the red beard experience

When we stepped off of the plane at Narita Airport, Sam had been allowing his normally half inch beard to grow for about a month. That means it was probably a good inch to an inch and a half long, and longer by the end of the trip. And we all know it is a lovely shade of red.

Needless to say, both the size and color are something of a rarity in Japan, and Sam got a decent number of looks and comments throughout the trip. My favorite beard event, though, was in Arashiyama, just outside of Kyoto.

We stopped into a small shop to look at some tanuki statues, and my friend Mayo and I started chatting (in Japanese) to the older woman who owned the shop. Almost immediately, she began admiring Sam's beard. At one point she said, "You know, you could turn his head upside down and he'd still look the same!"

As was my custom, I turned to Sam to tell him what she'd said, but she looked horrified and pleaded with me to stop, saying, "No! No! Don't tell him I said that!! I'd be embarrassed!" So I held off until after we'd left the shop with one bought statue and one the woman gave Sam as a gift.

It's a few months later now, and the Japanese travel agency I use is having a senryu 川柳 (comic haiku) contest on the topic of travel experiences. I wrote two about Sam's beard in Japan, one referring to the story I just told. (I didn't try to keep to 5-7-5 when putting them in English.)

「大ひげを　ひっくり返すと　髪の毛よ」
(His big beard turned upside down is his head of hair!)

「おばさんは　彼の赤ひげ　撫でてみる」
(The old women love to pet my boyfriend's red beard.)

Coincidentally, I got a package in the mail last week from Mayo in which she included this awesome drawing she'd done of a Japanese version of Sam. Her senryu about Sam's beard is equally amusing.

「ひげありし　男の親せき　ライオンか」
(With that beard, I wonder if his relatives are lions.)

ultimate in japan

There have been few posts about Ultimate frisbee this summer, mostly because we have unintentionally attended about six fewer tournaments this year than last year. But that doesn't mean we didn't find a few places to play while we were in Japan.

On a lovely afternoon in Osaka, we joined UFO (Ultimate Frisbee Osaka), a group of ex-pats and Japanese, for a game of pick-up in the tall grasses alongside the Yodogawa River. It had been years since I'd played with this group, but there was at least one person I knew still playing.

A week later, we begged our way onto some alumni teams at a tournament in Maishima, just outside of Osaka. Sam picked up with the Tibets, Kyoto University's alumni team (and the team I used to practice with), and I joined Kaede, Doshisha University's alumni team. The Tibets did alright, but Kaede won the tournament. And yes, I stood a full head taller than any of the women I played with or against.

engrish is not quite dead

It used to be that I would walk down the Teramachi Shopping Arcade and be able to buy t-shirts, bags, handkerchiefs, whatever and it would have wonderful, incorrect English on it. Sadly, it's much harder to find Engrish in Japan these days that lives up to the standards of five years ago. That being said, we didn't leave Japan without running across a couple good ones.

The first was Jesus Body diet supplements. I don't know what the impetus on the name is, but some have conjectured that "Jesus!" or "Jesus Christ!" is one of the English exclamatory phrases taking hold in Japan lately, and that's the sort of expression people would use when referring to your body after using this product. The package says:

Jesus Body
New discovery to be kept secret from others.
This discovery is a secret.
I can lay it down because I am correct.
We will not make you sorry.
Pleasure to have the real thing.
I really longed for this.

We also stumbled across Tits Cafe in downtown Kyoto, which looked like a lovely place to have a nice sandwich lunch. I don't think the owner realized his establishment might be mistaken for a gentleman's club.

kyoto-fu

The public transportation in Japan is great. Sam and I used trains and buses all throughout our time in Japan, and we never felt like we couldn't get somewhere we wanted to. At the same time, we always thought in terms of where we could go by way of public transportation and therefore didn't necessarily head toward certain off-the-beaten-path cool places.

Luckily, my friend Mayo's boyfriend had a car and a plan, so we jumped in and went on a rainy day adventure into northern Kyoto Prefecture. I managed not to puke as we wound our way through the mountains to arrive at Miyama, one of the best preserved thatched-roof villages in Japan. We ate our packed lunch of onigiri (rice balls), tsukemono (pickled veggies), and cucumbers while taking in the view of the damp village, and then wandered about marveling at the foot and a half thick roofs.

On the way back home we stopped for a soggy hike along an overflowing creek. The waterfall at the end was supposed to be the exciting part, but the narrow footbridges (actually a few logs tied together with "steps" fastened on), which were at that point barely visible above the rushing water, were much more engaging. Also, there were salamanders.

the bodega visits japan

Sam and I have a favorite bar in La Crosse, the Bodega. The bartenders know us, the beer selection is the best in town, and until the recent smoking ban, it was one of the two non-smoking bars in La Crosse. Needless to say, we love the Bodega.

And so just for the fun of it, we took along with us to Japan a sticker or two from the Bodega and took pictures of it with mostly alcohol related things. My two favorite are the above.

The first is the Bodega with Yebisu beer on a table at A Bar, one of my old hangouts from my Kyoto days. It's where I learned to open beer bottles with chopsticks, and came to understand that Yebisu beer was the best Japanese beer (if you know Japanese beer, that's not saying much, but oh well.)

The second is the Bodega sneaking onto a poster for Suntory Whisky. Sam being a fan of whisky, he and I visited the Yamazaki Distillery while in Kyoto. The tour included a walk through the hot mash room, the cool aging caves, and the whisky library. The library not only housed old posters, bottles, and other Suntory historical items, but also hundreds of bottles of whisky from around the world lined up in plain bottles to show off the beautiful and varying colors.

fortune in many forms

We made it Kyoto, my favorite place in Japan, and promptly illegally camped alongside the Kamo River. The wonderful thing about being so familiar with a place is knowing when and where something like this is possible and convenient; our campsite was just down the street from a subway station, a supermarket, and a public bath.

Our first few days in town involved us walking around quite a bit. From Nanzenji on the east, the Imperial Palace in the middle, and Arashiyama on the west, we covered quite a bit of Kyoto, although not all in one day.

One of Sam's favorite things about Japan were the tanuki. Statues of these well-endowed, magical, lucky raccoon-ish beings stand in front of stores everywhere. One theory why is that because they are so well-endowed, they will bring a similar bounty of fortune to the store. True or not, they're fun to look at. I took Sam to the largest one I'd ever seen, and he seemed to enjoy it.

I much prefer the many stone statues of Jizo Bosatsu, the bodhisattva who protects children, who usually is clothed with a red bib. This one is from a small temple in Arashiyama.

golden dolphin

After two wet days in Hamamatsu eating eel and failing to capture the elusive clams on the beach, we headed down to Nagoya. The last time I was in Japan, I went up to the Sapporo Snow Festival where one of the giant snow sculptures had been of the Nagoya Castle. It looked pretty cool made of out snow, so I thought it would be even better in real life.

Eh. The whole thing (except the foundation) had been rebuilt/restored as a museum, so there wasn't much authenticity left. It looked pretty big and imposing from the outside, but I wouldn't recommend paying to go inside. Nijo Castle in Kyoto is much better.

The most interesting thing about Nagoya Castle was the giant golden dolphin that sits on the rooftop. It used to be gilded in gold, but that got stolen years ago. There were replicas all over, though. How much does this look like a dolphin to you?

fuji-san

Hiking up Mt. Fuji as originally planned ended up not really being an option for various reasons (do you see how much snow is still up there?). So we took a leisurely climb up a nearby mountain to get a nice view of Fuji. The day was wonderfully clear until we got to the top, when a lone cloud decided to place itself right at the top of Fuji-san. Even still, it was a nice view a flowers and mountain photo.

kawaguchi-ko

We awoke early our first morning in Japan to a thick fog covering Kawaguchi-ko. We walked around the silent lake greeting fishermen and dog-walkers until we came to a park with this lovely view of a small temple hall surrounded by calm waters and shrouded in fog. It would be a few hours before the sun cut through the damp weather and opened up a gorgeous view of Mt. Fuji.

how well we blend in!

Well, I've finally gotten around to it. Photos from Japan can be found HERE!

About halfway through the trip, I noticed that there weren't as many photos on the camera as there usually were for a trip of such duration. Then I realized two things:

1) I'd already seen most of the places we went, and had photos at home.
2) Sam doesn't take many pictures.

So with our combined apathy, we ended up with fewer than 200 photos from our month-long trip overseas. Compared with the 300 from last year's road trip, we didn't do a very good job of documenting.

home again, home again

Thirty-two days after leaving our little house and heading to Japan, we are back in La Crosse.

They say there's been a lot of rain around here, and the way the garden has taken off, I believe it. The parsley and dill have shot up, the chamomile and chives are holding their own, and the sunflowers would have taken over the garden if I hadn't have planted them so close together. Our landlord also gifted us with a lovely rain barrel which is already overflowing with rainwater.

We've managed to do most of the unpacking - the sorting of clean and dirty, gifts and keepers. Tomorrow we'll deal with the neatly stacked piles. In the meantime, there are groceries to buy, floors to sweep, and pictures to upload.

I'm thinking I'll both post a link to all of the Japan pictures and do a series of posts about some of our more memorable experiences. It'll all be up here in a week or so, depending on work and how fast I can get through my pile of important mail.

back in japan

Hello from Japan!

Yes, I am finally back in the wonderful country of Japan! We're wandering around for here for a few weeks, from Tokyo to Fuji to Nagoya to Kyoto and all around Kansai.

Sam is learning a few words in Japanese, and I am trying to remember all the words I forgot over the past few years.

We're eating tasty ramen, soba, and tempura, and Sam has a new favorite Japanese food: onigiri (rice balls).

Mata ne! (Talk to you later!)

pon poko pon

Tonight was my first rehearsal with the La Crosse Chamber Chorale. As many of my readers may not know, I used to sing in choirs quite a bit. In fact, my life pretty much revolved around choir and ultimate frisbee in college, in addition to my studies, of course. Anyway, it has taken many years, but I have found my way back to the music.

The concert we're rehearsing for is going to have a little bit of everything. The main peice is Bach's "Jesu, meine Freude." But we'll also be singing a Japanese folk song arranged for Westerners.

In theory, I have nothing against this sort of thing, but when I had the music in my hands, I had to laugh. The song is "Shojoji no tanuki bayashi," a little ditty about tanuki (raccoon-like animals) beating their bellies like drums and dancing at Shojiji Temple. It was written in the 1920s in response to a local legend surrounding Shojiji Temple in Kisarazu City, Chiba Prefecture.

The lyrics are approximately:
"In the temple garden on a moonlit night, all our friends, come out! Don't lose to the priests!"
"The hagi flowers are blooming in the moonlit night, and everyone is merry."
And then there's lots of pon poko pon, which represents the tanuki beating their tummies and the priests beating their drums in competition.

Here's a sing-along version for kids I found on youtube:



I really hope we get a dancing tanuki to join us for the concert.

new year of the tiger

One of my Japanese friends sent me this card for New Years. Isn't it pretty? It is in the shape of a hagoita, a racket for playing the badminton-like traditional New Years game of hanetsuki. You can't tell so much, though, since it's very elaborately decorated.

The woman is holding a hamaya, a lucky arrow to ward off evil and bring good fortune, and an uma-e, a placard onto which you write your requests for the gods to answer. Because this is the year of the tiger, her uma-e is decorated with a tiger.

return of the snail

This is probably my favorite photo I've taken. If you followed my blog in Japan, you've probably seen it before. This snail was hanging out on the wall of my back porch in Kyoto when I went to bring my laundry in from a sudden rain shower.

curse of colonel sanders

The Red Sox have the "Curse of the Bambino" and the Hanshin Tigers of Osaka, Japan have the "Curse of Colonel Sanders." In 1985, after the Tigers won the League Championship, some over-enthusiastic fans threw into the Dotombori River one of the ubiquitous statues of Colonol Sanders that sits outside of every Kentucky Fried Chicken in Japan. The team has not won a league title since.

This week, that curse may be lifted. Divers found the Colonel fairly intact at the bottom of the Dotombori River and brought him back to land. He's missing a foot, a hand, and his glasses, but that doesn't deter fans from declaring that his return means a return to the League Championships for the Tigers. It is rumored that the team owner will request the statue to be placed in the new Koshien Stadium's history museum when it opens this spring.

For more about the miraculous return of the Colonel, see the article at Mainichi Daily News.

a canine story

The internet has bored me. I'm going back to reading. Among the books I've settle down with are some in Japanese that have been sitting on my shelf gathering dust. There are enough of them that I've decided to read a book in Japanese between every book I read in English. This way, I "study" Japanese without sitting down and re-memorizing vocabulary words.

My latest book was the "Hakkenden," which translates into "The Story of Eight Dogs." This is a Japanese tale set in samurai times (1600-1700ish). I'd always heard about it, and thought it might be another cute tale like Momotaro, the boy born from a peach who goes off to fight the ogres with a monkey, dog, and pheasant as his companions. About two chapters into the book, however, I learned this was not to be the case. Here's my shortened version:

A beautiful princess raises a cute puppy. Her castle gets attacked and is about to be overrun when her father promises the dog anything he wants if he'll go out and bite off the head of the enemy leader. The dog does, the castle is saved, and the dog indicates that he wants to marry the princess. Her father is a man of his word, and the two are married. They go up and live a secluded life in the mountains, where the princess spends her time in Buddhist prayer.

Unfortunately, the man the princess was supposed to marry is very angry at this arrangement. He goes up the mountain and kills the dog. The princess commits suicide in grief. When she dies, her rosary (consisting of eight beads) breaks apart and each bead magically disappears to a different part of the country. The rest of the story recounts the gathering of the eight beads, each of which end up with a child whose name coincidentally carries the character for "dog" and whose skin carries a special mark.

The children grow up to be great samurai (thanks to the protection of the beads). When two of them realize that they both have a special bead and mark, they conclude that there are other "brothers" like them out there, and begin searching the country for them. The tale recounts their adventures on the way to creating a great brotherhood. (Lots of fighting, being caught in schemes by evil lords, and meeting monsters.) In the end, they are all gathered together, just in time to save the princess's kingdom once again from enemy invaders.

They are greatly rewarded and settle comfortably. When they are old, they all go up on the mountain where the princess is buried and live there until one day, when all of their bodies disappear.

The End.

hot and cold

Some times I miss Japan more than others. Right now is one of those times.

It is autumn, and with the falling leaves comes colder weather. Although I do appreciate the briskness of an autumn day and sweater season, I am not really a cold weather person. My toes frequently go numb when the temperature drops below 50 degrees and I wear mittens as soon as I can smell the smoke from fireplaces.

Unfortunately, I am living with a man whose body loves the cold. Because of this, the windows in our house are mostly still open, despite the frost coming pretty regularly at night. Our heat has not kicked in (as the landlord promised), and yet Sam is in no hurry to find out why. He walks around in a short sleeved t-shirt. I resort to extra showers during the day in order to keep me warm and five blankets on my bed at night to keep me from dying of hypothermia.

This brings me back to Japan, a wonderful place where hot baths before you go to sleep are the norm, where heated carpets, heated floors, and heated blankets abound, and where even if you don't have central heating in your house, you can still go down the street to the local bath house and sit for hours in hot tubs and saunas for a very minimal price.

sanshin surprise

Last weekend Sam and I went to the wedding of some friends from Bloomington. One half of the groom's family is from Okinawa, and they performed a dance and two songs at the reception. Since I play the sanshin (an Okinawan banjo-like instrument), I was eager to hear them play and maybe learn something from them.

They started up the first song, and I knew it. It was one of my favorites that I know how to play. When they were warming up for the second song, I recognized it too. It's my second favorite song I know how to play. Incredulous, I mentioned this to the people I was sitting with, and suddenly, I was being pushed up front to play with them. And I did.

I messed up a few times because the version was slightly different than the one I knew, but for the most part it was easy to play. And because the Japanese are so good at flattery, everyone complimented me extensively on my great skill. I don't know about that, but I did get some contact information about a group that plays sanshin in Chicago, so maybe some weekend when I don't have Ultimate, I'll go up and learn some new songs.

sweeping generalizations

I don't know how clean the other streets in Springfield are, but mine is spotless. Today is the second day in a row a street sweeper has gone by, and that's twice this month. Having never lived on a street that was cleaned by anyone other than myself, I'm impressed.

This reminds me of street cleaning day in Japan. It's not an official holiday or anything, it's just a Sunday when everyone gets up early and cleans the street and gutter in front of their house. I always wondered if it was a city thing or a neighborhood association thing.