home again home again

...home again til the 16th. It's so surreal. Japan is really not that far away. The flight from Nagoya was about 9 hours long, which feels SOOO much shorter than the flight from Beijing. Now I'm home, and it didn't take that long at all. Like my body and mind haven't yet caught up to my surroundings.



So now it's ridiculously early in the morning, and I'm finishing this post. Jet lag sucks. Body definitely hasn't caught up to the surroundings.

Everything's different here again! Right-hand faucet twists in the wrong way. Toilets aren't as water saving. And to top it all, when driving home from dinner last night, for a brief few hundred yards I drove on the wrong side of the road. Yikes! oops, I wasn't thinking. And I've never even driven in Japan.

But, it's been deliriously awesome to see family and friends again.

end of sakura season, farewell party

So the two week long sakura frenzy here is over. Most of the petals have fallen and disappeared, replaced by green leaves. It was so gorgeous to see the streets lined with fallen pink petals, and bike around in the wind with the petals swirling around me, rolling along the road. Mmm....so pretty...I want a sakura tree in my future garden...as IF I'll have any time for a garden at any point in my life, before retirement! Hah!

Last night my host family hosted a farewell party for Tomoko. I made some Vietnamese-ish spring rolls and...well...they were okay. I was so excited to find mint at my local supermarket! Adding mint leaves made the spring rolls so much more springy. It was awesome. I got to see their son again, who is now 3 kg heavier than when I saw him last. I held him for awhile--he was so soft, warm, cuddly, and baby-smelling! It was awesome (though, no inclination to one of my own anytime soon, hah!). But it was kind of nice to hold him, and to watch him burrow into his parents' chests. He's gotten so that he can hold his head up on his own, and is trying to turn himself over (though without success so far). He's also gotten quite strong, becoming quite a kicker and grabber. Annd...he smiles now! He's not just a kind of...lump. He's got facial expressions, which makes him so much more interesting.

Here's a picture of me, him, and my host mom:



Because we all had a bit to drink and Tomoko drove us to their house, we again called that useful dual-driver taxi service thingie. Surprisingly, the driver recognized us from last time! The same driver came, and not only did he remember us, but he even remembered where our apartment was!! Bizarre. They probably assign drivers based on patrol area, and there are maybe not so many per area? It was strange. So, Tomoko and the driver chatted a bit while we drove back. It suddenly struck me that Japan is strangely a simultaneously close and lonely society. Close, because there's a lot of social trust. I was thinking about this taxi service and wondering if it would ever work in the U.S. Would Americans allow a complete stranger to drive *their* car? I mean, hopping in a taxi seems risky enough to some...but to let somebody else drive *your* car? While you are presumably drunk or under the influence of alcohol? Hmm...But of course, there's no problem with that here. Another Fulbrighter remarked that she saw a woman calmly leave a thousand-dollar-handbag unattended at her table while she got up to go order her food at the counter. Unheard of in the U.S.! So, there's kind of a societal trust or unconcern. I don't even always lock my door at night (though I know that I really should!).

At the same time, though, Japanese society seems very lonely to me. Or maybe it's my own loneliness I'm projecting. But I see so many lonely people, eating alone at the counters of all the fast food places, and at all the ramen places too. Then there are tired, overworked people who don't have time to go home to their family, or don't even if they had the choice. People like my advisor who never talk about their family, or ever seem to spend time with them. The stereotypical desperate housewife, the equally desperate career woman. Of course, there are people like my host family who seem to be close and happy, but somehow, I seem to see a lot of lonely or alone people. Then there's the Japanese reserved-ness about expression their emotions...and the relatively high rate of suicide for their income.

Anyways, it's an interesting combination. A densely interconnected, interdependent society that is still somehow isolating.

weather, construction, etc.

It's really turning lovely. I think I can pack up all my winter clothes and shoes now, and run around in short sleeves and sandals. Delicious! Being on almost the same latitude as LA is a contributing factor, I suppose. It was actually almost too warm last night! Of course, I was wrapped up in a big blanket with an overheated laptop. The big blanket may have to go...as well as the kotatsu blanket.

On the continuing theme of being startled by construction...it's freaking everywhere! I was walking near my apartment the other day, down a street I don't usually take, and was insanely surprised at the quick disappearance of things I've been used to. What used to be a gas station is now a plot of gravel. The arcade/karaoke place near my apartment is now also a flat piece of gravel. There are cranes working constantly to demolish yet another set of buildings (across from the now-gone gas station). Demolition is so efficient here! There's another square plot of gravel now for sale near my office. It makes me wonder why they bothered to demolish the building if they were just going to sell it. Surely, it was worth more when there was a building there? The next owners could just remodel or something. Hmm...interesting...

I'm just biding my time until I can launch my survey (yay!). Because I'm going to be running the survey from home for awhile (i.e., US) and I don't really want to leave it open for more than a month, I don't want to launch too early. I want to get people paid in a reasonable amount of time! And meanwhile...I am studying Japanese. My goal is to finish this textbook by the time I go home in May. It's a bit of a pity, since I really like this textbook, and I don't think there are more in the series. The articles are interesting, the grammar is useful, and the exercises, while not perfect, are pretty good. I think when I launch my survey I will regain some of the enthusiasm that I've lost. At the very least, I'll be busy with tracking invitations (hopefully I'll get some!).

welcome the new year

I had my first class of the new Japanese schoolyear today--Nihongo D conversational class. It was kind of exciting to the see the campus abuzz with students again, and it was briefly nice to see some familiar faces (before the realization hit that after all, I don't have anything to say to them!).

It was cute. I saw a lot of alarmingly young-looking freshman walking around, clutching schedules and maps. 4 of them stopped and asked for directions, and I even saw one professor-looking person (older student?) ask for directions! There were signs everywhere that said basically "Any Ehime University student, you can use!" meaning of course that you can stop any student and ask for help. Of course there were the cute campus volunteers in their red shirts walking around too.

The only reason I knew that classes were starting was because that yesterday, almost by whim, I went to my office. I was hoping for some paperwork regarding the new semester, and it looked like there was nothing. A few hours later, somebody remembered to give it to me (in retrospect, I should have just asked). I was surprised to find that my first class was the next day! Of course, there was nothing like *where* the class might be, so I just showed up at our old classroom. Luckily, I met a student from last semester who seemed to know what was going on and said that the class had changed places. So I followed him to another building, where a bunch of old classmates were gathered in the lobby. We exclaimed over each other's haircuts, etc. until the teacher finally came and apologized about all the confusion. We walk into the new classroom and voila! no chairs! no tables! in fact, it was nearly a bare room, except for a chalkboard and, of all things, a tv set. Yeah, campus administration was probably pretty overwhelmed that day. We dragged all the chairs from the lobby and the lounge next door into the classroom and just sat in rows for our first class. It was somewhat amusing.

Japanese construction seems remarkably fast. Last semester, our entire library was wrapped in construction gauze (for lack of a better description). Half of the building my Japanese class was in looked like the ruins of a bombing. Completely gutted. One of the buildings of the Faculty of Law looked to be in a similar state. I show up to class a month later and voila! Shiny new buildings! Well, fairly ugly as far as buildings go, but still! no trace of the previous construction remained. I was really impressed, considering how freakishly long it took to build anything at Harvard. I have always heard that the construction industry in Japan is notoriously corrupt, faking earthquake-proof papers, or whatnot. But man, they are fast.

osaka - kyoto - nara - pt 2

So the next day (Saturday) Andrea and I headed out to Yoshino mountain, which is supposedly the number one sakura viewing spot in Japan. What the hell, we're in the area, right? Despite the 2+ hour train ride required to get there from Kyoto, it was definitely worth it. We arrived shortly after noon and started walking around the mountain. It was super crowded, but I didn't mind so much. It just made the atmosphere lively and energetic. The cute, smallish mountain paths were lined with little stalls hawking all kinds of sakura-related wares: sakura candles, scented wax, salt, soba, sake, youkan, yatsuhashi, manju, tea, and on and on. Everything was all about sakura. It was a sakura frenzy!!! I started catching it too, and wanted sakura everything. It was fun to see what else they could make taste like sakura next.

The sakura themselves weren't fully open yet. There were quite a few gorgeous trees that were in full bloom, but most of the rest of the trees weren't yet. Maybe next weekend would be beautiful. I could imagine, though, what the mountain would look like with ALL of the sakura trees in full bloom. Exquisite.

We picnicked in the courtyard of a big temple. We ate ice cream three times that day (!). I ate a fish impaled on a stick (it was grilled).

It was so much fun, it was surreal. Gorgeous.

Next day in Kyoto was my last. Andrea had to run to Kobe, but was kind enough to stay and get us tickets to a dance performance at noon. It was really awesome, because all the dancers and musicians were geisha or maiko. There were several group pieces (where everybody dances more or less the same thing, and wears the same costume), and there were a few pieces that were more like plays. Two scenes from Genji were reenacted in dance form. It was all gorgeous. The group pieces were really impressive because I've rarely seen groups perform so perfectly in sync. And not just in sync, but the angles of all their poses were identical. The tradeoff though, was that sometimes they seemed a bit stiff, like they were simply hitting the pose on the beat rather than dancing in between the poses. But nonetheless, it was really good.

I then spent the rest of the day uncontrollably spending money on myself and on gifts for friends and family. Yay shopping. Yikes! Good thing I get paid this month.

osaka - kyoto - nara - pt 1

Wheeee!! Kansai is awesome.

I took the overnight to Osaka, to arrive on Wednesday. I got one of the last tickets, so I sat in the very back row where there was no aisle, just 4 seats crammed next to each other. Fun fun, like wayy too close to my neighbors to sleep. Also, no air circulation. I arrived in Osaka a little before 6am. After wandering around a bit, found a cafe open at 6:30am, and then after studying the map and setting off to wander some more, found an awesome 24hr internet cafe called Aprecio. I had my laptop with me so I could avail myself of the free wireless (though I had to pay for a seat). Somewhere in there was free all you can eat ice cream, i think, though it's just as well that I couldn't find it :-P

I met up with Rick for breakfast, which was great. We ate at a cafe and chatted for a bit more than an hour--it was great to see him again :-)

Then, off to the Shinsaibashi/Namba shopping/arcade/commercial mecca area to wander around shopping and get a haircut. Andrea recommended me a place that was good, and spoke English. I made reservations a few days ago and so I went there. Wow, it was trendy! Music was TATU, all the stylists were tall and rail thin and wearing designer jeans. All the guys had overprocessed trendy orange hair. Got me a shampoo which was divine! I'm not used to be pampered while getting a haircut, and...well...it was an experience. MMmmmMMMmmm. Then a haircut while I chatted with the stylist. I told her it'd been over 6 months since I last got it cut, because I was scared of Japanese stylists! Anyways, it turned out okay, though it is dramatically nicer when she (+assistant, at the same time!) blowdried my hair. The way I treat it? Meh. Doesn't look that great. So the final verdict is, I can quit trying to get nicer haircuts. I should just stick with my $15 Vietnamese stylist at home, because she knows exactly what I want and I am ALWAYS 100% happy with the results. Sad about the no shampoo though...and the rather seedy sketchy atmosphere. Ah well--you can't have everything. And anyways Craive was a fun experience.

Yarn store. Need I say more? Noro Transitions was on sale. They had the colorway that I have 2+ skeins of at home. I bought some. Now I have enough to make a sweater out of it. Ohhhhh....indulgence.

So anyways, Osaka was all about shopping. Even the next morning! I've fallen in love with a makeup line, Ettusais. Everything they do is very acne-skin oriented. So everything is non-comedogenic, very light, oil free, and FRAGRANCE FREE!! And not Clinique-sort-of-fake-fragrance-free, but genuinely fragrance free. The absolute best most wondrous concealer-type stuff ever, also. Ah, more indulgence.

Then the train to Kyoto. That afternoon I caught Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavilion, along with at least 100 other high school students from Korea, all in their uniforms. It was kind of annoying, but also very amusing. They spoke (good) English with some other travelers (I overheard a guy trying to explain he was a "software engineer" to a slightly uncomprehending high school girl, which was very funny). Then they spoke Japanese to the temple people when trying to buy stuff. Uhh...I'm impressed. I suspect most American students could only handle one foreign language, at most.

I then swung by Hirano shrine, which I had passed on the bus on the way to Kinkakuji. Hirano shrine was apparently a huge hanami (cherry blossom viewing) place, and OMG it was gorgeous! :-D In fact, the cherry blossoms were everywhere gorgeous.

Walked through Shimogamo shrine...huge park, very foresty, very much the feeling of Ise Shrine. I think I like shrines better than temples, in general. Shrines are more naturey, and they feel bigger in some way. Like, spiritually bigger, soul-bigger? Temples and pagodas are incredibly impressive (and some very big, which I'll get to later) but everything is so controlled. The gardens, the lakes, gravel, courtyards...all very planned. The forests of Ise and Shimogamo had these huge tall trees that just made me feel...kind of more relaxed, more free in a way.

Cell phone died along the way and I worked, for the first time, a Japanese payphone. Had to call Andrea to meet up with her. So we did, and wandered off to dinner, which was an adventure! At first we tried a tempura place, but decided it was too expensive (cheapest set was 1500 yen). Then we wandered through some backalleys and found a sign that said yu-doufu (boiled tofu). Andrea really likes it, and it's a Kyoto specialty, and I'd never tried it before, so we were like, what the hell let's pop our heads in and try it. It was one of those places with no windows...well we went in, and it was an impeccably clean place. The only seating was an L-shaped counter that seated probably about 10 ppl, with 4(!) people behind it, to serve. Two were obviously an old married couple, and one younger woman probably a daughter, and another woman. One of the first things we were asked was, did a friend recommend you here? Uhh...no, we were just walking around. In retrospect, that question should have tipped us off. We sat in the corner, and, no menu in sight! All the items were stuck on the walls over and behind the counter, written out in lovely calligraphy. No prices to speak of. We ordered yu-doufu, because that's what the sign outside the restaurant said. Andrea remarked later that if it weren't for the sign, we wouldn't even have known what to order! And we were confused by the options, and just sort of went with it, having no idea what we were really getting (well, I didn't anyways, having never had yu-doufu before) or what on earth it would cost. So we ended up with two appetizers and two portions of the boiled tofu. It was yummy. Got a bill. 4400 yen!! Ironically, more expensive than the tempura place would have been. And the bill was the funniest thing ever. The little old lady spent some time drawing it up, but in the end it was just the numbers "4400" written on a scrap of paper. Forget about itemization! ...I thought these places weren't for real in Japan. They are just a myth...old school relic of bygone days. Maybe I haven't been to "real" Japan!

After that we trekked quite far, through another shrine, up and around Kiyomizu-dera, in search of sakura ice cream. Yes, cherry blossom ice cream. It was DELICIOUS!!! I had mine mixed with green tea ice cream, and it was just heavenly. Then we started walking back, and saw zillions of sakura trees being lit up at night. They were soooo gorgeous. Brilliant white trees, and some pink trees. Unfortunately my camera also died at this point and I couldn't take as many pictures as I wanted. But the sakura-tree-lined canals, lit up at night, were really a breathtaking sight. Very crowded too. Passing by a posh cafe, I spotted what might have been a maiko/geisha? She was sitting at the counter with some men, wearing a gorgeous gorgeous kimono with a very elaborately tied obi. Full-on white makeup, complicated hairdo, covered with sakura flowery hair decoration thingies. Andrea tried to get a picture, but it came out too dark :-( And we weren't the only ones outside the cafe trying to snap a picture of her back! at least two guys in front of us were blatantly shooting pics through the door. It's a bit of a weird kind of anonymous celebrity, being a geisha or maiko. Or even just dressed up at one. Everyone stops and gawks and tries to take a picture of you, but nobody really knows who you are (or probably cares). Andrea thought that maybe we didn't see a real maiko, just someone who'd paid to be dressed up as one, because her shoes weren't high enough. Real maiko wear super-high (like 3 inches or more) shoes, and these ones weren't so much. So, who knows?! but, it was gorgeous and fun, anyways.

Then we got to where Andrea left her bike, and she offered to carry me home on the back of her bike. So we did! Again, something of an adventure, though I feel a bit sorry for all the work she had to do to pedal us both. It also wasn't nearly as easy as I thought it would be, riding on the back! trying to balance myself sideways, while tucking in my knees and pointing my toes to avoid hitting the shrubbery on the side, and balancing, and holding onto Andrea, and all that...yeah, major oblique ab workout. But fun. Scary! Praying for green lights at intersections so we wouldn't have to stop and restart. Brushing my knees against parked bikes and shrubbery. Whipping by pedestrians and other bikers, with liberal use of the bell. Near-misses with other bikes. One lady tried to cut across us perpendicularly, then abruptly thought better of it (not before we already braked hard, though). Dude lady! Twice the momentum coming through here!!! :-P Haven't done that since I was 12, in Beijing.
Makes me feel a bit...I dunno, I want to say wild and crazy? But that just makes me sound like a lame person :-P Laugh like a child, then.

Then today I went to Nara. I spent a great deal of the day on some form of transportation or another. We met up with Janina and took the train to Nara, which took like an hour. Then we had awesome Kansai style okonomiyaki. I got one laden with shrimp. I even got two big shrimp with heads still on them! Shrimp with heads...basically stir fried in oil...mmmmm...juices...it's soooo hard to find in Japan. I can't do my favorite Chinese shrimp dishes due to a lack of shrimp with heads. So Janina looked on in horror as I sucked and crunched on the two big shrimp heads. Mmmmmmm....

At least two hours of the afternoon...maybe 2 and a half, were spent on a bus. First, getting out to Horyuji, and then getting back. But it was totally worth it. Horyuji is this huge huge temple complex. Tall pagoda. Japan's first world heritage site. Dates back to like...the 6th century in some parts. It was beautiful with the sakura blossoms everywhere, lining all the paths. Peaceful, controlled, beautiful.

Then we finally made it to Todaiji in Nara park, at 5pm, half an hour before closing. Got lucky! Todaiji was also absolutely breathtaking. It has a gigantic Buddha statue, housed in a gigantic temple structure. Makes you feel really small. Built more than a millenia ago. And at that, built only 2/3rds the height of the original structure! How the heck did they do that. *sigh* It was a sight to see.

Then, finally, Nara park. There are free-roaming, extremely tame deer. They are like messengers from god. We got one of the last of the deer biscuits before the lady packed up and went home. Those deer are AGGRESSIVE! I unwrapped the paper and like half a dozen came running. They started bumping into me, nipping at my purse and my dress. Seriously, I felt teeth! Some deer tried to take a chunk out of my midsection! I think I have teethmarks on my jacket. I was too scared to really feed them. I ended up breaking up the biscuits and dropping them on the ground. I felt backed into a corner for sure! Ouch. But it was fun :-D

And so goes the Nara day. More later!