Author: albarclay

There are literally 2000 temples and shrines in Kyoto, and more. Trying to walk home the hour and a half from The Philosopher’s Path was a hiding to nothing. Every few minutes there would be another incredible complex to be explored. It ended up getting dark when I was only halfway.

At many of them you can pay someone to do some calligraphy in a little book. I’ll need this book on Kumano as it works like the little stamp book at the end of Camino. You get a completely meaningless certificate to leave rolled up underneath the altar at home, and all you have to do for it is have the calligraphy from two or three major temples in the area. Often they are unattended and you can go have a word with pig.

Buddhist Shinto syncretism means you are mixing up your worship in the complexes. Usually you’ll have a load of animals at the mini shrines and then some dude in the central shrine. An aspect of Buddha, or one of the Bodhisattvas, who are legion. It takes a few lifetimes to properly get a handle on all the characters involved in this hotchpotch of Buddhist Shinto bell ringing incense madness.

Which reminds me, you can’t buy lighters in Japan. I’ve got tons of incense and no means of setting it on fire. I’m off to Hiroshima today if they let me on the train. Fourth queue now. The last three were just rude when I got to the front and didn’t help tell me where to go. I’ve got a ticket but I have to reserve a seat so I have to queue anyway. “What will happen if I just get on the next train and go?” “You have to reserve a seat.”

Anyway Philosophers Path was a pleasant stroll down a canal, on level ground, with a superabundance of coffee shops and loads of unusual shrines. My favourite so far was Otoyo Shrine, guarded by two Nezumi – a rat shrine. It was founded in 886 when the emperor was sick. It is currently festooned with camelias, and hosts some unusual kami. There’s an orochi shrine, I guess because snakes have always been related to medicine. Think of caduceus, the snake on medic alert bracelets etc, carried through from Hermes. The Judeo-Christian creation myth gave a lot of bad press to snakes as a symbol. People think they’re Satan. Sure they can kill you but so can a cow. There’s a lot around how they can shed skin and how poison can be turned to medicine if understood. That’s why the snake has a shrine at Otoyo.

I’m close to the front of my fourth queue trying to get a bullet train to Hiroshima and I’ve lost the whole morning to it. I’m disappointed. Even if it had worked out a bit more expensive, I’m thinking that I would have been better off buying individual tickets for journeys rather than what I thought was going to be a useful JR WEST pass that has turned into a timesink.

—

Another sixty quid on top of the pass as it only goes so far as Okayama. I binned the Hiroshima thing. This trip isn’t about war tourism anyway. It’s about ancient things and getting organised. I’m getting out of this station and over to the Imperial Palace, and the gold shrines. Gonna hang with the animals.

Earth day at a time when I’m examining my relationship with technology. Perfect moment for my phone to be broken.

Knowing I’m in Japan, I have no doubt whatsoever that someone will be able to fix it quickly. It’s a few years old so it’s about finding someone who has the stock. And stumping up.

My broken phone was the macguffin for covering a huge amount of ground in Osaka central on foot. Women dressed as comic characters beckon passers by into manga shops, gacha machines and vending machines line the streets, intimidating food booths and tiny bars full of smokers. Unique smells. Bizarre noises. Everyone is smiling, and most people are skinny, and this is the kitchen of Japan. How do they stay so slim? Nervous energy?

Eventually I am directed to a place on the fifth floor of a mall, where I am told by a happy young woman in a mask that they do have my screen and it’ll take just two hours to fix. The price I am quoted makes my eyes water but I know I’ll need the phone once I’m walking, just in case I get attacked by bears or somesuch. You can distract bears by getting them hooked on Candy Crush. I put the repair on my credit card and silently understood that I’ll be eating a lot more cheaply than I would like to for the rest of the trip. That’s for tomorrow Al. A third of the cost of a new phone. These things are expensive.

I get the damn thing back just in time for my official tourist booking. It’s a food tour. Not super cheap, but worth every penny. I worked a long time for a well respected London tour company that turned weird on me in the end. It’s a habit they have. I know the work of guiding though from when it was good, and I tend to like the people who are drawn to it. Food, walking and facts? What’s not to like, right?

We get Tommy. He’s a fine example of the Aussie abroad. He fell in love with Japan and I totally see why. He wears his joy openly. The Japanese kids working the route all have a genuine affection for him, which is testament to his energetic persona. He makes his tour feel like an extended conversation with a friend.

Our group is a little reserved at first. A surprisingly buttoned up New York couple, a chef from Bristol, Sydney Aussies, a shy beanpole from somewhere so remote in The Netherlands that he doesn’t even bother naming it when asked twice. Is there a place called FukBum out there or something? I’ll never know.

It’s not an easy conversation group, but Tommy is disarming and knows his shape well enough not to be thrown. I’m trying my best to be the joker without taking all the air. It settles surprisingly quickly. It’s a 3 hour tour.

We are in the old Red Light District, South West of Tennoji. There are loads of little eateries around here, and the tour operator is doing brisk business, somehow managing to stitch in three groups of about ten tourists without pissing the locals off too much. It is a real gastronomic delight. We start with a little place serving exquisite barbeque skewers, unusual roots and radishes, and a mystery dish, something that I swore I would never enjoy, but somehow found to be okay. Then we go for Kitsune Udon in a little intimidating place where you stand to eat. I would never have gone into a place like this without Tommy’s lead. Everything in kanji. Nowhere to sit. Too intimidating. Having had a really tasty hot bowl there I am now happy to do it again on my own. Upskilling in Japanese food.

Third stop, prize winning octopus balls, baby. Served with a tomato sour, which is basically rakzi – (shochu … moonshine) – with tomato juice and soda. The balls are a wheaty pancake with a bit of octopus in the middle, and I’m the one who bought a food tour in Japan so I can shut up about the fact that I tried to promise myself never to eat octopus again and put three balls into my face. They were yummy. And not that much smarter than a pig, and I eat bacon without thinking.

Feeling a little guilty and with the effect of the shochu kicking in, I bought an ‘adult” gacha for the group. Someone had to. Y500 into a slot, turn the wheel and a kinder egg ball falls out without the chocolate. You pop open the ball to reveal your prize. Our prize? A BRAND NEW SEXY THONG. They had taken pains to put a label on it saying Y800 so we could feel we had WON. I hadn’t won. I had been hoping for a little mini plastic Arniecock like the ones in this claw machine. I’m not sure what to do with my Y800 thong in an egg.

There are vending machines for everything. It’s how I get my morning coffee. It’s how I get my nightcap tea. Both cold. They sell beer too. They have ID readers but they are disabled. The law says to sell alcohol in a vending machine you must have an ID reader on the machine. In a fine example of wilful bending of rules, they have attached them but they are disabled. Too much faff. They would lose sales. The machines pepper the streets in rural areas as well as central city. Cash is still huge here in Japan thank God. Living in London it is easy to think that the world has forgotten cash entirely. Not yet, it seems.

We stop outside “EAT THE FISH YOU CATCH”. If you catch it, you have to eat it. If you’re on your own and you get a whopper, you have to be hungry. None of us risked it.

Final few stops were a blur. Shochu is strong stuff and I only had one. And a beer. We constructed our own noodle sauce thing and had little tasting trays of all sorts of curious things. A second mystery dish was something I didn’t know anyone ever ate, and wish nobody ever ate. It’s a mystery and I’m not telling. Partly because I feel guilty. The Columbian dude guessed almost right, which implies they eat similar stuff out there. Monsters.

Final stop and deep fried avocado was the revelation of the evening. Don’t knock it til you’ve tried it. It isn’t an official tour dish, but Tommy likes to go above and beyond. I tipped him ostentatiously in the hopes it caused an avalanche of tips. A good tour guide is priceless, and he made it so relaxed, casual and unshowy. The opposite of the Halloween Tour I’ve guided the last three years, and all the better for it. A perfect evening with strangers, just as I found I was missing conversation in English.

I’m gonna start by talking about technology a little bit. This is not the first blog I’ve written for today. That blog may or may not one day magically pop up. It is uploading. It has been uploading all day.

WordPress decided to call itself Jetpack and it still sucks ass. I guess Hermes had to do the same when it became synonymous with bad delivery – “We’ve left it in the bin outside your home”. Now it’s Evri, as in “Evri parcel gets kicked into the river”.

I dropped my phone. Just a little drop but the kami are fucking with my love of technology. The screen went bananas. Hundreds of pounds to fix, even in Osaka. I’m glad it’s fixed but that was all day.

I wrote my blog on iPad instead and then scheduled it. It has been uploading for the last twelve hours and more. It’ll never publish. I had to download Jetpack for iPad. One would associate a “jet pack” with speed, but unfortunately it seems my blog was under the flame of said jetpack. My blog is gone. I think it might be prioritising loading up 5 years of daily blogs and all the photos I’ve ever posted into my iPad memory before it lets me post the single one I tried to expedite. If so I’m immediately deleting it when it starts working.

It sucks. Jetpack for iPad sucks. App. The Jetpack app for iPad is absolutely slow #rubbish. Oh and since I’ve tried to fish for hits, WordPress is far far far too expensive for the rare fish of a blogger that isn’t putting on adverts and lying to you about what they like for marketing purposes. Go on, tiny fish for jetpack – escalate this.

My blog loss today though, maybe it wasn’t just Jetpack being the epidemic of explosive poo I’ve come to know it to be despite my annual subs. Maybe it was also about the mischievous kami in this area, who don’t want me posting photos and details of a tiny but extremely powerful shrine that is sufficiently far from Osaka and Kyoto as to be mostly silent. I love the kitsune whose land I’m currently sleeping on. But the thing with spirits is they know us on a more fundamental level than this life we are hallucinating. We have forgotten too much as we go from this one to this one. They have to be eternal, outside of the idea of time. The rules are different. I wrote about the shrine, and might have encouraged more footfall. Maybe one day jetpack will publish it, just as Hermes might deliver that thing in the end. Chances are it’s in the bin. And if it never publishes then insha’Kitsune. Here’s the thing I’ve written instead.

It was dark when I finally landed at Kansai Airport. The runway is a spit out over the water flanking the town so it can feel like you’re putting down on water. I was too tired to appreciate it really, but very relieved to finally be on soil where I’m not treated like I’m a pathogen.

Knowing my limits, I’ve booked a cabin at the airport tonight. It’s cheap and very close to where we land. I go straight there and arrive twenty minutes early. My room is not ready yet because I said ten o’clock arrival so that is the time it will be ready. So I go back into the airport.

There’s a pharmacy and I’m looking for something that helps with nappy rash. The first plane was long and hot, sitting down for longer than I’m used to. Then China without the chance of a shower and the sweaty streets of Shanghai. My bum is a bit raw. Nothing to worry about so long as I look after it now. I don’t want to be thinking backwards as I’m walking forwards.

I’m so tired there’s no time for inspiration, and there’s an Italian restaurant right next to my cabin. I take a ticket and the computer voice tells me my table number. There’s a tablet and a menu in Japanese, but thankfully there’s also a human who clocks that my Japanese is bad and gives it to me in English. I order an Arrabiata with minced pork cos Japan, and a cold Kirin Ichiban. The beer is delivered by a human, and then a robot toodles up to my table with the pasta and asks me to take my food. Too tired to establish if I’m impressed or terrified, I do as it bids, eat it all up, and stagger next door to my cabin. It is one of a long row of such cabins. My bag won’t fit, but there’s a place to put things.

I do downstairs and sit on a heated loo seat, bliss, before getting into the most remarkable shower. I couldn’t make head or tail of the pharmacy so I’m going for natural solutions. I spend ages in the shower, then back up to my cabin where they’ve laid on uniform jimmy-jamas. Mine are large, which means sumo wrestler, but they have a drawstring so I can stop them falling down. No reading. No writing. I stick a few pictures into the Shanghai blog and fall deep asleep. Twice I have to go downstairs in the night – that’ll be the Kirin. But apart from that it is a long dead sleep and now I’m up and about, writing with my coffee before I have my first planned gentle day in Tennoji.

The next two days have been put by for jetlag and planning. No pressure to do much other than BE in Japan, with the obvious proviso that I’m terrible at just being with the ADHD monkey screaming at me all the time.

One thing I’ll need to do though is get more adventurous with food. Breakfast has been a panini and a latte, thanks to the robot. It’s the only place I could find that wasn’t Starbucks for coffee in the airport.

I’m off into town. If I can make sense of the railways.

11 hours is barely enough to scratch the surface in seeing most cities, Shanghai included, although the place has one major advantage for the layover visitor – The Maglev. Super quick transfer into town. But I’m gonna go through this piece by piece and break it down for price to help future layover humans. Now I’m in the land of Tiktok I should try and raise my hits. For new visitors finding this for the layover info, I do this blog every day in some form or other. Often it’s just a contemplation of my own armpit, something a bit pretentious, or a drunken rant about nothing. Other times I make something I’m proud of. Imagine a tombola at a church fête and the donated prizes. “A Top of the Pops CASSETTE!” “A can of BEANS!” “A Ming VASE!” One day I’ll feed it all into an AI and go toe to toe with it. Today though it’s whistle stop Shanghai-time and I’ll miss the posting deadline because internet is virtually impossible here.

I did some planning in advance. It is important to do so considering the culture shock and lack of internet. Even if you download Google maps for the city in advance, the GPS might well be off if it finds you at all. US big sites are all blocked including this one. No wonder my right wing techgeriatric brother wants us all to believe by numbers that TikTok is evil as its how the youth are being Chinificated by Iran or somesuch I stopped listening bless his hard heart.

I made my layover work out without quite enough prep, but found myself thanking my stars for my strangely good direction instinct – “You’ve got a bump of locality,” dad would say. Haven’t used it much lately. I’ve been cursing myself for quite how much I’ve come to rely on my phone to tell me things, including where I am. Also I knew the shape of the city and there are distinct tall buildings to navigate by.

Also If I hadn’t been quick and lucky it might have worked out very badly for me so there’s a warning in my day too. Shanghai has never been known as a safe place. Tintin, Phileas Fogg and any number of unwilling midshipmen had trouble. So did I.

We landed in Pudong at 5.55am local time. My flight to Osaka wasn’t until 17:25. I had come from the UK so had been trying to trick my body into being ready to stay up long enough to see the sights. I was a little woozy leaving the plane though. Less than an hour of actual sleep. The rest was just sitting with my eyes closed.

The blue landing form I was served on the plane turned out to be the wrong one, but I filled it in anyway and then brandished it as I made my way out. My bag is checked to Japan but I’ve got my iPad and Kindle with me in hand luggage. I have no Chinese language. Not a sausage. I’ve made no effort to learn any words at all. I’ve been thinking about my Japanese which was almost as bad a week ago.

I make do with numbers and gesticulating.

What you need to do is head through immigration, oh fellow layoverite. Don’t go into transit. If anyone tries to make you – (and they probably will) – I found the words “Transit Visa” are useless, but they use the same symbols for numbers so “24 hour transit visa” usually elicited the response “24!” and a wave in the right direction. I didn’t have any correct form though until I got to the immigration security desk. He was very helpful though, and basically got out the right one and filled it in with me. It’s free. In exchange for your skin.

Having never activated facial recognition on my Samsung device, nor fingerprint recognition, the price of entry into Shanghai was all of that information – all fingers and thumbs – “information acquired” as it says on the screen. My career as an international masterthief is over before it began. Who knows where that biometric info will all go, but the guy at the desk waves me through and I walk out into actual China for the first time – Hong Kong doesn’t count. I guess I’ll have to make the experience worth the information expense, and at least now I am not so concerned about switching facial or fingers on on my phone. They’ve got me now. Although thankfully I’ve got a big thick beard which means I might be able to go rogue if I shave. There are cameras EVERYWHERE. Every inch of ground is covered. Every molecule scrutinised.

First stop left luggage so I’m not having to carry all my devices around with me. The surveillance isn’t for our safety anyway. They don’t have to pretend it is like we do in the UK. She wants cash payment at left luggage as it is only 20 Yuan. At the time of writing, convert Yuan to pounds by shifting it up one decimal place. 20Y = £2. 100Y = £10. It’s not exact but it’s a good enough benchmark if you remember that it’s actually a bit more pounds in the end.

I go to the cash point. I’m tired. I’m in a very unfamiliar place, weird cash machine, working out the maths to convert currency, literally just got off the plane, using my Starling Card and can’t remember the PIN. I get it right but I’m still worrying when the machine chunters and opens a low drawer showing a load of pink notes. My alarm system is switched off at a time it should be on high. As the notes come out unfamiliarly, suddenly slamming into me to my left a guy in a suit, looking directly at the notes revealed, shouting something in Chinese. This is a practiced act. Could be anything. “Do you want your Starling Card?” I reflexively shake my head”No” to whatever he’s said, and won’t let him push me. I’ve already been conditioned to saying “no” here as the place is full of taxi drivers and most of us know how it is leaving the airport when you can’t pass as a native. I like to say I’m pretty on it with scams. I’ve done plenty of 360° spins over the years to see the person sneaking up on me and let them know the jig’s up, but this team is practiced on this particular cashpoint, looking for exactly me, and I only ever see one of them. I don’t pirouette when I should. It’s a theft team. Well oiled. The guy in the suit could be called “The Face”. He looks respectable. His job is to take all of my attention for a moment or two while “The Hand” steals what they are set up to steal, and usually immediately sends it to a third player, I dunno, “The Feet”? I’m kinda extrapolating from how I’ve seen it work or read it in all those books.

Smart distraction though. My instinct immediately was to protect the cash, which I of course did. But over here your card comes out AFTER the cash. And I didn’t notice they had it until they were all out of sight and I was still coming down from the shock of the shoutbarge. I had been in quiet contemplation. Prickles of cold sweat now. They have my card. I can’t get on the internet as it’s fucking China, but thankfully there’s a WiFi point more or less exactly behind me. You stick your passport on it and it gives you access to about 3 websites with a code for your phone, so long as your passport in the system. I’m in the system. One of the websites it allows happens to be my Starling app. Phew. Phew. Phew.

I freeze the card, still a bit freaked out. Literally ten seconds later, while the app is still open, it flashes that they’ve tried to make a contactless payment but it has been declined cos the card is frozen. Lucky lucky boy. Just in time for the tester charge somewhere nearby. I have two other cards, and in this modern world can likely bring my Monzo up on my phone once I’m in Japan. No harm done but a minor inconvenience and maybe they’ll try and steal my identity. So many cameras around though. Not here to do anything practical really. Just to remind everyone who’s in charge. I don’t involve the cops. That will end up wasting my whole layover just to fuck up some desperate people. Yeah sure desperate people who have decided that robbing those gaijin is the best way of making money but, you don’t save people with Chinese prison.

I give the left-luggage lady my bag and she takes a 15 yuan cash deposit. I very nearly put my passport in left luggage for safety. Don’t do that everyone!! This is an identity card culture. You have to carry the thing. Another near miss. I was asked a few times for it and might have hit trouble had I stashed it.

In some ways it is good to have an early reminder that I’m nothing like as streetwise as I like to think. London you’ll pick up a tail from time to time, or someone will come at you with a big loud need and you have to spin. But I have to harden. In general as well, I can be too trusting. Another lesson of the trip and I’m not even in Japan.

Annoying though it is to have lost my card, it’s totally ok. I tie my jumper around my waist for extra pocket cover plus it’s humid. I’m going to spend the rest of the day on high alert. It’s probably unnecessary mostly as these people are rarely blind opportunists – they have patches and routines. But that’s as maybe.

Then it’s the Maglev. On a short layover I see absolutely no reason not to take it. It’s just a few minutes into Longyang, at 301 kilometres an hour. Y80 return. That’s £8. Worth it just to experience the tech. I was on the second of the day. Virtually empty. Everyone in one section but me.

I exit Longyang briefly looking for coffee. It’s pretty Kings Cross around there, but there’s a chain called “luckin coffee” and they give me a Flat White. Y32. Back in and Metro 2 to East Nanjing Road – just Y4 for a single – about six stops and it is intuitively organised to a city dweller, with English on the signs. I had no issues buying a ticket or finding the right train. The shopping street is empty and it’s not my bag either, it’s basically Oxford Street with kanji. Good perhaps if you’re after a specific bit of tech at Jersey prices and you happen to be on a layover.

I wandered towards Yu Garden. I like to pound the streets in a new town, even if I now feel I have to watch every shadow. It’s exhausting keeping an eye out but I don’t pick up any negative attention and I’m not gonna lose the rest of my cards / my phone just for tourism.

I got to the garden just as it was about to open. I joined a queue and on the dot of nine we all went in. It was Y40 entry. It’s someone’s old garden. Rocks and old things but absolutely swamped in local tourism.

People EVERYWHERE.

This is China. If there are spirits they hide from the carnage in the day. Right at the heart of it there was a smidge of something other. An ancient theatre, a space a little calmer than the rock gardens, stage and tiers both roped off so you can just stand in the pit, but just as I arrived there, a cat sloped out into the stage and eyed us all in the way that only cats can.  I felt a little shift in the air. Power here after all. Follow the cats, they know.

I left. That was the best the place was gonna muster.

Streets again, back through the harangue of the old town “Copy watch? Want a copy watch?” to The Bund – (were the Germans busy here?) No idea how much these copy watches are. Unless I’m gift shopping on purpose I try and avoid anyone who is actively trying to sell to me.

I spend a short time by the river among all the people the people the people. There aren’t many bridges over the Huangpu, so I go under it instead, and find a way to avoid the crowds at the same time via The Bund Sightseeing Tunnel, a French style ghost train sound and light railway type nonsense that gets you where you’re going for Y50. It pops up in Pudong right by the TV tower after a bit of this and that. No locals on it. Suddenly absolutely still. Nevertheless with an empty carriage in front of me and another one behind me, they stacked me into the same one as two Russians just to make sure I couldn’t even have peace and quiet at 50 yuan.

Time is already ticking. I wander South, quite a long way, following my nose down the river. It’s twenty to twelve when I stumble on the JW Marriott Marquis Hotel, and wander in. I’m hungry, I find myself reasoning, and I’ve got yuan to spend. They direct me to the second floor Merchant Kitchen where, starting at noon, there’s an all you can eat cold buffet. I think with loads more time I would have eaten pretty much anywhere else, but I was starting to feel the pull of the airport and it was easy there so I went for it.

Unlimited booze and food for Y338. I gave them 400. Forty quid. Pricey but if I don’t spend these yuan they’ll just turn into paper when I leave. And it was a decent spread in a pleasant surrounding. Unidentifiable bits of fish and cuts of meat. Lovely big prawns in abundance. Crab claws, all a bit dry, and a selection of sushi – much of which I’ve never tried.

I only notice the pudding when I’m heading out the door and down in order to ask the concierge for a cab back to East Nanjing Road. At my request he shows me on his phone how much the cab should cost. In my pre trip research I get the feeling the cabbies like to take the piss with gaijin, so I prepare the right ballpark plus a few yuan, and sit silent until we get there, looking out the window. I hand him the notes with finality and am pleased when he does the pantomime for “Oh I should find some change for you,” which I wave away. Satisfactory on both sides. I’m back at Nanjing. Y40. Might have been cheaper but to be fair it was a long ride.

Busier than it was, but no time for shopping. I take the metro back, and then the maglev. It almost certainly would have been cheaper and quicker to cab from the Marriott to Longyang but with the damn internet and GPS blocked it just feels the logical and correct safety procedure retracing my steps. I wandered off piste when I wasn’t hungry on reaching the TV Tower:

By and large the interactions I’ve had in Shanghai have been positive. There’s a direct and stern character to the people in general, but this is a very crowded authoritarian society. Rules matter here. I was nervous crossing the road in the wrong place as my research didn’t go as far as determining if there’s jaywalking laws. Thankfully the green man system is well organised – it’s a much better city for walking than many of the American ones. I covered plenty of ground. I’ve got a snapshot now of the smells and sounds.

Rice and spit. Birds still, sometimes caged but often free – sparrows in the trees. Electric mopeds tooting their horns to be heard. Crowds. I saw one butterfly…

By the time I get back to left luggage I’m tired. Y5 to get the bag back making just 20 in total and it’s all still there. I cast around for the cash point shoutythief. Now he’s had it declined I’m thinking I’ll tell him I dropped my card near here this morning and will pay Y100 if anyone can find it, then wait ten minutes. But he’s not there, and it’s not at lost property. So, back through security and it’s Japan time coming right up.

Y670 plus £5 to replace my Starling card when I’m home. A day in Shanghai without counting the cost, less than seventy quid by my imperfect currency conversion system. Either way less than £100. I’m fine with that. I can’t imagine I’ll be back any time soon, but I guess you never know with life, right?

Thank the lord I spent ages with the map and thinking yesterday or that would have been a confusing and frustrating day in a confusing and frustrating place.

I’ve been putting things into bags all day. The clothes were easy, it was the random trinkets that caused the most thought. What am I bringing to leave as offerings etc. I almost went to Shikoku instead of Kumano Kodo and there was an earthquake there just recently. Not a huge one but enough to remind me that I’m off to a place where tsunamis happen. I’ll be doing my best to appease the spirits of the land and sea out there with my trinkets and woowoo.

Next stop Shanghai for my 11 hour layover. I’m not sure how best to make sure I get there full of beans but I think it involves going to bed early today. The last thing I want is to miss an opportunity to see Shanghai because I’m too tired. So I’m running a bath and I’ll be asleep by 8, which is 3 in the morning Japan time. If I set my alarm for 3am and get up then all I have to do is get some Actifed once I’ve cleared security and send myself to byebyes on the plane. It’s almost twelve hours flight to Shanghai.

I’m sure I’ve forgotten loads of really basic things but it feels like I’m pretty well packed now. I wish I could find my travel pillow as that’ll be an expense again if I’m gonna sleep on the flight. Hark at be trying to be organised for once in my life.

My first few days in Japan are slow, to acclimatise. I’m mostly going to be checking out Osaka, tuning in and shopping. I’m gonna have to get to know the buses as I’ve decided not to rent a car, partly to make it cheaper and partly as it isn’t going to be about luxury solutions, this trip.

But it’s five past seven and I’m intending to be dead to the world in an hour. So I’m signing off and who knows what time the next blog will land, I’ll be somewhere very different.

It’s always about the right tool for the right job, and these days there’s a tool for virtually anything if you can afford it.

Yesterday we were in a Bricolage and Jeremy picked up a hacksaw and three blades. “I’m not gonna sit there and cut my fingers off,” I objected. It’s awkward at the cave entrance with rubble and some bits that might just be asbestos. I did’t want to sit on a pile of rubble trying to see through a chain. I got a metal cutting blade and sized up the battery powered angle grinder. It’s the sort of thing that always comes in handy, but in the end I thought better of it. For such a useful tool, I would rather it had UK sockets. Also it isn’t the top of my priorities as life is currently pointing elsewhere in terms of turning tools into money. Then the guy suggested a €20 set of Stanley bolt cutters. I knew it would be a lot less effort so encouraged the purchase.

Last night Jeremy and I slept on the same bed. Airbnb miscalculation by Rupert who thought one of us could go on the sofa. We both make weird gurgling snores. Better than dad who was chopping down trees, but it’s a wakesome habit. I was feeling pretty tired as we arrived back at the caves, despite a diversion via the Mairie for Jeremy to lodge some strong words about the rubble and a cafe creme at the bakery.

Position was awkward but I still got through the chain in less than 2 minutes. No wonder all the dodgy geezers in London have shelled out for one. A pair of them and most bike locks will be gone in thirty seconds, leaving you with a means of escape. I’ve had enough bikes nicked in this city that now I’m jaded. There was a period when I rode everywhere. It would certainly help with my “get fit for summer” drive. But the lock costs more than the bike and it still won’t last long against a good grinder with the right blade.

A quick trip to the supermarket to load up on grub. I bought a reblochon which will be expired before I get back from Japan. The brothers three drove long hours through the wilds of France, back at last to the familiarity if home. I dropped in on my downstairs neighbour and probably made more sense with my hacked together French than usual. I gave her the cheese.

Now I’m trying to turn everything around in time for the flight. I’ve scheduled a few days down after I land the other side so I’m not freaking out. But it’d be nice to bring the right things in my pack.

First though, I’m having a bath.

Now here we are, the road trip circus, up in the Val du Loire now. Jeremy bought a cave, decades ago. Just a hole tunneled into a hill. He paid way too much for it and we all just threw our hands up with incomprehension and acknowledgement of our powerlessness. It was a weird investment. It really hasn’t stood the test of time. But you have to let people make their own mistakes, and it was done before we knew.

Then he bought another when my uncle died. That was the decision that caused us all to take stock. We were all hopeful he might be able to make his extremely haphazard existence a bit less troublesome. Bricks and mortar traditionally gain value. It turns out that caves don’t. You can buy a ruined house with land for what he paid twenty years ago.

There’s a lot that doesn’t quite work. First up, it’s on a main road. It’s not peaceful. It’s in an industrial area. Construction sites. Mess. Noise. You can’t sell it as a peaceful rural retreat. There’s nothing going on for light years in all directions.

When I first heard about it I imagined a natural cave, interesting and organic rock whittled by time and water into curious shapes. No. It’s a perfect rectangle, bored into the side of a hill by some sort of machine. There’s nothing natural about it.

You might be able to plumb it and connect it to the grid. You might be able to make it run off grid. Both have merit and both have complications but neither appeal when it is in such an unpeaceful area. Still, the neighbour has started to try. He’s paid a builder. They’ve started making their ones shipshape. Put in a kitchen, little bathrooms, clever lighting. Plumbed it, connected it. They’re having a go. They’ll be on Airbnb as a special cave stay type bollocks.

We went up today and met the builder. They’ve dumped all their dross outside Jeremy’s place. We will be back there tomorrow with some bolt cutters because of course Jeremy has a million keys that fit the lock and doesn’t know which is the right one, and the lock is rusted.

We went to the store for a pair of chain cutters. I’ll be using them tomorrow. Of the three of us it won’t be anyone else. We might be able to get the door open. He might be able to dig some stuff out to take back with him to blighty. Both Rupert and I are aware that this is now just sunk cost fallacy. Jeremy will never recoup what he spent. Someone saw him coming, twice. But we are hoping that somehow we can steer things to a better result than entropy. We shall see.

I’m in bed now. Early still but all this good food and high quality wine takes it out of a man. I’m gonna sleep deep.

“That guy … he’s destroyed it from a picturesque point of view.” All around Jeremy’s now, caves full of IKEA tut. We are gonna look back at the IKEA decades and wonder what the actual fuck people were thinking.

Tristan has been dry stone walling and generally working hard building things in the south of France. He’s extremely good at this. And he has been working very close to our destination this evening.

We are in Nérac tonight. The brothers drove to Condom. We found a monastery full of art. We looked at it. Here’s a photo of the three of us, plus Jamie. Jamie is only present as a ghost, and his widow. The house was falling in when he got it. He fixed it.

Currently it doesn’t matter how much you spend doing up these ruins all over the south of France, the value of them remains low. Which is good for people buying, but sad when it has been someone’s life’s work. But he didn’t do it for profit. He built a palace for his love before Parkinson’s took him. She’s a friend and bonkers and I adore her and want to see more of her.

Jeremy is the one on the right. His first wife was the person we saw today. She’s in Condom. We arrived at her place and almost immediately three pilgrims walked past the window in her kitchen. “You’re on the St Jacques?”

So yes. You know me and how I love banging on about energy. This path – (zoom in and you’ll see the pilgrims) – this was seminal. So I picked up some stones and other signifiers. This is why I went on this jaunt. I didn’t really know why at first, and connecting with family is part of it. That generation – I’m closer in age to Mia, Jeremy’s daughter than I am to Jeremy. But I’ve always called him brother and that’s what we all are to each other. Dad was powerful in his obsession with family.

I’ll be taking the stones out to Japan. There are kami out there, just as there are with different names in Greece and in England and everywhere else too with lost names. But the walk I’m doing next is the last heart of Shinto so they have power. Animism, but absolutely eaten by commercialism to the extent that I could have walked easily in a straight line if the accommodation hadn’t been booked to resell to American tourists. Nevertheless, animism is nice. Nature positive. Pisses off the Christians. Mischief related. Helping us remember that we are just noisy yark things. “Amma galumba spoot spoot” we all shout as we gumberflate through their burlgams. Irrelevant noises given significance by consensus. Gibble wink?

So I’ll be bringing offerings that I asked the Camino about. “Tell me what needs to go to Japan”. Stone. Bark. Water? “What about disease?” says Donna. Ugh. I guess she’s right though. Maybe no water, maybe water. So maybe when I’m back in London I’ll boil a load of bark and stones in water from a local river. Or will I? Or freeze. How to kill microbes and not arrive with angry kami? Either way things are coming over with me. Lourdes water, desert sand, ancient stones, bits of the Way. I’m not interested in spreading pests. I had to make sure there are dandelions in Japan as I might take a head from the Camino. I’ll have to be forensic and careful though and really look into consequence. I’m not gonna be the Shakespeare idiot who brought starlings to the USA. But I have some communicating to do with some kami. And I’m sure they are fed up of these weird metal discs and paper things that the shoutyface BAmNooise blobs value so much.

What joy though to orient that way once more. Once on Camino the journey never stops. Ultreya et Suseya.

It’s like the Marx Brothers. It’s not clear who is who. We are bouncing around the south of France, the brothers Barclay, minus Maxwell, minus Jamie God rest his soul, occasionally squabbling, bumping into things, eating good food.

So yesterday I found out where the Societé de St Jacques was and walked there in the evening. Picked up a new scallop for the back of my pack. Also a length of yellow twine. There’s an ourobouros I am moved to wear for this next leg of my conscious walking aspect of being alive. On Camino it was a malachite I had round my neck and I hammered it into a wooden post halfway when it was “full”. Replaced it with a cross of St James as I wanted to be less obviously multitheist given the context. But I like to carry signifiers of various things.

Bordeaux is very much part of the pilgrim route, although nothing like as travelled as the factory that starts at SJPdP. There are scallop markers all over the place. This morning I snuck into mass in the cathedral. Got my holy bread from the bishop. You aren’t allowed wine now, pretty much anywhere. You just have to watch the guy in the hat drink it for you. He was the actual bishop this time, and came with his army escort. I’ve got more God in me now than I had this morning.

Then we all had lots of coffee and pinged around town. A gorgeous Italian meal for lunch. Then we all peeled off a while and I went to The Wine Museum. Of course. The City of Wine.

How do you make wine interesting enough for a museum? The French solved it in one of their favourite ways. Sound and light. They’ve always been ahead in that game. Jean-Michel Jarre blew the doors off in the nineties by accompanying his synth noodling with really involved laser light and sound. Since then they’ve kept the skill up. At Chartres last time I was in France they had an incredible display projection-mapped onto the outside of the cathedral. Today I had an ASMR and sound styled journey through the seasons accompanied by tastes of the seasons in wine. Lots of soft clicking noises. Soothing music. Mandalas and HD videos of natural things. It felt like I was about to be euthanised although the wine was the definition of nothing special, and surprisingly international to catch the tourists, like me. “This one is from home,” you could say from 3 wine producing countries. I was expecting French wines only but when our sommelier popped a cork and started talking about how protected the Prosecco region was in Italy I realised I’d been sold a pony. One of the couples pointedly left all their glasses untouched after sniffing the contents with angry french noses. They left loudly as soon as they had sniffed the last one, before our poor “sommelier” remembered her last bit of script. I enjoyed it for what it was – an experience. Unfamiliar. There’s always joy to be found.

Off to Condom next. This’ll be over before it has begun. Perfect weather has really added to a lovely opportunity for “we three” to come together.

Did you ever see a picture of us?

End with an obscure Twelfth Night reference Al. That’ll definitely grow your audience.