake of money and lust?
It’s a tough call.
I won’t stop looking at ruin photography; it still inspires stories within me. Does that make me a pornographer? Or is this all just another case of oversensitivity?
Okay, bear with me for it seems that perhaps no one saw my angry rose quite the way I did.
I drew you a diagram.
Here’s the original:
and here it is again with my mad paint skillz added:
click to have a closer look… if you dare
Now look at the original and tell me you can’t see the crazy-assed disembodied-headed dead rose that’s still sitting on my kitchen counter waiting to eat me for dinner.
Seriously, you can’t expect me to deal with this insanity alone…
Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a ping back, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below.
As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday, if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.
The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:
Hard to believe the month of January is done and dusted for yet another year. Just Jot It January 2015 was a roaring success this year, and I have all of you participants to thank for it. 😀
I think the idea of having prompts worked out well for some, so I’ll think about doing that again next year – maybe even one per week or every three days. Anyhoo, here are the links in case you’d like to read some of the pingbacks.
I promise to get to all the posts in the next month or so. In the meantime, I’d like to invite everyone who joined in to choose their own favourite JusJoJan post and link it in the comments below–please keep it to just one so as not to overwhelm–and I’d like to invite everyone to check out the posts that are linked!
Thanks once again!
Oh, and here’s a present for you! Your official Participant 2015 badge. Grab it and post it as a widget on your blog! Remember, whether you posted your jot every day, or simply jotted down a phone message for a loved one, you’re a Just Jot It January Winner! 😀
It’s kind of official! I began seriously writing on my blog two years ago today! To celebrate, I wanted to do something special – an experiment of sorts. Please bear with me while I explain.
A number of years ago I worked as a bookkeeper in an office where, whenever someone had a birthday it was their job to bring in a couple of dozen donuts for everyone to eat. It was a great way to make sure everyone pitched in, it was fair and it was fun, and we got a lot of laughs out of it.
Since it’s my blogaversary today, I’d like to throw a party in my comment section. It’s going to require some effort from you. The benefit is that you’ll get to chat and maybe even meet someone new!
What I propose is this: I’ll comment first. When you comment, say hi to the person in the comment below yours. EDIT: Please comment and then reply to the comment below yours after yours is posted. If you know the person already, ask them how the weather is, what’s new, whatever. 🙂 If you don’t know them, ask them where they are in the world, or how they came up with their blog’s name – anything you can think of. You can even go visit them if you’d like, or share a link! And don’t stop there. Talk to everyone in the comment section! I’ve extended the “reply” button to 7 comments deep, but if you need more, just let me know. It might be a good idea to follow the comments by clicking the(paraphrased) “notify me by email when there’s a new comment” box.
Let’s get to know each other! 😀 And have a virtual donut!
From Yokohama Station I hopped on another train which took me to the little seaside town of Kamakura. I’d done my research online before I went – it’s a place with lots of Temples, a little shopping street (by little I mean narrow, not short) and had what I thought would be a nice, inexpensive place to stay. In a word, it was beautiful.
Villa Sacra in Kamakura is a little inn with several uniquely decorated rooms. A very old, traditional Japanese house, the floors creak, the ceilings are low, and the hospitality is fabulous.
The room, however, was quite small. I spent most of my time out wandering the shopping street, eating at Mister Donut – hey, it was cheap and free refills on the coffee! – and walking. Oh boy did I walk. I’d estimate about 4-6 hours a day, rain or shine.
I was in my room for the only earthquake I felt. At first I thought it was someone leaning against the wall behind me. The walls were thin enough that I could feel the people in the next room, but the rumbling sound and the extensive swaying of the entire room led me to believe otherwise. When I looked it up on the internet (I had excellent WiFi), sure enough I was on the outskirts of a quake. It wasn’t nearly as frightening as I thought it might have been, probably because if the house had been standing that long already, it wasn’t likely to fall down while I was there, right? Right.
Besides, I had other things to worry about. I wrote this in my notebook over coffee:
December 9th, 2014 – Mister Donut, Kamakura
I’ve been sitting by the window for about 20 minutes on this lovely bright sunny day and so far only one person has walked by in sunglasses. Okay, now it’s two. But that’s among hundreds. This must be a nation of people with eyesight issues.
Not that that’s the biggest danger here – every 3rd hydro pole has a sign that says “Be careful of tsunamis,” stating that here we are just a little more than 5 meters above sea level. Be careful – as though if you see one, just step around it.
I think I’ve been bitten by a mosquito. In December. Life is good.
After that I took a day trip to Enoshima. It is, apparently, the honeymoon capital of Japan. In a way this seems appropriate, like if you can handle the uphill climb here, you can handle being married.
December 9th, 2014, Enoshima (Island)
An island carved in rock and surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, yet not too far from land that one can’t walk here across a bridge, it is populated by shrines and hawks. I’ve now seen my very first “Beware of the Hawks” sign.
I tried to get a few pictures of the hawks but they’re fast fliers.
I managed to nab this one in a tree.
The weather was gorgeous – in the tens to low teens, celsius the entire time I was in Kamakura. The food was fantastic and very inexpensive – I managed to eat for between 500-1000 yen ($5 to $10 Cdn.) most days. Lots of seafood, as you can well imagine.
I was going to write about my entire time in Kamakura in one shot, but there’s still so much to tell. I’ll try to write again soon!
Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a ping back, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below.
As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday, if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.
The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:
lindaghill.com 