Grand Adventure Day 9: Art Museums

I finally did my laundry. The caretaker asked that I wait until after 10am to run the machine since it's kinda loud, so there went most of the morning. Visited the Horim Art Museum in Apgeong (?) first. When I checked on my phone, it recommended catching a train to a station, then taking a bus. When getting on the bus I couldn't find a sign with the prices. I turned this into a dumb-foreigner moment and started showing the bus driver different bills. Eventually, I gave him the 1000won bill and he pointed for me to get to the back of the bus. The Horim Art Museum had an exhibit of Korean pottery from the ... the ... I forget which dynasty. I'm also not sure if it was actual ceramic pieces from that time period, or works done by modern-day artists in that particular style.

The best parts about museum visits are that you can walk around them without anyone bothering you, or asking you to leave, well, until closing time; they're indoors and out of the sun; typically, they're pretty cheap for several hours of entertainment. As a daydreamer, I spent most of the time wandering and wondering what kind of creature might be housed in each of them, or what type of ritual would require that type of vessel. I stumbled upon a Shake Shack on my walk from one museum to the other and I definitely wasn't going to pass that up. I literally stopped in my tracks when I saw it, then headed right inside.

Now that I look at this picture, I'm not sure why I don't have fries. Did I not order them? Did I eat them all before I at the sandwich? Did someone steal them? Another mystery left unsolved. Along my route, I also spotted a lot of plastic surgery clinics. A lot. Like every block seemed to have at least one, and some were in buildings that I wouldn't even guess would house a medical facility. And the weirdest thing that just occurred to me as I write this, since I know they were plastic surgery clinics, why were the signs in English? Also, I saw this building

That's pretty cool, right. Several blocks away was the Korean Museum of Contemporary Art which had a exhibit on a story called, "The Little Prince." I think it was that they asked artists from ... I think it was all over, but really, it might've been within Korea (I didn't read the sign) to come up with art pieces using "The Little Prince" as the subject. I meant to look up the story/read it, but I forgot. Like with most contemporary art (both here and abroad), it was weird and at times disturbing ... disturbing that people would pay money to view this thing you put together and called "Art". My main interest is in seeing what people are currently putting together, what is the popular thing today that maybe I can learn from/replicate a little. I had an English class in college that required me to give a report on a book from the last 5 years to show the class what was currently being published.

All of the glass bubbles were filled with used chewing gum

From there I wandered around, walk up the street this way, then walk back the other way. I found a white building with "SM Entertainment" written on the outside but I can't find the picture I took of it. I also didn't go inside because I couldn't find the doors and was afraid to go pounding on the walls, searching for a door to someplace I'm probably not supposed to be. I wandered into a park, thinking I could sit on a bench and rest my legs from all the walking, but then a swarm of mosquitoes began to gather, like a black cloud in the setting sun. Fucking mosquitoes. I will talk about them more, but for now know that these fuckers are twice the size of the ones back home. And to just be massing like that, that's not right. Back home, I'll find a couple flying around in circles, like guerrilla fighters with hit-and-run tactics, one disappearing just as the other one swoops in to strike. I've never seen them just hanging in the air at eye level, forming up into a regiment before marching en masse onto whatever poor, unfortunate target got in their way. I took one look at that and just left.

For dinner, the plan was to head back the Hongik area, grab more food on sticks, and watch the buskers which should be even busier since it was Friday night. Instead, I ordered a plate of toppoki and ate it right there at the cart, unfortunately, right underneath a spotlight she set up at the ends of her cart. Hot food, bright light shining on me, I started to sweat. A lot. Then the heartburn hit as I was walking around, so I gave up and headed back to the hostel to turn in.

Grand Adventure Day 8: Bears

First day in Korea! I woke up feeling sick, even debated about checking out of the hostel and finding a place with my own room in case whatever I had got worse. It would've been really shitty to start the next part of my trip having to lie in a bunk bed for the next couple of days. Several hours later, I would decide that I wasn't sick, but instead that it was my ... nervousness ... dread ... at being in a foreign place without any language skills or sense as to what I should be doing. I would hang around my room for almost the entire morning: getting my stuff stored either under the bunk bed or in a cupboard, cleaning up the bottle of shampoo that spilled in my bag, charging my phone (which took over 3 hours, fuck the electricity in Korea). I would also need to figure out the shower situation: it was just one room with three shower stalls. Each stall had all the normal stuff, and a small shelf above the showerhead to put your clothes. Except the stall was so small that by the time I was done, there wasn't a dry spot to stand to put my clothes back on, especially since those clothes were usually the sweatpants I wore to sleep (so much colder than Japan) or in today's case, the jeans I fell asleep in the night before. Also, the issue of remembering to bring all my stuff into the shower. Luckily for me, this time, there was another person showering in one of the other stalls since I would forget my towel, so they tossed one of the free hostel towels over the top. The included breakfast was toast and coffee (thank god that we had coffee that first day). I chatted a bit with two other people, one from Monteal, Canada and the other from someplace in France.

I decided to walk a couple blocks around the hostel in either direction, just to kind of get my bearings on being in a new country I did no planning for. I'm going to let you know now, a lot of my days are spent walking around and looking at things. Thanks to my weird imagination, relentless daydreaming, and PokemonGo, it never feels like wasted time, you know, until later when people ask, "So what did you do today?" and I shrug my shoulders knowing that they don't want to hear "I don't know" because I wasn't really paying attention. I would find these interesting walls though

Eventually, needing to eating something more than toast and coffee, I stopped at a small shop that sold gyoza/mandu (is there a difference? I don't know). The shopkeeper and I charaded our way to an understanding that I couldn't buy just a couple pieces, but that he sold them in a set number. So I got a bunch then sat down. As he set them in the steamer, he brought out some side dishes (including those addictive radishes) and pulled a set of metal chopsticks (which I dislike) from a hidden compartment inside the table. Caught up on my journaling/reading while practicing eating. Yes, I know, I really should be better with those things, but my chopstick skills still leave a lot to be desired and it's unfortunately worse with the metal ones.

After lunch, I walked back to the station and took it a stop over to the Hongik University area. Bought a cup filled with fried chicken, tater tots, toppoki and all covered in that red sauce. You know the one. No, I have no idea what it is. I spent the rest of the day walking around. There were a couple of points of interest on the map I picked up at the hostel, but with my shitty sense of direction I never found them. I followed a billboard advertising "live-fire" to a gun-range, though it turned out to be air-soft guns. I didn't do too well with those. I did do a little better on the archery range, especially since the bows had that stick-thing in the front that supposedly helped with aiming, I guess.

and I know what you're thinking, but no, they didn't let me walk over there and shove the arrows into the target. I needed to shoot them on my own. So this was the ... third, I think, attempt. Also, I won a prize (though I think they just wanted me to leave)

It was also an opportunity to practice and get comfortable saying "Kamsamida" (I've probably misspelled that, and I guarantee that I mispronounced it a bunch of times too). I also meant to learn the phrase for "Could you take my picture?" but it's a lot faster to just hand people my phone. I found an arcade close by and played Point Blank and King of Fighters. I also came across this cool looking building

They sold ... artsy stationary stuff and books. I visited a couple of stationary stores as the afternoon turned to night, searching for a notebook(s). It turns out, like how some people might collect mugs or shotglasses or dirt from wherever they are on vacation, apparently I collect notebooks (so many notebooks). Maybe one day I'll do a post about the collection. I would pick up one with a picture of Brown from the Line Store as well as this picture with the giant Brown, though from all the money I spent on that Line Rangers game, I feel like they should've given me that Brown

Got a Bulgogi hotdog (a regular hotdog with thin strips of beef and sauce) from a vendor and walked back to the area I explored earlier to find people busking. Being the cheapskate I am, I decided to take the free entertainment and watch. The most entertaining ones were this group of highschool kids dancing to kpop songs in the middle of the street, having to stop every so often when a car needed to drive through. I seriously debated just standing in the road to block the way ("sorry, I'm just a dumb foreigner, I didn't know that I couldn't stand in the middle of the road"). Another group, while taking a break, brought a couple people into their spot to dance to a song. I also ate more food on sticks.

I headed back early to the hostel in the hopes that I could catch the caretaker and ask her how to use the washing machine. She wasn't there so I sat at the dining room table trying to catch up with my writing. The house manager showed up with cake shaped like a bunny as it was her assistant's last day and another one's first day, coming from ... Taiwan, I think (I'm bad a geography ... and listening) so this was also her first day. As much as I hate taking the time to take pictures of food, I really should've got a picture of that cake. I guess since I was already at the table, they invited me to have some of the cake to celebrate though I hadn't met either of these people until just now but, you know, cake. As we ate, eventually the dialogue switched over to Mandarin between the three of them, which, like my knowledge of Japanese and Korean, I know nothing of. But, since I still had cake and coffee, I just smiled and nodded like I knew what was going on. I am apparently an expert at this, or at least in an advanced class, as they asked me a couple of times if I actually understood anything that they were saying. Lucky, "smiling and nodding without understanding what is going on" is really the only trick that's gotten me through life.

Oh, but in the end I did find out how to work that washing machine, so mystery solved.

Stray

You feel an unfamiliar thud as your tires go over a bump you swore wasn't there. You bring the car to a slow stop and toss your phone onto the passenger seat, illuminating the car interior. Looking into the rearview mirror you see a black lump dimly lit by the orange glow of the streetlights and the glaring red of your car's brake lights. You put the car in park and, leaving it running, step out as the low, rumbling engine interrupts the otherwise quiet street. You aren't sure why, it's just a feeling. The rain soaked street lies empty except for a small red spot reflecting in the lights. Movement to your left draws your eyes to a shadowy figure limping into the alleyway.

What am I doing? you think as you leave your car and follow the feline into the alley. Peeking around the corner of the building, your eyes track the hobbling cat as its coat blends in with the darkness and its smell blends with the trash strewn about the alley. Down the alley it went, each paw dragging it along little by little into the increasing darkness. A single light briefly illuminated the walking corpse as it turned, pulling itself around the corner and behind the building. The cat out of sight, you stalk slowly, carefully, as if the soft sound of shifting gravel or the sharp sound of crushing glass might breath new life into its half crushed body and scare it away.

You freeze halfway down the alley, uncertain of the new sound in the darkness. It comes again and you recognize it for what it is - the soft mewing of a cat. Soft, strained, it comes again. And again. Abandoning stealth but still holding to caution, you finish the rest of the alley at a walking pace.

Turning another corner you find a service area in the back of the building: a loading area with dumpsters and boxes and crates and pallets, everything pushed and stacked neatly together and illuminated by a single, uncovered yellow bulb. In the middle of it all lies the cat, struggling to stand as its body trembles and blood pools on the asphalt under it. You arrive in time to witness its last mew, a death rattle piercing through the droning sounds of the city. Its will finally giving out, the black cat collapses onto the ground.

You approach, awaiting the moment the cat pops-up and runs away, or launches itself at you full of claws and fur and fury. Instead, you find exactly what you deep-down knew you expected to find. Death is all that remains of the stray. All falls silent in mourning for a second as you stare transfixed at the passed stray. Two seconds. Three seconds. Then a single ear-piercing Meow! cuts through the roar of the faraway engines. All falls silent again as if maybe it never came at all, perhaps just a haunting echo of your accidental victim. Another Meow!, different, closer another cat responding. A heartbeat later, another answer, closer than the last.

You turn to see a cat saunter into the service area from the alleyway. Another Meow behind you brings your eyes to one sitting on a stack of pallets. A dull thud reveals another walking along the top of a dumpster, yellow eyes glaring at you. All the while, the cries turn into an almost tangible cacophony that fills the air as more and more cats add their voices to the choir for one of their fallen brethren. Every time you turn to face a new sound or just the tingling sensation of a new pair of eyes on your back, a new cat appears to greet you with accusing eyes. More and more fill the once nearly empty area: they line up on a low wall or sprawl on the raised dock or just pace in circles. Always appearing the moment before you turn to see where they might've come from, like a magician through a trap door, or the devil. It only takes a minute or two for the alley to fill with them, cats of all shapes and sizes and colors, but all crying vengeance, not only for their kin lying dead at your feet, but all the others throughout the city, the country, the world. Strays they are called and yet how can they be strays when the very Earth itself its theirs?

The discord symphony fills your ears and cuts to your soul. As you stand at the center of the chaos and wonder what kind of God could deny their pleas, a charge rips through the air and you know that someone or something has answered. The pool of blood around the deceased glows a red that fills the alley, becoming a tower of light shining through to the dark skies above. Throughout the city, similar lights illuminate the night. The passed cat in front of you falls into the light, sinking into the glow until it disappears from sight.

The cries of the cats are drowned out momentarily by a single, hair-raising roar that sends a shiver down your spine. A shiver that jolts your feet to move but not before you witness the claws that rise up from the light. Its razor-sharp points dig into the asphalt, cutting into it like butter, or parting it like flesh. The terror consumes you as you run, that innate nature built into all prey that overwhelms them with fear when they know the predator has set its sights on them.

Down the alley and back onto the street, the night trades its midnight black for a hellish red. Dozens of demonic roars drown out the city, replaced by terrified screams of the soon-to-be deceased. You jump back into your still running car and sit petrified, awaiting the moment the screams stop, dreading the silence of extinction soon to come.




Happy Halloween! So, Stray has actually been sitting unfinished in my notebook for the past year as I planned to write it for last Halloween. Well, better late than never I guess. I also finally got a picture of a cat to use. It would've looked better if it were still lying on its side, but got up once I got close. I've also been reading this book series "The Others" by Anne Bishop about humans evolving along side other shapeshifting creatures that control the world which helped to me finish up the story.

Grand Adventure Day 7: Travel Issues

I actually managed to wake up to my alarm to get an early start in rearranging and repacking all my stuff: making sure the bottle of coconut wine? alcohol? liqueur? Ben gave me wouldn't break, trying to figure out how to separate my dirty and clean clothes, etc. I got that last part figured out by dumping all my dirty clothes into the giant plastic bag I got when I bought my new backpack from Don Quijote the night before. Huh, I guess I left that part out about last night.

This is my old, and current, backpack. I would forget to remove those pins on all 4 plane rides so I'm really happy they never got confiscated, especially the ADIDAP pin (I think Nozomi and whoever it was she collaborated with only had 100 or so of them made). I've had this backpack since high school and it's gotten me through high school, college, every, single one of my trips, and just carrying stuff to the office everyday. Why is any of this important? Earlier in the trip, I did buy a smaller pack I could slip onto my belt but then gave up on it and still continued to lug around this backpack. Jacob and Ben would make jokes comparing it to a parasite that I couldn't get rid of. As funny as it was at the time, it might be true as the night before I went looking for another cheap backpack to replace it. Unfortunately, the new backpack I picked up at Don Quijote turned out to be not as big as my old backpack so it wasn't holding all my stuff. I ended up dropping the brand new bag in a pile of stuff on a counter in the hostel for things people were leaving behind. One day I'll figure out how to leave this one behind.

After figuring out how to get everything packed up again, I made it to Shibuya Station. Not wanting to take the local train, I decided I would pay the extra cost to ride the nice NEX train again with it's cushioned chairs and wifi. Unfortunately, I couldn't find where to buy the ticket so I ended up walking through the entire station using my Suica card thinking I might find an office somewhere inside. I did not. With time dwindling down, I just decided to jump on the train and play the "dumb foreigner" card, which, if you were with me at anytime this trip, you know just how easy it is for me to do. Almost as soon as the train started moving and the thought crossed my mind, "I hope no one comes around asking to see my ticket," the train-guy came by and asked to see my ticket. I shrugged my shoulders and showed him the Suica card. He shook his head and explained that I was supposed to buy a different ticket for this train. In English, if you're curious. My Japanese didn't suddenly become fluent, conversational, or even existent in just one week. Then he told me to just give him money. I don't remember the amount, but I do remember thinking, "Is this guy asking for a bribe?" Well, I gave him the money and he gave me a ticket and walked away.

Airport security from Japan to Korea was a little different than from the US to Japan. They let me keep my shoes and belt on as I walked through the scanner. They also confiscated my back-up lighter, something about you can only carry one. With no where to go for the next couple hours, I walked in circles catching Pokemon. I slept a lot on the plane ride from Japan to Korea. A lot. Way more than I normally sleep on planes and the flight was only 2-3 hours long. I mostly remember the food being a lot better than any plane food I'd eaten in a long time.

I was in a daze getting off the plane. As I mentioned before, I'm an excellent sheep so I just followed the line of people through customs and immigration and all that stuff. Knowing what I knew now about phone service (and how much I was going to need it), I decided on renting a portable wifi ... thingy from one of the kiosks at the airport. Then, I spent at least 15 minutes trying to work out if it was worth paying $50 a day for the next week and a half for the device and if I instead could figure out another way to get cheaper service before remembering about exchange rates and the 5000won/day price is closer to $5/day, not $50/day (not necessarily my fault since I'd been in Japan where 5000yen is close to $50).

A woman at a counter directed me on which train line to take to get to the hostel in Hapjeong (I'm going to misspell a lot) and she even gave me a map of all the lines which I would carry everywhere. In a just over a week, through all the folding and unfolding, I would eventually tear that paper in half. From Hapjeong station, it was just a short walk from the station to the hostel. All the exhaustion from traveling and walking though seemed to hit at once, built up as if all the energy I had just ran out at the same time. I really only remember getting through the front door and being greeted by the woman who ran the hostel. She briefly showed me around: the kitchen, the rooms, the bathroom, the showers. Then I tossed my stuff onto the floor and passed out on one of the beds with a heatpad already going, something about knowing I was from Hawaii and I was going to need this for the cold.

Grand Adventure Day 6

I woke up the next morning to this message from Ben

The times are a different since I took the screenshot after I got back home

Obviously, finding out the rest of this story jumped to priority number one. Actually, deciding on something to do that day was the first priority, but then finding out the rest of the story was a very, very close second. We decided to meet over at the Ueno station Starbucks as that was the closest station for all of us to then make out way to the Sky Tree Jump store. After meeting up, it was story time:

Ben checked out of the Wise Owl Hostel the day before and checked into a capsule hotel. I've never been in one before, but the pictures outside the door made it look really nice. That night, he awoke to a loud thud right outside his capsule. Then came the sound of running water splashing on the floor outside, except that it's hitting the floor with some force, harder than it should if someone was just pouring it out of a bottle or a can. And it was going on longer than the amount typically found in a generic vending machine bottle. Like any sane person, and as I've personally done many nights back home, he sat in his bed listening to the commotion outside and hoped that whatever it was would just resolve itself and go away. Instead, after the water stopped and a brief moment passed, a head poked through his capsule's curtains. Then a neck. Then shoulders. Ben started yelling, but the guy just kept crawling into the capsule, drunk and oblivious. Ben began kicking at him: head, face, neck, shoulders, whatever his feet could connect with. The guy was apparently too drunk to feel anything though and kept crawling further and further inside. Once he was halfway into the capsule it became obvious that he wasn't going to stop. Fearing that he might get trapped there, Ben knew it was time to give up. Defeated but not beaten he gathered up his stuff and got out, making sure to punch and hit the other guy the entire way out. Avoiding the lake of piss that stretched almost from one side of the hallway to the other, he went to the receptionist desk who first stupidly asked if he wanted another capsule right next to the one he had just come from. I think in the end he ended up with a bed far away from the incident. Oh, and if you don't believe me

Relax, the censor is just there because I'm not sure of Blogger's nudity policy (no I'm not going to read it) but just in case there's something about buttcracks and ballsacks, I decided to cover it up rather than risk an awkward email.

Still in Ueno, we ate some cheap and delicious donburi at one of the food stalls in the swap meet-like area. All the food in the area was pretty cheap which was probably due to the small sizes of the stalls (meaning a lower rent, I assume). Each stall looked like it could only pack in about a dozen customers at a time, as long as they didn't mind bumping elbows a lot. The bowl I got was probably between 500-700 yen (~$5 to $7) with the three different types of fish. Plus, look, I remembered to take a picture of food!

The Jump Store in Sky Tree was a little underwhelming mostly because I hadn't been watching as much anime as I used to so I didn't know a lot of the merchandise they were selling. And the ones that I did recognize, I didn't like the things they were selling them on. Somewhere else in the mall, we found another store selling items related to anime and videogames so I ended up buying some toys from there.

We took pictures and hung out outside the Sky Tree, then headed to Asakusa for food. Walking down the street, there were a lot of good and tempting places to eat at. We chose a ramen place which was good because, even after all these days in Japan, I still hadn't eaten ramen yet. I got to watch Jacob and Ben talk and joke with to the two older Japanese women who ran the place. Of course the women laughed, impressed by their fluency. Once again, I tried to make a mental note that maybe I should try to learn/relearn another language (note: a year later, I've done none of that). After food, we went for another walk, this time around a shrine in the area (no, I didn't look up the name). I remembered to take some pictures though not a lot of them and none of any of us. We also pulled fortunes and, almost as if it knew the boring, plain, mundane person I am, I pulled a "Regular Fortune" with the most basic of consequences: things will happen to you. That's it.

From Asakusa, we took the train to Shinjuku and walked around the Golden Gai for a bit, looking to grab a drink. It's about the size of one city block just filled with different, tiny bars and narrow alleyways. Literally, every single doorway was the entrance to another, different bar. There was even a map at the entrance to help people find a particular bar. With all the regulations back home, I don't think I'd ever see anything like that anywhere else. Just that many different, independent establishments, most of which were just a bar and some stools, operating, competing for business in the same area. Instead of grabbing a drink there, we headed to Gusto's Family Restaurant and hung out in a booth for an hour and a half (because there's a time limit). Also, I learned that there is a reason a drink is only 300 yen (or was it 100 yen), those didn't go down too well, in terms of taste. We found a cheap place in the area to do karaoke before heading home. It was the perfect way to end my trip, by doing the ONE thing I honestly planned to do this trip: hang out with people ... in places ... with alcohol.

Once I got back to the hostel, I started to panic seeing all my stuff strewn on my bed, knowing that I would be leaving for Korea tomorrow morning. I tried to ease some of my panic by packing as much as I could. Then I realized how loud I was being, especially on a bunk bed, so I set an alarm early for the next day. Then I ended up lying awake, thinking about how to stuff all that stuff back into my bags. So, in the end, I decided to get my things at least partially sorted before I just gave up and went to sleep.

Monster Under the Bed

I got into Billy's room to find him already in bed and staring at the doorway, waiting for me. He let out a visible sigh of relief as I approached the bed.

"What's the matter, champ? Was the movie too scary?" I asked. Billy just shook his head silently, still staring at me. "Okay, well then sleep tight. And just in case, I'll leave the door cracked open a little. I'm right down the hall if you need me."

As I pulled his blankets up to tuck him in, his little hand grabbed my wrist. Though it was barely able to circle my wrist, it still felt almost vice-like. "Dad," he whispered, "there's a monster under my bed."

Billy and his imagination, I thought as I chuckled to myself. Maybe the movie was too scary for him after all. "Alright, I'll check it out. Just lie down and go to sleep. You've got school tomorrow." Billy reluctantly let go of my arm and grabbed the blanket, pulling it up to his chin. He rolled onto his side, keeping both eyes on me as I ducked my head down under his bed.

My eyes widened in surprise and I suppressed a gasp so not to startle Billy. Either of them. Under the bed, eyes staring back at me just inches from my face. Billy stared back at me, breathing so heavily I could smell the fruity toothpaste he used to brush his teeth.

"Dad," he whispered, "there's a monster in my bed."

My heart raced, the sins of my past coming back to haunt me. I knew that eventually they would find me, though part of me wanted to believe it would never happen. I got out of that life a long time ago. I stared silently at Billy's face for a couple of seconds though it could've been an eternity to the terrified child. Finally, I managed to calm myself and put on my best dad-is-here-to-protect-you face. "Stay here, I'll be right back," I whispered softly enough that the Billy in tucked under his blanket couldn't hear me. I put my finger to my lips, signaling him to stay quiet. He nodded, putting his own finger to his lips, too.

Slowly, I stood up, my eyes meeting the fearful gaze of my son lying in bed. I raised both my hands, palms facing him, trusting him to trust me and to wait exactly where he was. I lowered one hand and brought the other to my mouth, one finger on my lips. He nodded, bringing one finger to his lips, too.

I backed away slowly out the door as not to startle either of them. I took two steps away from the doorway, then placed a hand on the wall to steady myself as panic filled my chest. There was a monster in my house! In my son's room! I staggered and I struggled to keep myself on my feet. I breathed heavily, trying to calm myself and get oxygen back into my brain. I ran down the rest of the hallway to my room. Flinging open the closet door, I started tossing clothes and hangers onto my bedroom floor. I grabbed boxes and cases, tossing those out of the way, too.

Finally I found it: a sturdy, black, nondescript case. I put in the four digit code I hadn't used for over a decade and the cover popped open. Inside were wooden stakes, a hunting knife, several vials of various liquids, and other concealable monster hunting tools. Obviously my bigger weapons were tucked away in a storage locker several miles down the road, except for one or two I kept hidden in the basement. I took a vial on a chain and put it around my neck. I took a silver-edged knife and tucked it behind my back. Then I closed the case. If this monster was anything more dangerous than what I thought it was, I wouldn't had made it out of that room.

I leaned against the closet door and took several deep breaths, steadying my hands. I looked at the mess I'd made: clothes strewn all over the floor, boxes with loose lids spilling their contents. Nervousness almost drove me to break out laughing. It had just been so long since I'd seen any sort of mess in the house. Probably not since Taylor died. Even though I tended to work overtime almost everyday at the factory and Billy was obviously too young to even operate a vacuum, the house was always immaculate and spotless. People would say that it was like magic. I guess maybe it was, I really wouldn't know how it got done.

Relaxed, I walked out of my room and back into Billy's room. I stepped through the doorway, motioning the Billy in bed to stay quiet. I got on one knee next to the bed and smiled at my son. Whispering, I said, "I want you to rollover and pull the blankets over your head. Don't pull them off until I tell you to. Okay?"

Billy looked back at me, tears starting to form in his eyes. But, he nodded, then slowly rolled himself over to face the other way. I helped him pull his sheets over his head. Reassuringly, I placed one palm on his head.

I ducked under the bed to see Billy still staring back at me. "Okay, champ, I'm going to take care of the monster, but I need you to get out from under there and go into the hallway where it's safe." I extended a hand and smiled. Billy nodded and reached out to me. Quickly, I pulled him out and lifted him to his feet. As he turned toward the door, I grabbed the vial of holy water from my necklace and yanked it off the chain, sending the water in a narrow arc. The spots where the water splashed on Billy's back started to smoke as my son cried out in pain, a sound though no human could make. I pulled the silver knife from behind my back and shoved it through the creature's back where a young child's heart would be. The creature fell backwards into my arms, convulsed once, twice, then stopped. Slowly Billy's features melted away and revealing the changeling beneath: three feet tall with gray skin and a pig's snout and tusks.

I lowered the creature to the floor, blood still spilling from the wound. I tried to wipe off as much blood from my hands onto my pants. I stood and leaned over the bed. As I lifted the blanket, Billy slowly sat up and turned to face me. "Did you get it?" he asked hesitantly as he tried to peer around me and over the side to the bed.

"Yeah, the changeling is gone," I said, taking a seat on the bed and blocking his view. I pulled him close. "Don't worry, dad will protect you." I felt him wrap his small arms around me. We stayed like that for a moment. As he pulled away, I held his shoulder a moment longer. "I just need to ask, why didn't you hide in the closet like we practiced?" The boy stared up at me, confused. Then, his eyes widened with understanding. I felt him starting to transform as I brought the knife in my other hand up and drove it into his chest.

Before the body could fully transform to it's original shape, I ran from the bed and flung open the closet door. "Billy, are you alright?" Peering into the darkness, I saw my son sitting in the back of his closet. Then I jumped back as the yellow eyes of the giant serpent appeared in front of my face. The rest of its great body formed a circle around Billy, a one foot gap between it and my son. Toward its middle, I could make out a giant bulge that would twitch ever so slightly. "Dammit Nagaragaca! Get the hell out of my face!"

The snake slithered past me and out into the bedroom where it transformed into a seven foot tall middle-aged man, slender except for the distended belly which he jiggled with his hands. "Look master, I got a third one," he said with a smile.

I just shook my head and turned back to Billy. I extended my hand, then, seeing him flinch, I tried to wipe as much of the blood onto my pants as possible. I reached out again. "Come out, everything is okay now. You were so brave and you did it exactly how we practiced."

Billy slowly stood and reached out to me. I pulled him out of the closet and held him tight, debating on if I would ever let him go ever again. Holding Billy with one arm, I turned to Nagaragaca who was still playing with his belly. "Thank you for protecting my son. Your blood oath is fulfilled. You're free to go." I released Billy just long enough to place my free hand upon his chest.

The other man just shrugged. "So, no more housework. I think I'll grab a beer," was all he said as he headed out the door and probably down to the kitchen.

Finally, I felt Billy's arms let go. I saw him look at the two dead changelings. After a long moment, he said, "Dad, what's going on?"

"I'm really sorry son, but this is all because of a job daddy used to do until he met your mother and well before you were born. I tried to run and hide from it my past, but it looks like they've found me." I looked at my son in the eyes, seeing my wife's strength in them, and silently apologized to her for what I would have to say next. "It seems though that your training is going to have to start much sooner than I expected."




Inspired by Reddit Writing Prompts: in short, "You're child tells you there's a monster under the bed. When you look under the bed, your child is hiding under there and tell you there's a monster in the bed." I actually wrote this one before I did the zombie story, but I meant to go back and expand it and change the ending, but now I figure I'm never going to do that. Just to get it out of the way though, I meant for the changelings to be minor creatures that distracted the retired hunter. After killing the second one, some sort of stronger monster would appear, a vampire or a warlock or something along those lines. Something about the main character having killed it's family and it was there for revenge. When it's revealed that the main character killed the creature's family for enslaving and killing the house elves in the region, the closet door opens to reveal a pocket dimension/house that the house elves he rescued live in (like the tent in the 4th Harry Potter book). Then the house elves restrain/kill the intruder (I didn't decide which). I'm hoping to have one more Halloween story done by tomorrow, but writing is hard.

Grand Adventure Day 5

So the reunion was from Friday to Sunday but of course, it's Japan so I'm definitely staying for a couple more days. Jacob, Ben and I hung out at the hostel for most of the morning which is good since I used that time to catch up with all of this journaling (how else would I even remember what I've been doing for the last several days). For the first time for me during this trip, we ate Sukiya which is amazing since I assumed I would've eaten it more often from just how cheap it is. I got the Unagi-don with some sort of white paste/sauce which I think was pureed radish (as well as gross). I ended up scrapping it off and just eating the eel. We waited on Ben C. by playing video games at several different arcades. I once again learned I really, really suck at fighting games. The three of us had a Pong tournament that I believe Ben won. And we found this complex dual-gun game that if you hold the guns in a certain configuration it changes the firing mode, from single fire to rapid fire to a rocket launcher to a sword.

Sometime in the afternoon, we took the train to the other end of the Yamanote-sen to Ueno. Ben and Jacob would also be staying about a week longer in Japan but were moving to different hostels. As Ben and Jacob checked into their hostels, Ben C. and I wandered around the shopping stalls near Ueno station. It reminded me a little of the swap meets back home, though in more permanent structures. A bunch of stalls selling sweaters and jackets and bags and food and all sorts of other things that I failed to take pictures of. As much as I don't buy a lot of things, I did take a quick look through the jackets, having only brought my uncle's jacket and anticipating that one day, with the traveling I like to do, I should really have my own heavy jacket.

Now, I didn't have a huge list a list of things I wanted to do in Japan, mostly I just wanted to hang out with the people I hadn't seen for awhile, some of them for almost 10 years, preferably with alcohol which, if you've been paying attention, is a goal I'd fulfilled everyday so far. One thing though that I did want to do was go to a sento, or bath house. Seriously, if you've never gone, well, you need to go. At least once, or everyday. It really is one of the greatest things ever. Jacob found one in Ueno close by that we could walk to.

The water though, it felt so good to soak my legs in after all the walking I've been doing for the last several days. In one of the baths with water jets, I just sat with my feet pressed to one of the jets. I chickened out on the freezing cold bath. It was standing at the side of the pool slowly dipping a toe in, trying to work up the courage to jump in when this Japanese guy came in, dumped a bucket of the water on himself and jumped in without any hesitation. At that point, I just said "fuck this" and walked away. The other pool was just a pool filled with hot water that you just sat and soaked in which was relaxing as well. It was also interesting to just sit there, outside, naked, and staring up toward the sky to see the high-rises looming above you and just wonder if those people up there are looking down at you.

I took the train back to Shibuya, doing my best to stay awake after the most relaxing thing I've done all trip (I really should've jumped into the cold bath). I don't know why I did it, maybe I got lost and couldn't find the right bus stop, maybe I'm just dumb. Either way, I ended up walking back from Shibuya station to Wise Owl Hostel instead of jumping on the bus. I put in my headphones and pulled a "Weekend at Bernie's II", the music being the the only thing keeping my feet moving one step in front of the other. I was so relaxed, so tired I almost didn't notice the lady at my side, following me, asking "Handjob? Blowjob?" Oh, huh, I guess I forgot to mention that for a couple blocks on the trek between the station and the hostel were several massage parlors and every night there would be women lined up outside, beckoning. Obviously, they would ask in Japanese first, but once they figured out that I had no idea what they were saying, they'd switch to English, just repeating those two words over and over. I assume she must've been trying to entice me in Japanese before she yanked my sleeve and I probably said something in English, causing her to switch the "Handjob? Blowjob?" repetition sales tactic.

When I got back to the hostel, Ben's bunk (the one under mine) was already taken and that guy was passed out, and snoring. "A challenger for the crown," I thought before falling asleep, already anticipating telling Jacob and Ben tomorrow about this amateur challenging me to a snoring contest.