12.13.00 Seoul; drinking tea

The pollution, fatigue, or age setting in from the day—or I don't know just know last 30 hours or so have been hellish, stressful, and now not so much and the body can finally say, Hey now, what about me? My eyes hurt; the tea is good. ++ Who knows what happened that last day in Tokyo. I think we bought things via the Yarakucho line to Yarakucho, Starbucks—where a woman married to a Canadian man showed us to the restroom in her office building (where she works for the World Cup 2002), a bathroom containing one of those auto-toilets with a "shower for your back" and air (Angela loved it)—Hibiya line to Tsukiji and the fish market. Angela scored a few items at decent prices and I bought a plate I'm ambivalent about. Walked from there to Ginza—tried to arrange for tea ceremony but it was some kind of holiday and all rooms were being used privately (just like the night before when every attempt to locate a traditional bath proved unproven)—past the cool-looking Kabuki theater and into a department store for lunch, which sucked but was Angela's cup of tea. Of course, in travel and fatigue I pulled a passive-aggressive snit and ate the way I didn't want to eat and fumed for a few minutes. Luckily, Angela was cool about it and we were soon on our way to a 6-story paper store that wasn't but basic office supplies. In disappointment we caught the Yarakucho line to Ikebukuro and the Tobu department store—for socks I can wear for chanoyu—and for the ryokan and ultimately, the airport. But the department store beguiled us and we became lost in a 3-tower labyrinth of worldly goods and unseasonable heat in pursuit of the 9th floor and formal kimono. There I said, There! and surprisingly not no one spoke English but a young boy from Kyoto on apprenticeship to the kimono tradition. Helping me find socks was his match, me with my man-size feet and strange, occidental concerns that bore no relevance to the situation whatsoever. Eventually a woman, an old hand at kimono, came by, just as I was about to purchase 24.5 cm worth of cotton sock, to take one look at my clunky shoes and say, No way and make me try on a pair of all-season 25ers. Good eye, that Japanese ajuma—25cm is for me.

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