Osaka, Kyoto, nice weather, some stuff about Fashion

Opening this time’s post… PIZZA!!

 

We ate this in Osaka, in Shinsaibashi, for last weekend’s bachelorette party. This was between 3 people, a giant chicken, onion, pepper, mushroom, sauce pizza. Oh my GOD, it was fantastic.

Oh and the rest of Osaka was good too.

We ate Thai, Mexican, Pizza, danced until 2 am, and then  went to Spa World and soaked it all up.  Is there anything better than relaxing in an onsen? I THINK NOT! Robin and I also forked over the money to have all the dead skin scrubbed off our backs by old ladies. Smooth!

 

Back in Tokushima, I went out to coffee and had this.

It’s an azuki latte!

With some kind of special milk.

At the bottom were boiled azuki beans. Sweet!

By the way, this is day two of being on a diet, and I was already breaking it. HAHA! Some things are just not meant to be.

 

Cell phone charms! I bought the My Neighbor Totoro doll in Osaka. 5 cell phone straps is maybe a bit much, but I like all of them so much… I bought / was given them specifically, so I can’t choose which ones to take off.

Also in Osaka, I found a Totoro pencil board (which you use as a writing surface / to put between pages to stop pencil from transferring) and some finger puppets.

 

Home made pudding by my shamisen teacher. So delicious!

It was HORRIBLY hot that day, so I wore a yukata. Nice and breezy airflow! But… I had to walk to her house, which took ages.

On the way home, I was lured in by the KenTaco truck. 10 takoyaki for 500 yen! Fresh off the grill! I couldn’t believe it, it was so hot and humid, but the guy in the takoyaki truck was just going on over his grill like it was no problem. Tough!

They were real delicious. I went home and gobbled them up!

 

A sunny clear day in Tokushima.

 

A sunny clear day in… KYOTO!

 

Yesterday Cassie and I went to the Ten no ji (temple) market: a big mash of food tents, craft tents, and antique tents on the streets and grounds of Ten no ji. The bus to get there was packed, and so were the grounds.

We were there specifically in search of cheap kimono, which we found in abundance! In some tents they were nicely folded on tables or displayed in racks, but mostly, (in the really good tents) it was just a huge pile on a tarp, with Obaachans (grandmas) kneeling all around, tugging their precious finds away from grasping hands.

We did sharp-elbow battle with the Obaachans, and emerged victorious (and not that much poorer! Each kimono / obi went for about 1000 yen, haha!)

Cassie and her haul.

My haul (and purse. Note the two water bottles. It was hot and horrible and I was sick as a dog… and still am. Cough, hack)

I’m a little shamed by the lack of photos of this day, but really… it was too damn hot. And I felt too damn sick to care.

 

My haul, hanging up to get rid of the funny smell. I got 4 obi and 3 kimono (the extra yellow obi is just hanging up to get the wrinkles to relax)

 

This one is my favorite. Look at that ship! From my position on the tarp, I couldn’t reach it, so I was shouting at Cassie “Get the pink one! No, the other pink. To your left. More left! More left! THAT ONE!!”

It has a few unsavory spots, but I think I can clean them out well. THAT SHIP! It’s such a nice pale pink, too.

 

This was a lucky find at the end. We found kimono that we wanted first at other stalls, then rifled through to find obi that would match. This photo is not so good, in real life it’s much richer. The background is actually a very deep pumpkin color. Also, my skin is not that white.

 

Bought to go with a black komon (small pattern) and another weird purple kimono that I bought. Originally I wasn’t too wild about the kimono because finding an obi was a right pain the butt… the patterns were too small and weird. BUT this one suits, I think. It’s bizarro enough.

When we were picking stuff out, I was trying hard, and these ladies behind me were giving suggestions… and comments. We couldn’t figure out some of the words though. “Oh, that obi is too _____ for that kimono. Ah, but she’s a foreigner, it doesn’t matter”.

I know obi and kimono should match in range of quality (one can’t be fancier than the other, or out of the acceptable range) and complimentary color, and material, and season… but I don’t know all the words for it! So obviously the orange one is SLIGHTLY wrong for the blue kimono, but you know what…. like she said, I’m a foreigner. I wear these because I like them, not because I want to be perfectly Japanese (or Japanese at all… I just want to wear clothes I like!)

 

It’s a funny thing, deciding how to break the rules of a strict fashion.

Obviously, I don’t know all the rules of kimono (and probably never will). So I can’t really say I know the rules ENOUGH to break them. But I’m a foreigner… is breaking small rules acceptable, or ridiculous?

There is also the thing of wearing them outside Japan. I really like to wear them. I like how they feel. But you get that look, “You’re trying too hard. You wish you were Japanese. You’re showing off. You’re being an idiot. You’re appropriating a culture that isn’t yours.”

Sometimes the statement my clothes makes is “I like how this looks and feels. I am happy wearing it, so I wear it.”

 

Also in Osaka, I bought two Lolita skirts (clicky the link if you like… it’s not western lolita, just a name appropriated for a type of fashion). They are knee length, poofy, and very colorful. There is no way that lolita fashion will ever be my fashion (it’s too expensive). Nor do I identify myself as “a lolita”. But damn it, I’ve never worn a skirt that felt so good. And I love the look.

So…

I guess, I love fashion, and wearing a mix of things, but I hate having to think about how it would be analyzed or perceived. I hate having to justify a choice in my mind, rather than just choosing and happily walking out the door.

So probably I’ll have to live in a cabin in the wilderness where nobody cares. HA! Or SF, NY (eh..) or similar.

 

Ok, whining over.

 

Look at those colors! Aren’t they great?? ARGH I love them so much! I also bought a maroon obi, that you can barely see in the first photo, to go with this blue kimono.

Definitely didn’t expect to love this kimono so much, but the more I look at it, the more I want to pair it with different colors and decorations!

New Girl

 

A first year ALT joined my Awa Odori group. She works with a former co-worker of mine.

 

 

It’s been interesting, being the senpai (senior) in a situation.

Now, by no means am I a senpai dancer. I don’t mean that at all. But in this situation, I can clearly explain some of the things to someone else, in English.

Over two years ago, I was in her situation… not speaking much Japanese, not knowing how to dance, a celebrity because of being a foreigner, but not sure how to deal with it all.

 

 

So, helping her out, I can see how much I’ve changed. How much I’ve become a part of this group. How much better my Japanese has become, because of doing activities like this. Really, you just have to give it your all, and that’s what I did.

 

Plus, it’s SO nice to have someone to shoot the shit with during/after practice. It’s SO NICE to have someone to gossip with during the breaks, even if all we’re doing is commiserating about how much our arms hurt, which is basically the same conversation that I have with Japanese people during the breaks. All the kids were saying “すげ、速い 英語で、ペラペラ！”　(Whoa, you’re talking English really fast).

Hahaha, it’s true, isn’t it?

 

One of the teachers (not an English teacher) at school said, “Your English is really clear, I can understand it really well, I’m really happy about that.”

I was really pleased to hear him say that, because I work hard to speak with people without being difficult or patronizing. People who aren’t confident in their English don’t want to talk to you if you speak too quickly, or if you dumb everything down to the point of being sarcastic. I’ve worked hard to make myself understood as the highest level that I think the other person can handle.

 

My Japanese English and my native English is definitely two different languages at this point. It’s interesting.

 

Tonight’s Awa Odori was just endurance practice, and working on simple motions. Which is good, because man… it’s HARD!

 

 

I’m starting to download all the great pictures off of facebook in order to make a “best of” collection of Japan. Which will probably become a video, or something.

Things I Love Thursday

• This week I love curry. Man oh man do I love curry.

 

I made a big batch of vegetable curry on Wednesday, and polished off the last of it tonight. I don’t do curry sauce with other things mixed in. Instead, I cook up a huge pile of things that is barely held together by a jar of sauce.

Here is this week’s version:

Pepper, Pumpkin, Eggplant, Broccoli, and Mushroom. Not pictured: onion already frying in the pan.

 

• Snacks!

I’ve had a lot of snacks recently. Here is a good one: senbe packs.

They are cheap, about 105 yen each, and come in bundles of 5 or 10 from the department store basement.This was a salty flavored pack, with most of the crackers being coated with soy sauce. You can see seaweed and sweet crystal coatings as well. The pink ones had a bit of a wasabi bite to them as well, which was nice.

Also, someone gave me these rusk cubes:

RUSK is something I never really understood. It is a round slice of bread, saturated with some kind of sweet (not honey, but a syrup?) It’s like a super-sweet crouton. The fancy kinds are dipped in or drizzled with chocolate.

The other week someone told me that rusks came about when poor people in Europe wanted dessert. They took the old bits of bread, covered them with sugar or honey or something like that and baked the life out of them. This explains what they are, but it does not explain why they are a wildly popular dessert snack / souvenir in Japan.

The bag of rusk here is a special rusk from Hiwasa (a town down south, famous for being a sea turtle nesting ground). It makes no sense that a town can claim such a snack as being particular to that town (regional types of noodles, miso, and fruits I can understand. Weird crap like Hiwasa Rusk or Tokyo Banana Cookies make no sense what so ever).

 

This is a drink I saw in a combini, which was so hilarious that I had to sneak a photo.

On the left is Maple Cafe Late, which is horrific enough, but on the right it says Taiyaki Au Lait (or, Taiyaki OLE!)

Taiyaki is a fish shaped batter treat that is filled with bean paste or custard or what have you. It’s made out of a dough similar in texture to pancake, but sweetened.

I can’t imagine what this tastes like. Taiyaki are great, but to think of them in drink form is repulsive. Not quite on par with a recent Nasty Assed Recipe I read recently, but pretty dang close.

Oh, and here is one more “No Thank You” drink, from a few months ago.

Pancake flavored drink. It also says “Milk Se-ki” (whatever that means. Shake? EW.)

And on top of that, it comes to you warm.

All manner of gross, but I hear that people actually drink it.

 

• SETSUBUN!

It was Setsubun, where you throw beans in order to get the devil out of your house, and welcome in luck in the new year.

I was helping a teacher correct some things in the staff room, when suddenly she said, “My students are going to the park to do Mame Maki (throwing beans at someone wearing a devil mask… in this case, their sub-homeroom teacher). Do you want to come?”

Of course I want to come!

I love that the kids requested to do Mame Maki, and the teachers decided “Well, why not” and bought a bunch of beans and a devil mask and skipped class and went to the park.

As usual, I can’t show photos of students flinging beans at eachother, but here is… me and a devil.

Ok, not REALLY a devil, just my favorite JTE in disguise. I still threw beans at her though.

 

• Going out west

I’ve come to think that I miss out on a lot of Tokushima because I don’t drive. I wish that I could go into the mountains whenever I wanted, or explore places freely and under my own power. It’s really a shame, but it’s made me a lot more thankful for the chances I get to travel and for the people who cart me around in their cars and let me look at stuff.

This past weekend, musical rehearsal was out in a junior high school in the west. Having not much else to do, I was up in the 3rd floor sewing room, trying to sew in an unheated room with numb fingers.

On the second day, it was cloudy. Then it began to snow, sparsely. I got very excited, but it only lasted a bit.

A few hours later, it started again.

Then it got worse. And worse, and worse. It became a complete whiteout, which stuck to the ground. We had banks of windows running on both sides of the classroom. It was incredible.

(and I didn’t have my camera up there, like a dope)

After about 20 minutes, it stopped and the sun came out and shined cheekily on everything. Then it all started up again, and stopped and started and was white out and sunny for the rest of the afternoon.

Haha flowers, you are all covered in snow!

Haha palm trees, you are snowed upon!

And guess who complained the loudest about the snow? Yes, it was a Canadian. Jeeze!

I rode home on the train, and was pleased to find that some good souls had made seat covers for the outdoor seats, which was good because there was a creepy dude in the train station so I couldn’t wait indoors. I sat in the cold, but my butt did not freeze.

In this photo: a train going the direction I wanted to go, but completely dark and empty and not available for rides. Lame! At least I had good music to listen to while I waited.

 

 

Finally, after seeing someone scrape ice off a windshield with a Croc shoe, I broke down and bought a pair. With the fluffy lining.

I’ll say this. My pair is 2 sizes too small (I asked if they had a bigger size, and the clerk just said “NO” in a “Screw you anyway” sort of way, but the hell with it) and they are STILL massively comfy. They are also SILENT as the grave, which is something I value in a shoe when I have to walk around the classroom. I have been ruining my feet for years, and while these may crap my toes, my feet feel SO much better at the end of the day. I keep them under my desk and only wear them at school, though. Comfy or no, Crocs are not, nor will they ever be, Public Shoes.

 

 

Woo hoo,  love a lot of stuff this week! How about anybody else?

Short trips

I went to Osaka for two reasons; to see Takarazuka, and to visit used kimono shops.

Yaaayyyy shore line!

On the subway, I saw a poster for Suntory Museum’s IMAX theater… showing the “Hubble” movie. OF COURSE I scrapped my other plans and ran off to see it!
That’s the nice thing about traveling alone. You can do whatever you want, on a whim.
Hubble was great. I want to go to space!

Big giant ferris wheel! I want to ride it at night with some dreamboat.

After seeing “An Officer and a Gentleman” at Takarazuka (with the Star Troupe, ooooooo!) I went to some back alley kimono shops, and walked with some good stuff.
Today I went to a shop in the city to buy the things I didn’t have: undergarments and an under-robe.

And then…

First trial!

Winter kimono (I’m bad at knowing the official name & type…. I think it’s a Tsumugi?). It has kind of an old-lady look about it, especially with the obi I have.
Maybe if I give it a crazy obi, it could liven things up a bit.
It’s tricky to pair the right obi with kimono… you have to choose based on color, and the formality of both items.

In Osaka, I bought this obi, and a furisode (long hanging sleeve) kimono. The sleeves are halfway between “regular” and “ridiculous special occasion only”. It has a somber pattern so I think I can wear it, but only when I’m clearly trying to dress up.
If you’re going to break the kimono rules, break them hard and keep the others equally hard. Break them on purpose, not by accident.

I’m still learning the rules, of course…

Anyway, I think this is pretty good for a first time around. Tying the obi was definitely the hardest thing, and I didn’t use my Awa Odori clip… I just tied it. With the clip it would definitely be easier, but I want the practice in any case.

 

 

EDIT: I’ll be posting more in depth about kimono & other fashion here, if you are interested in that sort of thing.

Festival!

Let’s skip over Awa Odori for a moment and talk about some recent stuff.

Awa Odori happened of course, but pictures tell it better than words, so just hang on a bit.

First, here are some spectacularly unfortunate wedding dresses.
In Japan, when you have a wedding, you wear at least 2 or 3 different outfits; your fancy kimono, another fancy kimono, a fancy dress, another fancy dress… (also if you are young, you have to have the most hideous up-do conceivable but that is another story entirely)
There is this shop called “Bridal Core” that has a fantastic rotating window display. I think most of the dresses they choose to show are crazy (though the tartan ones were funny) but they do have very nice window displays. There are lots of extra props, the colors are always very good and the lighting makes it all show up nicely on my camera.

Anyway, these terrors were there last week:

lol

We had our cultural festival!!
I’ll show as much as I can… (we can’t post student’s photos online, so the only students you’ll see will be the sort of non-descript masses. Or the backs of their heads, etc. Sorry!)

Happily the only photos of me are with students, so I can’t post them. I had the stupidest hairstyle EVER that day, but didn’t realize it until I saw the photos. SAD.

First of all, here is English Club’s bazaar. Look at all that swag! Hot damn!

Thank you Maggie for all the donated candy. Thank you Terrina & James for all your country goods (Scotland and Canada each got their own special corners of the table)

Our courtyard was decorated all fancy with the class flags (made new each year. New paint spatters in the parking lot each year) and the school flag. This year’s theme is  ヒマラヤほどの城東祭　たのしいこと　たくさんしたい　(To the Himalayas! Joto Festival! I want to do lots of fun stuff!)

In the courtyard there was a stage where various bands played. They ranged from girls in yukata playing Jazz, kids dancing like crazy people, the requisite Blue Hearts covers, and my own favorite, a cute girl who sang cute songs in a cute voice but would occasionally roll on the ground and scream in a sort of death-metal way.

This is one of my favorite students, from the high level English class (third grade). She is leading me to her food stand, where I will buy delicious yakisoba (like lo-mein). The food stands are awesome because of the crazy names and themes students pick.

I also ate two kakigori and a fried-bread ice-cream (not pictured… it was not delicious. Sorry students! But there was too much fried-bread. I thought I was going to have a heart attack)

DID I MENTION, the students all design and wear these totally awesome t-shirts?!!?! They are so cool. Their homeroom teachers get one too, and I waaaaaaaaaaaant one so bad… but which class? I can’t really align myself with any one class. Not even the high level CE classes, because there are other classes that I genuinely LOVE (maybe a tiny bit more than CE but I never said that). This year I got the polo shirt that all the teachers can order. So that’s that.

In each classroom they students prepare… something. It can be a display, or an activity that you pay for, or a game or raffle or whatever. This year I tried my luck kicking a sandal at water bottles to win a prize. I was fail (and I accidentally hit the ceiling, the students, the wall, etc with my slipper. Oops).

There was a dress-up room, a fortune telling room (which didn’t make sense, because everyone was just sitting around playing Trump), chemistry club’s magic show, creature club (biology?) had animal anatomical models, a photo display, used clothes shop, and my personal favorite…

Alice’s Wonderland!!!

They made their class into a sort of fun-house that told the story of Alice in Wonderland.
Ok, it was a little bit budget.
OK, it was a lot budget.
But it was really cute and they had worked really hard.
Apparently at one point, they had a person inside the catepillar, making it wiggle on the floor and so on. I’m sorry I missed that.

Here is our shop at the end of the day: totally cleaned out. YEAH!

Pick & mix candy… started at 5 for 50 yen, then 10 for 50, then 20 for 50. Hahahahaha.

Two second year t-shirts. They belong to the second-year boys in English Club. How awesome are those shirts?!!?! The brown one is supposed to have stitching crossing the pink bit. The boys in that class wore wolf ears and tails, and the girls had red shirts with red (riding) hoods. How cute is that!?!

The running man on the blue shirt is an iconic image from Osaka. But his box head is all students.

La-de-da, what else.

Here is some student ikebana on display. They used a staple. Is that ok?!

OH
I bought these books from library club. On the left is stuff written and published by students. On the right is Romeo and Juliette, taking place in “Neo-Verona” with weird illustrations of Tybalt holding the reigns of a flying horse and magic swords and all sorts of crazy stuff.

Whaaaaaat.

The sky was lovely at the end of the day.

Awa Odori week

It’s Awa Odori week this week (the festiva runs from the 12th to the 15th, to Obon) and in preparation for that, I’ve had dance practice every night this month.

In addition to that, we’ve done Awa Odori at various venues. Last weekend was the Yoshino River festival, yesterday was a festival at an old-folks home, and today is something at a nursery school in Aizumi.

In preparation for all this, I got new geta (shoes) and tabi (socks) because my old geta wore down so much, I would hit the pavement with my toes and my tabi got all ratty. Also, the wood got so soft that it was hard to turn.

For comparison:

Old geta:

Note the worn front: it ate up water when there was wet pavement. The gold bit (cover for where the thong is attached to the wood) is all smashed and dented as well.

New geta:

All lovely and new! They make a great fresh clacky noise when I walk, too. Not as comfortable as the old pair, but I’ll wear ‘em in yet.

Shamisen photos

Here are photos from my recent adventure: a shamisen meetup. Please enjoy!

Obligatory posing photo. This is taken in the tatami room at my teacher’s house, where I have my lessons. A tatami room will have an alcove built in, where you put decorative scrolls, flowers, and other articles that reflect the season. Hina Matsuri (March 3) is coming up, hence the dolls.

Playing “Goro” at the cultural center. The people on the left are the singers, and the lady in the chair is the Iemoto.

This is one of the few photos where I’m not scowling in concentration like a poorly-trained and extremely grumpy monkey. It was hard to relax at first, but since when I’m learning a piece of music, I only ever play that piece, I could eventually get over being nervous and just do what needed to be done. I joined 3 pieces, like I said.

At the end, we had a group shot. My teacher is in the front on the right, in blue. Isn’t she pretty? Everyone looked really fancy in their kimono.

Me dancing to avoid singing. The lady I’m dancing with had a super-elaborate hair style that she did herself. I couldn’t stop looking at it, it was so fancy. Most of the women had very short hair or very simple styles if they wore it up.

My teacher and me at the end of a long dinner. I was feeling so tired and stuffed at this point that my mood was best read as “Really? Smile for the camera? No way”.
Again, isn’t she pretty? And so nice — this woman has done a lot for me over the past year. I’m truly thankful, and looking forward to another year and a half under her wing.

Shamisen Day

I have photos to go with this… they are coming. But I want to do the writing part while it’s fresh in my brain.

Today I had a shamisen meet-up. It was a gathering of students of the Iemoto, who is the head of the group. An Iemoto (that’s an “i”, not an “L”) is the head of a school of traditional arts: dance, music, and so on. The students of that school of teaching, once they reach certain levels, take on the name of the school/get a new name. I’m a student of a student, so I joined it.

I went to my teacher’s house at 10 am, to get dressed. We got done early, so we drove to the center where we would play… it was like a club, almost, with a restaurant downstairs, and sort of banquet-hall type rooms upstairs. We practiced for a while, then we folks started showing up at 12, we talked with them, and drank tea and so forth, served by guys in black suits, and then at 1, we started playing.

It was a long room, with tables at one end for the shamisens, then two long tables running the length of the room, where we sat. At the other end was a Japanese stage, which is just a low platform that we covered with fluffy blankets and then bright red cloth, backed by a giant gold folding screen. Photos to come.

We all had programs, and so it was like a mini-concert… but with room for tuning up and rearranging and making mistakes. I played in 3 songs, and luckily, the hardest one was first, so afterward I could completely relax. I sat and drank tea and ate snacks and admired my souvenir ceramic hot-pot rest (you know… the thing you put on the table when you’re going to put a hot pot or something on top of it… what is that thing called?).

It was nice to sit and listen to good (and complicated) music and singing for 4 hours… but it got really tiring. For one, I was in a kimono, which was pretty comfortable, but also unfamiliar and therefore uncomfortable. For two, I had to be “on” the whole time. Everyone was really nice and friendly, but making small talk in a second language with people you don’t know for almost 9 hours… it’s exhausting!
The nice thing was… everyone was so relaxed and friendly, that they would come up and yank on my kimono if it was out of place, or press me with more tea or information about a song, and that made me feel better and less out-of-place.

After we played all the songs, we ate dinner in another room. Japanese-style big dinner, which was just dish after dish of food on a big rotating wheel in the middle of the table. There was cold soba (gross), sushi, sashimi, tai fish (just severed down the middle and fried! I took a photo of its scary head) crab, raw fish with salad, radishes, a nabe pot, some sort of lasagna, fried chinese-style veg, steak with weird potatoes, fruit… I quit towards the end, and picked up again when the fruit showed up.

They also had a karaoke machine, so all the ladies were getting up and singing enka songs. People were asking me about English songs, but as I am crap at Michael Jackson, I sang the Sukiyaki Song:

Then I got some other ladies to sing “UFO” by Pink Lady, and I did the dance (because I know it. It’s a brilliant thing to have in your arsenal, because everybody in Japan knows it):

After that I listened to the ladies rocking out to enka songs (which to tell god’s honest truth, every song sounds exactly the same, so if you can see the lyrics you can sing along to anything and everyone will be very amazed). I have heard enka described as such:

The most typical form of Japanese pop music for the last 100 years was, with uninterupted success, Enka. For proper musical ethnologists and watchmen of good taste, it is a pure horror, not even worth mentioning.

Classy. Click here for a typical example. They play stuff like this on TV all the time.
Definitely you don’t have to watch the whole thing of that, but do take a look at Jero, a part-Japanese American, who is making “hip” enka.
It’s still enka, yo.

Not to rip on it too much, the ladies were choosing peppy songs with lots of clapping and chances to sing along, but since, like I said, they all sound the same to me, I used the time to zone out a bit and plan my classes for Tuesday. Heh. I was tired, OK?

Aaaaaannnnyway.
We finished around 8, and I was in my teacher’s house with kimono off, drinking coffee, by 830 (that’s 10 hours in a kimono. YOW). Then I biked home, crawled under my kotatsu, and here I am!

I need a shower.

Where did my weekend go???

2009 – the past 4 months (!!)

Oh my GOD I’ve been so lax. 600-odd photos are FINALLY on my computer, ready to be shared and perused. This post is image-heavy, but I want to show off what I’ve been up to last year!

Let me tell you about me right now, first. I am experiencing what people in books about the olden times called “ague”. As far as I can figure, it means malaria, which I do NOT have, but I am experiencing a stupid degree of pain in my skin, head, and organs. It’s awful. I can’t decide if I want to be hot or cold, all my clothing hurts my skin, and I can’t eat anything. Lunch was a power bar, mikan, and two yogurt drinks, to get vitamin C and also help adjust my bacteria levels (Hi microbes!)

So that is me.

And this was me back then!

I went to Tokyo!

Tokyo had a bunch of cool stuff, and I went twice — once for Disneyland (and frankly, the photos of that aren’t that interesting, although it was a very enjoyable time) and once for Awa Odori. Since all the Awa Odori people wanted to go to Disneyland, it gave me a free day to roam Tokyo by myself!! So I went to Harajuku, of course! They have the best store displays ever!

The “old team” (40′s +) ladies and I decided to go to Tokyo bay to see the GIANT GUNDAM ROBOT. Oh my goodness yes!

Did I mention the shop displays? Nice job, H&M!

B-b-b-back in Tokushima, it was time for the School Festival!!

I know, I am totally awesome.
English Club set up a Foreign Goods shop with various nonsense to sell. I hung out for a while, but mostly I roamed the halls, taking photos (which I’m not allowed to share here because there are students in them) but this one I think is OK:

I still have a bracelet that I bought there! It’s a embroidery floss bracelet and when you tie it on you make a wish and when it falls off the wish comes true (STILL ON = LAME)
Oh, and James and his friend from England visited and told all my students that I was his fiance/wife/etc (we were not dating) and I found out yesterday that the girls in 104 homeroom really believed I was married, and felt legitimately betrayed that I’m not.
A month or so later, I went to the festival at James’ school, and now regret not similarly messing with his reputation.

Next I went to Osaka and Wakayama prefecture with two lovely ladies, for some reason the photo of them didn’t upload properly. Oh well, the important part is Wakayama, with the magical 8-lotus mountain where Kobo Daishi brought back important Buddhism from China, and then he went wandering around Shikoku and visited 88 temples which is why we have the pilgrimage today (more on that later). It’s a super holy place and has over 200 temples.

This is the biggest rock garden in Japan (the World?!). It’s supposed to look like a dragon.

It was really hard to tell if this was a temple or palace, but Daishi spent heaps of time here and they had his writing desk and tons of beautiful rooms and basically gorgeous architecture. What can I say? Japan knows its minimalism (just as well as it does it’s pack-rat tendencies).

They also had a giant winding graveyard, with famous samurai and old important families and normal folks and company graves. This was the best one. If you die in service to your rocket-making company, your ashes can go here.

Biggest stupa in Japan (the World?!?!?)? Don’t mind if I do! Going inside strongly reminded me of being inside the Taj Mahal, for some reason. I should go back to India.

Ok, for some reason half my pictures didn’t upload properly, but this is the next one:

I love pudding. I love love love pudding. Or “purin” as it’s called here. This is the best one (and believe me, I’ve eaten a LOT of purin in Tokushima). It’s called Kokoro Odoru Purin, “Dancing Heart Pudding”. It’s this great purin that the bakery uses in it’s regular purin (which comes in a glass bottle with syrup at the bottom) but it’s been brule’d. It’s a creme brule, or as close as I’m going to get to one in Tokushima. FANTASTIC.

I went on an amazing 140 kilometer bike trip! And there was a giant dinosaur, WHY NOT, in the middle of nowhere. Oh, Japan.

In Hiroshima, the end/midway point of the trip, we stayed in a tiny waterfront town. Boats!!

Later, Rogakko (deaf school) had their school festival. Again, I’m not allowed to post photos of students, but here is some of their work displays:

Calligraphy by 3rd grade junior high (9th grade)

Remember the 88 temple pilgrimage I mentioned? Well, my good friend Ada and I started doing it. We did 5 temples (and haven’t been back since, HA!)

Biggest koi fish I have ever seen in my life. Seriously. They were bigger than the average weiner dog. I could have watched them all day!!

They had a panda statue. I don’t know why. But did I mention I’m going to CHINA??? More later.

These pilgrims were really nice. We saw them all day, because you do the temples in order so you see the same folks at each one. They had their little dog go up to every place and pray with them (to do the pilgrimage properly, you have to say about a gazillion Heart Sutras. Spell check didn’t correct me on “gazillion”, but it did on “sutras”. WHY?)

Oh and did I mention it was a beautiful day with amazing colors?

That’s my special temple book I’m holding. You take it to each temple and each temple has a special page and the monks or trainee monks or whoever puts a special stamp and calligraphy on the designated page and charges you $3. You can buy the books in various levels of fanciness, or just get a blank one that can work at any temple (pilgrim route or no).

COLORS!

Later, I went to Kyoto for Autumn Leaf Viewing. It’s Very Serious Business.

PHEW. I’ve got heaps more photos, but I’m pretty tired and hungry and need to go eat before I get sicker!

Poems like whoa

Trying to get my english club to write english haiku, their homeroom was practicing Hyakuninishu in the background. It’s a card game where you 100 famous old Japanese poems on cards, and the last 3 lines of each poem are written on another 100 cards. As the caller reads random poems, you have to slap the card with the right ending lines. The 1st grade students are having a giant contest next week, and they get really noisy slapping the cards and squealing.

I wrote this haiku in honor of a particularly noisy girl, and I’m pretty dang pleased with it.

hyakuninishu
bikkurishimashita
ano koe de

hyakuninishu
it surprised me
that voice

And that’s a Japanese poem, baby.