Beppu, Film, Materialism v. Idealism

I just got back from a trip to the city of Beppu. It was an epic adventure done solo, how epic adventure's should always be done (or with a group of Greek men on a giant row boat, but that's not really my style or grace of life).

I did finally find this amazing onsen called Kabeyu that features a bath in a cave next to a river with beautiful tree branches hanging over it all. A nice farmer from Kusu-town joined me and offered me snacks that he put on a floating piece of wood that was in the cave water, which was a little warmer than luke-warm. We had a very interesting conversation completely in Japanese in which he explained that many of the cultural differences between America and Japan can be related to the fact that Japan is thin and America is wide (I thought that this might be the most enlightening one idea about the subject that exists). Droplets of water fell from the cave walls above while I watched them hit the dark, reflective surface of the water. It was as majestic as it sounds; all the while the river's sounds and waters flowed down past the cave.

I stayed in the closest thing to a Italian nunnery-hotel in Japan for less than $25. Unlike the Italian equivalent this place had an indoor onsen (more like a bathouse with natural geothermally hot water) and didn't have an early curfew. It was Monday night so nothing scandalous was happening in the town that I could see (not that I was looking for a scandal)... I went to a restaurant called hyaku zen no yume (one hundred thousand dreams, I think). It was on the seventh floor of a shopping mall and had decent Italian wine for $4.50 a glass (and good servers).

Beppu's expansive "Beppu Park" reminded me of a city only slightly larger: my hometown Eugene (pop. ~150,000). I had my old, manual 35mm SLR, the Nikon FG-20, complete with a Nikkor 28mm f2.8 lens. It was so nice to shoot with film again. I must say that it makes me want to always shoot with film, despite film's inconveniences. Digital seems to be so material-less; the image is one step closer to being just an idea in one's brain as it is a practically weightless piece of information stored on some hard-drive. While that weightlessness does seem to match the truth of our brains and our thoughts' virtual weightlessness I remain nostalgic for film: it represents another form of truth - material reality - the weight of life that is a serious requirement of life. The body that surrounds the practically weightless thoughts in one's mind (the body that the mind cannot live without).

As my deadline approaches in Japan I get more and more sentimental about my time here... I already want to come back....