<span style="color: #BFBFFF"><span style="font-size: 85%; line-height: 116%;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: center;"><a class="postlink" href="http://i.imgur.com/Tc9D4PE.jpg">[ img ]</a><br/><br/>Colm landed at Tokyo Haneda Airport at 6.53am December 12th. A very nice woman helped him purchase the right ticket for the train to Shinjuku Station (he had tried and failed twice before she lent a sympathetic hand) and showed him to his platform. Colm ate an egg sandwich with what he was sure had to be the fluffiest bread in the world as his first meal in Japan and wondered what he was doing there at all.<br/><br/>Apparently a lot of Japan wondered the same thing. <br/><br/>Colm had always been tall, but being tall in Japan was a wholly different experience. Particularly when people everywhere seemed to be consistently doing a remarkable job of staring at at the 6’4’’ giant in their midst without being obvious about it, which made it excruciatingly obvious to Colm. By 9pm of that first day he had hidden himself in the one room apartment of his AirBnB host (graciously away on holiday) burning with embarrassment after having smacked his head not once but five times on doorways and ceilings since he’d landed. The futon provided by his host was lumpy and thin enough to feel the cool of the floorboards through it with ease. His first foray into 7/11 convenience dinners rested uneasily in his stomach. The sound of the traffic outside the apartment was loud enough that he jumped with every horn honk and gunned engine. <br/><br/>Colm loved it. All of it. <br/><br/>His family had lived on the outskirts of North Pole in Fairbanks, Alaska, all his life. North Pole barely had a population of two thousand, Fairbanks was more like just over thirty thousand. For a place that was just bursting with breathtaking mountains and leagues of isolated forest it became awfully claustrophobic awfully fast when everyone in a thirty mile radius knew everyone else's dirty laundry. Tokyo was nothing like Fairbanks. <br/><br/>Colm had exactly zero understanding of the Japanese language when he’d bought his plane ticket. After his first week he had done little better than a few scattered phrases; If he had a 100¥ for every time he’d muttered ‘sumimasen’ he wouldn’t need to eventually find work. Hyperaware of his limited funds Colm surfs couches (Thank you, AirBnB. A thousand times thank you) and lucks out when one of his many hosts tips him off to the whereabouts of a number of temples where the monks will trade menial work for food and board. The opportunity does wonders for his wallet, by spring Colm’s savings are in respectable enough state that he treats himself to a month travelling around a few of the five sacred lakes in Fuji-Goko. Kawaguchiko is his favorite. He ends up renting a bike with brakes that are, at best dubious and at worst a death sentence, so he can ride to Aokigahara and wander the famous ‘suicide forest’. It doesn’t seem like the sort of place to maliciously draw people to their death, unless they’re all simply searching for complete tranquility. The forest is beautiful beyond compare in the afternoon sunlight - he’s disappointed when the sun sets and he has to return the bike to his hostel. <br/><br/>By midsummer Colm realizes he could be earning an income online teaching english. He wastes a day feeling stupid about not having figured this out earlier before he puts his profile on a few websites with a photo and brief summary of himself. He gets a number of requests, mainly young women, and after another couple of weeks finds himself managing to hold conversations (fitful and stumbling) with his students in both Japanese and English. One of his students, Kanako-chan, lives in Osaka and invites him to visit for the Tenjin Matsuri. Colm had been staying in Shibuya, but he falls in love with Osaka almost immediately. The festival is incredible, but Kanako seems to expect something from him and the impression leaves Colm feeling distinctly uncomfortable.<br/><br/>The leaves begin to turn, and one of the few friends he has made along his trip suggests Colm visit Kyoto for the bamboo forests and castles. Since he began teaching online his funds have more or less remained steady, but a few too many nights out have taken their toll on his wallet. He needs a place to stay and an idea of what he wants to do next. He needs a base of operation. <br/><br/>The air is crisp the day Colm is hiking up the Katsura river, but the sunlight is warm and golden. Everything is a riot of color in the early Autumn here, the ground is carpeted by fallen leaves in every hue of red, orange and yellow. Colm hitched his rucksack higher on his broad shoulders and considers his options. He’d gotten off the train at Arashiyama and crossed the river to hike along its bank with the forest, intending to turn back within the hour to hit the monkey park he’d seen a brochure for, but it was later than he’d anticipated when he’d gotten off the train. He wasn’t quite ready to turn around just yet, so he pushed on a little further to try round the slow curve of the river. He was walking a few feet away from where the waterways rocky banks began when he began to notice when the slow signs of human movement beaten into the forest floor. It didn’t appear as though anyone had been this way recently, not from how the low growing branches of trees pushed their way into the centre of what was beginning to look unmistakably like a trail, but it felt as though something must be just ahead. <br/><br/>Colm looked up to check the sun’s rays through the treetop canopy. It was still light, but the day as beginning to take on the telltale golden hue of an approaching sunset. He stopped and stared down the forgotten path ahead of him, straining to see through the leaves whether there was anything ahead worth investigating. Between the soft shushing movements of the trees and their leaves, his eyes caught the straight lines and right angles of what was undeniably man’s handiwork. Curiously, his concern toward the time pushed back in favor of some small adventure, Colm started along the trail once again.</div></span></span></span>