March 9, 2004

• I Left my Heart in San Francisco

  
  

  I’ve been tittilated. The friends who I met at the San Francisco JET orientation, but currently living in in Osaka, came to visit me in inaka (the Japanese countryside) among the wild monkeys and boars. There’s a sense of pride showing my rural way of life and the simplicity of it, being completely immersed in this poduck town the past 7+ month with a port-o-potty for a toilet and a high-powered hose to blast away shit streaks. Yeehaw. Yet my drama free existence had rarely been stimulated; my mind had taken the form of large, gray matter also known as rotting elephant dung. And like my other friends I made in the second least inhabited prefecture in Japan, our current state of mind had begun to (de)evolve into the simple minded folk of our villages… awaiting for the next binging session with sake, shochu, and bad Japanese beer. I don’t even like alcohol. My face turns red like the rear of a baboon’s butt. Moreover, the processing of any type of auditory, visual, emotional stimulation had begin to converge to the aching area known as my loins. My life has begun to reflect an x-rated version of the hick-ville syndicated TV show Dukes of Hazard… minus the car chases, wheelie’s, and white folk. Actually, I don’t even think I watched Dukes of Hazard. In other words, I became Japanese trailer trash and I didn’t even know it – until ‘dem city folk arrived.

  
  

  It was a girly weekend. My four fabolous gurhlfrens arrived bright and early in the morning, marveled by the abundance of trees, mountain, and the ocean. After all, Osaka is known as a complete concrete jungle, lacking any sense of lush greenery that only the countryside can provide. And let me say that these women are beautiful. Not only aesthetically, but in the emotional, intelligent, intangible sense of beauty only attained through colloquial exchanges revolving around social constructs, the search of knowledge, and human understanding.

  
  

  I am utterly enthralled with these people… and they are all from the Bay Area.

  
  

  San Francisco, the “City by the Bay” goaded by the imperfections of the rest of the nation in order to right the wrongs, or improve, for that matter, the desultory vision of conservative activists led by Bush. The epitome of America’s melting pot, the city spattered with a cornucopia of underground cultures and cuisines – one of the best in the world. A respective city with respectable inhabitants… almost rightfully maintaining an elitist, almost snobbish, air. The beach and redwood forests are at the city’s doorstep; the mountains and the deserts are its next door neighbors; its vineyards, hot springs, and fog are its lifeline. San Francisco, the most “European” looking city in the states which embodies the architectural charm and history despite its young age. San Francisco, the home of the “rogue governor,” the gays, the movers & shakers, the hippies, vegans, feminists, surfers, writers, artists, musicians, and Robin Williams. San Francisco, my home… and where my heart desires to return.

  
  

  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not taking my time here in Japan for granted one bit. If anything, it has only made me appreciate my home more… to know I can continue to search for onsens, Shinto Shrines, and Japanese gardens within the city’s core.

  
  

  My god… I’m not the biggest fan of America, but I am in love with San Francisco.

  
  

  Forty-eight hours with people you respect and admire can put a complete spin on one’s life. These four friends that I have just started to get to know, and will continue to know after this Japan business is over, have instilled a sense of wonder to explore my adult life in a city where I know I will thrive in. They have helped me realized that I am but a mere 22/23 kid ready to embark on my actual adult life with stimulating, intellectual, like-minded San Franciscans. I am so excited that I have mild diarrhea. And although I never really thought life as bleak, although I can usually catch myself brooding in a corner and hating everyone, my new life long friends have given me hope in life. Before they came to visit, I felt myself being swallowed and digested into a country bumpkin. But I’ve been purged… and now there’s only four more months of riding this tsunami before I reach that Golden Gate.

  • 9:32 am
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