“During the full moon, not much sleep. The energy is too strong. One day before and one day after too,” my new friend Smiling Buddha had said the day before.

I don’t know if it was the energy, the arak drinks, my neuroses, or the deafening sounds of roosters and other wildlife, but yes, I had tossed and turned all night and was up by 5am. I was plagued by the usual inertia. I really don’t want to do anything, but I’m also going to be miserable doing nothing. And I am certainly not going to plan a thing. Herein lies the basic problem of my general condition.

I managed to get myself up for long enough to half-heartedly check out the (ok, fairly stunning) sunrise.

Feeling anti-social, I headed into breakfast and encountered Smiling Buddha, who informed me that we would be eating mackerel together that night and then drinking the champagne he had been saving for 7 months. Continue reading Full Moon Meditasi →

One of the things I definitely wanted to do while in Bali was to go surfing. I’ve surfed twice before, once in Costa Rica and once in New York in the Rockaways. Spending the last few days hanging out with surfers, I’ve realized surfing is a mentality and that there is serious self-selection in those who decide to pursue it as a lifestyle. They’re people who’ve tried living other types of lives, maybe even holding “real jobs,” but they can’t live without the ocean and without waves. It’s a kind of religion. Everything is given up for surfing in an almost fatalistic kind of way. Weather conditions and tides are studied scientifically, as is the ocean in all its finer details. There’s a fair bit of partying and a “let it go, come what may” attitude towards life. People help each other out. Major activities other than surfing involve plenty of relaxation, partying, and watching the sunset with beers – a different beach every night. Continue reading What surfing taught me about myself and life →

I was in Hiroshima and Miyajima a few days ago. It’s all been marinating in my head – so many things coming up. I can experience everything all at once, in non-verbal brain language. Writing it in a way that adequately captures my experiences and thoughts is going to be harder. I can’t possibly do it justice. So I’ve been doing what we all do in moments like this and just avoiding it. Rumpling it up and putting it into the top shelf of my brain where it keeps falling over into my consciousness. Procrastinating.

First of all, I had no intention of going to Hiroshima when I woke up that morning, but some combination of FOMO and shame at the idea that I’ve been chowing down on okonomiyakis like it’s nobody’s business, but I can’t get off my lazy ass to see something pretty damn important propelled me to go. OK, and honestly, I had an unlimited Japanese Rail Pass that I hadn’t used enough to have it be worth it. So there were multiple things going on there, as there often are. Continue reading Hiroshima mon amour →

So apparently it is a thing in Osaka to “eat until you drop,” referred to as kuidaore. I don’t know if this should be taken literally. I can say that I didn’t see anyone passing out from gut-explosion firsthand. Yes, I did look for it.

Whether this is fact or hyperbole, it is still true that Osaka is a down home kind of city famous for good food, particularly street food. It is the birthplace of okonomiyaki, a takoyaki (fried octopus balls)-making machine, and the inventor of such high-class innovations as conveyer belt sushi. The best place to experience all of this is at night wandering around Dotombori, a Times Square-esque area lit up with billboards and concentrated with street food vendors. That’s basically the only thing I did in Osaka other than my other favorite activity. Lay in bed. Thousand-yard stare. Hours pass by. Eventually, I pass out.

While I was on the plane today leaving Osaka, the dissonance between this celebration of (ahem, unhealthy non-Dr. Atkins-approved) food in Japan on the one hand and the unforgiving obsession with appearance and body image on the other just struck me as odd. Continue reading Osaka, Kuidaore, and Amy →