Kato-san

Though it was not originally my intention to do my soulmate searching on Pinterest, I found Mr. Yoshiaki Kato’s Pinterest profile through a search of “Disney Sea.” Once on his profile, where I could look at all of his boards, I found that besides his great collection of “Favorite Places I’ve Been,” he had an entire album dedicated to sakura (my favorite flower and season in Japan), and Food and Drink, the cover photo of which was some delicious looking ahi and salmon nigiri. And as I scrolled down to the end of his boardlist, I came across a Mt. Fuji board, which is of great personal interest to me after my Fuji ‘pilgrimage’ this summer.

Kato, a Nagoya native, is also a frequent visitor of Kyoto and other Kansai cities. He’s a seemingly big fan of temples, especially the fox shrine of Kyoto. Having been to the tori gate overload (in a good way!) of a shrine myself, I can see why he loves the place. Beyond being visually stunning, it’s fascinating that each gate belongs to a person, or more likely a family. Like a donator getting his or her name on a chair in a theatre, people and corporations can receive a tori gate if making a sizable donation (we’re talking one million yen) to the temple. The mascot of the fushimi inari temple is the fox, whose statues guard the gates and adorn the temple’s talismans.

Citing Fuji-san as his “favorite place” (we must’ve climbed different Fuji-sans), Kato has posted some beautiful pictures of the national treasure. I wonder if he’s ever actually climbed it. While I think it’s great to admire from afar, how can you love a place without ever having been there? Sidenote: this is somehow different from being homesick for a place that doesn’t even exist, which I won’t get into now. But I guess he has been there if the post is on his “Favorite places I’ve Been” board. But chilling at the Fuji on sen and actually climbing the 2.34 mile monster of a mountain are very different, in my humble opinion.

Going on to his “Place I’d Like to Go” album, whose posts more than triple the previous board of places he’s been (ambitious boy), Kato wants to explore more of Japan, as well as the world. I find it cute that he wants to go to Tokyo Skytree (which just opened this summer; I went and it was pretty amazing), as well as underground cave rivers in Cancun. As for me, Greece is pretty much the number one place I’ve never been and would like to go to, and Kato is also a wannabe Grecian visitor. I’m not super sure of the relationship between Japan and Greece (except from a short story of Murakami’s where a couple moves to a small Greek island off the coast of Turkey) but that interaction does seem to happen. I suppose a true travelbug and adventure lover’s places-to-go list will always vastly outnumber favorite places already traveled to.