By Dan Mackie

For the Valley News

 This is the second of two parts in my miniseries about my recent trip to Japan. In part one I was guilty of Writing Under the Influence of Jet Lag, which bagged me for a week upon my return. I felt like a cartoon character who’d been knocked on the noggin. Little bluebirds circled my head, tweeting sweetly.

 International jet lag had all the queasiness of a hangover, but without the pain. My soul left my body and rode the jet stream to Europe. I dozed during Jeopardy (7 p.m.) and woke at midnight, ready to surf in Hawaii. My stomach thought it was time for ribs in New Orleans. Every experience was an out-of-body experience.

 Eventually the fog lifted, and my circadian clock arrived in West Lebanon. Here I will stay for awhile, and review the photos (nearly 500 — don’t ask for a slide show) that are proof positive that I was there, even though I felt a little like Alice awakening after a strange dream.

 Stage two of our odyssey took us to Kyoto, a city of more than a million that was mostly spared during World War II and still has an abundance of older buildings. We stayed our first night in a traditional-style hotel, where I confirmed that I am not suited to sleeping on the floor on a thin futon.

 After I successfully got off the floor, we went into the city and found a three-hour guided walking tour led by “Johnny Hillwaker,’’ an elderly Japanese man whose brochures said he was famous. He must be; you can Google him and read that his real name is Mr. Hajime Harooka. Apparently, we weren’t the first to hear him quip that his professional name is Johnny Hillwalker, not Johnny Walker.

 Johnny took us straight-away to an impressive and impressively large Buddhist temple. It claims to be the largest wooden structure in the world, a fact that must make fire inspectors twitch in their sleep. A new sign out front was covered with slogans in various languages. “Now, Life is living you,’’ it said in English, which is something I’m going to have to ponder.

 We walked to small shops where they make paper fans by hand. Some of these businesses have been in the same family for hundreds of years. Johnny told us that young people are abandoning the life, feeling there’s not much future in fans. America’s former industrial workers feel their pain.

 Johnny explained to us that most Japanese are Buddhist. Also, most Japanese are Shinto. As I understand it, Buddhist monks take care of birth and death and the Shinto priests handle much of the stuff in between. Shinto practitioners wash their hands, ring a bell and say a prayer for good fortune, which is more ceremonial than our lottery machines.

 The next day we rented electric-boosted bikes, which meant I had to play dodge-the- Japanese on the sidewalks. It was a blast, until I crossed a curb at a bad angle and tumbled and rolled onto the sidewalk. “Are you all right?’’ my son asked me. It just so happened that I was, except for a scraped elbow and a bruise that would soon resemble an aged eggplant.

  That night we ran into a strange scene, something I am always up for. Hundreds of people jammed a small street as if there’d been an Octomom or Lindsey Lohan sighting. Apparently, a gaggle of geisha had finished a stage performance and were returning back to wherever the geisha go, so tourists and natives hounded them with the intensity of a thousand flash bulbs. We stayed until we were ashamed of ourselves, and moved on.

  Then on to Tokyo, where I learned humility. It’s a city of more than 13 million, so it could eat and spit out Vermont and New Hampshire, and nearly all of New England. We got around by subway, mostly, which wasn’t easy, since the main station seems to have a half-dozen levels and tentacles (subway lines) going in all directions.

 We saw daringly original architecture: skyscrapers seemingly made of brillo pads, or beach glass, or whatever the architect was smoking that day. We saw a park where Japanese men dress up as rockabillies and break dance. Nearby, others dress like anime cartoon characters and pose for photos with tourists and other grinning idiots.

 We took the train to Yokohama, where we watched a baseball game without subtitles. Japanese baseball fans cheer only when their home team is at bat, and they are lead in chants and songs by flag-waving enthusiasts and fans who just happen to bring a horn along. It’s actually loads of fun, although I missed the spontaneous bitterness of Fenway Park, where people curse long-buried managers, or umpires who blew a call in 1975. (Ed Armbrister may still have a bench warrant out for his arrest in Boston.)  But Japan is a pep squad nation. I think they would cheer anyone if someone sounded a horn.

 This, of course, is unthinkable in America, where the individual’s right to be a lout is protected in the Constitution, Facebook policies, and cell phone contracts, which once signed shall never perish from the earth.

 The writer lives in West Lebanon. He can be reached at dan.mackie@yahoo.com.