![[Photo: Kanamaru-za]](pht_kotohira_kabuki.jpg)
Tue Apr 18 2000 (ctd)
While I was in the neighborhood, I went to look at the oldest Kabuki-za in Japan. I didn't linger, though. It looked like they were setting up for a performance, and I would go to pretty great lengths to avoid sitting through any Kabuki.
Heading back to the train station, I walked past a restaurant that also sold walking sticks. These were thin bamboo sticks. At the Folk/Industrial Arts Hall in Ritsurin garden, I'd bought a fabric door hanging, and I thought that one of those sticks might be a good thing from which to hang it. So I picked one up and took it inside. I wasn't sure how well it would fit in my suitcase. On the other hand, I wasn't sure if it was possible to get a length of skinny bamboo in the USA. (Of course, it was. When I got back, Veronica said that I could get such at a gardening supply center, and she was right.)
Inside, I held up the stick and asked the proprietor how much. She asked me if I was going up to Kompira-san. I said I was returning home. She looked surprised and took the stick from me. She seemed to think that I had used the stick while climbing, and was now returning it. She jabbered away about how nice it was of me. I couldn't get in a word edgewise. I'd start to say something, but she'd talk right over me. I thought of blurting out, quickly, "Kaitai!" ("I want to buy!")--it seemed like if I was going to say anything, it would have to be something blurtable. But "kaitai" was rude, blunt language. Did I dare? I noticed that one of the clients was watching this one-sided conversation; she seemed to be smirking. The proprietor had been talking at her, and now I had given her respite from this onslaught. I thought of saying "Chotto--" just to see if that would cause the proprietor to slow down long enough for me to try to explain what I wanted. I said "Ch--" and she just kept right going. Eventually I smiled, gave up, backed away, nodded, and left.
I had some bland Indian food at a branch of the Spice Kingdom chain in a mall at Takamatsu. The waiter seemed confused when I ordered two lassis. I used the word "nippon", which seemed like it should have been the proper counting word for glasses of lassi. Maybe he was just surprised. Maybe it would have helped if I knew enough Japanese to say, "I'm really thirsty. I just got back from climbing Kompira-san."
![[Photo: Pilgrim Sticker]](pht_taka_pilgrim_sticker.jpg)
When the food came, my eyes were drawn to the chutney. It was red, but didn't look like tamarind chutney. It looked like no chutney I'd ever seen, yet oddly familiar. I took a little taste--it was catsup. That should give you some idea of what Spice Kingdom was like, food-wise. It was probably the second-best food I would have while in Japan, and I was glad to come back a couple days later.
After dinner, I went to a convenience store, picked up some snacks, and got completely turned around as I left so that I walked South when I wanted to walk North. This is the sort of thing that seems like it should be the start of a great story. Like, maybe I had purchased three seemingly random things at the convenience store, but as I wandered the city at night in ever expanding circles, trying to un-lose myself, I would use each of the items. Like, when I encountered a group of mystics gathered in a park, trying to capture moonlight in jars, I could have given them a couple of rolls of film, which might have been better for catching moonlight; the orange juice could have lured down the mechanical hummingbird which flies over the city one night out of each hundred years, at its heart a glowing jewel which must be buried if the ghost of its creator is ever to find rest; the pastry might have been a treat to offer the lost arcade children, each of whom has stayed late to play at a video arcade, only to attempt to return home only to find out that they cannot remember where they live; eventually, I could have found my way back to the hotel just as dawn was breaking (just in time for a solitary wash).
But this did not happen. I was carrying a compass, so when I started to figure out that I might be going the wrong way, I was able to quickly confirm that yes, I was going the wrong way, but that turning 180 degrees would fix things, and thus I avoided a night of mystery and adventure.
Back at Gekkoen Hotel, the hostess behind the counter laughed when she saw me stagger in. I'd climbed a mountain and gone for a long walk after dinner; I must have been a sight. If I was one of very few customers, she may even have heard gossip from her co-workers about the gaijin who had left at dawn--and here he was staggering back after dark. She jabbered at me for a while, perhaps asking me what truck had hit me. I smiled, nodded, said, "Chotto bokke imas," and headed up to my room to sleep.
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