The Triumphant Return of Worby Adventure Time in Japan

...or another really long, poorly written letter from across the world.

10/22/05

It finally seems as though autumn is settling in. The nights are pretty cold, but most of the leaves haven't turned yet. The Japanese love autumn leaves, cherry blossoms in spring, and other natural occurrences that remind us of the transience of life. It has been on the news here that it is "AUTUMN IN HOKKAIDO!!", the northernmost island of Japan. That's how much they enjoy it. But it seems as though actual autumn colors will have to wait until November.

This past couple weeks back in class have been a bit different. Now we only have Japanese three days a week, but also a Japanese culture class with Professor Hudson twice a week. One of the two days is usually spent traveling to nearby temples, shrines and other interesting places. Two weeks ago, we went to Nara. This past week we went to Uji, a small city near Kyoto. I got some great cards in the mail these last couple weeks - thanks, everyone! Also, it was remarked of last week's email that there was a shortage of "adventure time" scenarios, in which I get lost or something ridiculous happens. This week's email will hopefully make up for that.

The other week, I was a bit out of sorts. I was in a daze during class and put myself on cruise control all day. Of course, we all know that cruise control has its drawbacks, and there was no way I was going to steer clear of calamity for an entire week. And what better day for it to strike than my birthday? Master of timing that I am, this was going to be a birthday to remember.

I woke up Thursday morning like I always do, went downstairs and ate breakfast with the host fam. Daitaro flicked on the news, like he always does. I looked up at the screen and upon seeing that the date was "10/13", remembered that it was my birthday. Keiko had suggested kaiten zushi (remember? the rotating sushi place?) for dinner, which was an offer I had trouble turning down. I was definitely looking forward to that. Daitaro drove me to the station, as he usually does, and I did my usual commute thing to school. I wandered over to the library to meet everyone, like I always do, and that's when things went.............awry.

I walked into the computer terminal area where everyone usually hangs out in the morning, and had the feeling that something was kind of off. And by kind of off, I mean really off. Because none of them were there. I'm usually the last person to get to school, but I still thought, "hmm, maybe they're all running late?" I ran the possible scenarios through my head and realized that today was to be class with Professor Hudson. Oh well, I guess I did my Japanese homework a day early (yeah, that's how out of it I was). Did they all go to his apartment already, where we had class on Tuesday? Probably not. Did they go...somewhere...far away? Oh god, they went somewhere. Where did they go? I was drawing a blank.

My cell phone was out of minutes, so I used a public phone card I had bought for emergencies (like this) to call up Greg and find out what was going on. "where...are you?" he asked. "Where are YOU?" I asked in response. He kept asking me, so I finally let him know: "I'M AT THE SCHOOL, DAMN IT. WHERE SHOULD I BE?" I heard him slap himself the way he does when someone does something stupid and mutter something to some other people. The responses all sounded like a variety of "oh god, what an idiot". Then I finally asked the deadly question: "where....SHOULD I be?" And the inevitable response, "...Kyoto Station." "Ok, and where are we going?" "To Nara. To Horyuji. Remember?" I had a faint memory, but my concept of time was way off. More off than usual. I got off the phone and contemplated the best way to accomplish my new mission: get to Nara before next year. And that's how my birthday adventure began.

Around 9 am, when class usually starts, I took the bus back down South to Kyoto Station. By the time I got there, the train everyone else had taken had long since departed. By about an hour. I was not a happy customer, and now I had to figure out how to get Nara. Greg had given me instructions, but given that just about everything was in Japanese, I still had some figuring out to do. I finally confirmed what I thought was the right way with the station attendant, bought a ticket, and boarded the express train for Nara. Greg, being the solid guy that he is, called me again to tell me what to do and where to go. I was to meet them at Horyuji. He would call me again around the time I should be getting in. I felt bad for making him call me over and over, but I had no more minutes, so I had no choice. I looked for a Vodafone store to replenish my minutes on the way, but was out of luck.

I was still feeling a bit out of sorts on the train ride to Nara, and getting off to transfer to Horyuji, took a bit of time to determine which train I should take. I was getting a bit hungry at this point, but figured there was no helping it and hopped on the train for Horyuji. I ran through the morning's events in my head. What is wrong with me? I sighed and looked across the aisle to see a toddler's wide eyes staring me down. Her mother was sitting next to her, and smiled at me. She told the girl to say hello in English, but the little girl was shy. Not too shy to stare though. Being the confident, outgoing guy that I am, I decided to take the initiative and say hi. The mother, utterly surprised that I could speak Japanese, told her daughter to say "Konnichi wa". She still wouldn't budge. I realized then that I was making a stupid, fake smile because I felt like shit from the mistake I had made. I sighed and let the smile give way into the truth. The girl's entirely-too-adult face erupted in laughter. Even when they're babies, they're thoroughly entertained by my mistakes, I thought to myself. Despite my best efforts not to, I had to smile back at her. The little girl reached into her mother's bag and took out a little bag of snacks. Then, in an unprecedented turn of events, she reached across the aisle and offered it to me. I looked at her mother in shock, as if to say, "is this really Ok?" She nodded, so I bowed my head and graciously accepted the snack. The little girl got out another bag and we commenced snacking together. The mother asked her to ask me my name, but words were still too much for her. I told her that my name was Jess. Her mother said that her name was "Kitari", which meant something having to do with sunlight. That was probably the last straw for my sour mood. Here I was, having a snack with a little girl named Sunlight. What's a guy to do but let go? We all got off at Horyuji. Kitari made a big smile and finally opened her mouth for an emphatic "BYE BYE!!!", every Japanese girl's favorite English. I had to smile.

I got some more sustenance at the convenience store there, and followed Greg's instructions to take the bus to Horyuji. Though it's October, it was somehow somewhere around 90 degrees outside. My convenience store bought meat bun would not cool down. Thinking I would be in class, so I was wearing a warm, long-sleeve button-down with a t-shirt and jeans. What's more, I had my entire life in my backpack that day: my computer, textbook, workbook, my own reading, walkman, et cetera. That turned out to be a bit of pain, but I was done complaining at this point so I set off to explore Horyuji.

My plan was simple: look around until I see ten Americans. How hard can it be? It's just a temple, right? Wrong. Horyuji is a temple complex. It's gigantic compared to other places I've been. I wandered all over the complex, but could not enter some areas without a ticket. Huge conglomerate masses of Japanese school children chanted "HA-RO!" (hello) at me as I walked by. Finally, Greg called me to say that I should meet them at a part of the complex called the Yumedono. I found the place quickly, and waited. Greg called me again and asked where I was, to which I uttered the now famous, "I'm at the Yumedono. Where are you?" A couple minutes later, I finally saw them coming and walked out to meet them. By then it was a little after noon. Professor Hudson gave me a ticket to get into the special places and said that if I was quick I could meet them back at the Yumedono. Otherwise, I could meet them back at the MacDonald's by Nara Station. Everyone got there own little joke in about my mistake and they left to see the Yumedono.

So, there I was; on my own again. Horyuji was a very interesting temple complex; a tall pagoda, halls full of old Buddhist statues and artifacts. I took some cool pictures, but cameras were not permitted in some of the more interesting areas. There was a large Buddhist triad in the middle building that I stood in awe of for a bit. Then I got a text message from Greg saying that they had left the complex. After wandering around the rest of Horyuji, I went back to the bus stop to return to the train station. I sat down on the curb and took my bag off to relax for a moment. A funny-looking little old man smiled, nodded at me and sat down on the curb next to me. We had a silent exchange about being tired and wanting to sit down before a cab came and he got in. He nodded to me as he departed. My bus came soon after and I headed back to Nara.

After getting off at Nara, I saw no MacDonald's in sight. So, I did the unthinkable for a man and asked where it was. When I finally found everyone, sitting down in that most American of places, they all got one more joke in and finished their lunches. No rest for the weary; lunch time was over. It was time to see some more temples. We walked a good ways to Todaiji, which was a colossal Japanese-Baroque building with a gigantic Buddha known as the "daibutsu (great Buddha)" inside. It was so big that a string quartet had at one time played on its left hand. There was a hole in a pillar in the back of the building that was supposedly the same size as its nostril. Crawling through the hole was supposed to give one good luck. Lydia, being the skinniest in our group, undertook this task. Professor Hudson told us a story of a festival the Japanese had had at Todaiji some years ago. Aside from the string quartet, the monks apparently had barely dressed female dancers dancing in front of the Buddha. Of course, some people were outraged by this and asked the monks what was going on. The head monk replied that the great Buddha does not distinguish between male and female, clothed or unclothed. I found the mental image to be very Japanese.

From there, we went to Kofukuji, where there was a really cool collection of Buddhist art and artifacts. There were excellent renderings there of the Niou (two kings) or Deva Kings. They had fierce faces and muscular bodies, but with realistic proportions. All agreed that these statues were "bad-ass". From there, we walked to a very colorful shrine building of some sort, which was at the edge of the city. It being on a mountainside, there was a nice view of the city. Of course, my camera ran out of pictures before then. The monks there engage in a ritual where they run around the building holding huge torches aflame. It's unbelievable that they have never burned it down, seeing as it is entirely made out of wood. I rang the prayer bell there and we headed to the train station to head home. On the train ride home, I learned that new phone cards can be purchased at any convenience store, not just Vodafone, so when we got back to Kyoto I did just that. I boarded my train back to Takatsuki and then it hit me; I was supposed to go out for dinner with Keiko and Daitaro! It was getting late, so I gave them a call. I was too tired at that point to explain anything in Japanese, so what came out on the phone can be roughly translated as "Today was rough. I'm gonna be a little late." I finally got back and Keiko had made one of her normal meals of ton katsu (fried pork cutlet), onion tempura, with beef and of course rice. She said that since I had gotten back late, it would be better to eat at home.

So that was that adventure. The next one took place last Monday, I think it was, when our class was supposed to have a meeting with Japanese students from the English Speaking Society (ESS) at Ritsumeikan University. Did I remember there was to be this meeting? Of course not. But that's not as big a matter this time around. Apparently there was a bit of a misunderstanding with our meeting: it was never going to be at our school, it was at theirs. What's more, Professor Hudson got a letter the day of the meeting saying that the time had been changed from 1:30 to 4 PM. After a large amount of bitching and moaning from the group, only five of us wound up going. At 4 PM, we took the bus to Ritsumeikan and met with Makoto, one of the heads of the ESS at the bus stop. He took us to the campus, where there were a ton of Japanese college students. So this is where they've been hiding, I thought. We didn't know what to expect from the meeting, so when they wrote out an organized schedule running until 8 pm on the board I wasn't entirely surprised. We originally planned to leave around 6 in order to get back and do work, but we all decided to skim that night's reading and see what kind of experience this would be. I called Keiko to tell her I would be late again. We and a few other foreign exchange students were to be spread amongst the English Speaking Society, which took up about five classrooms. I and a guy from Toronto named Richard were put in one classroom together, which coincidentally was the same one that Makoto was leading. There were about 10 students in the room at first, each with a name tag that said their name in English. Richard and I also helped ourselves to these, and thus the fun began.

Our first project was to do a three person dialog in English on one of three topics: "cooking", "drinking" and "boring". I chose to chuckle at the last one rather than go to the trouble of correcting it. Explaining an error in parallelism might have been a bit tough in Japanese. My group, which consisted of me, a guy who habitually scratched himself who everyone called Shin-chan, and a very dorky, happy-go-lucky girl named Keiko, were to do a skit about drinking. There were several phrases on the board that we had to incorporate into our dialog. The ones I remember are "...end up doing", "go have a drink", and "waste of time". The skit wound up being my brainchild entirely as the other two spoke even less English than my host parents. It somehow wound up being about me asking Kei to go out for a drink, but then Shin-chan saying that she needs to go do homework with him, and then an argument ensuing, with me eventually saying that I have an abundance of beer and her agreeing that drinking is fun. Typical college dialog. Ok, maybe a little different, but close enough. All of the dialogs were pretty funny, whether or not they intended to be, and it broke the ice a bit.

The next thing we did they called "Fruits Basket", which is something like musical chairs. The person without a chair says, for example "everyone wearing blue stand up" and everyone wearing blue has to find a different chair to sit in. Makoto added a touch to this, making it so that the person without a chair had to talk about one of several topics that he had written on the board (your favorite thing, your hometown, love, etc.). All of them had to speak in English, but I had to do it in Japanese. Richard left at this point, making me the only foreigner in the room. It didn't take long for the game to break the ice even further, however, and everyone became very loose thereafter. Also, Hide (hee-day) and Seichan (say-chahn), two guys from another campus of Ritsumeikan joined us at this point, who turned out to be pretty entertaining. Upon entering the room, Hide exclaimed in English that Seichan was crazy, but Seichan responded that "this guy...he is ichiban (the most) crazy!" which made us all laugh. Turns out Hide actually was ichiban crazy. He spent the entire time making strange faces with his eyes rolled back into his head and trying to make me believe he was gay when he obviously wasn't. The game turned out to be a laugh riot. I could hear the uproarious laughter echoing from the other rooms as well. Talking about yourself, and also speaking to strangers in their native tongue can be pretty humorous. The high point for my room probably came at the beginning when I was left without a chair, and the topic that we were up to was, for the first time, "love". This brought all of them nearly to tears laughing - that this funny foreigner had to tell them something about his love life. In Japanese, no less. Seichan spent the rest of the game chanting "LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! LOVE!" whenever anyone was about to speak. Hide confessed his love to another guy who wore rainbow glasses, whom Hide had apparently attacked at summer camp. They seemed to be just joking around, but I couldn't tell whether Hide actually attacked the guy or just kind of messed with him a little. Either way it was funny. They also made a point of telling me that Makoto's girlfriend, named Yurika, was called Yurika-hime (Princess Yurika) because she was very pretty. At one point, everyone who had ever dyed their hair had to stand up, and Seichan commented to me that guys like us, who never dyed their hair, were "ii otoko (literally, good guys)". I said that I agreed. Ii otoko seems like it has more meaning than just "good guy". Knowing the Japanese love of understatement, saying that you're ii otoko can probably mean something more along the lines of being "awesome". Seichan's crowning moment came when he was asked to say what he doesn't like about himself. He said, "Nothing. Because I am ii otoko!" which was absolutely hilarious at the time.

At the end of the game, some more people came in, one of whom was a short girl with braces who spoke almost perfect English. She was extremely irritating, however. She spoke over everyone and said "yeah! yeah!" every five seconds. After the game, we all went together to the school cafeteria, where Seichan insisted on treating me to dinner (on his meal card). The food there was also better than that of an American cafeteria. At dinner, Makoto explained to me that he wants to learn English because he likes a lot of American music, his favorite band being Nirvana. No one else had heard of Nirvana besides him. He alone had heard of the more popular bands that I like, and when I listed off The Pillows, a Japanese band, once again only Makoto had heard of them. I had a classic English-to-Japanese misunderstanding with Seichan during dinner. I asked him in Japanese where Hide had gone, meaning "I wonder where Hide is", but he took it as meaning, "Go! Run and find Hide!" so he jumped up before I could say anything and ran around looking for him. Turns out he had gone home. After dinner, we thanked them for a great time, and were on our way. We are going back for an "overnight" in a week or two. Everyone involved thought the idea was ridiculous, but we are going through with it all the same. It struck me that Japanese college students may not know what Beirut is (not the city), so that should be a good time.

It was definitely good to finally meet some Japanese people my age - that has definitely been lacking so far this trip. Seeing the sights is great, but as I stated in a previous email, I think that meeting the people is a large part of learning about any country. It's one thing to converse with other generations, but there is something about talking with a contemporary that is much more comfortable. You get to see in closer detail how people are different/similar in a foreign country. I probably sound like an old woman when I speak Japanese right now, due to the fact that the person I talk most with is Keiko. She barely understands some of the language that younger people use. I guess some things are the same wherever you go.

For the latter half of Professor Hudson's Tuesday class, we walked to a nearby temple/shrine which I believe is called Tanuki Danna-ji. It is near the foot of Mt. Hiei, where the famous monk Saichoh founded the Japanese sect of Tendai Buddhism in 788 CE. There was a statue of him on the way up to the main temple. He wore a traditional pilgrim's hat, carried a Buddhist prayer staff, carried a straw mat on his back to sleep on, a cup for begging (I think), chopsticks, and wore a traditional monk's robes and straw sandals. Nothing more. That was his entire life (minus his writing), and even that probably seemed like too much material possession to him. At the very bottom of the slope leading up to the temple was a small Shinto shrine and representations of the seven Shinto gods of fortune. Modern Japanese people do not find it contradictory to put a Shinto shrine on the grounds of a Buddhist temple. What's more, the Hanshin Tigers baseball team had come to pray at that temple in 2003, so when they won the Japan Series they installed a plaque at the foot of the slope. People came there this year, too, to pray for victory, and put little inflatable Hanshin bats around the plaque.

Farther up the slope was a small building that was a representation of one of the 88 temples on the Shikoku pilgrimage. It was surrounded, I believe, by the 17 or 18 arhats. The 88 temples of Shikoku have been represented around Mt. Hiei for those who don't have the time to go all the way around the island of Shikoku to do the pilgrimage. Several Colgate students have done it in its entirety, and a few members of our group considered doing it instead of the last month of our scheduled program. Most Japanese people do the pilgrimage in segments, or by bus. However, Colgate students have a long history of doing the pilgrimage the old fashioned way: by walking the entire thing in traditional pilgrim's garb (robe, sandals, big straw pilgrim hat) and begging for food as a means of getting by. During our hike up Atago-san, Professor Hudson told us the story about one guy from Colgate who had vanished during the pilgrimage. His family phoned authorities all over the place, and it eventually came out that a foreigner had been holing out in a graveyard in Shikoku for three weeks. This turned out to be the right guy. The blisters on his feet had gotten so bad that he was unable to walk anymore, and so stopped for three weeks until they got better. A kindly old woman from a nearby house made him meals and brought them to him every day. After three weeks, he was asked if he wanted to go home, but he refused, and finished the pilgrimage a couple weeks later. It was this story that made some members of our group want to do the pilgrimage. I and a couple others are still considering doing it at some point in the future.

The temple itself had actually been changed into a practical meeting place. There were lots of tanuki statues outside the temple. Tanuki are interesting - their closest American relative is the badger. Shinto sculptures depict them with huge balls, a sombrero-like straw hat, a big jug of sake, and an enigmatic smile. Don't ask me what it all means. The way to the main building was divided in two: one for women and the other for men. There was a great view of Kyoto from the temple. The path used to extend up past the temple towards Mt. Hiei, but it has since been overgrown. Small temples like this one, which barely anyone knows about, can be a lot nicer than the more famous ones, in some ways. It was very quiet and there were few people around. Overall, a nice little hike.

I had a long conversation with Professor Hudson after class that day about this and that, which began with me asking him to reimburse me for train fare (you wouldn't think that would lead to a discussion, would you?) and ended due to the fact that my stomach was grumbling. The two of us could probably talk for days on end, but I was hungry and a little preoccupied with work and what not. So he recommended I go to a chain ramen shop named Tenka Ippin (The World's One Excellence?), that was right down the street from his apartment and school. It has since become a favorite spot of mine. Ramen broth, I just learned, comes in koteri (thick), and asari (thin), which is the brown broth that is generally the norm. I love koteri, and order my ramen there with that and some ninniku (garlic). It is one tasty dish that I will miss when I come back home.

This Thursday was our second class trip. I was congratulated heartily (and sarcastically) on making it to the meeting point. This time, we went to Uji, a small city right outside of Southeast Kyoto. Uji is famous for its green tea. Legend has it that when Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Nobunaga Oda were riding around the countryside, they checked everywhere they went to see which water was best for making green tea. Hideyoshi purportedly decided that Uji's was the most delicious, so its fame is still known to this day. There are various kinds of green tea: matcha, sencha, the more ordinary bancha and probably several other varieties. Within those categories there are many more categorizations, such as leafy or not leafy. I had a sample of some matcha in a shop, and it was absolutely delicious. They also serve Cha zoba (green-tea soba), the noodles of which are green, and other dishes there which were made with matcha leaves in the mixture. I may soon come up with an excuse to visit my friend Joe in Uji and have some cha zoba, as it looked delicious and we didn't have lunch there.

Munchies aside, our primary reason for going to Uji was to see Byodo-in, a famous Buddhist temple. The main attraction there is a small building that is on the back of the 10 yen coin. It is called the Phoenix Hall in English due to the two birds on the roof. The Phoenix Hall is, I believe, the only building still standing as it originally was from the Heian Period. It is a very cool building. Horyuji and some other temples we have seen have been repainted in recent years, but Byodo-in has not. Thus, it still looks completely natural and has acquired some patina. You can still see the bold colors that were used, but it doesn't look fake. It almost seems as though it was meant to be seen this way. The Phoenix Hall got its name for one other reason: it seems to be shaped like a bird. A large Amida (Amitabha) Buddha statue is housed in the center part of the building, but the two outer segments are actually unusable. You can walk under them to get to the main building, but even a midget would not be able to fit in the crawl space between their upper lower portions. The wings were made for extensively aesthetic reasons, which is very Heian. The Heian Period was the time of The Tale of Genji, that world famous 1000-page (more? was that the abridged version?) novel written by Lady Murasaki about Japanese court life in that time. The novel (more like a tome) is the best history of the period that we currently have as a resource, with Sei Shonagon's The Pillow Book, another novel written by a Heian woman about court life, coming in second. It was a time in which one's status was nearly determined (outside of one's family) by how good a poet one was. The nobles of this time have been called "the cult of beauty", because they didn't seem concerned with much else. Of course, this era eventually gave way to the age of the samurai, in which the pen was definitely not mightier than the sword, "but we digress" (remember that, Bec? Sam?). We were given a long drawn out explanation about the nature of the Amidha Buddha in the Phoenix Hall, which was sculpted by a famous artist in the Heian Period named Jocho. The explanation was in fast, complex Japanese, however, so all I learned about it was "Fujiwara... Jocho... Amida Buddha... arigato gozaimasu." Byodo-in also had a small museum with some interesting Buddhist artifacts. There were a couple of phoenix sculptures, and a lot of sculptures of the Worshipping Bodhisattva on a Cloud, for which Byodo-in is famous. The Amidha Buddha used to be surrounded by many of these small Bodhisattva sculptures. The museum was very modern, which was an interesting contrast to the ancient Phoenix Hall.

After Byodo-in, we went to an Obaku Zen temple. The other two types of Zen, Rinzai and Soto, are more popular, but Obaku has become more popular with Japanese businessmen in recent years since the Obaku Buddha seems to have merged identities in Japan with Hotei, one of the seven Shinto gods of luck. Hotei specifically is the god of monetary fortune. He looks like the fat happy Buddha you often see in Chinese restaurants, though I am not sure if they are the same (no, not all Buddhas look like that). It was an interesting little complex. Very Chinese - symmetrical, for one thing. We saw a lot of monks in more reform outfits, like a normal monk's robe under a sport jacket and some leather shoes. This seems to be typical of Obaku Zen "business monks". I thought it was silly. In the main chamber of the temple grounds was a large shrine to the Buddha, surrounded by 17 or 18 Arhats, other heavenly beings (I forget exactly what they are). The shrine was very interesting looking - bold colors that are generally not used in Japanese Buddhist shrines. Upon leaving, we saw a suzumebachi, a giant, poisonous black and orange bee. I don't know if it is actually a killer bee, but I heard an interesting story about what these things can do. Sometimes one or two suzumebachi will crash a bumble bee nest and absolutely wreak havoc. The bumble bees are so defenseless that their only way to emerge victorious over a suzumebachi is for a lot of them to latch onto one and vibrate so much that they raise the suzumebachi's body temperature until it dies. Extremely insufficient, but pretty hardcore.

My other exploit this week was Jidai Matsuri (Festival of the Ages), that I just went to today. A long line of samurai, geisha, palanquin carriers and everything in between walked down the street from the Imperial Palace to Heian Shrine. It was pretty interesting to see so many people decked out in ancient garb. Occasionally there would be one guy who would look as though he had been born in the wrong era because he made such a believable samurai, but to balance him out there would be some guy wearing Nikes with kimono. There was one funny guy who was chanting something and leading some palanquin carriers. He stopped and made jokes with the crowd whenever the going was slow. It was an interesting parade. So that's the news. Hope life is treating all of you well.

Love and Peace,
Jess

10/23 edit: My host family is renting a small Yahoo! hub so they can use the internet. It gives off a wireless signal that I can pick up in my room, but for some reason it won't let me onto the network (even with their password). So I may have more access to internet in the near future. However, I was unable to figure out how to correctly ask in Japanese whether the internet hub they are renting is pay-as-you-go, or one fee for a month, so I don't know how often I would be able to use it anyway.

anther edit: Keiko and I just tried to figure out how to get me onto their internet provider, but it was fruitless. We called up tech support, but ran into an interesting problem: I knew things about computers, but not in Japanese. Keiko knew the Japanese, but not about computers. It was the blind leading the blind either way we tried to talk to the guy. We just now gave up because it was taking way too much time and effort. She said she would make ramen for lunch, which brought a smile to my face.

#5: Perpetuating the stereotype of the stupid American for future generations...

9/27/05

Summer is, very gradually, coming to a close. It's still regularly in the 70s and 80s, but the nights are getting colder.

Last week, there were two large flea markets in Kyoto: one at Toji Temple in Southern Kyoto on Wednesday, and the other at Kitano Tenmangu Shrine in Northern Kyoto on Sunday. Being the good listener that I am, I thought that both flea markets were at Toji, so I decided to go to the one on Sunday. My host mother even told me that she thought the one at Sunday was at Tenmangu, but I being stubborn, told her I had heard differently, and that maybe I would check out Tenmangu if I had time, but first I was going to Toji. Oh, stupid, stupid American - little did I know it was adventure time again. I took my usual train into Kyoto but got off early at Omiya since it was closer to where I wanted to go. Then, after a call from my dad and a long time figuring out which bus and direction were correct, I took a bus down to Toji. After wandering around the desolate temple for a few minutes, I called my friend Scott to ask where he and the others were. He said they were in front of the temple, by the steps and went onto to describe what he could see in some detail. I wandered around for several minutes before realizing something was horribly off. I called him again and asked him the name of the place he was at. "I dunno...Ten-something?" I wanted to tackle myself. Luckily, I'm not that flexible (if it's even possible). I should have known Keiko would be right. Anyway, I walked for a while before I got to a bus stop that would take me all the way North to Kitano Tenmangu (Kita means North) and rode it all the way up the West side of Kyoto. So now I've been almost all over the middle section of the city.

I initially intended to be at the flea market at 11:30 am, but didn't get there until 1:30. My friends Scott and Dave, who I had planned to meet there, were getting ready to leave when I ran into them. Greg, Lydia, Joe and Ali were still milling around, however. The first thing I did was get a skewer of chicken yakitori, because by God was I hungry. The second thing I did was get some yaki soba because of course I was still hungry. There were little food stands like this with traditional Japanese specialties all over the flea market. There were several stands of Takoyaki, which are little balls of octopus, vegetables and other stuff. Zach, you would have died if you saw the giant pork buns they were making at this one place. I was already full so I didn't get one, but I know you probably would have anyway. They looked sooo good. Oh my god.

The food was exciting enough for me, but the majority of stands were full of a combination of traditional Japanese goods and random junk like the 1980s E.T. model I bought - full with the red hooded sweatshirt and glowing finger. A couple of my friends got full kimono sets - kimono, sash, undergarments and geta sandals. They were good sets, which they got for cheap - around $100. Quality kimonos can cost thousands and thousands of dollars. One of my friends was looking around for a good katana, but gave up the search when he saw that decent tsuba, sword guards (the circular part that goes above the hilt), were going for hundreds of dollars by themselves. Japanese style umbrellas, old books, clothes...there was a pretty wide variety of stuff there, and I think they have these festivals once a month. Overall, the festival was a good time.

Note (October 10th): At this point in writing the email, I left Kyoto for my mid-term break trip around Japan, so that last part may have seemed like I cut it short. Over break, we went to Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Matsuyama and Himeji. I will talk about the trip in my next email because I had already outlined things I wanted to say in this one. I know this is a little awkward and I apologize for not sending this sooner. The truth is that I probably did have time to do so, but I was a slacker over mid-term break.

Kyoto is a very populated city, but becoming friends with Japanese my age has proven difficult. They seem largely cliche-oriented and nigh unapproachable. Kyotoites have a reputation among Japanese as being stubborn/persistent. The people I have met have, with few exceptions, been in their mid-20s or older. I actually wasn't as surprised by the nature of the youths here as most people probably were, which is due to the fact that I did a research paper on a similar topic last year. One reason is a major generation gap, partly caused by the intensely fast modernization Japan has undergone, and also due to the fact that they have not seen wars the way the older Japanese have. I have never seen rebellious looking youths conversing with people of unlike mind outside of a job setting.

Last night (October 9th), I went to Tokiko's house to have dinner with her and her English students, of which there were three: two middle-aged women and a middle-school boy. Their English turned out to be rather spotty, so we conversed in Japanese, with the exception of when Tokiko made them speak English. We had dinner in the little classroom she has in her house. The boy came in first and introduced himself to me as Suzuki Kazunobu (in Japan, people state their family name first). He had been studying English for three years, but was very apprehensive to speak more than a single word at a time to me. This gave me a laugh, because I identified with the feeling well. I told him that going to an English-speaking country would improve his English vastly. We had some interesting conversations, including one about how only actors say "break a leg". Suzuki-san joked that runners must say "break both legs", but I told him to be careful because telling someone, "I hope you break your legs!" has an entirely different meaning. Suzuki also explained to me that he was being interviewed in English for class, and mistakenly said "I have no future" when he really meant "I have no plans for the future". That was pretty funny, too. Overall, the dinner was a good time, and Tokiko is an excellent cook.

I have had several other chance meetings with friendly Japanese. The first was on the train at the beginning of school. I was trying to memorize a vocabulary list I had made for myself when I looked at the woman next to me and saw that she was peering over my shoulder and chuckling a little to herself. She asked if I thought Japanese was difficult, to which I laughed and replied that it was very different from English. She said her name was Mizuki and that she was 26. I am horrible at telling how old Japanese people are, as most Westerners seem to be. She wrote down a new word on my vocabulary list that I still haven't figured out. Most Japanese are too shy to talk to anyone, let alone a foreigner, on a train. Mizuki, however, had probably been enjoying happy hour before getting on the train. I haven't seen her since, and don't expect to since 1000s of people make the Kyoto-Osaka commute every day.

The next person I met wasn't actually Japanese, but she could have fooled me. I got on the bus one morning and upon sitting down in the back immediately heard, in very easy Japanese, "Ah, same school?" She turned out to be right, but I wouldn't have known it. She was a Korean woman named Miyeong, who had been studying Japanese at our school since spring of last year in order to work for a Japanese company in the future (she already has a job lined up). She said she was 25, which threw me as usual (I was thinking...19?). It was Miyeong who explained to me that most of the other language students are Korean, though a few are Chinese or Taiwanese. I still see Miyeong on the bus to school now and then.

A couple weeks ago, I heard two people in the back of the bus speaking in simple Japanese, and heard one of them mention something about people coming here from American universities, which made me whirl my head around. One of them was a woman I recognized as being one of the other language classes (probably Korean, also). After hearing a bit more of the conversation I decided they had probably been talking about me at one point, so I decided to approach them when we got off the bus and try to make my meager circle of friends grow. The girl I recognized walked off before I approached them, so I wound up talking to the other one. I said "same school?" the way Miyeong did to me, which apparently surprised the woman greatly, as she took a step backwards. "That's great." I thought to myself. I asked if she went to my school, too, to which she said something I took to mean yes. Miyeong got off the bus then and they said hello to each other. I should have taken note of the way Miyeong addressed her. Oh, stupid, stupid A.D.D. American, when will you learn? Next, I made a big mistake. I asked if she, too, was Korean, assuming she was part of Miyeong's class. The woman looked at me a little cock-eyed and said "No, I'm Japanese," and then paused for a moment to let this sink in. She went on, "I'm a teacher here." I probably looked physically bent over as she walked away after saying that. In truth, my attempt was more comedic than anything else, and Miyeong and I had a good laugh about it during one of our class breaks later (she was in the room next to me that day). I haven't talked to the teacher since.

I also had a conversation with a middle-aged Tokyo businessman I met on the train once whose English was very good. He said he was studying Chinese, so we bonded a little on how difficult learning foreign languages was. Another meeting I had was with an English teacher from Kyoto named Aya, who I guessed (in my head) was 20 (I'm getting more conservative with my guessing) and turned out to be 24. The most recent interaction I had wasn't a conversation as much as an understanding. I was sitting in the bus listening to music when I saw a woman in a pin-stripe suit, also listening to music. When she got up to get off the bus, she stopped next to me and gave me her meishi (business card) and walked off. Turns out it wasn't actually her meishi, but rather that of the business she works for - a design company. After looking over what I could understand of the card, I decided I would pay the place a visit eventually. So how did she know that I was interested in art? I still puzzle over this, but it made me feel cool so I don't question it too much.

That's about it for my social interactions with Japanese people outside of being a customer, student, or with my host family. The Japanese are very shy in this way. There is another side to this element of their psyche, however. Professor Hudson gave a lecture to us earlier today and in one of his tangents told the story of when he knew he had crossed over into the Japanese psyche. He said it happened when he was in a museum with some Japanese friends, and he heard an American tour group in the distance. "Oh my god, they're so noisy and disrespectful," he thought. "And they're probably going to want to ask me questions! Oh no, what do I do? I don't want to be associated with these sloppy people...wait - I am one of them." And at that point he went and hid in a corner so they wouldn't approach him. I thought this story was hilarious until I realized how realistic sounding it was. I can completely imagine that kind of change occurring if you stay here long enough. The Japanese are so much more polite and respectful about everything. Professor Hudson said that when he finally went back to the States after a long stint here, it was painful for him to do something simple like go into a supermarket. He told one story about being in a laundromat after returning from Japan. There was a large woman next to him who's son kept climbing on top of the washing machine, and she kept slapping him and throwing him off and yelling "GOD DAMNIT! STAY OFF THAT MACHINE! HOW MANY TIMES 'VE I TOLD YA?" Hudson said his immediate thought was "oh my god...I need to get back to Japan." I'm not sure how understandable this is to someone who does not know much about Japanese culture, but maybe the debate my friends Max and Dave had afterwards will clarify the subject. (I should also add that the Japanese are generally extremely organized and on top of everything)

Over lunch, we talked a bit about the points Professor Hudson had brought up (the lecture had actually been about the beginnings of Shinto and Buddhism in Japan, but we found the other stuff more interesting). Dave argued that he would rather be surrounded by people who are quiet, polite and respectful because...well, frankly, he doesn't like being treated like shit by workers and the like. Max, on the other hand, said that he would rather have people be sincere, even if it meant they would be assholes to him. Both of their points were pretty subjective, but we had an interesting conversation on the subject nonetheless, knowing that neither side would cave on the issue. Dave, who claims to be a pretty cynical guy, said that he preferred not to assume that people were being insincere to him when they were being nice. Max said something along the lines of the fact that since everyone here acts the same outwardly, they can't possibly be being sincere. I added at this point that it's probably the same here as it is anywhere else - if you really want someone to be sincere with you, you have to get to know them. The debate went in circles for a while, but I thought it was an interesting discussion.

Well, I guess that's about it for this segment. I'll get to work tomorrow on the recapping of my adventures over mid-term break, so as to write it out while it's still fresh in my mind. I have begun to put up the photos I have taken online. The site is www.snapfish.com - you have to log in with my email address, turinargh@hotmail.com and password - "photos", in order to see the pictures, but the uploading system is still much more practical then that of Webshots.com. As you'll see, I'm not much of a photographer, and since it's been such a long time since I was in Tokyo, a lot of the captions are not the most detailed or interesting pieces I've ever written (a rather large understatement). I will soon put up the rest of the photos that I have taken, and also attempt to steal some better pictures from my more photo-savvy friends here (Joe is quite the photographer). In the meantime, I hope everyone is well, and that those of you in the Northeast are enjoying the coming autumn, because the leaves here are still green as ever. It seems I'll have to wait another couple weeks for my favorite season to set in.

Love and peace,
Jess

#4: The Good, The Bad and The Japanese

9/24/05

Yep, I'm still here - the place where even the hobos make themselves little houses out of paper and take off their shoes when they enter them. It's finally starting to cool down here. Kyoto is around the same latitude as North Carolina, which makes Takatsuki around...South Carolina. Palm trees can grow here, but the few I see probably didn't naturally sprout up there. I still come home from school sweating and overheated, but no longer drenched and delirious (a slight dramatization for example's sake). There's been a bit of a breeze sometimes as well, which is a welcome addition to the usual heat.

This week there were two Japanese holidays - one for grandparents, I believe, on Monday, and another on Friday, which I believe had something to do with the beginning of fall. Everyone had off from school on those days...except for foreigners like me who don't celebrate the holidays. When I asked Keiko and Daitaro what they did to celebrate, they laughed and said that every day was a holiday for them. They are retired, but my friends and I have been noticing that a lot of people in this country seem to be generally happy with their lives and motivated to do what they do, even if they have a run-of-the-mill office job. Previously I didn't think this was the case, but more and more I've been noticing that laziness is a genuinely American epidemic. A walk through Ankoji-cho will show teenagers walking a group of dogs, an older couple keeping their garden, men working on rooftops, people tinkering with their cars and bikes, kids in the playground, etc. Keiko and Daitaro generally only watch TV during dinner, when they are not running around taking care of business.

There is, of course an ugly side to the Japanese psyche - a very, very ugly side. Recent years have brought a new element to the suicide epidemic here: group suicide websites. People - usually teenagers and 20-somethings - talk to each other about how much they hate living, and plan in advance to commit suicide together. For a lot of them, it seems that they are so extraordinarily lonely, that dying together with someone they have never met before is the only thing that will make them happy. A lot of these people just access the sites through their cell phones, which is pretty scary, because a walk through downtown Kyoto will show huge masses of people messaging each other and going online on their phones. Thinking about the possibility that they could be planning to kill themselves can turn a mood sour. Being here for three months, the chance is still pretty low, but I hope I don't witness any train jumping.

Youth culture here isn't all death and doom, however - people here dress more colorfully on the whole than in the states. It's probably because students are forced to wear uniforms in most schools. Young Japanese love shirts with English phrases on them - think of it as their reverse version of the Chinese/Japanese tattoo fad in the States. I'd need to be constantly alert to take pictures of all of the funny sounding English (or Engrish, as it has been dubbed). Shirts I've seen people wearing a lot include "I LOVE HAPPY" and "EGOTIST". Pop songs here typically include English choruses, or at least the occasional English nonsensibility. A song I've had stuck in my head lately has a chorus of "Crash- into the rolling (or is it roaring?) morning, Flash- I'm in the coolest driver's high..." Smarter business here have their store signs and advertisements with at least some English - with as few words as possible. This is not just for foreigners looking for an accessible bar, it also shows local youths that the business is hip to the modern.


Last Saturday (the 17th, was it?) I went with the study group to Fushimi-Inari Taisha, the shrine to Inari, the fox god of agriculture. It's located in an area of Southern Kyoto that I'd never before wandered - the houses were bigger, with nice gates, garages with BMWs inside and the rest. One house even had it's own personal temple/dojo separate from the main house. Despite all of this, the houses were still close together, as is the Japanese way of conserving space in a small, densely populated country. On an interesting side note, Tokyo was built on some very soft ground, and an earthquake may come through there in the near future that would absolutely devastate the area. It may be to the same catastrophic degree as the Tokyo earthquake early in the 20th century. The shops and restaurants in the area specialize in inari zushi (rice in a bean curd pocket, named after the fox god) and kitsune udon (inari zushi in an udon soup - kitsune is Japanese for fox). At the bottom of the mountain was a beautiful temple where some tourists student field trips had gathered. It wasn't a mob scene, but apparently that spot entertains more people on New Year's Eve than any other spot in all of Japan. As with other temples, this one had a small sink area nearby where you ladle yourself out water to clean your hands and mouths (but not drink) before you pray. Professor Hudson made his son Taro (who's mother is Japanese) do so and we proceeded on our walk.

The entrance to the main trail is marked by two stone foxes, in homage to Inari. All of the poles and Shinto torii (arches) in Fushimi-Inari Taisha, of which there must have been more than a thousand, were orange. I forgot to ask why this was. At one point we walked for a while under a tunnel of orange torii, consecutive arch after arch, for several minutes. I believe that the arches were put up for people who had dedicated money to the shrine, as they all had names on them. There were all sizes of torii on sale in the trail-side shops. I almost bought a pint size one, but didn't remember to do so on my way down. Near the top of the trail were a series of shrines with foxes and stone markers of some sort. I'm having trouble describing these in my head, so I guess the mental image will have to wait until I steal the digital photos from my friend Joe (my camera's battery ran out again midway through).

Sitting at one of the small shrines, I saw a bug on the wall that looked remarkably like a stick. This may not sound interesting, but this bug looked so much like a twig that I did a double take. It was way longer than most stick bugs I imagine, so it must have had incredible camouflage. Unfortunately for the bug, he was doing something that twigs don't do, so I noticed him. My friend Max picked him up and carried him, kicking and screaming, for the next leg of the walk. As was the tradition the two of us had begun at Mount Atago, we decided to name the bug, and due to his looks, I thought he looked like a Twiggy. Twiggy was quite a kicker, however, and after a while Max had to let him go. I thought I'd never see another Twiggy again, but then I was wrong. We came upon Twiggy II some time later, and Max picked him up again. Max and Professor Hudson's son Taro were walking some twenty feet behind me at one point when I heard them giggling like schoolgirls. "There's no way..." I remember thinking, but then I turned my head and saw that my instinct was right. Max had launched Twiggy II twenty feet, sky high with good aim, and the poor bug had ended his frightening flight by firmly clamping himself to my behind. I let Twiggy stay for a little while, but eventually decided that no one rides for free, and set him back in the woods. And by set, I mean, tossed, because for some reason it was hilarious to watch the poor guy fly through the air looking for something to clamp onto. Oh, simple pleasures - it doesn't matter what part of the world you're in, you can still have fun by being immature.

I know I said I would have an easier time sending mail last time, but apparently I was wrong because the library has been closed for renovation for the past two weeks. I can pick up a very weak wireless signal outside the library, but it's pretty unreliable. So for the time being, sending email for me is still a matter to grumble over.

Ai to heiwa,
Jess

#3: Extracurricular Activities -- Japan Style

Hey all,

Greetings again from the other side of the world - I hope summer's end is treating everyone well. The weather here has been alternating between hot (today was 90-something) and rainy, and sometimes a strange combination of the two. My host mother, Keiko, says that June is usually the rainy season here, so I assume that all the rain is the result of Hurricane Katrina. She also says that it's been hotter this year than in the past. Apparently a lot of Japanese are now fairly convinced that global warming is something to be taken seriously. Back to Katrina though - the morning news I watch has recently been divided into three sections: Hurricane Katrina, the Japanese election, and some other odd story, usually fluff reporting. I can't believe how devastating the hurricane was (and how poorly it was handled back home). It even reached Japan that, to quote one politician, "There were two disasters - the hurricane and the response to it." Katrina hit Japan as well, damaging the Southern mainland and islands quite a bit, missing the middle of Japan, where I am, entirely, and hitting the Northern island of Hokkaido at the end. The Japanese seem to have handled it quite well.

Every day here is a huge energy drain. You'd think that only having one class would leave ample free time and energy to do whatever I'd like, but then you'd be wrong. I have Japanese class every morning from 9 until 12:30, Monday through Friday, with 10 minute breaks every 45 minutes. It's really not that "intensive", but the teachers rarely speak English -- so zoning out for a second can cost you a lot. Some of the other students have been complaining that it's a catch-22 that they don't know enough Japanese to ask a question about something they're learning, but I think it's better that the teachers don't speak much (or try not to speak much) English. In fact, I'm impressed that they've been able to conduct a class entirely in Japanese to students who have such an elementary knowledge of the language.

After class, I usually have an inexpensive lunch at the cafeteria ($3-5), Sukiya ($4-7) or various other places that I am beginning to explore. The cafeteria here is not what you might think of when you conjure up an image of a school cafeteria. Sure, it looks pretty similar, but the food is a lot better than what they serve at school (I'm not even going to mention high school cafeteria food). I usually get either a meat-vegetable combo dish of some kind, Japanese curry with rice (very tasty), or beef soba/udon/ramen - all of which are under $5. The rice there is also very fresh. The down side is that ordering fried chicken or something similar will result in a dish slathered mayonnaise, which the Japanese absolutely love and use as we do ketchup - maybe more. Sukiya is a chain fast-food restaurant that is not at all what you think of when you think of fast food (seeing the trend here?). It's across the street from the school and serves up curry rice, ginger beef (or something similar) with rice, and a couple other dishes in all sorts of combinations and sets. If I'm really hungry, I get a large set for around 600 yen (a little less than $6). It's delicious, though there's not a lot of variety. Today I went with some friends to a Chinese diner (not American Chinese, mind you) type restaurant, where I got a gigantic bowl of ramen, a little bit of katsu don (or something similar...ok, I admit it - sometimes I don't know what I'm eating. but there is something about this country that makes me trust people more. one example of the difference in trust here is that it is considered bad manners to count your change that you get back from a cashier), and a large bowl of fried rice. I've never been so full on a $8.50 of food in my life.

Keiko has been keeping up with the interesting cuisine as well. Last night we had flat fish and some delicious sashimi (squid and something else of which they forgot the name). The flat fish was a little intimidating at first because they put the whole fish on the plate, head and all. It was easy to eat though, once I got the hang of picking through the bones, and pretty tasty. When I woke up Saturday afternoon, she made me the best bowl of ramen I've had in my life, after which I had the freshest orange I've ever had in my life, followed by the tastiest grapefruit. I'm having trouble remember all the different food she's made because I've eaten here almost every night and morning for the last two and half weeks. She made delicious katsu don (fried pork ) a few nights ago. Oh, that's right -- I had an incredible meal the other night. She made both unagi and tako in one dinner! The unagi was served don style (over rice), which is one of my favorite Japanese dishes back home, and the tako with a hint of lime and some cabbage. It was oh so delicious. I sense some of you may be a little bit apprehensive about these dishes, so let me reassure you- eel and octopus are two of my favorite marine cuisine!

Commuting and running around dehydrates me a bit every day (not to mention the higher sodium concentration in pretty much everything - I don't know how they handle it), so I carry a couple bottles of water that I freeze over night all the time. The Japanese, as I am learning, prefer tea (usually green tea) to water. It was kind of funny reaching the top of Mount Atago and seeing all the people downing their big bottles of iced green tea (no sugar). I half expected the runners in the Hokkaido Marathon, which I watched a while back, to douse themselves in tea from time to time instead of water.

After I eat lunch, I occasionally head over to the gigantic arcade across from school. It has a batting cage, and old style arcade with crane games, and every other kind of game you can imagine, not to mention a whole eerie corner of hentai ones. (if you don't what that means, don't worry about it. just know that it's not suitable for children. or most normal people). I usually play Pop'n'Music, a music game where you press buttons to the melody of a song, or some kind of fighting game. If I am feeling energetic, and feel like making myself sweat out of every pore in my body, I play a round of Dance Dance Revolution (DDR to those in the know). DDR is probably more popular in the States now than in Japan, where the fad has died out a good amount. Games here are generally 100 yen (about $1), so I don't go too often - as it is very easy to spend absurd amounts of money, especially if you have never played a game before and lose in 10 seconds.

A few days ago, the sun decided to come out (for a change), so I resolved to go running. I asked my host mother where to go and she said the road to their greenhouse (where they tend to the chrysanthemums) would probably be best. I assured her that, having walked there once, I knew the way. But, being incredibly kind-hearted, and Japanese, she refused and led the way on her bike. I had a tough time keeping up with her, especially since I was constantly being distracted by the sunset or something of equal beauty, to which I would try to breathe out a "kirei desu ne! (it's beautiful!)" in between panting. I have to be honest with myself - I'm a wee bit out of shape compared to my...more athletic days. This being the case, a 5k (a little more, maybe?) run was a little tiring. When we reached the greenhouse, Keiko left her bike and showed me the way down the river nearby. It was beautiful - Takatsuki is situated in a valley, so you can see the entire town from the non-populated spaces, as well as all the surrounding mountains. I forgot my camera, but Keiko brought hers and made me pose several times. The riverside is a nice spot where people have barbecues on weekends, she explained to me. We saw some fish and a turtle in the river, which brought forth a conversation about snapping turtles and I had a good time explaining to her in Japanese how dangerous they are. They are actually a very expensive delicacy in Japan. She put her bike in the back of Daitaro's truck for the way home (its mostly uphill going back), but I told her I wanted to run more (silly me). Once again, I assured her that I knew the way, and this time she let me go and went home with Daitaro (oh, silly me). The going was fine until I realized I had zoned out and run past the rice fields (a beautiful spot) that I should have cut through. Yeah, it's true - I can't backtrack. I just can't stand it. So, being my stubborn self, I pushed onwards and made the next turn instead. This probably wasn't a big deal, as I came out in a place that looked vaguely familiar, and kept running. When I got back to Ankoji-cho (my town), I figured it would be easy to find my house. Oh, how wrong I was. My host family lives in Ankoji san(3)-chome (cho-meh). I wandered through i(1)chome to ni(2)chome and thought "now it should be coming up!", but then I passed under some unfamiliar power lines and was suddenly in yon(4)chome, dangerously close to the surrounding mountains. I scratched my head, shrugged and turned the way I thought was right. This is where things get a little...murky (I'm not good at finding the right word sometimes, but I think murky does the trick here). I wandered past the same groups of kids playing hide and seek about three times. Somewhere in this interim, it got dark. When I finally decided it would be best to attempt to find the road and find my way from there, I was no longer able to keep up my marathon pace. I'm not completely sure how, but I eventually found my way back home - a little late for dinner. It should have taken 30 minutes, tops. I was probably gone for an hour and a half though. All in good fun. Except for when I passed out before finishing my work.

Last Friday night, I went with a bunch of the guys in our study group to check out the nightlife (we had tried unsuccessfully before, but this time we knew what we were doing). Since the bars and clubs here don't really get going until around 1am, we started sipping some drinks down by the Kamo River at 10pm (note: the drinking age here is 20, and very loose. also, you can drink outside), which was good fun. The Japanese loooove happy hour. They're big on drinking a little bit every day to keep themselves from going insane. The riverside became pretty populated around 11 or 12, as the party people began to stretch their legs. At one point, about 40 Japanese were standing arm in arm in a large circle with a few people at the center taking pictures. I think they were singing something, but I couldn't quite catch it. I tried to ask someone what was going on, but it was to no avail. I met a few other non-Japanese there as well. There were a couple British guys whose names I don't remember, and a Pakistani guy who worked for an oil company. The Brits joined us later at Bar, Isn't It?, where admission was 1000 yen with one free drink. The bar mostly played American pop music there, which Japanese girls love. I guess it's probably better when you don't understand how bad the lyrics are.

Other than the usual wandering around downtown and elsewhere, that's what I have been up to lately. Tomorrow (it's Friday, the 16th, now that I'm finishing this) I'm going with the group for a walk by Fushimi-Inari Taisha, a Shinto shrine to the fox demon, Inari. It's supposed to be a really interesting place - I'll include it in my next email. I hope everyone is doing well. I'll be back soon enough.

Love and peace,
Jess

P.S. - I finally got my computer registered on the school network, so now I will have an easier time sending mail, though the Colgate website will still not allow me to send anything from that address.
P.P.S. - I apologize for all the long parenthetical statements. (old habits die hard).

Email #2

I'm now in Nagasaki, Southern city of extremely kind people. Or at least compared to Kyoto, where people, especially the women (not to be sexist) are known for being stubborn and a little bit tired of catering to tourists. I don't blame them. I'm just sitting around, drinking some vending machine beer and being a general loser on the internet in the hotel room...with friends. Here's the second email I sent out...



9/6/05

The Kyoto-Takatsuki Shuffle

Hey everyone -

This is digest #2 of my adventures in Japan. If you know someone else who wants to read these, or if you don't actually want to yourself, send me an email telling me and i'll do something about within the next year (the next time I get on the internet). It seems as though Colgate is not going to let us send anything from Japan using school email. I can still read mail from that address, but I will probably be using my hotmail address to send things, which is a pain since I have all of you in a nice, tidy mailing list in my address book.......but I digress.

JA-PAN. The land of neon signs and raw fish. Things are still going well; I start to nod off in the early evening, but stay up until 10 pm to do my work. I wake up at 6:30 am to have breakfast and get to the station in time for class at 9 am. I know, it doesn't sound like me. Jet lag has me up that early most of the time anyway, seeing as I fall asleep before 11 pm. My host father, Daitaro, gives me a ride to the train station most mornings. Public transportation here is much more business-oriented than in New York, especially during peak hours. Part of this attitude is probably due to the fact that I live on the way between the Kyoto-Osaka commute, and Osaka is a city in which instead of saying hello a lot of people just ask "how's your business going?" I haven't been to Osaka yet, save for the one time when I spaced out and missed my stop on the way home and wound up going all the way to Juso station in Osaka due to the fact that I was on a super express train. It was only an extra half hour each way. The buses and trains can be pretty crowded, and I sometimes wind up standing for the entire trip. Good for the ankles. I really don't mind the commute - it's time for me to space out before class, which I most definitely need.

As I said before, my host family is really, really nice. I try to help out around the house as much as I can, but Keiko usually beats me to the punch or waves me off. She and Daitaro are both retired school teachers - she taught elementary school and he taught gym and science in middle school. Retired though they may say they are, they're very busy people. Daitaro is an avid kiku (kee-ku) enthusiast. Kiku is a kind of flower arranging art that deals with growing and arranging chrysanthemums. He and Keiko go to their greenhouse down the street every day to tend their plants. Apparently, they are very good - the trophies take up nearly an entire room downstairs. I know he placed at least within the top 20 in all of Japan at one time. So he is busy doing things regarding that all day. Keiko helps out with the plants, and also keeps house. There is no washing machine in the house, so she hand-washes everything. She washes my clothes every day or two, though I tell her she doesn't have to. She's a great cook - I've had a lot of interesting cuisine. Today for dinner we had chicken and chicken liver yakitori (skewers) with onion and something, pumpkin, tempura pumpkin flowers, and rice with seaweed. She always gives me too much food and I feel horrible leaving any left over. The Japanese don't generally have snacks, so even these two small, older people have pretty good-sized meals. Other interesting things I've eaten include yaki-soba, pears, daikon (Japanese white radish), mame (mashed bean type thing), kampyo sushi, okra and okra flowers, and a bunch of other things I either can't remember or forgot to ask what it was. The vast majority of the food she makes is very healthy, and the vast majority of that is delicious. The produce is really fresh, and the sushi - god. I didn't know fish could be that fresh or taste that good. The two of them, with their daughter, Tokiko, and her daughters Chiho, 19, and Kana, 17, set up sushi party Saturday night which greeted me in their special occasion tatami room when I returned from my journey (I'll get to that in a bit). Tokiko is also a teacher - she teaches English to elementary school students. The other night she came over so I could edit something she wrote for class. In return, she helped me with a speech I had to give. I don't know her daughters too well, but Chiho, who is just starting at some kind of special occupation college, comes over occasionally to practice piano (she seems to be just starting...or so I assume). Kana is a gymnast. They both constantly type away on their cell phones at an exhausting pace, as most teenage girls here tend to do. I met Chiho in a hilarious manner. I came home on an incredibly hot day, drenched in sweat, and took off my shirt and splashed my face with water. Upon realizing I still had Keiko's umbrella, I went back to the front door to put it back when in came Chiho with Keiko. I can't tell if she was frightened or holding in uproarious laughter, but there was this silly, awkward foreigner, looking totally wiped and sweating like a pig. We exchanged greetings and I speed-walked to take a shower. She doesn't talk to me much. Heh.

This Saturday was by far one of the most rewarding days on the trip so far. Professor Hudson, the Colgate teacher leading our study group, took a bunch of us to Mount Atago, a mountain outside of Northwest Kyoto with a Shinto shrine at its peak. We met at Kyoto station at 8 pm and took a train to the mountain. Our jaws began dropping immediately as we exited the train - it was beautiful. We were on a bridge overlooking some rapids and miles and miles of tree-covered mountains and hills. Despite the occasional power line, which are always, always in sight in Japan, the scenery was stunning. My friend Max and I set off to find a sturday bamboo walking staff. He wound up carrying an entire dead bamboo tree for part of the way before realizing how ridiculous he looked. Plus, how could he defend against the onslaught of ninjas we would obviously encounter with such a cumbersome object? From the station, we walked to a mountain village (I forgot the name), which was 3.5 kilometers away. The village had a few houses and mile after mile of rice fields - beautiful. We were a little tired at this point and a few people got our their lunches to start eating. I can't remember who it was who said "So this is the mountain?" but the response was not what we had expected. Professor Hudson laughed and said that we had just reached our starting point. We were at the foot of Mount Atago, looking up at it. "From here, it gets a little steep," said Professor Hudson. If I remember correctly, the walk up the mountain from here was about 4 kilometers, which doesn't take into account the incline.

My friends Max, Alex, Chris and I decided to get a work out and set off up the mountain at a rather hefty pace. The first part of the hike was through a clearing, but after that we were mostly in the shade. A first open space let us overlook the town from which we had just walked. Later, another one let us overlook all of Kyoto. Another still let us see even beyond that, a little foggy though it may have been. We saw a bunch of interesting insects along the way, including some of metallic beatles, which Max and I named an assortment of American and Japanese names. This hike was some of the best exercise I've gotten in a long time - I was sweating profusely and sore all over by the time we reached the Shinto shrine, but my god did it feel good. It wasn't over yet though. I ate my tiny Japanese sandwich in a few bites, and drank five bottles of water over the course of the hike. Japanese people, however, drink green tea (cold) instead of water, even when hydrating themselves while exercising. The shrine was interesting - the ritual is to bow twice, ring the bell there twice, clap twice and bow twice more. Of course, I didn't know this at the time, so I just kind of rang the bell, clapped a couple times, bowed and left. I've probably got some mountain demons following me around now.

After waiting 30 minutes or so for the rest of the group (we walked up in less than an hour, which impressed Professor Hudson), we headed down the Kiyotaki waterfall trail down another part of the mountain. We stopped at a small shrine with lots of tanuki (fox-raccoon animals) sculptures. We then headed down towards the waterfall. After a little while, the same four of us decided it would be more fun to run down the mountain like little kids and use shortcuts and side trails. This was kind of bad for my knees, but I got another workout. The bottom of this route led us to a small stream and a tiny waterfall, where we again awaited the rest of the group. Professor Hudson said that the tiny waterfall we just saw was not Kiyotaki, and we headed off to see it. This path was absolutely gorgeous. It was now early afternoon and thick beams of light shot through the thick foliage. We followed the water upstream over a rock path through a tiny village, where we realized it was near impossible to bring anything you might want to add to your house. Just past this village was one of the most spectacular sights I've ever seen. The Kiyotaki waterfall was through a Shinto arch, and had several small shrines (like one in a house): one to an ancient shaman and his demon assistants, one to Jizo, a bodhisattva who takes care of children, and another to someone else equipped with Chinese style lions. There were candles and devices for offerings everywhere. The sun was at just the right angle above the waterfall and we all took a number of pictures. I washed my face in the waterfall - and it felt great. Getting to the waterfall reminded me of the part in Rocky where he reaches the top of the steps, only unbelievably beautiful and more spiritual. We came back from the waterfall and walked through a planted cedar forest past a river and caught a bus back to Kyoto. It was a truly fulfilling trip. I definitely want to do it again.

Well, it's about my bed time now (9:45), so I'm going to leave this email here for now and leave the rest for next time.

Love and peace,

Jess

PS - I apologize for the weird paragraph separations, but it's late and I'm tired.