February 4, 1992
Dan,
Your mission, should you decide to accept, is to make your
way on the Japanese railroad lines from Himeji Castle
back to your bed near Seisinchou by 11:30 because that's
when the trains stop running and it's now 10:15 (thankfully
time at least is understandable) unlike the totally screwed
up written language that the Japanese have evolved from
Kanji (Chinese inheritance?) to Hiragana to Katakana to
Romaji but at the moment there is no Romaji in sight
ANYWHERE not even on the side of the train itself which
is an express or is it a local? - it matters because it
may go right by your stop however you could go up and
over to get back which I did do yesterday but right now
Sannomiya is where I need to get to and its Kanji symbol is
(I think) if I can get there I know the way God I'm thirsty
and this head cold with its runny nose doesn't help much
in trying to find the box with the line down going to the
left - Okay time to ask one of these people where the fuck
I am supposed to go of course they don't speak or understand
English at all but if I could simply pronounce "Sannomiya"
and look puzzled maybe they'll get the idea. Great. I only
stuttered a little bit and they pointed over there... Track 1
or Track 2? Gotta piss where's a bathroom? It's raining again
and my socks are wet so it's good that I packed an extra pair
in the bag but I can feel the athletes foot fungus growing.
It's better here than in India at least because there I was
totally entranced by the women in their elegant saris and deep
eyes but they do have some rather bizzaro comic book pornography
here but they cost about 300 yen which is close to $2.50 so
it's totally outrageously expensive to do anything around here
seeing as how I spent 1700 yen ($13) to go to a Japanese film
tonight (boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl)
and now I'm late and I probably shouldn't have gone - oops
the conductor just told me to get off - this is the end of the
line for this train What? Ooatsu-Kobe? Where AM I?
Time to ask someone else. Thankfully everyone I've ever
asked has been completely helpful and kind but hey they
can't go with me and lead me by the hand right to the place
that I need to get cause I'm tired.
Deranged in Japan,
Love,
Jon