Tuesday, December 30, 2008

100 Things I Learned in 2008

1. "It's easier to leave than to be left behind." --REM, “Leaving New York”

2. You can push a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical to a certain point of seriousness.

3. But beyond that point do not attempt to venture.

4. If you do attempt to venture, trust your actors when they start to yank you back.

6. Directing a play is exhilarating and wonderful.

7. Directing a play is scary and lonely.

8. By turns and at the same time.

9. Showing a play to 1000 children under the age of 15 gives new meaning to the word “detail-oriented.”

10. Showing your play to 1000 children under the age of 15 gives new meaning to the word “vulnerable.”

11. For a single, blinding instant, I wanted to throttle every single child who left the auditorium to go to the bathroom.

12. That means that I wanted to commit at least 990 murders.

13. However, when one actress told us that her hairdresser’s six-year-old had sat perfectly still, mesmerized, for the full two hours, I loved the whole world again.

14. The audience never responds the way you think they will… but sometimes they respond even better than that.

15. When the curtain falls on your play for the last time… there are no words.

16. The best way to get over post-show withdrawal is to immediately begin a new show.

17. “I should have raped you and then talked to you. Resistance is futile.” --Matt Lewis

18. “Our audience won’t be that sympathetic to brother-sister incest. Then again, they might. This is Sackville.” --Mark Blagrave

19. Getting to watch the audience figure out that a love scene is actually an incest scene is quite entertaining.

20. When you combine a very organized director and a very organized stage manager, every single detail gets written down at least four times.

21. When in doubt, make more charts.

22. There is a good chance that I am a tech, not an actor.

23. The JET Program has a list of very, very strict rules.

24. According to the paperwork, if you break these rules, you will not be accepted.

25. The actual Program appears to only rarely actually care if you follow these rules.

26. Having interviewees go through security to get to a job interview is a pretty good way to have them thoroughly freaked-out before the interview.

27. Phone interviews can take place at 11 pm.

28. I talk really fast.

29. In person or on the phone.

30. Twisting an interview question so as to be able to admit that seems to go over well.

31. I am hireable!

32. Victory dances in the computer lab of the library are generally frowned upon.

33. Just try to restrain yourself.

34. Oh yeah… I took classes too.

35. I don’t like punk music.

36. And I don’t find it particularly academically interesting, either.

37. I can write essays.

38. I cannot write fiction.

39. Having first-year tests to mark is a good excuse to order overpriced beverages at Bridge Street.

40. Only some of the first-years will improve after they fail the first test.

41. Being busy is good.

42. It is possible to be too busy.

43. When you are too busy, some things will slip through your fingers.

44. Sorry, Rights and Democracy.

45. A Cockney accent is as difficult as a French Canadian accent.

46. There is painful irony in telling an actor to drop her natural abilities at enunciation.

47. I hate accents.

48. I am not sure how I feel about dogs on stage.

49. I am quite sure how I feel about glass and food on stage.

50. Don’t. Just, don’t.

51. Get someone to take a lot of pictures at your college graduation.

52. You won’t remember a thing.

53. It must something about the robes.

54. Graduating, performing in a show, and packing to move home -- all at the same time -- takes so much energy that you won’t have much left to be sad.

55. Sadness comes later.

56. To move overseas, you need an exhaustive and exhausting collection of items.

57. Again, there isn’t a lot of energy left over for being sad.

58. Or being excited.

59. It is possible to entirely the excited-honeymoon stage of culture shock.

60. Jetlag, homesickness, and the other stages of culture shock are a real bummer.

61. Especially when they all hit at the same time.

62. A Japanese junior high school runs on the power of "kawaii" (cute).

63. I am kawaii. On a good day, I am even “lo-vu-lee.”

64. Talking to my students requires the use of a two-way dictionary.

65. But somehow we both still enjoy it.

66. Whatever the foreign teacher does, it is worthy of notice and wonderful and hilarious.

67. Just laugh along.

68. Theatre experience is very useful when living overseas.

69. I can pantomime the concept of a soap dish to a puzzled store clerk.

70. And I don’t even care when people look at me strangely!

71. Being illiterate at 22 is an odd experience.

72. Being vegetarian in Japan means that you will learn the kanji for “niku” (meat) very fast.

73. Niku is everywhere!!!

74. Japanese dollar stores put all American stores (dollar or otherwise) to shame.

75. So does Japanese service.

76. It is really easy to get used to not tipping.

77. Constant shoe-switching is an acquired skill.

78. It is almost impossible to stand in front of something and fully appreciate that it is 400, or 800, or 1200, years old.

79. Having so many chances to practice is an incredible gift.

80. It is easy to become blind to the little differences, the little curiosities, the little miracles.

81. The little things happen every day.

82. Pay attention!

83. August 2009 is creeping up really fast.

84. But August 2010 is really far away.

85. Yes, We Can.

86. Well, actually “Yes, You Can.”

87. I was in the wrong ****ing country! Again!

88. “Breaking up is hard to do.” --Neil Sedaka

89. Even when it’s the right thing to do.

90. Japan loves Christmas decorations to an extreme degree.

91. Japan does not love Christmas to the same degree.

92. Christmas at work isn’t as bad as you might think.

93. Disney is almost as much fun at 23 as it was at 3.

94. People will wait in line for four hours to go on “Pooh’s Hunny Hunt.”

95. I won’t -- but having gone on the ride, I can understand why others will.

96. “It’s a Small World” with Christmas decorations and carols is every bit as good an idea as it sounds.

97. I am the Little Foreigner That Could.

98. Actually, I am the Gigantic, Extremely Tall Foreigner That Could.

99. There are days when I miss being the Regular-Sized Native That Didn’t Have to Try So Hard.

100. I miss you all!

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Christmas Card

Whatever or whether you're celebrating this month...

may you have an abundant supply of whatever brings you joy...


... and may your days be merry and bright.

Love, Jenn

Monday, December 15, 2008

Tokyo Disney

This weekend I went to Toyko Disneyland with two other ALTs. Now, I grew up in Florida and went to Disney World about once a year for a while. And this is Japan, where they have achieved insane levels of technological wizardry and even more insane levels of adoration for all things Disney. So I had pretty high nostalgia and pretty high expectations going in. How would the two parks (one on each day) measure up?

Saturday: Disneyland, apparently intended to be a copy of the one in California

Stuff that was not excellent:

The crowds… were absolutely insane. Did you know that Tokyo Disney is the second-most-visited amusement park in the world? It’s second to Disney World in Florida, which has six parks to Tokyo’s two. There were lines of up to four hours for some of the most popular rides (which we didn’t go on). Also, Japanese people have a much more reduced sense of personal space than Westerners. At more than one point, I was wishing I could say in Japanese: “Pressing your breasts into the small of my back will not make this line move any faster!”

The lack of vegetarian food… and I mean utter lack, as in I was picking pieces of octopus tentacles off pizza. I was pleasantly surprised by veggie-friendliness of the last place popular with Westerners (Nikko), but apparently the memo hasn’t reached Tokyo Disney yet.

Stuff that was excellent mostly because it took me back to being five years old:

Peter Pan… has always been cheesy and campy and silly, but is now cheesy and campy and silly and really fast. I think they’ve sped it up to try to get more people through more quickly. It was a 75-minute wait for a 75-second ride. Tragedy.

The Carousel… used to have bigger horses when I was smaller. Either that or the horses made for American kids really are bigger than the ones made for Japanese kids. It was delightful, but not as majestic as I remembered.

The Swiss Family Robinson treehouse… was less intricate than I remembered. It did, however, have this, which made me laugh hard enough to make up for all deficiencies:

Stuff that was just plain excellent:

Excellent lobbies and entranceways… keep you from being too bored while waiting in line. Prime photo-taking opportunities, especially since you’re not doing anything else anyway.


Pooh’s Hunny Hunt… does not exist in Florida, and I have no idea why. It was a delight from the very beginning, when the line wound around giant-sized book pages, with text directly from the books and pictures from the original movie. It got exponentially better when we were sitting in our own private honey/hunny pot being whirled around on the floor through the Very Windy Day and the Heffalump Nightmare. Most excellent times to be had by all.

The Jungle Cruise… was almost as funny in Japanese as in English. I have new respect for the talents of Disney actors.

The extremely realistic animatronic Johnny Depp… that graced the new version of “Pirates of the Caribbean.” I liked that they nodded to the movie enough to satisfy its fans, but mostly kept the madcap watch-the-pirates-wreak-havoc-while-singing senselessness.

A parade featuring Christmas lights and carols… for which we actually had seats, but abandoned them once it became clear that a.) we couldn’t really see that well anyway, and b.) the huge crowds at the parade had drastically reduced the wait time for “Pooh’s Hunny Hunt.” As our luck would have it, our view of the parade was absolutely incredible from the line -- so much so that there were cast members employed in making sure that people didn’t hold up the line watching the parade.

It’s a Small World… was worth the entire trip. I started grinning like a little kid the second we set foot inside and didn’t stop until well after we’d left. I’ve always loved it, but with it all dressed up for Christmas (including Christmas carols in many languages) I was over the moon.


Sunday: DisneySea, a park that exists only in Tokyo.

Stuff that was not excellent:

Continued lack of vegetarian food… led to picking salmon off pizza (seeing a pattern? -- I came home feeling pretty vegetable-starved). At one point, I told a waitress that I had an allergy (the easiest way to explain it), which produced the restaurant manager, bearing a very thick binder of ingredient lists and the unfortunate information that even the pesto sauce had pork in it. Seriously? Pesto?!

Rain… poured all morning, amidst temperatures in the low 40s. It was very cold. Eighty-minute lines did not seem so bad, when that meant eighty minutes inside a heated room. However, the weather greatly reduced the crowds… it was positively peaceful by comparison.

Stuff that was excellent because it took me back to being five years old:

Triton’s Palace, aka the Mermaid Lagoon… is mostly set up with kiddie rides, but we stayed long enough to take a few pictures. God, I used to love this movie.

Exotic carousel choices… on Aladdin’s carousel, which was a time-waster before our fast-pass tickets for “20,000 Leagues” were operational, but turned out to be a great success. Not only did we get to ride camels and elephants on the second floor, but Jafar, the Genie, and Abu turned up to ride the cycle before ours.

Sindbad’s Storybook Adventure… is based on a story from “The Thousand and One Nights,” not a Disney movie at all. But it had all the proper elements: a really cute animal companion, a song with a heartwarming chorus, and lots of animatronics. A lovely, slow-paced break from the crowds.

Aquatopia… involves little rubber-ringed floats that are dragged around a small lagoon featuring waterfalls, fountains, and shooting jets of water, all of which you are sure are going to soak you but manage to just barely miss.

Stuff that was just plain excellent:

The Jules Verne-themed rides… of which there are two, “Journey to the Centre of the Earth” and “20,000 Leagues under the Sea.” The former is a relatively slow trip through caves of glowing crystal and friendly-looking Star Wars-esque giant insects, until you round a corner and meet up with a cave monster reminiscent of the Balrog, at which point the ride suddenly becomes a roller coaster -- a fact which my friends neglected to tell me, which led to one of the more fun adrenaline rushes I’ve had in a while.
The latter puts you in a round submarine and sends you on a trip through similarly-colorful underwater scenes, which you can illuminate with your self-controlled searchlight. Very classic, peaceful, no roller coaster moments.

Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull… was a roller coaster that I was expecting to be so. I was pretty impressed at how much they could jerk our Jeep around without launching it off the tracks entirely.
Also, the wait (the aforementioned 80-minute wait in a warm place) yielded some pretty excellent pictures.

The Tower of Terror… was far worse in anticipation than in reality. They really psych you up with the cursed idol thing (especially if you can’t understand what he’s saying before he starts cackling), but the drop is not all that bad. And the views of the park out the ninth-story windows are pretty cool. And then you can buy your very own miniature cursed idol in the attached gift shop… so that you can risk elevator-death on a daily basis…? Oh, Japan.

Photo ops… abounded. DisneySea has fewer rides (and fewer crowds, so shorter wait times), so more of our time was spent admiring the scenery and the Christmas decorations.

Overall, it was happy and campy and cheerful and nostalgia-inducing. I don’t know whether I will feel the need to go again, but I had an awfully good time.

Sunday, November 30, 2008

End-of-November Observations

Today I went downtown to have lunch with a friend from Cameroon, and in between that and church at 6 I had about three hours of downtime. I spent a little time engaged in one of my favorite hobbies: wandering through one of Sendai's many extremely expensive shopping malls. I like to watch the panic in the salesgirls' eyes recede as they size up my $19 shoulder bag and $12 sneakers and determine that there is no possible way I am going to buy anything and require them to actually interact with my Western self. It's almost as much fun as the day my family inspired great relief in the concierge of the Chateau Frontenac, by leaving his lobby. I think that life for people who actually have money must be quite dull.

But anyway, I also spent quite a bit of time simply wandering and reflecting on life at present in Japan. And I came to two realizations, both of which are comparisons.

1.) In New England, home of (and inventor of the phrase) leaf-peeping, fall is about a two-week-long party. In the middle of October, every single leaf changes color. Everything is completely stunning for about two weeks, then there is an icy-cold, day-long downpour that knocks off every leaf and heralds the beginning of late fall and winter. (And, if you're me, you always forget that this is going to happen and get super-depressed when it does.)

In Japan, people also plan trips around going to see the leaves change. But the whole process has been much longer and more drawn-out than I'm used to. My friend Taylor, who is from Connecticut, said that he has found it somewhat anti-climactic. The first trees started to change color in mid-October -- and they are still at it! We've had a couple of icy-cold, day-long downpours which have knocked down a good many leaves, but when I look up at the hillside it is still red and orange and yellow and even green in patches.

It's odd, especially since the reason that the Japanese people like to watch the leaves change is that it offers an opportunity to reflect on the impermanence of life. I would like to tell them that things are way more Buddhist-y in New England.

(This park is in the middle of downtown. It has a lot of statues of semi-nude people. Also late fall foliage. Also homeless people.)


2.) In the States (and, from what other ALTs tell me, most of the West), people think that, overall, winter sucks. Consequently, there are jobs, products, and entire industries devoted to making it suck somewhat less.

In Japan, people also think that winter sucks. But there are markedly fewer such jobs and products. Central heating does not exist -- and my teachers have needed to get special permission to turn on the kerosene heaters in the classrooms, even when the students are avoiding doing in-class work because they don't want to take their hands out of their pockets. Insulation barely exists. High-school girls are still biking to school in mini-skirts. Regular people are still biking around with no gloves on. I just learned that they won't use salt on the roads or on our steps.

I am not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, it seems very silly to suffer for half the year, especially when you don't really have to. On the other, it is certainly more environmentally friendly, and possibly more psychologically healthy, to just accept the seasons for what they are. I am trying to recognize that the first hand is probably very Western. I am trying to be philosophical and open and accepting.

But it is easier to be these things when I am not scared of killing myself on my stairs.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

N is for Nikko

A is for America, which has both a North and a South part.
Taylor and I met a couple of guys from Nicaragua and Argentina, who had been invited to Japan to take part in a conference in Tokyo about global warming and how developing nations (such as theirs) could play a role in enacting and promoting the mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol.

When we first said hello, they asked us where we were from and we said, “America.” This is the response Japanese people expect; they do not understand either an individual state name or “the United States.” It is, however, a politically-incorrect response to give to people from Nicaragua and Argentina, who informed us that we were from North America and that South America is also America. Oops.

B is for the red-lacquered Shinkyo Bridge.
According to the legends, a famous Buddhist priest named Shodo Shonin and his retinue were attempting to explore the Nikko mountain area in 767 when they were halted by the then-bridgeless Deiwa River. Shodo Shonin prayed, and the god Jinja Daio appeared with two snakes that he used to create a bridge for the priest and company to cross. No word on how they got back across the river when they were done with the mountain.
Anyway, in 1636, they built a bridge that looks like this:

It’s been maintained since then, and was just rebuilt in 2005. Back in the day, only the emperor and the local shogun were allowed to cross it (a separate, much less fancy, bridge was maintained for regular people), but today you can pay 300 yen for the privilege of crossing.

C is for Curfew.
Our first choice for a hostel was full, probably because of the long weekend. Our second choice was very clean and very nice, but also a very Do-It-Yourself affair (they handed us sheets when we checked in, and towels for the communal bath could be rented). It also had a 10 pm curfew, which we were initially somewhat upset about. However, upon arrival at 8.30 to discover a ghost town of dark shop windows and closed restaurants, it ceased to seem like such a drag.

D is for Deer.
The hostel was situated partway up a hill, and the row of windows made it look, in Cinderellan terms, “like a lovely diamond necklace in the dark.” It was very welcoming and very, very pretty.
Then, just to seal the deal of the hostel as a good omen for a good trip, two deer, one male and one female, ran across the front yard and into the woods just as we approached.

E is for Ebisu.
At the first temple we visited, I bought a good luck charm for 200 yen. It was like a vending machine except for trustworthy people: you dropped in your money and then reached through a hole in the glass to select a little plastic-wrapped packet that includes a written prophecy (which I can’t tell you, or it won’t come true) and a little gold-colored metal charm.
I pulled out Ebisu, who is “loved as one of the notable blessing deities. He is also known as a deity of bringing laughter, the source of good luck and the wellspring of happiness” (according to the little informative slip of paper).

F is for First Instance of the “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” monkeys.
The Toshogu Shrine is the exception that proves the rule in terms of Shinto shrines being austere and unadorned. Every surface that could possibly bear a carving does, but many of them are relatively incomprehensible to the Westerner who does not have a solid grasp of Japanese, Buddhist, and/or Shinto mythology.
This one isn’t.

Recognize them? The concept of “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” is the central principle of Tendai Buddhism. It has been adopted, with basically no attention paid to its actual meaning, into Western culture, and monkeys covering their eyes, ears, and mouths are freakin’ everywhere. [insert Orientalist rant]
I actually have a lot of problems with the political apathy apparently promoted by the monkeys, but I am pretty pleased and excited to have seen the very first instance, from the 17th century, of representing “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” with monkeys.

G is for Gaijin.
[Gaijin in Japanese means “foreigner,” but it’s not a very polite term; it’s relatively the same as calling someone a “wetback” instead of an “illegal immigrant.” It has been adopted by foreigners for ironic self-identification much the same way “band geek” is now a term of affection and belonging.]
Nikko is a tourist town, which meant that it was filled with foreigners of all stripes, all of whom were extremely friendly. We met the two South Americans at a random waterfall, and had a several-hours-long chat with them, before they had to catch their train back to Tokyo, without ever even exchanging names. We then met a gay couple, Christian and Nigel, from Albuquerque, New Mexico, when two seats at their table were the only ones available in the restaurant we went into. They were staying at our hostel, so we walked back together, showed them how to set up a futon, and made plans to go to Lake Chuzenji together the next day.
I was also offered 200 yen to rent a towel by a random guy at the vending machine (Taylor had the room key, where my wallet was, but they lent me the towel on credit), and we met an Australian student on the train back.

Fleeting connections, but very genuine.

The proliferation of foreigners also meant a proliferation of English in the street signs, explanatory placards, maps, and tourist information centres, which was very helpful.

H is for Horse of the Sacred Variety.
The building adorned by the monkey carvings was actually a stable, which houses the Sacred Horse.
This is the Sacred Horse:

His name is Koha. He was a gift from New Zealand (see “Z”). He is the only foreign horse currently serving as a Sacred Horse in Japan.
I have no idea why Koha is a Sacred Horse, or why it is necessary for Toshogu to have a Sacred Horse. I’m afraid I have no further information at all. The whole thing seemed rather surreal and bizarre to me.
Incidentally, Koha has a pretty sweet life. He “works” for four hours every day, when the door is open and hundreds of people take his picture. The rest of the day he spends in a pasture. I think I want to be reborn as a Sacred Horse.

I is for Ieyasu Tokugawa.
Ieyasu Tokugawa was a shogun who died in the early years of the 1600s and requested that a shrine be built in his honor. This was done, and everyone was happy.
At least, they were happy for about two generations. Ieyasu Tokugawa’s grandson, Iemitsu Tokugawa, decided that the shrine was nowhere near elaborate or impressive enough. Toshogu Shrine is the result of his vision, and his sub-lords’ tax dollars (which kept them from rising up against him!). It is visually overwhelming almost to the point of exhaustion.

J is for Jakukou Falls.
On Sunday afternoon, Taylor and I had planned to take a bus up to Lake Chuzenji. Traffic, however, meant that a trip usually lasting less than an hour would have taken two and half hours. So instead we decided to check out a nearby park (see “P”), one stop away on the train. We came back to town about an hour and a half before dark, and decided to try to make it to a nearby waterfall.
About two kilometres later, we did make it -- just barely. There is very little photographic evidence of the waterfalls, both because it was already too dark for my camera to cope and because they were nowhere near impressive enough to justify an hour-and-a-half-long walk.
We did, however, meet the South Americans at Jakukou. Chatting with them was worth the walk.

K is for Kegon Falls.
This waterfall, ironically, would have been worth the walk and yet required almost no walking at all. We rode a very spiffy elevator 100 metres through the bedrock then walked out through a tunnel onto a three-story observation platform with incredible views not only of the waterfall proper but also of large amounts of water flowing from all kinds of other streams and fissures in the rock.


L is for Lake Chuzenji.
On Monday morning, Taylor and I joined Christian and Nigel and the four of us caught a bus that went up to Lake Chuzenji, which is nestled in a valley partway up the mountains. Our maps and information led me to believe that it was a national park, which I envisioned a bunch of hiking trails with a rustic sort of visitors’ centre, but instead we found a bustling small town with a rather built-up lakeside. I’m sure there was hiking available -- somewhere -- but most people seemed to be choosing to explore the lake via animal-shaped paddleboats.
After admiring the Falls, we meandered along the side of the lake admiring the views until lunchtime, after which we headed back into town to catch our train.

M is for Monkeys!
When I came to Japan, I had two goals. One was to stay at a Buddhist temple and eat their vegan cooking called shojin ryori. The other was to see wild monkeys. One of those goals has now been realized, on the shores of Lake Chuzenji:

None of us had yet seen Japanese monkeys, and we were all pretty excited. There were three, two adults and a baby, who scampered away along a chain-link fence by the river before we could get very many pictures.
Monkeys!

N is for Nemuri Neko.
Very little of Nikko is overrated or overpriced. The Nemuri Neko (Sleeping Cat in English) is both.
The admission price for Toshogu does not include the Nemuri Neko, for which you have to pay an extra 520 yen. From there, you join the throng of people and push through a small gate, directly above which is a wooden carving maybe 12 inches long.

I honestly would have missed it if everyone in line ahead of us hadn’t been taking pictures. We could not figure out what the big deal was. I was convinced it must have some kind of massive symbolic or spiritual meaning, so Taylor (who speaks Japanese) asked one of the assistants selling worship aids. Her response, according to his translation, was: “It’s old and it’s cute.” Leave it to the Japanese to put that much emphasis on something’s being cute.
Ironically, not that many people were interested in climbing the approximately 800 steps that followed the cat-adorned gate, at the top of which was the actual tomb of Ieyasu Tokugawa, the reason the whole place was built.

O is for Onsen.
The hostel came equipped with a traditional Japanese communal bath, in which you remove your clothing in an outer room, wash and rinse sitting on small wooden stools at half-height showers with detachable showerheads, and then soak in extremely hot water. I am actually not a big fan of hot water, and my favourite part of the bath was getting out and rinsing off with cool water -- but it sure was a good way to relax after a long day of tramping around.
The baths were particularly nice in our place -- wooden walls, granite tile. That was included in the price of the room. But you had to pay 200 yen for a towel.

P is for the Park in Imaichi that featured cedars and waterwheels.
On Sunday afternoon, when we discovered that we couldn’t make it to Lake Chuzenji, we were advised to ride the train one stop west, to a pretty little park. The tourist information lady told us that it had a lot of cedars that were planted 300-400 years ago. She did not tell us that it also heavily featured wooden waterwheels and funky stone carvings.

We couldn’t figure out if the waterwheels were actually accomplishing anything (don’t waterwheels have the ability to produce power?), or whether they were just there for show.
Incidentally, Nikko and its environs are absolutely flooded with waterways. This park had at least four different streams running through it (at one of which I insisted that Taylor play Poohsticks with me, at which point his regard for my intelligence may have dropped considerably). The town proper, entirely aside from the two sets of waterfalls, had rivers and streams everywhere, including along the sides of the roads. I’m astonished that Shodo Shonin only needed to magically acquire one bridge in order to make his way around.

Q is for Quiet, which we found at Futarasan-jinja.
As we walked along the shores of Lake Chuzenji, we encountered yet another shrine. This one, however, was nearly devoid of tourists. The few people who were there were mostly praying or standing quietly taking in the scenery. It was a pretty welcome relief to the senses, after the crowded and almost-overstimulating chaos of Toshogu the day before.

R is for Rinno-ji.
This temple, which was founded by Shodo Shonin, of Shinkyo Bridge fame, was our first stop on Sunday morning. The outside was relatively unimpressive, as Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines (the two religions were merged at one point, and ever since have been divided only with very fuzzy and permeable lines -- most Japanese people consider themselves to belong to both traditions) usually are.
But inside, we found three ten-foot-high statues: the thousand-headed Kannon, the Amida Buddha, and the horse-headed Kannon. The first and third looked more like demons than like what I think of as gods -- I find the most interesting difference between Eastern and Western religions to be the Asian expectation that their gods will fight tooth and nail for them. Life of Pi describes the disappointment and scorn of the narrator (a Hindu) when he discovers the passivity of Jesus’ “passion.”

S is for Shinkansen.
We took the shinkansen to get there, but left undecided our methods for getting back -- the “bullet train” is very expensive, but much faster than local trains. When we discovered that our trip back would be 6 hours long and only $25 cheaper than the one-hour-long shinkansen trip, we got back on the shink.
It was my first time travelling on the shinkansen since we came to Sendai from Tokyo. I was again underwhelmed. It just doesn’t feel like you’re travelling 300 kilometers/188 miles an hour.

T is for Taylor, my travelling partner.
Here we are, by the Kegon Falls:

He was extremely patient with both my cheapskate tendencies and my affection for kitschy souvenirs.

U is for Up the side of a mountain.
I could be wrong, but it seems to me that most roads that lead cars up the sides of mountains wind long distances around the mountains, so that the grade is relatively low and the trip is relatively long.
The road up Lake Chuzenji does not follow this rule. Instead, hairpin turns and a very, very steep road mean that at any one time you can look out the window of the bus and look out over a many-foot drop, crossed with about four levels of road that you just came up -- or you can be looking up at a cliff criss-crossed with four levels of road that you’re about to be on.
It was an experience, but I kept my eyes closed on the way down.

V is for Vegetarianism.
Even by American standards, I ate well this trip -- which means that by Japanese standards, I ate spectacularly. Not only is the regional speciality made out of tofu (see “Y”), but the restaurants in town are well-used to dealing with Western tourists and their weird dietary requirements. (People actually knew the meaning of the word “vegetarian”!!)
We found an Indian restaurant, whose owner opened the door while we were examining the menu and beckoned us in with “Indian food! Very delicious! Come in!”, which featured a vegetarian spread of two curries, naan, saffron rice, a samosa, salad, and lussi. I had forgotten how much I love Indian food.
Taylor spotted this sign that evening:

The menu had about six vegetarian Japanese options, clearly labelled with neat little green Vs. I ordered yakisoba, which is kind of like fried rice except with buckwheat noodles instead of rice. Usually it involves little pieces of fish, ground beef, or pork, so I was pretty excited to not have to pick anything out of it before eating it. The food was as wonderful as the atmosphere: the walls inside were plastered with little notes and business cards in many languages from people through the years who have approved of the place as much as we did.
We met Christian and Nigel here, and spent enough time talking that eventually the waitress kicked us out, telling us that she was sorry but this was a restaurant and not a coffeehouse.

W is for Woodcarving Exhibition.
When we got off the train at Kami-imaichi, looking for the cedars-and-waterwheels park, we noticed a group of people sitting in a little hall attached to the station. They waved us in most enthusiastically, so we decided to check out what was happening. It turned out to be an exhibition of local woodcarving, including some pieces by schoolkids. Some of them were just your basic woodcarving, but others were truly spectacular. My favourites were the chests of drawers that were so heavily carved with intricate leaf-and-flower designs that it was hard to find the drawer handles. I like utilitarian art. We wandered through the little exhibition hall, Taylor asked questions about the pieces and translated the answers for me, and we signed our names in the guestbook (Taylor can do his in kanji, but I had to rely on katakana).
Later, when we were waiting for the train to go back to Nikko proper, one of the ladies came running out and presented us with tangerines, muffins, and rice crackers -- “to eat on the train,” she explained.

X is for X-rated antiques.
Nikko is full of antiques shops. On our way into town from the temples, we window-shopped and occasionally wandered through one that seemed interesting.
In one, I found a stack of off-center prints of birds and other animals that I would have bought if I hadn’t been sure that carting them around in a backpack for the rest of the day would ruin them. Next to that stack was a white sheet of paper hand-printed (in English): “Pornography. Adult only.”
Pornography not usually being something you find in a rather dusty antiques shop run by a little old Japanese lady, I called Taylor over and we investigated. It was indeed antique pornography -- on sale because it was off-center, like the birds and animals. It was also very weird -- very difficult to decipher what was supposed to be happening.

Y is for Yuba-ryori.
The speciality of the region, yuba-ryori is tofu that has been flattened into thin strips and then rolled or squished into various shapes. We found a small cafĂ©-and-gift-shop that served us just enough to try two varieties. One was wheel-shaped and tasted like intriguely-textured tofu. The other was vaguely round and flat, and was called sashimi yuba. It had the texture, and to an astonishing degree the taste, of fish sashimi. I don’t know how they did that, but I definitely prefer it to real sashimi.

Z is for New Zealand, giver of the Sacred Horse.
Koha (see “H”), whose name means “gift” in Maori, was given to Japan by the government of New Zealand “as a token of goodwill and friendship between the two countries” (according to the placard on his stall).
Taylor was intrigued at how easy a gesture this was for New Zealand to make. “Here’s a horse, now we’re friends!”
I was more interested in what would happen if the ship carrying the Sacred Horse from New Zealand sank. “Oh well, I guess we weren’t meant to be friends.”
We both found the Sacred Horse to be a bit of a weird idea.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

What's wrong with this scene?

Scene: Last night, around 9 pm. A knock on the door.

JENN opens the door to find a SALESMAN who is visibly thrown to be facing a foreigner.


SALESMAN: Nihongo? ("Japanese?")

JENN: Wakarimasen. ("I don't understand [Japanese].")

SALESMAN forcibly removes the door from JENN and shuts it in her face.


I had my own door shut in my face!

This is such a weird land.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Hiraizumi (busy weekend part 2)

Ages ago before I discovered the novels hiding under my desk at school, I was reading a Japan guidebook and discovered the existence of this extremely historical little town, currently housing only 9000 residents but once a cultural capital of over 100,000 people, widely accepted to have rivaled Kyoto for culture during its height. That height was even earlier than Sendai's: about 1100-1200, although at least one temple may have existed as early as 850. Astonishingly, some of the buildings and more of the artwork and artifacts have survived in Hiraizumi than in Sendai.

I boarded a Japan Railways train at 9.01 am from Sendai, and quickly discovered that traveling on an older JR train without a Japanese speaker is quite a stressful experience. The newer trains have things like bilingual maps, LED displays of upcoming stations, and pre-recorded English messages; this train had nothing but the conductor occasionally saying "garblegarble Ichinoseki [my station] garblegarble desu." I had to just hope that he was saying "This train is bound for Ichinoseki" and not "If you wanted to go to Ichinoseki, you should have gotten off at the last station; this train is bound for Tokyo/Hokkaido/the seventh circle of hell." At one point, I was shuffled, by a kind conductor who made the correct assumption that blonde hair meant I had no idea what was going on, to the front car of the train -- at which point we continued on our way and left the rest of the train behind! Very scary stuff, traveling in a foreign language.

I did, however, make it to Ichinoseki with no problems, where I boarded, for the last eight miles of the trip to Hiraizumi, the most quintessentially Japanese train that could possibly exist:
That is a train car with tatami flooring, kotatsu tables, legless chairs, and karaoke at one end. We all say "Only in Japan" quite a lot, but I am pretty sure that this is REALLY only in Japan.

Incidentally, those old women yelled at me because I changed into the slippers that were provided at the entrance and walked onto the tatami with them. This was, sadly, only the first instance of the day in which I proved to elderly Japanese people that all Westerners were raised in barns. I still don't know where you were supposed to go with the slippers.

Upon arrival in Hiraizumi, I spurned bus tours, bike rentals, and the tourist information centre in favour of saving money and being independent. Why I felt that it would be weak to visit the info centre, I don't know. But instead I struck out, on foot, for Chusonji Temple, about a 25-minute walk from the station.

Chusonji was founded in either 850 or 1100, depending on who you ask. It stands at the top of a hill, which means that to reach it you have to climb a cypress-lined gravel path. Much of the temple as it exists today is a series of relatively small shrines. Monks still live and worship there and the Hondo, or Main Hall, still houses religious rituals. As such, it provided a rather odd atmosphere that was half-touristy and half-religious-pilgrimagey. Some people prayed and lit incense; other people (and not just foreigners!) took pictures. Some stalls sold beautifully handcrafted articles for worship; others sold cell phone charms featuring Hello Kitty, Doraemon, and Stitch.

Two of its original buildings, from the 12th century, still stand. The Konjikido, or Golden Hall, is a 5.5-square-meter sculpture of the Western Paradise of Pure Land Buddhism. It looks much like a very elaborate and detailed shrine, with the Amida Buddha in the centre, surrounded by bodhissatvas -- except that it is covered inside and out with pure gold leaf and inlay work of ivory (from Africa) and mother-of-pearl (from Southeast Asia). It is stunning and breathtaking in its beauty and scope.

It is protected behind plate glass, and photographs are strictly prohibited. It defies written description, though, so I stole this from the Visit Hiraizumi website:

The Kyozo, the other remaining building, was the sutra repository and is now much less impressive than the Konjikido. But you can also see the sutras in an on-site museum. They were written with gold ink on dark blue paper; all are beautiful even for those who don't read Japanese, but one in particular was written so that the characters created the image of a many-storied pagoda. From a distance, it looked like a very detailed painting with slightly fuzzy lines; only close-up did you realize that the lines were actually made up of tiny, perfect kanji. I found the sutras, and also the many large Buddha sculptures, each carefully covered with gold leaf and adorned with jewels, as spellbinding in their own way as the Konjikido.

On my way back to the path down the hill, I happened to be walking by the Hondo just in time for a demonstration of Kawanishi Nenbutsu Kenbai dancing by local school kids. It involved some pretty intricate fan work and a good deal of stomping, turning, and rotating in a circle. It also involved extremely elaborate costumes, topped off with feathered headdresses.
There were three costumed adults standing near me, and a tour guide offered to approach them and ask them to take a picture with me. She asked one, and he brought his buddies with him:
She also wrote down the name of the dance style in romaji (Western characters) for me. I love Japanese people.

Motsuji Temple also dates from the 12th century, but all its buildings have been destroyed by fire (some more than once) and it is now best known for its garden, which does still exist in more or less its original form. The garden is dominated by a large man-made pond, which was designed to suggest several different geographic conditions found in Japan. This is mountains:
The pond is fed by a feeder stream that was excavated in nearly-perfect condition in the early 20th century and has been flowing for over eight hundred years. It is quite awe-inspiring to stand beside it and know that you are standing where monks used to stand and meditate, looking at the same rocks, smoothed by hand to be perfectly round, that they did.
You can circle the pond in two ways. The first I took is maybe ten yards back from the pond and takes you past the sites of all the burned buildings. The second is right at the water's edge and points out the different geographic conditions created by the rocks and water. Neither lets you forget that you are essentially visiting a ruin -- although Motsuji, like Chusonji, is still fully operational. By this point, all threat of rain was gone and it was a perfect, sunny fall afternoon. I had already learned a lot and been thoroughly overwhelmed, and it was great to quietly take in the colored leaves and the sunshine in an ancient temple garden.

I didn't stay in town for dinner; by that time, I was very tired and ready enough to go home that I didn't want to wait around until I got hungry. So I ate the peanut butter sandwich I'd packed for lunch and never bothered to eat, while sitting on the train wondering all the same things I'd wondered on the way there.