I read this article in the Japan Time two days ago that detailed an opportunity to scuba dive for free in remote areas of the Phillipines and Indonesia — in exchange, you become part of a research team that examines the coral reefs. I can’t get this out of my mind. It’s driving me crazy. I’m dead scared of this unknown. But I remember this Jacques Cousteau quote about the ocean being the key to all of life, and it’s never left my mind. Some fears you have to embrace.
I study the Japanese writing system vigorously, because I figure if I can master this, there’s nothing in the field of learning I can’t master. In some ways, i feel the same way about this scuba diving opportunity. If I can be at home in the ocean and the rainforests, then where can I not be home. I’m talking about the basic ability to be able to survive.
I’ve got 6 more days left on my job. I just bought a one-way plane ticket to Okinawa. The flight leaves on September 12th. Don’t know when I’ll be back, but Tokyo is magnetic, and I’m not sure how long I can resist its attractions.
I talked to a student today. Very beginner. Turns out he works for a Japanese rifle manufacturing company that also imports French liqueur. Strange combination. Anyway, the area where I live has loads of warehouses, and when I told him where he lived, he told me they had a warehouse for guns in my area, cause my area’s conveniently located halfway between central Tokyo and Narita Airport, and it’s along the reclaimed lands of Tokyo Bay — Ichikawa Port, to be exact. Anyway, I had no idea where I’d been trespassing.

The city unfolds in fascinating ways. Endless potential futures are dangled in front of my face. But what appears to be close at hand is on the other side of space. The sky’s too clear here. You can see too far.
Tokyo is magnetic. I can’t resist its attractions. Home alone in my apartment, a restlessness eats away at me. The thing about Tokyo – when you’re in motion, everything comes again, so there’s no need to look back, no need to look twice, no need to grab onto anything, cause the same thing’s going to be coming at you again, slightly repackaged, albeit. But when life suddenly slows, when you’re back at your apartment, when momentum has carried you into a jam, then you’re left with nothing to do but contemplate your missed chances.
Yesterday, the sky was filled with helicopters in the late afternoon near my workplace. I’m told there was a Yakuza shootout in the area. I used to say that I liked Yakuza movies – well, I liked the kind of movies you’d see at a film festival back home. But here, the Yakuza movies are something else, I guess – they’re a distinct genre to themselves, and they’re placed on the top shelves next to the porn. Apparently, they’re violent and heartless beyond all reason.
Around 6:00, there was a tremendous lightning storm, and a hard rain, and the trains got all fucked up. In a roundabout way, I arrived at a station one stop away from my area. The train was at the platform, and I asked a lady which direction the train was going – she pointed the right way, so I got on the train, and then she hesitated, and just as she changed her mind, the train doors closed – imagine someone fucking up directions like that, if you really had to be somewhere — and so I ended up in this underground station deep in the suburbs where there shouldn’t be any underground stations, and I sat around hot, tired, and hungry, waiting to get home. Uncomfortably reminded of how unstable the everyday comforts of life are.
I ended up with about a 45 minute walk home, stopped at the video store, and rented this Korean movie called Shuri with Japanese subtitles. I watched the coming attractions, and sleep pulled me in.
This morning, I lied around on the roof of my apartment building. Someone else in the building advised that no one ever goes on the roof, so I could feel free to sunbathe naked. It’s something else to be naked in the sun in a city the size of Tokyo.