Strange Girl in a Strange Land

Off and running...

2009-05-19T08:41:00.006+09:00

Andy, the boyfriend, and I have recently relocated to warm, sunny, happening, friendly, active, musical, delicious Austin, Texas. So, I'm no longer storming Japan but am instead taking Austin by the horns. Please click over and check out our all new adventures...
www.austinbythehorns.blogspot.com

still time for all things orange and brown and punkin-y...

2008-11-13T12:18:00.005+09:00

we just got around to carving our punkins last night. so what if it's the middle of november!? how awesome, cute and asymmetrical respectively. kinda like their creators...andy, scott and jax respectively.

i was gonna attempt to be creative with the innards, but they were old, nearing rotten and i was tipsy and tired. next year...

my slice of the election

2008-11-10T01:51:00.005+09:00

Oh the sweet chaos and complete saturation of election season. Candidates faces and their common refrains decorate our tvs and magazines, their voices drip from our radios. As much as I enjoyed all the rigmarole of debating and researching and voting, it's taken me nearly a week to desire rehashing it in written form.

It felt good to vote. It's not often enough that I get to make a contribution to the democratic process in such a tangible way. Don’t know if I can say it better than Andy did on that morning…“it’s the one time when I feel powerful…or, uh, maybe it’s better to say it’s the one time when I don’t feel completely powerless.”

I made my way to the Baptist church at 11 am thinking I would miss the ‘I’m late for work’ crowd and beat the ‘I left early for lunch’ crowd. I stood in line, patiently, reading my Radar magazine, for about 40 minutes. Occasionally I would mull over the jesus posters and god propaganda that decorated the Life Center’s walls. The irony of voting there wasn’t lost on my mind which subscribes to the separation of church and state doctrine. That sliver of time though was a small poll tax to pay in order to contribute to this monumental election.

It was monumental in another way as well…I baked.

We (or I should say Andy and his roommate Scott. I’m not so into sweets…) hadn’t even completely finished the Pumpkin Turtle Pie I made the other day yet…

And I was already baking again. Something must be wrong with me.

Andy had been bugging me about making a cake and this seemed like the perfect occasion. I picked up some red and blue frosting the other day in anticipation of creating a pro-change sheet cake…a pro-democratic frosted masterpiece…a pro-obama vanilla cake with vanilla frosting…more lovely irony. As I was crafting my second cake ever (the first was a set of boobs that Amanda and I made for a friend in Columbia so many years ago), I felt a little like I didn’t deserve to be using the cake pan my grandma had bestowed on me. It was a bumpy attempt. This realization lead me straight to a metaphor of the cake as the election itself. The bumpy road to Pennsylvania Ave…all the smearing of frosting I did, which seemed analogous to the smear campaigns and negative ‘he said-she-said’ that colored the process. Then there was the excited, carnal way that we all devoured the cake that was reminiscent of the energy Barack has generated amongst constituents this time around.

We ate dinner and cake and drank beers and watched the election unfold. I was initially a Hillary supporter, but I mustn’t understate the excitement and potential I feel at the dawning of this era of a new president. The door is open to possibility, to opportunity. I can imagine a future that’s bright and better. And, hell, even if it’s not, I bet it’ll be different, and change is something I have always thrived on.

(In a final irony, I swear "America the Beautiful" just began blaring from my radio as I was posting this. Nice touch NPR.)

foodie fodder

2008-11-01T05:57:00.002+09:00

You all know how much I adore writing about food.

If letters were morsels and words delicacies,
I could craft stories worthy of menus in the best eateries.
Each dish a poem, each course an essay,
I’d write of tapas, pizza and amuse bouche.
I would stir slang and spices, mix with real sustenance,
Pour phrases on to the page with culinary competence.
If only I could find a way to marry the vinegar and oil,
Of a career built of gastronomy and days of keyboard toil.

I recently had the opportunity to mesh the two…
Check out my story on Sonic Drive-in’s happy hour! It was published in Myrtle Beach’s free alternative paper, The Weekly Surge, on October 10th. I think there’s some more room for contribution, but as they haven’t been so professional about paying the freelancer, I’m going to wait and see how that pans out before submitting anything else.
I also had a story published recently in Alternatives Newsmagazine. Well, it was actually more of a press release, but it still ended up in print. I’ve also been tracing some of the other branches in Myrtle Beach’s interconnected publishing scene and have a few promising leads. We’ll see…
Once again, I find myself in a space where I'm encouraged to write more. I'm hoping some of these liquid thoughts will gel enough to make it to the blog. Blogging is good for me, I know.

it's a miracle ! !

2008-05-30T03:00:00.004+09:00

nope, not referring to the fact that i've finaly updated... (here goes my next attempt at keeping this alive...i know it's good for my soul and sanity, i've just been refusing to sacrifice time doing other things for the clarity writing brings.) this piqued my interest...the miracle fruit man's website. He plies, not surprisingly, miracle fruit.

"The Miracle Fruit is a bright red, oval-shaped berry approximately 2 to 3 cm long containing a single seed. Although not sweet itself, when a single fruit is eaten and the fleshy pulp allowed to coat the taste buds of the tongue and inside of the mouth, an extraordinary effect occurs. The fruit enables you to eat a slice of lemon or lime without wincing. The marvelous aroma and inherent sweetness of the citrus remains but the sourness is almost completely covered. The effect remains for approximately 30 minutes, or more."

it's the fruit and experience i first encountered during my molecular gastronomy dinner in tokyo. i detailed it (OCD-like) thoroughly here on my blog.
i'd say the 3 buck purchase price is well worth such a tasty tripping experience.

hungry in so many ways

2008-02-19T01:41:00.000+09:00

over the past few months i’ve definitely missed the catharsis of digesting my exploits and regurgitating them as writings on this blog. there is a certain kind of understanding that comes with reexamining and analyzing occurrences that is crucial to fulfillment i believe. there are several reasons why i’ve lapsed, perhaps the most prominent being that my adventures in small town America seem decidedly unexotic, like they wouldn’t be of interest to anyone, especially not in the way that quirky and traditional Japan was. And the people who inspired me to blog, family and friends who were geographically and, at times, emotionally farther away than they had ever been before, are now within my sphere. i’m creating experiences involving the people who were once my target audience. when i began writing it was for me, a way to anatomize my new experiences and convert those episodes into life knowledge, and so it was with the blog. but the purpose of this website expanded and morphed until i realized i was writing as much for others as i was for myself, i was eager to share my adventures, to convey the bits of truth about human nature that i was mining from cultures in far away places. the lessons i’m learning now in myrtle beach seem terribly less romantic and, consequently, far less interesting. another reason for slacking on the blog is time- what a very interesting concept. it seems i just can’t find enough of it to sit, reflect and record right now. although i know that one is able to make time for things one deems important, which makes me question the role writing is coming to play in my life.
one of the things i miss writing about most, not surprising to readers who have followed this blog over the years, is food. (see the unwittingly included food analogy in the first line for evidence.) i’m relieved to say it’s the aforementioned restrictions and not a lack of restaurants or my waning appetite that has caused me to lapse on this subject. i’ve eaten well as of late.
thinking about my travels, be they to Bangkok or Baltimore, i realize how much i rely on 21st century word-of-mouth, the internet, for recommendations on food spots. it motivates me to offer praise and earnest criticism where due in the hopes that others could enjoy the same culinary delights or avoid similar gastronomic perils. maybe instead of theorizing about all this i should just cut to the substance. i had great sushi last night, proffered up by the snottiest waiter ever, a remarkably unsettling combo. that deserves writing about. i should just get on with detailing the best salad in town that i’ve come to rely on for my weekly fix. but unfortunately i don’t have time…i’m meeting my dad at magnolia’s for lunch. it’s a scintillating country cookin’ buffet that i’d put up against any grandma’s sunday dinner in a head to head taste test. that’s the problem with attempting to balance reflection of experiences with the opportunities to make new ones. fried pork chops and macaroni and cheese always win.

alcoholism on the grand strand

2008-01-29T12:14:00.001+09:00

Lately i’ve joked incessantly about Myrtle Beach turning me into an alcoholic. Not that I haven’t always been known to enjoy a little drinky-drinky, it’s just that the consumption of those adult beverages used to seem more like a side affect of going out and less like the main motive. For example, it’s nearly impossible to sing karaoke or bowl without a pint in hand (metaphors aside, your score would probably be higher if you left the beer in the scoring console’s cup holder). But those things don’t feel like binge drinking for binge drinking’s sake.

Also the fact that I don’t know so many people here precludes me from getting involved in many traditional night time group activities. No rounding up the troops to fill an 8-top at the comedy club (There is a comedy cabana on the north end, which I thought about visiting tonight. Much to my chagrin, it’s not willing to make people laugh on Mondays and Tuesdays.) Other evening entertainment in Myrtle Beach is rather lackluster and seems to have left me with a proclivity for simply bellying up to the bar, making my way down the beer menu and chatting up strangers. I’ve only discovered one band in this town that can motivate me to come out for the sake of the tunes, but I’ve seen them perform so often I find myself wondering when they’ll finish that perpetual studio album and start playing new stuff. There used to be a festival a week near where I was living in Japan that begged you to, of course, come out and drink but also dance, eat and soak up culture. Art Walks, exhibition openings, gallery parties apparently haven’t caught on round these parts, or at least they aren’t well publicized enough for me to stumble upon them. I don’t know a single club in town that encourages me to dance so hard I forget about making my way to the bar, which I sorely miss. The last show at the IMAX theater starts at 7, which hardly constitutes a night out.

I spew this list as partial evidence that I’m not just sitting on my lazy ass moping about this town’s lack of culture without actually searching for any. Ironically, this post, written during an evening sat home alone, seems to substantiate the exact opposite of that claim. The whole reason for this is an article featured on BBC that I stumbled upon a bit ago. My dad told me he’d read about this claim, it seemed too outrageous to be true. Could modern medicine be justifying my vices? Could scientific evidence be reinforcing my wild ways? Could this globe of cabernet in my hand coupled with my workout this afternoon really make my risk of fatal heart disease 50% lower than that of physically inactive non-drinkers? It seems so. Rejoice!
A little alcohol combined with a healthy active lifestyle may be the best recipe for a longer life.

These photos of my recent indulgence seem to make my father look like a bit of a lush as well considering he accompanies me in every pic. Glad to know he's watching out for his health too.

look, i'm on the t.v.

2007-12-11T11:30:00.000+09:00

a while back i had the opportunity to discuss my japanese experience on a locally produced tv program called carolina people. i doubt any of you saw it because the show airs ridiculously early. it was an interesting chance for me to reevaluate my time overseas. in prepping for the interview i did some research to lend numbers and credibility to my stories, which put things in an interesting perspective. i thought about the social quirks in an objective way that had previously been difficult during my complete immersion in the culture. the whole process of readying the set, shooting, being interviewed reminded me how much i miss journalism and that i think it's an area in which, after training at it for years, i could excel. if you want to take a peek, check out this link and scroll down to october 23. word.

the blog's limping along...

2007-12-05T03:31:00.000+09:00

once again i’ve been remiss. once again i’m sort of apologizing. once again i’ve gotten way behind. but once again i’ve started writing…and that bodes well for stories and quips and news to come. just returned from mexico, costa rica, panama and 8, well more like 7 and 2/5, days at sea. quite the vacation. terribly interesting in so many ways. unraveling and reveling in people and places has to be my favorite thing to do. i’m gonna work on pictures; sharing those is a must. i’ll get to that right after i handle the work at my new job, a bartending gig. my first. i’m excited but unprepared. learning new things is always interesting, especially when those things involve loud music, dancing on the bar, good company and alcohol. wait, sounds a lot like the cruise i was just on. maybe that’s why i enjoyed myself so thoroughly.

back in the saddle

2007-10-20T07:50:00.000+09:00

So I find myself back in the states, back in strangely familiar but interestingly changed myrtle beach. I find myself making reality checks everyday….wow, this is my life now. I find myself lingering on the front porch of my cute little apartment thinking ‘how odd, this is my home now.’ It seems as if im simply on a vacation from the life I carved out in japan. I have moments of deep nostalgia brought on by random occurrences, a sighting of kanji characters scrolled across the tv screen or some beefcake's bicep, a taste of unbelievably fresh fish or imperfect, slightly hard rice unlike what I’ve grown accustomed to. But the pangs are less melancholy and more like fond remembrances. I feel comfortable with my return to south carolina and to my family in a way that Id hoped to. The timing of my exit from japan was perfect in a sense; there long enough to rack up an incredible experience and a mental album full inspiring and breathtaking snap shots, but not so long as to have grown weary of the intensity of living overseas or the things that are inextricably part of Japanese culture and society. Contentment.

I toyed with the idea of letting this blog expire along with my stint in japan. I’m still in limbo. I’m staying extremely busy reclaiming a role in this society, leaving little time to type. I suspect that losing an outlet such as this will wrinkle my well being, will adversely affect my creativity. Writing is so cathartic. We’ll see.

home-coming

2007-07-31T15:01:00.000+09:00

This year the rainy season on japans west coast has been accompanied by a hurricane-like atmosphere. Im caught in a whirlwind storm of things related to leaving Japan. Some are fun and uplifting, some are stressful and sad, but all are necessary steps in the process of ending one chapter and beginning another i figure. A couple friends and I threw a sayonara party last Saturday for ourselves [which is so un-japanese-y as they are fiercely humble and uncelebratory, especially for themselves. It appears ive retained some of my former self throughout this experience.] which really concreted the feeling of my imminent return. About 80 people showed up to wish us well and moved me to tears all night long. The actual saying of goodbyes, coming to terms with a whole new life I have fast approaching and dealing with bullshit like an expired visa, the lease on my car and closing bank accounts have my emotions in something of a blender.. albeit on low pulse, just enough to let me know big changes are here but not enough to be debilitating or cause second-guesses.
I spent the last 4 days camping and reveling in live music at japan’s biggest festival, fuji rock.

Now im back in my countryside town for a couple of days to wrap things up before heading south with my friend travis. We are planning to hit hiroshima, nara, perhaps nagoya and tokyo before flying out on august 8th.
It will undoubtedly be with mixed emotions that i touch down in atlanta that evening. The excited threads, the relief, the golden strings tangled up in that mess of emotions will all center on seeing family and friends again. Soon after arriving i’ll attend my 10 year high school reunion in myrtle beach, as if i wont have been emotionally wracked enough at that point. Then it will be on, making the rounds mostly in south carolina, to connect and catch up with the souls i have been virtually out of touch with over the last few years. If you have some time, i’ll have the tiffany. let’s catch up.

where have i been?!?

2007-07-17T20:42:00.000+09:00

It has been quite some time since I have put fingers to keyboard in an effort to update you all, family, friends, random but appreciated readers, about what I have going on . the lack of updates stem from a lack of time basically. Now that an end to my stint in japan has come into view [just finished negotiating for my return plane ticket, looks like ill arrive in Atlanta on august 8 ], I am more focused on seeing, doing and experiencing and much less centered on blogging. There are so many things that im interested in squeezing in before returning stateside meaning I have been busy, busy, busy. There are cultural things that I had been meaning to get around to, but they didn’t seem so pressing when I knew I was under contract here for another couple years. Now that my time has been widdled down to mere weeks, these adventures and roadtrips and dinner plans with friends have taken on an urgency I haven’t known in a long time. In an insufficient attempt to clue you into some recent shenanigans…
In the most exciting news, my friend travis arrived from seattle on june 23. He is going to be camping out here for most of the duration of my stay, which is a great opportunity for us both I figure.

He gets a peek into countryside living, punctuated by the parties and engagements that come with saying sayonara and the summer festivals, while I get moral support, help packing and help readying my apartment for the wrecking ball that will swing shortly after I leave. [I know it seems strange to prepare for a wrecking ball, but disposing of things and the culture in general is complicated here, meaning I must have the place spotless before moving. A heavy task when you consider that my apartment houses the junk of many a foreign teacher before me that has been accumulating for several decades.]
Went to Osaka last weekend for a last hurrah in the city. While there we missed the 6.8 earthquake that hit joetsu. What timing. We actually did feel it vaguely while in bed in a hotel in Osaka, 5 hours away. Strange.
Ive had many goodbye parties with friends. . .a lunch here,

a dinner there,

a house party thrown in,

and a cool soba noodle making party. All sad but cathartic.

The girls and travis went to ninja village a while back. Basically a child’s playground with all sorts of fun houses, wobbly bridges, things to climb in, on and around. we were definitely the oldest ones scaling the equipment. The kids didn’t seem to care though; we even picked one up named toshiki who became our faithful ninja sidekick. We left exhausted, black and blue, and much more ninja like.

I also went on a nearly fruitless trip to niigata city, about 1.5 hours away by toll roads, to try and work out my visa issues. You see, my visa expires on july 25, the last day im required by contract to work, meaning it would be impossible for me to actually leave the country that day. Equipped with folders of documents, forms, expensive stamps, and letters from important people travis and I headed for immigration, only to be thwarted by thick Japanese bureaucracy. I must return again another day.

My birthday was celebrated with an intimate get together at carrie’s on the night of june 29th. She cooked and liz decorated for the occasion. Sweeties. We played pictionary, minus the actual game which meant extraordinarily hard clues, till we just couldn’t take it anymore.

On the 30th, lots of foreign English teachers were gathering at a local beer garden so we lumped in a few of our birthday parties as well. The place, which offers all you can eat and drink for 3 hours, is always fun, fun. Afterwards, my birthday plans rapidly spiraled into disarray. I must admit that I was disappointed when the plans for bowling id made with close buddies got forsaken for a night in a karaoke box. Guess there is always next year.

travis and i also took a trip to an archeological site near lake nojiriko where they discovered some giant, ancient elephant/mammoth/thing bones. the museum strangely combined that with bits of meteors, space junk, skulls, and huge antelope fossils.

then onto some seemingly magical waterfalls.

Time to get back to legitimate work, of which there seems to be plenty lately.

pyromania

2007-06-04T19:47:00.000+09:00

the dosojin fire festival has quite the reputation and after checking it out online, i was convinced i had to witness this yearly madness for myself…even though it was on a school night. back on January 15 the girls and i headed to nozawa onsen, a small mountain town about an hour from here that is famous for it’s natural spas. it promised to be bitter cold so i layered on the clothes until i could barely lower my arms and bend my knees, like that kid in ‘a christmas story.’ the place was looking calm and normal when we arrived, but that wouldn’t last long. we were a bit bummed as we made our way to the grounds cause there were no typical festival food vendors and no one hawking beer or sake [the horror]. we wobbled our way up a slippery slope and some stairs carved out of the snow to discover a large, handmade wooden shrine; the event’s centerpiece.

the second story was covered in 42-year-old men, perched everywhere, precariously dangling their feet and cheering. the base was guarded by a lively crowd of 25-year-old males engaged in the typical camaraderie behavior of back and ass slapping. as they took turns stepping out to face the wooden construction, giving speeches and spilling sake out of huge bottles all over themselves, i came to understand this festival is inextricably linked to the rice wine born of the harvests this event is supposed to bolster. the festival, which dates back to 1863, is also held to “pray for sound health, happy marriage, and protection against evil.”
it was about this time we encountered the first of the crazy men baring sake. they had huge bottles of the wine tied around their necks with twine ropes, another of which was connected to a large bamboo cup.

i later decided this was probably to prevent them from misplacing their goods while in a heavily intoxicated state. these men’s sole purpose all night is to keep the onlookers well lubricated. this first fella was an absolute riot; he’d clearly been sampling his own wares.

the atmosphere became increasingly electric as the official start of the festival neared.

i’ve amended and paraphrased the following from a guide written by someone who knows a lot more about the festival than me:
“An old belief in Japan dictates that, for men, 25 and 42 are unlucky ages. Local men of these ages construct the shaden (shrine) from beech wood that reaches a height of 18 meters. Every year it takes 100 villagers to build the shrine. The trees are cut down in October and brought down from the mountain, through the village, on January 13th. After the shaden has been constructed, the priest from Kosuge shrine performs a ceremony to endow it with a God. Along with the shaden there are an average of five tôrô (dedicatory lantern poles) erected every year.
These poles are made by a family in the village to celebrate the birth of the first son. The tôrô are offered to the Gods in a prayer for health and good fortune. The festivities begin with the lighting of the fire by the 25 and 42 year old men. A small group carries a torch, which is lit by striking two stones together, from the Kôno residence to the festival grounds. The torch is used to start a bonfire from which handmade torches, that will be used to attack the shrine, are lit.”

the bonfire burst to life in the back of the grounds. The crowd of onlookers was split down the middle forming a path from the blaze to the shrine. 41 and 43 year old men are charged with guarding the lane. at first the youngsters of the town, all boys, crawl or are carried or wobble over to light torches from the bonfire. they mildly attempt to set the towering shrine afire in an act more symbolic than threatening. quickly other male villagers started gathering around the bonfire with their torches.

the crowd started to rumble and chant. the energy and aggression became unnervingly obvious.

it wasn’t until this moment that i realized the intensity and danger of the event.

as i stood there watching a jacked up, seemingly angry mob with torches march towards the shrine i couldn’t help but imagine the fear that KKK rallies/cross burnings struck in the souls of those who witnessed the horrible spectacles.

honestly, the KKK was all i could think of briefly. then my mind turned to how this event would never be allowed to go down like this in America…there’d be police and fire trucks and ambulances with flashing lights drowning out those of the bonfire.

although this event is reportedly a fun occasion, make no mistake about the dangerous and lively battle that followed. Torch wielding villagers of all ages repeatedly charge the shrine and attempt to break through the guards and catch the wooden structure on fire.

The 25 year olds defending the shrine try to put out the flames with pine branches. The heat is intense, the noise is booming, the atmosphere is electric, the fire is everywhere. the defenders are bloody and ashen, the attackers are also burnt and sooty.

embers from the torches dance in the air everywhere; i had to be patted out multiple times.

the sake men brave the torch toting mob to crisscross the path and offer spilling cups of nihon shu to cheering onlookers.
in the madness i completely lost liz and carrie. i hooked up with a rather gung ho fella and an older couple in the crowd; we shared alcohol, stories and kept an eye on each others hair for smoke.

The young fella elbowed his way right up to the rope lining the pathway and took me with him.

the view was insane and earnestly scary at times.

This passionate attack lasts for about an hour, with the villagers charging the shrine in wave after wave. I couldn’t tell if the attackers had succeeded or if they eventually intentionally let the shrine blaze. All the 42 year olds on the top level climbed to safety down the rear of the shrine while the façade burnt fiercely. other wooden features of the festival were tossed on the bonfire as onlookers milled about drinking, chatting and enjoying the warmth radiating from the inferno.

we ran into a bunch of friends from around the area who seemed equally as awed by the display as i was. we also made lots of new friends among the crowd.

who knows if it was the sake talking or the genuine interest in explaining this incredible display of traditional culture to obviously intrigued foreigners. either way, the night was a great experience. i figure the burn holes in my fleece, jacket and gloves are a small price to pay for such a markedly interesting evening.

**thanks to liz for the pics of me.

check it...

2007-05-15T00:05:00.000+09:00

how strangely interesting this article is.
Happy or sad? Emotional cues vary by culture. Americans and Japanese read faces differently, study shows
it's reminiscent of a book i read ages ago, 'the geography of thought: how asians and westerners think differently" which kept me riveted with scientifically proven, complex insights into the features that define humanity.

return from paradise...

2007-05-14T23:57:00.000+09:00

Please don’t mistake my lack of action on the blog front as mere abandonment. I’ve been completely unconcerned with all things technological, which is a side effect of inhabiting an island paradise i guess.

for an amazing 12 days we did nothing but soak up the warm atmosphere and utter relaxation that characterize boracay, a tiny island in the philippines about an hour south of manila by plane.

mix crystal blue seas, miles of white sand, gallons of mango margaritas, incessant live music and a hammock in the shade and it would be damn near impossible to have a bad time i figure.

it’s a bit disappointing to find myself back at my old post, corrupting youth, tapping the keyboard, waking while the time is still read in single digits. but it’s all in framing the comparison right? vacations wouldn’t qualify as get-aways if we lived them daily. although, that’s a concession i might make to get back to the island…i mean, i’d be willing to attempt to live that bohemian, carefree life for a few months just to see how do-able it is…just to see if it would still qualify as extraordinary even without a daily grind for comparison…perhaps this is a serious scientific study that i should undertake…i’ll need financial backing, a sponsor, a scholarship…call the national science foundation…

more to come on the philippines.

when chemistry meets cooking...

2007-04-07T16:31:00.000+09:00

the evening had finally arrived. we’d been salivating for weeks after making reservations at tokyo’s mandarin oriental hotel and we were ready to feast, or perhaps nibble is a better description. this wasn’t just any ole high class joint; it’s at tokyo’s only 6-star hotel and it’s a molecular tapas bar.

i’ve previously confessed my addiction to podcasts and food blogs. this dangerous combination has rendered me incredibly well informed about current gastronomic trends; i know more about restaurants and chefs in new york and chicago than any non-resident ever should. so i’d heard of this trendy type of cuisine, often called molecular gastronomy, that’s kinda like cooking with chemistry- think mr. wizard meets julia child [without the bald head and impending stature]. this genre of cuisine is not for food purists, as it employs techniques and utensils that seem more well suited for the laboratory, but the inventive foodstuffs that emerge from this collision of imagination and avant garde technique are often unbelievably interesting and, i now know, delicious. about a month ago i was perusing tokyo’s online current events mag, metropolis, and ran across an article about the capital city’s first stab at a micro/molecular cooking establishment. i simply had to go. luckily the girls were in, as was chris, carrie’s boyfriend, who would be flying in from the states.
sunday, february 24: i was sweating in my sexy, backless top and fancy crinoline skirt. a clueless cabbie was driving us in circles around mitsukoshimae station. the dinner was scheduled to start in literally one minute. i finally managed to get the hotel on my cell phone and pass it off to the driver who needed the help. [how is it possible the ancient cab driver had never even heard of this hotel?!] how terribly un-japanese-y of us to turn up 5 minutes late but, as we were the bulk of the seating [we’d reserved 4 of the restaurant’s 6 chairs], they had waited on us to begin the meal/performance. and as the onslaught came, it was clear they were making up for the lost time. before we could even open the wine list, they were spooning yakult yogurt foam onto 6 shots of beer, which would be the first of about 25 courses.

it was accompanied by 2 crunchy and fragile nests, the white one made of daikon radish and the red of beets, which had a wonderful tangy flavor accented by intertwined slivers of sea salt.

next up was candy floss [cotton candy to the non-brits] liquid that packed a sweet kick in its virtual nothing-ness.

by this time we had chosen a bottle from the extensive wine list. even though our eyes perused the pages lustily, our wallets begged us to settle on the cheapest available offering, a 7000 yen Italian red. when ordering, we questioned the temperature at which the wine would be served, as japan’s restaurants are notorious for over-chilling their bottles. i was impressed when the waiter said they were absolutely not cooled and even offered up the temperature of the cellar in which they’re stored.

the chef began torching the top of individual ramekins holding a delicious soufflé meant to showcase the effect varying temperatures can lend to a dish. a nearly frozen layer of puree made from skin-on potatoes and coarsely ground spices topped with a warm, bubbling layer of the same. we were instructed to dig deep, sampling both at once.

as the other 2 diners that evening were from hong kong, the head chef relied mainly on english to explain each course [and Japanese to crack jokes with us in down time]. he’d honed his language skills while working at restaurants in new york city for 15 years.

this test tube of ikura suspended in a passion fruit medium had one redeeming factor; its method of consumption. we were told to give a strong, quick suck on the end, which sent the concoction jumping into your mouth and down your throat at lightning speed. we were left savoring an after taste with big, shocked eyes.

next came the most amazing noodles, if that term can be used to describe this transparent fettucine that had never met an egg or any flour, and was instead born of 100% parmesan cheese. i don't have a grip on the process of reducing hard cheese to its essence and spinning that into noodle-like strands. the sharp, nutty flavor was a pungent treat that paired perfectly with the quality olive oil drizzle and basil.

i was prepared to challenge my taste buds on this evening and my first opportunity came served in a striking ceramic bowl. although oft considered an expensive delicacy, over the course of informal polling i’ve conducted in the classroom and among friends, i’ve come to believe an equal number of people love and hate sea urchin. uni, as it’s called in japanese, is not really meat, but roe that has a mushy, creamy texture. the flavor and consistency of eggs don’t interest me, and if i think long about the fact i’m ingesting ovum, i may not be able to choke them down at all. there are various grades of uni, as with most types of sushi. that appearing in my bowl was undoubtedly of high quality as it lacked any strange odor and was vibrantly colored. the urchin was mixed with apple slivers and green tea foam to form a surprisingly palatable dish. the flavors cooperated well and the differing textures; crisp apple, slightly chalky tea and velvety uni, truly complemented each other.

one of the tough tasks this meal repeatedly accomplished was combining seemingly disparate flavors into harmonious blends. the next dish embodied this idea. it was a smooth, deep pink soup that relied on tomatoes and watermelons for its zing and color. chunks of melon peeked out of the refreshing concoction and the top-notch olive oil and fresh basil made another appearance dotting the surface.

a delightful, but not outstanding dish followed; sautéed eringi mushrooms topped with a tender langostine and almond butter foam. the whole dish had a unique herby flavor which the chef confirmed was chervil [i’m not sure exactly how i even guessed that. i mean, i’ve never bought chervil and who knows if/when i’ve ever eaten it before. is it possible to have knowledge of the quality of a taste without having sampled it?]

many of the evenings creations relied heavily on the use of nitrous oxide, favored for it’s non-combustible property and the fact it’s extremely soluble in fatty compounds. we didn’t bother to stifle the laughs [born of our recreational drug days] when the chef introduced our next course by holding up a whip cream canister. no, we wouldn’t get our own to huff, but would instead feast on a tenderloin that had been cooked and infused with the gas in the sealed container. after inserting the meat into the stainless steel tube, they’d filled it with nitrous charges, then heated the whole device in boiling water. the chef expelled the gas from the canister in front of us before unscrewing the cap and sliding out a beautiful hunk of beef.

the perfectly fatty rounds were aerated and bubbling as the gas escaped the meat carved moments before. accented with red peppercorns and sea salt, it was a delicious treat to rival the short-lived euphoria we’d have experienced from the nitrous alone.

i knew immediately this device would be responsible for producing the carrot cavier listed on the menu after seeing its bright orange contents.

mr. head chef explained that the syringes contain 100% carrot juice which will coagulate into perfect balls when dropped into the liquid solution of water and magnesium chloride, the same chemical used to make tofu congeal. the process was more interesting than the product with its sweet but shallow flavor.

i’m a die-hard eel fan and quite the critic of it’s quality. the next dish layered pineapple and tender unagi domino-style on a bed of super smooth avocado sauce that was dissected by a brown drizzle of a mirin/soy/sugar/sake mixture [if i recall correctly]. isn't that plate beautiful?

the chef claimed the marrying of the flavors would call to mind miso. while i didn’t find that to be true, the parts combined perfectly, absolutely singing to my taste buds. i’m eager to attempt something like this at home.

i’m not much of a liver fan. the earthy, mustiness of the soft organ is overpowering, not to mention unhealthy. luckily i am adventurous and this is one time when it paid off. enter foie gras cappuccino, a blended concoction of duck liver and spices topped with a frothy, semi-sweet corn foam.

the texture was as smooth as the flavor was rich. based on originality, flavor, and presentation, this was the course that i voted to remain on next season’s menu.

liz’s vote went to the manchego cheese ice cream wrapped in dried apple, which was as delicious as it was simple.

7-11s in japan are no joke. i’ve eaten many a healthy and satisfying meal off the shelves of the convenience store. one omnipresent product is Japanese curry bread, a bun filled with brown gravy and bits of meat and vegetables that are the trademark of the national curry. the next course was their spin on deconstructing the snack. several types of bread were some how dissolved, condensed and reformed into the curry flavored slice seen here.

instead of beef, they relied on fresh grilled quail. these were to be eaten in equal parts per bite, along with the accompanying vegetables. i joked how glad i was to be paying exorbitantly for a snack i can buy at the 7-11 for a dollar. glad the chef’s initial disapproving glance was only an attempt to suppress his laughter. he did seem a little embarrassed after completely losing his train of thought momentarily. although an interesting idea, this dish lacked pizzazz and came up short of elevating curry pan [bread] to a truly gourmet level.

we’d finished our bottle of wine and i was looking for a something they pour by the glass to accompany the rest of my meal. there were only 3 offerings in the red category [too few for such a classy restaurant that shares space with a dazzling piano bar if you ask me]. i ordered a shiraz which was delivered to the table so cold that condensation had gathered on the glass. i thought about just dealing, but it was a 13$ glass of juice that had the potential to be very tasty. i pointed out the problem, asked if there was any at cellar temp, and was met with slight disdain and reluctance, the only point in the evening when service was less than stellar. [the wine was only available cold, so i opted for a glass of anything red and cellar temp]

in fact, this cup of nothingness was served with excellence. a bartender mimed making a shaker full and pouring it into each empty glass. a swift suck on the cool metal straw was rewarded with an intensely fruity cocktail; only in taste, not in substance, as the flavors were simply in the gas that had been trapped in the straw.

next up was a tender piece of white fish topped with a crusty, buttery slice of bread. the dish had a pleasant lemon and herb flavor and beautiful presentation but wasn’t inventive enough to excel this late in the lineup, making it seem a bit like filler. i wonder what the chef’s reasoning behind placing it so late in the meal is…

did i mention i’m not a big egg fan? that made me leery of sucking down this concentrated miso soup that was a yolk look-alike.
meant to be eaten in a single gulp, the bubble unleashed intense miso flavor, complete with tiny balls of tofu [undoubtedly born of the same machine as the carrot cavier] and ground nori, seaweed.

a refreshing frozen lime disc cleansed the palette for dessert.

as they ground fresh black pepper, the chefs were guarded in explaining the bacon and eggs. a pleasing sensory experience unfolded as we sampled the raspberry cookies laced with tiny pork chunks that resembled marbled bacon and the apricot poised on a puddle of coconut milk.

as i don’t have a sweet tooth in my head, i wasn’t particularly looking forward to the dessert courses, all 8 of them. the first was a unique experience; noisy, smoky, freezing cold chunks of something with a fruit juicy flavor that simply sizzled and evaporated in your mouth. think pop rocks candy on speed.

most of the other sweets were presented on a wheel to be split by 2.

i nibbled most of the treats but found none of them delicious enough to warrant eating. to be fair, i just don’t like sugar and chocolate. the others in my party were much more impressed with the dessert offerings, even finishing off mine. of them, i found the raspberry and black pepper drops most intriguing in the flavor category, the candy with edible ‘plastic’ wrapping was the most tactilely pleasing, and the bubbles housing colored sweets resting on chunks of moist chocolate cake were most visually interesting.

when i saw the final course was a fruit plate i couldn’t hide my disappointment; the epitome of anti-climax i thought. we were told to sample a strawberry and taste a lemon wedge to ensure they were what they appeared to be. uh-huh. then we were each presented with a tiny maroon colored seed and were instructed to chew the skin and meat off and roll the pit around in our mouths until the hour glass on the bar expired. this little seed turned out to be a “miracle fruit” and its namesake became clear as i bit into a lime wedge. it was the juiciest, sweetest, most delicious fruit i’d ever put in my mouth. then a strawberry that tasted like it had been picked at the height of sweetness and then rolled in sugar. then a grapefruit slice that was intensely delicious despite the fact i hate grapefruit. then i made the mistake of sipping some wine and nearly coughed it up all over the bar. the chef laughed, ‘oh yeah. i forgot to mention that was going to happen.’ after devouring the fruit chunks and other random tidbits to test the limits of the miracle fruit, we drank a mug of hot water which nullified its effects. we carried our wine to some over-stuffed chairs facing the floor to ceiling windows that afforded a stunning view of tokyo.

of course this doesn’t begin to do it justice.
i was terribly disappointed to realize our time was short if we were hoping to catch the last train. we reluctantly left our 38th floor perch and headed for the station. we were back to reality after a feast fit for royalty in the chicest surroundings. although we paid exorbitantly for the experience [a $630 check!?!?], this memorable dinner sets quite the standard for what i hope will be many a dazzling meal to follow.

seasons change

2007-04-03T23:30:00.000+09:00

3/17
my last snowboarding day of the season...

i'm real sad, you just can't see it...

bye, bye winter.

i never thought i'd be sad to see the coldest months pass on by...

red wine definitely adds romance to the evening...

2007-03-22T12:08:00.000+09:00

i've waxed on about the strange approach to sex and intimacy in this country many times. in some ways japanese society seems to be incredibly perverse, and in others it seems to be sexually retarded in the true dictionary sense of the word. to be so peculiar about sexuality, it never ceases to amaze me that the japanese manage to stay on the cutting edge of the sex industry.

Wine bath for the nads, mud pack for the sack pledges heavenly pleasure

Japan's ever-inventive sex industry's latest innovation is an adaptation of the facial -- a mud pack for the penis, according to Spa! (3/27).

Authorities have in recent years taken a harder line on the flesh trade, prompting operators to come up with up an increasing variety of services aimed at providing pleasure but circumventing the long arm of the law.

The mud pack for the penis, which follows a wine bath for the gonads, is part of an Italian-style esthetic treatment offered by a Tokyo-based service called The Aromani.

"A whole lot of operations similar to ours sprung up in a short time and we needed to provide a service nobody else was offering and this was it," The Aromani's boss tells Spa! "Our sales point is that we also offer variations, including having the service performed by multiple workers (groups of two or three women), or you can have it performed by a shy woman or another who'll do it while talking dirty."

The Aromani's boss says the service began with the motto of "providing health and beauty to the willy and anus."

The service involves using a hotel sink or face-washing basin and filling it with warm water and wine. This is aimed at improving the circulation. Instead of inserting the face, however, the client places their bottom in the bowl, allowing the penis and anus to be soaked in the suds of their sommelier.

Spa! notes that the washing is performed by at least one woman, who The Aromani insists must be in her 20s or 30s at the oldest.

Once the basic basin service has finished, the genitals are swathed in a chunk of mud supposed to cleanse the skin. Once they are completely covered, the woman (or women) providing the service, then show their handiwork, so to speak, until the client reaches climax, or what Spa! calls the "ascent to Heaven." (By Ryann Connell)

when a pbj just won't do...

2007-03-21T15:30:00.000+09:00

obento lunch boxes are the brown bags of japan. kids and fathers tote them to school and work each day half filled with rice and half filled with mouthfuls of veggies, fish, fruits and meat. stay at home moms apparently take great pride in their obento creations, perhaps rightfully so since they are definitley judged by those who see them. i can remember a co-worker dissing a male teacher's wife saying, she stays at home to take care of the kids but doesn't even prepare him a decent lunch box [he usually had instant noodles and fruit]. just ran across these pics that show the creative extreme some moms go to...

2007-03-17T12:18:00.000+09:00

billy, go start warmin’ up the engine! i’m ready to go!

Kobe

2007-03-12T22:36:00.000+09:00

Feb 12 was a “substitute holiday for Japanese Foundation Day” [actually the 11th], which meant only 1 thing to the girls…roadtrip! at thursday night’s dinner we finally decided which cardinal direction to point our car, southwest towards the Kansai region, more specifically Kobe. It was a fun, refreshing break from home. West of Osaka, Kobe has a population of about 1.5 million, meaning it ranks near the bottom of japan's 15 major cosmopolitan centers in size.

This is evident in the neighborhood feel and the camaraderie that comes along with that. But it’s still large enough to support varied economic and social ventures, like international restaurants, tons of bars, museums, a busy port and shopping galore. we took full advantage of the retail areas where we ran across this cute lil fella.

waiting to stuff our faces...

We ate at a charming, eclectically decorated Italian place with the most incredible homemade pastas; I had the #1 cream sauce ever over pancetta, 3 types of mushrooms and fettucine. Heavenly.
Kobe is bordered to the southeast by water where there’s a memorial to the victims of a huge earthquake that struck in 1995 killing more than 6000 residents. they’ve preserved a section of a pier that collapsed and have tons of pictures and explanations and chunks of twisted metal and broken industrial bolts, etc. on display.

I was moved to tears seeing how humans, in a battered environment and fragile emotional situation, called upon sheer will and unceasing cooperation to rebuild the crippled city.
there is quite a promenade on the waterfront as well.

on it sits kobe tower which offered fine views of the long, narrow city…

there’s also a mad shopping complex that houses an even more insane buffet restaurant. we spent about 2 hours gorging ourselves on monday. i couldn’t get over the array of grilled/fried/sautéed/raw fish and fresh cooked noodle dishes [including a quality, not-too-greasy rendering of squid ink pasta]. the girls nearly lost it over the chocolate waterfall that begged you to drench fruits and cakes and pretzels in it’s warm cascades.
Kobe’s bordered on the northwest by mountains where we spent a day climbing the switchbacks [by car. we are only so ambitious.] and taking in the view and a few easy walks on Mt. Rokko’s 931 meter peak.

there’s a lookout point from venus bridge that’s a popular date spot.

lovers have taken to attaching padlocks with sweet messages scribbled on them to the bridge.

as there were relatively few locks when we visited compared to some photos i’ve seen, i’m guessing they are periodically removed from the bridge’s railings, undoubtedly smashing couples’ dreams and bringing about untimely endings to their relationships.

Back downtown, the evenings found us a little disappointed at the lack of dance clubs [Osaka is only 25 minutes away by train and draws the crowd from kobe every Friday and Saturday nite.] but the bars rocked.

We dined at this gothic jazz spot where the regular entertainers are a crazy, talented couple from Atlanta. Coincidences like that really make japan feel like it’s not on the other side of the universe after all. We also found a dancehall reggae bar that was pumping the genre’s quick, steady beats, which are usually accompanied by an intensely sexual style of dancing. it’s becoming increasingly popular in japan. This place was showing the “ms. dancehall reggae Jamaica” pageant, with some insane body/dance work that was as mesmerizing as it was vulgar. The Jamaicans in attendance were glad to teach us some tamer[?] moves.

there was a perfectly kitschy Chinatown where we munched on street stall food [that’s more hygienic than most of the grub you find in sit down restaurants in the real china].

We spent Monday afternoon searching for the architectural wonder that is the longest suspension bridge in the world, which turned into a hilarious exercise in futility. Lots of wrong turns, traffic, dead ends and then, to our dismay, the damn thing turned out to be part of a toll road expressway meaning it would’ve cost about $60 to drive over it and back. Boo. at the end of some non-road we accidentally ended up on. in a kinda subterranean cargo drop-off area, we caught a peek of the bridge through the metal fence that lined the sliver of a view. i was so hollowed by our pointless journey i couldn’t even be bothered to capitalize on the pitiful photo op.

Expedition Alaska:part one

2007-03-06T22:07:00.000+09:00

i just finished an online article about alaska’s grueling and highly respected dog sled race. the competitiors are 3 days into the Iditarod, which runs 1,100 miles from anchorage to nome, Alaska. the piece drummed up memories of a jolly Frenchman and a burly Canadian kid i met while in Alaska last summer.

i rode dog sleds with them and listened to their tales and dreams which were spun around competing in the notoriously taxing race that lasts about nine days in weather with a wind chill 90 degrees below zero. [all these facts according to the associated press.] and with that it seems appropriate to begin the installments about my Alaskan adventure. i truly regret that I’ve waited so long to record my memories; time always blurs the past, even when it’s as amazing as the couple of weeks I spent on the west coast of North America in late august of 2006. The scenery, new experiences, outdoor adventures, personal challenges and warm company combined to form a surreal vacation that can only be filed in the ‘truly amazing’ mental folder.
I flew into seattle’s airport and camped out, waiting for the arrival of nanny cecil [grandma] and patty and barbara [aunts].

It was the first time in about 9 months that we’d laid eyes on each other. The reunion was cheerful and promising; I was looking forward to some close knit family time as much as I was the seeing the Alaskan wilderness. I’d scoped out transportation to the port during my wait and had decided we should travel as the VIPs that we often pretend we are [how does that worn out phase go…when you’re hot you’re hot, when you’re not fake it.] we piled in a limo [nanny’s first time] and made our way to the ship docked in seattle’s busy port. As it was our first real family vacation [and my maiden voyage on a cruise ship], we’d sprung for the best. Upon arrival, we were whisked along by a personal escort to our spacious cabin with a balcony overlooking the forward deck and all that lay in front of us over the next 7 days. We popped the chilled bottle of champagne that was waiting and soaked in the view of seattle’s waterfront and the warm sun that danced on the surface of the sea.

Then, as drowning can ruin a vacation with the quickness, we obediently turned up for emergency preparation.

Our first day at sea was spent wandering around the ship, figuring out where things were, how to go about utilizing our debit cards to the fullest and locating all the tasty morsels we were entitled to under the ship’s rockin’ “freestyle dining” plan. This is before our snazzy dinner on the first evening.

It gives me a bellyache to recall the humongous amount of food that was constantly up for the taking…there were sit down restaurants that served during meal times, buffets that offered everything from burgers to pasta stations to pizza and sandwiches around the clock, a tapas bar, sushi spot, steak place and if it was in the wee hours or all that wasn’t doing it for you, a greasy-cheesy bar menu was always available. [by the time we returned to seattle, I quite literally couldn’t stuff another thing into my mouth. once i couldn’t even order at an oceanside seafood restaurant cause there was simply no where to put that much food in my belly. How disappointing knowing all the culinary adventures that lively city must have to offer.]
they misspelled our sign in the casino…

The ship made it’s way down the “inside passage,” a waterway that traces alaska’s southwest coast which is comprised of islands, coves, lush wilderness, steep mountains and ice.

This is when we started to realize the sunny weather of washington state wasn’t going to accompany us on the trip. Ketchikan was our first port of call.

It’s a small town, with a total land area of 3.4 sq miles, whose history centers on timber, fishing and gold. The girls split once we hit the shore, with patty and I heading for the rainforest. This was a stressful morning for patty; she was seriously challenging herself with an attempt at the zip-line ropes course. I was also a bit leery, not because I thought the heights or jumping off of tree stands was daunting, simply because I’d never traveled like this before. I usually prefer to plan and coordinate my own adventures, which takes a lot of work, but I think it produces incomparable personal experiences and singular exploits. it also lends a sense of accomplishment, that a seemingly tough task [traversing a foreign country on antiquated trains that leave from stations with broken signboards 16 hours after scheduled, for instance] has been conquered through sheer personal smarts and stick-to-it-iveness. Ok, so I’ll admit it, there was nothing bad about having someone else stress about my time schedule and transportation and decide where my lunch was coming from. The professionals were waiting on the dock to deliver us to our wilderness adventure. We suited up, as patty did her best to be a big girl.

4-wheelers carried us up precariously narrow, steep trails that ran along the border of the Tongass National Forest. after a brief training session we took to the sky, luckily while clipped to high tension cables.

there were 7 zip lines, stretching more than 4500 feet, between spruce, hemlock and cedar trees.

the shortest was about 175 ft, the most thrilling, a line called “ben’s revenge”, spanned 850 feet.

it was quite a rush to stand atop the towering 130 ft. tall platforms without railings, toes hanging over the edge, taking in the amazing scenery that included a salmon farm, reindeer, a waterfall and dense beautiful foliage.

as the wind blew, you could feel the trees you were perched in swaying. the pros explained that’s incredibly important because it means they are healthy and limber. if the trees become rigid, they’re dead and aren’t a candidate for a zip line platform as they’re in danger of snapping. there were also three aerial bridges that bent and swayed in an exhilarating, discombobulating way.

i’m proud to say that patty not only survived but was pretty damn good at the whole nerve wracking process, which involves drawing your legs up varying degrees at certain times, correct body positioning and braking yourself with a gloved hand that presses on the over head line. if you applied too much pressure in braking or didn’t cannon ball just right, you’d get stranded mid-line and have to perform a "self-rescue", which sounded laughable until people started getting stuck, dangling 130 ft above the forest floor by a carabineer. there were a few tears shed.

there were a couple ladies, beth and miriam, who had elected to try the ropes course in an effort to battle a fear of heights. they were a riot and truly earned the hokey medals we were awarded for achievement.

since i was a young tyke, i have been fascinated by oddball sporting competitions. i have espn to thank for introducing me to the world’s strongest man tournie, food eating competitions, sumo and the lumberjack tournaments. was it the woodchips, power tools, flannel sleeveless shirts? who knows, but i had a serious crush on champion mike sullivan back in the day, which meant i was overly excited by the prospect of watching a bunch of mountain dwellers axe and chainsaw logs in cut-throat competition in Ketchikan. patty agreed to join me, which in retrospect i regret cause i will never live down choosing this cheesy, tourist trap of an excursion.

there was real log rolling and serious tree trunk hacking, but there was no real competition. isn’t false advertising a crime? this was not the stihl chainsaw challenge i was looking forward to. if you could manage to let yourself be sucked into the contrived olden days atmosphere, bits of it were good for a laugh. most of it, only for an eye roll.

to be continued...

how come we cain't act right?!

2007-03-01T23:27:00.000+09:00

at least we [and my five fat rolls] are cute...

back in the saddle

2007-02-28T23:13:00.000+09:00

just tucking into my finally warm living room after another trip. spent 5 days on the east coast in tokyo, yokohama and kamakura on a mix of business and pleasure ventures. lots more to come on that, including way more than you probably care to hear or will bother to read about our night of molecular gastronomy at the mandarin oriental hotel.

faithful readers, remember the tokida family whom i lived with during my homestay? remember the letter i stressed and sweated over, telling them that i’m back in japan?
recall the run-in i had with my host-aunt at the family-run restaurant last time i was in nagoya?
well, i got this postcard in the mail a while back, but wasn’t really able to make too much sense of it as it’s hand-scribed and chocked full of the terribly tough kanji characters.

i finally fished it out of my bag one day at school recently and enlisted a couple of students to help me decode it. i was damn near moved to tears to discover that it’s a note from the family! they were sad to have missed me in nagoya [when they were vacationing in germany], were thrilled to hear that i was living in japan, were surprised to hear that my japanese skills have improved exponentially [obviously they are referring to conversation not reading ability], and were eager to meet again next time i am in their city. this is reason enough for me to go ahead and start planning my next trip.

i butchered my first japanese squid!

2007-02-21T23:19:00.000+09:00

recently i had some remarkably delicious curried squid in my school lunch. i decided that i needed to learn how to prepare this sturdy, lean seafood at home. although it’s rich in the trendy omega-3 oils and low fat, in researching how to prepare the creature i learned that squid is one type of seafood noted for its high cholesterol levels [the others being prawns and roe]. as i’m genetically bound to have a heart attack any day now, i was a bit dismayed but undeterred. a friendly grandmother in the seafood section patiently explained to me how to go about making the purple sea dweller come out like my school lunch.

mine could’ve been plucked from this batch, although truthfully it wasn’t. when i started cooking dinner i didn’t realize this would be a conquest worth documenting, so i failed to get a shot of the squid in it’s natural supermarket state, in a habitat of styrofoam and saran wrap.

i wrapped my thumb and forefinger around the joint between the body and head, just below the eyes, as granny had told me to do. the head [with attached innards] didn’t pop off nearly as easily as she had described. with all the pressure i was applying, the body cavity let out a slurping, sucking sound that scared me into flinging the thing into the sink accidentally. the comeback kid got it in round 2 though. then, following instructions, i slit open the tube and cleaned all the guts [rather sparse] out.

granny acted like it would be easy to remove the skin if i started at the rear, which made much more sense before i was actually looking at the thing. i picked and scratched and cut and tugged but couldn’t seem to get the metaphorical ball rolling. then i realized there was a cartilaginous strip connecting the rear spade and the body that i surely wasn’t gonna eat, thus it had to be removed. as i sliced down it’s edges i realized this is the backbone that granny had mentioned [i thought i’d tugged it out in the intitial cleaning]. after cutting the meat away from this ridge, i pulled it towards the head [that was no longer attached] and watched the skin peel effortless off. unfortunately i’d already scored and scratched the skin so much it didn’t come off in one piece, but with this head start, removing the purple membrane wasn’t too much off a hassle.

after a little marinade of olive oil, chili peppers, lime juice, lemongrass, garlic, salt and pepper, i grilled the squid and tossed it with spaghetti and veggies…a lil thai style spicy goodness a la tiffany emerged.

tiffany – 1 squid – 0

Milk beer called 'Bilk' to go on sale in Hokkaido

2007-02-19T23:54:00.000+09:00

NAKASHIBETSU, Hokkaido -- A brewery here has succeeded in producing a low-malt beer with milk, after the drink was suggested as a product that would help use up surplus milk.

The drink, called "Bilk" will go on sale on Feb. 1. It reportedly has a fruity flavor that its brewers hope will be popular among women.

click here to read about the alcoholic anomaly

linguistic lampoon

2007-02-15T11:51:00.000+09:00

the japanese language is a curious thing in many respects. the lists of set phrases they employ by rote, the numerous levels of formality, masculine and feminine vocabulary distinctions, varying alphabets used to scribe different types of words, the intermingling of those distinct alphabets in phrases and the words they borrow from other languages. foreign words that have been adopted into the japanese vernacular are written in katakana, one of the 4 writing systems they utilize [the others being hiragana, kanji and romaji]. foreigner’s names are also transliterated in katakana.
Tiffany becomes　ティファニー　which would be sounded out as ti fa nee
there is also an R and L issue when it comes to transliteration. the japanese alphabets simply don’t contain the L sound, so the closest they can come to approximating that pronunciation is with an R sound.
my middle name Lynn becomes リーン which is pronounced ri i n
as you can imagine, this makes for some pretty funny translations. some recent favorites:

ラップ = ra p pu
which is japanized english for ‘rap’, as in rap music, and ‘lap’, as in a lap ran during an athletic meet. they’ve also borrowed an American brand name and made it their own; ラップ means wrap too, as in saran wrap, or kitchen cling film.

ランチ = ra n chi
this is the way to write both ‘lunch’ and ‘launch’ in katakana. but be careful, if you want to talk about the dude ranch you should use the word 大牧場 [dai bokujou] instead.

ラフ = ra fu
these symbols are used to represent both the English words ‘laugh’ and ‘rough’. it’s up to you to decide based on the context.

and then there’s love…probably our favorite to utilize…ラブラブ…rabu, rabu…
and it’s variations, like ラブレター [rabu reta] or love letter.

or you go to the store and you don’t know the word for the new blades you need. you try to change razor into レーザー [re za] hoping that’s a word they have borrowed. the store clerk looks at you all puzzled; of course you can’t buy lasers over the counter.

or in class you are working on poems. you want your kids to rhyme so you say ライム [ra i mu] in the hopes they’ll get it. they can’t figure out what a sour fruit has to do with the assignment. they all start writing about limes.

you see. it’s such a mine field.

nothing says happy valentine's day like some cliche school girl lovin...

2007-02-14T22:19:00.000+09:00

being a broad in japan

2007-02-13T19:33:00.000+09:00

The World Economic Forum ranks Japan 69th out of 75 countries in female empowerment. They under-utilize the female portion of the population and are governed by politicians who horribly under-value women, such as health minister yanagisawa who recently said they are simply "baby making machines". you should read this article that intelligently examines the far reaching implications of this mindset.
Japan's innovation problem

nagoya

2007-02-07T17:15:00.000+09:00

Our feet were itchin... they were restless, ready to start plodding down a road that lead out of the mountains and rice paddies. they were anxious for highways that would fracture into streets that would carry us to a bustling downtown where we could find amusement and distraction. We loaded up my car and took to the road, heading south to Nagoya.

Although this was my second trip to Japan’s fourth largest city, my recollection of the visit 10 years ago had faded and become blurry. i was eager to fill in details and redefine the place that began my fascination with this country.

Backstory:
When I was younger, my dad was the sales manager at a Toyota car dealership. The national company was offering several scholarships for summer home stays in Japan. My wanderlust had emerged from its cocoon but, at that time, had yet to take flight. I was thrilled by the possibility. I remember the pages and pages of applications. I remember pounding out revision after revision of essays on my square, chunky word processor. And I remember storming my mom’s work place clutching my semifinalist notification. She was damn near as ecstatic as I was. A couple days before I was to be interviewed for the award, my mom died. That unkind turn of events threw my whole world into an uproar. As I questioned how I would even manage to go on existing, my japan home stay interview was all but forgotten. Some adult with more mature stress handling mechanisms than me [my dad?] must have dealt with the situation. Youth For Understanding, the company doling out the awards for Toyota, had agreed to postpone the interview, but after learning the reason why I’d had to reschedule, almost reneged their offer. They were understandably concerned about my mental health and skeptical of investing in a candidate who was at-risk of failing under stressful conditions. They eventually agreed to send some specialist to my house for what turned out to be an interview/psych exam. Even at the age of 16, I was able to play ‘the game’ fairly well. As my father and I sat at our antique, wooden kitchen table across from that man, I pitched myself as a worthy recipient who, if able to survive the death of her mother, is more than adequately prepared to face any other challenge life may present. Up to that point, applying for this scholarship had been the largest endeavor I’d ever personally undertaken and I was painfully aware that it was the last one my mother would ever know about. Several weeks later I was awarded the opportunity to see this dream through to fruition. In June of 1996, I boarded a plane bound for San Francisco. After one week of crash course language and culture studies, it was on to Nagoya where I would spend 7 weeks living with an incredibly gracious family. I spoke so very little Japanese and the family’s daughters had only a decent grasp of high school English. It was quite an introduction to Japan and to the world.

Let’s return to the story already in progress:

As carrie, liz and I made our way to this transportation and economic hub, I was excited by the prospects of reminiscing and rekindling some memories in a town known as one of japan’s most entertaining destinations.

I will spare you the details of every fabulous meal and every interesting diversion that served to convince us we need to be close to a real city. Here are some of the highlights…

We found an open-air pub on our first night in town. Sadly, I can’t remember the last time I dined or drank on a proper patio. Oh wait…yes I can…it was back in Seattle. That’s damn pitiful. We met a few tables of Australians and Brits that kindly offered us suggestions and invitations which we were sure to capitalize on. [including a recommendation for tacos and burritos at a place owned by a real *gasp* mexican. that’s unheard of around these parts.]

another highlight was ‘the robot museum’ that opened last october.
there is a rotating exhibition space that was housing these two ordinary looking but talented bots.
one snaps a shot of your silhouette then spins around to sketch your outline.

another bot relies on its mechanical whizzes and whirrs in different tones to play rock and roll hits.

stolen from carrie's you tube acct.

the permanent exhibit detailed the history and future of robots, from old ‘appliances and household robots as the way of the future’ advertisements to comic books to movies [including fritz lang’s metropolis] to real bots spanning the decades. how amazing to see the evolution of human imaginations with robots as the medium. it also challenged my definition of a robot by including all sorts of machines whose characteristics stretched the traditional meaning.

then, of course, there was play time. lots of interactive, remote control, cell phone controlled, purpose driven androids to taunt and try.

me with "Paro, a seal-shaped robot that has been registered in the Guinness Book of Records as the robot most effective in healing people."

there was also a really cool computer aided design program to create your own bot. this doesn't look like a bad job at all. and yes, that's a metallic blue rocket strapped to his back.

we also stumbled upon a battle of the bands near nagoya tower...

and a bunch of battling elvis-look-alike gangs...

As we tooled around town, of course I was on the look out for sites that would jog my memory. although I had described a park to carrie and liz enroute which we later discovered, I was becoming extremely aware of how the time that had lapsed since my home stay had pushed my memories to the far recesses.
One night we’d been cruising towards the nightlife district in a taxi when I was caught off guard by this little wooden restaurant nestled between 2 modern storefronts. It seemed intimately familiar, like I’d spent time there, but I just couldn’t be sure. We stayed the course towards the restaurant as I waxed nostalgic. On the day we were departing Nagoya, as we wandered around the city’s center lamenting our imminent return to the countryside, we passed the same little wooden restaurant tucked away between glass and metal constructions. I froze, craning to see past the gates and through the garden fronting the shop. I finally crept towards the entrance and inspected through some low windows. The place appeared to be closed, no customers, only an eerie familiarity. I turned to creep away from the entrance when a woman wearing a beautiful kimono rounded the corner into the garden. We both halted abruptly as our eyes met. Over her face washed a kind softness, as the words “tiffany chan!” escaped from her lips. I was instantly moved to tears at her effortless recollection. This woman was my host-aunt, yoko san. Her husband is the older brother of the woman who had taken me into her home some 10 years prior. As the oldest son usually inherits the family business, this woman, my host-uncle and their two children lived above the restaurant with the grandparents and ran the daily operations. My host-mother often helped out with the business so I spent countless days there, playing with the children in the small upstairs apartment, wandering the streets around the restaurant or hanging out in the kitchen with the chefs who didn’t quite know what to make of this foreign girl who couldn’t speak any japanese. This kimono clad woman embraced me in a completely uncommon way; full of emotion.

She bundled liz, carrie and I inside the shop and scurried around attending to us. An older woman, whom I didn’t recognize brought out steaming green tea. She stepped back, admiring me, saying I hadn’t changed a bit, as my host-aunt shook her head in agreement, adding only my hair was different. we chatted for a bit, which is a feat we were completely unable to accomplish a decade earlier when i’d spent nearly 2 months in her company. my Japanese is light years better now, meaning i was able to tell her how important my time in japan had been, how it had impacted my future and how she and her family were in a large way responsible for this. she told me to wait while she scurried off, returning a couple minutes later with a young woman in tow. her now 14 year old daughter had been my steady playmate 10 years ago. she was a bit shocked and shy about chatting, but opened up when it was just the 2 of us standing there. she told me that she couldn’t be sure if it was actual memories or just recollections of often viewed photographs, but she has mental images of she and i playing with the grandparents birds up stairs, which we often did.
unfortunately, the nuclear family who had actually opened up their home and allowed me to interrupt their lives was in germany for the week on vacation so i wasn’t able to reunite with them. as i could barely keep the tears from leaking outta my eyes anyway, perhaps that reunion is best saved for the next visit.

i hope he simply mispoke

2007-02-05T14:09:00.000+09:00

Japan's top government spokesman said on Monday the health minister should stay in his post despite a furore over his reference to women as "birth giving machines"

I couldn’t help but feel a little sad when I got this letter today…

2007-02-04T10:20:00.000+09:00

Non-recontracting acceptance

ALT’s name: Ms. Tiffany Jackson
Host Institution: Joetsu City

This letter is to inform you that your decision not to re-contract has been accepted by the institution indicated below and we will not re-contract with you.

Date: January 23th, 2007
Signature: Takeo Kobayashi

school lunch rocks...

2007-02-02T17:09:00.000+09:00

some more tantalizing cafeteria food for you...
it's a squid.

heaping helpings.

if you know me, then you know what a feat it is that i learned to gulp all this down in less than 20 minutes.

america's myopia

2007-02-01T11:54:00.000+09:00

‘closed door policy’ is a term often used to describe japan’s attitude towards the rest of the world in the years before U.S. navy commodore matthew perry arrived on the island demanding trade.

now japan has economic links to other countries but the older generations are still reticent to open the door to foreign influence in regards to immigration [it’s nearly impossible to gain citizenship], importation of pop culture, adoption of an international business language [my job is the mark of a shift, but one that has had negligible results over the last 20 years], etc.
i’ve long considered ‘closed door policy’ to be a dirty word, so it’s regrettable that i am coming to associate this philosophy with america and it’s government strategy.

i’ve recently had occasion to meet several people who were denied entry to the U.S. the stories were made all the more embarrassing and painful because while i sat listening, i was a visitor in a foreign country, experiencing culture and adventure in much the same way they had longed to do in america.
a while back the girls and i went to Nagoya and sought out a highly recommended Mexican restaurant. we were told to ask for rudy, that he’d take care of us. turned out this rudy character made delicious enchiladas and had tons of interesting stories. he was born in mexico and moved to the u.s. with his parents shortly after birth. he was reared and schooled in America. his aunts, uncles and cousins were all legal immigrants and his parents have since become recognized tax-paying citizens. rudy was hoping to go back to the U.S. to visit his family but has been embroiled in a visa battle for quite some time now, caught in a limbo because he has been living and making a life in japan for so long that the American government doesn’t recognize his ties to the country or his right to enter it. they basically lump him into the same category as mexican immigrants who they worry won’t leave once they gain entrance. never mind all the evidence to the contrary, such as his wife, small business, and obligations in japan.

then, in India, we visited an outdoor kebab shop called bade miya. as we struggled with the menu, a friendly muslim family at the next table helped us decipher what was what. we got involved in an interesting chat that spanned the length of our meal. turns out they are from India but have lived in Tanzania, Africa most of their lives. they were in Mumbai visiting their son who is studying dentistry there. the whole family speaks impeccable English, is well-traveled and so curious about the world. this was evidenced by the way they engaged and questioned us. we traded stories of our adopted countries and even exchanged coins as tokens of our connection. i was taken with their outgoing nature and kindness. although, or perhaps because, they didn’t consider us agents of the u.s. government or proponents of its policies, they wore disapproving scowls when they talked of the one place they’ve been unable to visit in their travels; America, because they haven’t been able to secure a visa.
i stumbled upon this article today which added statistics and numbers to the story i’ve seen unfurling over the last few years.
Travel industry: U.S. losing out on international tourism
perhaps if the echoes of these issues become a loud enough din, the U.S. will be encouraged to re-examine the policies that are inspiring the problems.
it’s amazing how much you can learn by objectivity, taking a step outside and looking in. i feel i have an unprecedented view of american socio-political culture from my perch on the opposite side of the world. at a time when i feel more like a world citizen than a nationalist, at a juncture when i’m more motivated and able to explore the world than ever before, at a moment when i’m engaged daily in internationalization at a grass-roots level that truly illustrates the importance of cross-cultural understanding, i am so disheartened to see this shift in U.S. policy.
i’ve always thought America was relentless about promoting an open door policy, boring into foreign markets and spreading western ideals, while fairly [in theory] opening it’s own borders to trade, investment and influence from abroad.

it now seems as if America is the bully with his shoulder against the door preventing the weaker kids from gaining entrance. i have incredible sympathy for foreign nationals who want to enter America to work, be it for financial or intellectual gain, as that is the current situation i’m living. i’ve visited more than 15 countries, some of whose residents would undoubtedly not be able to enjoy the reciprocal experience of an American vacation. these inequities leave me ill-equipped to explain the American government’s stance to people slighted by it’s policies, which were born of knee-jerk reactions to unfortunate but understandable circumstances in the world we share. america’s recent behavior is hurting its credibility as a ‘fruit salad’ where cultures are encouraged to intermingle, it’s damaging america’s reputation as a tolerant nation that encourages freedom of thought and expression, and it’s serving to bolster contempt and disdain. america does not appear to be at the top of it’s game. and when a player begins to make mistakes and gets cocky, it isn't long before they are unseated from their top position.

incredible india

2007-01-08T15:00:00.000+09:00

i made it home from india. my hair is washed, my nails are cleaned, my digestive system may never be the same again. this was the toughest trip i’ve ever taken in many respects. the logistics were difficult, modes of transport were unreliable, the poverty was unbelievable, the people were varied and intriguing. it was one bizarre experience after another, with little time to internalize and reflect; a constant assault on the senses. our emotions ran the gamut. shocking, stunning, surreal, incredible india. goats wearing sweater vests, spongy breads soaked with rich curries, airport riots, races to the bathroom, relentless beggars, sanitation nightmares, evening curfews, monstrous victorian buildings and slick furniture stores sandwiching shanty towns, roads completely congested with cows/hawkers/rickshaws/pedestrians/motorcycles/packs of dogs, rip-offs/scams, huge curious eyes, intimate religious rituals, beautiful fabrics in vibrant colors, slowly blooming but warm smiles… this list could span pages, but i’m going to need some time to marinate in this experience before i can relay it with any accuracy or depth.

"So far as I am able to judge, nothing has been left undone, either by man or nature, to make India the most extraordinary country that the sun visits on his rounds. Nothing seems to have been forgotten, nothing overlooked."
Mark Twain

i hope you enjoyed the holidays. i can’t imagine an experience that could have put the commercialism and greediness of the christmas season in a more telling light. india is the world’s second most populous nation, home to 1.03 billion people. we mostly witnessed life in the cities where a huge chunk of the poplulation was poor to an extent that most people i know would have trouble even imagining. day after day, watching families scavenge for food, squat on land overrun with garbage piles, beg for necessities, cook dinner over a fire in the middle of a sidewalk in busy downtown bombay. it makes you think about the lot you drew in life, how different your circumstances could have been and makes you uncomfortably aware of your good fortune and health. it also made me incredibly thankful for the family and friends i have. thank you all for taking such good care of me during the holidays and throughout the year with your love. although your affection and friendship is the most valuable gift, i also appreciate the contributions you make to me materially.

it really was like a childhood xmas this year…i had wrapped packages to tear into that brought lots of goodies from afar. the overwhelming consensus was that i need to eat more, lots more. 10-4, roger good buddies. i’ll get to gobbling up all the welcome foodstuffs as soon as my digestive system agrees to cooperate with me again. i sincerely thank you all.

pursuing india...

2006-12-22T14:06:00.000+09:00

tamarinds, turbans, taj mahal,
silk, sag paneer, saris, samosas, sikhs,
cows, curries, cinema, camels, castes,
bazaars, buddhism, betel nut, brahman,
ganges, garam masala, ganesh,
varanasi, vishnu, vindaloo,
hindu, handicrafts, hare krishna...
off to india.
hope my head [and/or my stomach] doesn't explode from over-stimulation.
hope you enjoy the friends, family, food and fun that make this time of year special.

here comes the bride?

2006-12-21T13:47:00.000+09:00

i hope this post doesn’t give my dad a heart attack.
a while back i went to lunch with a few students from my shakaijin [community members] class. we dined at duo cerezo, which is an opulent multi-purpose facility where ceremonies and weddings are held, as well as beer garden parties and buffet meals. a friend of one of my students runs the upstairs bridal boutique and she invited us up after eating. i truly had very little interest but humored my students. the boutique manager insisted on showing me dresses and jewelry and veils, inquiring about my style and the ones that i liked. she pulled one of the heavy garments down and thrust it at me saying “c’mon, you should try it on!” i insisted that wasn’t necessary and went back and forth with all the ladies in the shop. before i knew it they were tugging off my clothes and i reluctantly agreed.
[notice my favorite student kimio san in the background. he played father figure, nodding in agreement or grimacing at what he didn't like. he was a good sport up until they asked for his credit card. then he disowned me.]

here’s the uncomfortable evidence…pictures i took of pictures that my shakaijin students took…

there was a hefty crinoline skirt, an expensive dress, white pumps, a veil and a bouquet involved in the impromptu session.

i was thoroughly embarrassed, especially because there was a couple there legitimately trying to pick out wedding goods. i will admit however, i couldn’t help but feel remarkable in the gown, even without proper preparation, makeup, undergarments, etc. i’ve never had anything more decidedly elegant hanging on my frame. i imagine such a dress could indeed turn a woman into a queen while she’s wearing it, i mean, if you’re into that sorta thing.

hot fish

2006-12-18T17:22:00.000+09:00

carrie reached the ripe old age of 27 on December 8. to celebrate, we spent the evening at sushi yoshi, a family-owned restaurant in a town that neighbors mine. although lately our visits have been sparse, in the past we were quite the regulars there and have been kinda adopted as children. mama and papa ply us with candy, fruit, flowers, pictures, trinkets and whatever else they happen to have on hand when we pop in. the food is fresh and amazing, always lovingly prepared and beautifully presented. we never order, but simply wait to see what the chef, who is the owners’ son [he’s one of the most beautiful, unfortunately married, japanese men i know] chooses for our meal.

on this evening, we’d called to let them know we were coming and somewhat suspiciously found ourselves seated next to 2 young men at the bar. they turned out to be strong drinkers, interesting conversationalists and all night party animals. what luck.

they often serve us slightly odd things that are considered a delicacy on this side of the pond. on this particular night it was whole cod roe sacs suspended in homemade brown gelatin. we glanced nervously at each other while inspecting the veiny chunks. the taste wasn’t unpleasant although the textures were two that i don’t care for in every bite; the pop of tiny eggs and the mush of gelatinous stuff.

luckily we headed off papa as he attempted to ladle ribbons of sperm sac, full of seminal fluid, into a nabe pot that we had just emptied of it’s various mushroom, cabbage and tofu contents. i had tried the しらこ　before and was eager for him to save that treat for the next grateful customers. i like to consider myself a foodie of sorts, and never refuse to try something new. i enjoy the fact that when we visit sushi yoshi, they push our limits and put our high brow dreams and semi-haute tastes in perspective for us.

this was a highlight for me…

the meat was sweet, perfectly greasy, flaky heaven.

the fact that we spent ALL night in this one tiny shop in this small mountain town and had a blast is truly testament to the friendliness of the proprietors and the inviting ambiance they’ve created.

what i see drivin around...

2006-12-16T13:01:00.000+09:00

at it again...

2006-12-04T17:22:00.000+09:00

i ranted sufficiently about bush's oil and natural gas dreams in alaska's arctic national wildlife refuge. you can read the details by clicking here. now he's turned his sights south...can't you just see the dollar signs bulging from his eyes in cartoon style...cha-ching.

Bush Mulls Resumed Energy Drilling Off Alaska
New York Times
By FELICITY BARRINGER

Bristol Bay, Alaska, is home to endangered whales and sea lions and the world’s largest sockeye salmon run.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 — President Bush is considering whether to lift the 17-year-old moratorium on energy drilling in the waters off southwestern Alaska, a White House spokeswoman said Sunday, which would allow oil and gas companies to try to tap into more than five trillion cubic feet of natural gas that lies beneath rich fishing grounds.

The push to market oil and gas leases in these waters, which oil and gas companies favor, is part of a larger national effort to expand domestic supplies of fossil fuel by opening up areas of the outer continental shelf, long off-limits to energy development.
...
In a letter to President Bush on Friday, a coalition of environmental groups, including the Wilderness Society, the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Counsel, citing the impact of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, called the bay “an economically critical salmon fishery,” adding that “it provides essential habitat for the endangered northern right whale.”

The executive director of Greenpeace, John Passacantando, said Sunday that the Bering Sea was “the most intact marine ecosystem in United States waters” and that Bristol Bay was “among the most important parts of the Bering Sea.”

Asked about the potential impact of an outer continental shelf leasing program confined to the southern waters of the bay, Mr. Passacantando said: “The energy industry ultimately gives you things that look like the Exxon Valdez. It was because of the threat of this kind of spill that that leases were initially rescinded.”
...
Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, said in a statement Sunday that “executive withdrawal on oil and gas leasing in Alaska’s Bristol Bay, one of our nation’s most sensitive fisheries, combined with House Republicans scheduling a vote next week to expand offshore drilling off Florida’s coast, only underscores that G.O.P. stands for Gas and Oil Party.”

to read the entire article, click here.

to figure out who in congress you should pester about persuing an energy plan, including alternative fuels, that will sustain the nation in the future, click here.

that big wall that everyone goes on and on about…

2006-11-28T22:08:00.000+09:00

like eating a taco without cheese or watching an almodovar film without subtitles, something would be sorely missing if you tripped to beijing without visiting "the great wall of china".

this incredible structure is known in chinese as 萬里長城, meaning ‘the long wall of 10,000 li’ (li is a chinese unit of measurement equaling about 500 meters). the fortification was built between the 5th century bc and the beginning of the 17th century. the idea that they’d let thousands and thousands of tourists anywhere near it, much less use it as a jungle gym, seems insane. but this isn’t some relic able to be stored on the shelves of an aging museum; the wall is 6,352 km (3,948 miles) long. it was originally constructed “in order to protect the various dynasties from raids by Hunnic, Mongol, Turkic, and other nomadic tribes coming from areas in modern-day Mongolia and Manchuria.” [wikipedia] but it now serves an arguably better purpose as a teacher of history, a taker of breaths and an inspiration for the imagination.
we’d read a lot about the tourist cattle herds led to the well-known and fully-restored sections of the wall and we vowed to avoid those spots. we’d toyed with the idea of hiring a taxi for the day to take us out of town where the wall remains in a more natural state, unrestored, and is less of a tourist trap. seeing as how we couldn’t manage to catch a cab to take us down the street because of the may day holiday, we knew that just wasn’t feasible. we were talking to a fellow at the hostel [he apparently worked there, although what he did other than hang out with the tourists and practice english is fairly unclear] about our dilemma. he said the hostel offers tours to some of the main parts of the wall, which we immediately but politely declined. then he whipped out some pictures and begin to pitch the ‘secret wall’ tour they’d just started. we laughed aloud at the assertion that such a large, well-documented structure could be a secret. he went on to explain it was a section of the wall the owner had recently come across that runs through an out of the way village. he'd done some exploring and realized that with just a bit of hiking you could reach a part of the wall that no tourists, other than those on this special tour deal, knew about. we’d already taken a liking to this fellow and decided to heed his advice, which meant waking at the crack of dawn the next day. we cobbled together a breakfast of dumplings and fresh bread from the vendors hawking at 6 am before piling into a few vans. there were about 20 of us total. we traveled around an hour and a half outta beijing, tracing the path of the wall along the way. we passed numerous mobbed watchtowers, smoothly restored walls and stairs peppered with primary colored flags and hawkers.

it was about this time that the number 3 biggest travelers’ nightmare happened to me…ranking right after getting murdered/assaulted and getting your wallet/moulah stolen…my camera broke. why, of all the moments to crap out, would it have happened en route to such a picturesque and quintessential travel experience? that means that every photo used in this post is either carrie’s or liz’s. thanks ladies. so our vans turned off the main road, traveled a bit more and parked in this desolate village. the fella from the hostel went in and returned with a guy wielding 2 huge machetes. i was starting to wonder what the hell we'd gotten ourselves into. we trailed behind them up to the edge of a dry forest.

he used the knives to bushwhack a lengthy path up to the wall.

when we climbed on to the crumbling ruins it was nothing but vast land, beautiful silence and the ancient structure snaking for as far as you could see with no other people in sight.

well, except these guys [note the 3 tiny ant-like spots] who were wearing official looking armbands. their job was obviously something other than stopping random tourists from scrambling onto the wall.

in some places it was big and majestic…

and in some places it was almost completely eroded…

it was amazing...in every direction, the wall spread out, snaking and winding and dipping and rising and turning back on itself.

we were able to go slow, enjoying the view, the air, and each other’s company.

it was nearly impossible not to be overwhelmed by imagining how the wall had been constructed; all the rocks, earth, mud, sweat, blood, time and energy that had been poured into this unfathomable dream, that had been molded into this unreal structure.

we hiked about 10 km along the wall. perhaps most toursits don't make it out here because it really was a bit challenging. often steep, with loose rocks and crumbling footholds, occasionally requiring all four limbs. unfortunately, eventually we had to dismount and make our way back to the village.

we caroused with a handful of locals for a bit.

and then we were lead into this newly built, strangely out of place brick patio area where we were treated to an incredible vegetarian lunch of wild mountain greens and plants cooked every which a way imaginable.

guess this is the village’s attempt at gaining their share of the tourist market. if only all organized tours could be so unobtrusive and genuine.
there were even coolers of moderately chilled beers waiting for us. we cracked the tall boys and toasted with strangers to this most amazing and indescribable adventure that we’d been lucky enough to experience together.

day tripping in obuse

2006-11-20T23:21:00.000+09:00

i wrote about having a truly poignant moment at the edge of a pond in obuse town while watching some frogs. there was a little more to it than that. if you feel so inclined, you should read about it. here’s what else happened that day. my ex-coworker/friend, uchiyama sensei, and i made the hour drive early one saturday.

obuse is a mountain town in nagano prefecture with historical significance much larger than the place itself. the town has only a 2 kilometer radius.

the downtown is a quaint strip of old, but well maintained warehouses where crafts, sweets and snack stores are located. the streets are lined with chestnut trees which bare one of the town’s most famous crops. obuse has it’s own personal forest gump schpeel about the nuts…they are used to make a variety of products like “steam rice with red beans and whole chestnuts, mashed chestnuts, rice-flour cake with chestnut flavor, a fine sweet paste of chestnuts, sweet bean paste with chestnut flavor, mashed sweet potatoes with sweetened chestnuts.” on this day we were determined to try the chestnut rice. nearly every restaurant was packed. we finally found a table in a fashionable place that slathered a thick layer of swank atop the traditional feel, which was reflected in the prices.

we started at the japanese lamp museum, one of uchiyama sensei’s must-sees. there were thousands of paper lanterns, candle stands, lamps, and other lighting gadgets. some were incredibly old and warranted explanation to understand exactly how and why they’d been used. the largest part of the collection was the “963 lamp devices" from the Yedo period (1603 - 1867) through the Taisho period (1912 - 1926) in the Shin-etsu (present Nagano) region of japan. the most intriguing were candle holders affixed to the end of rudimentary, extendable poles. uchiyama translated the explanation on the plaque beneath the display…they were held by people who crouched down and ringed the edge of a stage during theatrical shows. they were to be held under the actors’ faces who were performing.

then we were off to the katsushika hokusai museum. hokusai is a world-reknowned ukiyo-e [japanese woodblock printing and painting] artist whose works include the well known ‘great wave of kanagawa’...

there was a display of the series of woodblocks used to create one of hokusai’s works. i was awed by the complexity of the carving on the blocks and the sheer number of woodblocks that were used to create a single print.

Ukiyo-e prints were made using the following procedure:
• The artist produced a master drawing in ink
• Craftsmen glued this drawing, face-down to a block of wood, cutting away the areas where the paper was white, thus leaving the drawing, in reverse, as a relief print on the block, but destroying the drawing.
• This block was inked and printed, making near-exact copies of the original drawing.
• These prints were in turn glued, face-down, to blocks and those areas of the design which were to be printed in a particular color were left in relief. Each of these blocks prints at least one color in the final design.
• The resulting set of woodblocks were inked in different colors and sequentially impressed onto paper. The final print bore the impressions of each of the blocks, some printed more than once to obtain just the right depth of color.

there were hanging scrolls, screens, frames and 2 festival floats which the artist had painted. the ceilings of the floats were amazing; one of a dragon and a phoenix, the other of raging waves, done in two styles to represent the female and male.

another of hokusai’s masterpieces on display in the town is at gansho-in temple.

he was commissioned to paint the ceiling there at the age of 89. he completed the 35 square meter Chinese phoenix in 1848, a year before he died. apparently the paint was mixed with some crushed jewels which has enabled the colors to remain vibrant.

i took ample time to lay on the tatami floor of the temple and gaze up at the incredible illustration.

beside the main temple is the small pond where kobayashi issa composed his famous haiku that so moved me.

before heading home we stopped at a tiny café for coffee and, my choice, fresh squeezed apple juice and some reflection on the day.

uchiyama and i do trips together well; we’re both talkative and analytical. plus, she likes to be back home by early evening which gives me time to freshen up and still make it to the parties downtown. perfect.

中国the middle country, part two

2006-11-18T13:57:00.000+09:00

i’m embarrassed to say that we faffed off and missed our plane to beijing. this was a disappointing cap to a lot of wrangling we’d been doing about in-country travel. our first plan was to overnight train around the eastern part of the country giving ourselves a chance to see the land, visit a few different spots and save some money. well, apparently china has this humongous holiday on the first of may that we didn’t know anything about. by the time we realized it would be impossible to procure train tickets, it was nearly too late to book a flight. we searched online and realized e-tickets can’t be used for domestic travel in china which meant express delivering them to japan, hoping they’d arrive before we departed. need i explain the stress that was relieved when i got my plane voucher thursday at noon before we jetted on friday.
so there we were scurrying around shanghai’s tiny domestic airport, heads spinning, looking for anyone to take pity on us. when we finally found an air china counter, they were unbelievably helpful and friendly and accommodating. [light years ahead of hong kong’s airport in customer service. read it was voted best airport of 2005. must be you get treated well when you’re researching candidates for the ‘best airport of the year’ crown. and my fledgling boycott of united airlines is still in effect. steer clear of those buzzards.] there was a flight to Beijing we could catch a few hours later, but to rework our tickets we had to bump up to first class. luckily in china that means dropping only 25 bucks. we drank enough beer and ate enough petite sandwiches in the first class lounge while waiting to break even on that deal.
after arriving in Beijing, we began the trek to our well situated hostel. so centrally located in fact, that during this holiday period, all the roads and nearby train stations were closed to prevent traffic jams and overcrowding. we rode the subway back and forth a few times, sure our stop was supposed to be somewhere in between before braving to ask an employee who explained in pretty darn good english. outside, we attempted to catch a taxi. of the dozens and dozens we saw, only a few would even crack their windows to here our pitch. we had the hostels name and address written in Chinese, but still couldn’t convince anyone to take us near it. [found out later it was due to all the re-routing of the roads for the holiday.] so we decided to walk. road names proved to be terribly difficult. we knew it was located off of a half circle behind tian'anmen square and were able to use that as our northern star.

the time was late and tempers were high when we finally made our way down this gritty, narrow alley that was bustling with food stalls, rickshaws and shops even at 10 pm. after that ‘adventure’ we were ready for a beer. in order to minimize further frazzling of the nerves, we utilized a tip we’d been given by someone else staying at the hostel. he’d been there quite a while and was familiar with the area. he suggested a restaurant right up the street with an english menu. we hurried on over and employed our newly acquired language skills to order 3 beers. the 12 year old [with a crazy rat tail] who was waiting on us walked over and grabbed 3 bottles out of a crate sitting just inside the door. our eyes all widened with disbelief when we clutched the beers and confirmed they were as hot as we’d expected. we called the kid over and i mimed sweating, hot, felt the beers, wiped my forehead, then i shivered like i was cold, pointed to the beer and smiled, pretended to gulp it, let out a refreshed sigh and began to bow a bit attempting to say please and urge him to swap out our beers. he shook his head and pointed at the warm ones on the table and walked away. the water’s not potable which meant ice was out of the question. we cracked our piss warm beers and had a good laugh at our failure and situation.

i regret we didn’t take more pics of this place. the staff really warmed to us, pulling up chairs and including us in the rounds a bottle of fire water was making. we managed to have decent conversation, discovering who was the owner, how long he’d been there, how old the kids were and what their lives were like. towards the end of the night, they urged us to come inside.

everyone was gathered around the bar. we joined the group that encircled several clear, glass containers of liquid with an array of stuff submerged in them. the owner explained to us that one in particular was tiger penis alcohol. we leaned in close to inspect the brown stumpy root-like thing. he dipped out a scoopful, poured it in a cup on the counter. many of the young men put a hand out, they told us to do the same. they said a chant that we didn’t understand while bobbing their hand up and down before opening their fists to reveal an array of papers, rocks and scissors. delighted we got it, they started round 2 and we threw hand signals in quick succession until someone came up the loser. as one cupful vanished into a mouth on a face contorted in the pain associated with drinking liquor that tastes like turpentine, the owner would serve up another. all the girls got multiple chances to sample the local, sinus clearing treat. we were really, really drunk as we bid them a warm farewell and stumbled back down the dirty alley to the hostel.

the next day’s sunlight illuminated so many amazing things about Beijing. we were up at a decent time, intent on checking out tian'anmen square and the forbidden city. i was absolutely captivated by the tangle of streets in the neighborhood where we were staying. right outside our hostel…

there was a mix of homes and businesses, and each turn of a corner revealed more nooks and crannies to peek at and investigate.

with all the talk about the wealth gap from the city to the countryside in china, i can’t imagine the standard of living outside the population hubs. this was downtown beijing, minutes from arguably the country’s busiest tourist attraction, and it looked like what could be termed slums. people were chopping chickens outside on narrow dirt streets peppered with fierce potholes, women washed clothes in old buckets on washboards, childred played in the gutters. the atmosphere was very anachronistic.

there was nothing upsetting about the scene. on the contrary, i was charmed. it was simply so different from what i’d imagined and so far away from the reality in which i live. after experiencing all this, i can't believe the olympic committee went for beijing.

the bizarre feeling of tian’namen square is hard to put into words.

do you remember the extent of the tragedy that occurred there on june 4, 1989? [a date that sticks with me cause it’s also my mom’s birthday.] throughout china the pro-democracy cry was culminating in rallies in many cities, the largest of which was assembled on tian’namen square. “The protestors came from disparate groups, ranging from intellectuals who believed the Communist Party of China-led government was too corrupt and repressive, to urban workers who believed Chinese economic reform had gone too far and that the resulting rampant inflation and widespread unemployment was threatening their livelihoods”. after protestors refused to disperse, the government declared martial law and sent tanks and infantry in to “crush” the rebellion. “Estimates of civilian deaths vary: 23 (Communist Party of China), 400–800 (Central Intelligence Agency), 2600 (Chinese Red Cross).” although all media was strictly controlled, this famous photo emerged to symbolize the strength of the resolve of the protestors and the government’s heavy-handed, undiplomatic and insular response.

if you wanna further educate yourself, click here.

i learned from a foreigner teaching english in china that the tragic events are so well suppressed that people born after the massacre earnestly have no idea it ever happened. it was really eerie walking around the square, imagining the country’s past and the what the future holds for all the chinese people who had gathered there to marvel at the majestic display of the government’s power.

i bet nearly every visitor to the square has some variation of this picture. of course, minus me, with said visitor inserted in my spot.

reluctantly carrie, liz and i became one of the major draws in the square. people began positioning themselves so we’d be in the background of their pictures, then quickly running off giggling. finally someone got the nerve to ask us to pose with them. we obliged and then became inundated with requests by people who had been standing around eyeing us for quite sometime. at first we thought they had perhaps mistaken us for celebrities. they wanted us to hold their children, pose with their wives. it got dizzying, to the point we started forcefully refusing. later as we talked it through with someone who was chinese, he explained that during this major holiday time many countryside dwellers make their way to the capital with their families. perhaps they are isolated in their villages and have never seen or been so close to real foreigners before. it was a strange and unnerving experience, even after being part of the tiny minority in japan for 2 years.

then on to the forbidden city, a huge unesco world heritage sight that encompasses 800 buildings and more than 8,000 rooms. it was the Chinese imperial palace during the ming and qing dynasties.

there are imposing gates, magnificent architectural techniques, perfect gardens, vibrant colors, and most disappointingly, a starbucks. who knew that corporate giant had been around since the early 1400’s?

the place is constructed in an interesting manner, with an inner and outer court arranged to maximize feng shui. the buildings all have an odd number of rooms built symmetrically around the principal axis.

credit: carrie

i love this pic of carrie.

and these shots of liz’s…

it's quite a marvel. an interesting historical relic come well-preserved place of leisure.

of course we stuffed our faces every chance we got, and on beijing’s streets, the opportunities abound.

the food was fabulous; all sorts of cheap noodles, rice, dumplings cooked in rusty pans over fires. accented with sauces squeezed from old dirty soda bottles by men who hock loogies on your feet while stir frying.

luckily i've got a belly of steel. unfortunately lizzy wasn’t so lucky.

above, on the right, is my pick for best food eaten in china. it’s a thin pancake stuffed with a stir-fried veggie mix, all sorts of sprouts, fistfuls of fresh cilantro and green onions, a red chili sauce, and something citrus-y, maybe lime juice. unbelievably good. and the more often we stopped there to buy one, the cheaper they got.

and of course we dropped a bit of money on the famous peking duck [peking is what the capital is referred to as in asia.]

we had a few different courses, all centering on duck. then they rolled out a cart carrying our bird and chopped the head off and carved it up right there in front of us. it was intended to be eaten kinda like southern bbq, on a roll with a thick, sweet sauce and green onion sprigs. unfortunately the meat was a bit dry.

early in the evening we’d overheard the table next to us speaking japanese and at some point, we let on that we could speak it too. they worked for a pro-baseball team that was spring training near china’s capital. we ended up carousing and drinking with them a bit before heading on out in search of nightlife.

a stark contrast to dirty, cheap beijing was found around houhai lake. a man-made body of water ringed by kinda classy, kinda expensive and well decorated bars offering plenty of overstuffed couches outside on the banks of the water. we met these 3 korean fellows who were living in the city studying Chinese at a nearby university.

there really is something amazing about travelers who are internationally and open minded. although we didn’t have a common language [they had some basic high school english. carrie and i recalled all the korean we could from our trip there last year, which consisted of the terms for beer, cheers, hello and liar only.] we hung out with these guys all evening, moving from the lake district onto a dance club they recommended. there was a lot of gesturing and excitement at exchanging ideas, a lot of patience displayed and some real interesting banter on the dance floor [no, i don’t mean that in the dirty, booty dancing kinda way]. when they headed home we all traded hugs and genuine thank yous, knowing that we’d never meet again but non-verbally agreeing that we’d always remember that evening.

there was a chap from amsterdam that we kept running into around town. one afternoon we joined him and his chinese friend for beers while they dined on this…

check out the tribute to mao adorning the place next door.

i approached a lady that worked here. i used my best chinese language skills and ability interpreting gestures and grunts to discern where the nearest bathroom was and set off. it turns out whole neighborhoods share the same toilet facilities; apparently there’s a real lack of indoor plumbing. the bathrooms are literal holes in the ground in shacks nestled between patched-up houses. inside, there are flimsy 3 foot barriers between the holes, but no doors and no privacy. as we were foreign, the bit of respect given by not staring at someone relieving themselves was not offered to us. i found skirts were handy for creating a tent over your squatting figure which meant all your glory wasn't exposed to staring eyes. it was really strange to see people in the morning and evenings, waddling down the dirt streets, making the pilgrimage to the local toilets wearing their pajamas, while brushing their teeth and rubbing the sleep out of their eyes. i ran across these thrown up on a wall near the bathrooms.

i really fell for beijing. even though the people appeared to be extremely poor, they were exceptionally good spirited and friendly. they sang aloud to themselves incessantly, even in public. this pleasant attitude also comes through in genuine smiles and a relaxed demeanor that is welcoming. while they acknowledged that we’re foreigners through inquisitive stares, they also gently encouraged our curiosity by remaining unobtrusive, which created a zone in which we are free to explore their amazing country.

doppelganger?

2006-11-08T18:29:00.000+09:00

my girls at school often tell me i look like this musician they like. “angela aki mitai!” they wanna know if i can play the piano too. i sadly disappoint [although in light of my thumb injury/surgery, maybe it’s better that i didn’t invest 20 years of my life in studying the piano only to have my dreams crushed…by an avocado…just trying to be positive.] i finally got around to lookin this angela aki chick up. glad she’s not a dog. must be the glasses ne?

am i the only one who finds my school lunches infinitely interesting?

2006-10-30T18:06:00.000+09:00

i should also tell you how they've been improving my oral hygiene. when i first came to japan i was a bit put off by when, where and how people saw fit to brush their teeth. for example, at work while standing at my desk chatting with me about the next class’ lesson. it just seemed like something people should do in their private time, or at least over some receptacle like a sink. and they would go for marathon scrubbing sessions. well, it only took a little getting used to. you quickly learn to back up a bit to avoid spittle spray. but now, perhaps thanks to the toothbrush song in elementary school, i find myself doing the same thing. after eating, all the kids grab their cups and brushes and go to town while some folky japanese song instructs them…’brush right, right, right, right, right…now left, left, left, left, left…’ even at middle school, where there is no organized tooth brushing session, i’ve taken up the good habit. starting the process at my desk [i can’t believe the kids have no qualms about getting right up in my grill while i’m scrubbing my teeth], i’ve learned that if you don’t use excessive amounts of toothpaste, you can massage your gums and teeth for days before having to make your way to the sink [the kitchen sink in the break area that is] to spit. hope i don’t scour all the enamel off…

bizzy bees

2006-10-27T18:26:00.000+09:00

as we continue busying ourselves in the hopes of making the absolute most out of our last bit of time here, let me update you on some travel plans.
this friday is a national holiday…culture day i think. liz, carrie and i are gonna road trip to nagoya. we expect it should only take about 5 or 6 hours, of course we don’t have any real directions. but, unlike the sendai trip, we do have a hotel and some tentative plans. i’m hoping i can stave off my approaching cold...
then we’ve got a doozy planned for xmas. december 23 we’re heading to new delhi, india. we’re still working on in-country travel, trying to find the cheapest transport that will maximize our ability to enjoy multiple locales. india is a huge country meaning we’ll have to fly and train quite a bit. our tentative schedule has us heading from delhi north to the holy city of varanasi, then flying way down south to bombay, aka mumbai, for a few days. then it’s an overnight train down the coast to the beautiful beaches of the hippie/party mecca called goa. we’ll have to train back to mumbai in order to catch a flight back to the capital. we’ll have the last 3 or 4 days to explore new delhi, one of which will be consumed by a day trip to agra to see the taj mahal.
the more research i do, the more i’m convinced this isn’t going to be a relaxing, get away from the stress of obligation and drone of everyday life kind of vacation. i expect it’ll be gritty and challenging and disturbing and uplifting. i’ll undoubtedly experience a range of emotions in reaction to the social situation there; poverty and sub-standard living conditions tempered by hospitality and graciousness...rich history and a tumultuous past colored by the hopefulness of a struggle to rise up. i’m excited about seeing the true india, which until now has just been the kitsch decorating my favorite restaurants and the setting for my romanticized tales. i’m excited about the prospect of more accurately understanding my circumstances and life after examining it through a completely different frame of comparison than i’ve ever experienced before.

2006-10-25T11:17:00.000+09:00

ThE rEcEnt ADveNtUreS oF lIZ and tIFFaNy...

Liz and Tiffany visit the convenience store [a.k.a. conbini]…

Liz and Tiffany travel to Sendai, the largest city in northern Honshu, for Lizzy’s birthday. Lots of food [WE ATE INDIAN!! YEA!! Only the 2nd time in more than 2 years. YEA!], dance clubs, kangaroo boxing, coffee and fun.

I demolished the biggest calzone ever...

Even the evil uni-brow couldn’t spell victory for this roo…

Liz and Tiffany attempt to learn the art of ninjitsu…

Liz and Tiffany are sad they failed at becoming ninjas…

Liz and Tiffany hit up a sake matsuri [festival] downtown.

I was a bit nostalgic because the lively affair took place on the street right in front of my old apartment, whereas I’d driven 25 minutes from my new home amongst the rice paddies and then had to struggle with parking.

But never fear…sake quiets discontent. It also makes pictures go a little screwy and inflates one's sense of strength…

Liz and Tiffany return to their favorite karaoke haunt. Because of our recent moves, it had been a while since we’d partied here. Glad to see not much had changed.

at lunch...

2006-10-16T14:24:00.000+09:00

the kids at middle school relentlessly pick on each other over the pettiest things. there's the obvious weight, attractiveness, dorkiness issues, but you're also a target if you don't spread your margarine on your bread correctly or if your handwriting stinks. today's victim...kengo kun. at lunch everyone piled their broccoli on his plate until you could barely see the tiny kid behind a mountain of green. he's in that awkward stage so he takes a lot of crap. [it was terribly cute to watch him try so hard during the sports festival. he danced like an epileptic in a strobe light factory and, even if you'd offered him a million bucks, he simply couldn't keep in time with the march.] today i was secretly wishing some of the kids would give me their broccoli too. no luck. the other options on my plate were doughy udon noodles with watery soup or kozakana and almond salad.
kozakana means baby fish...they're deep fried whole and don't taste all together gross, they just leave you with a filmy, sardine flavored mouth that doesn't turn me on.

luckily most school lunches, or kyushoku, escape being classified with adjectives such as watery and filmy. they're usually well-planned, filling, traditional japanese meals, i.e. lunches that you could never get american kids to consume. unfortunately we sometimes part ways over the lunch ladies liberal use of eggs [from any of a number of animals; chicken, fish, quail...] and tiny, whole, worm-like fishy things, similar to what's pictured above, that they sneak into the most unlikey dishes.

i'm not exactly sure what to do about all the teasing and harassment. my natural instinct is to rush to the rescue of the victim, but as i've seen before, that has the potential to leave them subjected to a different kind of taunting. i often try to rationalize with the bullies [c'mon, you know it really doesn't matter if you put your margarine on bread in dollops or streaks...] but once they have the attention of other students, their momentum is hard to stop. it calls to mind…

yasegaeru
makeru na
kore ni ari

a haiku by famed poet issa which is often translated as

skinny, feeble frog
don’t give up the fight
i stand by your side

i’d ran across the poem online and was touched; first by it’s simplicity but depth, and secondly by the story surrounding its creation. issa was born in kashiwabara, in the north of present-day nagano prefecture. he was a devout follower of buddhism which inspired in him empathy with small animals that often became the subject of the more than 20,000 haikus he penned.
there’s a famous temple where issa stayed when he visited what was then known as the edo area. next to this temple, entenji, is a small pond where issa witnessed frog sumo, or the ritual fights between males over females for mating.
several weeks after discovering the haiku i found myself standing at the edge of a small pond near obuse, nagano when it occurred to me that i was staring at the inspiration for the poem that had so captivated me. it was a very strange emotional moment. and although it wasn’t mating season, frogs abounded…and not just the cold-blooded croaking kind. shelves lining inner and outer walls of the temple were adorned with all sizes and shapes of amphibian effigies.

luckily all my school lunches aren’t seasoned with taunting and teasing. at every school i rotate eating in homeroom classes with the kids. this provides some unstructured time for conversation and general screwing around. in middle school, the students are starting to develop the shyness that will haunt them, as it does so many adults in this society. it’s unnerving and disappointing when someone looks you in the eye, as if to acknowledge you are addressing them, and then walks away without speaking. others refuse to entertain my conversation by waling protests against english [although i usually posit my inquiries in japanese since that tactic most often illicits a response]. but some others are interested in testing me; my tolerance for ridiculous questions or my japanese language ability. the first year students are remarkably warmer than the third years. this trend continues on for the even younger children. elementary school is definitely the most exciting. the kids are eager to talk and climb all over you and feel your hair and eyelashes and poke you in the butt, literally. it doesn’t take much, other than being foreign thus different, to be elevated to star status there. recently i followed the lead of the other students in trying to collapse my milk carton as much as humanly possible before throwing it away. apparently i figured out a new way to fold it into the tiniest of tiny squares. the kids were so mesmerized that i spent 30 minutes teaching everyone and it has now become the coolest, hippest origami around.

elementary school also rocks cause grub time is followed directly by recess. that’s my play time too [note that i didn't say rest time]. i’ve been able to rekindle my love of jumping rope and those horizontal iron bars that you flip around using your belly as a fulcrum. my great-granddaddy used to call it ‘skinning the cat’. the yards at these schools also double as farms, with chickens and goats running around, mostly trying to avoid being tormented by the kids. there are games of devil tag, dodge ball, soccer and some interesting group activities whose governing rules i haven't yet been able to discern. then there’s the bike rack out back lined with unicycles [some are even big people sizes!!]. i haven't quite mastered these odd vehicles yet, but luckily there are about 700 young experts eager to help teach me.

the girls vs. yokohama

2006-10-04T18:28:00.000+09:00

japan's most famous china town...

making ourselves nearly sick at cosmo world...

cb scarin' the children...

we tried to board a karaoke, all you can eat and drink river cruise extravaganza to no avail...

you know you're getting old when you go to the club and it's not even open yet. what?! it was 11! naturally, we killed time with a photo shoot.

after hours and hours of food, drinks, karaoke and mischief. what do you mean the japanese boys are intimidated by our straight forward personalities and our outrageous behavior?

they've got these photobooths in japan where you don props, costumes and your craziest faces.

then you scoot around the side of the machine to a computer screen where you can customize your pics...digitally writing, stamping and drawing all over them before they pop out of the machine as a page of stickers. it's unbelievably fun...

for explanation purposes only...no idea who these people are...

we stumbled upon this huge hole that looked like a cross between an ancient lock for raising and lowering ships and the background from an m.c. escher drawing. the walls were lined with staircases that appeared and disappeared into nowhere.

what a perfect setting for, u guessed it, a photo shoot!!

we realize how ridiculous we are for gorging ourselves on 'american' food, but in lil' ole joetsu we rarely have the chance. yes, on a 4-day vacation, we 2x at t.g.i fridays, 2x at subway [yeah for cold cuts!] and at the american grill restaurant, whose california burger w/ bacon and avocado is a force to be reckoned with. as if i hadn't had enough...

a big thanks to masa, aka samurai slasher, for letting us crash at his place in machida that friday.
and thanks to lizzy for the couple of pics.

only the lonely...

2006-10-01T16:06:00.000+09:00

so i was discussing the etymology of the term 'go dutch' with a friend, which inevitably lead to a discussion of the term 'dutch wife.' in japan, that phrase is used to refer to a blow-up sex doll. i was doing serious online research to find out what exactly this had to do with the netherlands when i found this site. i was laughing so hard i nearly wet myself. this link is not safe for work and if you have any conservative tendencies it'd probably be best if you just skipped on down the blog to read about some other adventures.
click here for some funny, funny stuff...

why do we wanna go tinkering with the last bit of unspoiled land in america?!? this is about alaska... listen up, speak up!

2006-09-30T11:33:00.000+09:00

just like that crazy, bushy-haired, bible-toting man i used to see at the park all the time…
recently carrie stood atop her soapbox and shouted to anyone who would listen about the arctic national wildlife refuge. more specifically about how the current u.s. administration wants to open up this pristine wilderness to oil and natural gas drilling. carrie kept urging me to check it out, so i did. i was really disturbed by the facts i uncovered. i think the reality hit especially hard because i had just returned the previous week from an unbelievable alaskan adventure. i witnessed land and experienced an environment unlike any i’d seen before. it made me contemplate the true meaning of words like ‘awesome’ and ‘amazing’. so i’m gonna lay out some facts. please read, digest and then take appropriate action. carrie and i think this is really important…

In 1960 19 million acres were set aside in northern alaska "for the purpose of preserving unique wildlife, wilderness and recreational values.” this area has become renowned as some of the most diverse and spectacular land in the world.
“The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (anwr) is a vast and beautiful wilderness, unique because it has a full range of arctic and sub-arctic ecosystems. Unique also because the systems are whole and undisturbed, functioning as they have for centuries, largely free of human control and manipulation.” [anwr brochure text]

to put it in perspective…

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge 19.8 million acres

South Carolina 19.9 million acres

The Refuge includes an array of landscapes and wildlife habitats--from the boreal forest of the Porcupine River uplands . . . to the foothills and slopes of the Brooks Range . . . to the arctic tundra of the coastal plain . . . to the lagoons and barrier islands of the Beaufort Sea coast. these areas are home to an array of wildlife including dall sheep, muskoxen, shrews, hares, voles, lemmings, coyotes, wolves, foxes, lynx, bears, seals, walruses and whales.
"The Refuge serves as the staging area for hundreds of thousands of migratory birds, denning habitat for polar bears, and calving grounds for the 130,000 member Porcupine River caribou herd and it plays an integral part in the lives of the Gwich'in people who depend on the seasonal migrations of the caribou for both survival and cultural identity." [Carl Pope, director of the Sierra Club]
these areas also contain hundreds of species of mosses, grasses, wildflowers, shrubs and other plants. “The ground lies permanently frozen below much of the Refuge. This impenetrable “permafrost” layer causes many areas to remain wet during the summer. Plants grow rapidly with 24-hour daylight, but the growing season is short. These factors make the Refuge a fragile area easily impacted by human activities. In this most northern of refuges, communities take a long time to recover from disturbances.” [anwr brochure text]

"disturbances" like the huge equipment, cranes, rigs, roads and people associated with drilling for oil and natural gas. because i believe there are such strong merits for the case against opening up anwr for drilling, i’m not going to rely on an emotional appeal. here are the facts, which scream for themselves.
there is currently a bill in congress which would allow for drilling in alaska’s wilderness…

H.R.5429
Title: To direct the Secretary of the Interior to establish and implement a competitive oil and gas leasing program that will result in an environmentally sound program for the exploration, development, and production of the oil and gas resources of the Coastal Plain of Alaska, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep Pombo, Richard W. [CA-11] (introduced 5/19/2006)
Cosponsors (None)
[http://www.congress.gov]
does anyone else think it’s creepy that ‘and for other purposes’ was tacked on there?

although i don’t pretend to understand the games they play in congress, this is what i’ve gathered. this bill was bounced back and forth between the senate and the house many times. it faced several filibusters by environmentally minded opposition and as a result republicans sought to include a provision for drilling anwr in the 2006 budget reconciliation bill that will be considered this fall. i think the purpose of piggy backing it with a budget bill was to avoid another filibuster, thus circumventing normal senate deliberation rules. but this blog is not about partisan politics, it’s about a lopsided equation in which the damage and cost of an action would far outweigh its possible benefits.

“While those in favor of drilling in ANWR have touted potential Alaskan energy development as an opportunity to gain American energy independence, environmentalists have warned that the relatively small amount of oil estimated to be available in the refuge is not worth the environmental damage likely to be caused by development of the area. ‘There’s simply too much at stake to let this majestic national icon become a number in the federal budget,’ said Carl Pope, director of the Sierra Club. ‘The speculative revenue gains are too small and the sacrifice too great to jeopardize our natural heritage for a short-term supply of oil.’” [http://newstandardnews.net]

so what kinda numbers are we talking about…

the administration proposes opening up a section along the delicate northern coastal plains of the reserve, which has been labeled the 1002 area.
The most recent government study of oil and natural gas prospects in ANWR was completed in 1998 by the U. S. Geological Survey (USGS). it found that there is an excellent chance (95%) that at least 11.6 billion barrels of oil are present on federal lands in the 1002 area. the USGS goes on to say that there is an excellent chance (95%) that 4.3 billion barrels or more are technically recoverable (costs not considered). the USGS guesses that at $24 per barrel [in 1996], there is a 95% chance that 2.0 billion barrels or more could be economically recovered and a 5% chance of 9.4 billion barrels or more.

americans consume 19.6 million barrels per day. [http://maps.unomaha.edu] statistically speaking, the chances are better that we’ll uncover 2 billion, as opposed to 9.4 billion, barrels of natural gas. let’s use a liberal number…say 5 billion barrels are recovered…that provides enough fuel to sustain america for 255 days or about 8.5 months. is my math wrong or is this just plain nuts?!?

here’s the part where you sit, scratching your head, wondering how the trade-off proposed in congress seems worth it.

i wrote to my senators and representative in congress to express my concerns. you should too. i received some responses, one of which came from senator jim demint. he politely asserted that we do “not see eye-to-eye on this particular matter.” and he went on to argue “that it is important for America to have an energy policy that plans and provides for the needs of today while looking to the challenges of the future.”

although i appreciate the senator’s response, i disagree with his tactics. doesn’t it appear that the money to be invested in drilling the arctic national wildlife refuge could be better used to study and implement plans for alternative fuel sources, such as biodiesel, fuel cells and hydrogen that would actually sustain us in the future? not only would this reduce our reliance on foreign oil, thus reducing the pressure on america to strictly police the middle east, it would also insure that america’s economic, domestic and international policies are not hijacked by our energy needs. it just makes sense. maybe i should run for congress…vote action jackson in 2008…

if you live in s.c.~~
click here to email senator jim demint

click here to email senator lindsay graham

if you live in the 29577 area~~
don’t forget to contact congressman harry brown too

you can find contact information for all senators and congressmen at
vote smart. represent!!

and if you’re feeling exceptionally fired up…why not pester some big oil companies? thanks to carrie for compiling all this info…

ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson
Corporate Headquarters
5959 Las Colinas Boulevard
Irving, Texas 75039-2298
USA
(972) 444-1000

Mr. David O'Reilly
ChevronTexaco CEO
6001 Bollinger Canyon Rd
San Ramon, CA 94583
USA
(925) 842-1000

Mr. Jeroen van der Veer
Shell CEO
Royal Dutch Shell plc
Carel van Bylandtlaan 16
2596 HR DEN HAAG
Postbus 162
2501 AN DEN HAAG

Sir John Browne,
BP Amoco CEO
B.P. Amoco
Brittanic House
1 Finsbury Circus
London EC2M 7BA

Mr. James Mulva,
ConocoPhillips CEO
600 North Dairy Ashford (77079-1175)
P.O. Box 2197
Houston, TX 77252-2197
USA
Phone 281.293.1000

here, you can just plug your name and your comments into this…

Dear (enter name),

As you know, current legislation making its way through the United States Congress would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

I am writing to urge your company to publicly pledge that you will not drill in ANWR.

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a gift of pristine wilderness, first set aside by U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower more than 40 years ago. We as global citizens have a responsibility to preserve it. ANWR is home to more than 150 wildlife species, including caribou, polar bears, musk oxen, and millions of migratory birds.

The international community will not stand idly by and allow this wilderness area to be defiled.

If your company decides to drill in ANWR, we will launch a boycott of your products, and the products of your subsidiaries. And I know that millions will join us.

I urge you to make a public pledge that you will not drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge -- or face a boycott of your products.
Thank you for your consideration of this critically important matter.

Sincerely,
(your name)

refreshment

2006-09-21T00:40:00.000+09:00

this was just the kinda day i needed. after a recent bout of homesickishness, it’s nice to be reminded of all the history, beauty and unexplored territory that surrounds me here. carrie and i had a monday off as we’d worked the weekend sports festivals at our respective schools. a friend came in from tokyo and we hit the road in search of cultural gems that we’d yet to uncover in our corner of the countryside.

first off to kasugayama, a nationally designated “important historic place” that’s past centers around Uesugi Kenshin, a powerful japanese warlord during the sengoku era, seen here immortalized in bronze. i thought his head looked way too small for his body. maybe he had a napolean complex that motivated him to be such a fierce and successful fighter…

at the base of the mountain sits rinsenji temple, where kenshin studied. it is purported to retain the appearance it had when he was alive…minus the tacky red flags i presume.

then we hiked towards the site of kasugayama castle. although ‘yama’ means mountain in japanese, we weren’t exactly prepared for the lengthy climb in skirts, flip flops and all. in some ways we were well rewarded for our efforts…

some fabulous lookouts that revealed joetsu to me in a whole new way. the view made me want to grab somebody for a romantic picnic and a hot make out session overlooking the city. unfortunately, nothing remains now of the castle itself. there are clearings, rock formations and scars in the land though that do attempt to tell the story of the place [with the help of some poorly translated, strategically situated signs]. some diversionary routes and canal like moats are easy to pick out of the natural landscape, but other aspects of the castle require a lot more imagination.
the castle was home to uesugi kenshin; born in 1530, he became lord of kasugayama at the age of 19. at that time, the area was called echigo and he managed to subdue or unite, depending on what you read, every part of what is now niigata prefecture and bring it under his control. he later became the chief of all the samurai in the kanto area (eastern japan). “having passed through an era of wars like a gale-force wind,” he died in 1578 at the age of 49.

then we traced the coast heading south through itoigawa and noh until we found an island i’d noticed a few times and had been meaning to explore.

as legend goes [if i can use that term loosely to mean rumors circulated among the foreigners], long ago a pair of famous lovers ended their relationship here and now any couple who crosses over to the island is doomed to part ways.

the views from the tip top of the huge rock were stunning.

the air was cool and fragrant and i was relaxed. it only took a moment to reassure me that my last 11 months in this place won’t just be tolerable, but necessary in the quest to continue collecting experiences like this.

ode to summer

2006-09-14T23:00:00.000+09:00

figured i should post these summer savories before they expire.
carrie and i are real proud of our uki wa. mine promptly deflated into a limp, useless pile of crap even before i could get to the ocean.

a bunch of peeps gathered in nagaoka for the annual summer matsuri featuring some spectacular fireworks. they have the prestige of being the longest running, or most expensive, or lengthiest display, or something or another in all of japan. all the ladies got decked out in yukata, which are cotton kimonos for hot weather.
[shot on my kodak disposable. makes you realize how spoiled we are with digital where you can check and see that your shots are complete dung and simply reshoot them.]

i was real sad to see the beer gardens crank closed their roofs for the last time. the $45 for 3 hours of all you can eat and drink deal is quite a warm weather staple.

you know your work party is fun when you find yourself stage diving at karaoke into the laps of all your hot, young male coworkers. bad girl. luckily the anything goes rule applies to all work parties and it really is like vegas in that what happens there stays there. [except when i tell the story about how i saw 2 middle-aged men stand up, drop their pants and drawers, and feign love making at another table's work party. hilarious example of the all-you-can guzzle deal urging people to act slightly out of character.]

carrie and i at naoetsu matsuri. this shot was taken by a real cute 5 year old who i figured couldn't break a plastic camera.

one adventure after another...

2006-09-11T12:48:00.000+09:00

so i've made it home safe and sound. i’m getting back into the work routine and, as i’m at a new school this semester, there’s plenty to figure out and keep me busy. making my lunch is not one of those things that will keep me busy however, as i’m now required to eat school cafeteria food. different from schools back home, a cart filled with pots, pans and dishes is delivered to each homeroom. the middle schoolers don aprons and face masks and make a chow line on a row of desks in front of the blackboard. they take turns serving each other, passing out utensils, handing out the milk bottles, etc. it’s really quite cute but they are so darn slow, by the time everyone has food and we sit down and say the obligatory ‘itadakimasu’ you have about 7 minutes to wolf everything down. this was my first school lunch experience…

mackerel, unidentifiable veggies and beansprout / almond salad. i was nervous for a minute there, but luckily they’ve improved since my first day and i find myself actually looking forward to the healthy, filling meal.

the alaska, canada, seattle trip was really amazing. it was a nice combination of scenery unlike anything i've laid eyes on before, much desired family time, adventure sports and quality socializing. there's definitely more to come about all that once i get my pics sorted. the trip was also a bit of a turning point for me...it’s the first time i’ve returned from anywhere in the last 2+ years and had such an unexcited feeling. alaska and canada were very much vacation destinations, but seattle was a town where people are living and working in a vibrant, exciting atmosphere. i wrote a friend saying it was just kind of a let down to come back to my apartment in the countryside, surrounded by rice paddies, after having briefly experienced a place where youthful culture, good bars, great beer, social awareness, art, live music, grit, friendly people and mexican restaurants are all around you. there is so much kinetic and potential energy there. reminds me of what i went in search of 2 years ago, after i got tired of the moods and minds i was surrounded by in south carolina. here in japan, i didn’t find a booming social dynamic, just a whole bunch of bizarre stuff that’s held my interest really well up until now. i think i'll soon be ready to head somewhere that i don't have to worry about social hierarchies and cultural traditions so much, a place where i can focus more on what i'm doing and less on the mechanics of how to go about making it happen. a place more geared towards the lifestyle i'd like to be living at this point in my life. this is, at the same time, an energizing and daunting feeling. i'm going to use it to get motivated for adventure. speaking of...

the week before i went to the states, hase and i took a couple days off and went to minakami in gunma prefecture. i was talking to a friend about rafting, got to poking around online, found a website about canyoning and wanted to try it out. after some research, we booked a pension for the night and a canyoning day trip with with sports [that's not a typo]. the rainbow pension was simple and no frills, but the included dinner and breakfast were home-cooked goodness and there was a large, communal shower/bath area that we were able to enjoy together. [during our soak there was about a 15-minute power outage. the mama of the pension came barrelling in with an industrial strength flashlight for us. busted!] turned out our trip was less about the rapelling and scrambling associated with canyoning and more akin to shower climbing. i was a bit disappointed until we got to the woods and got to slipping and sliding around. although it was august, we were outfitted in wetsuits, booties, climbing shoes, fleece jumpers, something like rain jackets, fleece gloves, helmets, lifejackets and specially designed plastic sheets for your butt that facilitate sliding. our first task, to get used to the water, was in a river leading up to a small dam. our guide said we would 'tobi oriru' from there. as i attempted to conjugate that word in my head [something about flying and getting off, as in off the train] he did an effortless back flip off the dam. hase and i, along with 4 other guys in our group, took turns jumping off the perhaps 20 ft. drop into churning water. how exhilarating. then we mountain hiked about 30 minutes, over some rickety, broken, scary bridges, before getting back into the water. the first leg was rather leisurely. lots of floating on your back, navigating to avoid rocks, spilling over small drops and enjoying whirlpools. there were also some good swinging vines. i got a leech somewhere along this route that had to be snatched off. fat and disgusting. the bite still hasn’t healed. is that normal? for the second leg, we crossed over to another river and that’s where the real adventure part came in. think white-water rafting minus the raft. there were strong currents that pushed you along paths carved out of rock by this river over the course of thousands of years. the water urged us over long drops and propelled us to slither like snakes through some rather narrow slides. at times i felt like a chip in the plinko game they used to play on the price is right. eventually we poured over a waterfall and found ourselves in a beautiful gorge with steep, sheer walls covered with mosses and vines. it was breathtaking. we stopped and snorkeled for a bit there. then the current picked up again and we were cascading over natural chutes and navigating our way out of strong whirlpools. we’d cling to branches and vines until everyone had made it over an obstacle before floating on. we came upon a towering waterfall that we attempted to stand under. i got a pretty decent back massage but those who ventured farther into the falling streams got the beat down and faceplanted. after crawling around behind the fall there was a huge flat rock we slid down to make our way back into the river. there was another great jump, probably about 30 ft, off of a waterfall near the end of the course. unfortunately a camera didn’t make the trip, but here are some photos i cobbled together off of the internet. they are all from the area in minakami where we went.

these i found on someone’s flicker account. thanks ryoki!

it was incredibly nice to be interacting and engaged in nature that way. the adventure was amazingly scenic and it increased my awareness of that local area and the natural world. the guides were knowledgeable and responsible about the environment which made me appreciate how ecologically sound the experience was. what a feel good trip.

the middle country, part one

2006-09-08T17:43:00.000+09:00

China…many things have come to symbolize this complicated nation and its ancient culture…pagodas, tea, kung fu, buddhism, mao zedong, tian’anmen square, feng shui, bird flu, one-child law, tai chi, red lanterns, peking duck, chopsticks, sweat shops, chinese silk, eggrolls, indecipherable language, cheap knock-offs, dragons, fried rice... The mention of this country conjures up images of a poor communist state with uniform-clad red army soldiers intimidating average citizens, a view reinforced by the strict visa processes and stories like “Chinese dissident writer gets 12 years in prison. Court finds Yang Tianshui guilty of subversion, though evidence kept secret" which was reported by the associated press. it brings to mind an enormous wall which was built in the 14th century to isolate the country from mongol and turkic tribes that is falsely reported to be visible from space. it's a dynamic place where you can experience one of the most incredible things about traveling…the chance to strip the fiction from the fact, separate the clichés from real culture, and the p.r. from the true plight. when you put yourself in a set of new circumstances, you give them the opportunity to defy your expectations. in a culture so radically different from our own, it does take some work to get over the ‘pier one effect’. the west has taken many ideas from the orient and shaped them for commercial viability and produced them for the masses. so when you see actual vibrant pagodas with ornate dragons and delicate gold leaf, it takes a moment to remember this isn’t touristy kitsch, but the inspiration for it…this isn’t a living room decoration sold at a pier one outlet, it’s a relic with deep and rich history. that's not to say i'm anti-internationalization or against the borrowing of ideas from other cultures…without japanese influences [miyabi’s, toyota, suzuki, sushi] in my american life, i doubt my interest in the east would’ve been so strongly piqued and i may not have ended up in the rewarding situation in which i find myself. [sidenote: i first used the term ‘pier one effect’ when i was in thailand where that impression came from walking through streets and temples where gaudiness and beauty are so intertwined and inextricable. it seemed that a pier one bomb had been dropped on bangkok, sprinkling porcelain fragments and mirrored discs over every vibrantly colored surface. you have to check yourself, consciously reminding yourself that the west borrowed these styles...of course, the chicken came before the egg.]

although we did see a group of starched-uniform, stoic military men eerily pedaling old bikes through the beijing streets, china proved to be very different from what i’d expected…in a good way.

shanghai is china’s number one contender for a world class city. it boasts an international feel, which is rare in china, thanks to its colonial history which has left abstract and concrete marks on the society. european architecture lines the Yangtze river, which is an ideal port that was taken advantage of by the british, french, americans and japanese. it’s also the largest industrial city in china so it draws workers from around the globe to its prosperous and growing commercial centers. the push to become modern has given shanghai a shot of international flavor that manifests in a variety of cuisines available in posh restaurants catering to the money-laden transplants and visitors, and infamous shopping streets lined with the biggest, most fashionable designer boutiques. luckily these settings aren’t the polished, sanitized versions of classy living; they are surrounded by the habitats of average citizens. i got the impression that, similar to the infamous discrepancy in wealth found between those in the cities and the countryside in china, there is a huge divide between the privileged and the lower class bracket in shanghai. i was most captivated by the everyday things that seemed so extraordinary from my perspective. roaming the streets, winding through neighborhoods was preferable to spending the day shopping on infamous nanjing road; buying dumplings and beer from a street stall was infinitely more interesting than lining up outside a classy restaurant boasting an english menu. all that being said, we did treat ourselves well on occasion. like the dinner at park 97, where the seared scallops in delicate pumpkin sauce were a perfect start and the big cabernet was a fabulous accompaniment to peppercorn encrusted australian prime rib. we paid, by chinese standards, an exorbitant 400 RMB each which worked out to about 50 bucks. although we were on somewhat of a budget, our currency was strong enough that we could enjoy eating nearly anywhere we pleased. like at this fabulous shanghai hotpot restaurant...

each person chooses a broth [i opted for hot curry that was full of chunky and leafy spices] and then you order heaping plates of meat, seafood and veggies to divy up between your pots. the scent was so intoxicating...

and the food was really, really good even though we had no idea how long to cook anything. and they had this amazing liquid buffet where you could engineer your own vat of dipping sauce.
most often though we snacked throughout the day on every delicious or intriguing fare we passed...
we had a really hard time getting any food in this place.

the staff was busy and not in the mood to deal with us. we thought we could order at the counter by pointing to other tables' food but were quickly brushed aside so they could help decipherable customers. not to be deterred, i gestured towards some interesting food and urged a bystander to write it's name down in chinese. after doing this a couple times, i took that paper to the register where they seemed amused and obliged. unfortunately the dumplings weren't as tasty as they had appeared. great action shot...yeah for gross gushes...

then off to squat in bamboo park for a bit.

this is the view from our hotel.

the $60 rooms were huge and well situated in town and manned by the friendliest, english speaking bell boys ever.

it was a couple minutes walk to loads of markets and bustling strips...

and around the corner from the hotel was old town nanshi, which was the first part of shanghai to be settled and the only part to never be overrun by foreigners. non-chinese rarely ventured into this walled enclave until recent years. there was great architecture here although a lot of it has been undoubtedly restored.

we did hit the posh shopping district...

but did more beer drinking and people watching than gucci and prada purchasing...

we spent a lot of our time in shanghai wandering through neighborhoods and tracing popular local pedestrian routes.

often times we found ourselves literally on strangers' front doorsteps. luckily no one seemed to mistake our curiosity for invasion of privacy.

he skinned these eels with unreal speed and precision honed through years of practice i'm sure.

we stumbled upon the trip's bronze medal winning meal in one of these such neighborhood alleyways. we got ripped off which unfortunately taints the experience. i was quite disheartened to watch every asian-looking customer pay half as much as we did moments later.

they tossed a bowl of rice at you and you got busy serving yourself from dozens of tubs laid out. my bowl of plants, curd and weeds was vegetarian heaven; a great mix of colors, textures and tastes.

i was a bit weary of the meat in china, not due to bird flu but because they aren't really partial to boneless, skinless, tendonless, organless cuts.

we discovered this amazing street that was truly overwhelming to the senses...

the sounds of clattering bikes and vendors hawking their wares...

the feel of bustling commerce...

the smells of sizzling dumplings and steaming buns...

i found myself paralyzed in the middle of the street, looking as toursits do when all that they're taking in lags behind their cerebral processing. i'm sure i turned in circles, mouth agape, for quite sometime. then i stuffed that gaping mouth full of delicious treats...

too bad we were full of dumplings...

a charming temple we happened upon...

during our first stint in shanghai we squeezed in a kung fu theater performance too.
stay tuned...in the next addition, we're off to beijing...

tricky business

2006-09-07T17:20:00.000+09:00

today we were practicing for this weekend's sports festival on the school's grounds, which is nothing but a hard dirt lot peppered with tons of stray grass. there are 5 teams, 5 colors, comprised of about 900 hands. the school decided to show the kids what they're good for and put them to work with this ~~scheme~~ competition...which ever team can pull the most weeds from the field and pile them next to the cone corresponding to their team color wins...uh, wins a huge pile of weeds that they then have to bag and haul away. yeah! joking aside, the students in japan are the main caretakers of the school building and grounds. there's time set aside each day for cleaning and during seasonal holidays they use whole days to beautify their schools. i think it gives them a sense of pride and ownership unlike what we're used to in the west, where helping clean up the school is punishment doled out to chronic gum chewers and class cutters.

after all this packin' and movin' and work stress i think i need a vacation

2006-08-17T14:52:00.000+09:00

and as luck would have it, i've got one coming right up. it was actually scheduled before i knew this would be a great time for a getaway and it actually caused a bit of friction when i was looking for a new job. 'yes, i'd love to work at your junior high school. is it ok if i miss the first 2 weeks of classes?'
i'm meeting my grandma and 2 aunts in seattle on the 26th [jeezus, that's next week!!] where we'll board a boat bound for canada and alaska.

the time aboard the ship will be used for relaxing and catching up and the time in port will be filled with once in a lifetime adventures. on the agenda: whale watching, helicopter exploration of a glacier, dog sledding [mush! mush!], lots of fresh alaskan salmon, rock climbing and rapelling, a lumberjack competition, a wildlife expedition, a rainforest ropes course...
living in japan has afforded me many chances to explore asia, but this will be the first time in years i will have visited somewhere that i can read menus and signs and use english to communicate. what a bizarre thought. what a promising adventure!

seemingly back from the dead...

2006-08-15T14:36:00.000+09:00

My attention and time have been splintered into a thousand pieces lately, which explains the lack of updates. Fortunately there’s not a lack of news to report. I am now ex-staff of the 3 high schools where I began my teaching career. There were goodbye parties, bouquets of flowers, speeches in front of the student body, farewells at faculty meetings, thank you presents [a rockin high school baseball jersey from yoshikawa, a Japanese yukata, or summer kimono, from naoetsu h.s. and an elegant crystal set for serving cold sake from the minamishiro teachers], a few stifled tears, tons of picture taking, really cute notes and gifts from some of the kids and tons of heartfelt conversation. I was truly moved by some of the teachers’ and students’ efforts to communicate their thoughts to me as I prepared to change schools. I was also a bit saddened by the fact it took lots of the folks two years to muster the courage to pick my brain about things that they were undoubtedly curious about for quite some time. Guess the last minute is always a good motivator. This was obvious when I arrived at tsukasa sushi bar’s private room for minamishiro’s farewell party. I expected an intimate group comprised of the 4 English teachers, but was met by 20 staff members, of whom 5 I considered real friends. i thought my sayonara party had been combined with some other event; i couldn’t believe it and neither could the teacher who organized the evening. They applauded me wildly and flattered me all night long. I talked more with some of the faculty during that night than I did during all of my days at the school combined. a special assembly was thrown at yoshikawa high school where i made my emotional goodbye speech [yes, all in japanese. yes, in front of all the students and staff. no, i didn't throw up. i was surprised too], then i was presented with the most gorgeous, huge bouquet and two envelopes containing money from the student council and teachers’ funds. one of my favorite students, masamichi kun, also gave a speech at the assembly about my lessons and my attitude which he complimented. i was really moved. then the students made two lines, similar to that dance line-up they used to do on soul train, and i took my last walk through the kids to booming ceremonial music. the farewell party later that week was tons of fun, but the same ‘must get up the nerve to talk with tiffany cause it’s my last chance’ rule applied. the naoetsu high school english teachers gathered for an 8-course meal with lots of table wine at a local Italian eatery. the students and atmosphere at that school i will really miss.
i’m now employed with joetsu city board of education and i’m stationed at naoetsu higashi chugakkou, a junior high school on the west side of town where the students have a less than fabulous reputation due in part to their discipline records.
along with my new job came a new apartment on the opposite side of town. i was real sad to leave the (closest thing we’ve got to bustling) downtown area but am happy to have a bit larger place where i can properly entertain. it’s kyouinjyutaku, or teachers’ housing, which means it’s cheap but old and uncared for. some friends from minamishiro, my old school, helped me move and when we pulled into the parking lot they were all stunned by how ancient and unsafe the building looks. “ha, ha. it’s halloween everyday at tiffany’s house.” “if you think you even start to feel an earthquake, run as far as you can as fast as you can.” "you live in a haunted mansion [which is english the japanese have adopted incorrectly and use to mean apartment building]." it doesn't always appear frightening...especially in silhoutte.

in actuality, it’s not that bad. i live on the first floor of one of the towers, which is nice when you have lots of groceries but kind of a pain when you wanna walk around naked. around me are 8 other foreign teachers. on the far end are some Japanese teachers that i haven’t met yet. my apartment has 4 rooms, separated by sliding paper doors [now yellowed and peppered with holes from past wear] which give you the freedom to arrange the walls pretty much any way you want. there are traditional paper shutters covering the windows too but unfortunately they have been maintained about as well as the exterior of the place. the flooring is mostly tatami mats, but in the living area, where the mats have been covered by a huge rug for years now, the woven flooring is a bit rotten, which means i’ll have to stick with the carpeting. for those of you who haven't had/will never get the chance to visit, here's a brief tour...
the jungle room

from the pic you can't feel the wilderness and smell the woods like you can when you're actually here [or maybe that's musty tatami and molding wood...]. complete with tons of real jungle relics from papua new guinea. elvis would be proud.

the living room

done in a red and black motif that reminds me of the bedroom i had during my high school days. don't mind all those bags in the corner full of souvenirs that i'm trying to figure out how to carry home later this month.

a proper bathroom

now i don't feel like i'm in an airplane when i shower. it's an older, slightly stained version of the bathroom found in every normal japanese household. i've got a feeling this shower room might ruin me. did you know that japanese people always shower before getting in the tub? no soap's allowed while you soak. and since you're clean when you get in, many times the whole fam will use the same bath water.

the outdated [notice the green linoleum. didn't grandma zillie used to have something like that in her kitchen?] but spacious kitchen

it has a tiny broiler [which i've used every day since moving in. no lie.] under two, count ‘em 2, gas burners. it’s telling to find out what you truly miss when your surroundings change. for me, it was a functional kitchen. please note: i'm not a trash hoarder, it's just that disposing of anything here is a tricky business requiring no less than 6 trash cans for separating paper from cardboard, plastic wrap from plastic bottles, cans, glass, burnable from non-burnable. once you've got it sorted, you have to bide your time until it's a first or third saturday or a second or fourth tuesday, depending on your waste. i abhorred this part-time job at first, but it really does make sense considering the size of this country and the environmental problems plaguing the world. the poster on the wall is an illustrated trash explanation that even foreigners can figure out, theoretically.
i'm lookin at the bright side...i'm saving $130/month in rent, i’ve got a heated toilet, my own washing machine, surround sound, a parking space and a roof with a pretty amazing view [where saturday night we had the first rooftop cookout since i became a tenant]. my building is also nicely situated; a 5-minute drive from the beach, 10 by bike, only 2 min. to the highway which leads straight to hase's house and a 7-minute bike ride to the train station. it's been boiling lately so this close proximity to the beach thing has suited me nicely...

apparently everyone else has had the same idea.

look at those wrinkles around my eyes...see how much it looks like i've aged since my last post...that should give you some idea of how stressed i was for a while there.

you've gotta love how even though this rowdy rude boy is russian, they liken his outburst to an american pastime...

2006-07-18T15:00:00.000+09:00

Guy confuses sumo with American TV wrestling

By Alastair Himmer
Mon Jul 17, 9:02 AM ET

TOKYO (Reuters) - Russian sumo wrestler Roho became the latest foreign import to land himself in trouble after smashing a window and hitting two photographers in a fit of pique.

The wrestler was given an unprecedented three-day ban from Japan's ancient sport Sunday for throwing a tantrum after a defeat the previous day.

Sunday's newspapers carried pictures of Roho in various stages of combustion after he lost his temper in Nagoya on Saturday.

Roho, nicknamed the "Russian bear," chased opponent Chiyotaikai into a bathroom after an explosive bout where both men broke several of sumo's strict rules of engagement.

After exchanging angry words with Chiyotaikai following his loss, Roho punched through a window of a bathroom door, showering his conqueror with broken glass.

Roho, whose real name is Boradzov Soslan Feliksovich, then slapped two photographers just moments after being reprimanded by sumo officials.

One of the photographers was taken to hospital suffering bruises to his face.

UNWANTED FIRST

Roho's outburst was condemned by Japan Sumo Association officials and earned him the indignity of becoming the first wrestler to be banned for violent conduct outside the ring.

"I shouldn't have lost control of my emotions like that," a contrite Roho said. "It was a bad thing I did. I'm very sorry for what I did."

Saturday's incident was reminiscent of the infamous 'battle of the bathtub' involving firebrand Mongolian Asashoryu in 2003.

Grand champion Asashoryu squared off with another towel-clad Mongolian as tempers flared during a post-bout soak at the Nagoya tournament three years ago.

Asashoryu, who became the first Mongolian to reach sumo's elite rank of "yokozuna" in January 2003, has broken several sumo taboos during his meteoric rise to the top.

He has been disqualified for pulling an opponent's hair, criticized for complaining to judges after losing a decision and accused of breaking the mirror of a rival's car.

Professional sumo has some 60 foreign-born wrestlers plying their trade in Japan, ranging from South Koreans to Brazilians with many more from Eastern Europe.

i’ve recently been inspired…

2006-07-10T15:25:00.000+09:00

not by my new camera [which is just taking mediocre shots. i’m hoping it’s a settings and operator error issue. i’m giving it a week to act right or else], but by the glorious food i’ve seen on friends’ and strangers’ blogs. there are so many mouth-watering ideas that i just can’t accomplish here because i can’t get my grubby paws on ricotta and other good cheeses, cilantro, chipotle peppers, tomatillos, sundried tomatoes, bbq sauce, real bacon and sausage, deli meats, etc. plus i’m oven and grill-less in my one, electric burner kitchen that looks like something out of a low-end camper instead of the home of someone who enjoys food. don’t get me wrong, i make do. recently i cooked up a fab dinner for myself and i thought passing along the recipe would only be fair, since i’ve borrowed so many from other people’s blogs recently.

i marinated shrimp in balsamic and spices before rolling them, and fresh rosemary sprigs, in what they pass off as bacon here. these would’ve screamed ‘delish!’ on the grill, but they only hummed ‘pretty darn good!’ as i was confined to pan frying. the bronze medal went to fried potato cakes. i finely mashed potatoes, added fresh scallions, some mixed white cheeses, ground black pepper and garlic, and an egg. refrigerated for a bit and they formed good pancakes that crusted up nicely in just a couple of minutes. the star of the evening was this italian caponata that jamie oliver taught me [well, not personally or anything].

eggplants in japan are really about the size of eggs, so i used 6; you’ll probably only need 1 or 2. i was pleased to find capers although i couldn’t get my hands on any green olives for the occasion so here’s the slightly amended recipe i went with.

olive oil

eggplant cut into large chunks [as eggplants soak up oil like sponges, don’t cut the pieces too small or they’ll be heavy and greasy, or so i read]

freshly ground black pepper

½ medium size onion, chopped

oregano and parsley [all i could find was dried]

fresh chopped basil

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and pressed

about 2 tbsp capers, rinsed

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

a large tomato, roughly chopped

grab a large frying pan, pour in a couple tbsp of olive oil, and heat it up to about medium high. Add eggplants and toss around a bit so they’re evenly coated with oil. season with oregano, pepper and parsley. cook for about 5 minutes, giving the eggplants a twirl every now and then. when they are golden on each side, add the onion and garlic and cook for a few more minutes. although i’m high-fat-phobic, i followed jamie’s advice and added a little more oil here to keep it moist. then throw in capers and drizzle with the vinegar. after a minute or so, when the vinegar has evaporated a bit, add the tomatoes and simmer for about 10 minutes. i did a taste test from the pan and decided it needed a bit more pepper and a pinch of salt. sprinkle with fresh chopped basil. scrumptious. i’m betting this would also rock as a bruschetta topping. go on, give it a whirl. then post a tasty treat on your site that i can try.

so i’ve decided to hug this tree for a minute…

2006-07-05T20:27:00.000+09:00

i first became concerned about this at the fuji rock festival last july, although it took another year for me to make a real stand.

disposable chopsticks, given away to patrons by the millions each day in convenience stores, grocery stores and restaurants, are a real national problem.
when i moved into my apartment, i inherited a junk drawer packed full of the utensils cobbled together from various venues, according to their yellowed wrappers. you can buy them at the 100 yen store for 1 yen a pair. in a country that mandates recycling and is so anal about the exact sorting of garbage, how can they so carelessly throw away more than 25 billion pairs of wooden chopsticks a year?

the answer’s multi-fold according to everything i’ve read and been told over the course of my very serious and scientific exploration of this topic. a time magazine article called japan’s addiction to disposable chopsticks “the ultimate indication of its success…. The use of disposable chopsticks surged in the late 1970s and through the 1980s. They were a symbol of national growth that meant people were eating out more frequently, and of a culture that was wealthy enough to pander to an obsession with hygiene.”

After becoming preoccupied with this so obviously wasteful habit, i began asking around and found that hygiene tops many people’s list of excuses for using wooden chopsticks, or waribashi in japanese. at a friend’s sushi bar, during a discussion of this matter, he emerged from the kitchen with 3 beautiful, lacquered chopsticks and explained to me that one was from his mother’s pair, one was from his father’s pair and the last was his. even in family homes, they never use chopsticks that have touched someone else’s mouth. i laughed out loud to think how many japanese guests i’ve had in my home, and each time, their place was set with whatever pair of chopsticks happened to be clean at the moment. they were probably horrified but remained silent about their misgivings, as that is typically the japanese way to approach a problem in which someone runs the risk of being embarrassed or losing face. at hase’s ramen shop i always disdainfully eye the hundreds of pairs of disposable chopsticks standing in metal tubs that dot the counter. he’s a shrewd business man, so i tend to believe his insights and intuitions about all things financial. he promises that he would lose a significant amount of business if he quit providing the throwaway sticks. according to time magazine, “marché, a chain of more than 760 izakaya japanese restaurants in the osaka area, has switched to plastic chopsticks, which are washed and reused in all its branches. A spokesman said that in recent weeks the company had been flooded with requests from restaurants, convenience stores and makers of bento lunchboxes asking to know what customers’ reaction had been.”

this omnipresent hygiene argument buckles under examination though. at hase’s shop, right next to the waribashi, are baskets of plastic spoons used to ladle the ramen broth into one’s mouth. the irony isn't lost on my japanese friends; they readily admit it makes no sense that these utensils are considered washable and reusable, but plastic chopsticks aren’t. “There are going to be people who object even when they know the chopsticks have been washed properly,” a spokesman for kokusai kako, a japanese company that makes plastic chopsticks said. “It’s a sort of mental problem.” the same friends also confess that if a restaurant didn’t offer disposable chopsticks, they’d bring their own before they’d touch a pair of sticks that had touched someone else's lips. that sounds like a cue to restaurant owners and food providers if you ask me.
another explanation proffered up is cost. they are simply so cheap that it’s not fiscally responsible to invest in reusable pairs. friends have told me that commercially they can buy waribashi for as cheap as 2 pairs for 1 yen. unfortunately, at this price, it’s also not fiscally responsible to recycle the used wooden sticks. throwing away the chopsticks also means employers aren’t paying wages to employees for time spent washing the utensils.
93% of disposable chopsticks used in this country are imported from china. environmental concerns of deforestation have lead the chinese government to increase taxes on disposable chopsticks and it looks like more export tax hikes are on the way. according to time magazine, beijing is reportedly considering an end to all chopstick exports in 2008. now all sorts of alternatives to the white birch chopsticks are being entertained. importing from other countries, such as vietnam, is no where near as cheap, which is the same problem posed by purchasing disposable sticks made in japan. chopsticks made of bamboo and recycled paper are now being studied for their feasibility. if that doesn’t pan out, i guess we could just all make art and furniture out of ‘em.

click the pic to find out more about the waribashi project in san fran.

i used this topic to spark discussion in a recent adult english class and i couldn’t believe how nicely the debate heated up. one student suggested that handsome, decorative chopsticks might make patrons more likely to go along with reusing them. this idea was quickly struck down when the rest of the class agreed that sleek, lacquered beauties instead of beat-up, cheap plastic ones still wouldn't convince them to reuse the sticks. plus the cost of fancy chopsticks dictates most restaurants wouldn’t provide ‘em. one viable suggestion was offering a few yen discount to patrons who choose to bring their own utensils or refuse them at convenience stores, similar to the plastic grocery bag scheme in some countries. the idea of charging a few more yen if someone asks for disposable chopsticks was rejected outright based on the belief any hike in prices would drive customers away. there weren’t any real good suggestions offered on how to go about changing the mindset that anchors this problem into japanese society. hase thinks a campaign by the government would be the best way to push this issue into the public’s agenda and open widespread debate on a solution. the awareness it would spark would also temper reactions to establishments that do the right thing and convert to reusable chopsticks. i’ve actually been embarking on a p.r. campaign of my own recently…
i’ve taken to carrying my own plastic pair of chopsticks in a little case in my bag and i proceed to explain to every student, grandpa and person who gives me a funny look why. surprisingly, they all commend me and say it’s a good idea although they chuckle at the idea of doing it themselves. my washable chopsticks set me back a whopping 100 yen and have already spared hundreds of disposable chopsticks that were undoubtedly wasted on someone else.

this was our 'let's get drunk and be loud and obnoxious cause americans have the freedom to get away with that' 4th of july trip to the beer garden. as you can see by the lack of peeps in the background, no one else in japan really celebrates america's independence. please notice hase's environmentally unfriendly chopsticks and the cute blue case on the table for the plastic ones resting on my plate.

at a recent party, a friend eyed my aqua colored utensils and asked ‘what’s that blue shit?’ hase misunderstood and thought she asked, ‘what’s that bullshit?’ so now that’s how my carry-along chopsticks are affectionately known. “nah, tiffany doesn’t need any, she brought her own bullshit.” no matter how you refer to the handy, reusable utensils, you’ve gotta admit, bringing your own is a good idea.

i’ve been really remiss by not sharing this with you before.

2006-07-04T14:24:00.000+09:00

mr. and mrs. pants, aka logan and rachel, are friends from way back in my college days [just had a birthday so i’m feeling exceptionally old right this minute] who are now married and collaborate on one of my favorite blogs. there are snippits of this and that, peppered with tons of interesting links, although they’re really after my heart with their food rants. they’ve got a fab camera and they aren’t afraid to use it to photograph all sorts of mouth-watering inspirations and creations. they’re also funny, skilled writers who always use ‘an’ in front of words that start with an ‘h’, just like you’re supposed too. you would be wise to give it a look.
Boots in the Oven

some recent memorable times...

2006-06-30T13:39:00.000+09:00

the photo quality can be explained...i'm digi-less right now so these were shot on a kodak disposable. ha, ha...
hase and i took a day trip to naena taki [taki means waterfall] on the border between niigata and nagano prefectures.

liz and i went on a shopping spree in downtown nagano. why is it when you're in fast money giveaway shopping mode you can never find anything to buy?!

liz, hase and i at nick's bar for the japan v. australia world cup game.

the girls at yakitori [grilled chicken on a stick], with one of joetsu's rare tourists, mike from columbia.

the night before carrie took off for the states we hit our favorite sushi bar.

after she returned we had an all you can drink dinner with a heaping side of great conversation.

look! it's us with our favorite bartender, kiichi, at our fave dance club.

we were spotted next at nihon kai, the sea of japan shore, for the first seaside dance party of the year.

notice how a lot of these pics are lookin' similar. i really should get somebody else to take some shots...there's only so much you can do at one arm's length from the camera.

leave it to the japanese...

2006-06-26T16:59:00.000+09:00

THE SAUCE DISPENSING CHOPSTICKS

With these sauce dispensing chopsticks you’ll never have to dip your sushi in soy sauce again For $21, you can purchsae two pairs of these chopsticks — made from polypropylene and ABS.

EAR WAX CAMERA / CLEANER

This device sports a camera/light at one end and a viewer at the other end — allowing users to see built-up ear wax. It’s powered by a single 9V battery and is made from anti-bacterial ASB resin/glass/stainless steel.

THE HEAD BATH CAP

If you’ve been waiting for a cap that gives your head/hair a good bath than the solution is here. Presenting the “Head Bath” cap, just place it over your head and let water start running into it. This gadget not only looks funny, but supposedly “helps your hair grow faster and fuller” by penetrating the pores in your scalp with the trapped water.

kanazawa part 1

2006-06-22T13:07:00.000+09:00

recently i played a little hookey, hase closed down the ramen shop and we headed to kanazawa, a town in ishikawa prefecture famous for its castles, temples and gardens.

the city, referred to affectionately as little kyoto, is about 3 hours away.

historically kanazawa enjoyed quite a bit of power and wealth thanks to its buddhist roots; as the religion’s importance grew, so did the city. and because it’s been untouched by war or strife since 1583, much of the historical charm remains.

we stopped for green tea and some warm senbei fresh off the grill soon after we arrived.

as i’m currently obsessed with these snacks, i feel the need for a side bar here....
_____________________________________________________________________________________

yummy senbei!

senbei is a generic term for a japanese rice cracker, which were traditionally large, round and savory treats made from rice.

today they’re made from varying flours and can be found in all sorts of shapes, textures and sizes. according to some website, this is the flour to stomach process:

How senbei are made:

Rice flour is mixed with hot water and kneaded.
The dough is rolled into balls and then steamed.
The dough is kneaded once more and rolled into large coils.
At this point, any integrated flavorings (like nori or sesame seeds) are added (but not soy sauce, which is added at the very end).
The flavored dough is rolled out into thin sheets and then cut into shapes, traditionally circular.
The cut dough is then laid out on straw mats to dry in the sun.
The final step is grilling the crackers and then seasoning them with a soy sauce and mirin blend, which is brushed on.

the methods of preparation have also expanded to include not only the traditional grilling but frying. the grilled treats are quite tasty despite being really healthy. they are commonly flavored with soy sauce, sesame seeds, nori and konbu [types of seaweed] or shrimp. you can also find more adventurous crackers made with kimchi, chocolate, cheese, peanuts and vegetables. you can purchase beautifully wrapped senbei in gift sets, find em on the grill at every special event and festival, smell them cooking outside of temples or buy them at the nearest convenience store. specialty senbei stores are full of eye and belly candy.

on this day i chose one coated in shiso, also known as perilla. not the green leaves used to wrap slices of sashimi…

but the red one used to make umeboshi, the sour pickled plums.

it was tangy and delish.
_____________________________________________________________________________________

alright…back to our kanazawa adventure which started off at kenrokuen, a park heralded as one of the 3 most exquisite in japan [according to who, i’m not sure] because it possesses the six attributes that a garden should have according to some ancient chinese theory: spaciousness, seclusion, human ingenuity, antiquity, water and panoramic views. no wonder it’s so beautiful…there’s an army of grandmas fiercely tending to it.

there were beautiful ponds, tea houses and unbelievable trees whose graceful branches stretched into huge canopies. the supports prevent the limbs from collapsing under the weight of the winter’s snow.

kanazawa castle is across the way from the park, or what’s left of it anyway. the guidebook said it was burnt down so many times that the locals got tired of rebuilding it.
then it was on to nagamachi district, an area that used to be home to samurais and many of the original buildings still stand behind tall, earthen walls. now they are just inhabited by private citizens. i know this because as i wandered around in courtyards hase read the posted signs to me: private property, keep out.

i’ve never taken a war tactics class or anything but, it doesn’t really seem so smart for all the samurais to live in the same neighborhood if you ask me.
we went inside one of the elegant samurai homes that used to belong to the Nomuras, who were a high ranked samurai family that, like many others, went broke when Japan's feudal era came to an end with the Meiji Period. it had a small but fabulous garden...

and an interesting collection of old money and samurai weapons...

hase and i decided we're moving into that house next year.

later we checked into the hotel and readied for the night out. i’ll spare you all the details of our private hotel time. we dined at a kushiya decked out in kitschy japanese 1950’s stuff. yellowed movie posters lined the walls, cheesy toys dotted shelves, a chunky, squatty television set played old Japanese sitcoms. surprisingly, a lot of the décor was also reminiscent of American 1950’s style. wonder how much of that could be a function of post-war influence. a kushiya is a place that serves food on a stick and this place had it all; literally hundreds of items, delicious in their simplicity, listed on wooden planks hanging over the counter and on the walls.

the meal started with a heap of raw cabbage and sweet/spicy miso paste for dipping. we tried it all, fried, grilled, raw… some highlights were the chunks of cheese wrapped in bacon and grilled till gooey, deep fried pork cutlets, vegetable croquettes, and huge, whole shrimp with great crusty breading. there was a tub of brown sauce on the table adorned with a sign that i couldn’t make out. good thing hase was there… he explained that it says no double dipping cause the vat’s for everyone’s use all night long. that spurned a great conversation about seinfeld.

you can’t see it so well, but in the bottom right corner was a crunchy fried scorpion i wolfed down. ya know i had to try it. then we were off for drinks at a swanky bar with great jazz and some darts before retiring.

i don't care what your friends say...drowned rat hairstyles are not cool

2006-06-15T17:23:00.000+09:00

so the rainy season is officially upon us. as i walked to my car this morning, i battled the serious gale force winds and rain that seemed to come from every direction. i chose my strongest [i.e. not from the 100 yen store], pinkest umbrella but it was no match for the job as one gust turned it into a taco wrapped around my head and the next pulled it into an upswept toilet plunger shape. useless. we managed to squeeze in one beach party before mother nature unleashed her wrath. [these pics must all be credited to liz, as i have no frickin’ camera.]
liz, carrie and i caught some afternoon sun and drank a few beers before the party got started.

then some of the locals fired up the grill and busted out the fixins for the bbq part of the program.

at least 50 people turned out for the bash.

did i mention i’m dating a munchkin?

we played a while…

loved a little…

and then moved it across the street to nagisa bar, a fabulous 2 story open-air bungalow, where we played ping pong and danced the night away, literally.
and it looks like there's no beach blanket bingo in my future... sniffle, sniffle.

Today
Jun 15
PM Rain
72°/66° 90%

Fri
Jun 16
Rain
72°/66° 100%

Sat
Jun 17
Showers
74°/66° 60%

Sun
Jun 18
Showers
72°/64° 60%

Mon
Jun 19
Showers
76°/63° 60%

Tue
Jun 20
Scattered Showers
76°/63° 30%

Wed
Jun 21
Scattered T-Storms
76°/66° 40%

Thu
Jun 22
Scattered T-Storms
76°/66° 60%

Fri
Jun 23
Scattered T-Storms
75°/66° 60%

Sat
Jun 24
Showers
74°/66° 60%

2006-06-14T17:30:00.000+09:00

i’ve gotten a couple of mails recently blasting me for the lack of pics gracing my blog. well, my equipment went kaput en route to the great wall of china and i’m currently waiting not-so-patiently for the new gadget to arrive. since i can’t use it to take a picture of itself, i’ll post this one from the internet-o. what a beaute.

so that explains why i’ve got nothing from china up yet. the shots i did take pre-camera screw up are stuck on that lump of worthless metal. i’ll use the new camera to read the memory card and then we’ll be in business with a china vacation rundown.

as for pics from my vacation back home last christmas…i’m a horrible person; that’s my lousy excuse. i’m gonna get right on that. right after i finish with my night school classes. right.

i'm gonna weigh 250 pounds soon...

2006-06-05T13:16:00.000+09:00

i thought i should temper my last gastronomical rant with a less refined, heapin’ helpin’ of greasy goodness…
liz and i almost burst our ear drums with all the high-pitched squeals we emitted in my car the other day. we feared the one and only joetsu city KFC was going out of business because it currently looks like a demolition zone. not sure why i was so concerned considering i’ve eaten there once in 2 years, but that’s neither here nor there. well, they’ve put some signs out front to keep the locals informed and, guess what!!!?!?, it’s morphing into a KFC and Pizza Hut combination!! oh double cheese dreams and lots of pepperonis and black olives and pan crust and chicken filet sandwich/personal pan pizza combo meals! my obsession with cheese dictates that i love pizza and the only current pizzeria that delivers, strawberry cones [leave it to the japanese to name a pizza parlor after ice cream], offers little reprieve from corn, mayo, cod roe, wiener and squid infested pies. we are so hard up for real pizza, in an act of desperation, we patronized pizza huts in thailand and china. YEAH for pizza hut!!! i’m glad something knocked some sense into the pepsi co. stuffed shirts who had overlooked the bustling metropolis of joetsu, niigata as a perfect home for a franchise. next up, chick-fil-a!!…or wait, maybe taco bell!!..oh no, we really need a subway!! yes, cold cuts!! that just sounds pitiful doesn’t it?!

sometimes drunks are funny...

2006-06-02T17:04:00.000+09:00

sometimes they're not. found this on carrie's computer recently. what a perfect moment she captured. looks like somebody wasn't enjoying the conversation...

hey good lookin', whatcha got cookin'...

2006-06-01T23:02:00.000+09:00

i’ve always been an entertainer. i’m not talking bedazzled dresses and stage shows, although with all the recent karaoke practice i’ve been getting, that could be a possibility [minus the rhinestone part].

i’m talking about getting people together and creating an environment that facilitates socializing. breaking out the hard cheeses and big red wines, downloading mariachi music as a backdrop to the all-out mexican fiesta. eating is a very sensory experience, smelling the ingredients meld together, watching the chef work in their space, listening to the sizzles, grabbing tasty bits before it’s actually time and of course savoring the product on your palette. be it pre-dinner hors d’oeuvres, post-restaurant dessert or all-night party fare, in the past i’ve preferred to be thematic in my approach. adopting a theme points the food in a certain, exciting direction and also provides an opportunity to practice some of those less-often prepared specialties; like stuffed grape leaves, or kafir lime and coconut curries which aren’t american mealtime staples. this thematic method is just how my brain works, it’s part of the reason i was good at organizing essays in english class and why i was decent at producing radio shows centered around a weekly topic. but recently i’ve noticed many of my brain’s systems are stretching in new directions, allowing new avenues to conflict resolution and new approaches to problem solving. i’ve also noticed my approach to gastronomy broadening thanks, at least in part, to the japanese izakaya. these restaurants, traditionally marked by red lanterns around the door, ply all sorts of sake and food on customers ranging from grandmas to salarymen to high school students.

usually the patrons sit on tatami mats around low coffee-style tables.

after all that sake, when things get a little nuts, it's probably good to be close to the floor.

and on the menu is a dizzying hodge podge of traditional japanese foods and fusion specialties that are often rotated, sometimes nightly or to reflect the seasons. although the servings are larger than what you’d expect at a spanish tapas bar, they are smaller than a meal and that means you order lots of dishes to share which encourages the social ambiance of these restaurants. and oh the dishes…beautiful ceramic wares in all shapes and sizes, accented with bamboo woven mats and delicate serving chopsticks. part of the enjoyment of cooking and entertaining for me has long been in the presentation, which recently has manifested in me buying tons of dishes. although i do own some round plates, i rarely use them, favoring the squares, rectangles and crescents that add flair to food i’ve taken pains to prepare. it’s rare eating establishments back home create such an environment with their atmosphere, menus and way of doing business. [here i wanna give a shout out to gervais and vine in columbia which has a changing but reliably delicious menu served in a communal, social style. the establishment takes good food seriously but themselves, not too much so, which kept me going back again and again.] i was also pondering the american bar food phenomenon as it compares to the japanese izakaya. they do offer a range of foods, like chicken wings and nachos, which share little in common other than their place on menus in sports bars. however the cuisine in these places is usually limited to deep-fried greasy goodness, sometimes lopped on top of lettuce, served with a side of celery sticks or sandwiched in a bun. the lack of breadth of food preparation and seasonal choices in american bars scores another point for the izakaya. this whole food rant was spawned by my dinner tuesday night. hase was coming into town and i’d agreed to cook. [gastronomically we pair well together, as we both love to create and devour good food. he owns a ramen noodle restaurant where i eat the chef’s special on the house every time i show my face. i enjoy cooking and experimenting and he loves to eat all the not-traditional-japanese oddities i come up with. anyone can feel like emeril in a place like this, where a homemade grilled ham and cheese sandwich is greeted with unheard of enthusiasm.] so i’m on my way to the grocery store after work and can’t decide what the hell i’m craving for dinner. i took a deep breath and decided i’d just cater to all my varied whims instead of trying to craft the perfect set of dishes. as i set plates on the table, hase didn’t think anything was odd about the this-and-that smorgasbord. on the menu: a take on a german recipe for sautéed onions and cabbage with sausages [hase loves the links and has kinda turned me on to the scary meat. the ‘most interesting recent wieners’ award goes to the completely black ika sumi, or squid ink, sausages at a restaurant in kasiwazaki.] also, a recipe i tried out on liz of fresh tuna sashimi, cubed and tossed with avocado chunks, light soy sauce, sesame oil and seeds garnished with spicy radish sprouts and served with toast points. my mexican food addiction was apparent in the taco rice, a blend of tomatoes, beans, corn, salsa, cheddar, rice and spices. [he thought this dish was really intriguing, saying that japanese people would never put all these flavors with rice in that way. although there is taco rice to be found in this country, most notably in okinawa, it has a decidedly unauthentic taste. and i’m obviously the authority on official mexican food being that my name's pedro and i'm hispanic and all…] then there was a garden salad comprised of 7 lettuces and herbs [i’ve started frequenting a new grocery that has an impressive mix of hydroponic greens which makes all the difference in a fabulous salad], carrots, button mushrooms [a rarity here], black olives [which my friend has seldom eaten], croutons and a cheesy, fresh parmesan dressing. [i wish i had some photos that i would proudly insert here, but unfotunately my camera gave up in china. ]cooking in such an attention deficit disorder manner just isn’t practical for one, especially when that one’s kitchen is only equipped with one slow electric burner. the lack of facilities definitely limits meal possibilities, but makes preparation a complicated and interesting puzzle. having a guest who loves to eat was a perfect reason for me to try out a myriad of recipe ideas i’ve been rolling around in my head. it was made even more fun by his genuine interest in every spice, method and ingredient that had been transformed into dinner. it was food we were able to chat over. and although there were leftovers, none of them were lingering on anyone in particular’s plate meaning there was no pressure. learning new ideas is always pleasurable, especially when they revolve around something that is so necessary for our survival and happiness. you know, i’m really starting to give some thought to the old adage ‘the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.’

i got this email today...

2006-05-24T23:16:00.000+09:00

The U.S. Embassy has learned of a possible threat against American
facilities in Japan, the credibility of which has yet to be determined.
Given the upcoming Memorial Day holiday, we advise American citizens to
exercise caution and report any suspicious activities to authorities.
The American Embassy in Tokyo
American Citizen Services
1-10-5 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-8420
Tel: 03-3224-5000
Fax: 03-3224-5856
http://japan.usembassy.gov/acs/

what...in lil' ole joetsu, niigata? i feel pretty safe here. bet that's what the folks in nagasaki thought too.

speaking of...did you know that niigata city made the short list of targets for the atomic bomb attacks? Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata and Nagasaki (in that order of preference) were surveyed on august 1st, with orders to attack as soon after august 3rd as weather permitted. lucky for niigata it has extreme rains and crap weather. on august 6th at 8:15 am the vicious weapon was unleashed on hiroshima.

a new friend

2006-05-23T15:46:00.000+09:00

carrie and i were gorging ourselves on draft beer and greasy, but perfectly stuffed, gyoza at a famous dumpling hole in the wall recently. the man to my left was dining alone and surprise me by striking up a conversation in english. that can always be a little unnerving. you have to re-hash everything you've been discussing in order to see what you've divulged and how inappropriate you've been in light of the fact someone nearby may have actually understood the english. he was a pleasant fellow who spoke of his work and family and asked many questions. before leaving he asked if we could get a group together to go out some time. we exchanged numbers. the following week we made plans to meet one evening. to my surprise, none of his coworkers could make it...ahem. luckily he wasn't a scumball or the least bit skeezy and we had truly interesting conversation over a great meal at a popular fish restaurant. he was remarkably open about his opinions and discussing details of japanese life with me and i know he was refreshed to learn that i was comfortable talking about cultural issues that are sometimes taboo between mere acquaintances, such as politics, marriage and divorce, and money matters. sometimes dinner invitations here are met with skepticism as they are often an attempt to corner an english conversation partner or score a free language lesson. this encounter didn’t have that feel. recently i received an email from him asking if we can do it again some time. his spoken english is actually much better than this belies. how funny…

THANK YOU. ALMOST IS OK,EVERYTHING WILL GOOD AT TOMORROW NOON, I FEEL.
CAN I TAKE A CHANCE TO MEET YOU THIS WEEK? SHALL WE HAVE A DELICIOUS
FOOD MANY? YOU HAD NOT MANY THAT TIME,DIDN'T YOU? AND ENJOY A
CONVERSATION. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO EAT AND DRINK THIS WEEK? EVERYTHING IS OK,
DO YOU WANT.

i’m getting much better about taking aunt patty’s advice on letting a man wine you and dine you if he wants too. we’ve already discussed his wife, my man and our view on adultery so i’m sure this will only be another opportunity to learn more from a well-educated, well-read engineer who's inextricably acquainted with the japanese culture i'm so interested to hear about. just as i’m sure he’s eager to engage me on every current event that's happened since our last encounter. you know how i love a good conversation.

the cherry blossom festivities

2006-05-16T01:09:00.000+09:00

the start of spring is marked in japan by the blossoming cherry trees. takada park, about a 10 minute walk from my place, is the most popular spot around to partake in the festivities. although it was unusually cold this year, for about 2 weeks the park took on a fair-like atmosphere, it was packed with food stalls, carnival games, a haunted house and thousands of revelers. i’m sure some people actually go to look at the delicate blossoms. we, however, use it as an excuse to picnic and party round the clock. i’d meet the girls there after work… [this is a crap photo but it's one of the only ones that actually shows any of the blooming trees. i was obviously not there indulging in my botanical photography hobby.]

without fail the party would grow in size. we’d run into random friends or we’d meet other happy drunks who’d plop down with us. with takafumi...

with conrad...

there were lots of shenanigans including introducing some people to twister…

on the weekend, loads of friends from out of town made the trip.

on this day, liz and i went to the park around noon to ‘basho tori’ or save some space. we wedged 4 plastic mats into a narrow strip of free space then headed home to ready for the party. it’s bizarre to see the whole park cordoned off in people-less sections during the day, some folks arriving crazy early like 6 am to mark off a spot.
there was also the obligatory festival mikoshi carrying.

i think this one is being toted by some sort of club, as one of my old students that i ran into explained. the tiles around the top are the names of businesses and people who donated money to make the extravagant portable shrine. the outfits some men wore were also a sight to see.

regardless of what they say about how asian men are endowed, they do have nice behinds.

grits (gr ts)

2006-05-15T11:45:00.000+09:00

pl.n. (used with a sing. or pl. verb)
1. A ground, usually white meal of dried and hulled corn kernels that is boiled and served as a breakfast food or side dish in the southern United States [syn: hominy grits]

i cooked grits for Hase the other night. topped them with plump, fresh shrimp sautéed with bacon, yellow peppers, onions and tomatoes covered in a creamy, homemade gravy that even granny would’ve been proud of. i was enthralled watching him take his first few bites. he navigated around the star of the dish, raking mounds of grits untouched by sauce onto his fork for sampling. [the utensil totally enriched the experience as its rare he eats with anything other than chopsticks.] he drew the fork close to his face for inspection. he savored the pellets on his tongue, attempted to squish single kernels between his teeth and being a fabulous chef, he submitted to his curiosity and questioned me incessantly about the farm to table grits process, which i was luckily equipped to answer after producing a radio story on anson mills and their heirloom grain products a few years ago. watching him scrutinize this southern specialty reminded me ironically of the way i’ve been examining the american south recently.
i’ve begun to come more and more into my southern-ness in recent years. i first started to embrace the idea when i was working at south carolina educational radio with historian walter edgar. although he champions the region all too often to be continuously taken seriously, he is a well-educated and imaginative thinker who stoked my interest in the palpable yet intangible concept of being southern. from japan i’ve acquired a new appreciation for my american-ness and a fresh understanding of what it means to be southern, a perspective that i’m convinced was nurtured by viewing these concepts from afar, both geographically and intellectually.
a large part of what has spurred this introspection should also be credited to ‘grass roots internationalization’. I’ve been forced to examine concepts related to the southern part of the united states, it’s history, it’s racial plights and it’s uniqueness in the union in order to define and explain these ideas to others. somewhat counter intuitively, these concepts have become more muddled and less clear, more complicated and less decipherable the more i’ve pondered them. when explaining a new concept to someone it must be placed in terms that they are equipped to think with which is difficult here in japan where, although some regional differences exist, there are no racial discrepancies to speak of and there are no immigrant groups who have helped shape the culture in a truly profound way. while there are some local flavors to be found, in a place roughly the size of california, traditions and trends travel from hokkaido to kyushu with relative ease. people of japanese ethnicity have been solely responsible for the formation and progression of their culture since the conception of the nation practically. although japan had limited dealings with china and holland, their closed-door policy lasted until about 150 years ago when admiral matthew perry landed in japan carrying a letter from the u.s. president that virtually forced the country to open its borders. the country had no diplomatic experience and had trouble relating to the international community, a problem that is still evident today in the xenophobia that plagues many japanese people and the extreme shyness with which they deal with foreigners. as a result of their prolonged isolation, japanese people have nothing to which they can relate the beautiful hodge-podge culture of the american south. speaking about race relations or minority groups is difficult because they have no frame of reference. you must start from a point that exists in a vacuum of sorts, one that lacks historical understanding and cultural experience relevant to this topic, which is an explanation that’s often doomed to fail before it begins.
i just finished reading an excellent book, the bluest eye by toni morrison, which forced me to re-examine my notions about black and white peoples’ relationships and, by extension, the connection that exists between any racially disparate groups. the book also urges me to diverge slightly here into a discussion centered on the role of race. there are concepts, some positive and many negative, related to the ‘other’ that americans grow up internalizing as a result of our diverse surroundings. there are reoccurring ideas that you saw personified before you knew exactly how to term them. there are words that have passed your lips since before the time you wrote your age in double digits. there are labels that you mis-applied as you learned to regurgitate them in apropos situations. these social constructs have always been a part of our existence, and those of generations and generations before us. they are not natural but are learned perceptions that often bind our minds and hijack our intellect before we are old enough to discern the type of knowledge and understanding that will best equip us for a rewarding life. during the crisis in new orleans a teacher sat down next to me and asked “so, why does george bush hate black people?” my mind reeled as i grappled with where to begin unraveling this sensational idea perpetuated by the media, which is the average japanese person’s only connection to the daily goings on in the outside world.
then the other night i was watching a movie with a friend, monster’s ball, which is the story of a reformed racist who falls in love with a black woman. my emotions ranged from furiousness and frustration to relief and hopefulness. while i laughed and cringed, my companion appeared to be more intrigued by how i was reacting than by the flick itself. afterwards we had an interesting chat during which he admitted he can’t fully understand the power and beauty of the story because he doesn’t understand the extent and depth of the racial problems in america. then he asked me to explain the word ‘redneck’. i did my best to proffer up an accurate yet sensitive definition including the root of the word, its implications and its sometimes offensive usage. it’s not like being asian or being a woman, being a redneck is a term ascribed to those with certain personality traits, it’s more like an attitude. some find the term demeaning and some proudly claim it. his follow-up: ‘so there are no black rednecks?’ i disagreed saying a label such as this can possibly be applied to anyone who fits the socially agreed upon definition. he pressed on: ‘what about the word ‘nigger’?’ i did my best to relate the definitions but i’m not even sure if i fully understand them. i found myself questioning the true meanings of these terms, their socially accepted explanations, the methods by which they’ve invaded our vernacular and the ways we use them to imply completely disparate ideas, such as deep hatred or brotherly love depending on the situation. soothing racial tensions is a difficult problem steeped in layers and layers of history and hard to understand social dynamics. it’s a problem begging to be examined and massaged so the race-related knots that impair our society can be worked out. these problems are undoubtedly evident in every corner of america but i find it easiest and most difficult to scrutinize this issue as it relates to a place i’m familiar with, the american south. although i often find myself defending and berating the south, i’m coming to terms with it being the land where my roots are buried and the environment which helped fashion and form me.
as my friend scraped his second plate of grits clean, he mused on how similar it is to rice in production and cooking techniques. i think the parallel runs even deeper. they both represent an area's agrarian history and the connection to the land that has shaped its development. they embody the sense of place that is associated with special regions like the orient and the american south. and on this day, grits were doing their part to encourage cultural understanding, bridge a gap between ethnicities and stimulate intellectual curiosity; pretty serious stuff for a simple grain product. good job grits.

hiatus...

2006-05-08T20:23:00.000+09:00

so a clever friend emailed me recently with a keen observation...
"I am hopeful that your pause in blog updates is a sign things are moving forward with your crush!"
well, yep. that and i was so busy researching and readying for my china trip which went off fabulously. i got home at 5:30 this morning, worked all day and am now about to go into a coma. updates coming soon...promise.

2006-04-08T15:39:00.000+09:00

日本語でできますか？よし〓

2006-04-08T15:30:00.000+09:00

MY FIRST ATTEMPT TO BLOG FROM MY CELL PHONE... HOWS THIS...

slumber parties

2006-04-07T13:48:00.000+09:00

japan is the land of unintentional slumber parties. most people here sleep every night on the floor atop a futon cushion they've hauled out of the closet and covered with layers of blankets. and every morn, the mattresses are refolded and stowed in the hollow space behind paper sliding doors. you see these 'beds' draped over balconies, airing out in the new spring air. you catch grandmothers beating the shit out of these cushions with fly swatters that seem way too small for the job. so when we all get together for a byob [bring your own bedding] party, the sheer volume of mattresses and blankets we use is crazy.
here we are enjoying breakfast that mama megan cooked up at her place on the morning after a great night out.

here's the stack of bedding that it took to keep us cushioned and warm in the niigata winter.

i survived the graduations

2006-04-02T13:53:00.000+09:00

i made it through the mad graduation season. the rundown in brief sans photos of teachers drinking and students cause we know what a stir that'd cause...
that saturday was a drinking party with about 45 teachers from naoetsu high school in a local hotel’s banquet hall following their graduation ceremony. it was the first of these types of gatherings i’ve attended that had western seating, i.e. tables and chairs. as i only teach there for 3 hours on fridays, i’m not acquainted with many of the teachers and i’m still kind of a novelty. these parties are extremely social and fun. as with all these events, upon entering you draw a number to decide your seat. my table included one english teacher who i don’t know that well as we don’t teach together and 7 others i’d never met, which was perfectly fine with me. the first 30 minutes was spent honoring the homeroom teachers who had graduated classes that day, listening to their speeches and presenting them with gifts. then the kanpai speech and toast. for the next 30 minutes most people dug into the food, which surprisingly wasn’t all that great. then the mingling begins. using a tall bottle of beer as my ploy, i made the rounds, plopping down beside teachers i wanted to introduce myself to or ask questions of, and refilled their glasses as part of the traditional ice-breaking routine. many of the instructors i bow to in the hallways of the school but have no idea what they teach or what they are really like. initially most of the teachers are wary of speaking to me, instead they talk about me with others like i’m not present and are shocked when i reply in japanese to the questions that weren’t posited to me. after realizing i can carry on a bit of a conversation in their native tongue, they loosen right up. i was disappointed when they announced it was time for the ceremonial ‘bonzai!’ which is the official closing of the party. this time we raised our arms above our heads and roared ‘bonzai!’ 8 times, once in honor of each teacher of a graduating class. after the main event, there was a 2nd party held at a nearby karaoke bar. everyone was flitting so i was able to make the rounds. i also got roped into singing any and every English language song that any teacher borderline thought they might know the words to; the carpenters to celine dion. i will forever have a great memory of this quiet, distinguished teacher transformed; we were standing in the center of the floor between the parallel lines of tables, he was wearing his tie as a headband, starched white shirt unbuttoned, hopping towards me, thrusting his pelvis as we sang abba’s dancing queen. at some point i was using his tie to feign whipping him as he contorted his face in fake pain. whereas in america, this type of behavior would perhaps warrant taking sick leave to avoid facing colleagues the next day, here this is all perfectly acceptable and nothing to be embarrassed about. after an hour or so, that party officially concluded with a ‘bonzai’ and then the 3rd party officially commenced in the same bar at the same tables with the same participants. just another shred of evidence indicating how deeply entrenched they are in the idea of structure and regiment. quite a few of the teachers had already retired at this point and i was wondering who i’d rope into taxiing back towards my neighborhood with me to save a little expense when 2 of the teachers invited me on to a 4th party in takada. we daiko-ed [where the taxi comes with 2 men and one of them drives your car to the destination while the other follows in the company car. the japanese really have a lot of things figured out about the service industry] to suizokan, which means aquarium but is also some double entendre for drinking too much when you examine the kanji characters. it was a pe teacher, the man who owns the bar and works at naoetsu high school and me. the last time i’d gone out with this school’s staff, the teacher/owner watched out for me and this night was the same. he made sure i was following the conversation alright, introduced me to the other patrons and picked up the tab for my share of the drinks [well, since he owns the place he probably just wrote it off]. i bowed out a little early [about 2am] because sunday was minamishiro high school’s graduation so i worked 8:30 to 5:15 and then headed straight to our celebration held at a local sushi bar. another crazy few hours of beer and sake accompanied by interesting conversation with a few of my favorite teachers. the next morning, the alarm buzzes at 6 am. at 6:45 i begin my commute by bike, train and bus to yoshikawa high school for their graduation festivities.
en route to the school on a frozen morning

spent a couple hours in the morning shivering and freezing in the gym as i watched the ceremony. its so interesting that these three schools are vastly different in students’ levels, staff dynamics, geographical locations but still every commencement ceremony is identical, same red and white banners and decorations, same bonsai plants placed on podiums on the stage, same somber/stoic mood, same bowing regiment carried out by every student. at 5:30 we walked to a nearby restaurant for the obligatory drunk fest. the cuisine was excellent and plentiful this time, a trend common to ma and pop establishments that are off the beaten path. i caught the train back into town with a few other teachers and we stopped for a couple beers and some dumplings at a cute shop near naoetsu station. i’m into my 20th month living here and this was my second round of gradutions. these events highlighted an interesting dilemma for me personally. i’ve thought a bit lately about a social limbo in which i find myself, one in which i’m balanced between not being a novelty but also not being a full-fledged peer. i’ve been around long enough that most of the teachers are no longer curious about me and my antics but, at the same time, i can’t interact like true comrade or friend either. conversation, especially in-depth ones, are more labored than they would be with a japanese counterpart. i found that i enjoyed my time out with the teachers from naoetsu, those who know the least about me, the most. this realization emphasizes something i’ve known about myself for a while; i thrive in new, unknown situations. it’s also a little demoralizing because there is much more to me than the introductory conversations about ‘where ya from, whatcha like to do’ would reveal. unfortunately, i’m slightly disarmed of my wit and intellect as a result of the language barrier. i considered this problem before i came, realizing that understanding the nuances of culture and inter-personal interactions wouldn’t come easily. it’s honestly been much harder to meet people and gain true friends than i’d imagined. don’t get me wrong, i do alright, much better than some foreign cohorts, or i wouldn’t have made it this long. just an honest musing…

hong kong, part 2

2006-04-01T23:07:00.000+09:00

thought i should finish this off before i head back to china later this month. [did i even tell you guys i'm going to beijing and shanghai on 4/28!!?!? woohoo!]
after an unbelievable day in macau and a sunrise ferry ride, we arrived back at the hostel about 7am and took a long sleep before we were able to motivate with a little help from starbucks [funny how it makes me feel guilty to admit that i look forward to that chain’s overpriced cuppa joe whenever i head to the city. their caramel macchiatos really have nothing on the ones served in my town at café nest except they’re portable and they're everywhere...]. with genki [translate: lively] juice in hand, we headed to jardine’s bazaar, a permanent market area that looks collapsible because of the haphazard way tarps and rods are strung together to form the shops.

this market’s mainly known for its clothing although there were plenty of butchers and food stalls to round out its appeal.

we wandered through a department store and the basement gourmet shop and grocery store. couldn't believe it when we ran across this sign touting our prefecture's fabulous rice:

i often wonder why i’m so fascinated by places where food is bought, sold and consumed. i asked myself this question again as i exited with several bags of ‘hard to procure in japan’ items. the complex was fronted by a huge Christmas display around which wrapped a line of eager kids waiting to hop on claus’ too-thin-to-really-be-santa’s lap. carrie tried to convince me that we needed to commemorate the moment, but i straight out refused after we saw that santa claus was played by a caucasian. could he even understand the kid’s excited cantonese whispers?! i hope so.

we had to hurry back anyway and primp for the evening which would begin with quidam, a cirque du soleil performance to which carrie and i sprang for front row seats. [yes, my wallet and $1500 were stolen the night before i went to HK. no, i didn’t let that stifle my extravagant tastes.] the performance was a magical puzzle, the pieces of which were skits exploring the waking and dreaming of a young, bored girl. the cast featured everything from Chinese yo-yo experts to amazing acrobats working strings of ribbon hanging from the rafters to armies of robot like actors. it was breathtaking, erotic and surreal. since photo taking isn't allowed inside, here's a beautiful shot of us out front.

we were starving but decided to tough it out while we searched for a chic restaurant in soho that the guidebook touted. passed this greasy spoon on the way which illustrated the r and l issue in asia.

using address numbers as our guide, we paced the same strip several times before settling on a wine bar with a good view. we later inquired about the mysterious spot we’d been hunting and found out the place we’d chosen replaced it less than a year ago. it was getting late, they said they were serving food, then had only a snack menu. we weighed our options, decided we needed a decent meal as the foundation for the wild night ahead, so we readied to leave as they approached with free glasses of champagne and a slightly larger menu which was enough to coax us back into our seats at the high top table. the staff was truly friendly, each of them spending a lot of time at our table chatting. they offered several suggestions for dance spots that we would check out. we decided we weren’t hip or rich enough for the first club as we stood behind the ropes leading to the entrance as some apparently famous singer made her entrance amidst camera flashes. our next option was dragon eye. in so many cases simply pretending that you know what you’re doing is enough to give you access to a myriad of unknown places. i got the impression that in hong kong that air of confidence wouldn’t amount to squat as the country appeared to be crawling with pretentious, versace-clad, big spenders. this theory was supported at the next club where we saw several people who weren't on the guest list get turned away, but we managed to enter due only to our foreign women-ness. turned out it was models night there. ha, ha. met some cool fellas and ended up making the rounds with them to sugar club and insomnia.
thanksgiving day was a blur of eating and shopping. a big contributing factor to us finally dragging out of bed were the huge plates of cheese fries and bloomin’ onion that awaited us at the nearby outback steakhouse. after we gorged and lined the pockets of that corporate giant, we made our way south to a skeazier part of town that was home to a grubbier market with pushier hawkers...

and more butchers...

this district is famous for its imitation designer brands. we dined on the sidewalk at a bustling kiosk and people watched for a bit before making our way back to causeway bay to clean up and hit the town.

we started at a small club that was plying the women with free grand marnier martinis. when we were about to be sick from the syrupy cocktails we hopped on, eventually finding ourselves in line for the hei hei club. we stepped up for the search, paid our money and strutted into the absolutely packed disco. in a bizarre twist, i met a beautiful hair stylist who happened to work at a Japanese salon, so although he didn’t speak English and i have no Chinese skills, we were able to communicate. it wasn't until the next evening, when we were gorging ourselves on proper sandwiches and tons of pale ale at a brewery, when we met a guy and a girl seated next to us, that we realized hei hei club is one of the hottest tickets in town.

the girl told us stories of getting turned away, or them refusing to let the most unattractive of the group in. they were amazed that we had no trouble. now, come to think of it, is that a commentary on how they graded our appearance? we spent that night at a grubby little hip-hop club. the following day we asked the hostel's owner to suggest a place where we could sample perhaps the most popular of all chinese delicacies; dim sum, an assortment of steamed and fried dumplings served in succession. luckily the spot was only a short walk from our room. the huge restaurant looked like it had been used the previous evening for a 1983 prom and there hadn't been time to take down any of the decorations. it was packed and hectic. we sat and waited to be lead to a small table in the corner from which we could watch the mayhem.

the menu was a 2 ft. wide ordering form with hundreds of lines of vertical chinese that was dizzying. because japanese kanji is based on borrowed chinese characters, we were able to recognize which dishes were chicken, pork or beef, but that was it. we were trying to solicit suggestions from the staff, none of whom could speak much english, when they pulled us up and urged us to walk around and look at other people's food. we returned to our table not sure how to go about making the connection between what we'd seen that looked tasty and the indecipherable script on the menu when the man and woman seated next to us offered to help in english. they asked us a few questions about what we liked and then ordered a few things for us.

some of the dumplins were tender goodness, some of them were sweet gooey and gross. at least everything was cheap so we kept pointing, guessing and ordering more till we were pleasantly full.
then it was back to the market.

we picked up some uber-cheap glasses we'd ordered from a sketchy eyewear shop for only $20, and surprise, they work! that night we found ourselves in several classy spots, fitting for our last night out in this high-class town. the people from the brewery had suggested a bar on the 17th floor of a high rise on the edge of the mainland which offered an unbelievable view of hong kong island. although we were dressed for the evening out, our nicest jeans stood in stark contrast to the apparel that surrounded us there. we purchased $16 martinis and found some standing space from which to enjoy one of the most incredible skylines i've ever seen. we didn't dare plop down on an overstuffed couch, as every seating area looked like a v.i.p section.

*sidebar: speaking of amazing skylines...check out this guy's website featuring an article on the top 15 skylines in the world complete with great pictures. as evidence to support my claims, he ranks hong kong #1.

then it was on to a glitzy ritzy dance club where i met usher [not really, but he looked and danced like him]. carrie had retired a bit earlier and the fellows asked me to join them for a late/early breakfast but i declined on the fact i had a 8:30am plane to catch. to spare myself the horror of recounting the details, we missed the plane anyway due to our lack of respect for lines at the check-in counter, spent hours talking with representatives of every airline trying to find a route that would land us somewhere, anywhere in japan that day. at one point we were gonna fly separately, me into Nagoya and carrie into Tokyo, until cathay pacific came through on 4 minutes notice for a flight. we paid our $500 and sprinted. by the time we arrived in japan we’d missed all the connecting trains to our town and spent the next 7 hours in an expensive sleeper car touring the countryside before reaching a station that’s about 45 minutes from home at 6am.
we were emotionally and physically exhausted.

can’t believe i made it to work the next day. my last few trips had gone off remarkably well, so it was about time for a test of determination in the face of vacation adversity. although this trip was colored by stress from the night before departure until the moment i arrived home, it was still a great adventure. hong kong is a bit rich for me, many of its people priding themselves on wealth and the appearance of it. however you don’t have to get far off of the beaten path to meet genuine souls with an earnest curiosty about you and the world. i was glad to discover that hong kong offered atmospheres running the gamut from pretentious to poor, exquisite to plain, unbelievable to totally comfortable.

in lieu of hitting the slopes...

2006-03-31T14:22:00.000+09:00

not 2 days ago i was sitting at school, chin in hand, absently staring out the window at the spring-iest day we’ve had yet, lamenting the fact there may not be anymore snowboarding in my near future. the last couple days have been a sloshy, rainy, icy mess that have done absolutely nothing to help the cause. although there may still be enough snow to make runs at a couple of slopes, i’m trying to do the right thing and nurse my bum ankle. the joint was the size of a grapefruit but is now like an orange that doesn’t hurt bad enough to keep me from really, really wanting to use it aggressively. in reminiscence, thought i’d post about a trip lizzy and i took a while back to hang with some outta town friends. on a saturday morning we met at cupid valley ski resort.

since i have a season pass to ikenotaira's slopes, i don’t usually make it to other mountains so this was a nice change.

there were tons of paths stretching down the mountain that could be reached by several lifts and gondolas.

and the weather was perfectly warm. lizzy and i basking in the rays for a bit.

we retired for a late lunch and a soak in the onsen before heading to nagaoka for a dinner party. the girls rounded up quite a mixed crew and it was nice to meet and mingle with new people.
lizzy and i with michelle, the official hostess with the mostess.

megan [another of the talented hostesses] and i sandwiching hase. i have a serious [luckily reciprocated] crush on this man.

from there it was off to dance the night away at a local club. once again, good job ladies with the organizin’ and fraternizin’! and thanks to liz for the pics i stole.

news flashes...

2006-03-27T00:18:00.000+09:00

today’s friendly reminder about why you shouldn’t screw with your japanese employer when they ask you to amend your blog is brought to you by the mainichi newspaper…

-Ex-taxi driver ordered to pay damages for defaming taxi firm in blog-

and a supplement to the penis party post. i’m all about fairness so i was pleased to see there is a festival honoring the other major sex organ as well, the vagina. too bad i've already missed it. next year…

-Aichi's festivals let it all hang out-

i was thinking...

2006-03-26T17:25:00.000+09:00

-friday was a school-wide sports tournament at naoetsu high school where the homeroom classes competed against each other in events like volleyball, soccer, badminton, table tennis and dodgeball. it got me thinking about sports’ day during my senior year of high school. although it was fun, it did little to encourage athletics or physical activity in any real way. we raced with eggs balanced on spoons held in our mouths, crawled on all fours to a diaper full of chocolate pudding and raced to be the biggest glutton. these types of activities were possibly designed to be inclusive, so that even the most athletically inept student could have fun, but in promoting this type of athletic activity, we are giving youngsters a skewed sense of what healthy physical habits are comprised of. i always liked p.e. although i do remember so many students, often the girls, who would don their dorky shorts and t-shirt uniform only to sit on the sidelines and chat. in japan people well into their senior years are extremely active, riding bikes everyday, shoveling heavy snow, hiking mountains, walking every night after dinner down main street. it’s easy to see where these good exercise habits were formed. its also interesting to think about this comparison in light of the current youth obesity crisis that’s plaguing america, facing much of the world, but is no where evident in this country.

-i often find that i have absolutely no clue what’s going on around my schools, mainly because i can’t decipher or am not given memos, or didn’t understand an announcement made during the morning meeting. so was the case recently when i noticed a flyer about an upcoming party on another teacher’s desk. i inquired to find out it’s a retirement party. naturally i wanted to attend so i approached the organizer for details. he said he’d give me an info sheet later but never did, so the day before the party i went to ask again but couldn’t find him. i decided not to attend as i had no info about time or place and there were some other things happening that evening. here’s the good part: i wrote a note, entirely in japanese, uber-politely explaining that i couldn’t go and left it on his desk. the next morning he thanked me for the memo and we talked about it for a minute. no problems understanding my message and he hadn’t even asked any of the english teachers to translate. that’s a huge triumph.

being carnivorous

2006-03-19T21:52:00.000+09:00

my Japanese friends think it’s quite odd that i go out to eat by myself because solo dining is rarely done here and solo eating out by women never happens. sometimes it’s nice to be cooked for and waited on and being in another environment keeps me from getting distracted by things that need to be done around my apartment when i wanna study Japanese or read [avoid it and it’ll go away right?]. last week i went to one of my favorite spots to dine and study, gyu kaku, a yaki niku ya [grilled meat restaurant]. one reason i frequent this place is because it is literally 20 seconds from my apartment. this pic was taken from the hall outside my door.

you choose from different cuts of beef, pork, internal organs, odds and ends parts of animals, seafood and vegetables then slap ‘em on the hot grill over the coals in the center of the table.

i opted for negi shio kalbi [slices of beef that you grill before smothering with a blend of olive oil, diced scallions, garlic and salt. yumm.], hotate [scallops grilled in spices and a pat of butter on a cast iron hotplate.], a hefty bowl of rice and a couple of draft beers.

this type of dining is delicious, hands-on, social [except when you go alone] and sorely needed on the other side of the big pond.

last weekend's penis party...

2006-03-18T15:07:00.000+09:00

carrie, liz and i assembled quite a motley crew to hit the town on friday. we met at nest for happy hour and marveled at the bizarre mix as people trickled in. a frizzy haired fella we’d met a couple weeks ago showed up with a kimono and flip-flop clad friend, then liz and a clean-cut guy she met in osaka who was visiting for the weekend, then a breakdancer from the local club. we headed on to an izakaya for dinner where a more subdued [read: less drunk] friend of mine from out of town joined us, along with another pretty boy friend of a friend. the dynamic was surprisingly pleasant although it was the first time many of us had met each other. i take great interest in these types of get-togethers because its fabulous social training for japanese people who are usually mildly socially inept, extremely shy and anxious. guess lots of beer probably enabled this smashing success.

on saturday carrie and i went to help a friend pack boxes in preparation for a move out of town. we arrived sufficiently late and ended up doing more socializing than working [sorry alexi and carolyn]. then the girls hit the road, headed to tocchio for a friend's house party.

these girls are well-practiced socialites, with skills honed during years in sororities, and managed to gather about 30 people for dinner, drinks and a team competition that got dirty and hilarious.

then it was on to karaoke where our group comprised the entirety of the clientele.

it was nice to have free-reign over the place but it definitely facilitated our shenanigans.

the next day i had one of the most bizarre japanese experiences yet. tocchio is a small mountain town famous for two things: its fried tofu and its hodare matsuri, or fertility festival. we arrived in a snowstorm and trekked to the festivities. first we stumbled upon these men making mochi, rice cakes, the old fashioned way...

pounding the hot grains until they become sticky, gooey goodness.

there was a huge, 2.5 meter wooden phallus that people lined up to toss coins at and pray to before sipping sake presented to them by a priest.

before long men began swarming around the massive penis, tying ropes around the statue and hauling it from the little shrine down to the street where they placed it on a wooden frame meant to hold the organ in a horizontal position.

then the beauties of the fest mounted the phallus, clad in exquisite kimonos with all the dressings.

the men in the crowd used the beams of the wooden frame to lift the heavy carving and women off the ground and carry them up and down the narrow road.

then it was time for the rest of the women to beg the gods for fertility and of course i couldn’t resist.

ladies mounted, 3 at a time, and the men hoisted them up over their heads. it was actually pretty scary and a lot more like a bucking bronco than i’d expected.

glad i’m not superstitious cause the get pregnant quick thing doesn’t interest me. an older japanese man i met there said if i wasn’t looking to have children, i could use the fertility blessings i’d earned riding the big penis in other ways, like to make my farm prosperous. the whole setting was bizarre. some people appeared to understand why we found humor in the occasion, some chuckled quietly with friends, but there was an unbelievable sense of seriousness there, even amongst the assorted penis memorabilia for sale.
*further development:
i got an email from carrie the other day that read ‘have you seen this!’ with a link. i clicked and couldn’t believe my eyes. it was a video clip of me riding the beast posted on the internet. its on a popular video sharing website, i have no idea who shot it. i’ll repost it here so you guys can watch. ha, ha. how ridiculous.

thanks to michelle, from whom i stole some pics. xoxo

uuhhhh...

2006-03-17T17:52:00.000+09:00

had a really interesting experience the other night playing the translation game with the new man i’m lusting after. we went to dinner and rented a movie on the way back home. we opted for ‘the color of money’ as we’re both billiards’ fans. i could remember ‘the hustler’ but questioned if i’d ever actually seen the sequel. his english is really pretty good, much better than he usually lets on, and he was curious about many of the lines he couldn’t make out. of course, he relies mainly on the subtitles for content info, but its remarkable how much garbled, slurred slang he was able to pick out. now imagine me, in my broken japanese, trying to explain things like:

-i gotta split
-he’s got the flake thing down. but can he flake on and off? i dunno…
-you’re a piece of work man.
-while flirting: -pick me up later. i get off at 10. -not with out me you won’t…
-if you’re too old to cut the mustard, you can still lick the jar.
-you didn’t win the game, i dumped.
-cocaine allusions like: man i hate that shit. can’t you look in the mirror before you leave the john?
-you’re a hard broad

who knows if he got the actual meaning of the phrases via my fuzzy japanese descriptions. the complications and impossibilities associated with the translation game make it a winner every time.

death row

2006-03-13T22:10:00.000+09:00

i've read a bit about japan's questionable habit of executing death row inmates w/out any warning. this is the most recent article i've seen on the topic. what a fabulous way to instill sheer terror in a criminal, but, if this were america, it would undoubtedly be argued this causes cruel and unusual mental anguish...hmmm...

PNG commemorated...

2006-03-09T18:00:00.000+09:00

so thanks to a new feature on the site that hosts my photos, i can now post video too. unfortunately, there is some quality degradation. but the timing of this addition couldn't be better- it's been 1 year exactly since my trip to papua new guinea so i've spent some time lately pouring over pictures and waxing nostalgic about the life changing adventure. now i can share some short clips with you in an attempt to convey the sincere warmth and humanity that greeted me there.
these were shot at eu primary school during our welcome.

the end of this, where the boy [named noah as i came to learn later] charged me is an effort to extend friendship by showing that he had the chance to kill me with his spear but refrained.

they love to sing and dance, whenever, wherever...

their voices were untrained but clear and powerful...

this is our welcome to a neighboring village, nestled on its own island, boasting a totally different language and culture.

this was shot at a pre-sunrise service on easter sunday. the lack of available light left the image dark but their voices still shine.

this group lead us from the water's edge to the jali angsie school. [i butchered that spelling i know]

a performance by some of the younger kids at eu primary school shortly before they showered us with homemade gifts, like canoe models, coconut shell bowls and hand-carved, over-sized chopsticks.

it was a sad, sad goodbye. bizarre to feel like you connected so deeply with people in such a short time. i remember so many of these kids names and their contributions to my understanding of the world; such testament to the strength of human bonds. can you catch the touching lyrics?

shot from the bus we used to travel around the capital city of port moresby. it's the frontlines of a battle in which a poverty-stricken 3rd world country is struggling to find self-supporting economical resources. still poor enough to breed crime but progressive enough to have somewhat reliable electricity and foreign products on stores shelves.

random quickies

2006-03-06T17:07:00.000+09:00

just returned to the teacher’s room after my second trip to the basement where all the nihon shu making machines live. one of my schools [which shall remain nameless in light of recent blog troubles] offered a technical emphasis in this art, but unfortunately this is the last batch they’ll ever turn out. the student population is being thinned [no new students next year] so that they can close this facility and unite with another nearby mountain school. so today was the annual, it’s almost ready, taste for yourself, no one really spits in the bucket, free-for-all. after the graduation ceremony, when most of the students had cleared out, you’d see small groups making the last of their pilgrimages through the maze of winding halls and endless staircases to the brewery. there were three hand-labeled bottles and in front of each sat a large ceramic cup covered with a glass disc. nearby index cards described the method of making, alcohol content and acidity. I did my best to discern what I could about the alcohols by listening to the conversations. everyone drank from the same cups and really took time to commune and discuss their opinions. my favorite was the medium-spicy [direct translation from Japanese] sake with the highest alcohol content.

was watching tv yesterday when a piece aired about a recent nationwide competition. get this- it was the big claw that you use to try and grab cheap prizes or candy out of the glass box video game tournie. although I knew some people were gifted with this odd talent, I hadn’t seriously considered the technique or strategy involved. the winner was unstoppable, besting machine after machine to claim his poorly stitched, cheaply made, dusty, year old treasures.

they are painting and re-wall-papering my apartment building which means you get a mean paint thinner headache whenever you come or go, but the colors are brighter and the place looks cleaner than ever before.

snacky mcsnackerson

2006-03-03T18:35:00.000+09:00

before coming to japan i was infamous for my un-sweet tooth. it was rare a crumb of cookie or cake crossed my lips [i’d order french fries while everyone else got ice cream] and even more infrequently would i actually purchase sweet foods. i’ve consumed more sugary snacks here in the last 20 months than in my whole life leading up to moving to japan. while it’s still rare i order dessert, i can’t help but eat all the little snacky things that are given to me relentlessly at work. literally everyday some teacher is walking around passing out cute, individually wrapped, tooth decay. most of them find there way to this drawer until i’m sleepy and a tad hungry and fool myself into thinking a sugar-high would do me good.

and along with this little habit, i’ve picked up a slight coffee addiction. i’ve always savored the smell of the brewing grounds, but couldn’t until recently stomach the sludge. at first i didn’t know where the sugar and creamer were housed so i pretty much just go it black these days too even though i have discovered where the fixins are kept. i’ve recently been trying to replace my joe with daily green tea after reading about its
healthy properties. it lowers the rate of some cancers [including esophageal and breast], helps rheumatoid arthritis, improves immune system function and has great implications for heart health. it reduces the overall levels of cholesterol as well as improving the ratio of good to bad cholesterol and it reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease thanks to its EGCG anti-oxidant. as i become closer to the age at which mom died of a heart attack, i am increasingly aware of my need to control things detrimental to and encourage things that are healthy for my heart. bottoms up. no, not the strip club in columbia. i mean on your 5 cups a day.

dining out

2006-03-03T15:00:00.000+09:00

eiichi has been really good about taking me to out of the way spots with washoku [japanese cuisine] specialities. on our last outing, we joined 2 of his friends at a boisterous izakaya near the university. to my surprise, it was not only cheap but had the best bar-style cuisine i’ve eaten yet, including taco wraps with what appeared/tasted like real hamburger meat and perfectly sauced, delicate tuna tataki and avocado salad. we had 2 hours of all you can drink + food for less than 2500 yen each. unfortunately it’s far enough from my place that we’d have to taxi and i have no idea what the name of the place is so we couldn’t instruct the cabbie how to get there. afterwards we headed to karaoke. these are eiichi’s friends…watching him slam dance and sing.

she was exceptionally cool and sympathetic to my foreign-ness, as she’s from korea but has been living in japan for about 7 years now. her language ability is fabulous enough to attend university with classes only taught in japanese. any time the conversation turned serious and employed difficult vocabulary [like the discussion about her soon to expire visa which means they are probably soon to be married] she would pause and urge eiichi to translate a bit for me so i could stay up to speed. she was also patient talking with me, admittedly surprised that i knew as much japanese as i do; she expected it would be more laborious to communicate.
a few weeks before that, eiichi and i hit a traditional tempura restaurant. we were the only ones dining which provided us with the unique opportunity to sit at the counter and monopolize the master’s time asking questions and chatting.

we opted to let him choose the evening’s meal for us. he first whipped up some fresh batter and then began plucking vegetables and seafood from the beautifully displayed fresh fare on the counter.

he was gracious about responding to my questions with an explanation and a perfectly deep-fried chance to taste the food in question.

another great thing about hanging with eiichi is that he isn’t embarrassed by my avid picture taking, as he spent several years in boston so he knows what it’s like to be intrigued by foreign culture.

park the car

2006-03-01T09:27:00.000+09:00

in america we view obsession with backing into parking spaces as an alpha male trait. i'm not sure how they view NOT backing into parking spots here in japan but, it usually appears that i'm the only one in the country who doesn't do it incessantly.
the usual line up at school...

some recent laughs.

2006-02-22T10:11:00.000+09:00

we were playing madlibs in my beginner’s adult class recently. an adjective they’d chosen formed the sentence “he was cool.” i explained the slang meaning to them. an older man raised his hand and asked “is that like ‘tight’?” huh?!? i questioned him to make sure i had heard correctly before explaining that, yes, ‘tight’ does mean ‘cool’ but it’s an esoteric term, somewhat related to hip-hop culture, that is not easily understood by the general public and therefore should not be used except among close, foreign friends. who knew kimio san rolled like that…

went out to dinner the other night with my friend takafumi. i chose nick’s bar cause i’d been craving this fabulous pork and ginger pizza they have. to my surprise, they had a new server, a fellow i know from another restaurant where he used to cook. also to my surprise, it was janken taikai night, which means paper, rock, scissors tournament. i laughed when he told us, thinking he couldn’t be for real. then he outlined the prizes you could win. takafumi let me do the honor. they say ‘saisho agu, janken pon’ as they pump their fists in and out of the middle before they throw. it roughly translates to ‘first a rock, then paper, rock, scissors.’ ‘pon’ is just a sound effect from what i’ve gathered. i horribly embarrassed our server as I beat him not once, not twice, but three times in a row to claim the grand prize…a free pizza. how perfect. although paper, rock, scissors seems like child's play to foreigners, it's a very serious decision making tool used by everyone from elementary school students to great-grandmothers here in japan. the chant was among the first language i learned after arriving although the meaning of the words escaped me until recently. there's also a second part to the ditty; if there's a tie, you sing 'aiko desho' which means 'the same isn't it?' as you throw again. and contrary to common belief in the west, there is some serious strategy involved. later at the restaurant, as I paid up, the server explained it was the first time he’d lost all night and the only time he’d ever been obliterated. I made the obligatory ‘and by a foreigner no less…’ joke, he laughed begrudgingly…

what are you lookin' at?!

2006-02-20T23:43:00.000+09:00

the newest keyword search that yielded my page:

Num. Perc. Search Term
2 100.00% spread for gyno
2 100.00%

heh, heh.

she works hard for her money...

2006-02-20T21:49:00.000+09:00

so i've picked up a few odd jobs here and there lately; the money doesn't hurt but i'm more interested in finding myself in these new, sometimes bizarre, situations. a couple weeks ago i taught an english lesson for the joetsu australia society of japan. i was told their language ability was superb, but i wasn't ready for the level of english ability that these students had to proffer. i was glad i’d planned a challenging lesson that culminated in a debate on whether or not prime minister koizumi should visit yasakuni shrine, where many of japan’s world war II casualties are enshrined including several class A war criminals. they eloquently and convincingly argued their points and, in the process, further educated me on the subject. another arubaito [part-time job] came by way of a phone call from the owner of a local bar that i frequent; he wanted me to come down and meet someone. thinking he was trying to set me up, i raced on over. turns out his friend is employed by a local company that peddles its wares via an online catalogue. they have a new ‘american apparel’ line and really needed gaijin [foreign] models. this fella mentioned that i’d met his boss previously during a wild night out but i didn’t put it together until i’d arrived at the studio in the mountains for a photo shoot. this whole thing coulda seemed real shady, like some of those modeling contract frauds that lead to young girls being uncovered dead in wooded areas, but the bar owner/liaison is actually a good friend. the shoot was a frenzied, but fun, couple of hours during which i received no direction and basically just put on clothes and stood around. we were obviously both amateurs at this whole deal. a few cups of coffee, some interesting conversation and $50 later i was on my way. i used the business card he’d given me to timidly check the website. one day i stumbled upon a whole page of me, sometimes looking stylishly unconcerned, sometimes looking poised uncomfortably, online. what a freakin’ riot. sneak peak…

macau, part 2

2006-02-19T22:55:00.000+09:00

as night began to fall in macau we found ourselves in a very untouristy part of town; we were garnering all kinds of stares, the curious not malicious type. as we made our way through this market people were attempting to entertain our curiosities by explaining as best they could.

there were all sorts of bizarre foods for sale. raw goods like fish and veggies…

roasted and boiled freshly carved chunks of meat…

tons of sausages hung everywhere…

upon closer inspection of the wieners, i noticed this appetizing site…

how the hell do you prepare dehydrated whole bird in a tasty manner? maybe it’s for making broth?
we came upon a busy triangular intersection near a school and a park which was begging us to stop and people watch. we grabbed some stools in an open-air food stall and ordered a beer, well, more like pointed into the refrigerator and grunted.

it was here we came upon a situation that highlighted the amusement of the language barrier. carrie really had to pee. we scanned the area for hints as to the whereabouts of facilities, but no luck. we tried to use the word for bathroom that was in our guidebook, but the book’s focus is hong kong, where most people speak the cantonese dialect of the chinese language. on macau, most people speak mandarin chinese. we tried english, spanish, japanese…you never know…it was futile. i stood and began tracing a basin in the floor with my fingers and pretended to squat. by now other customers and employees are involved in this game of charades. i crossed my legs, clasping my hands in front of my crotch and began squirming with a distressed look on my face. some folks sighed with recognition and began to clap. i guess the pee-pee dance is international. we ran into the same problem trying to thank them for their commitment to deciphering our gestures by using the wrong dialect. they taught us the correct way. from then on, when showing appreciation, we ended up saying ‘shie shie, douje, thank you’ just to make sure we were covered.
as we wandered in and out of shops we began to hear an unmistakable sound, that of bowling pins crashing. we wondered aloud, is it the same here? we followed the auditory trail and began trying on various sizes of shoes. we mimed drinks, turned out no beer. we thought she said it was ok to bring them in so i ran across the street and stuffed a few in my purse.

i think something’s really captivating about this pic, maybe the color and leading lines…good job c.b.

a cool macanese couple was stationed beside us; only he was bowling which left her plenty of time to chat with us using her impeccable english. they were both good communicators and gave us hints on where to head for drinking and eating.
we wanted to take the opportunity to sample the fusion portuguese/chinese cooking that we’d read so much about. we attempted to follow a map to a highly recommended spot…

we ended up confounded, then we confused 3 police officers and roped them into flagging a cab for us. we arrived on the water front and circled the area surveying our choices before settling on a cozy looking spot named carlos.
we were seated at the last empty table along the window; over half the restaurant was consumed by a large table of boisterous portuguese and macanese customers. when our extra large carafe of red table wine arrived, several of them, smiling, lifted their glasses towards us in a toast. although this was one of our more expensive meals, it was still reasonably priced enough that we figured we’d over order, stuff ourselves and bitch about it later. we decided on crabs, hollowed and re-stuffed with a piquant blend of spices, citrus, breadcrumbs and meat. they were tasty but a bit dry. next we decided on a fillet of beef smothered in garlic infused brown gravy since steak is hard to come by on the homefront. my favorite was the clams, pork, potatoes and black olives sautéed perfectly in parsley, garlic and butter.

the oldest patron at the large table must have been in his 80s; a sturdily built man weakened slightly by age but kept lively by his mediterranean spirit and healthy doses of wine. he stood and began a rousing, hand-clapping sing-a-long that carrie and i joined in even though we didn’t understand a word. the older men started to trickle to our table one by one to introduce themselves and chat, eventually pulling up chairs and when we overwhelmed our seating area they brought us to theirs. they were really interested in our american upbringing, our lives in japan, our travels. and they all had really interesting stories. many were first or second generation macanese whose parents had immigrated from portugal. their higher echelon jobs ran the gamut from important posts in the government to educators to leaders of the tourism industry to jobs at high profile p.r. firms. one gentleman was introduced to us by the others with the line ‘see that picture on the wall?’ it was a huge black and white photograph taken at a soccer game of pele battling for the ball in front of the goal with a packed crowd looking on. ‘he’s the one who kept pele from scoring’ they said. he was a member of the portuguese national soccer team during its heyday. he was a handsome man for his age and was obviously used to charming the ladies…he flirted convincingly with us. he’s pictured to my left in the black hat. nice to see that other nationalities also engage in drunken picture taking…

mario and nunu

the restaurant’s owner, also of portuguese heritage, joined us and the wine flowed. they asked if we’d been to a casino. when we told them that was our next stop, they insisted on escorting us. the men employed by the macanese government are barred from entering any gambling establishments so we said goodbyes and piled into the back of a boss hog, bright white cadillac.

this is about the time we began to suspect they were into organized crime; they had some serious influence. we pulled right up to the front door of the glimmering sands casino as valets swarmed to help us exit. they implored our friend to please wait a moment as they removed the car from the closest parking space and replaced it with his caddy as we looked on. we were led to the bar to place our orders. we wanted red wine, he called for several bottles from the cellar. he made snack requests as we were lead to a prime table in front of the stage where an army of brightly dressed dancers were entertaining. we drank and talked and snacked and drank and drank until the men were about to expire. before leaving they both offered us places to stay that evening [fly right now…in their family homes w/ their spouses] which we graciously declined as we had gambling to do.
they were hesitant to leave us un-entertained so they roped two men from a nearby table who could speak a bit of english into coming to sit with us and then furnished us with another bottle of wine before departing. carrie and i chatted up the new boys until the bottle ran dry at which point we went in search of a blackjack table. being my first time, i watched from afar for a bit as carrie bought in at a nearly full table. they were pulling all kinds of fancy betting tricks we knew nothing about which was interesting to watch but dizzying. it wasn’t long before things went awry and, as you may have guessed, we were right in the middle of it. the cocky man to our left had been betting on carrie’s cards and his own while barking recommendations on how to handle the hand. as carrie contemplated her cards, he called for a hit and the dealer turned another card. we both immediately complained; how could he make a call on someone else’s hand!? the dealer said it was because carrie was standing, not sitting. we argued that he shouldn’t have let her ante or dealt her in if that was a rule. the manager came over, at first defending his dealer, then admitting he understood the problem. he moved us to another table but refused to refund carrie’s ante. we were steaming. i bought a $1000 hong kong worth of chips at a neighboring table [with a much hotter dealer] and anted up. i’d slide in one chip as the other players moved stacks of the colorful disks across the green felt. it was laughable; like cap guns versus machine guns. at one point i’d slightly more than doubled my money, but you know how these casino stories usually end. i sat there long enough to dwindle my stack down to nearly nothing. the teller was amused as i cashed in my last two chips for a few measly dollars. we were a little poorer and a lot more loopy as we made our way back to the ferry port.

we joined the crowd of folks catching some shut eye on the floor in the ferry station until time to board the boat back to hong kong at 6:30 am.

I was blindsided

2006-02-15T18:46:00.000+09:00

I sat in the principal’s office surrounded by 2 english teachers, the vice-principal and the head honcho. his couch is over-sized with a deep recess meaning my feet barely touched the floor and I felt diminutive, like an elementary school child; the perfect effect for such a piece of furniture in this location. he began to run down the bullet-pointed list of my offenses between disapproving glances cast with distant, objective eyes, not at all like the kind man I often sneak downstairs to see between classes. “number 1) your blog is illegal.” as I attempt a response he moves along deliberately. “number 2) there will be no looking at or working on the blog while at school.” fair enough. as he slides a single sheet of official stationary across the desk towards me, “number 3) the prefecture does not want to re-new your contract.” an unexpected shot to the gut that left me uncharacteristically speechless. harkening back to defend my blog seemed banal in comparison. he went on to tell me that these two issues were unrelated as I politely excused myself from the meeting, or as it was, lecture. after the emotional haze lifted, I realized his tone was evidence of his Japanese style of governing, not harsh feelings towards me. all the same, the fleeting, empathetic glances he’s subsequently cast in my direction do little to dispel the stressful decision making process that lies before me.

a million and one thoughts seem to be constantly churning in my head. the more I have traveled and done, the more clearly I’ve understood how much I am capable of doing. dreaming is easy; the obstacle is actually plunging into it, making it happen. once you’ve leapt that hurdle, you realize you can probably clear the others that will follow [as i make a feeble analogy between life and a track and field event. you get the point]. at the risk of sounding smug… if I can move to the other side of the world where things as I knew them are absolutely turned upside down, if I can trek through jungles in papua new guinea with a sewn up and paralyzed hand, if I can spend hours surrounded by korean friends with whom I share not one word of a common language, if i can travel to hong kong with $1.50 in my pocket and make it, I feel equipped to attempt a number of other equally challenging and exciting journeys. one reason this sudden, life-altering decision seems so difficult is because I realize better than ever before that the world offers so many possibilities for personal growth, opportunities to contribute to the well-being of humanity and adventures. every time I think I’ve begun to narrow it down, I perceive a new angle and retard myself [in that true sense of the word]. I’ve been trying to organize priorities and during this process I’ve determined money isn’t at the apex, which is a nice realization. I think at this point adventure and experience are because they’re the only signposts I’ve noticed thus far in life which point me in a direction that fulfills and satisfies me. as I grope my way through life, i am emboldened by my experiences and inspired to seek challenges. so it’s time to decide where the next chapter will begin. here’s another bulleted list for ya, this one of my options…
-I’ve been offered a job in the middle of nowhere in this prefecture which would facilitate saving money but would be the end of my social existence. i can imagine myself living a scene out of “the shining” as I slowly get cabin fever and go nuts. there is a possibility that i could live near town [not as conveniently as now though] but that would mean a 1-2 hour commute each way to work.
-I’ve been pouring over schools that offer master’s degrees in teaching English as a foreign language. there are several interesting prospects in Thailand, where i’ve been aching to return since i vacationed there last winter. there are also many uni programs littered throughout the u.s. but they’re crazy expensive. grad school means studying, not earning money so there is a significant amount of upfront capital involved in this proposition.
-i’ve contemplated moving to korea to continue this occupation at my current level. it offers plenty of adventure and distraction, which are important, but also a significantly cheaper cost of living with only slightly lower wages than i’m currently garnering. i met an english speaking headmaster at a boy’s high school when i traveled to seoul. we exchanged information in case i was ever looking for a job in his neck of the woods. hmmm… of course this would mean deserting my friends and the culture and language that i’ve worked so hard to understand the last few years.
-i’ve been really interested in calling a japanese metropolis my home. pay would be comparable, although cost of living would skyrocket. on top of that, i’d spend infinitely more supporting my entertainment addiction i’m sure. and i’m not sure if i could organize all the details involved with renting a new place, finding a new job, moving, transferring mail and accounts, etc. on short notice. i wish i was more familiar with the burbs surrounding the main hubs; i bet they offer the convenience of proximity without the financial strain.
if anybody has any great ideas, or just wants to tell me what to do so i can quit racking my brain about it, that’d be great. thanks.

sudoku anon

2006-02-15T16:36:00.000+09:00

i am officially addicted to sudoku

macau, part 1

2006-02-10T00:37:00.000+09:00

macau doesn’t get enough credit. it’s listed as a day-trip from hong kong or a sidenote on a gambler’s itinerary, instead of as the culturally rich and entertaining island that it is. we boarded the morning ferry bound for the small plot of land located 35 miles west of hong kong.

as a former portuguese colony, the architecture, language, cuisine and way of life is a mediterranean-oriental blend that’s rare in the far east.

check out the mixed usage of portuguese and chinese.

we disembarked on the corner of the island that is home to the casinos. more on that later… we set off on foot to explore and quickly found ourselves in a nearly inescapable maze of fencing and barriers erected around the main vein of road that we were following into the city center. turns out we’d arrived one day after the macau grand prix had ended and the city was still showing signs of its transformation into a huge racecourse with grandstands.

no one appeared to find this chunk of car on the sidewalk strange…

we wandered past the posh hotels…

past the enormous housing blocks…

into the commercial heart of this special administrative region [SAR] of china.

the area was littered with jewelry shops, money changers, electronics stores [all obviously targeting the high rollers who have just taken stanley ho, macau’s real estate tycoon, and his casinos to the bank], and lots of stands selling this fabulous pork and beef jerky.

all the shops wanted to shear us off a corner to sample**some tasty business**but this place was exceptionally friendly.

couldn’t tell if they were really goodwill ambassadors or just money hungry…either way…they showed us how to make the omnipresent almond cookies that are an iconic macau souvenir. first you spatula the almond, flour, sugar [i’m guessing here; they didn’t speak any english so we couldn’t really ask. details do fill out a story nicely though…] mix into the wooden mold.

then you slam it down in a basket karate-chop style, hard enough to dislodge the dry but tasty treats.

we didn’t however sample this snack which is undoubtedly a real pleaser. healthy too!

as we criss-crossed the area, one thing after another kept catching our eye. as we’d head over to explore, something else would look interesting and before we knew it, we’d been lured out of the city center into the real heart of macau, where people were actually living, socializing, existing.

many of the thoroughfares were nothing more than narrow alleys that meandered in no particular pattern.

we stopped at this stand in front of a tiny eatery to sample what a bunch of people obviously thought was tasty cause they were lining up for it.

we pointed at some of the foods threaded on sticks, miscommunicated a bit, ended up with mushrooms and two kinds of dumplings. they were boiled in the steaming vats while we waited, then scissored into cups with ladles full of sauces. we chose a curry and something they described as ‘sp-eye-shee’, the asian equivalent of spicy, which was all slopped together.

it was saucy and delish, except for those few strange parts of pork [?] i came across in a dumplin’.

saw a chinese medicine shop [check us out in the mirror]…

from there we noticed this palm reader…

we leisurely made our way through the streets…

past this housing block…

we wandered through a grocery store for what seemed like hours. around the corner was this bustling commerce area…

with some independent service providers set up in the side alleys…

we rummaged through an old junk/antique store that housed countless statues of mao zedong, tons of propaganda posters, relics from wars and red army memorabilia, historical items, like authentic tiny shoes that had been used to bind women’s feet resting next to deteriorating photographs depicting the practice. we were followed around in there like secret foot soldiers for bush’s current democratic manifest destiny who might torch the whole collection of communist keepsakes at any second.
then we stumbled upon this temple…

it was a little junky on the inside. brooms and sticks leaning in the corners…cleaning products and broken flower pots occupying rickety shelves… towels drying on makeshift hangers… the thirty-something female caretaker sat uninterested in the corner incessantly clipping her fingernails. aside from all that, the smoke from the numerous coils of over-sized incense gave the place a mystical feel.

it did house some really interesting statues…

some inspiring school moments...

2006-02-08T20:37:00.000+09:00

**was walking down the hall today and two of the bad-ass delinquent-esque boys were scrubbing the wall where, i'm guessing, they'd been caught doodling. i always say hi, sometimes they reply with a slang 'ohas as'. today they beat me to it, regurgitating something i had taught them in a few seconds of downtime. they shot a 'what's up' at me, complete with the head nod. i responded and then let a huge smile grow across my face as i kept walking. english in action baby!

**yesterday was the last class session for my third year students at yoshikawa high school. because i only teach there once a week, on tuesdays, i rarely have a grip on what's going on so i didn't know until the middle of the lesson that i wouldn't be teaching them again. i stopped class a bit early b/c i wanted to give them a heartfelt send-off and i decided on the spot it needed to be done in japanese so that they might actually understand some of it. i launched into it...how they need to stay curious, ask lots of questions, see and learn from other parts of the world, don't be afraid of their individual ideas. i attempted to explain how the man who thought of the airplane was deemed crazy before he and others actual realized his vision. i'd asked the japanese teacher to translate but he just kept waving me on, as if the kids were getting it. he only had to step in to translate 'explore' for me. they laughed when i attempted jokes, nodded when i said important things... after class two of my favorites came up to tell me they'd understood and thank me for teaching their class. how bizarre to see these students moving on. i’ve taught them for two years; they’ve taught me for two years. i managed to refrain from crying or bear-hugging them.

**i was readying hand-outs for class in the copy room when i heard two of the tiniest first year girls quietly talking in the hall. they were discussing my name, how to spell it and pronounce it correctly and the translation of sensei. there was also some discussion as to whether in english you should say tiffany teacher or teacher tiffany. when i exited they excitedly waved and chimed ‘herro tee-fa-nee teacha'. how friggin’ cute is that?!