And I'm back. Yesterday I went to Sandankyo, this great nature site that is really famous for the beauty of its maples in autumn - unfortunately I missed the changing leaves, but it was still really great. This is a shot of Sandandaki, I think it's called, the three-level waterfall that gives the place its name. Imagine all those dead puffs of tree aflame with brilliant red leaves, and you can easily see why this spot is so popular in autumn. It was tons of fun and really beautiful, but the two-hour train ride there and back was a little annoying, especially considering that I had to stand the whole time. By coincidence, they are closing the train line out there at the end of this week, so I chose a good time to head out.
I haven't had a chance to read Akira for two days now, and that's really a crisis. Fortunately a friend gave me some actual books to read once I finish it, so that should soften the blow of the confrontation with a world freshly robbed of new Akira.
I got a Nico CD in the mail today, which was the logical consequence of the sequence of events that began with my discovery that Nico had solo albums and culminated ten minutes later in my purchasing one from the Japanese Amazon, which has shipping rates and speed so ridiculous that it's impossible to resist the temptation to buy whatever I see. Nico is an inimitable phenomenon; it is rather difficult to explain why listening to a CD that is one big game of Guess My Gender is so satisfying, but somehow the combination of her bassy androgyny, perpetual flat singing and drug-induced 60s style is endlessly enjoyable. Basically, it's like watching It's Pat while on acid.
Today I became the King of Japanese Customer Service, or at least the Prince of Pestering, which is much the same thing. I finally decided to do something about my non-functional CD player, so I got up early and went off to the store whence it came. I didn't have the receipt because I was pretty sure I had thrown it away, and five or so minutes of conversation with the clerk drove in the point that exchanges without a receipt are completely verboten. So, I returned home, lugging a bitter boombox, only to rootle around in drawers that had already been thoroughly rootled and what did I find but the receipt after all. Presto-change-o I was back in the store and proudly showing the same clerk my receipt, at which point he informed me that exchanges are not allowed more than a month after purchase. I think he took pity on me, though, because he took the player and listened to it for a while to see how broken it was. After about ten minutes of that, he brought it over to me and demonstrated to me that it was, in fact, working absolutely perfectly with no errors at all; try as I might, I could not get the blasted thing to skip or stall at all - even the alarm, which has not worked for a good week at least, had decided that lordy, lordy, it would never stray again, and was in perfect, working order. At this point I had well and thoroughly decided that I was not walking home with a $75 paperweight come what may, so I just started rambling on and on about its capricious degrees of functionality, total inability to play CDs, rapid mood changes, bitter jealousy when I looked at other music-playing devices, and even waxed eloquent on the cruel secret of its attempted suicides. All the while, the clerk was making those semi-subtle we're-done-here-I'm-not-going-to-help-you-but-I-can't-get-up-and-leave-until-you-acknowledge-that-fact signs and statements, but faced with the increasingly obvious fact that I possessed the deadly weapons of complete intractibility and stone-like refusal to move and was more than willing to continue using them on into ze night, he rather begrudgingly acquiesced and coughed up a brand-new player. Huzzah! For once, being a foreigner worked to my advantage, as the clerk had no way of knowing when I might explode into a towering Tengu rage, laying waste the store with my fiery hair and big nose. Fortunately, it didn't come to that.
- Gyaa! I'm give up
Naka-ku, Hiroshima
JAPAN
