It wasn't the first time I had to wander around Osaka until the trains started. It was the first time I had been that sober. Took a strange turn just East of Umeda and things got weird. One of my favorite things about Japan is how going one block over can make everything change. Everything changed for the depressing. I found the street lined with Chinese prostitutes, taxis and garbage. Sometimes, most of the time, in Japan, even the hookers ignore you. I am glad. My flight to Tokyo had two people on it. The lady at the airport was very sweet laughing about it. We saw Fuji-san a little after sunrise. It didn't photograph as well as it loomed.
Miami looked like Miami and photographed surprisingly well. Jet lag came in handy as it got me up around 5am and kept me out of trouble by around 8pm. I had no idea I was walking into ground zero of Urban Beach Weekend. Which looked just like this but worse. Much worse.
I hope that isn't construed as me trying to be racist. It would be like being trapped in this little neighborhood with 250,000 drunk Hank Williams Jr. fans. It was just that it was 250,000 young African Americans who love every current in hip-hop that I despise in it. It was insane. I wanted to take pictures but I didn't want to get in the way. I almost got jumped for my wallet but I turned and gave the two guys my best junior high school teacher "what are you about to do" look which bought me the few seconds to get out of the situation. I told a cop whose response was, "Well, what are you gonna do?"
But I am jumping ahead. Miami Beach at 6am on a weekday morning is about as lovely as any urban environment I have ever been in. It is freakishly clean and surprisingly working class; which seems to make for nice morning neighborhoods almost everywhere.
A small squall blew over and the briefness of my time made me realize how much I miss the sky in Florida. It is the best sky anywhere. I like the East Tennessee sky at about 8pm on a summer night. Or Kagoshima late at night. But nothing beats Florida sun between clouds.
It's a strange thing to fly across the Pacific to dip your toes in the Atlantic.
5 comments:
This reminds me--really this time--how much I miss (aspects of) Florida. It is a beautiful state.
Hope the interview went well.
I feel like a traitor saying it, but you are right about the florida sky, especially the south florida sky. i can imagine Ciba being comparably beautiful, but not many other places.
Cuba, that is. Ciba is, if I'm not mistaken, a perpetually yellow-skyed city in a William Gibson novel.
By the way, i put draft one of the Miami chapter of my novel up on the blog in your honor.
The gangs all here. A traitor to which, David? Roddy Branch, Mexico, Texas or NOLA? I resent your implication that it is mostly South Florida however as we all know that NWF is the money melon. I will check out the novel. Make me start writing again.
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