Sunday, January 21
I slept well, even had a dream. I was able to sleep off the floor somewhat on the air mattress that Eugenie and Robert gave me and this time I didn't get cold in the middle of the night. I had been waking up coughing because of the cold but this time I slept soundly through.
I also had a strange stressful dream that I was at Haystack and that I showed up completely unprepared. The dream was somewhat disjointed, sort of in bits and pieces but I recall showing up at Haystack (except in the dream Haystack looked totally different) with no tools, no supplies, no game plan. In the scramble to figure out what to do, I came up with an assignment, which isn't such a bad idea, to have each person do a tile (of wood) and using only color, do a personality tile of another person in the class, whose name they would draw from a hat. In the dream I was simply buying time and was on the phone trying to order supplies.
When I woke up, I was relieved to discover it was just a dream but then I thought of the upcoming Urushi class and started thinking of all the tools I wish I had brought.
I'm going to have to get a letter off to Yukiteru. Maybe he could let me do a bit of woodworking.
I did a bit of exploring the Old Asakusa area - Karen and I had been here earlier but I was busy having to listen to her complain about the crowds so I didn't really enjoy myself. But anyway so I found this outrageous arcade with the most high tech video games - It makes Nintendo look like "Pong". Holy shit. The motorcycle rides are actual motorcycles that you ride and the track is in front of you, and all the turns make the bike tilt accordingly. And then there is this Jurassic Park one where the thing you sit on is literally like a virtual reality ride; it has hydraulics that lurch and tilt and jump every time you get hit by a dinosaur or go down a hill. I did the car one, where you get in a car-like thing but the screen is so large and the visuals and sound effects are so convincing, that it is really sort of scary. The steering wheel also reacts to the way you are driving. Very bizaare.
Later I saw the shrines again; they are really interesting, but because of the lack of english guides its hard to tell what they are all about. There are also so many people about, its sort of difficult to get a sense of these structures. It's hard to say, but I am not too overwhelmed by them yet, anyway. I am sort of jaded by the European churches, which are so much larger and grander and scale, they are not the same.
The lack of visual information (the written word) is sort of strange for me. It makes me realize how much I read what's around me, whether that is a billboard, a menu, or even the advertisements that are on tv. The characters become hieroglyphics and are a code that I have yet to crack.
I also had a strange stressful dream that I was at Haystack and that I showed up completely unprepared. The dream was somewhat disjointed, sort of in bits and pieces but I recall showing up at Haystack (except in the dream Haystack looked totally different) with no tools, no supplies, no game plan. In the scramble to figure out what to do, I came up with an assignment, which isn't such a bad idea, to have each person do a tile (of wood) and using only color, do a personality tile of another person in the class, whose name they would draw from a hat. In the dream I was simply buying time and was on the phone trying to order supplies.
When I woke up, I was relieved to discover it was just a dream but then I thought of the upcoming Urushi class and started thinking of all the tools I wish I had brought.
I'm going to have to get a letter off to Yukiteru. Maybe he could let me do a bit of woodworking.
I did a bit of exploring the Old Asakusa area - Karen and I had been here earlier but I was busy having to listen to her complain about the crowds so I didn't really enjoy myself. But anyway so I found this outrageous arcade with the most high tech video games - It makes Nintendo look like "Pong". Holy shit. The motorcycle rides are actual motorcycles that you ride and the track is in front of you, and all the turns make the bike tilt accordingly. And then there is this Jurassic Park one where the thing you sit on is literally like a virtual reality ride; it has hydraulics that lurch and tilt and jump every time you get hit by a dinosaur or go down a hill. I did the car one, where you get in a car-like thing but the screen is so large and the visuals and sound effects are so convincing, that it is really sort of scary. The steering wheel also reacts to the way you are driving. Very bizaare.
Later I saw the shrines again; they are really interesting, but because of the lack of english guides its hard to tell what they are all about. There are also so many people about, its sort of difficult to get a sense of these structures. It's hard to say, but I am not too overwhelmed by them yet, anyway. I am sort of jaded by the European churches, which are so much larger and grander and scale, they are not the same.
The lack of visual information (the written word) is sort of strange for me. It makes me realize how much I read what's around me, whether that is a billboard, a menu, or even the advertisements that are on tv. The characters become hieroglyphics and are a code that I have yet to crack.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home