BEATING TREVOR UP AND OUR LAST NIGHT IN KYOTO
February 20th 2009 00:42
The next step in friendship, I suppose, is to see each other naked. It was our last real day in Kyoto and we wanted to find some traditional hot springs, like the ones set by the glorious mountains with the wondering monkeys we’d always heard about.
“I can’t believe you’ve never been to a hot spring before,” Trevor told me. “Just sitting there in the heat, naked, it feels so good.”
He told me that everyone will glance at your cock at least once, so you have to do stretching beforehand to put on a show. He’s a tall black guy – what the hell kind of stretching did he need? So we talked to the owner of the hostel, who gave us directions to various hot springs: apparently there was only one that was scenic – the rest were in buildings. We headed for the scenic hot springs, taking a bus and a train. On the way we passed some large lake or whatever the hell it was with a few fishers here and there. We bought some tasty octopus snack and watched the lake and passing people who carried carriages, admiring it all.
“Alright, let’s go.”
We walked for another half an hour, talking about life and stealing and women and poetry and music. He told me to keep listening to Miles Davis, he told me that he didn’t like the main character in Catcher in the Rye, who was apparently too depressed. I told him about this Kerouac book that I was reading, Dharma Bums, and before I continued he asked me, “Isn’t Kerouac pronounced Ke-roo-way?” and I told him that I didn’t think so, that it was pronounced “kurr-oo-ak,” but after some thought I started to doubt myself and become awfully confused with it all, so we changed the subject. We glanced at our map and decided we had to ask for help. Not as many people can speak understandable English in Kyoto compared to Tokyo, so we had to use our extremely broken Japanese; what made it more difficult was that people in Kyoto have a different dialect from the people in Tokyo (Kansai ben). I walked up to a police officer:
“Sumimasen, kirei na onsen ni ikitai desu ga…”
The police officer looked at Trevor and I for a moment, paused, and then decided to sort of smile. He looked at our map and gave directions with such intense and quick spoken Japanese that all I could do was nod and pretend that I knew what was going on and merely observed where his fingers were pointing to on the map. There was another man there, staring at me and saying nothing the whole time…
Trevor and I headed off, trying to remember where the police officer was pointing at. We walked for another two hours; we got lost and asked for directions several times. It was eight at night by the time we reached it.
“It’s closed,” I sighed.
Trevor wailed like some sort of dying animal. He told me that there’s always the other one in the map, the one down south, and there are always the ones in the hotels. I sighed and told him that the guy at the hostel told us that they’re only indoor baths, and we only want to go to a scenic hot spring, remember? Trevor argued that maybe the guy at the hostel didn’t know what he was on about, plus he only spoke in Japanese so maybe we didn’t understand him properly. He told me that it was our last chance and said we should definitely go there. I finally agreed. We travelled for another hour and walked for another half an hour and finally found the place: it was a gym complex with an included set of baths.
“I told you!” I yelled.
“Let’s just look inside,” Trevor said.
We looked inside and it was indeed a gym complex with an included set of baths. I told him that now that the day is over, why don’t you go and use the baths and I’ll just stay in here and try not to kill anyone?
“Never mind,” he said. “Let’s go.”
I sighed again. We exited; I tackled him when we were well and clearly out of the gym. I tackled him rugby style, pushing him against a wall.
“You always tackle when you fight!” he screamed, repeatedly beating my back with the side of his fist.
I loosened then pushed him back against the wall. He continued to beat the side of my body until I couldn’t take it and let go of him. He tried to kick me kung fu style but it didn’t work so all it did was push me backwards slightly. He quickly ran to my side and leapt on me and we both fell on the ground, and on that surprisingly clean pavement we punched each other up, hoping that we wouldn’t get black eyes. Eventually we got too tired and stood up, dusted ourselves. We shook hands. We headed back to the hostel and fell straight asleep.
That was our last night in Kyoto.
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Comment by Postmodern Critic
Postmodern Critic
Relativity Watch
Padsoc
My only experience with eating fish in Tokyo was squid ink flavoured ice cream... I was tickled pink.
Comment by Always Eighteen
Always Eighteen
Whoa - you've also been to Japan? I haven't been fortunate enough to taste that ice cream yet, but I think I saw the shark piece flavoured one....
Comment by Postmodern Critic
Postmodern Critic
Relativity Watch
Padsoc
The squid ink didn't really taste that appealing - it was selling near the Tokyo fish market, if you go there again, but I wouldn't say I recommend it. It was the idea of it that really appealed to me, hehehe.