Right as Rain

If you were to lay this year's fall break out side by side with last year's, you'd probably notice I'm a lot less busy.  I think living in Japan makes it a lot less pressing to SEE ALL THE THINGS - a year ago, as much as I was hoping to be here now, I had no guarantee.  I also think there's a bit of holdout from years of living in Mongolia - to an extent, the journey is the destination, otherwise you might feel a little cheated after driving for hours or even days just to see one thing, like a lake full of swans.  As I rolled down the track yesterday morning, taking the local train because the price doubles for the rapid express and I've got more time than money this year, I was alternately lost in Kafka on the Shore, jotting down notes because I wasn't sure when my laptop would cooperate, and enjoying the scenery of a clear morning as we passed country towns.  It was a nice change of pace.

Sunday, as I mentioned yesterday, was squishy and wet.  After the art exhibition, I put off walking in the rain as long as I could.  I visited Okayama's Animate, which required me to go through three floors of Don Quixote.  Usually I'm ready to run screaming five steps into the door - it's a kind of discount crap shop, and can be kind of overwhelming - but this time I actually spent a little time checking it out (if you're wondering about that section behind the curtain, it's exactly what you thought it was).  I stopped for lunch because I stumbled across Coco Curry, and then finally had to face facts: the rain was not going to stop.  I was going to have to suck it up and get wet.

I took the tram east from the station a few stops, and followed the stairs into an underground arcade that seemed like it could have been lifted from a Murakami novel.  I followed the signs for Okayama castle back upstairs and then uphill.  The last time I visited a castle it was raining too, albeit harder.  Then Five and I were more interested in getting back to Osaka and drying off than going inside.  This time I probably would have sprung for the admission fee just to dry out a little, but if it was open I didn't find the entrance.  There's a nice garden close by that is apparently one of the top gardens in Japan, but it's kind of hard to enjoy the beauty of nature when you feel like a drowned rat, so I headed back to the station.

Remember how I started this post by talking about how I am less "busy" during this vacation?  Well, it is true, but that doesn't mean I want to waste it.  After the castle, my shoes were already soaked and I couldn't check into the guesthouse until after 4 regardless, so I decided, what the hell, let's visit a shrine!  There was probably a reason why I singled out Kibitsu-jinja as the one to visit, but at the moment, I have no idea what it was.  One thing it had in its favor, when I arrived, was that it has a very nice, covered approach to the main shrine, which made it a very nice place to hang out and try to take aesthetically pleasing images.  Of course, that doesn't quite balance the fact that it's a bit of a hike to get to the shrine from the train station, especially when you realize you have to walk all the way BACK when you finally do leave, but, you know, ya gotta keep looking for those rainbows...

I grabbed a bite to eat when I got back to the station to take my bag out of the locker (moving hotels every day is a pain in the ass, but at least Japan has lots of coin lockers...or we do until the Great Orange Monstrosity comes to town on his first presidential visit 😑), and finally headed to the Igusa Guesthouse for the night.  By the time I stepped out of the small nearby train station is was dark, and the rain was really coming down.  Before it was just playing, but when I got to Hayashima it was like, "Oh yeahhhh...we're supposed to be having a typhoon, right?"  I followed Google maps and turned down the road it was on, stepping into one big, huge fucking puddle.   In the dark, it's a little tricky to see how deep they are, and this finally made me decide to drag out my flashlight.  I thought maybe I should step off the road onto the sidewalk as I was digging through my bag, but there were no cars around and I thought the puddles might be even worse there.  This turned out to be one of my better decisions...the "sidewalk" was actually a canal.

So, boys and girls, the moral of the story is, when it's raining, find a nice covered shopping street to while away the hours, and go to your hostel early.  The End.