Jan 2006

My adventure is still not over...i don`t want to stop it even if my travel in this country became a normal lifestyle...work, home, housband, friends, cinema on sunday night and video on monday.
i really don`t want to go back..but the date is set:sunday 15th Jannuary, my flight is waiting for me at Osaka airport to bring me back home, but will not last forever..i can feel that!
looking to my closet wondering what i`ll need... maybe just a backpack will be enough..no, no space for Omyage (souvenirs). Maybe i have to leave here some of the sweather i made by myself at night, when, i still remember, i couldn`t understaind the television! should i have to bring with me the thousands picture i took in every single spot i`ve been to? no..maybe just a cd will be more than enough...
i can believe, since few years ago, all of us, coming back from a trip, we were full of films of any kind! Ｎo digital camera hidden in the front pocket of the jeans with a neverending lithium battery in the cap...i miss those days...
Anyway, i think between me and my new closet there`s something wrong..i feel like, when i`ll step on the italian soil next sunday night, i`ll be back in time somehow, like if there`s a Delorian Time Machine instead of an airplane parked at the International airport!
i`ve been here for 2 years, no stop, and i know that slowly, i`m becoming japanese.. I mean,for example, two years without the car. Not because i can`t drive but because i DONT NEED IT! i like to catch the sybway here, there`s nothing wrong with it! is safe at night, people are clean and kind, it brings u everywhere without gettin mad in the traffic jam, fighting for a parking spot or waiting ages to comeback home from the seaside on saturday afternoon! Yes, i like to catch the train! I rome the train is WRONG, first because for the people is not COOl, then because is fucking scary and stinky! It doesn`t matter at what time u got in it, could even be 6.00 am it stinks! Plus, On the subway, a girl travelling by herself, can feel the men`s eyes running through her body, up and down, like if she was the first woman they ever seen!
If u don`t have a car, scooter, truck, camper or anything else with an engine, u r done!
Cell Phone. In japan the cellphone cost NOTHING. Everybody`s got the cell phone, even the over 65years old ladyies use it! It`s easy and is cheap. It has everything u need just in one touch! NO problem with range, with stupid different rates depending to who u call, how often, which operator with, at what time in which city of the same country u r doing the telephone call...they`ll ask us even why we r calling...
Then there is the latest thing...the people. I never met in my life a population so kind and clean. It doesn`t matter who u r or where u come from they always smile to u. U get in a shop, and the girls working give the wellcome with a great smile on the face (maybe smetimes is too loud but is always a pleasure!). In all the shops and restaurant, people employed are well dressed,jacket and tie for men, hair, makeup, hands, always tidy, for women.
no one screems in the street, no horn yelling from the car, no men talking to my ass (even if pornography in japan is very..."appreciated"...).
There`s something scary in this apparent perfect society, or maybe is just something totally obscure to us to understaind... This ultramodern lifestyle, with free information channels coming and going anyhwere, super telephones, web access and cable tv even on the trains, pornography for all the tastes, job chances for the over numbered citizens...why we are not like them?
Why we can`t keep our cities like they do? Wy the trains are always in late and in awful conditions, why people always find the shortest and the simplest way to do things, buildng palces? why we can`t appreciate the lifestyle we have instead of complaining because the car infront is slow or because the last playstation model is sold out?
what western society has to learn, is not how to reach the highest speed with the new ultrapower car, but how to respect the road they are walking on.
That s about it..i needed this lines to say my point of view..i`ll let u know how`s going down n the sunshine country of Itlay.

as everybody knows, in japan, last nite eve is not an event to celebrate with wild parties, night clubs, dancing and drinking untill next mornig..not at all.
This year, i decided to spend the "night" in another way, standing to the japanese traditions.
My boyfriend and I, left Nagoya (city where we live) to go to sky.
Now, Japanese mountains are not beautiful as the eurpean alps or the italian dolomites, but there is a sense of magic tha climbs the air....
We went through the high way for 100Ks, then heading towards Nagano prefecture and start to climb the frozen road up to the sky.
On the way to Ontake-san ("san" is used to design "mountain"), mountains are characterized by inscrpited votive stones standing on the sides of the road, all over the way to the Great Temple of the Waterfall. Japanese philosophy of life, Shinto, said that everything is nature, that all of us wll be back to nature after the death and, for this reason, Nature represents the world of gods (well knows as "kami"). Mountains, rivers, lake, bushes,all these elemests, are populeted by spirits, that people use to pray for, give offers to, go to pilgrimage from far away since long long time! That`s the reason why natural spot, even the simplier ones, are somehow pointed by a religious sign that can be a small temple,a simple altar with money cases for offers or just a "mon", the big gates at the entrances of religious places.
by the way, especially this area, is particulary known as more ..."spiritual" then others. Here is one of the biggest pilgrimage way to the Waterfall temple. The pilgrimage can be walked every time of the year, but doing it on winter seems to have more spiritual effect on the soul:the temperature is, usually, around -10 and once reached the Waterfall, the devote has to get change with a light cotton white t\shirt and just with that, has to climb the massive water fall to take some of the iced water, and pray. This has been done since few centuries and people keep doing it!
I skiped the "undressing" and i visited the Waterfall totally dressed up with boots, gloves and wool cap...sorry guys.
The sky resort was in the middle of the "road" an at nite, especially last nite eve, when me and my boyfriend were "patying", i really didn`t feel confortable..,maybe it was nothing but, the wind through the trees, the old building with its smell, the old sisters which owened the hotel...well didn`t make us feeling confortable!
any way, i spend the most exciting and spiritual last nite eve of my life!
even because in the morning, i had A GREAT SKY DAY!