https://img.leopedia.io/DQmbn46LbxtssCFnM69k22BrqpEVq9fy97jiCVtDKTBBn4H/506FBC21-F534-4D0F-B3E7-90F185650F2A.jpeg 


It’s felt as if something has been missing these past few years.  It’s not as if we are unhappy with our life.  Although there are certain struggles we’d like very much to be over with, things keep getting better on the year by year. 

But there’s a certain threshold I feel we need to cross to truly feel Genki (元気).  This word in Japanese just means “well” or “fine”, a way to ask “How are you?”, but since I study Chinese medicine and the flow of life, I can see a profound meaning in the characters. Origin and Qi (life energy). Back to the original state, a true flow of life energy, a state of balance. 

Most Japanese people don’t seem to connect this word to such a deep concept but I Imagine there are monks or traditional medicine practitioners or linguists who realize this word must have originally meant much more than just “fine”. 


It feels as if there is a single barrier to cross before reaching that state myself. Everything before that is just preparation. 

The purpose of this trip was to push across into that territory, where I feel at peace with my life.  I don’t expect to feel like I’ve made it, or that all my dreams have come true, if that happens, there will be new dreams, but I know that I can dance with life rather than have my feet dragging behind like they have been. 

I miss adventure, and I know my adventures aren’t over, but due to various reasons, health and wealth and bureaucracy, I’ve had these huge weights holding me back. 

This trip was a test to see how I’d do on a 3 day trip and it was a success!  I discovered that I CAN go out and travel but I need a day between any kind of busyness.  If I climb a mountian or go to a festival or walk for hours, I need a day to recharge, but as long as I get that time to charge, everything is good!  

I wouldn’t say the countryside of Japan welcomed us with open arms, because we were pretty strange tourists that didn’t have much money to spend, but…but!  There were certain nodes, people and places, that were waiting for us. 

We made a good friend and had a few magical moments. 

 https://img.leopedia.io/DQmYheHv6yxKaaka62b5g77NNtqeRmzNGcAZaGHb86yrKQP/IMG_0295.jpeg 


We booked a taxi to the Minyo Crusaders concert and arrived at noon, way earlier than we needed to but if we didn’t get a taxi before 2 PM we would have been in trouble so we took our time setting up and talking to other vendors. 


People were friendly but i didnt get the sense that anyone was eager to welcome us in and make us feel at home. It eas more of just an effort to avoid any awkwardness among us. It didn’t feel all that different from the city, honestly, but in some ways that’s just Japan, distance is the standard and people can break from it but the standard is what you get most of the time. 

The show was fun!  Minyo Crusaders is a far more interesting band than I had thought. Their concerts are way more energetic and unique than the live videos make it seem. They had a lot more personality than I originally thought. Perhaps it’s because I was under the impression rhat the lead singer was the front man and he hardy talks.  But after seeing then live I realized the guitarist and back up vocals is more of a front man and MC and he acts as a bridge to the rest of the band. 

https://youtu.be/Vl9QOhKnD0w?si=aLa_ovANqLL88swh
(My new favorite song, Turn up the volume for the bass! Vocals start at 1:00 but the intro sets the mood!)

Towards the end of the show we had to face the unpleasant reality that since there are no taxis in this area after 5 PM, we would have to figure something out. I had kept telling @tentententen that I’d figure something out, but I really had no idea. To walk would have taken 2 hours, in the countryside, where there are bears!  Your chances of running into them are relativey low but still, Not ideal!

But I’ve travelled without a plan many times before and so I knew to trust my intuition.    

I asked the universe what to do and after enjoying the music with that question in mind for a few minutes I had the idea to make a sign and put it next to our hats. They weren’t the most talkative with strangers but I thought there must be people here who wouldn’t mind going 10 minutes out of the way to take us to the station where we could walk a much safer distance to our hotel. 

If worst came to worst we could have also paid 3x our hotel for the night to stay at the place next door. It was out of our price range but if we truly couldn’t find someone who wanted to help us, that was an option. 


After the bands first set, a guy stopped us and said “Hey I know you!  You remember me?”

I did not.

“You came into the hotel last night as I was leaving my shift, I was interested in you guys because you look like artists.  I thought maybe you were here for this show but I wasn’t sure.”

I remembered him although he looked nothing like he had in his work clothes. 

He said he’d come find us after the show and if we still beeded a ride he’d take us back to the hotel. 


On the way back he asked if we wanted to get food and so we stopped in at the only shop open nearby but they were full, so he asked if we wanted to pick up some food at the convenience store and go back to his house. 

I wouldn’t say yes to everyone but I have a pretty good track record of reading people and he felt like someone I wanted to know more and had absolutely no red flags about him. 

We went back to his place and talked and found we like a lot of the same obscure music from various styles, music that is nothing like the band we had seen that night and completey different from each other, stuff you wouldn’t lump together at all. It wasn’t just music, we were interested in similar things and I had a good time browsing his music collection and talking about different cities and experiences. 


Before we met him we had felt our trip was neither a success or a failure. We had hopes to make some kind of connection with this area and our main takeaway had been, we need a license and a car or to bring a friend who does, otherwise it’s too diffiuclt to do anything here. 

But after meeting him and talking to him for 3 hours it felt like the town itself had welcomed us in. 

He promised to find us in Tokyo and introduce us to his girlfriend and invited us to come back anytime and he’d be happy to solve our issue with transportation. 

I believe deeply in following my intuition because it always leads me to this kind of outcome. Have a plan B in case things go poorly, and then just put yourself out there, sure that you won’t have to settle for anything less than a magical experience.  Get creative.  There are all kinda of possibilities waiting for you if you step out of your comfort zone. 


## [My music and fiction](https://linktr.ee/ipluseverything) much of which is full of such synchronicity. 


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