yet again...

..I've lost interest in this. I got home and, after a week of getting back on track, another week of seeing friends and family and celebrating, I still don't feel like doing much of anything. Except for catching up on movies, music and art. Maybe do some reading. But not productive reading. Probably play some games, but not Xbox games, because those magically disappeared.

So this blog is done until I find another use for it. I need to focus myself.

Email #8: The End Draws Ever Nearer...

11/5/05

In a fantastic combination of business and laziness, recent days have flown by without me sitting down to write one of these heart-wrenching emails. I can now count my final days in Kyoto on my fingers and toes, am I so inclined. The days after that will be spent in Toyama-ken, a cold mountain village, and Chichijima, a tropical island in the Ogasawara chain that is a 26-hour boat ride from Tokyo (there is no airport). At this point, I can only use the nothing word "interesting" to describe what the rest of the trip probably holds. The last couple weeks have been jam-packed, so let's see what I can remember of them.

My chronology may be lacking this time, but there is one place that we went a couple weeks that was absolutely mind-blowing - and that was the Miho Museum. I am not sure how many of you may have heard of it. In fact, most Japanese people don't recognize the name either. It's a 15-minute train ride out of Kyoto to Ishiyama, and then a 50-minute bus ride up a narrow, curvy, mountain road to the museum. So what makes it special? Let me beginning by announcing the name of the architect: I. M. Pei. Yep, the same I. M. Pei who designed the controversial glass pyramid in front of the Louvre. Why did Pei design this little museum with a small collection that's practically in the middle of nowhere? That's actually a pretty interesting story.

The mountain that the museum is on has been the property of a family of Japanese nobles for centuries. In recent centuries, the family "went into decline", as seems to be the common phrase among traditional Japanese nobility falling to modernity, and decided to put their massive wealth into collecting art. They collected ancient Egyptian art, Greek art, Buddhist art from China and Japan, and a variety of other types of art. With this collection developed an interesting philosophy - that what separates humans from other living beings is the ability to create art. And also that through art, mortals can achieve immortality. Following this philosophy, a cult came into creation. The word cult generally has a negative connotation, but The Hud (as many of us now call Professor Hudson) and I somewhat seriously considered attempting to join this cult, small and secretive though it is. I have forgotten the name of the cult, but the translation was "Divine Light Organization". A little creepy, yes, but the museum they brought into creation was outstanding.

A few years ago, they asked I. M. Pei to consider building a museum for them, along with a temple for their cult. Pei was reluctant at first, but upon seeing the would-be site, changed his mind. There is a famous Chinese folk tale about a fisherman who lost his way and wound up in a grove of blossoming peach trees in front of a cave in the mountainside. When he went through the cave to the other side, he found himself in a heavenly land akin to Shangri-la. When Pei visited the mountain, the beautiful peach trees blossoming and sprawling natural landscape reminded him of this story, and upon hearing that the name of the place was Peach Valley, just like in the story, he realized that he had no choice but to build the museum and temple.

He built the museum to resemble the story - at the entrance to the grounds is a simple building he designed as a restaurant and souvenir shop, with a path engulfed in peach trees leading to a tunnel in the mountainside. Rather than build on top of the mountain, he excavated and replaced everything in the mountainside so as not to destroy the view of the landscape. The tunnel goes through the middle of the mountain, and in an eerie way makes you think you are inside when you clearly are not. Upon coming through the tunnel, you see a series of metal bars coming down from above which were a really cool architecturally element, but I cannot clearly explain how. Then you see ahead of you, across a small bridge, the main building of the museum, designed in typical Pei style - with lots of glass paneling and black and silver steel. Architecture buffs apparently go to the museum and sit in awe of Pei's work for hours on end. Entering the museum, there is a large glass panel visible facing out the other side of the museum. Looking through this glass, one can see the huge alien-like temple and bell tower that Pei built for the cult in the distance. It's a huge tease - no one outside of the cult is allowed back there, and very little is known about many cult activities, or so I hear. The temple and bell tower seriously looked like something out of an alien world. I felt like a loser for making the comparison, but the tunnel and these two buildings made me feel as though I was on Halo (video game reference). The visual connection was uncanny.

The museum's collection was small, but impeccable (I think I just stole that sentence straight from The Hud). I've never been much of an art history guy, but the Egyptian and Buddhist art were excellent. There was a large Gandhara Buddha that was especially cool. There was a special section on Chinese art when we went, and more art was on display there. The collection and setup of pieces at Miho was head and shoulders above any other museum I've ever been to. I moved through the collection very slowly, and read all of the plentiful explanations of pieces, the English of which was much better than that of other Japanese sightseeing destinations. Lunch at the cafe was the only negative point - tiny dishes that were horribly expensive, though I suppose I should have expected as much, given the architecture. That aside, pretty much everywhere else we've been has been surrounded by some form of modern technology, but this place, aside from the obligatory power lines in the distance (it IS Japan, after all), was very natural. Pei's buildings blended in an odd way with the mountainside. It was somewhat surreal.

A couple members of our group never made it to the meeting point at the end of the day, so they got left at the museum. We laughed about that for a little while and didn't really worry too much, since the bus only went to one place. It turns out that Scott and Max had been sitting in the cafe reflecting on the museum all afternoon and kept getting served free green tea by the employees, so they didn't get up to leave until late in the afternoon.

The next trip Professor Hudson took us on was a short one. We took a 5-minute bus ride from school to Shinnyodo Temple. Shinnyodo is a Zen temple, but more specific than that I actually can't remember. The first building we walked to had a Buddha enshrined in the typical Zen fashion - with brighter colors than other Japanese Buddhist shrines, and also some offerings at the Buddha's foot, I believe. We walked past some stone Jizos and a beautiful graveyard that was hit hard by an earthquake. Gravestones were broken and had fallen over here and there, but they had been left in this way, which I found interesting. At the back of the graveyard was a large pagoda. We passed some Buddhist statues on our way out of the graveyard area, one of which we joked was my friend Dave as a Buddha due to what appeared to be a giant afro. At the end of this nice little walk was another series of buildings, from where you could hear the monks chanting. In one building was an incredible looking Buddha of which I remember very little (other than that it was incredible). In the larger building there was another Buddha enshrined, and people came in to pray. There were also some famous wall scrolls there, including one of the Buddha passing into nirvana and all forms of living beings echoing the event in their own way.

That Friday was the date of our overnight with Ritsumeikan University, where the students had arranged an entirely too organized series of activities for us to join them in. After having dinner at the cafeteria with them, we went to the visitor's hotel, where we sat down for a drinking party with about 50 members of the English Speaking Society. Each of us was given a group of 5 or so Ritsumeikan students to sit with and chat in a combination of English and Japanese. When I envisioned a college drinking party, this was not exactly what I had in mind. There were roughly two cans of drink to a person, most of which were some strange fruit spritzer concoction and the remainder of which were beer. Not only do Japanese people get drunk very quickly, you know it immediately by the shade of bright red that their faces turn. This only happened to a few people at the party, who became hilarious as the night wore on. One activity they had us take part in was a combination of charades and telephone, where people stand in a line and wordlessly relay an action to each other. At one point, an action started out as volleyball and ended as Hadouken (video game reference). It was pretty comical. At the end of the party, a member of my group ran around cleaning up the garbage and drinking any remaining drinks. My friend Max ran around as well, asking for any unopened cans in a last ditch effort to turn a Japanese drinking party into an American one. The sleeping arrangements that night were........interesting. The guys, all 30-something of us, had one tatami room to sleep in. It was a rather large room and we took up the entire space with our futons. It was pretty ridiculous. The girls, all 15 or so that didn't go home rather than sleeping over, had three rooms, I believe. Before getting the futons out, some of the students were having an arm wrestling contest, which made my belligerent friend Max jump with joy. Of course, his arm and chest muscles are too broad for him to actually be effective in arm wrestling, so it eventually turned into an all-out wrestling match. Even big Max was bested in the end by a smaller Japanese guy who had been studying Judo for seven years. His name was Takeshi and he was an excellent grappler. After some more ridiculous escapades, we hit the collective sack.

The next day, we had a a normal schedule, which included kickball, and a rainy day schedule, which included, of course, a cross-dressing competition. A cross-dressing competition?! Yeah, OK. A cross-dressing competition. They're not actually going to go through with that, are they? Oh, you crazy Japanese...

Before this impending destruction of civilized discourse, we were again organized into groups to chat officially about this and that. I actually enjoyed this part a lot, which I attribute to having a cool group. Satoshi "Itosato" Ito, sat to my left. He seemed to be the most average, organized member of the group. To his left was a guy who I knew only as "Chicken" - he was the crazy one. He had cut his hair himself and it all clumped to one side. He also wore emo glasses and liked Green Day and Sum 41 (...). His goals in life were to live in Edo Castle (equivalent of wanting to live in the White House) and find a wife who's views were exactly the same as his: patriotic. He was interesting character. To his left was our group leader, Kazu "Kaz" Yoshida. Kaz was the cool character of the three. He had heard of a bunch of bands that I enjoy and was generally laid back about everything. I think he said he had gone to America at one point - his English was pretty good. To his left were two girls, a Chinese girl named Liu and another who left early whose name I forget. They both seemed to be pretty average, quiet girls. They did bring up one interesting point though. In short, they asked me why American girls are so, for lack of a better word (but many worse ones), "catty". Apparently Japanese girls don't generally get in fights with each other the same way Americans do. Just an interesting little tidbit I found out.

The group's major official topic of conversation was, true to the rest of our stay at Ritsumeikan, "Love and Gender". I can't really explain how, but the Japanese psyche on topics like this is completely different from the American one. They just think differently. The group and I had lunch at a cool little alternative cafeteria where i had the coopa (?), a Korean dish I had never heard of before that was pretty good. The cross-dressing competition turned out to be far too comical for its own good. I won't go into details, other than that Max donned a skirt and made some hilarious gestures that had our hosts on the floor. There were 4 other cross-dressing couples, one of whom was very good, but not as good as Max and his girl-dressed-as-a-man boyfriend. Max was the only person from our Colgate group who took part in the contest, as one couple in every group was voted in. All of the Rits students spoke in English for this portion, while we spoke in Japanese, which made everything even funnier. At the end of our stay, Makoto Mito, whom I had made friends with at our first meeting, and I exchanged emails so he could invite us to another get-together (but not like this one). Mister Mito, as they called him, was among the coolest of the bunch, along with Chicken, Kaz (who is apparently the club president), and Sei-chan (from the first meeting). It was good times.

Last Sunday, The Hud took those willing to Arashiyama ("Stormy Mountain"), a beautiful area in Western Kyoto renowned for its bamboo groves and shops, among other things. I unintentionally got there about an hour and a half early, since I wasn't sure what time we were meeting, and hung out by myself in front of the station. When everyone finally arrived, we walked to the river, where cormorant fishing is popular. I don't remember exactly how it works, but the fisherman capture some cormorants, and have them catch fish for them. They stick a ring of some kind in the bird's beak so it can't swallow the fish and grab it straight from the bird's mouth. Cormorants are apparently excellent at catching fish. First, we went to a Buddhist temple complex where there were tons of tourists. I don't remember its name, but its renowned for its vegetarian cuisine, which is very expensive. Next, we went to a small shrine/graveyard where graves that had been scattered and broken throughout the area had been arranged around a Buddhist sculpture as though they were listening to the Buddha preach. The identities attached to the graves have long been forgotten and any sign of individuality has faded from their designs. An actual stupa was built on one side of the graveyard, which surprised me greatly as I didn't know they existed in Japan. In the back of the area was a small shrine to the Bodhisattva Jizo. This one was specifically meant to protect unborn fetuses in their path to the afterlife. What made it even more depressing was that baby's toys had been put beside Jizo from families who had had miscarriages in order to protect their unborn children on the path to the afterlife. Beyond this sad sight, we moved to see Rakushisha ("house of fallen persimmons"), the old house of Mukai Kyorai, one of the ten disciples of famed haiku poet Matsuo Basho. The Hud is a big time Basho enthusiast, so there was no way we were going to Arashiyama without going there. It is a small house with a straw roof surrounded by persimmon trees. Small, but pretty. There were stones with famous haiku on them in the garden. Next, we wandered through some really beautiful bamboo groves to a small circular shrine with six Buddhist figures. People walked around it pouring water from the shrine on each of the figures in an area on their own body that they wished to have healed. I tried to pour water on my stomach and missed. Figures. Next, we went into some really cool shops, mostly specializing in bamboo, where I decided I would have to come back when I got a more permanent house or apartment. There were tons of cool little things, but they were mostly things that you would get to decorate a house. And they were kinda expensive. We walked beyond the shops and through a tunnel and found ourselves at the same place at which we had ended our hike up Mount Atago, called Kiyotaki. It was a beautiful area and I plan on going back soon when autumn colors are in full effect.

This past week, the art school at which I take Japanese classes had a small festival. They decorated the front of the school in bright colors and streamers. Casual musical acts performed, small food stands were set up, and students had little shops where they sold clothes and small goods they had made outside the lobby. Exhibitions were up throughout the main building, some of which were pretty interesting. Of course, my camera has not been behaving lately so I haven't been able to take any pictures.

This past Thursday we went around Kyoto to see three famous places: Ninna-ji (Temple), Ryoan-ji (Temple), and Nijo-jo (Castle). The first place we went was Ninna-ji, a residence of a former emperor during the Heian period, I think. It was made for the emperor to get him out of the real Imperial Palace so that a younger, more malleable emperor could take his place. This was the way the Fujiwara clan controlled Japan in the Heian Period - by turning emperors into monks before they have the ability to make their own decisions. Thus, there would be 22-year-old retired emperors who lived the rest of their lives as monks. Ninna-ji is a major temple in the Shingon Buddhist sect, and is also the base of a sect of a Flower Arrangement. Tons of buildings and objects from there have been listed as National Treasures.

That last paragraph was me summarizing the pamphlet I took home from Ninna-ji and throwing in a few historical things that may or may not actually be correct. The truth is that I have seen enough temples at this point in a short enough time that they are starting to mix together in my head a little. Ninna-ji had a pretty nice pagoda, I remember, and also some low-branched cherry trees for which it is apparently famous. Another reason I wasn't incredibly impressed by Ninna-ji was because the next two places we went were far more interesting. The first of the two was Ryoan-ji, home of the world-famous, enigmatic Zen garden known by that name, which is composed of 15 rocks and a lot of raked white gravel. Sitting in front of the garden may very well have led to some good meditation, had there not been so many tourists huddled around it. A lot of people think the garden is overrated, seeing as it is really pretty desolate and there isn't much to it, but I had the feeling that under the right conditions, sitting by the garden may have been a very, very Zen experience. Aside from the actual garden, Ryoan-ji had some very cool buildings and a big, beautiful pond with large clumps of lilies and a small island in the middle (it was prettier than the language I'm using right now makes it sound).

The final place we went to that day was Nijo-jo, the castle of the Tokugawas. It was a really cool place. The planks had a mechanism, known as nightingale floor, that made them squeak when someone walked on them, so as to protect the castle from a ninja invasion. The castle's interior was gorgeous. The paintings on the walls everywhere were excellent - many, done in gold, had been left the same as they were when originally painted. On the other hand, a lot of ceiling painting had been redone a few decades ago and is already fading. There were paintings in some chambers of fierce tigers, though there were none in Japan so the artists worked off of domestic cats to make the paintings. There was no furniture anywhere, which was not much different from when it was actually lived in. When people were to sit down, they were brought cushions. Futons were brought out at night to sleep on. Everything was kept in compartments in the wall. One of the rooms had mannequins situated the way the shogun, his page boy and the ministers would have been sitting during a meeting. In the wall next to the emperor was a hidden room from which soldiers would be armed and ready in case the emperor was attacked. In the innermost chamber of the castle were the emperor's private chambers, where only women attendants were allowed. The women brought him food, kept house, and provided other services to the emperor. Outside the castle were really nice gardens with a pond and stones designed by famous artists.

I know this email seems rushed, and that's because it is. Please take it upon your imaginations to throw in segue sentences and other examples of basic writing skills. These last couple weeks are going to be a bit tougher, as I no longer have time to put off the things that I told myself I would do before leaving. There is far too much to see around Kyoto - I still feel as though I have barely seen any of it at all. Some of the other students went mountain climbing on Hira-san, a difficult climb by Lake Biwa, today, and others still went to roam around Osaka. But I needed a day to get my life in order so here I am - in front of the computer, but not connected to the internet. I will probably send one more email before I leave for Toyama-ken, but I leave no promises that it will be any better put-together than this one. Hope all is well with all.

Love and peace,
Jess

Email #6 (out of order): Adventures Over Mid-term Break

I forgot to post this one, so it's a bit out of order. eh.


10/15/2005

Hi everyone,

Thanks to all who wished me a happy birthday - it made me feel like I was still back home. I'm a week behind on these emails, but right now it can't be helped. This last week back in class was pretty rough on me. So in this email I'll talk about my trip over mid-term break, and in the next one I'll talk about my birthday and this past week. The mid-term trip consisted of one full week traveling to four cities: HIroshima, Nagasaki, Matsuyama and Himeji. Thus, this email is jam-packed with adventure! Yes!

On Saturday morning, I met with Professor Hudson, his son Taro, and the other nine students to depart for Nagasaki. It was a long five-hour train ride, over which I did a good amount of reading (mostly of Japanese comics, of course). We passed some interesting looking places. Crossing over from Honshu, the biggest island of Japan, to Kyushu, the island that Nagasaki is on. One was a stretch of sea that was dry for miles out. There were boats tied to docks that didn't need to be because there was no water. This area of sea also had thousands upon thousands of arrays of tall wooden stakes stuck into the seabed. We had a tough time figuring out what these were - spots to tie boats to? There couldn't possibly be that many boats. Markers for clamming? Possible, though I'm no expert on clamming. Tide markers? A strange-looking method, but also possible. It was quite a sight - there were so, so many stakes. They went on for miles. Around that area, there were a series of tunnels that the train went under, which made our ears pop over and over again to a painful point. We arrived in sunny Nagasaki in the early afternoon.

Our hotel was across the street from the train station, which was convenient. It lay in "downtown Nagasaki", which didn't seem to be much of a downtown area. Our hotel was nice - and had internet service, so all of us could get our fix. Nagasaki is a small, but interesting city - it was situated on either side of a bay, both side of which are mountainous. A few of us wandered the city a bit, seeing jumping fish, which were apparently different from flying fish, but jumped out of the water just as well. I also chased after some cool looking sea hawks at one point and try to wall run, but failed. Alas. At one point, a large school of tiny fish jumped out of the water all at once right at where we were sitting on the dock. That night, most of the students went together to an izakaya, a loud place that serves a wide variety of food and seats a lot of people. This particular izakaya was not very noisy. They seated the eight of us in a nice, private little side room where we sat Japanese style; no shoes, on small cushions on the floor, around a low table. The room also had a little karaoke area. We had little cubbies outside the room in which we locked our shoes, and some of the others had decided to wear the sandals that were in the shoe change area into the dining room. We later learned that these happened to be bathroom sandals, and were not to be worn into the dining room. What's more, no one else had been able to go to the bathroom because all the sandals were gone. Of course, we didn't learn any of this until our waiter realized what had happened and came in to explain the situation. We had a good laugh over it and ordered our food. I can't remember what I had, but the izakaya had a lot of interesting dishes, some of which would have made for quite an adventurous order. After dinner, we all relaxed in the hotel doing this and that. The hotel supplied an interesting set of pajamas: they came in light purple and "puke green" (a variant of lime green). They had a design on the border and were made in the same style as a martial arts uniform. I had meant to get a picture of us wearing them, but completely forgot.

The next day we set out with Professor Hudson to see the sights. First, we went to the Dejima Museum. Dejima was a small man-made island off the coast of Nagasaki, brought into creation by the shogunate to keep the Portuguese out of Nagasaki, but keep trade with them alive. At the time of the Shimabara Rebellion, which occurred in response to the outlawing of Christianity in Japan in 1637, the Portuguese were kicked out of Dejima. The Dutch were also kicked out of their factory in Hirado, and moved to Dejima, where they stayed for the next two hundred years. So Dejima was Japan's only connection to the West for those two hundred years. The museum consisted of old artifacts from the Dutch and recreations of buildings that used to be on Dejima. It had a cool little garden with a fountain and also a recreation of a ship's mast. I'm generally an honest guy, however, so I'll get straight to the point and say that Dejima was pretty boring. It's not that I don't enjoy learning history, as I have occasionally been known to partake in it, but if I wanted to learn about Europe I wouldn't have come to Japan.

Next, we wandered around Chinatown, a tiny two-street area where there were restaurants and shops. All of the restaurants were the same, however, and the shops came in two or three varieties, among which they too were exactly the same. I opted for a delicious meat bun from a street vendor. From there we tried to take a shortcut through the residential area to our next destination: Glover Garden. However, this shortcut didn't work out so we walked back through the city to get there.

Glover Garden was beautiful. It's situated on the mountainside in a terraced formation. We took funny, little outdoor escalators up to the top of the estate and walked down. There was a great view of the bay, the city and the surrounded area. At the top, there was a goldfish pond. There were so many gold fish, and one giant one - more than twice as big as the others, who I named Fatty. I should have known better than to do something like that, however, as Taro, who I believe is 11, would not shut up about Fatty for the next couple hours. A little further down was Glover's actual house, which was really cool looking from the outside. It's difficult for me to describe, but a simple Google image search of "Glover Garden" should turn up some good pictures. The other option is that you can wait a little while for me to finish uploading my gloriously mediocre photos, which could take between one day and a month, but will probably happen this coming week. The inside of Glover's house had all the old furniture and paintings still left in tact, which was less interesting for me than the architecture. The next building in Glover Garden was the Performing Arts museum, which had displays of the large ships and dragons carried around during the Autumn Festival and the Kunchi Festival dragon dance. You will have to wait for the pictures for adequate descriptions of those, I'm afraid. There were also shops coming down the slope, and my friend Max had a field day in a weapons shop (the guns were actually plastic). I got a couple of gifts there.

Thomas Glover was interesting guy. He was one of the original founders of Kirin Beer and he married a Japanese woman who was said to be the original model for Madame Butterfly. He helped bring modern science and technology into Japan. His son made an atlas of Japanese fish. He also helped the beginnings of Mitsubishi. After wandering his estate and seeing his house, we all generally decided we wouldn't have minded having his life. Professor Hudson and I especially wanted to live in his house.

The next day was to be a time for much more serious sightseeing; that of the atomic bomb variety. First, we headed to the Nagasaki Peace Park, where there is a gigantic statue made in an interesting East-meets-West style. It had a toned Greek-style body, face and hair, but sat in a similar position to the Bodhisattva Maitreya, if I remember correctly, with one leg in lotus pose and the other hanging down. His hand gestures were also Buddha-like, but I don't think they were actual mudras. One hand pointed up to the sky, in regards to the nuclear threat, and the other is held straight out to the side, palm down, in a motion to stop the nuclear arms race, I believe. On either side of this huge statue were hangings of thousands of paper cranes. Some of you may know the story of the girl who was dying (I want to say of leukemia?) and was told that if she made 1000 paper cranes, she would get better. Of course, she didn't get better, but she made 1000s of cranes and her story was heard by many, so today school children still make paper cranes and leave them at the Peace Parks in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

After the Peace Park, we made a quick stop at a famous church in Nagasaki. The history of the city is filled with a sense of irony. Think about the decision to drop the bomb on Nagasaki. Did we know that it had the largest Christian population of any city in Japan? Or that Christianity and Japan's connection to Western culture had a long history with the Nagasaki? I'm not sure, but when the atomic bomb hit the old church, I doubt any of the victims had time to consider the irony. Our next stop was ground zero, which was marked by a radial design that, ironically enough to me, looked like the Japanese rising sun design. A few remnants of old buildings are around the hypocenter (the place on the ground under which Fat Man exploded). There was a brick wall from the old church on which parts of the bricks have disintegrated in a strange way; it was really surreal. There was also an interesting statue of a mother, with a design like golden leaves on her dress, holding a child.

The hypocenter is right next to the Peace Memorial Museum, where we headed next. The museum turned out to be fascinating - definitely designed by an excellent artist, or a few. Outside of the ticketed area was an unbelievable piece of art in black, red and white ink, if I remember correctly, done on a three-part Japanese style panel. I tried to snap a picture of it, but it didn't come out. Upon entering the ticketed area, the first thing I noticed was the sound of a clock ticking. This was only the first example of the sense of impending doom that the exhibit brought on. "How long until nuclear weapons are used again and tragedy once again occurs?" - that was the question the sound was supposed to beg. There was a small, dark passage with some artifacts in it, the most prominent of which were broken clocks. The hands of all of the clocks were stuck at 11:04, the time the bomb struck. At the end of the passage was a video of the mushroom cloud on several screens, at the end of which was a large, dark room with the twisted remains of foundations and various wrecked objects. There were large TV screens showing the desecration of the city and descriptions of the general horror and affect on the city's buildings. This room reminded me more of a haunted house than anything; an interesting job they had done on it. The next room was a little lighter, but in actuality the content was much, much darker. In the center was a circular, three-dimensional map of the city that showed the area of effect of the bomb after .1 seconds, 1 second, a few seconds later, and so on, up until the radiation effect days later. This room also contained a lot of artifacts; bottles fused together, old partially burnt kimonos, and other oddities that barely survived the bomb. It was the latter half of this room that was the most depressing part of the museum, and of my entire stay in Japan thus far. There were video accounts of survivors, which I watched, but what most caught my attention were accounts written by children, soon after the bomb hit, describing their experiences. One child's brother was stuck under a building and watched her mother, burning alive, try to lift it off him, but have her skin worn away in the process, and then fall down dead. Stories like this one abounded, and left us all mind-blown, such that the remainder of the museum was a bit of a blur to me. There were accounts of Americans in Southwestern states who had radiation from nuclear testing, but the government refused to recognize them. It was not the kind of thing they make you read in your high school textbook.

That night was spent exploring the wonders of $5 convenience store bought sake in a carton and watching old Simpsons episodes in our crazy pajamas. The next day we headed back up into Honshu to Hiroshima for some more atomic fun. Hiroshima is a much bigger, more business oriented city than Nagasaki, and it is situated in a valley. Like Nagasaki, it has old style street cars for public transportation, which seemed a bit more out of place in such a bustling, business-like city. The hotel also seemed more business-like. In fact, I would say that Hiroshima seemed to be more eighties-style business glam than other parts of Japan to which I've traveled. We could see the a large part of the cityscape from our hotel room, where we once again had working internet. That night I went with my friends Dave and Alex to a kaiten-zushi place around the corner. Kaiten-zushi is a style of sushi restaurant in which small dishes of a couple pieces of sashimi or rolls pass in front of everyone on a conveyor belt and you take whatever you'd like. It was a little expensive, but not quite as much as some American sushi restaurants; and it definitely tasted better. Other than that, much of my meal time in Hiroshima, as well as Nagasaki, was spent conserving funds by buying pre-made meals at convenience stores, which was not great, but much better than the state-side equivalent.

The next day was overcast, and rightfully so as we returned to our tour of the bomb. First, we headed to Little Boy's hypocenter. The building under which the bomb hit is called the Genbaku (Atomic Bomb) Dome. The foundations of the building are miraculously still standing due to an interesting phenomenon. When the bomb hit, it blew out the horizontal floors of the building, but left the vertical walls in tact due to the angle at which it hit. The mere pressure would have made these walls eventually crumble, however, so they were fixed up a bit in order to stand as a memorial to the atomic bomb. Little Boy's accuracy was impressive - it hit only 500 feet from the bridge at which it was aimed. Fat Man, on the other hand, had to be dropped over a secondary target (Nagasaki) due to fog and even then hit much farther up the bay than it was meant to due to low visibility there as well. There was a group of stray cats living inside the Genbaku Dome, but people were not allowed on the premises.

We then wandered across the bridge at which Little Boy was aimed to the Peace Park in front of the Memorial Museum. It was in this area that we passed hundreds of high school students on field trips. The Hiroshima museum is a strangely designed, gray horizontal building that looks like something out of Star Wars. It was less interesting and effective to me than that of Nagasaki. The lay out did not hit me in the same way; it didn't seem as personal. Part of this may have had to do with the fact that it was bigger and there were many more people around, thus making it louder, but the actual museum did not appeal to me much either for some reason. The first room had a smattering of videos, written histories, artifacts and timelines. The next couple areas had more artifacts and histories. The final large area had stone strewn around to make it look as though it were hit by the bomb, but it looked half-assed to me. This area had burnt objects and some more personal histories, but it was not quite the same. The final area had personal video accounts. It may just be due to the fact that I saw the Nagasaki museum first, but I breezed through the Hiroshima museum without being drawn in by much of anything. After the museum, Professor Hudson offered to take us to Miyajima, but I wasn't feeling up to the task. Apparently, however, Miyajima is the name of the giant torii arch in the middle of the sea, one of Japan's three landmarks I have been wanting to see. Of course, I didn't know this at the time, so I missed out. Apparently the deer there were very friendly. For lunch, a bunch of us discovered the glory that is Mos Burger - "fine gourmet Japanese burger and coffee". Sounds laughable, right? Well let me tell you - the teriyaki chicken burger was no joke.

The next day we left for Matsuyama, which lies on the island of Shikoku. Matsuyama is a much more average Japanese city. People were generally surprised to see foreigners, and the city had no real distinguishing characteristics. Matsuyama also had a streetcar system. In fact, the cars were given to the city by Kyoto when it stopped using street cars. Shikoku is directly South of Kyoto, Takatsuki and Osaka, whereas Kyushuu, the island which Nagasaki is on, is at the South-westernmost point of Japan. It was hot there, a bit like Nagasaki, and we had no internet connection.

We arrived early in the day and went out in the afternoon to see Matsuyama castle. It was a pretty interesting place, decked out with a fine example of sixteenth century scaffolding and...construction workers? Yeah, they were doing construction on the castle, which made it less attractive than it would have otherwise been and also blocked the view from the top of the castle (the bit about the scaffolding was a joke, in case I didn't quite get that across). I still enjoyed it, but I'll save my bit on castles for now, as we explored a much more grandiose one later in the trip with much of the same material on the inside. After roaming the castle, we sat down outside and had some green tea ice cream with some kind of bean (red bean?) on the side of the cone, which turned out to be absolutely delicious. I've developed a taste for mochi and certain kinds of beans here. Sitting outside, we listened to a bunch of stories from Professor Hudson's past. The man is a fountain of experience and information, and he could probably tell stories for years on end if you keep asking questions. He told us an interesting story about his friend in Matsuyama who let him fly his plane around Southern Japan, and another about someone who gave him a painting in Matsuyama for identifying its meaning. He told us about Dogo, a hot spring resort in Matsuyama that had been in use for 3000 years! Hearing this, a few of us had to try it out.

We made our way to Dogo via streetcar that evening with our hotel towels over our shoulders. The building was very cool looking; one could almost picture it hundreds of years ago with none of the other city buildings around it. It had the stock black Japanese roof tiles that curve up at the ends and Japanese paneling. It still had a weeping willow next to it from olden times. We went inside, took our shoes off and put them in cubbies. Then we made our way to the men's changing room, where we were welcomed by the cleaning lady and a bunch of naked Japanese men. It was odd to me that a woman could be in the men's changing room, but no one seemed to care so I paid it no mind either. We put our clothes in lockers and headed into the bath. There were two identical indoor men's baths, in which there wasn't much special other than the cool looking lion spout from which the water came. Being stupid Americans, we all forgot to take a bar of soap on the way in. A friendly Japanese man offered us his and we shrugged off any germaphobia and passed it from one to another before washing ourselves off and entering the bath. It was big enough to fit about fifteen people. I was not entirely impressed by that bath, but the water apparently comes from a spring in the nearby mountains. Also, it being 3000 years old, going there is definitely a story to tell. The building was also very cool. We wandered the neighboring area a bit afterwards, and I almost bought a few presents at a 1000 yen (roughly $10) store.

That night, a bunch of us went to an udon (thick, soft white noodle) shop, in the hopes of sampling the local sannuki (Japanese version of al dente) flavor. Kyoto udon is very soft and slimy, so I was looking forward to this. Of course, we happened to choose an udon shop that didn't serve sannuki udon. Nonetheless, the meat udon there was delicious - especially the broth. The udon wasn't too soft either. Later, we roamed the town in search of nightlife, but didn't find much. I think it was a Thursday night, which in Japan means most people are at work or asleep (unlike Colgate). We did happen to be in Matsuyama for a special occasion, however. The end of September (the night is different for different places) is a time when the town's men stay out all night drinking, yelling and carrying a large....well, I don't know how to describe it. I believe it's called a hakobo, but I could be totally off-base. I took pictures of something similar in the Glover Garden Performing Arts Museum. Anyway, they carry it around the city all night in ceremonial outfits.

The next morning, some people decided to hang around the hotel, but I opted to join Professor Hudson and a few others in going to Iyo Kasuri, home of a 200-year old indigo dyeing and weaving factory, which is still in use now, though antiquated, but is more of a museum than anything else. Seeing the place where the dyeing and weaving occurred was interesting, but the best part of Iyo Kasuri was the shop. The materials were very high quality, and the colors were deep and fresh looking. I bought a bunch of presents here. There were a lot of things I wanted to buy, but due to their quality they were pretty expensive. Thus, I took a few pictures of things in the shop I wanted to buy. Taro dyed his own piece of cloth, as they allow you to do for a small fee.

After Iyo Kasuri, we met at the train station early for our ride to our final destination, Himeji. I went to a ramen shop by the station and got some kinoko (mushroom) ramen, which was absolutely delicious, and then boarded the train. Himeji is back on Honshuu, so we were not far from home, though Matsuyama was not far either. Himeji is also a city, though not as big as Nagasaki. I didn't actually see much of the city, however, as the place we stayed at was out in the countryside - roughly a 45-minute bus ride (more?) from the train station. Yumenori (the love of dreams), it was called, and upon arriving there, it was not difficult to see why. Yumenori was a large, expensive onsen (hot spring) resort with lots of beautiful views - in and out of the hotel. In fact, I probably took as many photos inside the actual hotel as I did anywhere else. It was that fancy. Japanese businessmen usually go to resorts like Yumenori for a one night outing, because it's so expensive. We had a beautiful view of the countryside from our hotel room; mountains, fog, small villages and farms - this was much closer to the old Japan than we had previously been. Except for being in an exclusive hotel, of course. Unlike the other hotels, this one was four people to a room (for the guys), with old style futon beds on the floor like in the ryokan back in Tokyo. We didn't mind, however, as the place was incredible. We had our own little patio with a great view, where five of us sipped drinks from the hotel store and discussed cinema that night.

Dinner was quite an experience. Kaiseki, as it is called, is also a very expensive, exclusive affair. We had a small plate of sashimi, some rice, a small pot of sukiyaki, some vegetables, seafood broth with shrimp in a kettle, and a couple other things which I have no doubt forgotten since there were so many facets to the meal. Enjoyable though dinner was, the piece de resistance of the hotel was, of course, the onsen. I had thought there was only one large men's bath, but I made a pleasant discovery: there were two. So, when I went down to meet everyone else, I found an entire spa to myself. It was incredible. The bath that I went to was completely done in black marble. It had a bunch of fancy looking stalls and a large indoor bath. I got in the indoor bath, which was nice, but I was really just biding my time until I couldn't stand it anymore and had to move to another spot my eye had alighted upon: the Goemon onsen. The Goemon onsen, at least I believe that's what it was called, was a one-person, circular outdoor bath. It was entirely made of bamboo, including the spout. Sitting in the Goemon onsen may have been the most wonderful part of the trip. I started smiling after sitting in it for a little while, and eventually broke into spontaneous laughter at the situation. I'm still not entirely sure why, but it felt good. There was also another outdoor bath that was of the rectangular bamboo variety, and may have fit two people. After dinner, I decided to go back with the others to the bath they had gone to. It was also very nice - a larger bath for about 10 people with a rock garden motif and a nice view of the countryside.

Yumenori also provided us with excellent blue-green yukata robes with a red and blue obi (sash) to wear to the bath and a purple overcoat to wear over it to dinner. I really liked the outfit. The next morning, the guys were given the chance to experience yet another spot called the panoramic bath. It was pretty foggy, however, so though the view was still nice it was not entirely panoramic. This bath was bigger than the other and also had a rock garden motif. It also had an outdoor bath next to it which was nice as well. Breakfast was a buffet affair, with tasty little shrimp dumplings. After breakfast we said goodbye to the love of dreams and headed back into the city to see Himeji castle, possibly the most famous of its kind in all of Japan. It was larger and more beautiful, in my opinion, than Matsuyama castle, and also didn't have any scaffolding blocking the view. Japanese castles have a series of terraced roofs that usually arch up at the edges. The castle was white with black roof tiles, and interesting designs on the end tiles, which I believe corresponded to different clans. The bottom of the castle was made out of rock wall. There were several different buildings surrounded the castle, including a basement specifically used for committing seppuku (suicide by stabbing oneself with a sword first in the stomach and then sliding it up into the heart). Inside the castle, we of course took off our shoes. The stairways were very steep and narrow, and a few people hurt themselves on the way down. The castle collection consisted of similar things to that of Matsuyama: samurai armor, swords, spears, scrolls, histories, and other artifacts. Himeji also had a collection of artwork done by its inhabitants that was quite interesting. From the top of the castle, you could see much of the surrounding area, though it was foggy. It was also possible, when looking out from there, to get an idea of how big the castle property used to be, since the former moat was a good ways off.

After the castle, we returned to the train station to get our bags out of lockers we had left them in, and returned home. Seeing as we were now coming from Southeast of Kyoto, Takatsuki would be on the way there. Thus, I was able to get off earlier than everyone else. I enjoyed the trip on the whole - I now have a fuller idea of Japan as a country, having been to several different places. It was nice to travel and then relax, but speaking so much English amongst the group made our Japanese deteriorate a bit. Now we're back in class, taking off where we left off. Hope everyone is well!


Love and peace,
Jess


PS - I apologize to anyone who was confused in another email when I said that Hurricane Katrina hit Japan. That would be quite an astonishment - a hurricane so powerful it plowed right through the Southern states and tore up the entire Pacific Ocean before randomly hitting the South and North tips of Japan. In actuality, it was a typhoon (#14? I don't know, there have been a damn lot) that hit Japan, and it was around the same time as Katrina. Apparently the language I used was a bit unclear originally. That probably happens a lot, but I don't have a proofreader, so I can't tell if some things that make sense to me won't make sense to anyone else...though I should probably assume that in most cases. Anyhow, I'm sure you all caught my meaning / glazed over that part because they didn't think it was important.

Also, I realize that these emails, especially this one, are almost as much a memory exercise for me as they are a reading one for you, so if it bothers anyone that I write in a lot of detail and have a tendency to be a bit long-winded.........then that sucks for you. I'm having a blast.

What? Did you think I was going to apologize again?

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