Kyoto, hours 4-6

A few weekends back I took the bullet train to my sister's hood in Kobe. From there, Osaka and Kyoto are both less than an hour by train. We spent a Saturday in Kyoto, eating, riding rented bikes, and getting lost as shit.
To someone not acquainted with Japanese food, this must be strange at best. They're all daikon radishes, pickled in several difference concoctions and marinades. Most Japanese meals are followed by orange half circles of daikon. In Kyoto, the capital of traditional Japanese cooking, the pickles cover every color of the spectrum.

This was inside the Nishiki market, an institution for Japanese gourmands. Stretching 5 city blocks, the market is a single, too-narrow lane, bound on either side by stands selling everything from pickles, tempura, fresh fish, cakes and sweets, to rice, fresh produce, tea, and knives. The oldest knife shop in Japan, since the 15th-century, has an enclosed space in the market.
That is not my bicycle. In Gion, the sun sets as tiny lights––hanging from the front of wooden dining dens––flicker on. This is one of the "most authentic" places in Japan––or so must say the tourist books. This secluded maze of alleys quickly becomes a nightly rush of those eager to swallow Japan whole. Still, walking along the surgically clean sidewalks, alongside centuries-old, slatted houses, one might glimpse a geisha or meiko-san slipping down an all-but-empty alleyway. And think about who lives under the painted mask.

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decadence & decay in Bangkok

Bangkok. The city's a behemoth, a concrete monster. Horrible pollution, little green space, and empty crumbling buildings that compete for space with cranes for new construction. The Asian economic boom of the mid-1980s spurred furious, directionless growth. Now, there's no city center, public transportation is a joke, and traffic some of the worst in Asia.
The shiny new airport is 30km outside of town, a 45 minute cab ride at 5:00am (the only time there's no traffic). A sky rail is being constructed to connect the airport to the city. It won't be completed for years. The flashy new airport has rankled Bangkokians since it's opening last fall. The old airport was old, yet fully functioning. And, it was connected to the city's nascent subway system. The new one is built over acres of lowlands that were once a mass cemetery.
The three above pictures were taken near Chinatown. Ah, rampant development in poor Asia.

Despite the abominable architecture and city planning, I love Bangkok. The people and the food are enough to have made me come a 2nd time. The juiciest, least fibrous mango ever to touch my tongue. This is my friend/Thai uncle Chanin cutting it for a plate of sticky rice and coconut milk. In addition to food, he serves pocket-fulls of wisdom with a side of shrewd common sense ("you have to find out where you come from and why you're on this planet–this is the most important thing for Buddhists").
And the strangers. "If I only knew more Thai," was the regret floating in my head as I walked around. Still, most times I could get by with the few phrases I knew. I stumbled upon a dozen old guys gathered around equally old marble tables, passing the stuffy afternoon in the shade...
Life in the shade, or under highway underpass. That's where this family spends most of their time. Amid the incessant roar of cars above, two of the children play the same game as the old guys in the shade (above).
Leaving Thailand on a Sunday morning, I knew I probably wouldn't come back, at least not for a while. Flying by gargantuan billboards advertisting Japanese cameras and European-owned hotels, I thought how the tourists is a parasite in Thailand. Take, take, take...take the white sand, the fake fashions, pirated CDs, cheap sex and massages. Take products, not culture. Not faces and the stories behind them. I took pictures, and no one asked me for money once.

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Gursky in N. Korea

I first saw these images in April's edition of Wallpaper magazine. The article explained that somehow, the German-born photographer got permission to attend a military ceremony in Pyongyang–not once, but a few times, since the first batch of images were too dark. In the large format photos, thousands of military personnel and state dancers become specks. They're static in front of giant murals of state propaganda.

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Takashi Murakami's Daruma

This is Daruma, the patriarch of Zen Buddhism. Overgrown eyebrows and mustache, terrifying stare–this is a common face in Japanese traditional painting. But this rendition by Takashi Murakami is the most vivid I've seen. Dubbed the "Warhol of Japan," Murakami has made name on both sides of the Pacific with his eclectic mix of graphic and fashion design, manga, and silk screen prints. “Tranquility of The Heart, Torment of The Flesh - Open Wide The Eye of The Heart, and Nothing is Invisible,” is the name of Murakami's exhibition going on now in New York.

Back to Daruma. This guy's story is worth telling: an Indian monk who brought Zen Buddhism to China around the 5th or 6th century A.D. He began meditating in Shaolin monastery and 9 years later hadn't blinked his eyes, much less moved. His arms and legs atrophied, withered and fell off. But he attained enlightenment. Damn.

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