This blog is dead. I'm now at www.chepanzee.com and thomasgeorgewatts.blogspot.com

I just went into my local shop to buy myself a little lunch. Easy you might think, but I seemed to have made it appear sordid. I was browsing the aisles after picking up some Slow Roasted Lamb an Root Vegetables Soup when I saw some mouthwash. Aaah, I thought, I need some mouthwash. I'll just pick up a little pocket sized bottle. Oh, and hold on. I have a friend coming over tonight to talk about a writing job. I know, I'll buy some strong continental lagers for us to imbibe.
So there I was stood in the queue in the middle of the day holding a four pack of strong lager, some mouthwash and a can of soup. Nice. I looked like a drunk who hides his drinking and can only hold down soup.

The monesteries on the mountain of Koyasan were founded by Kobo Daishi, who changed his name to Kukai - which translates as sea of void.

It feels strange to pay buddhists money to stay with them and pray. I smoke and drink. I felt like I shouldn't be there - like another zen tourist - untill I discovered that the monks themselves love a piss up. At the monestries you stay in shikubos - little rooms with heated tables and T.V.s! - and can eat and drink waited on by trainee monks who are catching a glimpse of another world while they bring you bottles of beer and ashtrays. You can attend morning service at the ungodly hour of five A.M.

Why do the monks charge for board? Did they used to put up travellers but now the outside world has forced them to need money? Spiritually they don't. Is it upkeep? Buddha must be rich. Some of the prayer beeds cost thousands of pounds to buy. They used to sustain themselves, but now probably go down the cable car to shop at Asda.
"Oi! Sea of Void. It's your turn to do the shop."
"Oh, man. I replaced the paper in the fax last. Its your turn."
I imagine a monk in the cable car humming to himself carrying plastic bags full of shopping.

No beginning, no end, no footprints.

In a town famous for its buddhist monestries, with all the peace and non-violence that entails, I saw an advert recruiting for the Japanese army.


You're never just doing nothing
You're always doing something
Be it breathing, waiting, or just aging

The bag search at the Imperial Palace was a mime of a search. The white gloves mimed the movements of what it would be like to do a search, if the man conducting it was a real security worker.

"ooh! A photo opportunity. A samurai dancing in a paper hat backed up by what seemongly is a primary school beginners recorder group."

All Japanese schools have Uhnicycle sheds, in prospect halving the amount of wheels on the road in the future.

I`m starting to discern the individual noises amid the cacophony of the city. The double beeps of the cross-walks stands out from the babble.

I eat raw eggs cracked over rice, or by dipping meat into them.

The disdain for society, the acts of vandalism we have back home, vanish here Everyone is a whole. All are part of a functioning body - where you wear a surgical mask to prevent other members of your society cathing your cold. In Britain you get drunk and commit vandalism or destruction against the city you live in. Here, I don't even want to drop a cigarette butt. People here carry portable ashtrays with them.

The Japanese are really into rank and heirachy. Under the cherry blossoms - sakkara - the lowest person in rank at the the company must reserve a place, all day, for the rest of the company. Then they must pour the drinks for everyone else. Everyone gets hammered. I saw a chap being carried by his co-workers because he was so sozzled at seven in the evening.

The Geisha`s fame is the opposite of western fame. They are followed and photographed, snapped whilst getting into and out of cars. But it is not about them individually. It is about their costume and their image. The image is the celebrity. The dead-eyed girl behind it is not the one being photographed. She is only the walking embodiment of an idea of Japanese heritage.

So many things are flavoured, or taste of Green Tea. Do they have Green Tea flavoured water?

The Japanese see seafood and say, "oishi," delicious, and all they have to do is take it out of the water, and eat it, raw, like an apple plucked from a tree. Imagine if a cow walked the fields of Devon wrapped in a bun covered in relish. The food comes straight from the sea onto a plate.

Underneath an arch of cherry blossom trees
The upturned floodlights
Form a roof of white leaves
Dappled with holes of dark sky.

There seems to be constantly amplified shouting in the background. At the temple, from cars in the street and somewhere in the distance from where I am now, on the steps of a house in Kyoto.