Figs, moving sweat dens, and endless paradise.

Standing on the front of a longtail boat, hairy pits and all, Thailand.

On the boat to Phi Phi island, Thailand.

West Railay Beach near Krabi, Thailand.

With friends after a day's snorkeling trip near Krabi, Thailand.

Fried egg ice cream, Melaka, Malaysia.

Time got away from me and now I have so much to catch up on.

My last few hours in Japan I had my best meal there. No, not the super-fresh sushi I had at 8 am at Tjukiji Fish Market, which was awesome. A few hours before my flight I wandered into a supermarket and bought a package of fresh figs, sat on the ground outside and bit into the juiciest, most flavor-packed figs I've tasted, with a hint of cinnamon aftertaste. After I was done I just sat there shaking my head in disbelief. Figs? Yes, figs.

Flew to Singapore, which I did in a day. Funny, based on all the lore I'd expected the streets to sparkle and the people to walk around like robots. But Japan was actually much cleaner and orderly. Singapore was still nice. The three ethnic groups -- Indian, Malay, and Chinese -- produce some wicked-ass food. I felt I could have stayed in Singapore a week just to eat, but since I felt there was only a day's worth of exploring to do I fit a week's worth of eating in a single day. This included Chicken Murtabak at 2 am, Singaporean kaya toast (jam w/ eggs), fish head curry, and some amazing Chinese desserts (see my last post for pictures and descriptions).

After Singapore I blew threw Malaysia. I'd planned to spend a few days making my way up the coast, but just didn't really like it there. Ma-lame-sia. I didn't give it much of a chance, and maybe I was too tired and pissed off from taking the "Super V.I.P." mini-bus, aka sweat lodge on wheels, and all the yelling at the bus stations. The bus station at Kuala Lumpur was enough to make me want to deep fry my own turds and eat them. But the food was awesome. I spent a few hours in a colonial town called Melaka, where I ate something called Fried Egg ice cream, and a day wandering around Penang, another colonial city with a fairly relaxing feel to it.

A day's worth of frustrating travel later, I found myself near Krabi, Thailand at some insanely beautiful and relaxing beaches. Tremendous limestone cliffs flank the secluded beaches, making for quite dramatic scenery. I stayed on a climber's beach called Ton Sai, where most accomodations run around $5, the Thais working and living there have long hair and seem happy as can be, and the massages run free and cheap. The food wasn't particularly good, probably because the beach is so secluded (you can only get there by longtail boat), but the atmosphere was intoxicating. After spending 10 days or so running around like mad it's been nice just sitting on a gorgeous beach with nothing to do but dip and tan.

Yesterday I went on a snorkeling trip by longtail boat, saw some beautiful fish, ate delicious seafood green curry at sunset on a tiny sand strip with water on both sides with a beer to wash down the paradise. On the way back it was dark and the boat stopped at one point to let us swim among the glowing plankton. I've never seen the movie "The Beach," but apparently they do this in the movie. Basically, when you move in the water you see tons of tiny glowing lights, so it looks like you're lit-up when you swim around. It was beautiful.

I had a difficult time leaving Ton Sai because I could spend a long, long time there just relaxing, but I felt the need to see a few of the other beaches. So now I'm on Phi Phi island where the movie "The Beach" was filmed. It's incredibly touristy here, but still beautiful. I hope to go on a boat tour tomorrow to see some of the surrounding bays, etc.

A few pictures.

Singaporean guy making Multabar, fried Indian bread stuffed with chicken and onions. Un. Bah. Lievable.

A super nice group of Singaporeans I met playing ultimate frisbee in the park. Here, they're scarfing down Chinese food after an exhausting game we played into darkness.

Awesome desserts at a Chinese dessert place in Singapore. Clockwise from top left: mango with shaved ice and black pearls, white almond paste and black sesame paste, white rice balls filled with black sesame paste and pink rice balls filled with sweet peanuts all in a bowl of ginger syrup, yam paste with pumpkin and ginko nuts.

Dragonfruit lassi in Melaka, Malaysia.

Block of food sold in Tokyo airport, purchased and consumed by your trusty narrator.

Adorable Singaporean woman who invited a friend and I into her shop to taste some of her tea.

Singaporeans grilling thin slices of beef, pork, and chicken. Grilled meet tantalizes.

Fish head curry (before), a meal meant for 4 or 5 people but consumed (somewhat) easily by yours truly, followed by a Lassi in a bag and a new colostomy bag, Singapore.

Fish head curry (after).

Classic Karate Kid crane pose wearing recently-acquired Japanese headband, Kyoto.

At Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto. These orange gates went 3 km into the mountains. I climbed to the top after having climbed another mountain a few hours earlier, resulting in a hip flexor injury which still plagues me at the time of this post. But pimp limps are big in Southeast Asia, so it works out.

At Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima.

Two nice Japanese girls I met in my hostel in Tokyo eating yellow watermelon (tasty!).

Kaizen (conveyer belt) sushi.

Karate pose 2 (post-attack).

Karate pose 1 (pre-attack).

First sushi meal/religious experience.

Chionin-Mae Temple, Kyoto.

In front of Chionin-Mae Temple in Kyoto.

Awesome cockroach costume I was quite close to buying in Harajuku (Tokyo).

The Japanese love English words, even when they don't quite make sense. Paired with the subject in the picture, however, this one works quite well.

Oh yes, baby vampire costume. Sucking blood CAN be adorable!

A clothing store with a name that, perhaps, only makes sense when translated into Japanese.

A tasteful V-neck in front of the Golden Temple in Kyoto.

Arigato, my gato.

After spending a day and two nights in Tokyo I took the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Kyoto, where I arrived in a guest house of a nice elderly Japanese couple. The room came with a kimono-type robe, which I donned for bathroom use, general lazing about, and a few karate poses (pictures to be posted soon). Kyoto, the former capital of Japan for a few thou years, was a nice change of pace from the big city craze of Tokyo. Just on the fringes of Kyoto are around 2,000 temples. I was feeling lazy so I could only see 1,999 of them, but that last one was supposed to be kinda whatever. No, in actuality I saw a bunch of temples, which are all somewhat similar but very peaceful, set in serene natural surroundings, with a pond here, a mountain there, a pagoda everywhere.

On my second day in Kyoto I pre-gamed my temple-hopping sojourn with my first Japanese sushi meal. Mmmmm, hmmm, how to describe? Awesome? Yes. Fish soft like butter? Yes. Sushi chef smoking? Yes. But I didn't care. The sushi was fabulous. Probably some of the best unagi and maguro (tuna) I've had. But I'm going to the fish market tomorrow morning to sample some of the super-fresh stuff so I will reserve judgment on the best sushi I've had until then. Over the next 8 hours I tore through Kyoto's temple scene like a man possessed -- climbed 2 mountains, too. Kinda overexerted myself, resulting in a groin injury and temporary limp (still with me). But I soldier on.

After all that trekking around, I landed myself in an onsen -- public bath house -- for a truly local experience. Just me and about 15-20 naked elderly Japanese men sweating it out in a variety of baths, from ball-scaldingly hot to nipple-shrinkingly cold. After sitting naked to wash myself on an insanely squat stool in front of a mirror with a bunch of the other men, I started things off in a jacuzzi of brown water, intrigued by the color. I realize many would stray from a tub of brown water in a public bath house, but I was not deterred, so found myself relaxing in the water, which gave off an aroma of cinammon. Next I journeyed to a pool which freaked me out because it made me start twitching involuntarily. I realized it had an electric current in it so I bounced to the rest and called it a night.

That night I met a very cool German guy named Christoph who I'm meeting up with tonight in Tokyo. After Kyoto I'd planned to go to Nara, the capital before Kyoto, but was persuaded by the advice of Christoph and others I'd met that Hiroshima was really something. So I boarded another Shinkansen yesterday and visited the Atomic Bomb Peace Museum there -- really quite something. Very moving, tragic, yet hopeful. There were specimens of peoples burned clothes, scars, melted-off skin and nails, etc. Not meant to be shocking, just tell it like it happened. People place bottles of water at the memorial statues around the museum because after people were burned from the bomb they were very thirsty but they weren't allowed to drink because it would kill them. Very sad, but I'm glad I went.

Quickly, a few things:

1) The food is consistently spectacular, but I'm rarely hungry. My theory: the food here is much more nutritious than that in the U.S. so a little bit fills me up a lot more than the same food would in America. Read Michael Pollan for more on the waning nutrion of American food.

2) Japan = utopia. People leave their bikes parked without locks for hours at a time because no one steals in Japan. Crazy.

3) Toilets. Finally found a stop button for the bidet. Next I need to find the butt warming button (seriously).

4) Nice people/food. Started chatting up a Japanese college student who I saw eating something tasty. He offered me an octopus ball (octopuses don't have balls; this was a fried ball of dough filled with octopus). He chaparoned me around for a while, catering to my every need. We shared some mochi (dough filled with ice cream) and fell in love. I want to be reincarnated as moshi. Like right now. He dropped me off at a conveyer belt sushi joint where I had some toro, maguro, salmon, and jackfish -- pretty decent stuff for the prices. I'm FULLLLLLL

About to wrap it up. Leave for Singapore tomorrow. 1 week is too little time to see all Japan has to offer.

MUST

EAT

MORE

Moshi moshi, bitches! I have arrived in Japan.

I arrived in Japan jetlagged and delirious but running on enough fumes to stumble into my hostel around 7 pm or so last night. I sat in the lounge for a while chumming it up with the other backpacking chums and ventured out around the neighborhood (Asakusa) with an inquisitive Canadian named Adash, who peppered me with questions about the Israel-Palestine conflict while I slurped the best bowl of ramen noodles ever to touch these lips...topped with succulent roast pork and fresh leeks, the ramen noodles were chewy and soaked in a pork-flavored broth that made me tear with joy. All the food I`ve had so far has been equally fresh and orgasmic. Like my breakfast this morning, a Korean bi bim bap dish with an egg whose yolk was bright orange and ran over the meat an assorted ingredients with oozing creaminess. And the countless snacks I snatch up throughout the day, too intrigued to resist, like mochi filled with red bean paste dusted with peanut powder. Ok, enough about the food.

Japan is unlike any place I`ve been. Amazing how so many people can bustle about so soundless and efficient. Gigantic cities can be stressful, but not Tokyo, since most places are mobbed yet somehow still peaceful. Even the drunks and homeless seem to keep to themselves in their own orderly way. I`m sure I`m seeing this all through my tourist eyes, but that`s how it is playing out a day in. Mostly I just walked around some of the shopping districts today with my mouth agape at how beautiful (and expensive) the clothing is. You could pick an outfit from a store at random and you`d be the hottest number on the block back in the states. Almost takes the fun and challenge out of dressing smartly, but the Japanese seem to have no shortage of inventive ways to throw clothes together. There are no fashion boundaries here, and everything seems to work.

On the downside, it is difficult to get by here when you don`t speak more than 3 words of Japanese, like your trusty narrator here. I guess I just figured I could get by, and I am, but it`s a real struggle since 9 out of 10 people dont speak a single word of English, most of the signs are in Japanese, Tokyo is a megalopolis, and everything is hard to find. So I just kinda wander around, get lost, sit down in random noodle shops with the businessmen on their way to work and point to something and happily slurp away. Oh yeah, and it`s hotter than a habanero chile out here, and stickier than a handle of Aunt Jemima. I traipse around sweating through my ugly travel gear like a disgusting slob while the locals miraculously forge through the heat in tight jeans, boots, and long-sleeved shirts as if it were nothing.

Oh one more thing. I dont understand the toilets here. One toilet is like a miniature urinal in the ground, hard to explain, but I dont know what youre supposed to do with it (lay next to it and pee sideways) In the hostel they have these toilets with a panel of electronic controls beside it. Last time I sat down I decided to push the button with a picture of an ass being sprayed by water, hoping for a nice bidet experience. While a regular bidet you can turn off when youre good and clean, with in electronic bidet youre kinda at the mercy of the bidet until the machine decides that youre clean enough. So I basically had to sit there for about 5 minutes as the water turned from refreshingly warm to ice cold, wondering if the bidet would ever actually shut off or if I would have to run out of there and hide with my pants around my ankles while the hostel staff attended the the water shooting out of the toilet cieling-high. It was an amusing yet traumatizing experience. Next time I`m wiping.