More seeds

So there we were in Tokyo in 1996, Erik teaching English and me doing research at Keio University but feeling rather unmotivated and increasingly homesick. Although I wasn't particularly busy (I had no lectures to attend and was working at my own pace), I looked forward to the weekends, when I usually stayed at Erik's apartment. We drank, did art, listened to music, and watched videos into the small hours, whereupon I'd collapse on a futon in Erik's bedroom while he and his girlfriend slept on another futon in the lounge. Erik encouraged me in my artistic endeavours, and I discovered a fondness for collage.

Occasionally we'd venture out, often to art galleries during the day, and restaurants at night. We also played chess. One evening, inspired by the Situationists and fueled by cheap red wine, we concocted our very own "drifting" game, which involved heading off on foot from his apartment with a deck of cards, the direction and duration of our urban rambles and other decisions determined by cards drawn at each intersection, with various other "signs" (the sighting of a cat, for example) triggering additional changes in direction or other predetermined actions. The drift would end whenever a joker was drawn from the pack, at which point we'd race each other back to the apartment.

Along with a French-Australian astronomer called Boud, Erik and I became involved in the nascent anti-McDonald's movement in Japan - actually, we were the nascent anti-McDonald's movement in Japan - which formed in the wake of the famous McLibel trial in the U.K. In October 1996 we marked the International Day of Action against McDonald's by donning clown costumes purchased at Tokyu Hands and leafleting several McDonald's outlets in Shinjuku. The high point of our anti-McDonald's campaign was a protest in Shibuya on the evening of 7 March 1997 which ended with Boud and me being hauled off in our clown suits by the police for interrogation. The episode was filmed by Erik and formed the basis of the hit movie Bashing Ronald (25 min.).

By this time I'd decided to go back to New Zealand, at least a year earlier than planned, a decision that upset Erik a lot more than I realized at the time. I left Tokyo on 16 March 1997. I wouldn't see Erik again for over four years, although we did keep in touch, our correspondence taking the form of everything from scribbled notes on napkins to erotic postcards, and at least two cone-letters.

Erik stayed on in Japan for another couple of years, devoting an increasing amount of time and energy to his art. He then moved to New York, where he continued to paint. Keiko and visited him there in June 2001. I bought three of Erik's paintings, which hang in our living room. We last saw each other at the end of 2004, when Erik visited New Zealand, spending time in Christchurch and Karamea. Since then we've kept in fairly regular contact, mainly via email, but of late increasingly via Skype. In fact it was during a Skype conversation that we came up with the idea for the Nakasendo Project.

Distance walked today: 3km
Total distance walked since blog began: 61.7km