nudity.slip

Japan 2024# Tokyo start

Added 2025-09-10 15:00:11 +0000 UTC

And so, we finally made it to Japan)

This trip begins and ends in Tokyo. As you know, it’s been my dream — to return here a second time and explore not just Tokyo but other cities too. Because of the jet lag, our “first” Tokyo was especially nocturnal: long walks under the neon lights and even longer mornings in bed.

We happened to be there for Halloween. Not that we planned it, but that’s how it worked out. And yet, despite the costumes, the crowds, the joy and chaos, my personal feeling of Tokyo at night is loneliness and a touch of melancholy. Maybe I’ve listened to too much Japanese lo-fi, or watched too many films. But it’s not a heavy loneliness — it’s romantic.

Like in Lost in Translation: you’re in this enormous city, surrounded by endless buildings, lights, and cars. Hardly anyone speaks English, and you feel as if you’ve slipped into a film — just watching, trying to say something, but always outside the screen.

It also reminded me of Gaspar Noé’s Enter the Void, another film set in Japan — heavy, dark, almost suffocating. Before I saw it, I thought I’d love to live here one day, that the Japanese way of being would naturally take root in me, that I’d adapt quickly and feel at home.

Or Kobo Abe’s novel The Box Man, which I read back in university, long before I even dreamed of traveling. Another sad, very “Japanese” story — about a man who chooses to live inside a box. (I just found out it was made into a film — so now I know what I’ll be watching tonight.)

But still, despite all the melancholy, films, and books that shaped my image of it, Japan fascinates me and stays in my heart as something beautiful — a place for reflection, for quiet thoughts, for new realizations.

And the truth is, I wasn’t truly lonely there. That “loneliness” I felt was more of an atmosphere than a reality. Because with Gary by my side, I never feel alone.

P.S At this point, we officially have an extreme amount of photos taken in showers and bathtubs. Enough to publish a three-volume book )))