I found David, Jez and Dana in the workshop on the 3rd floor of the Taipei Artists Village on Sunday afternoon, surrounded by some empty stools and a grand piano. Thumper showed up later, but Conor and Slim were out of the country, and Sandman couldn’t make it until later, so it was just us. I had no idea how a music workshop was supposed to work, and I don’t think many people there did either. So we just jammed on some tunes regardless of who was wandering by, and if anyone had any questions we would try to engage them. One family with small children enjoyed playing Thumper’s instruments for one song, and everyone seemed facinated by the washtub bass, which I’d placed on a piece of styrofoam so that it would make some sound on the carpet.

We took a break at one point, as nobody seemed to be coming in, and I started noodling around on the piano. A few minutes later I looked up to see about 30 people seated on the stools, all watching me. Oh shit, I thought; they think I’m actually doing something. I jumped up and went to get David back so we could play something that roughly corresponded to the literature about us spread out on the table by the door.

Eventually we had to stop for real, and took all of our stuff downstairs. I had a pizza at the cafe and waited for the shows to start. The first act was a percussion/digeridoo combo thing, mostly atmospheric music. Then Jez and Dana did a show. Sandman showed up, along with Jojo and Sandy Wee, and we took the stage. It was strange playing without Slim and Conor; the gaps they left were obvious, even though Jez and Dana did a great job helping fill them. It went well, but I was tired afterwards and went straight to bed after getting home afterwards.

I haven’t quite gotten back into the swing of things since I got back from Japan. I went to work this afternoon after over two weeks of time off, and had to resort to coffee to keep awake, though badminton last night perked me up somewhat. Work again tomorrow, and then four days off for the new year’s break. The days have been cloudy and full of rain, the kind of weather that makes staying inside all day an attractive prospect. Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve, and though I’ve gotten some invitations, I’m not sure if I’ll be doing anything special. I have no clue about 2009. I knew that 2008 would see a lot of new things: The elections of Ma Ying-jeou and Barack Obama, the Olympics in Beijing, finishing (my part in) the film, two trips to Tokyo and Osaka. I won some photography contests and said goodbye to my trusty motorcycle this year. But 2009 is just a blank to me.

What if I were staying here, and not leaving, I thought as I looked out of the city from my hotel room yesterday morning. The light outside was brilliant again, and not cold as the day before. I decided that it would suck, as I’d have no job, friends or place to live. At breakfast I once again noted the ingenious nature of the butter/jelly packages that you simply fold, splitting the cover just so that the contents emerge cleanly in a perfect pattern onto whatever surface you desire. I’ve never seen it anywhere else, is it only patented in Japan?

I had to get to the airport, though, so I packed up my things and checked out, walked to Juso Station and took the subway across the river to Osaka Station, where I climbed and descended an annoyingly long series of stairs to wait on the platform for the airport express, taking pictures of the crowds and asking the conductor of each and every train that came by whether it was the airport train, just to make sure.

When the train finally came, I found a seat and watched the various towns pass by, some of them obviously quite poor, but fairly neat and well-kempt nonetheless. Just before we reached our destination I spotted what appeared to be a gothic cathedral in the middle of one of the town.

At the airport, after negotiating my way through a crowd of fans who were waiting for a Korean movie star to arrive, I found myself walking behind two Delta flight attendants, one younger white man and an older black man. The white attendant said he was getting out. “What are you going to do?” the other one said.

“Become a PI and follow your wife around,” the white attendant said, before talking about getting back into the health management business. When we came to the escalators, he insisted the black guy go first “to break my fall if I slip.”

I got a chocolate doughnut to eat while waiting for the plane, and finally found a usable wifi signal to twitter my impending departure, complete with a picture of the plane. Eventually they let us board, and I found my seat subject to an unsual odor, like glue, due to either the proximity of the seat to the restrooms or the guy next to me working at a glue factory.

The flight was uneventful. As we approached Taiwan, I saw a huge plume of smoke issuing from somewhere in Taoyuan County. We landed, and I spoke into my camera for the 109th and last time on the trip, saying “This is the end of our broadcast day. Thanks for watching.”

Now I’m back in town, re-engaging in this life here. It’s always interesting to see things from a slightly different perspective after a trip, even a short one. Last night I had a delicious Christmas Dinner with friends who live in a mountainside community nearby. Not only was the food good, we were treated to a show when Sandy Wee made a tribute to The Exorcist by regurgitating about 3.7 gallons of milk in a spectacular fashion. It really made the evening.

This afternoon most of the Muddy Basin Ramblers are going to be giving a workshop at the Taipei Artists Village, followed by a show later on. I’ve got most of my stuff unpacked, but my place is a mess and needs cleaning. I’ve also got 446 photographs and the 109 videos to go through. Luckily, there’s always tomorrow.

Breakfast was on the top floor of the hotel this morning for some reason. Better views, but colder eggs. Despite the cold weather, I decided to go back to Kyoto once more before I leave. The weather was clear and bright when the train departed from Juso Station, but as we sped towards Kyoto it began to cloud up. A few snowflakes quickly became a dense flurry. All I could see ahead before the train went underground were black clouds in the direction we were heading. I had no idea what I was going to do if I arrived in the middle of a snowstorm.

I transferred to the local subway and headed to Oike Station, where the International Manga Museum is located. Luckily, the storm was mostly over when I emerged from the station. The streets were wet and some snow was still falling, but the sun was out again.

At the museum, I waited patiently for a group of foreigners, possibly European, to figure out what umbrella covers are and how to use them. It took five, then ten minutes. Then they discovered the concept of lockers, which took them quite some time to get the hang of. I was wondering if perhaps they were on a field trip from the special needs center.

The Manga Museum is a popular destination for foreigners. In fact, the whole of Kyoto seems like a magnet for foreigners, more than usual in Japan, which is already a kind of foreigner magnet. Most of the visitors at the museum were not Japanese, and they spent a lot of time staring at the walls of comics. The collection is impressive and the displays on the history and background of comics in Japan are very interesting. The museum itself is an old elementary school, something I find amusing, as I can imagine how many hours were spent inside that building by kids dreaming of comics instead of concentrating on their lessons. The wooden floors creak when stepped on, and the old textbooks are on display as well. I bought a Dragonball Z T-shirt.

As the afternoon was still young, I took the subway back to Kyoto Station area (Question: Does every major Japanese city have some kind of tower?), where I had some lunch before catching a bus out to the Temple of the Golden Pavilion. Again, lots of foreign tourists, as it is supposed to be the second most well-known tourism spot in Japan (the first being Mount Fuji I guess). Once inside, crowds battled to get a shot of one of the most photographed things in the world. “Better get that shot!” I told them. “If you don’t take a picture, nobody will know what it looks like!” But I was only irritated because I found myself taking pictures of it as well, and I don’t enjoy taking pictures of things that are 1) photographed to death already and 2) already beautiful.

I have to admit that I find the concept of a golden building at a temple complex a bit puzzling. Surely there were people who needed that money more? Perhaps that was what the monk who burned it to the ground 50 years ago was thinking. Oddly, the brochure doesn’t mention this tidbit, but I’m sure most Japanese know the works of Yukio Mishima, including his novelization of the incident.

It was still snowing a little as I left the temple complex. The sides of the mountains surrounding Kyoto were white. I wandered through the quiet neighborhood near the complex, which was home to brand-new houses as well as old wooden structures, but surprisingly few trees.

I wanted to take the Osaka river cruise, so I caught the bus back to Kyoto Station, intending to take the subway back to the Hankyu Line back to Osaka, but I heard the announcement on the bus that the Hankyu was directly connected to one of the stops, so I got off early, went downstairs and stepped right onto the express train, which happened to be leaving just then. The sun shone into the train, sinking low in the sky though it was only 3:30 p.m.

Unfortunately, when I got to Yodobashi Station, I found the river cruise office locked up. A woman behind the counter told me the last boat was at 3:20. I decided, in a fit of stubbornness, to just walk around the central island on foot, but I only got several blocks before it just got too damn cold. I had my long underwear on and even stuffed some hand heaters in my pockets, but it was just miserable going. Crowds of businesspeople were flooding out of offices and into restaurants and bars. Visiting Japan is like visiting the future, or another world, I thought. It’s like what I’m used to, but just slightly ahead. Except for the lack of wifi and fresh fruit.

I took the subway back to Namba and walked around the arcade area for a while. The arcade is so long you can actually see the curvature of the earth. I was looking for a place to have dinner on my last night in Japan, and I didn’t want something generic. I stopped by the Apple Store to fix all the iMac displays to slideshows of my pictures, losing a glove in the process, and then walked north until I found what I was looking for: a traditional restaurant with lots of wood and paper, full of drunken businessmen and their female companions, all smoking, eating and giving me strange looks.

I didn’t want to go back to the hotel just yet, so I went back to the gay district near Umeda, hoping to find some good comics, but no dice. I guess all the best ones are downloadable anyway. I was also hoping to get a robot of some kind, but that will have to wait as well.

I arranged to meet another Internet friend, Taku, at Namba Station at noon. It had been raining earlier but the sun eventually shone through the haze. I’d thought that noon would give me plenty of time to get up and running after my late night last night, but I was wrong. I had to change trains at Umeda and was half an hour late.

Taku took me to a street that is famous for its signs, or if it isn’t, it should be. A giant crab waved its legs and moved its eyes to reproach passersby who elect not to eat one of its many progeny. Tanuki, minus the giant testicles, were everywhere. We had tempura and sashimi for lunch at a restaurant overlooking the canal behind the street and then walked over to a temple where a statue of a monk is covered, or perhaps made of, moss. Worshippers would draw water from a pool and splash it from time to time.

I wanted to see the famed Spa World (“for all of your Spa needs”), so we walked through bazaar after bazaar until we came to a large steel tower straight out of a 1956 Godzilla movie. “This is not such a good part of town,” Taku said. Behind the tower was another alley full of signs, behind which was Spa World, a huge complex dedicated to the act of immersing oneself in various liquids.

We bought tickets via a vending machine, of course, and was read a litany of rules by one of the staff before we were allowed inside. We had to take off our shoes, get a shoe locker, get the key, and then go upstairs to another locker room, this one more luxurious. There we disrobed and stowed our things, whereupon we were finally ready to enter the spa itself. This is done by traversing a gauntlet of automatic showers, just to make sure you’re not filthy when you arrive.

The spa itself is pretty amazing. It consists of many cavernous rooms, each dedicated to a different “country” and its supposed bathing habits. One of the countries is “Atlantis” however, so I’m not sure how accurate their research is. The entry (“Rome”) is a bubbling fountain with statuary and arches. There’s also a Finnish hothouse complex with different temperatures, a wooden bridge and stuffed wolves on the rooftops, a “Blue Grotto” from Greece with murky blue waters, a Spanish area outside on the cold, windy veranda, featuring a pool with lounges in the water and a strong waterfall that massages you if you stand under it, a pool made of gold (I assume it’s not really gold), and one place with a herbal bath that looks and smells like tea. That was my favorite. The “Atlantis” room had a glass-sided pool labeled “Strong Detox”, but Taku had no idea what they meant by that. When Taku doesn’t know something or is thinking about something he doesn’t know, he tends to make a sound like a small vacuum cleaner. He majored in English Literature in college and worked selling skiing equipment for a while before he got his present job selling mobile phones at a shop.

Spa World also has steam rooms, a massage center and saunas galore, as well as a restaurant where you can order a drink to sit at a table, feet comfortably ensconced in some kind of foot-specific water, while you watch TV. Projections of stars and the Milky Way adorned some of the rooms’ ceilings.

We showered in the shower room and then sampled all of the pools, had some drinks, and returned to our favorite pools a few more times during the three hours allotted us. The outside bit was interesting, it being rather cold and windy above the water while nice and warm in the pools. It was all very nice, and there weren’t that many men there so there was no waiting for anything. I still feel clean.

It was much colder and nearly dark by the time we got outside again, and after buying some of the baggy worker pants I’ve been wanting for some time, we decided to go to the top of the 50′s tower to see the city at night. Taku hadn’t been there since he was a child.

We got in a round elevator and ascended to the center, where we changed to another elevator that went to the top. Apparently the thing was preceded by a tower that was built in 1912, but was dismantled for the war effort, and the present one was built in 1956. It looks it, too; retro in a cool way. At night the entire tower is lit up in neon signs, and the view from the top is great.

It was getting even colder outside, and I was loathe to leave the warm tower, but a slight swaying motion got me thinking about earthquakes, so we went back down to get some dinner at a wood-paneled curry shop on the corner. I’d originally wanted to walk around some more, but it was getting really cold, so I bade farewell to Taku and got on the subway back to Juso. I love riding subways in general, but there’s something I particularly like about Japanese subways, especially when I have a seat.

The weather yesterday was brilliant, the sky a clear, bright blue, and I decided to spend the day in Kyoto. I got on one of the gleaming trains (Taiwan can’t even keep its bullet train clean, much less other trains; here every train, taxi and dump truck is spotless) from Juso station and watched the scenery slide by out the window. The Osaka suburbs lent way to farmland and then brown mountains as we approached the Kyoto basin. Laundry left out on balconies and eaves looked like leftover snowfall, but it actually rarely snows here. The train wasn’t the express, and faster trains rocked it as they flashed past as we waited at various platforms. The trip took about an hour, but I didn’t mind.

Eventually we went underground and arrived at the last stop. I had assumed that we were at Kyoto Station, but when I emerged from the Takashimaya Department Store exit, my GPS told me I was quite a ways north of there, along the river.

Another surprise was how cold it was, noticably colder than Osaka, despite the sun. I walked towards the river past rows of well-kempt old wooden houses and sparkling canals with no odor or trash in sight. The alleys were nice, but the need for warm sunlight soon drove me back onto the main road down towards the train station. I turned a corner into a quiet neighborhood, past a cream-colored daycare center and up to a large temple complex surrounded by temple accessory shops. As I walked south towards the station and the huge Jetsons-era tower, the streets became more crowded.

Kyoto Station is big. Far bigger than it needs to be, and done in a suspended-glass-tower design like the Umeda Sky Tower World G-Force HQ Building I saw on Tuesday. Escalators go endlessly up, appearing to be some kind of launching pad into space. Most of it is exposed to the elements. I was meeting an Internet aquaintence later there, but I had some time to spend before then, so I borrowed a bathroom stall to put on my long underwear to protect against the cold and walked south of the station. My path was no random choice, at least not this time.

Some time ago, when I was looking through Japan’s new Google Street View options, I “walked” around the Kyoto Station area. From what I could tell, the pictures were taken in the afternoon. I had expected a nice, developed neighborhood, but it seemed run-down and desolate on my computer screen.

It was this route that I took for real, in person. It was odd walking down streets and alleys I’d “been” before, but not for real. I traced the route I took online, recalling wondering what it would be like to be there, touching things and examining in detail all of the things that had intrigued me before. It was silent except for the occasional crow call or motorcycle. I continued tracing my route along the river, by the overpass and back up the canal I had wondered about, if it carried any water (it doesn’t). The area was interesting to see online, but fascinating in the real world. Tanuki statues, complete with huge testicles, adorned man of the doorsteps, and there was a lot more random detrius around than I’d seen elsewhere.

I passed an empty lot where a group of teenagers were playing, walked down another block, and suddenly I wasn’t retracing my steps any more, as I had stopped there. It was as if the all-seeing Google had withdrawn its giant hand, leaving me alone again.

Back at the train station, I met my friend, and after lunch in the mall downstairs we took the subway back to where I had arrived that morning. From there we walked up to the Geisha District. As we walked down the immaculate stone streets lined with equally immaculate wooden houses, he told me about professional Geisha Hunters. I was surprised at the term and wondered how hard Geishas could be to catch, seeing as they can only take tiny steps. But he went on to say they were photographers who take pictures of Geishas to sell to international magazines who want to point once again to the Contrast of the Ancient and the Modern with yet another photo of a Geisha on a cellphone.

The area was quiet except for the occasional band of foreign tourists looking for Geishas. I was more interested in the buildings, which are in such good condition that it’s hard to believe that they’re hundreds of years old. Apparently noone is allowed to tear them down. Bamboo lined up against the sides is, according to my friend, to keep people from hawking their wares there, or to keep men from pissing on their houses, though I’m not sure how bamboo would prevent the latter.

After browsing a temple that would have been nice looking if it weren’t painted Fast Food Orange (“Sponsered by the Daimaru Corporation!”), we crossed back over the river at an intersection flanked by some very nice old buildings, one an old theater and the other the Asahi restaurant. On the other side is a Chinese restaurant in a wonderful old stone edifice that used to be a bank but could have been a cathedral if it wanted to.

Although it was a weekday, the streets and shopping arcades were packed. Christmas is a romantic holiday for lovers in Japan, for some reason. We walked through the extremely narrow, excruciatingly trendy alleys of Pontocho, another former red-light district, and had some dinner at a white restaurant nearby.

The street arcade’s name is “Temple District,” though I didn’t see many temples. Most are unobtrusive, my friend told me. He is from Indonesia and has been studying at Kyoto University for four years. We stopped in at one of the side temples, which featured two mechanated fortunetellers in front and a wall of wishes written on wooden plaques on the side.

It was getting late by this point, and I had been walking in the cold all day, so I bade my friend goodbye and got on the train back to Osaka. Since it was the express, we were back at Umeda Station in half the time it took to get to Kyoto that morning.

It was Christmas Eve, so of course I had to spend it in style. Or at least in an unusual fashion. So I walked past the EST mall and under a couple of overpasses to the gay district of Doyama-cho, where the Hokuoukan sauna is located. Ah, yes, Christmas Eve in a gay sauna; what a tradition.

In any case, Hokuoukan is leagues better than anything Taiwan has to offer. It’s clean and neat, well-run and well-appointed. I left my shoes in a locker and the rest of my things in another locker, after after washing up, settled into one of the warm pools to ease my sore limbs.

The sauna has several comfortable rooms with big LCD TVs, sofas, and magazines like Barazoku and the like. You can order food, though I didn’t. The floors in several sections are even heated. In the basement is a special “Blue” area accessible only to men 39 and under (the desk clerk requires ID to confirm this before giving out a passcode for the double door lock, which works like an airlock with two separate doors). The Blue area is really blue in decor, with wood trimming, another TV, beds, rooms and a “maze”. One hefty man sat by the entrance to the maze, nonchalantly looking through magazines as his erect member, clad in leather, stuck out of his yukata.

I sat in one of the comfy recliners watching an incomprehensible TV program as midnight heralded the arrival of Christmas. Holiday music was being piped into all the rooms, giving the scene an extra dollop of the surreal.

As nice as the Huokuoukan was, I didn’t want to spend the whole night, so I left and grabbed one of the gleaming taxis to take me through the empty streets back to the hotel. It was almost 3 a.m. Merry Christmas.

I decided to make due without wearing long underwear this morning when I left the hotel this morning after a mediocre breakfast. Although I could feel the cold through my jeans as I dodged bicyclists on one of the many bridged over the Yodo River, I thought that the walking would surely warm me up eventually.

As I approached the end of the bridge, I saw a policeman on a motorcycle actually chase down, pull over and issue a citation to a scooter rider. I was astonished; I’d forgotten that people actually did things like that.

I followed the subway line to the trendy downtown area where all the department stores are, in search of a bookstore where I was hoping to find a good city guide, as well as the Canon service center to have someone look at my camera. The amount of people on the street made me wonder if it was a holiday. It seems that Osaka is somewhat three-dimensional after all; I just hadn’t seen it. As I stood on an overpass taking pictures of a monk surrounded by the crowds below, a young man, American from his accent, told me he missed living in Taiwan. He said he lived in Xinzhuang. I hope he saw other parts of Taiwan while he was there, as Xinzhuang is not high on the list of must-see destinations. He also said he liked the food there better.

I got directions from a service counter lady to the Canon Service Center, which is located in what appears to be a financial district. The streets there were deserted, but when I followed the arrows to the underground portion, I saw more people. The service center, however, was closed, making me think today really was a holiday. I would like to be using my iPhone via wifi, but Japan doesn’t seem to have heard of anything like that. Wifi is much more prevalent in Taipei than in Tokyo or Osaka. I’d use 3G but the cost is prohibitive.

I walked back through the downtown area, where I had lunch at one of the ticket-run stores in the underground passage, and then through a tunnel to the Umeda Sky Building, which looks like the Arc de Triumph would if it were G-Force Headquarters. A German-themed festival was going on in the square below. I bought a ticket and ascended the structure in an elevator that whooshes up and out of the superstructure like a rocket, surrounded by glass for the last half of the ride. To access the top, you have to take an escalator that is suspended over about 40 stories of nothing. On the roof is a circular platform with excellent 360-degree views of the city. The weather, bright, clear skies, couldn’t have been better. A sign said the sunset would be a 4:20 p.m. Christmas music was playing from rooftop speakers, and guards in overcoats shivered as they took pictures for tourists.

There are a lot of bicycles in Osaka; more, it seems, than in Tokyo. They’re everywhere, many lying on the sidewalks, and you have to be careful not to make any sudden course changes when walking, lest you be clipped by one of them.

There are also a lot of rental agencies. It seems like there’s one on every block, covered with posters of tiny one-room apartments. I couldn’t tell if the prices are more reasonable than in Tokyo. The city does seem a bit more”used” than Tokyo. You see trash here and there, and the people aren’t quite as neat. It’s a bit rougher, at least the parts I’ve seen so far.

The sun was setting as I walked around the area some more, the bottoms of the alleys already in shadow where a group of Western youths had gathered to make loud jokes. I went to an electronics store where I was able to play with all the latest models such as the Nikon D700, the Canon 5D mk II and the Sony A900. All are huge, but I found the Canon the best feeling, probably as I am already used to the Canon layout and shutter feel after so many years with the 20D. At least in the store, I found the Canon also did the best job focusing, though the Sony did well too. The Nikon had a hard time, which I found unusual considering its gazillion focus points.

It got colder as the last light of the sunset faded, and I was getting tired, so I started back towards the hotel, pausing on various overpasses and stairways to take pictures. I’m getting tired of empty night shots and more often than not will wait for someone to walk into frame these days. The camera’s light meter has stopped working altogether, but I’m managing to do without it, judging exposure as I used to with older cameras.

As I was walking back to the hotel after dinner, I was approached by an older woman who said something about “massage” in Japanese. I ignored her, and after I’d passed, she resumed the conversation she’d been having with her friends in Mandarin. It wasn’t the only Mandarin I’d heard in that area. Either I look Japanese, or these woman don’t know any English. I was tempted to respond in Mandarin, but I really didn’t want to get involved.

I really should learn some Japanese, in any case.

I got three hours of sleep last night. The main reason was that the guy who was buying my motorcycle couldn’t make it over until midnight as he runs a fried chicken shop, but then for some reason none of us could get the thing started. It’s just been too long since I rode it, I guess (though I managed to get it started fairly easily the other day). Last night, however, it steadfastly refused to turn over. It was as if the faithful motorcycle that has been with me so many years just didn’t want to leave me. I ended up breaking off the kickstart handle with my forceful kicking.

I have to give those guys credit, though. No coddled strawberries, they ended up tying it to their scooter and hauling it away, in the rain and cold, back to Muzha where they live. But it was well after 2 a.m. by that point. I got to bed at 3, satisfied that I’d gotten everything packed.

The feeling of being awoken by the alarm at 6 a.m. was truly awful. It was still dark out, and I could hear the rain on the plastic overhangs of the building. I managed to drag myself out of bed and into some clothes, get over to the MRT and on the bus to the airport despite the objections of the taxi drivers waiting outside like vultures. I was afraid I’d be late, but it turned out that the flight had been delayed, so I made my way through the pseudo-modernity of the new terminal and sat in the waiting room trying not to sleep for a half hour before we were allowed on the Eva Airlines 777.

I didn’t feel like I usually do when I board a plane; usually it makes me very happy and excited. Perhaps I was still wrapped up with thinking about the film, which I’d handed over to Darrell’s capable hands the day before, as well as other things.

When the plane took off and pierced the clouds, bursting out into the wide bright blue, however, suddenly I felt the old familiar giddiness, the smell of food trays being unloaded, the luxury of an empty seat next to me. I’m back! I thought.

Kansai Airport is confusing. After a polite patting-down by customs, I was led to what seemed like a dead end, then told that it was a shuttle bay. I was the only one there; everyone else on the plane was going on to Los Angeles. The outside air didn’t feel as outrageously cold as Tokyo had seemed last time, but it was crisp. The light at sunset on the houses and fields seemed strange as we sped by on the train into town. After spending a few minutes observing people buy tickets, I still wasn’t sure how to work the machines.

My hotel, the Plaza Osaka, eluded me at first. I got into the general neighborhood and asked a woman at a convenience store. I’m not quite sure what she said when she pointed out the window at the largest, most obvious structure in the vicinity, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it contained the word “Duh”. My room has a nice view of the city’s skyline. It’s bigger and nicer than the room I had in Tokyo, but the hotel doesn’t have wifi, just cables, which is fine for my Thinkpad but does nothing for my iPhone.

I was exhausted by that point and took a nap that was long and deep enough that I forgot where I was when I woke up. It’s not an unpleasant feeling, no matter what the spy novels tell you. “Oh!” I thought to myself as I looked at the unfamiliar. “That’s right; I’m in Osaka.”

I went out for some dinner and a look around the neighborhood; it seems I’m in the middle of a red-light district, which isn’t a bad thing. Better than a financial district, for sure. Lots of covered markets and neon signs. Unfortunately, my camera decided now is a great time to start overexposing every picture.

Osaka seems more like Taipei than Tokyo, more two-dimensional. But that the hell do I know? I’ve only been here a few hours.

I took the noon high speed rail down to Kaohsiung on Monday to attend a wedding, arriving at the new, airport-esque Zuoying Station at 1:30 p.m. I was eager to experience the new MRT that has taken so long and been the subject of so much controversy over the last decade. Fortunately, the HSR station is almost on top of the subway station, so after only a short exposure to the sunshine outside on the way down, I was there.

The first thing I noticed was the level of ambient light; Taipei’s subway stations are very bright in comparison. The low, dark ceiling, festooned with a metal grating, along with the solid glass walls along the platform made it feel like a bar lounge instead of a subway station. The place smelled of fresh concrete, and hardly any people were there. The train, when it came, only covers half of the platform length, so that if you weren’t in front of the right doors you’d miss the train.

Inside the cars, the seats line the sides, Hong Kong-style, rather than utilizing the forward/backward style of Taipei. The seats are molded plastic of an unsettling green hue, but the curvature of the handrails and the white walls and pillars aren’t so bad. It’s like an alternate universe version of Taipei’s system. I wish they accepted the yoyo cards, though.

After getting directions from a good-looking subway employee wearing a baseball cap, I transferred at the Formosa Blvd Station to an even more sparsely populated train to Xiziwan, surfacing a couple of blocks from the harbor. I like cities with harbors, and it’s always the first place I want to go when I get to Kaohsiung. Near the subway exit was a line of tiny scooters, just frames with wheels and a seat, really, under a sign that said “electric scooters”. Intrigued to see whether Taiwan is actually going to follow in Shanghai’s footsteps in promoting electric scooters, I went to the nearby shop, only to be told that the scooters were actually 50cc two-stroke models. I am convinced that you could slap an electric motor, paint the front shell olive drab and have a hit on your hands, but that idea doesn’t seem to have occurred to the manufacturers. “The time to buy one of these is now,” the shop owner told me. “Two-strokes won’t be legally manufactured after this year.” Apparently they’re going to put a 4-stroke engine in instead.

I rented one anyway, just to see how it drove, and rode it out along the coast past the university. Even mild hills challenged it, and the suspension was barely working, but it was light and highly maneuverable. I could pick it up easily, almost like a bicycle. Good for local jaunts but not much else.

The coast road was very pleasant. I stopped to look down at the sun on the incoming waves, while a monkey perched on the railing by the roadside nearby watched me.

I rode back down to the harbor to watch some of the big ships coming and going through the pass, and then around the neighborhood for a while before returning the scooter and walking back to a bar by the water, where I was the only customer. Kaohsiung feels empty after the crowds of Taipei. Huge cargo ships loomed through the haze, cutting a swath through the paths of the triangular ferries bearing scooters and their riders across to Qijin Island. A black cat yowled at me, wanting food, but all I had was ginger tea. Next door was a Navy port where sailors got off transport ships and flowed per whistle commands into blue buses to take them into the city.

After night fell and I had taken my fill of superfluous pictures of tables and lamps, I headed back to the subway station to board a train for Formosa Blvd Station, where the wedding was being held. Only when I emerged from the station did I realize how grand a station it is. Four shining crystal structures jut out of the ground surrounding the roundabout on the surface, and the effect is quite striking.

Even at rush hour, the city had an evacuated feel to it. Perhaps I’m not used to the wide streets. The new concrete sidewalks have helpful instructions embedded in them, though my phone had already told me where I was going. I arrived at the Howard Plaza and found the wedding party on the fourth floor ballroom. The groom, Chalaw, greeted me at the door, and I found my seat next to David Chen at the same table as Lin Sheng-xiang and the Betelnut Brothers. Kimbo was at the next table, busy downing bottles of wine.

Chalaw had told me to bring my pocket trumpet, so I had assumed he wanted me to play accompaniment to one of the songs at some point. It turned out, however, that he wanted David and I to go on stage and play something. Consummate musicians that we are, neither of us had prepared anything. David didn’t even know that he was expected to play. Being only one third of the total Muddy Basin Ramblers, and me with a bass, we puzzled over what to do. Eventually, after I hurriedly learned “Nagasaki” on the trumpet in about 30 seconds backstage in case they wanted two songs, we played the Taiwan Song, which worked out pretty well, considering.

Kimbo, who was amazingly still upright after so much wine, played after us. All of the music that night was great, with lots of aboriginal tunes and singalongs. Sitting at the table with the Betelnut Bros., we had the best seats in the house for their impromptu accompaniments. Sheng-xiang sang one song written by his mother, who was at the table as well. She blushed when he mentioned her on stage.

We had to catch the last bullet train back to Taipei at 10:12 p.m., so we couldn’t stay. The party was winding down anyway, as many of the guests were from other parts of the island. A cab ride later we were at the station, and after a momentary panic when my ticket decided to play musical pockets on me, we were on the train back. The train felt like a low-flying airplane as it sped over the lights of villages and rice fields, accompanied by the occasional safety announcement. I played with David’s Ricoh, which made me realize what Internet posters are talking about when they mention a good user interface. If only a camera combined Sigma’s image quality with Ricoh’s interface, they’d sell like hotcakes. Alas, prior to the as yet still-mythical micro 4/3 camera (the G1 doesn’t count, IMHO, as it’s too big), we’re all still waiting.

It was past midnight when I switched on the lights of the Water Curtain Cave. It’s good to get out of town once in a while.

I’m taking this week off to finish up the editing before I leave for Osaka next week. I realize that it’s not the best time of year to go, but it was short notice as I was told by my company that I have more vacation time than I’d thought. I’ve heard that Kyoto is a beautiful city, which is a slightly daunting thing to me, seeing as I don’t usually like to photograph beautiful things (where’s the challenge in that, after all?). Still, it should be interesting, as I know next to nothing about the place.