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Introduction
Phase HA is, like its Chinese character, a paradox. The literal meaning is "to break", but when used in the phrase "jo ha kyû zanshin", the "ha" in fact refers to the acceleration between the slow of "jo" and the fast of "kyû". So in practice this phase is a bit of both: I took a break from the hectic pace of the last phase, but I was at the same time getting ready for the next part of the journey...
Finland
Jumankavita! Mä oon Keletappi ja kohta lätty lätisee!-- AlivaltiosihteeriDateline: 14-20.7.1999 Location: My apartment, Otaniemi, Espoo, Finland Returning home was weird. Everything was familiar again, but there was no time to settle into a routine, as I knew quite well that within a week I would have to leave again. I went about more or less mundane tasks, visiting the nearby shopping center and once going to central Helsinki, only to run into a large group of Krishnas doing their devotional singing and dancing routine right in the middle of town.
On Saturday, I went to a goa party for the first time since Strong Sun Moon back in Japan. Deep in the forest as required, getting a ride was difficult but I eventually scored a place in a friend's van. As sitting in the back of a van is illegal, to avoid detection I lay down flat on my back and felt quite bizarre as the highway lights flashed by, each 90-degree turn of the car interpreted as at least a full loop by my confused inner ear. After locating a suspiciously full parking lot in the middle of nowhere, we disembarked and headed into the forest, walking for quite a while but ending up the party place surprisingly easily.
Right next to a cliff (thoughtfully roped off with flourescent string) and the lake below, the speakers were scattered around a ring filled with long-haired tie-dyed hippies stomping around. Surprisingly (and unfortunately), the party had also been discovered by more "typical" teens in jeans and windbreakers, who were drinking cases of beer, trying to get the girls drunk so they could fondle them, and generally entirely ignoring the party around them! The music was a mite too experimental for my liking, the DJs playing broken beats and stuff instead of just concentrating on the lovely monotonous metronome beat of goa trance. But quite a few friends were around, some of whom I hadn't seen for a long time, so I spent most of the night just talking with them -- quite a few were also heading for the Solipse festival in Hungary.
The van driver left around 4 and I decided to go with him, with some others also tagging along. On the way back, we passed by another lake -- and were astonished. It being the Finnish summer, the sun was rising and it was quite light already at this time, and the surface of the lake was covered with a layer of fog, just like dry ice. And there were patterns in the fog: swirls and layers, moving up and sliding down, some layers even moving through each other in opposite directions! Little tornados whirled out and disappeared, whereas a few sources seemed to constantly spin out new fog that in some other parts disappeared without a trace. Truly bizarre, and truly beautiful.
Estonia
Beast Feast-- VIBEDateline: 20.7.1999 Location: The Old Town, Tallinn, Estonia So two days before my departure to Israel my friend Simo calls me up and asks if I want to go to Tallinn for a day trip, leaving tomorrow morning. He's going to act as legal guardian for his underage little sister, since to prevent kids from getting blitzed on cheap beer, under-18s can't go on cruises without adult guidance. After hesitating for a moment I decided that I can do everything I need to get done in Helsinki there as well, and it'll probably cost me less, so why not? The last time I went to Tallinn in June I spent all my time at Vibe's Beast Feast party (link in Finnish), so it would be nice to take in the city itself for a change.
So I got up (too) early the next morning and headed for the terminal, only to find that the car ferry we wanted was booked full, so we opt for the next catamaran -- a faster but more expensive option. We potter around the quiet seaside suburb of Ruoholahti for a few hours, eating a bizarre healthfood-Indian lunch, and then boarded. The catamaran's facilities are simple but comfortable, and the 90-minute trip is sufficiently short to be quite bearable. The girls were old enough to be pretend to be adults but not adult enough to be particularly diplomatic about it, so they spent the entire trip giggling amongst themselves and being annoyed by the fact that they needed to resort to the likes of us in order to go shopping. Ah well, their loss, upon arrival the girls immediately packed into a taxi and zoomed off, while Simo & I opted for the more leisurely approach of walking a kilometer or so to town.
Estonia and especially Tallinn have, not without malice, been called "a colony of Finland". Millions of Finns make the mere 90-km journey from Helsinki every single year, looking for cheap entertainment (from the deluxe to the dubious) and, above all, cheap booze. On a nice summer day, like the day we visited, the scenic Old Town is packed with more Finns than Estonians. Tallinn's Old Town really does deserve the name, the oldest buildings date from the 14th century and the Communists preserved it carefully (for once!) . The ongoing restoration work is finally nearing completion and the center looks beautiful, twisty alleys and cobbled streets with the remnants of the city wall as backdrop.
It was a hot day and, with no particular destination in mind, we were in no hurry. After pausing for a cider at the Millenium Café (more Kopparberg!) we headed on to Toompea , the fortified central hill of old Tallinn. The central monument of the hill is an Orthodox church dedicated to Alexander Nevsky, nearby is also the rather diminutive Estonian parliament building. There are great views of the city from the ramparts: to the east the busy restored Old Town, filled with shops and shoppers, and to the west the Communist-era industrial new city, filled with crumbling factories and smokestacks.
We headed down the hill, through the Old Town and headed east for a change along Narva mnt, looking for an obscurely located high-end Japanese restaurant I visited once, way back in 1996. Located in a white house surrounded by drab gray concrete apartment buildings, the automatic sliding doors and exquisite futuristic-Japanese decoration looked as imposingly expensive as ever. A blonde girl in a kimono came up to us and bowed before directing us to a table. I opted for sushi, my friend selected a donburi, and to wash them down we opted for 2 Sapporo Black Label beers -- ahh! Granted, the sushi was not exactly up to Japanese standards, but it was edible and the meal still cost about half of the Finnish price. Recommended! (Ami-Ja, Narva mnt 36)
After the obligatory last bout of shopping -- loaves of delectable Georgian bread still cost only about 3 EEK (~0.50e) apiece -- it was time to head back to enjoy Estonian passport control and head back for Helsinki.
I got home, packed my rucksack, finished up lingering threads of online correspondance and went to sleep.
Israel I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.
-- KJV, Matthew 8:10Dateline: 21.7.-11.8.1999 Location: The Residence, Herzliya Pituach, Israel
26.7.1999 / It would be hard to call my hasty week in Finland a vacation, but here in Israel I've definitely made up for lost time. For one week so far, and with (at least) one more week to go, I've done absolutely nothing except laze around my parents' house: sleeping late every day, swimming in the pool, devouring stacks of books (mostly Israeli/Palestinian history and horse doctors' doses of Amos Oz), abusing Lego pieces by building U-shaped elevators out of monorail tracks and playing endless rounds of Alpha Centauri. With my parents currently spending a week in New York, the house is populated only by me and my brother Mikko, and of course all the (largely invisible) staff needed to keep this place up and running.
I was planning to transcribe all my Phase JO notes while I was staying here, but fate threw me a curve ball: it seems that, after managing not to lose my diary during a full month of travel, I finally managed to leave it on the airplane!!! Or, worse yet, atop the airport public phone I used to call my parents. Why worse? Because if I did leave it there, I managed to do almost exactly the same thing in Wien during BIE '96, when I left my goodie-bag atop a public phone in the central railway station. <sigh> But there are still a few rays of hope: this time the goodies are already scanned, the notebook has my contact information and even the magical phrase "will pay reward", and I can salvage most of the contact information scribbled in it since I've already received an e-mail from Okuda-san, who should have duplicates.
But I'm still pissed off.
28.7.1999 / Joy! Ben Gurion Airport has managed to locate the notebook, but due to the inscrutable tangles of Israeli bureaucracy and the difficulty of getting to the airport I'll have to wait another few days until I can actually retrieve it. And yes, I did leave it on top of the public phone!
29.7.1999 / This heat is just ludicrous. I walked a kilometer or so to central Herzliya to pick up a new CD-ROM drive, and it feels like I spent an hour or two in a sauna. Even Tunisia was easier, probably because the hostel didn't have air conditioning inside...
4.8.1999 / Whee! The notebook is back in my possession and currently being transcribed, but then the Cosmic Randomness Generator decided to spin me another one: after I had pretty much resigned myself to completing my master's thesis in Finland, a note arrived from Japan stating that a sponsor at the University of Tokyo had been found. The immediate impact of this is that I'll have to cut my trip a bit short, since I have to return to Finland by the first week of September. And I'll have to arrange for my application to be sent in in absentia...
A year in Japan! The implications of it slowly started to sink in, and I stayed up until 3 or so thinking about Life, the Universe and Everything. Outside my window two alley cats in heat were screeching loudly and fucking vigorously.
6.8.1999 / Damnation! No tolerably priced one-way tickets to Budapest are left before Eclipse Day, it seems that I'm stuck with 80% here instead of totality. At least I was smart enough to get just a weekend ticket for Solipse, so I'm not missing out on any paid festival days...
11.8.1999 / Well, here's the eclipse, but I'm distinctly underwhelmed -- the sky just looks a little cloudy and careful digital camera imaging reveals that the Sun is a bit squished on one side. (Ed.: Sorry, the pictures are gone.) Whoop-de-doo. But I don't mind, only a few more hours until my flight leaves and Phase KYU starts!
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