I got off the bus from Kurashiki about half an hour ago and came straight here; had a glass of iced tea, checked my email, breathed deeply. I have a serious art-induced hang-over. Kurashiki is a wealth of amazement; the usual city center bustling and suckling at the teat of the big central train station, then the historical Bikan district-- twisty-turny old-style Japanese streets with houses straight out of a movie set, and then there was the Ivy Square-- big old textile-factories-turned-galleries. I can't say that my creative headache comes from seeing too many paintings; the Ohara Museum had an excellent showing of Futurist works, and I may one day rue the fact that I didn't see them. The truth is that I quickly tire of looking at dead people's paintings, and I also get discouraged by them. I start to think that every pencil-mark, brush-stroke, and ink-splatter to be made has already been performed, so what's the point? I'm much better off floating about in Endrene-land, chasing down my own creative animals rather than viewing the bounty of others. So that's what I did.

Yesterday I arrived at Kurashiki station after an early, silent, 3 hour bus ride. I shouldered my pack, shook my blonde side-ponytail (the rage in Japan), put on my big dark sunglasses, and stalked away from the station purposefully, with intent to find something pretty to look at and to be something pretty to look at. I met with success on both aims. I caused some rubbernecking and did some of my own as my trot turned into my characteristic meander. I found a little pocket of peace off the main road; an empty garden courtyard, looking as though it belonged to a restaurant's patio. It was in fact, made for passerby like me, and it was walled with baskets of purple and orange flowers. I ducked in to smell them and circle it's circumference. I set off a motion sensor that started up the fountain, moving the red leaves floating in the water beautifully. It also turned on the auto-sprinkling feature, and the hundred or so baskets got a spray of water. It tickled me to think that I could give the plants so much more than admiration just by showing up! Anyway, as I was exiting, I spotted some weird thing on the wall that looked like art, but by serendipity's chance was a map to the Bikan historical district-- which I would have missed if I had kept on with my original route. I was flying by the seat of my pants, you see. I didn't bring a map, and didn't look once at the detailed instructions that Bubu gave me, nor the Point-And-Speak guidebook Miho lent me. I just went. And by gum, here I am, alive and Yakuza-free!

The Bikan district is what every tourist really expects from Japan, whether they admit it or not. Canals rimmed with weeping willows and brimming with orange and black koi, traversed by arching bridges and navigated by gondoleers in round straw hats. One time, the gondola (or whatever it is called in Japanese, I really don't know) had two ladies in kimono riding in it; you should have heard the sound of cameras being torn from their cases. The buildings are stunning and undeniably Japanese; wood and stone and roofing tile and perfectly formed pine trees all orchestrated in a way that left no room for doubt about authenticity. I poked around for a bit, followed the crowds in and out of the shops (the store entirely devoted to luck-cats was my favorite... although they were playing that brain-scathingly annoying Christmas record with cats' meows screeching out 'O Holy Night' and 'Blue Christmas'). I eventually detached myself from the crowds, and as is my favorite thing to do, looked for narrow empty alleys to peer into (insert father's heart failure here). It's just that I think most of real life goes on in the alleys. You see laundry strung up, smell compost and see the secret gardens. I met one nice woman who was repotting a plant; we had a broken conversation half in English, half in Japanse. I have no idea if we understood each other, but we both smiled a lot. The Kurashiki Bikan alleys were pretty near spotless. I eventually popped out onto a street, and to my delight, found three artists working on oil-paintings of a comely structure. Thinking serendipity had intervened on my behalf yet again, I parked myself next to them on an empty step and got out my watercolours. We didn't say much to each other, although all three did come over at some point to inspect my progress. We acted as buffers for each other; the Japanese tourists had a quick peek at my work, then moved on to talk to the Japanese artists, and the English-speaking tourists stopped to chat with me. This included: a Japanese young man from Kyuushu who had lived in G.A, USA long enough to aquire an accent- eg: "Ain't that sumthin,'"; a Japanese-American man home to visit his mother with his gorgeous American wife in tow; an Australian man years in love with Kurashiki; and a Japanese lady who wanted to practice her English and gave me a candy that tasted of sweet burnt woodsmoke. I painted until the light changed and it got cool. My compatriates packed up, and so did I. I wandered some more, ate an apple in the drifting orange sunlight, admired the autumn floral displays outside the slowly closing shops.

Had I been painting that long? It was time to find a hotel. The first two were full, lucky number three was near the station. I checked in, kicked off my shoes, watched a programme that involved-- well, this deserves detailed explanation. There are two teams of 10 children per team, led by one adult per team. The adults are locked in cages and wearing helmets. The children are astride a long row of blocks. First the Pink Team has a go. There is a word puzzle to be solved. As the children attempt to solve the puzzle, there is an enormous balloon slowly inflating in the cage, pressing the adult against the bars. Everytime a child gets the wrong answer, a mechanism in the block tips the child over onto his or her back, until only one child remains upright among the little legs waving in the air. She tries to solve the puzzle; she is wrong. Down she goes. The rate of the balloon's increase speeds up until the pretty lady in the cage is squealing-- then BANG! the pink balloon explodes into bits and the lady regains her balance, stamps her foot, and pretends to cry. You can see why I stuck around to watch the outcome of the Blue Team's attempt. (A kid got it; the guy in the cage was noticeably relieved).

Eventually I emerged to find my dinner; alley wandering in the dark was out of the question, so I stuck to the main thouroughfare. I chose the happiest looking restaurant I could find; a riot of sunshine yellow and blue, called 'The Bustling Table'. I was one of two customers, and so was eagerly waited on by both the cook and the single teenaged waiter; neither one had much English, but again, all the best communicating happens with smiles. The waiter brought me a silver dish with a mysterious white tablet in it that said 'COIN' and a mini teapot. I was baffled. Do I eat it? Is he telling me that in this restaurant, a tip is required? After I asserted that I didn't understand, he nervously set the silver dish down and began to pour water from the pot onto the 'COIN'. To my vast delight, it expanded and was transformed into a hot wet towl for me to wipe my hands on! I clapped my hands and exclaimed "Omoshiroii!" (Fun/Interesting!) I was served a lovely peppermint water (much more refreshing than regular water) and a powerful grapefruit cocktail. I ordered the seven-salad-sample-set, and suspect I got extra-special service. I didn't know which salads were best, so I said "Nan demo ii" (Anything is OK) and five out of the seven salads turned out to be hot mini entrees; ginger beef and glazed pork and sweet chili chicken and honey-garlic prawns, and smoked salmon penne. Wow. A vegetarian's nightmare-- thank god I'm not! After dinner I blew kisses and enthused loudly for all the other patrons to hear, and made my way back to the hotel for more educational television and an early bed.

Up at six-thirty this morning; back to Bikan for another wander and a vain attempt at locating breakfast. I eventually sat by the canal and ate cold boiled fish paste glued by some unnatural force to a piece of bamboo. I fed half of it to the carp. Some school children found me there and surrounded me, getting their sensei to snap photos. This cheered me immeasurably, and I happily got back to my ambling; I went to the El Greco cafe, ate a second unsatifying breakfast of matcha and bean paste, and sketched in there for about on hour and a half. Next I went out to the Bikan main road and painted one view for about three hours. The highlight of that was being discovered a second time by the southern-accented Japanese dude-- he left me with the best compliment: "Be great, man-- just-- Be Great." It was cool because it was sincere. I stayed until I was nearly sick from the sun and the multitudes of "Joozu!"'s I recieved. You may remember that Joozu roughly translates as 'My, aren't you talented!', but every Joozu must be taken with a grain of salt. I get this compliment on my Japanese all the time, and I KNOW my Japanese is rough at best. At best.

I made for the peace and calm of a post-lunch-crowd (it was, by then, 2:30PM) French restaurant. I had a lovely pumpkin soup, real French bread, a glazed onion pork thing, and a killer little cup of coffee with thick, thick cream. After that, I meandered a little more, drew a little more, made my way to the station, and to my bus. Three hours and half a Steinbeck novel (albeit, a short one) later, here I am.

And now, I am off to bath, to bed, to the rest of my book. Refreshed and ready for another week of cramming English into (mostly) eager minds. It's so good to get out of town once in a while. To remember that there is vibrancy to living all around, all the time, if I'm open to it...