Kyoto, Japan

This past weekend we took our long-awaited trip to Kyoto! Kyoto, generally considered to be the chunks of meat in the heady cultural stew that is Japan, was the nation's capital for a spell back in the, I'll say, 700s-ish. It was the home of the emperor until 1869, but he chills in Tokyo now. Anyway, it's where the good stuff is, if you like amazing beautiful things, or Geishas, or both.

First we had a 1-day Mid-Year conference for JETs held in Gifu City. It was a day of workshops that made you want to gouge your eyes out, speeches that inspired homicidal thoughts, and some very non-happy campers. I don't know what it is, but for some reason when you stuff 150 of us together into a room, we just sit around and complain about teaching in Japanese schools. Now, it certainly is difficult to teach here; the system for teaching English is full of problems; but hey, they pay us a boatload of money to come here and basically be ourselves for a year, so I'm not too inclined to complain! I'm quite happy other than when I'm forced to sit down and pore over my teaching experience; I prefer to just take it as it comes and not over-think it. But, like I said, something about sticking us all together makes us champion whiners. Probably because the line between annoying traits and endearing quirks is so fine, we just start out trading stories about our jobs which then eventually mutate into full-fledged bitching. Like, "Hey, do your students sleep through class? Mine too! Those lazy bastards!" Anyway, I suffered through the conference, and just about kicked my heels in joy when it was over: We were off to Kyoto!



We hopped on the not-so-early 10:00 train the next day and clanked along the local tracks for a couple hours until we reached Kyoto (not those fancy Bullet Trains you've heard so much about...those bad boys are expensive!). The station seemed rather smallish and very confusing, but then we turned a corner and it was like walking through a broom closet to find a cathedral. The place all of a sudden opened up into an absolutely cavernous space, with futuristic tubes connecting the upper floors to each other, and with a way-cool 10-floor escalator going, it seemed, into the sky. It turns out that the station is rather new, and is a crazy gigantic department store/station/massive restaurant area. The department store is 10 stories tall, and it's built right into the side of the train station. Not what I was expecting for a city famous for 1000-year old temples, but hey.



The city was at first glance, like pretty much all Japanese cities, rather ugly. It was an endless expanse of concrete and blocky buildings. But hiding in there somewhere was 2,000 years worth of history and untold numbers of treasures just waitin for us to discover them. But at the time, we were a little fooled by the drab first impression.

After visiting a very busy and very under-contruction temple near the station, we took a walk through some rather uglyish streets to Sanjusangendo temple. There were two things about this place I really dug. The first was that most of it was painted this funky bright orange:
This was special because it was so darn unusual. The Japanese love the look of weathered, beat-up wood, and most temples look, and are, quite old. This one was like, Screw That, I am going to be bright orange. Bravo, Sanjusangendo! They broke the mold when they made you. The most amazing thing about this temple is the 1,001 carved wooden sculptures contained in its main hall, at over 330 feet long, the longest wooden building in Japan. Each sculpture has a different face, and it is said that if you look at enough of them you can recognize the faces of friends. It was true. They seemed so similar, but after a while a face would just jump out at you. It was weird. It was easily one of the most awe-inspiring sights I've ever seen. If you're ever in Japan, I insist you go here. Here is a photo of the 1,001 statues, all of Kannon, otherwise known as the Goddess of Mercy:

For dinner that night, we went to a Korean restaurant. I'd never had Korean food before, but Hong watches their movies all the time and seemed almost quasi-knowledgable about Korean culture. The menu had no pictures and was in Japanese, so we couldn't read it. Now, it's worth noting that I usually make fun of Hong for having such terrible Japanese, but somehow she managed to order us a full Korean dinner pretty quickly. What showed up was truly delicious: a Korean beef dish called bulgogi, with about 6 plates of sides, including delicious kimchee, a type of pickled cabbage. Trust me, it's a lot better than it sounds.



The next morning, we got a good early start and walked down the road to Toji Temple. The temple grounds were truly peaceful in the early morning light, and we almost had the place to ourselves for a while, before more tourists and worshippers began to trickle in.
Inside one of the temples was a small exhibit of artworks by a local guy. They were absolutely beautiful, and the little old lady who was attending to it was very kind indeed, and spoke a bit of English. She was very interested in where we were from, and seemed quite happy that we were looking at the pictures. I would have thought that in such an international city, foreign tourists wouldn't be a big deal, but she was ridiculously welcoming just the same. Wherever you are, ma'am, thanks for the nice morning.

Here is the tallest pagoda in Japan, at Toji Temple. It is 186 feet tall:
























Next was Kiyomizudera temple, one of the most famous temples in Kyoto, which has (I think) thousands. It is tucked away in the eastern hills of the city, and its waters, if drank, are said to confer good luck and healing (sharing the cups is a little gross, though) The place was at the top of a long hill, and it was HOPPING. The serenity and peacefulness of the first temple were not to be found; this was more like Disneyland, but crowded. Most of the temple was built directly into the hillside, but the main building was constructed on these way-cool stilts. There were a hell of a lot of people there, so I hope those monks knew what they were doing 400 years ago.





While we were there, some Geisha decided to show up, which made quite a stir. I don’t know for sure if they were ‘real’ Geisha, as there are lots of places in Kyoto that will completely transform a Japanese girl into a “Geisha” for 3 hours of make-believe, but it was more fun to assume they were. They were at the temple to be photographed, and in addition to the photographer with them, they had at least 20 tourists snapping photos of them at all times. I decided to take the moral high ground and leave them in peace, but Hong has the tenacious spirit of the Asian Market Lady running through her blood, so she went right up and snapped away without shame. I must admit, it’s a great picture.


The next stop on our magical mystery tour was Genkokuji, also known as the Silver Pavilion. There is another, more famous “Golden Pavilion” on the other side of town, but being non-conformists, we decided silver is better. We weren’t the only ones with this sentiment.
This place, too, was packed. That didn’t stop it from being pretty darned awesome, though. It was a Zen temple, so it had tons of carefully raked sand patterns, just like in the movies, but it also had a whole landscaped hillside covered in dozens of types of beautiful mosses. These temple gardens take moss to a whole new plateau of attention. Moss is the carpet of Japanese gardens; it fills in the blanks and ties all the elements together in a most appealing way. At Genkokuji, they even have an exhibit of good mosses (“VIP Mosses”) and bad mosses, I guess so you can tell which ones are meant to be there and which ones are the dreaded invaders. You never expect this kind of humor at a temple, but apparently they can be very funny places:

The hillside had a sort of fantastical look about it that I really liked:
























Later that night, we met up with our friends Leanne and Maren, and headed to Kyoto Station for some refreshment. We dined on beignets from none other than Café du Monde, the famous New Orleans landmark! How did a coffee shop from New Orleans end up with a branch in a Japanese train station? You tell me. Either way, they were pretty darned good, and I was very, very surprised. I’m happy to say, I made beignet fans out of all three ladies.


Our next and final stop was Chion-in, the headquarters temple of the Rinzai sect of Zen Buddhism. This sect has like 6 million believers and about 6,000 temples, so I assume that Chion-in is a pretty important place. They had a pretty awesome garden, but to be quite honest, by this point we were all a little templed out. Apparently the threshold for appreciating temples is five. After that, the magic begins to fade a little bit, which is a terrible feeling, because you know they are beautiful but just can’t interest yourself so much.



As we headed to the train platform for our long ride home, dusk was creeping in on the city and long shadows pierced the golden light of late afternoon. It had been a good weekend, and I felt like I had just bathed in the richness of the country’s heritage. It is a heritage worth seeing; the visitors in Kyoto were from all over the world. I think the best part, though, was visiting these places alongside thousands of Japanese visitors and knowing that this trip was as special to them as it was to me. In a world that is changing more rapidly everyday, by visiting the sites of their culture’s greatest treasures, they were securing their moorings to their own past, just as I was discovering a past I hadn’t ever really considered. For I have to admit, I was beginning to get a little tired of hearing about the “richness” of Japanese culture, but after my trip to Kyoto, I plan to shut my mouth. That city is a treasure.

Ahhhh!

I woke up this morning to find this outside my window! I am officially screwed. For the uninitiated, that is snow. It's in the mountains...and we're not that far away. It's only a matter of time before the icy hands of Father Winter are clutching at my paper windows. Dang it!

Yes, it is starting to get colder here. I was told that Autum would progress peacefully along, the leaves would start to change, and then, in Mid-November, it would one day suddenly become very, very cold and stay that way for the next four months. Well, they weren't lying.

It has officially gotten cold here. Literally one day it was nice and comfortable, and the next day my nipples were permanently hard. The hallways and bathrooms at the schools are like iceboxes. I half expect my urine to freeze in mid-stream while I'm going. Luckily, the teachers' room has a heater (it's nice to be a little higher up on the totem pole). Whichever students survive the winter get to progress to the next grade. My apartment has no such thing heater, though. I instead have a device called a kotatsu that is basically a coffee table with a heating implement and a removable top. You turn it on, toss a big blanket over it, and basically don't move much for four months. I am also going to buy a kerosene heater to heat the house, but I don't know how effective it will be. Even if it doesn't warm you, though, it's guaranteed to flood your home with the rich, soothing aroma of kerosene, or your money back. I'm planning to move all my stuff to the "warm" side of the apartment and just pretend that the extra rooms don't exist for the Winter. Too dang cold.

But, I'm kind of excited for the cold. I truly hate snow and ice and winter-related things if they are too intense. I prefer San Francisco-style winters: nice and brisk, but your car won't be sliding down the hill either. I think this will be a good hardy test for me. If I make it through alive, I will try to make another post to tell you how it was. See you in four months...

Kashi Matsuri

Today we went to a festival right up the road from my house. It was the Kashi Matsuri, a festival to celebrate the art of kashi-making.

To tell you the truth, I really don't know how kashi is made, but these pictures show you how remarkable it is. Basically, there are tons of sculptures -- of flowers, animals, pine trees, and here, people and houses. Here's the trick, though: they're all made of rice.

Pretty amazing, huh? The rice is somehow processed into these sheets, and then it is transformed into an amazing variety of shapes and textures. From delicate leaves to pointy pine needles, it pretty much all looked so real that if you saw it in nature you wouldn't give it a double take. It is another case of me being blown away by small, ingenious, carefully made things of beauty. Nice work guys.

Enjoy the photos!

The Night of the $35 Beef

For the last month or so, I have gone out every Thursday night with my friend Anthony, whom we call "Godfather" because if you squint one eye he sort of looks like Luke Wilson, who was "Godfather" in Old School. First, we go grab some dinner, usually carniverous in nature, then we head to a little restaurant called Annie Hall, where a group of people gather on Thursday nights to hang out and speak English.

The first time we went on one of our outings, we headed first to a restaurant called "Prince Matsuba." I don't know why it's called that. It's quite fantastical-looking, with huge turrets and spires and stained glass. The inside looks like the set of a King Arthur movie. I have a feeling that the inspiration might have come from watching something like that. Anyway, Godfather has been in Japan since 2004, but he's not too skilled at or interested in learning new languages specifically, Japanese) and so his communicational skills are, well, improvisational to say the best. We sat down and he asked the waitress "Menu? English?" Hmmm, no, don't have those. So he just said the word "STEAK" and luckily all the steak-related words are basically English in disguise, since it's a foreign and not Japanese food. So we were going to get "Siruloin" medium-rare. Not bad.

The steak came, and my, it was fan-tastic. Probably the first real meat I've had in Japan. It was big, rare, and delicious. The fun came to an end, though, when we were eating and enjoying it and suddenly got to thinking...I wonder how much this costs? I mean, simple logic says that if noodles and a few shrimp cost $13, then a big piece of premium steak can't be cheap. We found a price list sitting on the side of the table, where the bottom value was $25 and the top was $35. Dang it!

Sure enough, when we went to pay, $38 a person it was. Damn the Godfather! Just another case of unexpectedly treating yourself to a fine and expensive meal. At least in this case, unlike the eel, the steak was truly fantastic. But my anger at the Godfather simmered until it was at least medium-rare.

Absentee's Anger

Apparently, absentee voters aren't as important as regular voters. Read on to hear my thoughts on this issue.

me: man i'm confused
i just got my absentee ballot for san diego
but i can only vote for federal offices
so just senator and representative
no local people?
what's up with that?
Andrea: i have nooo idea
me: come on
you were a poli sci major!
Andrea: i forgot to apply for absentee ballot
you know i barely got out of there witht hat major
me: you disgrace the polisci profession
your professors are hanging their heads
Andrea: well im not going into poli sci
they should
they were bastards
me: ahhh
Andrea: yea didnt like most of them
i have no idea why you cant vote for local people
maybe because you are doing an absentee thing
me: that makes no sense though
i feel kind of disenfranchised
it's a strange feeling
Andrea: awww
white boy disenfranchised
hahaha, thats a new one
me: this is the most effort i have contributed to democracy in like 5 years
and what do i get
i didnt even vote in the presidential election
and now that i'm in JAPAN
i cant vote for san diego water commisioner
Andrea: im seriously laughing my ass off
me: or the school board wackos
Andrea: LOL
i can imagine you right now like a hurt little puppy
pouty and so sad
me: yarrr

Images of Beauty

I don't want to give the impression that everywhere you look in Japan you find a tranquil Zen garden or a majestic waterfall. But, these things are all around for the finding, if you look for them. I tend of course to write about the more beautiful things I have seen, and though I try to be even-handed and cover all aspects of my experience here, I like beautiful places. So this post will be devoted to beauty.

Last weekend, we visited the city of Tajimi and visited the Eihoji Zen Temple, part of the Rinzai denomination of Buddhism. Okay that last part might have been too much information, except for all 2 of you Buddhists out there. For everyone else, it's the place where the dudes in the robes hang out.

A quick aside. It was Hong's birthday nearly a month ago, but due to some poor strategic planning my birthday dinner for her consisted of microwaved soup and Ritz crackers from a convenience store. More on that later. Anyway, I told her I'd make it up to her, so we met in Tajimi (halfway between us) and went trolling for restaurants in my car. On some random street we smelled the intoxicating aroma of...roasting beef! Oh my, we had to stop. But, since we can't read the signs on restaurants, we didn't know which one was which. We followed our noses to one and headed in. We sat down. Shit, no pictures on the menu. This is dangerous. After much verbal confusion with the waitress, she lost patience with us and transferred us to her more English-proficient colleague. Turns out all this restaurant serves is eel. Shit, that's it. Just eel. I promised Hong steak. Crap, well, can't leave, that would be too rude. So, I tell her that this is not the birthday lunch anymore, and therefore we can split the tab. Eel comes, it's not bad really. We go to pay the bill, and she asks if we want separate bills. We do. She rings up $18. Oh, there must be some mistake, we asked for separate bills. Nope. It's $18 a person. That's some motivation to learn Japanese right there. Know what you're paying for.

So anyway we drove to the Eihoji Temple and walked around and it was quite lovely. I love temples and gardens. Maybe it's my escapist side that doesn't want to deal with the outside world, but I don't think I'm happier than when I'm in a tranquil garden, isolated for a moment from modernity, responsibility, cars, politics, concrete buildings. Something about a place of beauty in the middle of a much uglier, much grittier world makes me feel good. In one sense, this makes it even harder to accept what you find when you leave its gates, but I think of it as refilling my 'bowl of goodness.' Some moments spent in quiet appreciation of beauty are never wasted, even though they must inevitably end.
This particular temple was built into the side of a mountain, and as we made our way up the trail, we could see spectacular rays of light coming through the trees (not this tree...sorry!). It was like nothing I've ever seen before. It looked as if E.T. were landing above us, it was so intense. I let my imagination run wild a little bit and wondered if maybe there were something there.

We did find something unusual. A huge Goddess of Mercy, a Buddhist goddess. Hong has a jade necklace with the some one, so it was a nice surprise. She's always saying how the Japanese Buddhism is so different from hers, so it was cool to find something familiar.

Yesterday we drove up to Tsukechi, a beautiful place up in the mountains around the city I live in. I got lost many times, and it was mildly terrifying driving on those tiny roads with ridiculous cliffs and lots of loose, scattered leaves (the better to lose traction with, my dear!). Finally, though, I found what I was looking for, a gorge with high-strung walking bridges and precarious paths hundreds of feet above crystal blue water. I can't describe how much I like it, so I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves. This place was where I went into the forest in Japan for the first time when I first arrived here, and thus it has a special feeling for me. It is a powerful, beautiful place, and one of my favorites in Japan.
















The fall colors are beginning to change. Beautiful.















The leaves in this forest are so delicate and luminous.















You can get a sense for the scale of these bridges. The whole place has a Peter Pan Treehouse feel to it. It's a wonderful place for the imagination.

Our Okinawan Journey, Phase Alpha

When we decided to take a trip for our birthdays, we narrowed it down to Japan's extremes: it was either going to be Hokkaido or Okinawa. It turns out that Hokkaido is so cold that by late September it would already be too much. Tropical Okinawa it was, then.

Thanks to a neat little Japan Air Lines birthday discount, we got tickets to Okinawa for $120 a leg - Not bad considering they're usually about $400. Yes, travel in Japan is almost never cheap, but sometimes you get lucky and find a bizarro discount, like 15% off if you travel with your grandma on the 3rd friday of a leap year--that kind of stuff.

Our journey began early Saturday morning on the 23rd. Our flight was leaving from the new Nagoya Centrair airport, built on an artificial island in Nagoya Harbor. I left my house in a hurry on my mountain bike at about 5:15, late for my train as per usual. It was an inauspicious beginning for such a large trip, but you've gotta begin somewhere I suppose. I raced down the hill toward the station like I was flying. This was the morning after the office enkai, so I was not in the best of conditions. Hong and I somehow managed to rendezvous in Nagoya and find our way to the airport, where we boarded a spiffy-looking 747 bound for Naha, the capital of Okinawa Prefecture.

I had an embarassing encounter on the plane when I decided to try out some of my newly minted Japanese phrases. I asked the guy sitting next to me, in the politest form, 'Where are you from?' He responded, of course, but I couldn't understand the name of the place (I'd probably never heard of it). It turns out I couldn't understand anything he said after that, so eventually I just sort of faced forward and waited for it to be over. You can't win 'em all, I guess. But still, how embarassing. I tried not to let it get me down.

The first thing that struck me in Okinawa was the stifling heat. It reminded me of how brutal mainland Japan was 2 months ago. All the sweat and frustration came back in full swing. However, this was tempered by the beauty of the place. The ocean is delightfully aquamarine and makes you glad every time you look at it. Naha itself is a pretty bustling city. It looked pretty much like any other Japanese city, except it had a really nifty monorail, which I haven't seen anywhere else. We used it like mad. We walked around and browsed the schlocky souvenir shops for a while, marveled at the amazingly high prices, and then navigated our way to Shuri-jo Castle, the former capital of the Ryukyu Kingdom. (A sidenote: before 1879, the Ryukyu Islands--all the islands south of Kyushu and north of Taiwan--were an independent kingdom. But in 1879 the greedy Japanese snatched up the islands for their own, perhaps sensing their future tourism needs. Then from the end of World War II until the early 1970s, Okinawa was controlled by the U.S. It is again part of Japan, though about 20% of the land on the main island is still given over to U.S. bases.

Looking for Shuri-jo was surprisingly difficult, given that it was on the biggest hill in the place. I found what I considered to be a genius shortcut, but due to the castle's, er, extensive fortifications, we walked right up to it, but at such a place as one could not enter. We had to walk all the way back down the hill and walk around to the other side of the whole affair. Let me tell you, it was FAR. The castle itself was fairly cool. Sadly, it was destroyed in World War II, like so much of this country's heritage, but it was lovingly rebuilt in 1992. You would never guess it, let me tell you. It feels old and it feels solid. Inside the building I could really sense the history that had happened there, even though the building was new. Some places have a memory stronger than physical materials.

The next stop on our itinerary was the island of Kume-jima, 90 kilometers to the west of Okinawa. I had high expectations for this place, especially since it would be my birthday and I wanted to have fun. We managed to find the ferry harbor AND purchase ferry tickets (these are small miracles, let me tell you), and boarded for our 4-hour journey into the East China Sea. While we were headed over there, I tried to imagine all the things that had taken place in these waters; envoys and traders from China in junks, American battleships cruising for enemy Japanese, maybe pirates? It was so exciting to be so far from home, out on the open ocean, finding someplace new. I felt very grown-up.

Our relationship with this island turned out to be fairly complex. At first sight, it looked quite beautiful. We caught a bus from the ferry terminal to what our guidebook, Lonely Planet, described as 'the' place to stay on the island, Ifu Beach. Needless to say, when we stepped off the bus, I thought there must be some mistake. We were dropped at the "Eef Beach Hotel," which, judging from the amount of people who got off the bus and went inside, was 'the' only place to stay in Ifu Beach. It looked pretty crappy. We walked around back and asked someone how to find the hotel we were looking for. They drew us a map. It turns out we hardly needed it. Ifu Beach is not a city on the scale which demands maps. It just takes fingers. We walked about 50 feet up the street and found the place.

We walked inside and it looked clean and nice enough. A man stood in the lobby doing something, and when we entered, it took him a while to notice that we might want something. He approached the desk and I took a deep breath and read from my pre-prepared sheet of 'hotel Japanese.' To everything I said, he replied with a terrified stare. Even when I knew it made sense, it was just Stare. He almost looked like it would make his entire year if we would just slowly back up, walk away, and not make him speak English any more. But, persistence paid off and 10 confusing minutes later we had a simple room, directions to the shower, and some peace and quiet. Now at this point I was not super-thrilled, I'm not gonna lie. The beach was quite beautiful, but the town seemed boring at best and really boring at worst. It didn't seem like 'the' place in any sense. It didn't help that I was hot, sweaty, stinky, and that it was my birthday. Hong and I were both a little afraid to admit that we had made a big mistake in coming here. We cursed Lonely Planet for leading us astray and vowed to exact vengeance upon its foolish authors.

We headed out to the beach to see what we could see. Saw some sand, some water, and some clouds. All of it quite lovely, of course. But...we were bored. We decided to head off to tiny O-jima island nearby to see "a natural formation of pentagon-shaped rocks that covers the seashore but can only be seen at low tide." It was exciting enough to get us moving. To get there was surprisingly difficult. To get to the bridge to the island required walking a bit inland and also crossing what turned out to be the bottom of a low-tide zone. We didn't know all this when we started, of course. It looked so close...

As we walked and walked, with each turn discovering anew just how far away the entrance to the bridge was, we became filled with despair and frustration. This reached a fever pitch when we realized we had to walk through the squishy, muddy, nasty bottom of a marina to cross it. As our shoes sunk into the soft dirt and we hopped over puddles, we became increasingly not happy. When we had to cross a small concrete stream to get to the road, I hit my low point when I slipped on moss, dropping my backpack (with $1,000 Nikon) and only shoes into the water, cutting my toe and bruising my foot in the process. I silently cursed this island for being so terrible and Lonely Planet for not being honest with us.

After my shoes became unusable, it was barefoot for me. I don't mean to whine, but man it was painful. Of course this only added to my increasing sense of anger that we were stuck on such an inhospitable, beat-up little berg in the middle of the sea, on my birthday no less! We finally made it to the interesting rock formations, which were okay. I would have liked them a lot more if I hadn't suffered bodily damage to find them. I took my first dip in the East China Sea/western Pacific, relaxed in the warm, shallow water for a while and used my imagination. Sometimes when I'm in the ocean at an island I like to think how far it is to anywhere else. Something about being on an island makes me acutely aware of just where I am. So as I sat in the water I wondered, how far to home, to Japan, to China?
















We headed back to our hotel, cleaned up, and headed out to try and find a little food and excitement for the evening. Much to our surprise, the place was hopping. Cozy, inviting restaurants lined the street and happy-looking people inside seemed to be enjoying themselves. What a change from earlier! We were mildly giddy as we walked down the street, feeling for the first time all day that we weren't the only people on this whole island. We found a nice restaurant, ordered a beer and some Okinawan food, and sat in amazement at our pleasant reversal of fortunes. The food was great, the waitresses were friendly, and the atmosphere was comfortable. I was beginning to like this place.

We began to see that this island had charms that weren't so apparent. Like its people. If the people in Okinawa were more friendly than those in mainland Japan, those on Kume-jima were even more friendly than those in Okinawa. The pace of life was very slow and relaxed. On the way back from O-jima, a bus driver saw us walking and stopped to ask if we wanted a ride, and a group of high school-age boys gave us a warm and hearty "Hello!" when they thought we had said Hi to them (we were actually saying hi to a small, cute little boy who was on the other side of the road...they were just walking by...oops!). Still, I was touched that they turned around and all said hi. It was great. The place was obviously not so well-off, and so the fast-paced lifestyle which in many other parts of Japan is the norm seemed very far away from here. It turned out to be a great birthday.

The next morning it was back to Okinawa for us. Good-bye, Kume-jima! We hardly knew ye! I think out of all the places we visited on this trip, it was hardest to leave this one.
















Back on Okinawa, we rented a Honda Fit hybrid and set out to find some places in the guidebook. I hadn't anticipated that traffic would be as bad as it really was. We couldn't get anywhere. Plus, our on-board navigation system was in Japanese (no real surprise there, even though the employee diligently spent about 7 minutes explaining how to use its myriad functions). We spent hours arguing over directions and schedules and ended up pretty much getting nowhere we wanted to. We decided to cut our losses and just headed straight for the top of Okinawa, so we could say that we had been to the most northern point ("Of course you went to the north tip of Okinawa, right? It's all the rage!"). But it was far, and night fell. Needless to say, some of the magic of Okinawa's beauty is lost at night. Driving there and back seemed remarkably like driving at night anywhere else. It was long, tedious, and boring, but somehow it had a sense of adventure to it, so Hong and I enjoyed ourselves for at least the first part, before it got to be really a slog.

The northernmost point on the island was just that. A point that was the most north. We were a little let down, but what could we really expect? We got out of the car and stared at the stars for several minutes. It was breathtaking, actually, and after seeing those stars I just couldn't be upset.

The next day we headed off to our next destination, Ishigaki, about 400 kilometers away. I will cover that next time. Happy trails till then!

For expanded photos and commentary from our trip, please go to http://community.webshots.com/user/viewfromjapan, my photo-sharing website.

Clifton: what have you seen

me: hongster and i went to okinawa

Clifton: I am not up to date ewith your blog

me: and then some islands even further south, by taiwan

it was like the japanese hawaii

sort of

and we went to nara, the first capital of japan, and went in the world's largest wooden building.

needless to say, it was freaking huge

Clifton: cool

me: i got a car

i'm now the proud owner of a right-hand drive mitsubishi

Clifton: Theats great jay,I hung a window curtain yesterday

me: hey you asked man

Check out the genius flowin' out of this here brain:

me:there are some cute japanese girls, i must admit

but i dunno

Andrea: hahaha

me: it could be too weird

Andrea: what could be?

me: dating japanese girls

unless she had amazing english

or boobs

Back from Okinawa. More on that later.

Before I left, I frantically stuffed all my fresh veggies into the freezer. I don't know much about fresh veggies.

Here is a white man-style Haiku that I inadverdently wrote about it:

all my veggies are going bad

i had to use them all tonight

they tasted like shit

it was very sad

the bok choy was limp and flavorless

the peppers were soft

the carrots were borderline

the bean sprouts werent edible

so so sad

and i'm out of rice!

dangit

Tomorrow morning, it's off to Nagoya Airport and then to Okinawa. I will report back next week. Happy Trails till then!

The Lesson That Only Beer Can Teach Us

Greetings, dear readers.

Tonight I attended something I have been anticipating for a long time with a mixture of excitement and dread: the enkai. Essentially, it is an office party. But it's more than that.

The "enkai" is a party especially for the employees of the school. It was held in a sort of mini-resort up in the hills of Ena, the neighboring city. Many of us rode a bus over there together after school on Friday. Sitting there on the bus, I was quite nervous because I was dreading what was sure to come--the nudity. The venue for the enkai doubled as an 'onsen,' or a Japanese bath house/sauna. Before the big dinner, we would all go to the bath together.

They say that in Japan nudity is seen but not noticed, but I was still nervous as hell. I didn't mind people seeing my stuff, but these were people I worked with every day, many of whom I had never even talked to. I would have preferred it to be people I would never see again. No one else seemed particularly nervous, though, so I figured it couldn't possibly be as weird and homo-erotic as I was picturing it to be.

Once we showed up, we checked in then went downstairs to pick up our 2 towels. A bigger one for drying off, and a smaller, "privacy" towel for, well, privacy. I picked my favorite locker and after inspecting the nudity rapidly developing around me, went for the full Monty. As my pants were coming off, the principal of the school appeared next to me, naked. I sure know how to pick the good spots (you will remember that I am irrationally nervous around him with my clothes on, let alone with one or more of us in the nude).

As I walked into the bathing area, the kindly English teacher, Mr. Isomura, who sits next to me excitedly waved for me to come sit down. Somehow, seeing the enthusiasm on his face really lightened the mood. I wasn't really nervous after that. Besides, every single person was naked. How self-conscious could I really be? First, you wash yourself in a sort of sit-down, private shower. Then you pick a hot pool and go for a dip. They had about six to choose from, some with rocks, some outside in the cool air, some with nice jets. It was pretty sweet, actually. I felt my muscles begin to loosen up quite a bit, even if I was a little self-conscious.

After sampling most of the pools, I made the sudden realization that I was virtually alone. Where did all the people go? Dang it! I figured people would sit around and really savor the heat, but apparently that's not the case. The other teacher and I made our way upstairs into the eating area, pretty much the last people to show up. Dang. That's embarassing.

I picked a random seat number and ended up not one seat away from the principal. Dang. The gods must really want me to make friends with this guy. After we were all seated, a teacher gave a short introduction, and then the principal stood up to give a speech. He mentioned a breadth of topics, none of which I understood except for "Jay Taylor." I tried to smile at him to acknowledge that I was grateful to hear my name in a speech, but of course I just sort of awkwardly half-bowed. I've never been good with being the center of attention.

After that, my supervisor, Mr. Taniguchi, gave the official "kanpai," or toast. This is a big occasion. No one, and I mean no one, must take a sip before this is completed. He also talked about many things, and again my name was mentioned, and many people looked at me and smiled/giggled, and finally, we all said our "kanpai" and the evening began. Even though I couldn't understand it, something about the cadence of his voice and the expression on his face told me it was an inspiring speech.

The actual dinner was ridiculously fun, for some reason. There was much pouring of each others' beers and plenty of drinking, plus some pretty awesome Japanese food. I had delicious pork cooked in tofu milk, plus tons of sashimi, udon, tempura, and really good dessert. The most amazing part of the evening was seeing the people at the school loosen up. They were insanely friendly and interesting. I was blown away by how much English some of them knew. I just assumed that almost no one in Japan could really speak much English, but I was proven wrong. A lot of people knew a surprising amount of words. People made their way around the room, stopping to fill your beer and talk for a while. It was great. I was surprised how much Japanese I had learned. I managed to hold my own in Japanese conversations, and with the combination of their English skills, we managed to have some pretty great conversations. I had fun conversations with people I had never really spoken a word to before. Even the principal proved quite friendly, several times coming over to show me the correct way to eat the food (I was completely neglecting all the delicious sauces they had provided), and also filling up my beer glass. Man, if I took more than a sip from that glass, he filled it right back up. I really was very touched by that. I felt special.

At school, people are much more polite and proper, and so they don't let their inner personalities show as much. I do the same thing. That's the great thing about these enkais. They provide a safe environment for people to be themselves for one evening. I think this is a good group of people, and I certainly can't wait for the next one...I made plans with two of the teachers to go skiing in the winter. I hope they remember.

Oh, I almost forgot the best part! After it was over, we all formed a circle with our arms on each others' shoulders and sang the school song. We swayed left and right and sang and sang, and of course I didn't know the words. When the song finished, somebody said something, and they all excitedly looked at me. Everyone all of a sudden crowded together and lifted me up into the air many times. I've never had that happen before. I felt like I was floating. Needless to say, I felt like a king for a day. What a great feeling.

Swimming in goodness

It has been raining literally without stop here for at least the last 36 hours. In fact, it's all starting to blur together...I can't even remember when it started! Oye!

Today I went swimming with the school's swimming team. Foolishly, I asked everyone I could find whether or not the swim team practiced in the rain. The answer--a lot of strange stares and "Yes" answers. Hmmm. I guess the rain would have little effect on swimmers, now wouldn't it?

The coach is an extremely cool individual named Mr. Itoi. He is quite possibly the most athletic-looking person I've ever met. He competed for Japan in the Olympics in swimming a few years ago, and now he is a teacher at the school. After my first couple laps, he came over and complimented my swimming style, even saying that--gasp!--it reminded him of Michael Phelps, the American swimming phenom. Naturally, that felt pretty good.

After that, however, was 150 meters of pure kicking. My feet and legs must have been defective, because even the girls were outpacing me 2-to-1. I looked like a limp dog swimming upstream with its paws tied together. It was embarassing. After that, I just decided to hang out in the unused side and just 'do my own thing' while the real athletes honed their swimming prowess. But hey! No shower required tonight!

Also, in a completely unrelated note, a couple days ago I had possibly my most satisfying linguistic moment thus far. At 10:30pm, I got a hankering for a MOS Burger (the local hamburger chain...pretty good actually), and knew that I had to have one. I managed to successfully navigate through the Japanese website, type in my city's name in Chinese characters to find the hours of operation, as well as locate a diagram of the hamburger I wanted, complete with ingredient list. From there, I translated the ingredients, taking note of which ones I did NOT want (still quite picky when it comes to my burgers). I biked down to MOS Burger, ordered with quasi-proficiency, and enjoyed a hamburger just the way I wanted it. I was even able to answer when she asked me if I wanted it for here or to go--a question that has stumbled me many times.

It was sublime.


For your reference, here is a photo of the delicious MOS Burger (literally "Mountain, Ocean, Sun"). It's a little pricey, and a little small, but man is it good.

Nakatsugawa Fog

The fog around here is incredible. This was not long after dark.

My Pad

I've posted some photos of my apartment here in Japan, in case any of you are curious just what one might look like. Enjoy!

This is my apartment building. It is teacher's housing, so most of the people who live here work at my school. It's big and concrete, but there are many families with kids, so it seems kind of homey.























This is my front door. I think the blue is very cheerful.

This is my entranceway. I leave my shoes here and walk around barefoot in the rest of the apartment. Interestingly, this recessed area is technically public property and if you leave the door unlocked, people are allowed to enter. Who knew?
















This is my kitchen. I haven't yet mastered the garbage collection system yet, so it's sort of a "walk-in trashcan" at the moment. Nevertheless, it's very large, has a lot of cool dishes, and has tons of shelving for plates and spicy condiments. Everything is gas, from hot water to the stove.
















This is my extra bedroom. These units were designed to hold families, but since I am decidedly without family here, I keep it closed off as the "East Wing"
















Here is my living room. This is where I spend most of my time. It's a pretty comfortable place to sit. I rearranged it a little bit, so I'm fairly proud of myself.
















This is my bedroom. I like it because it's nice and simple. I sleep directly on the floor on a futon. The floor is covered in soft "tatami" mats and so the whole effect is actually very comfortable.
















Here is my bathtub and shower. I take showers here sometimes standing up, sometimes sitting down, depending on my mood. Haven't yet tried taking a bath; perhaps in the winter.























This is my laundry facility. To rinse dry the clothes, I use the spinner, which operates at extraordinarily high RPM and sounds not unlike a jet engine.


















This is my trusty steed. I use this to get to work every day. It belongs to someone who works at the school, so I really need to get my own and soon. I've come to like it though.
















This is the view from the stairwell looking east towards the main part of the city. I feel like I'm sort of on the outskirts, but it's hard to tell sometimes.