there is a city where ferris wheels are open pretty late. maybe it's a whole country, or i'm just coming upon yet another way in which america sucks, but i haven't encountered this elsewhere. they're open late enough though, that i can't imagine them closing later anywhere else.
climbing curiously into the little pod, i landed in seat #4. #1 was filled with a chinese american from chinatown, new york, #2 was filled with a definite momma's boy from amish country, pennsylvania, and #3 was filled with an eccentric, but typical, 21 year old college boy from pensacola, florida. after ¥1500 was happily handed over to the woman 6 floors down, i felt like a child again climbing colorful steep stairs to get to the "big wheel". at that time nothing else existed but that particular moment. i was oblivious to it all.* the bar came up to my legs, the operator mumbled something foreign and took a picture i would have to refuse to spend ¥1000 on, the seats flipped around 180 degrees, and my eyes were isntantly placed on millions and millions of lights, illegible signs, billboards, white lights, ads, red flashing lights... "if i lived here my whole life i might not know about the existence of stars."
i wished i could see some end to the whole mess, but then comes the realization that there is no end to that civilization that somehow managed to rebuild itself in just the past fifty years. the simple fact that i was so foreign to every little lightbulb, every meaningless building, every grain of rice, every マクドハムバーガー being sold to every ガングロ girl, was all that mattered. i wished that it felt this way every minute for the rest of my existence, and that everything was as far away as it was right then. as the pod kept going higher i could see further, further, and further, but never could quite see the ocean. the boy in seat #3 said "i know she'll kiss me" and of course i agreed because it didn't matter much, and in all, it was too much of a moment to say no.
*i have a lot of moments like this. i'm almost sure i'll have alzheimer's someday, or just end up as looney as my grandma.
♪ only one of my four accounts with ferris wheels in japan.
