Garry, like many of us, was ultra-keen to see Empire of the Sun, vocally expressive in his enthusiasm the moment we all met up with him in the morning on the day of Foreshore, Canberra’s annual music festival situated next to Parliament, holding onto this positive anticipation all the way through the day and excitedly displaying his glee through dance when the band were due to arrive onstage. Having just scooped the ARIAs a couple of nights earlier, his thoughts were that the band would as a result be in a fantastic mood to give us all a fantastic, memorable performance, whereas Pep had earlier warned us that Empire had been terrible at Parklife, “all style and no substance like an action movie”, but the overall expectation was that surely - surely! - we’d see an improved performance tonight. As the day progressed and the sky turned dark, accompanied by a slight chill illuminated by the colour of the crowd and the stages and the lights, the day-long stream of bands and music kept the happy mood alive as 10pm rolled round with so many of us excited to experience a set from Australia’s current “Best Group” on the large Lake Stage looking out onto Lake Burley Griffin in the evening.

Just as an observation, Foreshore, much like the current Australian Music Festival scene in general, presented itself through its participants in that very particular, very peculiar nationalistic Australian form which has somehow evolved from, arguably, the events of the Cronulla riots: muscular, shirtless men with Southern Cross tattoos wearing fluorescent tight board shorts and short skirted/hot-panted made-up girls with alternately good or bad tans, the fashions for both sexes topped off with large-rimmed sunglasses and no shortage of superficial self-confidence. By comparison the three of us who went and saw Empire together, Garry, Pep and I, were dressed tamely as far as animal instinct courtship standards went, but certainly by anyone’s everyday standards Garry looked awesome and Pep was, as only she can be, beautiful. We were there simply for the music – keen to see the headliners as well as the up and comers Deadmau5, the Bloody Beetroots, Zombie Nation, et al – in addition to having a good time with our friends, much like what the music festival of yesteryear was like and stood for, as opposed to this seemingly new “other” reason to go; namely, to make a statement on image and primal sexuality, as demonstrated by this specific subculture of people at these festivals nowadays. Regardless though, the common interests amongst the crowd were undoubtedly the bands and the DJs, with the main concern amongst most of us being who to choose from out of Empire of the Sun and Bloody Beetroots, whose sets who were playing at the same time. Garry, Pep and I had made our choice and stuck with it, our joy gleaned from the day’s fun ready to burst out once more when Empire finally arrived after all the hype and the eagerness.

The initial signs were great; fantastic visuals and lighting, an almost operatic attention to detail in design and set-piece, costumed dancers in ever-changing masks, Luke Steele wearing an equally ostentatious crown on his head, but sadly how ominous this prop in particular would turn out to be. Many of the right ingredients were there for a thrilling show: the band’s familiar, popular songs being played out to an admiring and appreciative crowd. Those large muscled men in shorts and suspenders with no shirts propped up joyfully on the shoulders of other beefcake guys, plenty of happy hand movements being waved, a mass of excited screams and shouts and dancing and jumping up and down. But, tellingly, something was just… off. A few songs in, Pep’s action movie reference seemed to come to fruition – and not just because of the abundance of alpha-male Schwarzenegger-physique on display – Empire of the Sun was worryingly starting to resemble the latest Indiana Jones: expensive to produce, arriving with much hype, and ending utterly and devastatingly in frustration and anger.

Garry made mention of Empire’s lack of interaction with the crowd. Pep’s Parklife warning again came back into our consciousness. These doubts permeating the mind despite how much we all wanted Empire to be awesome, and sure enough, a few more songs later with the non-engagement continuing and the dancers and Steele himself constantly leaving the stage and coming back with pretty outfits but with still no sign of an actual live performance or even a hint of personality to separate what we were seeing from the experience of watching a music video, the performers managed to achieve that dreaded cliche: all the songs started to sound the same, accompanying the disappointing realisation that, all things considered, maybe Empire are simply Just Plain Awful.

As pleased as we were to be able to push our way all the way up to the front of the stage by around the half-way stage of the act, we couldn’t help but also acknowledge that the only reason we were able to fill in those empty pockets of space in the crowd was due to the fact that people were leaving, with anger written on their faces – those same Indiana Jones 4 faces I’d seen in the cinema – in their masses. Yet as disappointing as the performance had been thus far there was still that hope we clung onto that it would improve but, unfortunately due to that very close-up view of the stage we had managed to attain, the finale of the act just so happened to somehow simultaneously destroy that hope, shock us into disgust, and also explain exactly why the exodus had begun as early as one song into the gig, which was quite an achievement really.

It wasn’t so much when Luke Steele acted out a scene of mock falling-over before being helped up by the two other insignificant band members (or “his bitches”, as Pep described them), but rather the awful hand-squeeze by the frontman to his subordinates to activate a ridiculously (and again in Pep’s words) “controlled, contrived, and insulting bow to the audience,” which even managed to channel Michael Jackson’s infamous ‘Jesus Christ’ performance a decade ago at the Brit Music Awards in sheer shocking audacity and self-indulgence. Sadly this time round, there was no Jarvis Cocker to invade the performance; just a mere solitary shoe thrown onstage which was, as awful as it sounds, nowhere near close enough to hitting Steele in the face for him to get it.

To get how fans and curious members who’d never seen them live before, many of whom had waited a whole day and attended specifically for them, would have appreciated a mere little hello, maybe even a goodbye too, or even just any form of acknowledgment and/or thanks for coming. Not the imperiously regal, awfully elitist bow in front of all of us inferior proles, whose duty and purpose in existence was to simply lap it all up without question along with a touch of Dickensian “Please, Sir, may I have some more?” enthusiasm thrown in for good measure. A bit of banter or a little joke in between songs goes a long way to help break that barrier between the common man and the famous, or at the very least appear to do so, particularly in this Twitter age of ours. But that performance simply reeked of “I’m better than you” and, with some admitted hyperbole, “Worship me for I AM God,” even.

Overall I would say that I had more interaction and experienced more insight with “Flex”, a random shirtless muscled-up and permanently flexing guy in a queue for the toilets, as he proudly boast of how he had just run 200 metres away from the cops, had studied MMA for 5 years, and promptly explained through demonstration the somewhat loose connection between these two topics via the use of his “left and right” (along with a reenactment of the corresponding, context-appropriate arm movements) and how they had assisted him in “dropping those cunts” as we awkwardly waited for those Porta-loo doors to open, than I had with Empire of the Sun. A.K.A Empire of Luke Steele. In fact a part of me even wonders whether Flex was there to see them, not to mention the sheer range of Looney Tunes-like situations possible had an Angry Flex decided to invade the stage to discuss with Steele what he felt about that performance. Maybe these festivals are just having an alpha-male effect on me.

By the end, Garry, Pep and I, along with the rest of the now withered-away crowd were left to ponder what we had just seen, all of us dispersing bemusedly amidst a hive-mind-like collective thought of “Is that it?” as we navigated our way past piles of feet-trampled cans of beer and water bottles; a performance of Godly proportions, apparently, and tendencies of “we should’ve seen Bloody Beetroots instead,” definitely. The same Bloody Beetroots who were, incidentally, still going off in the distance on one of the other stages. And just as well really, as upon hearing the boom of bass and rumble of dancing steps soaking their way through the lush and moist grass as we were on our way to the exit, the disappointed Foreshore crowd seemed to regain a bit of that day-long excitement which Empire had dreadfully managed to suck away.  Those slouched shoulders of no longer flexing muscle men buoyed themselves up once more for just a little bit more dancing, rejoining the infinite patience and joy possessed by Garry and Pep and reacting to a moment where music, in the thick of all the sinew and the flesh and the meaningless superficiality and the fancy unsubstantial lights and the overrated disappointment of Luke Steele, truly saved the day.

Here’s the resulting fallout on the Empire of the Sun official site forum =)

They know her. “Hi, Nichole,” the blonde woman in a black suit says from behind her desk as my chaperone for the evening signs herself and me, as her guest, in. We move towards Ballroom 2 at this particular RSL Club with more nods of acknowledgement coming her way from these people in formal clothes and too much makeup. They know her. I’ve got a dodgy feeling about this.

I am ushered into a conference room full of men and women, all in suits of course, their eyes facing in the one common direction. A lone speaker standing out in front, microphone in hand; an old-ish woman with big shiny grey hair and a red suit jacket worn over a black inner top and black pants, reminding me instantly of those late night TV evangelists. It is immediately evident that whatever it is she is selling is something along the same lines as such misplaced faith: “Are you missing something in your life?”

A bald man four rows in front looks to his side, probably feeling as confused as I am. The woman with her big shiny silver hoop earrings keeps on talking, this time about people wasting money; that you don’t need to be rich or poor to succeed; that you can make your money Work For You. Which is hard to argue with given that the entry fee to come in to see her was ten dollars. Even by this stage, two minutes in, she’s already lost me. At least there’s a pub downstairs; now that might be what’s missing in my life right this minute.

“Do you want to make a difference in your lives, do you want to help people?” The hundred or so people here, all of them, seem transfixed by these seemingly Scientologist slogans. I’m sure it won’t be long before the E-meter makes an appearance. Jesus, this woman is a doctor. At this point I don’t know what to think. “Passive Income,” she says. Maybe I’m being overly critical here, but something tells me she’s not from Medecins Sans Frontiers. The bald man glances a look to his right once again.

I’m beginning to feel kind of bad for Nichole. I ran into her on a couple of occasions at work until it came round to contract renewal time and hers wasn’t renewed, prompting us to have a discussion about work, life, ambition, that sort of thing. We managed to keep in touch via Facebook and the whole premise for this visit in the first place was to “meet a couple of people who are open to the possibilities available to them in life.” It sounded fair enough. But there I was thinking it’d be a small get-together over a couple of beers, confessing to each other our own work dissatisfactions and goals in life, cheering each other up, words of encouragement and positive thinking, pats on backs, that sort of thing. Not that I blame Nichole, not at all. But I definitely feel pretty bad right now, jotting down all of this on a piece of pad paper she has kindly given me, along with her heavy metal pen with the word ‘Hope’ on it. My only hope is that, by the end of this seminar, I haven’t been exorcised and/or accumulated tens of thousands of dollars worth of debt. As Dr Scary Woman goes through a Powerpoint slide entitled “Our Business Provides The Opportunity To Develop Multiple Incomes,” I am thankful that I didn’t jokingly whisper to her, as much as I wanted to, the question “so when are Tom and Kate coming in?”

“We are not looking for investors…” I’ve heard this sort of line before, and it usually ends with a mass book and DVD sell-a-thon in about 45 minutes time. The slide ‘Products’ is now being displayed on the big projector screen. “Who’s got a loyalty card?” the woman asks, upon which around half the people in the room gleefully raise their hands, including Nichole. There are plenty of big numbers on the next slide, situated directly after lots of dollar signs, but I am only paying attention to all those naughts equating to, roughly, a whole lotta nothing.

I just don’t know. Any seminar claiming to be about self-fulfilment but consisting of a red power-suited lady using the words “21% Bonus” and “Monthly Performance Bonuses” just makes that little something click inside my head. Perhaps it’s a difference in personal values. Or maybe it’s to do with how it is now almost 8:30pm and I’ve spent my evening hearing about “successful people” in a conference room full of lost and empty shells of humanity convincing themselves of this ‘truth’ and nervously laughing at unfunny jokes whilst the brainwashing machine is, quite obviously, roaring in full gear. The bald man nods approvingly at the “Platinum Income” slide.

Uh oh. She’s gone and done it. She’s given away her scam! “You can help these people,” she repeats with, in a strangely commendable way, such faux-altruistic verve and passion that I begin worrying that she is, indeed, completely mad. “You can help these people make money and they will help you make money.” Ah So. The Pyramid Scheme. She keeps referring to this whole thing as a “business”, but has not mentioned in the slightest detail what this business involves or what it is actually selling. The last time I encountered something similar was when I was in my first year of uni exchanging Hotmail emails back and forth with some Indian dude’s copied-and-pasted schematics promising an income of up to “20K a Week!” I bloody hate it when people write, or even worse, say the letter ‘K’ to denote monetary value; I hate it when people talk only about money, actually, so clearly I’m fitting in well amongst this crowd.

“Diamond Income.” Who speaks like that? “100% Satisfaction Guarantee.” “Network 21…AMWAY…Network 21 is the education and support, and AMWAY is the product and distribution.” Man. And we still don’t know exactly what this education is about, or what these products we are supposed to be selling are. “Come along this Sunday to the Darling Harbour Convention Centre, and for just $25 find out how the sheep shearer made his fortune!!”

That last line isn’t even an exaggeration.

Crazy Greedy Dr Woman has now used the phrase “in and of themselves…” several times now. And, uh oh, yet again. She’s now offering people the “opportunity” to take out their mortgages with her own, unnamed, “franchise.” I’m starting to get sick of this patent overuse of quotation marks as she moves onto the next slide:  a truly disgusting picture of a man with his wife and two kids, all of them dressed from head to toe in white Ralph Lauren, posing on a glittering white houseboat named “Dreamer.” What is it that this family does? “They build their business in different countries around the world in order to build their communities.” (!!) Righto. The audience has even been given a link to a website, along with log-in details: www.pdcox.com, username is ‘global’ and the password is ‘dreamer.’ I encourage everyone who reads this to abuse this site.

So it turns out that tonight isn’t going to involve chatting with new, friendly people with beers in hand. Okay. Fair enough. And yes, if this was a seminar about life fulfilment without all the ridiculous peddling of fake financial fantasies then I might well have been interested. But my issue with all of this is how the hell I’m going to do my polite routine afterwards and tell Nichole “Yeah yeah it was interesting…very informative…but no I won’t be coming again next week.” And right when I think it’s all over, aiming stealthy little peeks towards the doors and planning my exit strategy – Dr StrangeWoman has finally concluded her presentation and, sure enough, she went ahead and did it…”Starting Point – 12 Steps To Get You Started.” It’s the book! And the accompanying CD! – it just gets even better: random people from the audience (who hopefully haven’t glimpsed over at what I’ve been writing so furiously), all taking turns with the microphone and giving their own prerehearsed speeches complete with the over-enthusiastic used car salesman speech inflexions on why they love running “their business”. Even the bald man gets up, and everyone applauds after these little power pep talks. “I just spent the last twenty minutes out there talking about golf. I don’t know whether that’s what you want out of life, but for me…” When they are done these people pass on the microphone to the next success story and move over to block the exit. I immediately think back to high school and of how ‘Alvin’ who was two years above us used to go round asking everyone for a two dollar coin in the lunchtime canteen queue. Alvin didn’t have a fake smile on his face, though.

Disconcertingly, everyone here knows each other by their first and last names. It turns out the good doctor’s name is Erica, as we are informed by a hideous-looking woman with a short skirt and heels on and, with all honesty, the nastiest and most heinous face I have ever seen. “We need to buy a chauffeur! Who wants a chaffeur?” They sure encourage a lot of hand-raising, these folk, as everyone obliges. I refuse to believe that this is the answer to our problems in life, and if it was and that’s how you turn out, then aren’t we royally screwed? I might not place much theoretical faith in the capitalist system, but this whole Pyramid Scheme thing is just taking advantage of it and making victims of the insecure who were promised a better life as, apparently, financial wealth and self-fulfilment are interconnected. “Who wants to shoots themselves right now?” – Me, Me!!

As they wrap up their ‘Join Us’ speeches, I notice that they’ve all somehow managed to mention that they love to travel, and that by being a part of this “joint venture” their wealth has allowed them to do so. “How many people like to travel?” they ask encouragingly, over and over. I raise my hand, along with everybody else, a knowing smile sneaking it’s way across my lips. I sure would indeed like to travel…straight the fuck out of here!

The following is a guide for beginners going to Kyoto based on the recent experiences of two young guys from Australia visiting for the first time.  It is, by some distance, not to be taken as a ‘definitive guide’ of any description, but merely serves as a kindred sharing of our adventures and therefore cannot be classified as ‘recommended’, as it were. We did do quite a bit though, so here is an overview of our tales as well as some advice and tips we picked up along the way.

…

Train Station

It’s a bit easy to get lost when exiting your train and making it out into the main lobby of Kyoto Station. One piece of advice about Japan: do not trust the signs; those arrows just lead you to precisely the opposite of where you’re supposed to go. In fact, if you simply ask around chances are you’ll be sorted as, contrary to the popular perception of Japanese people being able to only speak Japanese, we found that many of them do know English – or at least enough to understand English plus rudimentary sign language. It is perhaps a confidence thing; many of them, particularly the younger generation, have studied English at school, and given the adoption of English words into Japanese equivalents as well as the crazy mistranslated usage of it in marketing over there it would be almost impossible for them to be completely ignorant to the language.

The station itself, architecturally, is an insane mesh of cross-hatched steel; the lights of the sky beaming through tiny little gaps in the ceiling about a hundred metres above ground. Lined with department stores and packed with businesspeople and ladies in traditional dress, Kyoto Station is a fair summary of the city itself (and maybe even Japan as a whole): traditions from the past and technology from the future, colliding together in stark contrast. Suited businessmen, schoolgirls on excursion, ladies in traditional dress. All the essentials of Japan are there, as well as, of course, the obvious tourists complete with cameras hanging around their necks.

Speaking of technology, upon leaving one of the main exits … there he was! Astro Boy! Sitting (or rather, flying) above a sign board, body horizontal and zooming away with his trademark rocket boots. Strangely, though, it was the only sighting of the character from our entire trip to Japan. Ridiculous, eh? Or, maybe the Japanese are just over it? Darn those silly Gaijin foreigners, that was so 1980’s.

Accomodation

With plenty of Ryokans lining the small backstreets a short walk away from the station, I totally recommend giving them a go. However as far as finding the place goes, a cab might be the best option as we boys spent an inordinate amount of time asking for directions and getting lost with our heavy luggage given the inadequate nondescript print-out map obtained from the internet which rather neglected to outline the myriad of little alleyways that made up the entire residential area as we, time and time again, began losing hope that we would ever find it. What took literally an hour to find at night was only a 10 minute walk during the day from Kyoto Station and, again, never trust the signs or maps in Japan. With no disrespect, they might operate at a mind-bogglingly efficient rate with pretty much everything else, however directions are by far Nihon’s achilles heel.

Anyway. Once located, we stayed at the Kikokuso Ryokan, run like clockwork by an overly-friendly lady and her husband (it was very clear who wore the pants in that relationship) and immediately upon entering, sweat glistening off our foreheads, we were met with a hundred “Dozos” and “Thank yous” and “Arigatos,” hardly getting the chance to even get a word in let alone confirming our reservation. Handy general Ryokan information on etiquette can be found here and remember…remember! Always change your slippers when you’re meant to. Bedroom slippers for inside, outdoor slippers for outside. Oh dear, the look of horror on one of the lady’s faces when she saw that I had worn my outdoor footwear into our room…

Staying at a Ryokan can be pricey, but the presentation and service you will receive will be far beyond what you have ever experienced, even by Japan standards. It should be noted that this particular place, I’m not sure about the others, has an 11pm curfew. Our way of combatting this was to, given that we could apparently request anything we wanted without additional surcharge to the final bill, order as many Asahi longnecks as we could each night, although I didn’t quite go as far as asking for free packs of cigarettes as some of the other guests seemed to be doing; I’d feel a bit guilty about that as, after all, when do you stop? Can you request 100 packs and not feel bad? However in saying that hindsight is not a friend of mine as I am left with pangs of regret in not, at the very least, pushing my luck. Overall the experience is definitely worth it if only just to experience the awkwardness of having to strip down next to your mate and ignoring your peripheral vision when using the shared hot spring ‘Family Bath’. Good, now that that’s out of the way, we can move on. Next:

Buses

A funny arrangement they have here with these Kyoto buses: you get on from the back door and pay at the front when you leave. Buses are equipped with route maps with English translations and, if you’re on one of the newer ones, decked out with recorded notifications in English just like on the Shinkansens ensuring that you will never get lost (streetmaps notwithstanding). Starting centrally from Kyoto Station and generally independent from wherever it is you’d like to go, the prices will tend to always be around the 250 yen mark, and if you don’t have any shrapnel there will be a change-dispensing machine at the front that takes 1000 yen notes which will give you coinage in all varieties, too. ‘Wow’ @ more Japanese efficiency; they have all their bases covered

Shrines: Fushimi Inari and Kokodera

Via train, get off at Fushimi Station and the place is right there in front of the exit, the red top corner of the entrance just visible on top of the roofs of residential houses next to the station: Fushimi Inari Shrine, AKA the Tori gate shrine. The whole place is quite literally entirely made up of Tori gates, decorated with a lot of cat statues angrily biting down on scrolls and other such items in their mouths as well as real cats who are taken care of by the shrine-keepers. Be prepared for a long walk up to the top, about an hour and a half’s worth. Thankfully there are a lot of pit stops along the way and maps that, for once, kind of work. Well worth it, as there is one particular shrine where you can draw a face onto a wooden cat-shaped cutout (complete with angry eyebrow action) and write a wish on the back.

Kokodera Shrine is about an hour-long bus ride from Kyoto Train Station. If you keep your eyes peeled, after about the 5th bus stop there will be a tanning salon named ‘Blacky’, which is just class as far as blissful innocence goes. Along the three-quarter mark on the way there is an amazing place called Nakonoshima/Arashiyama Koen, a town built around a small lake, bearing quite a resemblance to Lorne in Victoria off the Great Ocean Road. Incredibly busy with a carnival-like atmosphere, this bustling little ‘alternative’ area was full of kids holding balloons and families strolling, sitting, and playing along the shore. The Kokodera ‘Moss Temple’ requires written invitation to be able to enter and attend the ritual festivities, a process which had already been taken care of by Eugene, by travel buddy, around a month or two before we left for Japan. They even pencil you in for a specific time – for us, 2pm. We had our special invitations in hand and everything, but my advice is to not get there late, as we did, by an hour and a half, by which time the gates had been locked shut and there was not even a doorbell to be found. Whether we have also been blacklisted for life has not been confirmed.

If you encounter similar shrine rejection in Kokodera, then just around the corner back where the bus stop was is another place completely open to the public. A short walk past a residential block and up the stone steps will take you to a decent alternative complete with a sky-high view of the city.

Also, the bus stop has a public toilet and, judging by the sign inside, lots of free cute snakes to hug and kiss. Be warned though: there is only a urinal and a ground toilet, neither of which are automated, so those of you spoiled by Japanese bathroom technology better lower your standards if ever you succumb to the need ‘to go’ at this place.

Gion, the heart of Kyoto

Getting off at our stop located opposite a very well lit and quite obvious tourist-targeted temple (a bit like Disneyland, really) we made it to the main strip of Gion. Packed with stores and restaurants, you will find plenty of places stocking Geisha-exclusive accessories. If you’ve seen the film Maiko Haaaan!!! you’ll get an idea of how crazily revered they are, even by sightseeing non-local Japanese.

Chasing Geishas

Right, onto the hunt. If this mission were Terminator 2, the Terminator would be revving up his Harley and reloading his lever action shotgun right… about…now. You see them, the Geishas, walking down the street freely, then into alleyways…but as soon as you catch up and steady your camera hand for a quick snap they seem to vanish in front of your eyes. It’s quite an ability they have. And so we followed, down those potential kidney-threatening alleyways, greeted immediately not by white-make-up national icons, but by men in suits and/or yellow jackets, ushering us into their places of business, backed up by glaring street lights and the ever-familiar sound of Pachinko machines off in the distance. Ah yes, the Red Light District.

This isn’t from Kyoto, but the hairstyles might be

Picking up a free publication, “Kyoto Town Search”, a wonderful little 100-or-so page colour booklet jam packed with plenty of “Girls Bars” and “Girls Karaoke” places, but why the sexism? Why aren’t men allowed in such reputable establishments? Seeing more ads with boy bands where all of the members have Final Fantasy haircuts. Passing places with bright lights and wide open doors with girls sitting in front of circular glass tables reading the paper and dressed in fur coats and high heels. Interesting places.

Seeing another Geisha (or was it the same one from before?) and freaking out, cameras whipped out in a frenzy. Running down another alleyway, this one not quite as well lit as the one before. Somehow managing to find our bearings, somehow surviving, and, bizarrely, somehow finding “Love Hotel Part 2″. Wanna go in, just for a look around (I swear!)? Why not. But what ever happened to Part 1?

Love Hotels

What better way to finish off this guide than with those infamous Japanese Love Hotels? The place where boyfriends take their girlfriends on dates, away from humble domestic settings where one may really get to know, spiritually, the essence on their partners. Up for a visit to the Sahara, without all that pesky sand blowing into your eyes? This place is for you. Do you often feel like your royal blood commands quality accomodation but you haven’t yet found the solid gold latrines worthy of your presence? This place is for you. Ever been intrigued by aliens and Area 51, harbouring a passionate desire to know the real X-Files-style Truth? This place is…you get the picture.

Unfortunately for us, all these rooms were already taken, as indicated by the large selection terminal complete with a preview photo of the rooms and button options for, I’m presuming, All Night, Hourly, Half-Hourly Occupancies. Placed opposite the unattended discrete face-obscuring stained glass receptionist counter (with a hand-written sign saying ‘out to lunch,’ or at least it’s Japanese equivalent), we selected our room. An overload of mirrors and the place was complete with space shuttle beanbag seats. Aso…the Nasa room.

Upon pressing the button for half an hour (no, it wasn’t like that), up flashed the location of our room, albeit entirely in Katakana…Hiragana…Kanji…not sure…then suddenly, feedback from the LED screen! And we haven’t even paid anything yet! 2F! We can understand that! Second floor, how difficult could it be?

So up we went on the elevator. The doors opening to deathly silence: the discretion of the place palpable. A flashing red booth light signalling our destination, the colour standing out from an otherwise dull grey and navy hallway where we tried ever so hard but could not hear any other sounds of life. Perhaps everyone else was asleep. It was late, after all.

True to the preview, our room didn’t disappoint. Like that scene in Enter the Dragon when Bruce Lee fights that evil old Asian guy with the claw hand and disoriented by the smoke and the mirrors, similar were our own senses of bewilderment (and face cuts) upon entering. The columns, the walls and the floor, you could very literally see yourself from every possible angle. Ahem.

A king sized bed and a karaoke machine; a Kodak moment if ever there was one. Taking our silly photos and checking to see what was playing on the TV…

Getting ready to leave; nothing much else to do in there really. Getting stuck in the love hotel room. Frantically shoving coins into slots, trying to learn the intricacies of Japanese grammar in record time. Locating a red emergency button, untouched, resting behind it’s plastic protective casing. Pressing said button and breaking the seal, the door unlocking. Thank God. And, with Eugene feeling honest while I was ready to piss bolt, consulting the receptionist who had by now returned to her workstation behind that anonymity-ensuring counter and trying to pay. Rejected. “We’ll give you the full price for the room”. Rejected. “We insist”, the hand motions going out of control by this stage. Rejected… with money in hand, having to ashamedly place the notes back into our wallets. A couple entering, giggling behind us. Feeling confused (and hurt), we left. And promptly piss bolted.

After taking our time escaping through a few more blocks and making sure we weren’t followed, all the while discussing the ethics of placing security cameras in Love Hotel Part 2, there she was! Highlighted for us as if there was a spotlight beaming down from the sky – another sighting! A beautiful Geisha, talking into her mobile phone (and, to be honest, kinda maybe spoiling the whole historic feel of it all in doing so, but maybe I’m just being picky), disappearing again down an alleyway of bright lights and men in suits. Ah so, another common phenomenon in Japan: the older man with the (much) younger partner. You get to see this quite a bit, the whole business suit and grey hair plus short skirt and knee-high boots combination. Clutching their shopping bags, it sure is great to see how Father-Daughter bonding time is so heavily encouraged over there. Stopping to buy a drink from a Tommy Lee Jones-endorsed Suntory vending machine and being greeted by a lovely, hospitable man hanging out the upper level window of one of those Girls Bars and motioning to us with one cylindrically-shaped hand; bringing it back and forth to his mouth. Free Drinks? Ahh soooo…No thank you.

Then finally…finally, we got it: the photo of the Geisha. It may be blurry, it may be of when she turned her head away in disgust, but dammit…we got it. And it was totally worth it even if I did leave my fingerprints all over the NASA room, foolish given that they now take your fingerprints at the airport upon arrival into Japan. We didn’t get arrested, Interpol haven’t called on the home phone, but be wary nonetheless. That sums up our time in Kyoto, actually: “Be wary.” Be wary of the wayward maps; the slippers you’re wearing when going back to your room in a Ryokan; the time when trying to fulfill once in a lifetime appointments with monks; but, most importantly of all…be wary of the powerful, irresistable lure of the Geisha.

That’s not her car

She was the one in white

We were on the bus to the stadium to see Yokohama FC vs Vegalta Sendai in J-League Division 2 on a Saturday afternoon. I was sitting down towards the back, on the right side. Unlike the buses in Kyoto, the Yokohama buses give passengers entry from the front much like the ones back home. I kind of liked the backwards Kyoto buses though.

Eugene offered his aisle seat to an older lady and got up, clutching onto the bus handles as more passengers got on as I stared out from the window side. Having been in Tokyo for three days prior, Yokohama was a nice change of pace. Less busy and less commuters in a rush, although by Sydney standards still bustling. Our morning had consisted of going round the city trying to locate the bus terminal which the officers at the Police Box next to the train station had kindly directed us to in order to get to the stadium. Once we had found it and agreed on a time to come back, we went walkabout. A long underground tunnel connected the train station to a massive department store, “Sogo”.

It took ages for us to be able to just exit Sogo, which was something like 10 floors. And out we came, seeing the tall white apartment and corporate skyscrapers and man-made rivers, the whole place seemingly taken right out of one’s image of 80’s Miami…or something from GTA: Vice City, even: people of all ages clutching their shopping bags, expensive designer clothes and boutique stores lining our vision, the hot sun reflecting off the water and leaving a bright white sheen on the surface. It all looked brand new, only just a few years old even. Yokohama Marinos Football Club training ground across the river (the bigger of the two Yokohama teams; the Man Utd to Yokohama FC’s Man City if you will), filled with a distant crowd parking their cars, unfurling their banners. A “Y Cat” tourist speedboat access next to the McDonald’s we stopped at, looking for a map. We weren’t interested in a generic cruise around this place: too touristy. The map showed us where our destination was…all across the other end of the city. Having had our fill of American-styled architecture/surrealism, it was time to head back to get our bus.

Looking out the window and being amused by an innocently-inappropriate sign for a tanning salon, named “Blacky”, my attention flicked back and forth to the passengers inside the bus and the everyday weekend life going on outside: Eugene still grasping his handle looking out the other side amidst a whole range of different Yokohama folk packing into our ride, me seeing young women walk their miniature dogs down footpaths as cars and cyclists zoomed around. There were plenty of those in Japan, the small dogs and the bicycles.

Then on she came…I noticed her almost immediately as the bus stopped to pick up more passengers. Dressed in a white top, her lengthy straight hair complementing her long face, a short fringe cropped to reveal her forehead and curved eyebrows. She had dark eyeshadow on, my memory telling me it was purple but I can’t be sure now. By now the back of the bus was full with standing commuters and so she stopped near the back door a few metres away from Eugene (albeit with 2 or 3 people between the two of them), placed her bags down, grabbed onto a handle, and looked out the same right side of the bus as me. At this point there could’ve been fireworks outside for all I knew but all my attention was fixed on her and yet I dared not let her catch me looking. It was like being back in high school all over again.

And so I pretended to face outside, my eyes open but not taking in a single thing; not animals, not bikes, nothing. By now my mind had overriden my vision, telling me to turn my head towards her. Just one more look. She would tilt her face over in my direction at intermittent moments, every time increasing my heart rate. It was ridiculous. But I just could not stop staring.

Hers was the perfect face. Perfect nose and face shape, both the profile and front on. Pure beauty, making me re-assess my claim that I am not even attracted by Asian women. She looked maybe 20, possibly a little younger, as I tried to signal to Eugene to turn around. To see what I’d seen.  My head making gestures to look “that way!”,  behind and to the right. Other people’s heads in the way from his position, obscuring his view. Damn it. So I took out my camera.

Aiming it aimlessly outside at insignificance as a front, trying to tilt it to find the right angle while not raising the camera too high to make it that obvious. My seat was too low, the people sitting in front of me getting in the way. It needed to be held at head height. As she looked over towards me again, down went the camera instantly: a reflex reaction. What a missed opportunity! I felt like such a pervert.

Giving it another try, this time raising the Canon Powershot up a little more, still playing the role of country bumpkin tourist who’s never seen the inside of a bus before. There was no way I could get a decent shot in that far-too-fleeting time period in which she would actually be facing me, beginning to fear that this whole bus moment would come to an end soon. So on went the ‘movie’ setting of the camera. Awkward low angle, still. Click. Recording.

She didn’t turn her face at all during this time. And then we reached our stop. Ah yes! The football game, that’s right!

She got off too. I was hoping she was going to the match, but instead she stopped to meet a group of friends just behind the bus stop. Eugene and I walked a little further down. I stopped filming.

“Wow, man. Take a look at that girl over there. She’s gorgeous,” or something to that degree, I told him hurriedly in the manner of an over-excited child. After a fair bit of head repositioning over the swarm of bus exiters, he saw her too, although mainly from the side. Then a quick glance of her face, front on. “Ah okay,” came his reply, approvingly, but with a small smile slowly materialising and with much less enthusiasm than I was displaying – to each his own, I guess. He sat down, and I knew what he meant. A bit more time. Maybe not to talk to her, but maybe for a photo. Because surely, surely, I couldn’t just go up to her to tell her how beautiful she was. That’s far too much phrasebook-page-flicking in such a short space of time, in a different culture, in a different country. So up I went again, camera switched back to default mode, pretending to take shots of our surroundings. Nothing much to see, just a bridge overpassing the stopped bus, some buildings to the right, the stadium behind us. No more white skyscrapers or man-made rivers, it was all grey concrete on this side of Yokohama. Aiming the Canon towards her general direction as she got up to leave with her friends (they weren’t going to the game), I managed to get one shot. Just the one. It’s not even of her face, but it’ll have to do.

So maybe it was perversion, yes I can easily see that, but I’d like to think I was trying to capture an image of beauty at its purist. Ultimately it was unsuccessful, but her face still resonates within me, even now. Probably a good thing: I had just seen the most beautiful Japanese girl I will ever see, and it will always remain that way. On the way to a division 2 soccer match* as well, of all places. A completely unobtainable, once in a lifetime anomaly, forever to be known as The Girl From Yokohama.

*The game finished, rather appropriately, as a draw. 2-2.