Today’s deck is the Whispers Of Time Tarot.
It’s not bad, it’s pretty and functional, but it doesn’t stick out to me as hard… mind you I have kinda specific tastes and also I’ve checked way too many decks so my standards aren’t normal in that front.
Today’s reading reflects a general vibe that being kind can be constraining sometimes.
So today is a bit odd as far a travel period goes. The tradition has become that I bring a Prisma Illya mat with me and that way all readings look the same on the front page while I’m out, but since my departure today is so late and I woke up so early it’s basically like 70% a regular day.
I woke up straight into sorting the stuff into their respective luggages. I thinned things a shocking amount before a bout of “but what if” made me pack extra clothes and other stuff.
Despite that, I was done by around 3pm which is when a strategic problem cropped up. On one hand I had a lot of time to make sure I had everything, but on the other hand it meant that I had quite a bit of time effectively in limbo.
In any case, by 5pm or so right before it got dark I decided to finally leave. The route to take was actually interesting because I just go to Kyoto and then from Kyoto I make as if I’m going to Kinosaki but just… keep going.
And if it’s Kyoto it means I can take the Shinkansen and be there in less than 15 minutes.
Sadly it’s Kyoto and I don’t go there despite living so close for a reason.
One of the reasons is that Kyoto Station is MASSIVE so doing anything takes an eternity, case in point after like 20 minutes to find the line I had to take I had to walk back for like 7 minutes in order to buy the limited express thingy to take the train I want.
It was gonna be a long road so I bought a Hamburg Steak bento that came with a self heating function???? You pull a string, smoke (steam most likely) comes out of the string hole and it starts actually heating. It’s nuts.
It was so good too, didn’t expect the small yellow thing to be pineapple but that pineapple hit the spot.
There was still a lot of road left though.
I was familiar with that route because it was the route I took on my first trip to Kinosaki back in my birthday in 2021. First trip after realizing I was non binary, first pleasure trip I’ve planned ever. It wasn’t perfect and I didn’t have enough time to fully enjoy myself but I’ll be damned if it wasn’t fun. Kinosaki holds a special place in my heart because of that.
Eventually the train makes it there and it’s hilarious because basically it goes to kinosaki, half the train decouples to go elsewhere and my section of the train goes to Maizuru.
BACKWARDS.
Due to the way the train decouples and shifts tracks it meant that from my POV the train decided to powerwalk backwards.
So I make it to Maizuru and AH KANCOLLE JUMPSCARE
Anyway, I make it to Maizuru and I’m getting very slight deja vu. But no matter, I check the map and it’s a straight line with snow that’s been shoveled aside already so I figured I could walk there, what’s the worst that could happen?
…
Regulars of the blog will know I ate shit after thinking this, but in my defense I also wanted to try how hard it’d be to drag the luggage around snow and it wasn’t the worst, I definitely struggled more in new years going up the cable car stairs.
Also I had time to kill and I was sleepy so I wanted to keep myself active.
I saw a Costco and that gave me such a strong deja vu. Have I been here before? It has the distinct cadence of a place I might’ve visited during the Pre-2021 Stress Blur Days where I just roamed around.
The feeling only grew stronger when I saw this weird mound thing, I suspect if I came here in summer and during the day it would come back to me.
Especially when I saw the sight across the bridge. I could make it easy and check the memories of every phone I’ve had since moving to Japan but I’m never in the mood to suffer psychological damage from photos pre-proper-self-actualization.
On the whole the path wasn’t the worst. My curiosity is satisfied and I’ll take a cab on the way back but I’ve done worse and more reckless this year alone.
Though even if I wasn’t rolling two suitcases in the snow, I do wonder how to properly approach the last stretch because it’s all road. Maybe there’s a minuscule sidewalk covered in snow but as it stands I just had to raw dog it walking in the middle of the street.
It was late at night and it’s a pier where at most a truck will be driving slowly to go into one of the parking lots, but still.
The ferry station felt kinda nostalgic. I’m kinda chasing (or rather following the lead) of my memories of going to Margarita with my family and I’m sad to say it’s not complete because there’s not the choking smell of diesel in the air.
Funnily enough by that metric I’ve been more nostalgic in Kobe.
Venezuela smells like gasoline everywhere, it’s wild.
But anyways, back to reality I have my ticket and I’m dozing off at this point but I need to wait like hour and a half for boarding time. Thank God one of the survival skills from being Venezuelan is an ability to dissociate on the spot honed over years of long sudden blackouts.
I boarded and immediately checked the souvenir shop because I’m a predictable bitch and for 300 yen more they gave me the captain’s autograph. They even had English and Japanese versions.
The rooms were the bit I was dreading slightly since I didn’t realize until later that I’d be basically sleeping in a capsule hotel, and I need you to understand something: I’m a Nurse Sleeper. I wouldn’t say I’m a light sleeper but I’m VERY sensitive to any noise that’s out of place. So my attempts at sleeping quickly devolved in me jumping awake every two minutes from the sound of the door opening or someone shifting in bed.
The funny thing is that the rocking of the boat wasn’t a problem because my ear issues have caused me worse. At least this rocking is happening outside of my own head.