IT’S COME TO THIS. After an agonizing amount of soul-searching, mental wrangling and internal debate, it appears The Daily Transit has reached its Seattle P-I moment. I’ve run this blog for more than two years and poured much into it — and received much in return, in the form of comments, insights and new friends. But you handful of readers who have continued to stay close have surely noticed the posting become thinner and thinner still.

Since taking a full-time job last June I’ve been stretched between the office, the blog, a pile of half-baked projects and something like a social life. Try as I might to accomplish all that I jot down in my planner, I am regularly and exhaustingly reminded of a well-worn truth: there are only 24 hours in a day. Thus, if I hope to focus and bring to completion any of my other endeavours, something must give. As much as I would prefer to ax the desk job, unfortunately TDT can’t put rice in my bowl or coffee in my cup.

There are two paths ahead. One is that in the semi-near future, this blog will be reborn in a new, more focused format; probably with a name that lets me off the “daily” hook. (I’m the kind of person who needs to stew and digest before scratching out a narrative worth reading.) The other is that this is simply the end. I look forward to devoting more time to writing longer, in-depth pieces to hopefully submit for publication elsewhere, and to journaling my observations in a way more honest and personal than is fit for a platform such as this. I’m also hoping to spend my hours outside the office switching off, going analog and restoring a skill I fear my whole generation is losing — handwriting.

This doesn’t mean, of course, that I will vanish from the Internet entirely. For those interested, I will still be micro-blogging on twitter and hopefully posting even more (organized and edited) photos to flickr. My sincere thanks go to everyone who has made writing here an even more enriching experience. Please stay in touch, and safe travels.

Sincerely,

Ben Hancock (The Daily Transit)

HUNDREDS OF FEET ABOVE Osaka’s streaming avenues, Janice and I are sharing a hot dog. Or some form of one. The sausage has been tucked delicately into not a bun, but an undersized French roll that leaves the dog sticking out the ends. Still, it satisfies, and we watch the blinking lights of planes arriving and vanishing above Kansai International as we dip into a conversation about the things we’ve lost.

The last six months have been taxing; an unconventional start to married life. The adjustment has wrung us of creative energies, and so much of what we sought in coming to this side of the world seems to have thus far escaped us. Weekends that could have been better spent traveling were frittered away on errands. Regimens designed to help us study language, write daily or cook more often were abandoned. Our friends have spread diasporic across North America, falling out of touch across an ocean, and we’ve yet to make any solid acquaintances.

We see the stage and the countdown clock ticking towards midnight. Perhaps it’s the altitude, but after several days of rest and exploration we feel ourselves sobering, realigning. The things that matter float to the surface as our minds settle in quietude. We talk now about what we want; what we promise we will do. And a New Year looms, almost literally, on the horizon. A half-rotation of the earth and Japan will again greet the sun.

***

I pulled on my bathrobe and looked at the television. The blackout blinds had been pulled back, allowing the delicate haze of day to spill into our room. But I was fixated on the documentary on the screen, on the images of the lazuline East China Sea. An American woman in her 40s was driving down a leafy byroad somewhere in Okinawa. Her collie sat panting at her side; diving equipment lay heaped in the back. She spoke fluent Japanese, from what I could tell, and I gathered after a few minutes that she was an underwater photographer who had spent a good deal of time on these summery spits of land.

Her car stopped at a house where barbecue smoke was rising from a couple grills in the front lawn, and she was greeted by friends and their children, in front of whom she later delivered a tearful speech. Maybe it was my own longing for saltwater and warm sunlight, to feel as tan and healthy as this woman looked, but something about these snapshot’s from her life resonated in me. Perhaps at the root it was a desire to blast open the ends of this escape — for Janice and I to keep going, to fall off the earth down to the islands and continue floating.

We grabbed pastries and coffee to go at a bakery in the lobby and started off on an aimless late-morning stroll that wound us through the quieter sideroads of upper Umeda — which were even more silent that day, due to it being New Year’s Eve. Coming upon a sunny bench, we sat and drank in what felt like the first breaths of spring. There were flecks of new green in the trees; down the block, a kid was playing on a Dance Dance Revolution machine set up outside a convenience store.

A woolen-gray blanket of clouds unrolled over the sky as we followed our feet through downtown, popping into narrow shop spaces, browsing through bookstores (I was on the hunt for the latest edition of Monocle) and poking around the shelves of, yes, another housewares store — not as inspired as the one in Kyoto, but still enough to entertain our domestic daydreams. We ate a light lunch at a gyoza bar and had the entire place to ourselves, munching on crispy dumplings filled with shrimp and pork. I thanked the cook for the delicious meal with a practiced Oiishi-des! and drained the rest of a pint of Asahi before we headed back out into the empty streets.

Through dingy and eerily vacant shopping arcades, through Tower Records and Uniqlo, and through still more bookstores, we meandered. We grabbed a Japanese-style crepe, wrapped up with strawberries and chocolate sauce. We rambled past the soft-light waiting room of the intercity bus station (Janice remembering when she took the overnight from Tokyo in 2005) and passed under a rusting train yard to finally arrive at the base of a mammoth arch of modern architecture: the Umeda Sky Building.

The glass-elevator ride to the top wasn’t quite as white-knuckle as the escalator to the “Floating Garden,” which took us over a 50 foot expanse of nothing. Janice pointed out, like a true disasterist, that all it would take was for one of the bridge’s ends to disconnect and we would tumble into the empty air below.

Out on the crown of the skyscraper, sound seemed to dissolve into wonder. In the southwest, the yawning mouth of the Yodo River spilled its current out into Osaka Bay, its formless waters cast out to mix with the roaming molecules of the Pacific. The orange light of the year’s last sunset seeped through cracks in the clouds before fading with the onset of night. We took our time, looking at one other and then out into the twinkling city, driftless in the gentle wind.

As per Japanese tradition, we ate soba noodles for dinner (bland, to cleanse the palate for the New Year). We sat next to the window at a restaurant on the Sky Building’s bottom floor, positioned underneath an outdoor waterfall illuminated by a spectrum of colored lights. On our slow walk back to the hotel, we passed the same DDR machine we had that morning, where a crowd was now gathered watching a young man moving his legs with furious accuracy. Everyone clapped when the song was done, and he stepped off the dance floor with a sheepish smile.

Cozy and settled in our room, we flicked on the TV to a Japanese countdown show packed with young bubble-gum pop groups along with older acts singing what, in Korean, could be called gayo — throaty, tear-jerking ballads about love, loss and change. The costumes and dress were fantastic; I’m pretty sure we saw at least one guy wearing a velvet, royal blue suit. But as it neared midnight, the program took a more subdued tone, suddenly switching to live video feeds from the nation’s major shrines and temples. Great throngs of people had gathered at these sacred places. When the clock struck 12, those at the front of the lines said their prayers and then quite literally rang in the New Year by striking massive bells at each site, filling the small hours with humming reverberations.

***

We were handed cedar boxes of cold sake when we emerged from the elevator the next morning, greeted by the clanging of a gong and a dragon floating around the lobby on human legs (it bit me and a number of other guests on the head, gently, and I presume bestowed us a bit of good luck). I tried to take a couple photos, but with it so early in the morning I was reluctant to become the awkward tourist, clunking around the hotel in his hiking boots and waving his camera at a group of men dressed as a mythical beast. I’ve always felt there’s a level of composure that good photographers maintain when capturing their subject; it’s not something I exhibit when fumbling frantically to adjust aperture and shutter speed for indoor lighting.

Over breakfast, I unfolded a copy of the Yomiuri Shimbun — the first newspaper I’d seen in a week, though with the pace of events it might as well have been months. Israel was several days into its invasion of Gaza and already there were a terrible number of casualties. As someone who nearly always is hungrily scouring the news, I marveled at how easily I had slipped into the void — and at how quickly all the information I had digested and stored became obsolete.

***

Shinkansen Hikari, bound for Fukuoka. The train whirs, almost silently, as it cuts into the black of a mountain tunnel. Then whish — we pass into the open gray light of January, and it is snowing. The flakes fall like a curtain over the countryside, a barrage of white veiling the towns and quiet wooden homes we pass as we glide southward along the tracks.

Janice is resting her head against the window, by turns dozing and staring out into the shifting distance. I sit with my open journal, the butt of a pen between my teeth. Our boat doesn’t leave until tomorrow morning but already I can feel the island pulling away beneath my feet. I try, almost frantically, to commit the memories to ink, to gather the pieces of what we felt here and preserve them before the color drains.

I feel the lurching momentum of the clockwork: the shuddering certainty of departure and arrival, the unbreakable gridlines that dictate the timetables. I try to pause, taking a breath and looking out the window myself. But it all keeps disappearing, the last place giving way to the next.

THE WATERCOLOR GLOW OF RED and white lanterns washes over Pontocho alley as dusk slips silently into night. We had set out to find the perfect setting for our final dinner in Kyoto, but after being brusquely turned away from our first pick (no reservation) we find ourselves wandering. The restaurants all appear nameless, their doors hidden. The tiny rooms we pass are filled with diners and brimming with conversation. To my ears the words are an indiscernible murmur, but I imagine they speak of an Old Japan that even then was colored by change.

With no knowledge of written Japanese, we pause only at places that include pictures on their menus. We soon realize, however, that whether or not a restaurant uses photos is indicative of its atmosphere and caliber. Those that seem the most refined or traditional rely solely on the printed word to list their dishes. And so we feel our options whittled down to a potentially embarrassing/unappetizing meal at an upscale establishment or a more common experience if we play it safe.

Just as we consider exiting the alley to seek food elsewhere, a small, simple menu outside the doorway of an aged wooden building catches our eye. There are only a few things printed in English and no descriptions. But the name of one dish touches on the fading memory of a meal I once ate as a child — sukiyaki.

***

The previous day had seen us wandering from shrine to temple, carried by our feet on an expansive tour of Kyoto’s spiritual history. After all that trekking and transcendence we decided our final full day in Kyoto would be best spent closer to street level. We began with a stroll through Nishiki Market alongside restaurateurs and homemakers buying up fresh-caught fish, miso and dried shrimp flakes. I treated myself to a second breakfast with sticky rice and pork wrapped in a banana leaf and opened my eyes a little wider at a delightful coffee stall serving careful hand-drip brew. The sky was a crisp blue, the bite in the air softened by sunlight.

Neither one of us had been sleeping well. It had nothing to do with our surroundings — the hot baths, cloud-soft futons and and surprising quiet of the city should have been enough to send us deep into slumber. But a kind of lingering malaise, the hooks of worry and doubt over careers and situations, had clung to us even as we departed Korea.

It was in the tiny housewares store that the dreaming started. Janice gushed over cute wooden spoons and teacups; the voice of Julie Delpy, breathy and feminine, wafted over the stereo on bright vibrations of guitar. Now, I’m not the kind of person who generally spends much time imagining the elements of their perfect home. But something about the tablecloths, the mugs, the pictures of apartments filled with wood, light and air sent me swimming through a fantasy of barefoot Sunday mornings — summer birds and trees at the window by the breakfast nook. The many concessions we had made in our living arrangements and the constant, intruding competition for space that characterizes the Seoul bustle had worn us thin. We wanted a sanctuary, and we wanted it decorated.

We settled for a cup and a small Christmas ornament, both wrapped in tissue paper and set aside for this imagined space. I could see Jan’s heart ache a bit as we left the shop, but we bought a calendar filled with images of its wares inhabiting the homes of others. (We taped it up when we got home; a portal against the beige wallpaper.)

The hours flowed slowly: paging through palm-sized Murakami novels in the original Japanese at Junkudo bookstore; purchasing a blue cotton cycling cap that came down over my ears (perfect for chilly spring days) at a rare cafe doubling as a men’s clothing and vintage bike shop; napping back at the ryokan. For the first time in a long time, the day felt simple and whole.

***

I couldn’t have been much older than eight when my mom first took me to Akasaka, which inhabited a vaguely Asian-looking building off Pacific Highway outside Seattle. The details have become fuzzy with time but I can imagine I had done some begging after watching the second Karate Kid. Not that it took much; she had always supported my adventuresome eating. I was the opposite of my father, who grew up in Virginia on meatloaf and canned vegetables and had expanded his diet over the years only after much plying.

Underneath the restaurant’s turquoise roof, I tucked into tofu pillows and slurped glass noodles for the first time. Sukiyaki. The staccato consonants emerged from my young mouth awkwardly, excitedly. A burbling pot filled with vegetables, meat and a sweet black sauce. That meal transported me — felt so authentic that I would brag about it at school like I’d been to Tokyo.

It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I found out Akasaka was actually owned by Koreans.

***

In the restaurant off Pontocho Alley, the memory of that meal came back to me. A glass of chilled sake sat on the table as our hostess, dressed in an elegant but subdued purple kimono, sprinkled sugar crystals into the pot along with thick shoyu. She cracked for us a raw egg each, and once the beef was done instructed us to dip it in the yolk and enjoy. Which we did, immensely.

Despite our limited capacity for communication, we were still able to learn that this establishment had been standing  for more than 100 years. The kinds of stories, the quiet human history that had unfolded over meals here was beyond our imagination. And yet, simply by virtue of coming in touch with such a place, my mind began to wander back along all the paths that had brought me to present. From a young boy in suburban Seattle to someone grown and out in the world — 5,000 miles away from home.

When we left the guesthouse the next day, Itoii and a woman who also worked at the front desk followed us out carrying a banner we can only guess read sayonara. We smiled and laughed at the unexpected gesture, then asked to hold the banner ourselves and have a picture taken. “It seems like you’re doing advertising for us,” Itoii said as the shutter snapped.

I shook his hand and said we hoped to return soon, thanking him for his hospitality with a sincerity that was intended for the whole of the city.

As we stared up at the high crosshatched ceiling of Kyoto Station, Janice and I considered taking a jaunt to Nara to explore the deer park before making our way to Osaka. But with our packs further weighted by gifts and our time in Japan trickling away we decided just to head straight there. A short shinkansen ride, a couple subway stops and a quick check-in later, we stepped into our room at the Ramada, facing the upper edges of the buildings that surrounded us.

Not long after we had dropped our things we ventured away from the hotel and wandered well into the evening. We passed through Umeda and down towards Minami, where we ate fresh takoyaki (dumplings with diced baby octopus) from a vendor along the famous Dotonbori street. As the sky gave way to night, the city’s grayness — its dense concrete and grit — was bathed in a buzz of neon. Covered shopping arcades filled up with young people. The automatic doors of pachinko parlors slid open to reveal rows of men, zombie-like, sitting in front of gambling machines that whirred and clanged like a hellish orchestra. It was indeed Blade Runner-esque, to borrow a description from LP, and miles away from what we had experienced in Kyoto.

Still, there was something calming about it. The strangeness of the city invited us to float aimless through the streets — to the bubble tea stand in Amerika-mura and past Chanel, and again towards Dotonburi to catch one final gleaming look at the Glico man, a four-story electric signboard that has become a landmark. And when our legs were tired, we did our exploring at the convenience store — picking out a tall can of Kirin, a bag of Japanese popcorn and pear-flavored soda. Back in our room, we snacked with our bodies under the covers, resisting sleep and the thought that this trip would end.

A FRENCHMAN WHO LIVES in Australia is looking for a jazz club in downtown Kyoto. He pensively inspects a folded map, looks towards the corner of Sanjo and Gokomachi, and then eyes me. A black saxophone case is slung on his shoulder.

“Do you speak English?” he asks, a muted sense of urgency between his scattered accents. I tell him I do and a relieved smile spreads across his face — the kind one might get upon finding their emergency cigarette at the end of a hard day.  “Oh man, that’s great!” he says, pausing for a moment to enjoy this good fortune. But at his second question, Do you know your way around here?, it becomes clear this celebration may have been premature.

He’s supposed to meet friends at eight o’clock at the venue, and it’s supposed to be right here. Janice and I lend him our eyes, sweeping the intersection once over and even looking at the map ourselves. But no dice. We’re just wrapping up our second day in the city and our local knowledge is thin. We wish our new friend good luck and start on our way back to the ryokan.

Then Jan sees it — Le Club Jazz (yes, that really is the name), on the second floor above an Italian restaurant overflowing with lubricated wedding party merriment, groomsmen outside chatting with glowing faces. I run down the street and catch up with our international musician and point him in the right direction. Champagne bubbles of thanks and excitement flow in return, and we consider checking out the club ourselves as we say a more final farewell. But we’ve been exploring since the morning, and a hot bath and our futon are singing a shamisen siren song.

***

I pulled back the sleeve of my yukata and dug my chopsticks into breakfast: salty pan-fried salmon, sweet yellow squares of tamago and mild lumps of tofu dressed in soy sauce and chopped green onions. Never had the words room service been thus embodied. Hard-working women had knocked on our door at eight that morning in cheerful voices and broken English. They threw open the sliding windows to let in a deep inhalation of crisp air as they tore the sheets off our mattresses and folded the bedding into the closet, then got to the work of laying out our meal. A fresh pot of tea and a large bowl of rice accompanied an array of petite dishes and delicate flavors. All while we sat and observed in our green bathing clothes.

We stepped out into the light of morning just over an hour later, still full and with only the vague notion of an itinerary. Passing over the subdued waters of the Kamo-gawa, we wandered towards the Heian Shrine by unmarked sidestreets. I was unable to shake my fascination with the dwellings that stood in between — four-story apartments meticulously covered in what looked like bathroom tiles; dilapidated wooden storefronts with sliding doors; newer, colder buildings constructed of brick.  As I lined up a shot of one balcony strung with a rainbow of wrinkled laundry, a woman emerged and I sheepishly put away my Nikon. I offered a little bow, she returned a confused smile.

The Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art was closed because it was Sunday, but the chalky, oxidized copper roof that formed the annex’s upper edges was in itself visually arresting. It made the structure feel imposing, imperial. The wintergreen eaves curled skyward, like a silent assertion of Heavenly authority. In the courtyard, a Western man led two friends in their morning Tai Chi.

As we neared Heian Jingu (Peace Shrine), what struck me first was that it was entirely tangerine. I had never seen a temple painted such a color, yet those vermilion hues were characteristic of the many Shinto holy places we would see throughout our trip. Technically speaking, since Janice and I did not enter the grounds through the torii — a looming arch a hundred yards or so to the south of the shrine — we did not pass into the sacred realm of spirits. But I made a go of it anyway, washing my hands in icy water to cleanse the soul, donating a coin and saying a prayer before the shrine’s holy grounds. What I prayed for I couldn’t really say: vague wishes for happiness and health flooded into the darkness behind my eyelids, but the words never materialized into something meaningful. Turning to leave, Jan and I saw a new baby wrapped in blankets and the arms of his grandmother, being carried away from a blessing ceremony out into the December world of humans.

***

The afternoon took shape as we shoveled down fried pork cutlets and shrimp. In the pale blue light of the diner’s kitchen, cooks stood in their short-order chef hats, resting a moment away from the heat of the grill. A man drank coffee and read the paper. We thumbed through our guidebook and decided to follow a walk outlined in its pages through Southern Higashiyama, skirting along the green edge of mountain and touring some of the most important temples in Japanese Buddhism.

The cutting, reflective silence that emanates from the world’s holy places — those so designated and otherwise — does not easily lend itself to written description. Attempts to do so are often riddled with fumbling, inadequate language or deficient personal allegory. A better method is perhaps the simpler one; plain illustration, words like the unencumbered mind of one practicing zazen, of one who sees only the wall in front of him.

The approach to Chion-in was grand in every way: flights of stone stairs and a towering wooden gate stained just a shade lighter than pitch. Janice ascended as I tried to capture the arch’s supernal presence in megapixels. A few shutter clicks later and I too made my way up to an airy clearing, where the soaring rooftop of the temple itself seemed to best the nobility of the mountain.

I unlaced my hiking boots and made my way into the main hall. A monk sat before a gilded shrine, focused on the business of enlightenment as though unaware of the spectators who filtered in and out. Incense hung heavy in the air; the monk’s chant rose above, crescendoed into the thudding punctution of a drumbeat, and then resumed again. Momentary ruminations on the meaning of the sound, the meaning of simply being there fizzled into sunlight and distraction. Touching the eternal would have taken more than a few years under a temple roof — a few minutes gave me only a glimmer.

We continued on our walk, passing through what (according to our guidebook) would become a festival grounds once winter gave way to spring and sakura blossoms. A massive stone statue of Kannon, the bodhisattva of compassion, rose above a memorial commemorating those who died in World War II. Heading south, we found ourselves on the edge of a neighborhood from another era; painted Geisha took delicate steps past noodle houses and shops selling traditional sweets. We munched on fresh miso rice crackers wrapped in laver and allowed ourselves to be caught up in a wave of pedestrians similarly astounded by the feeling of history living and breathing around them. We wound up into the hillside, following our eyes and stomachs into delicious storefronts, all while the sun began migrating towards the other hemisphere.

***

Had we planned it, it wouldn’t have been nearly so impressive — we might have felt the need to make a moment out of it, the eagerness to fulfill expectation. But our arrival at Kiyomizu-dera on the edge of sunset came as a genuine surprise (we hadn’t even known we were heading in the temple’s direction), and it struck a sublime note that seemed to hum into the night.

We stepped up to a sweeping view of the Kyoto skyline just as the horizon was being traced in pink and the mountain behind us was bathed in an empyreal glow. Everywhere around us, couples and friends were asking others to take pictures for them in the fading daylight (Janice and I made such requests, and returned the favor). There was a festive air floating around the temple, solemn though it was made to be.

The city transformed into a cluster of lights as night fell. Young men stood in the darkness next to their rickshaws, waiting for passengers. We began our slow walk back as something like karma aligned our path with that of a traveling musician.

TOIRRETU. THIS IS A WORD every foreign traveler in Japan should know, unless they are fond of doing that awkward dance one does when trying not to wet themselves. But don’t expect to find this word, dear reader, in the pages of Lonely Planet’s Kyoto City Guide. Though they have devoted in their glossary an entry for the word sabi — “a poetic ideal of finding beauty and pleasure in imperfection; often used in conjunction with wabi” — the LP staff thought it unnecessary to include the correct Japanese pronunciation for “toilet.”

And so there I was, aboard one of the sleekest and fastest trains in the world, painfully trying to communicate with the ticket-taker. “Batharoomu wa doko deska?” I asked, hoping that if slid a few Japanese-sounding vowels into my English that he would understand.

He didn’t. He cocked his head to the side for a moment, and then with an Ah! it seemed to click. Then, using his arms to make an “X” he said, “No Batharoomu.” And so I went back to my seat, confused and squirmy with two hours ahead.

***

We began day two in a sleep-deprived haze. The airy formality that floated around the La Soeur’s dining hall made our first morning in a new country even more surreal. There was a soft aural glow in the background, the tinkling notes of Debussy. Dressed in corduroy, a plaid flannel and Garmont hiking boots (in anticipation of snow and rain) I must have been a strange sight to the sharply attired Japanese tourists as I selected from the buffet a pickled plum, some pancakes and a cut of grilled fish.

Buffets have always been dangerous enigmas to me; in trying to maximize the bang for buck I often wind up with wildly mismatching tastes. I peered around jealously at the plates prepared by the other guests. A man in his early 30s had a dainty stack of greens accompanied by rice, miso soup and an assortment of sides like tamago and roe.

Looking to avoid another JPY1500 cab ride, we asked the concierge to direct us towards the nearest subway station, which happened to be right around the corner. Our first tube ride in Japan was pleasant in all the subtle ways that count: the alert for the arriving train cooed rather than clanged;  no leers from other passengers; no harsh stops on the part of the conductor. There was an indescribable quality about the 10-minute experience (which we felt on train rides in Kyoto and Osaka as well) that was altogether different from any we’d had in Seoul. So far our best guess is that the lighting made the cars appear cleaner. But I also suspect the difference was mainly internal — a change of scenery, a unfamiliar route map and stops being announced in another language.

Converting our Japan Rail exchange passes into the real deal was a cinch, though due largely to the station employee’s fluid command of English (it certainly wasn’t our Japanese). In short order we had our two tickets to Shin-Osaka Station and our transfers on to Kyoto. We opted for a 30-minute stopover instead of the ambitious 6 minutes suggested by our friend at the station window.

As we shoved off into the simple fields of the Japanese countryside, my sleepy eyes widened and took in the scenery we were hurtling past. Despite a moment of uncomfortable panic, I eventually did find the bathroom to the fore of our car — though I imagine I’ll never know what the ticket-taker thought I was asking. Janice began to fall asleep just as I settled back into my seat.

Clusters of two-story wooden houses with shining tiled roves were surrounded by great, bucolic expanses that ran up to the hilt of mountains lush with evergreens. Every so often we would run past denser suburbs populated by large apartments with laundry hanging outside. These were the kinds of places I’d imaged Murakami characters inhabited — where beneath the serene surface the fabric of someone’s reality could be giving way to madness. I wondered for a moment whether we might pass the home of famed travel writer Pico Iyer, who I’d read, with a flicker of jealousy, resides in “suburban Japan.”

With two train rides through different countries stacked so closely together, Janice and I were again led to try and understand the stark differences we perceived. While speeding by at 300 kilometers per hour hardly provides a solid base for analytical judgements, it seemed undeniable that on many surface levels the quality of life in Japan was much higher than in Korea — if only by virtue of the fact that its citizens were afforded the space to breathe and the option of owning real houses, as opposed to being crammed into cheaply made apartments reminiscent of the Soviet bloc.

We passed Tokuyama, an industrial but clean-cut looking port city with rust around its edges. The dark islands in the bay, however, looked untouched. They sat in idle silence at the mouth of the endless Pacific, as the shimmers of waves passed along their shores.

The ticket-taker and the snack cart lady both bowed slowly and gracefully as they entered and exited our car, without regard to whether anyone was paying attention.

***

We pulled into Shin-Osaka station and were met by bustling masses as we tried to figure out which track would take us to Kyoto. Once we had, we bought ourselves a bento box for JPY1000 that was as colorful as a Bob Ross palette — purple octopus, pink ume, grass-green snow peas and yellow squares of sweet fried egg. As soon as we started rolling we began picking away; we arrived just as we closed the lid and were still licking our lips.

I read in my Lonely Planet that tourists were often shocked by the urban face of modern Kyoto, as though most anticipated the ancient capital as it might have appeared towards the beginning of the Meiji Restoration. Perhaps because I had read this, I held no such fantasies. Kyoto tower and the electric tingle of the city center was luring and delightful, and surprisingly quiet in itself. But it wasn’t until we wandered off the main Karasuma-dori in search our ryokan that I fell in love.

Kyoto is a city that is low to the ground. Even in downtown, aside from the main shopping district, most buildings are stacked just four or five stories at the tallest. A healthy amount are two-story wooden structures that, through both the whole of their presence and more subtle details, give off a humble but distinguished air hearkening back to old Japan — like cedar barrels whose insides are still fragrant with the sake they used to house.

The charm of the narrow lanes and people on bicycles was distracting as our eyes searched for Yanaginobanba-dori, the street where our guesthouse was located. Guided by a helpful store owner, we came upon where we would be spending our next few nights; a subdued chime called our attention to the doorway as we watched the bamboo curtains sway.

Itoii (forgive the spelling) spoke fluent English, though he played down this accomplishment by telling us he’d simply watched a lot of American television. He smiled genuinely with a kind of buoyancy rarely seen at hotels, and pointed us in the direction of the Imperial Palace Park as he took our bags,  saying our rooms would be ready by four.

Despite a nip in the air, we meandered down Yanaginobanba at a pace befitting summer. Had we been on film, the peace of the street would have lent itself towards a soundtrack played by the Pizzicato Five — perhaps their version of “The Girl from Ipanema.” We even passed a turquoise church with a palm tree in its yard that wouldn’t have seemed out of place on some long-forgotten island colonial outpost. Though I’d worried about taking our first vacation as a married couple somewhere cold and so far from the beach, the air seemed filled with a honeymoon breeze.

The park was enormous and surprisingly verdant considering the season. It was the first time in months that Janice or I had been in such a greenspace; mountains, not skyscrapers, dominated the horizon. As we walked we felt the walls we’d built to cope with the constant proximity to others begin to melt away. We drank in full breaths of piny air as gravel crunched underfoot and the slanted rays of dusk began to cast shadows on the great, wooden roofs that had once sheltered emperors.

As the sky filled with the ink of evening, the lamps of Kyoto illuminated. We strolled underneath the red glow of the Teramachi shopping arcade, searching for the perfect spot for our first meal in the city as our bellies began to grumble in louder, more eager tones. Reaching the edge of hungry desperation, we stumbled across a little place called Cafe Lulu advertising Locomoco — a Hawaiian specialty — on a chalkboard outside.

We ducked into the doorway and up a creaking flight of stairs to be greeted by warmth and the sound of a ukulele. We were seated by a young waitress in low chairs next to the window and shed our winter layers. There was something about the cafe that seemed removed from time and place; the decor was minimalist and distinctly Japanese but also gave off a subtle 70s American tiki vibe. As a voice in English came over the stereo, we soon realized we were actually listening to a Hawaiian radio station, though we couldn’t be certain whether it had been taped or was being streamed online.

Our dinner arrived: steaming plates of rice with fried egg and hamburger, all slathered in Teriyaki sauce (Jan chose the more traditional curry). We took big, satisfying bites and then sat back, looking at each other and smiling. Soft Polynesian vocal melodies hung in the air; the city felt like an island in the middle of a stretching night.

THE UBIQUITY OF PASSPORT covers in South Korean shops speaks volumes to this society’s new internationalism. Spending a month in the outskirts of Newcastle to do an MBA program or jetting off to Vancouver, B.C., for an English-language course have become commonplace adventures — necessary to reach a level of relative success. Coming across a cover that communicates a matching sense of class to customs agents, however, is less frequent.

I picked up this hand-sewn, goat leather passport cover by designer Park Jin Ok (or “Janey,” as is stitched on the detail tag) in the homewares section of A Land in Seoul’s Myeongdong district on a recent shopping trip. The way the corners don’t exactly match up gives it a rough-edged DIY feel that contrasts nicely against the material’s baby-softness; the small inner pockets are handy for keeping track of train, ferry and plane tickets. The truffle brown color of the leather is classic, and will show the nicks, stains and wear from the years’ travels.

KRW16,000 (US$12)
http://www.a-land.co.kr

Photo from the Citizens' Movement for Environmental Justice

SEOUL – HE’S A MAN WHO likes his running water.

While South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has officially dropped his plans for a nationwide canal he claimed would have revived the heartland, his government is continuing to push forward with similar schemes to resuscitate the economy. One is a major maintenance project intended to restore the banks of the country’s four largest rivers and bolster the sagging construction sector. Another is the expansion of an existing canal that would connect the Han River, which snakes through the heart of the capital, with the Yellow Sea.

Lee gained widespread popularity before becoming president as the mayor of Seoul for tearing up a massive arterial to make way for a park tracing Cheongye Stream, which had been buried underneath. But his latest projects have landed him on the blacklists of South Korea’s environmental groups. The Han-Yellow Sea expansion of the Kyeongin Canal has drawn the ire of a several in the area who lampoon the project as wasteful and unnecessary — not to mention ecologically disastrous.

Kwon Chang-sik, secretary general of the Joint Committee Against the Canal, recently told the Kyunghyang Sinmun that the Kyeongin Canal is full of standing water tainted by sewage. Were it to be connected to the Han River, oil and other runoff would flow into an estuary along the banks of the Han and destroy a habitat for seasonal birds. The economic benefits of the expanding the canal are nil, Kwon said. “Traveling the distance of the canal takes 30 minutes by car but would take 4 hours by boat.”

SEOUL — A RACK FULL OF IDENTICAL silver bicycles caused me turn my head and pause a moment as I made hurried strides away from my office. With baskets hanging from the handlebars, they looked  utilitarian but not sturdy; the bikes’ clunky design gave off a shine of cheapness. Their frames were adorned with lettering praising the supposedly clean air of Seoul’s Jongno District, and they were locked with identical locks. Briefly considering  their proximity to the district office, I was led to an exciting conclusion — these must be public bikes!

Unfortunately, it was the wrong conclusion. I stopped by the Jongno office on Tuesday to ask about registration but ended up speaking with a man who told me the bikes were for use only by civil servants (who likely weren’t using them due to a cold snap). He lamented that a program styled after Paris’ Velib was a long way off in Seoul. While the government recently announced plans to expand the capital’s shoddy network of bike lanes (which are often used by pedestrians, roller-bladers and flippant men and women on scooters), getting together the funding to create such a program would be difficult, he said.

In sharp contrast, the provincial city of Changwon in Korea’s far south set up a thoroughly advanced bike-sharing program last year. Citizens can check out bicycles digitally, lock up at dozens of stations around town and feel safe knowing that any medical bills resulting from accidents will be at least partially covered by the municipal government. All of the bikes are also equipped with navigation systems that sit between the handlebars.

It’s great that small towns are cutting new pathways towards sustainability, but shouldn’t Seoul be leading the way? A big part of the problem is a jumbled mess of roads and merciless traffic, admitted the Jongno employee. Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon met with the head of National Geographic Channel Asia to sign an MoU on combating climate change earlier this week. But whether Oh will make any groundbreaking changes to foster a bike-friendly culture in the city remains to be seen. Certainly getting public workers to see the streets from the saddle is a step in the right direction.

I LOVE THE SOUND of trains passing. Our car rocks gently to the side and there is a thrumming like a sudden pulse of drums or the the roar of a factory; air moving in invisible and violent ripples.

We’re about an hour south of Seoul. The cities we pass are cold, industrial. Pale gray apartment clusters tower above the brown landscape while in the distance pillars of steam ascend into azure oblivion. The rural patches in between are dotted by low brick shanties with tiled roofs and rows of greenhouses made with wire and plastic. Rolling into Daejeon Station, an old man in a newsboy cap and protective face mask waits with his bicycle next to the tracks. Where he will go after we pass is only a flicker of a thought as my eyes soak in the rushing landscape; my mind is like heavy paper slowly and longingly being dipped in watercolor.

***

With the exception of a weekend jaunt out to the east coast in November, my wife and I had not left the capital since we arrived in July — two days after our wedding. Planning an overdue escape to Japan was thrilling in itself; the sense of relief I felt as we pulled away on the KTX was like finishing the last day of seventh grade. I pushed any notion of having to make a return trip as far out of my mind as I could muster.

We arrived in the port city of Busan and quickly hopped aboard a blue bus driven by a round-faced thirty-something sporting aviator sun glasses whom we soon learned had the most boring route in the city: shuttling tourists the two mile stretch between the station and the international ferry terminal. Traveler convenience, at the price of a young man’s sanity.

The boat was smaller than we both expected. The cabin was clean but its air was permeated by a distinct sourness indicative of past bouts of seasickness. I took notice of the presence of safety belts warily. An explanation saying that the Beetle Ferry sometimes has to take evasive maneuvers to avoid sea creatures (the Kraken?) did little to settle the force of our combined anxieties.

As we made our way out of the harbor, an aging concrete neighborhood built up into a hillside caught my eye. Perhaps inspired by the surrounding waters, the outer walls of the buildings were painted various tints of sea-foam and aquamarine. I was struck by how Busan itself looked like a different country in many ways. It seemed older, rusting and weathered, but somehow more sturdy because of it. I imagined that a building here could crack or become encrusted in salt but that still it would stay — as opposed to in Seoul, where everything is eligible for “redevelopment.”

We floated into the port of Fukuoka just as the sun was sinking into the Tsushima Strait. I watched through the spattered windows, groggy from the Dramamine, as the last of rays of light turned the islands off the coast into silhouettes and left the sky blushing shades of deep purple and blue. I saw palm trees waving in the breeze and felt something like awe. They seemed so alien in the cold air that I knew was waiting outside.

Customs was gray and bleak, but friendly. While being finger-printed and photographed didn’t exactly say Yosoko! to me, the officials — women and men suited in royal blue — bowed graciously as we exited and set foot on their soil.

***

A boxy but polished black cab wheeled up to the curb in front of the terminal and as soon as I caught sight of the well-groomed driver sitting on the right side I felt a rush of giddiness. Having never been to England or any of the other nations around this great planet where people drive on the left, the novelty excited me — almost as much as the cab’s passenger door, which flung open automatically.

Inside the car was immaculate: an uncorrupted waft of air freshener and what looked liked large, crisp white doilies stretched tightly over the seats. “Konichiwa!” I offered as I threw my bag and myself inside, and our driver kindly returned the greeting. As Janice got in I fumbled for the hotel’s address, which I had printed in Japanese. But there was no need; as soon I said “Monterey La Soeur Hotel?” he nodded, without looking at the folded paper, and we sped off.

Early in the ride, I gathered that the cabbie was asking us where we were from. “America, United States deska?” Reflexively responding in the elongated vowel sounds that in Korean mean “affirmative” (Yeeehhh), I quickly readjusted to produce the sharper, more disciplined, “Hai! America-des!”

Against my parents’ fretful advice to respond to inquiries of nationality with the fib of being from the upper end of North America, I take a bit of pride in telling people I’m from the States — especially in Korea, where I speak the language. When I went to purchase Japan Rail passes before our trip at the Hanatour branch near my office, the woman behind the desk first guessed that I was from Europe, maybe France. The subtly shocked expression that bloomed on her face when I told her I was from “Miguk…Seattle,” was unexpectedly gratifying. I felt I’d made a chip, however slight, into the monolith of anti-American sentiment that has formed over the past eight years.

My first impressions of Fukuoka — indeed, of Japan as a whole — was that it was at ease with itself. Even from the cab I could feel a kind of effortless energy that was soft, calm. The crosswalks were crowded with businessmen, students, people on bikes and a smattering of expats; all heading out or making their way home to enjoy the Friday night just as anywhere else. But something about the way people walked and rode their single-speeds, in the manner they held their heads as they regarded the glow of the city around them, was entirely strange and wonderful to me.

Despite the view from our hotel room (or what many would describe as the anti-view — we looked into an office building where some lonely soul was eating instant noodles), the La Soeur was exactly what we needed: clean, quiet and in the center of town. We dropped our things wearily and set out for food.

The first meal in a new place is always hard. It should set the tone for the rest of the trip in terms of quality and price, and should neither be so extravagant nor so bizarre as to make your stomach think that this is what it should be expecting in the week ahead. Simply put, it should be local comfort food. After a couple whirls around the block and the onset of hunger shakes, that’s exactly what we found at a small vending-machine style joint serving udon and tempura and Kirin on tap. We ravaged our bowls of noodles in greedy mouthfuls and failed at attempts to savor the delicate taste of the fried vegetables and fish cakes, but we felt better in short order — if not completely satisfied, hunger-wise. I let the bubbles of my beer roll down my throat and soothe me, and shook off my exhaustion.

We meandered around the Tenjin shopping district in the chilly night air and further subdued our appetites with a snack from Mister Donut, an American chain that floundered Stateside but has flourished in Korea and Japan by satisfying their citizens’ penchant for cakey sweets. As we rounded the corner near the Solaria department store, we remarked somewhat jealously on the smooth edges of the city’s atmosphere.

Tenjin drew comparison’s to Seoul’s Myeongdong district but the differences in character could not have been more plain. Shoppers were still rushing to get where they were headed, yet no one was bumping into each other. This was certainly due in part to the lower volume of people, but I got a distinct feeling there was more to it — some agent of culture working beneath the surface that was absent in Korea. It was a feeling that Janice and I would experience throughout our trip.

We ended the night with our heads on sandbag pillows and television we couldn’t understand.

SEOUL — THE FERRY PITCHED AND ROCKED in the dark waters of the Tsushima Strait. Foamy white caps spun off the tops of waves outside as attendants rushed wobbly-legged around the cabin, passing out sick-bags left and right to passengers appearing in need. The engine of the hydrofoil shuddered to a stop and then started again as the captain negotiated the rollers. An older, heavyset woman stumbled to the back row looking pale and queasy before she was escorted to first class to lay down on top of a blanket. I looked across the aisle at Janice; her eyes were shut tight and her hand cupped around her lips. Things were not looking good.

It was an unfitting end to what had been a calm, even enlightening trip to the southwest of Japan. Our initial voyage to Fukuoka from the South Korean port city of Busan had been smooth: we knocked out soon after we hit the seats, thanks to the Dramamine. Since then we had rocketed to Kyoto aboard the Shinkansen Hikari bullet train, meandered peacefully from temple to temple and soaked in the public baths of our ryokan. We had strolled the Blade Runner landscape of Osaka, ate tacoyaki along its famed Dotonbori and watched the last sunset of 2008 from the top floor of the Umeda Sky Building.

Our journey (what I say was “Honeymoon Part I,” with promises that “Part II” will involve beaches and hammocks) also gave me the opportunity I had been craving to evaluate the raft of changes that have taken place in my life. Looking back on the past six months I saw transformations in myself with which I am uncomfortable, mostly relating to my attitudes towards work and my ambitions as a writer and to how I’ve (not) settled myself in Seoul. But orienting oneself on the map is only the first step; the next is determining the heading.

One of my major regrets is allowing my posts to this blog to become so infrequent. I feel confident that the quality of content still maintains a high standard, but I aim to make the site flower over the next few months to the tune of my new mantra: substance first, then style. Expect to see more, if not truly daily, writing here in the near future — beginning with a thorough travelogue of my adventures in Japan and unfolding into what I hope will be an insightful look at the complex nation in which I now reside.

I wrote when I moved here that this site would not become a Korea blog, a vague term I used to encompass the lot of blogs run by expats here: those both shallow and incisive, aimed at keeping in touch with family back home, venting about the maddening aspects of this society or following and dissecting its news. While I still aim to keep The Daily Transit cosmopolitan and travel-oriented, it seems foolish to avoid publishing my observations or leave unexplored issues into which I now have a unique window.

Cheers to you readers who have stuck with me and best wishes in the New Year.  Stay tuned for the full chronicle of our Japan journey, and safe travels.