high times at buddhist disneyland, or: nachi no tacos

a few weeks ago, megan and stan came down to make me a huge plate of nachos and see nachi waterfall...about 40 minutes away in the adjacent prefecture. it's the second tallest waterfall in japan. i hadn't made it to nachi yet because i didn't learn of it until winter...not a good time to stand around spraying water. i wanted to go with them, but i was hesitant because going anywhere from here usually requires driving on winding mountain roads that invariably make me carsick and ruin whatever experience i set out to have. i also had a pancake party date with the office girls later that evening, and i wanted to have time to get ready for that. but the day dawned sparkling and sunny, and i knew i'd regret not going out, so i agreed. the drive wasn't bad--we just had to drive to shingu (the road is almost dead straight) and then turn onto the windy part for a short time. we hopped out and walked up the road a bit to a giant staircase hewn out of rock...leading down to the base of the waterfall. this is an important place in the whole buddhist pilgrimage route, but i mainly ignore that stuff because it doesn't interest me. due to its importance, however, there were several fancy-pancy big temples nearby and lots of monks and monkettes selling prayer bags and other religious paraphernalia.
there was incense and fragrant wood burning...probably my favorite part about temples in japan. for about $2.50 we could hike up closer to the falls, which we did. at one point on the trail, they even had tiny ceramic dishes out of which you could drink the sacred waterfall water (for another $2.50), but i already had a bottle of volvic (voted best-tasting in a blind taste test), which cost less money and came all the way from france (that said in a wry voice). the waterfall was pretty, but i'm sure it's more magnificent when the rains have plumped it up a lot. i took a little camera video so i could capture the sound of the water...sorry it's sideways.

little did i know the entire day would be about water sounds. i was charmed by this crinkly stream on the way up to the big temples.

and lastly, a faucet dripping into a bucket, though mainly you just hear a kid jumping up the stairs behind me.

in the past, i've sorta had the attitude, "seen one temple, seen 'em all," but i was wrong. the nachi temples are accented in bright orange, and against the blue sky, stunning. it isn't uncommon to see young ladies "hiking" these rough-hewn, rocky trails in stiletto heels.


we climbed innumerable stairs, but the view was worth it.


when we got here, i reached the conclusion that sometimes japan looks just like a disney interpretation of itself. i expected to see snow white waving placidly from the wee orange bridge.


lovely chipped paint


these flower buds caught my attention and i photographed them a few times. when we came around the corner of the building, i (with my infantile kanji abilities) sounded out the first two kanji i've ever read adjacent to one another--mizuko. that is: water + child. this didn't make much sense to me until i realized i was standing in front of the temple where people go to honor their aborted babies. i could see a monk statue reaching out for a crawling baby (looked more like a monkey) and toys inside the door. it was tragic and creepy at once.


this is the main entrance to the big temple. the inside was surprisingly lavish and beautiful: fresh fruit, flowers, and strings of colorful origami cranes hung everywhere, and the glint of gold made the wooden interior shine. to the side were more jars of "backup cranes" which i really wanted to photograph, but i felt like i wasn't supposed to.


these pilgrims? shuffled across the courtyard looking mysterious and anonymous in their veils.


i got to climb inside an 800 year old camphor tree! now i know where all that fragrant wood they were burning came from. tell me this isn't like disneyland.


scariest depiction of a horse in the history of the world!


and finally a purchase i had been looking to make for some months: wooden geta of my very own.

unsalted butter is my punishment

perhaps to keep me humble, or possibly to inspire me to stay in shape (ha! a lot of good that did), God put me together with some second-hand parts, and i've always had various trouble with my wrists, ankles, knees, and (the killer) my back. today i was hunched over my japanese book, actually studying, and i straightened up to the familar feeling of something going terribly wrong in my neck. when this happens, it all goes straight to hell really fast: the muscles around the frought, misaligned vertebrae immediately tense up, pulling everything even more out of whack and giving me a really sensational headache. if you've never had back problems, you don't understand how much strength you can lose in your extremities and how blind with pain you can be in a matter of seconds. i tried in vain to get it all right again--stretching, walking, turning. no luck.
in retrospect, it may have had something to do with the wierd poisition i was sleeping in last night. i woke from a dream in which i stepped outside after dark and saw the dim outline of a man standing nearby in the shadows, still, just watching me. what freaked me out was that even though i was looking straight in his direction, he just stayed, waiting to see what i would do. i backed inside again. so i woke up in the darkness with a slightly uneasy feeling and stayed frozen to my bed until my senses assured me that no one was going to bludgeon me if i moved.
anyway, at school i was doing the stiff-as-a-board walk...always attractive...you know, turning my head by pivoting my whole body, wincing anytime i moved too far in the wrong direction, and the like. since i had no more classes after two, they let me go home so i could finally lie down. which i did. i fell asleep to music on my ipod, something i can always do when i'm napping and never do at night. i slept to the tune of three ibuprofen and four hours, and now i'm doing what any sensible person would do--drinking a beer and blogging about it.
the good news is after i fell back asleep, i had my first-ever dream in which i spoke japanese. i only said "excuse me" and "sorry," but those are things i say a whole lot in real life, and i'm excited that they've permeated my brain enough to come up in my dreams.
in totally unrelated news, the dollar is getting stronger against the yen, and it's killing me. i want to send money home, but i essentially lose 17 percent of anything i convert. who could have predicted i'd be following currency trends...waiting for the moment The Yen lands a few surprise punches and The Dollar stumbles backwards a little.

i'll leave off with a recent quote from kara [after deciding to buy a positively minute cup of häagen-dazs ice cream (1/2 cup for over three dollars!)], "buying food in Japan is like living in an airport."

oden of thieves

this is oden. as you can see, it's made up of several mysterious, soggy-looking white and brown things. i admit i wasn't especially anxious to try it. i mean, wouldn't carrots add some much-needed color variety and carroty flair? this is what you make so no one wants to steal your lunch. after hearing some other non-native people discussing their dislike of this homely dish, i had no plans of adding it to my been-there-eaten-that list. that is...until i was personally invited to try a homemade batch by one of the teachers i don't know very well. he's a nice older guy, and since he's shared his sweets with me (a perfect stranger) numerous times in the past, i felt i at least owed it to him to give it a shot. i confided my fear of disliking it to naoko on the way over. she promised to discreetly eat my portion if i couldn't stomach it! it would save me from hurting mr. salt-n-pepper owl's feelings. as i peered uneasily into the enormous pot of bubbling soup, i spotted potatoes. now i love potatoes in any manifestation. in fact, one of the first complete sentences i learned in japanese was to express exactly that. when i saw the potatoes, i knew i would be able to make my peace with oden. it was great! i didn't particularly care for some of the fishy fish-cake things, but the potatoes, meat, and daikon were marvelous.

how to celebrate your birthday in a foreign land, or: if it doesn't kill you...

february first i turned twenty-eight. i know my family and old friends worried that i might feel depressed and uncelebrated on my special day (thanks for all the love!), but since i've had six months to get to know people, i was almost celebrated to the point of exhaustion.
the day before my birthday, i was treated to the song "happy baasday dear roren" ("next day" they said, to indicate they knew it was early) by two of my favorite freshman boys. they're both adorably lispy, and they even attempted harmony after conferring briefly about who should sing the high and low parts. i still have no idea how they found out when my birthday even was. after school, the e.s.s. club had a surprise party for me with lots of japanese snacks and sweets. we played games and sang a karaoke version of "top of the world" by the carpenters...i'm not really sure why, except it might risk not being an actual party in japan without karoke. natsumi (second from the left) even made little cakes for us to share.










that night, i took the birthday box my mom had sent me and opened it with my eyes closed. i slipped my hand under the flap and felt around. hey, i wanted a little bit of anticipation. i couldn't figure out what anything was, so i closed it up and went to bed.

on my birthday, i woke up early and sat down to actually look inside the birthday box: it was a portable party! my mom had included party favors and hats, candles, no bake cheesecakes, a gift, and conversation hearts. i knew i'd be going up to tsu to celebrate with some of my good friends there, so i put it aside. i dressed all in red and went to school. right away i was given a blueberry cake that one of the women teachers made. of course, it was wrapped cutely in clear, printed cellophane. she even told me she had grown and picked the blueberries herself.


that evening, i had dinner at one of my favorite italian restaurants with all the south girls, save allison (who was in australia--jerk! :). it was a marvelous meal, see for yourself. when we had finished eating, i cut up the blueberry cake i received earlier and handed pieces to everyone. we all took a bite--it was revolting! that poor teacher had done so much work and perhaps forgot the sugar. it tasted like blueberry cardboard! we washed the flavor out our mouths with some chocolates a student made that were much better. when the girls quietly sang happy birthday to me in the restaurant, a hip-looking japanese guy with red glasses turned around to sing and clap along! everyone in the world, it seems, can appreciate birthdays.

















































that's cotton candy topping the custard cake! creative.


that weekend i went up north to join the early Valentine's party for JETs. i was treated to several birthday drinks from friends, and i danced, as i'm apt to do, until my entire body was aching. i had made a skirt for the event on emily's sewing machine. it had a gold, sparkly underlayer ("whore-y" according to kara) covered by a sheer, silky black (elegant). altogether, it looked like a "punk ballerina" said melissa. who could ask for more!?






















me and chito, molly's boyfriend


me, molly, emily



THERE'S MORE! If you thought it couldn't get anymore fun, you don't know sam, fiona, sean and marina. the next night we dined at a french restaurant, party hats and all.
the food was equally marvelous, but i didn't document it as neurotically.






finally, the mini cheesecakes and twisty candles.
the end. i'm tired.

nostalgic supersniffer

if you know me well at all, you know i'm a sniffer. i find myself sniffing soap, grapefruit, shirts, people, books, calculators, tape, rocks, earth...it's one of the ways i understand and experience the world around me...which is why i like my immediate environment clean, if not from clutter, at least from grime. that way i can touch and sniff any surface without fear of unexpected yuckiness. whenever i move into a new place, i have to clean every surface myself before i feel totally comfortable inhabiting it. i'll rattle around in the center of rooms without coming into full contact with cabinets or barefooting the floors until i've ascertained their purity. after i scour the crevices for someone else's dirt, i accept those dark corners as my own.
partially due to fear of treading on some unsuspecting cockroach or poisonous centipede, i spent the first month in my japanese house with my toes curled away from any parts of the floor i couldn't see. bit by bit, my toes got more comfortable as i claimed more and more of the house with bucket and scrub brush. now i feel like i know what's happening in all its recesses. i've finally located and rid myself of all the molding trash and heaps of junk my predecessor left for me. (which was no small task, considering the complicated rules that govern the sorting and throwing away of rubbish.)
i invest a lot of confidence in my sense of smell. if i give some past-date yoghurt or meat a serious once-over whiff, and i don't sense anything malodorous, i will risk eating it. if there's the slightest questionable scent--straight to the trash.
what i started out to say in the first place, though, is that being a sniffer has its own little delights. as they say, smell is the sense most connected to memory, and having a particularly good sense of smell brings so many memories. i love, for instance, lighting matches. first, there's the satisfying sandpapery scrape of the match head against the striking surface. and then that rush of air/firework takeoff sound as the fire gasps and explodes to life. smell one: sharp, sulfury gunpowder. the flame mellows out and begins consumption of little stick. smell two: heat and burning wood and sap. then it gets close to your fingertips and you blow out that little flame before it burns them. smell three: sweet wood smoke. altogether it has the smell of a campfire: a tiny little handheld campfire. so each time i light a match, i'm reminded of all the times i've made fires outdoors in fresh air with my mom or friends; that whole-body-in-sun caught-in-time relaxed feeling that you get when you marinate in the heat of a fire; the dark and chill gathered around, watching you laugh and burn marshmallows.
the world is waking up again, so my nose has been treated to a lot of new smells in the past week. we've had a good rain, and it often smells like the water-permeated, green, mossy washington state, where i lived for five years. the sun shines on yellowed, dried grass that cracks the pavement and smells like fields in colorado, where i was born. the early early wild narcissus that smells undeniably like the garden's tender spring.
at last.

different shades of the same thing

you don't even know how many blog posts i've cleverly titled but don't have time to write about yet. there's much more to come. oh so much more.
here's a typical day for ローレン (that's me):
my mobile phone/camera/alarm clock extroardinaire (from now on referred to as The Device) goes off with sound, lights, and vibration at 6:30am. usually it's resting against the headboard, so i get the added heart attack of something clattering violently by my ear and shaking the entire bedframe. i allow myself one and only one push to the snooze button, then i drag my sorry carcass out of the most comfortable bed i've had the pleasure of sleeping in, ever. i think that to myself every single morning. my bedroom is 6 tatami mats big (9 x 13 feet) and pretty sparsely furnished (only a bed, a nightstand, and a small air filter that's about the size and shape of a flat computer screen).


i open the sliding room dividers (ふすま) and step into the bitter cold living room. ok, it isn't so bitter anymore, but that's only a very recent development. my living room is also 6 tatami mats in size and more cluttered. this houses the Massive hardwood dressing closet/cabinet/storage chasm that could swallow someone's oversized yarn collection *ahem*, or possibly a dead body. this is probably the most enviable feature of my house.
usually, i have my creamy puff blanket draped over my shoulders and i trudge to the kitchen where the tea water machine is always on and always hot. i make myself a big cup of black tea with sugar and soy milk and then slide my legs under the heated living room table (こたつ) which i discussed back in September.


i write for 40 minutes and then hustle to pack a lunch, eat a bowl of oatmeal with raisins, brown sugar, and walnuts, straighten the unruly bedhead with my new hyper-power straightening iron (thanks mom!) that hisses so much it sounds like i'm cooking steaks, and dress before velcro-ing my shoes on and clomping down the steep hill to school. if i don't forget before i head out, i consult the complicated schedule for what variety of trash will be picked up that day and hoist my bags up the hill to the trash bin.

the high road to the bin:

the bin itself:

the scenic route to school:

when i enter the school yard, i bow and say good morning to any students i see, change into my school slippers at the rusted outdoor shoe locker, and usually make it inside just as the bells are ringing to signal the start of the morning meeting. as i go in, i smell the deliriously wonderful odor of fresh coffee, bow to the women sweeping the stairs, and glance briefly into the office to see if i can catch the eye of any of my friends. then i unload my computer, lunch, and other stuff into my desk and start ignoring the meeting. later i teach class, blah blah blah.
at exactly 4:15 i strike out for home, check my mail, step out of my shoes in the entryway (slide on my house slippers) and then decide what to do for the rest of the evening.

the front of my house:

the entryway:

a few bits more.
Come One, Come All; dye your hair Brown, Brown, or Brown! Blonde? Impossible! Red? Improbable! at least the boxes are cool for those guys who want a little "beauteen."


finally, i'll part with a shot that may comment on the "all part of the same group" mentality of japan, or it could be a coincidence. i call it: Movement In White. or..."i like white CARS and i can not LIE!"

hi super nintendo chalmers...i'm learnding!

today marks the day i finally put my international drivers permit to use and ventured out in a mini car on the left side of the road. hopefully all that practice hugging the left on my bike will make careening around in a car a little easier. it wasn't as weird as i expected: it's like driving while looking in a mirror, and, like, how weird is that? uhhh. yeah...it was a little weird. however, my passengers gave the ride positive reviews, so maybe it won't be so intimidating from here on out. i want to drive next year! as charming and romantic as it's been to bike to the grocery store every other day through the winter months, i long for the day when i can buy anything without worrying about how i'm going to get it home. the part that feels the strangest is not driving on the left (i toyed around with that some at home), but sitting on the right! and, thank God, the foot pedals are in the same order, but the blinker and windshield wipers are opposite. i can forsee some occassions where i'll be wiping vigorously when i go to turn.
seriously, though. getting one's japanese drivers license is a big frickin deal. you think you have to jump through hoops in the u.s.? here you essentially register (wait one month), take a written test (wait one month), take the driving test (make one mistake and you must wait another month to retake it), and if fate smiles upon you, in three short months you may have earned your license. did i mention: the closest place where i can do all of these things is three hours away? however, once i've achieved this, i think it will be a milestone in my life. a card-carrying driver in another country. how coolish is that!?

my blood, mine enemy, or: we're not out of the woods yet, not by a longshot

today i thought i might have TSS, a serious disease of which most women are at least vaguely aware. it's a potentially fatal bacterial infection that you can get from those handy products that make mensturation less of a pain, at least figuratively. in lieu of specifics, we'll just say there were less-than-optimal circumstances surrounding the whole shebang. so i looked up the symptoms (to be safe).....and then i sat around and waited to get them, or recognize them. so i thought i was in the clear, phew, when i was gripped by some serious dizziness while seated. i got freaked. then my female supervisor walked up and said sweetly, "oh! you look really pale." well now, that's just not right. i sat her down right then and told her my fears. she asked if i wanted to go to the hospital; that's what all medical clinics of any kind are called in japan. we hit the road headed for an aged, male ob/gyn. yippee.
in the waiting room, i sat with my very kind supervisor and she bravely interviewed me about all the most personal details of my Life as a Menstruator, since i could not decode the medical questionnaire on my own. having little experience translating medical terminology, she had to go straight for the easiest way of communicating these questions, thus, i was asked the following:
how many times per day do you go to the bathroom for not pee-pee?
have you had sex with not a man? (does this mean: have i had sex with a woman? or have i had sex with only boys? or have i never had sex?)
and finally,
has anyone in your family ever experienced the following: 肝臓病、腎臓病、心臓病、貧血症、糖尿病、高血圧?
we went in to speak to the doctor, and i guess i shouldn't have been worried about the possible pelvic exam, because he barely looked at me. he didn't take my temperature; he didn't check my vitals; he didn't even touch me at all. since my only symptom was one short bout of dizziness, waiting a little bit seemed smart to him. humph. well that's not how to discover a disease early! but i guess i'd rather go someplace else anyway.
when we headed out, i braced myself for the bill. what do they charge you in this country to do nothing but tell you to get lost? i guess i got what i paid for, because the total visit cost $6.68--that's right, six dollars. so if i die, it's on that guy's head, but my survivors won't owe the world a fortune for my health care.

planes, trains, and automobiles: the journey home

"Far!
We've been traveling far
Without a home
But not without a star."
-Neil Diamond (don't laugh...i grew up on that tape)

the first glimpse of my expansive country was as i descended into the san francisco morning after an oddly anxious flight across the pacific. the japanese united agent was kind enough to get me window seats on all four flights home, so i watched the blue night sky unravelling from above for endless hours. i knew i'd be arriving at sunrise, and since i was coming from the east, i couldn't understand why we weren't flying with the sun. it was dark ocean the whole way...
another remarkable kindness from the united agent: (though i had checked the website to see what things weren't allowed in luggage, i missed where it said no lighters of any kind) when they asked me if i had a lighter, i stupidly said yes, but only in my checked bag. she inhaled apologetically; they're not allowed at all!
but it's a gift! it doesn't have any fuel!
she called over her supervisor. i pulled out offending lighter. could i prove it had no fuel? sure...i demonstrated trying to light it with no success. he was satisfied. and....in a move very uncharacteristic of the japanese "we follow the rule book at all costs" attitude i've experienced until now, he actually leaned over the counter and said, "i don't think security will recognize this as a lighter [because of its unique shape]. if they do call your name because there's a problem with your luggage, i'll meet you at the security gate and walk the item through with you." wow. thank you mr. united man.
during the flight, i kept wondering if the guy next to me was going to stab me or something because he seemed very agitated, and everyone knows how dangerous rage can be at 30,000 feet. perhaps it was my own feelings of awkwardness at seeing so many other english-speakers that was really the problem (and a little travel-day paranoia). i had actually been hoping to sit next to some japanese businessman. after seven hours or so (well, i had plenty of time to let him chill out), i got him chatting about his home and job, so i felt more comfortable. through my sleepy haze, i witnessed a brilliant view of the golden gate bridge at sunrise and (even more exciting) a plane landing parallel and at the same moment as ours. the pilot actually said, "this is about as close as we're going to get to that other plane." you mean we're not going to try and touch wingtips!? aww, man! why didn't we get Iceman or Maverick as our pilot? finally we landed, but i was already lost in my exhaustion. after stumbling through customs where the agent only briefly double-checked my pink-coiffed passport ("oh is that your hair? i thought it was a reflection)," i wandered into a food court. what meal should i try on my empty stomach? or more specifically, what time of day did my stomach think it was? i went straight for the miso soup and burned my tongue. welcome home. i don't think they keep miso soup boiling in japan. i would have tried some eggs and hashed browns, but i couldn't really believe i wasn't still in japan, and i didn't want to chance having an allergic reaction to the eggs.
i kept seeing people i thought i recognized, but get a grip lauren, you don't know everyone in america, and you don't know more than three people in san francisco.
after twenty-four brutal hours of travel (a beast of four legs), i finally got close to home. as i anticipated, i ran into several people i knew in the denver airport who were going to durango, so i started catching up right away (one was a girl i babysat for several years starting when she was about four--who is now studying fashion in san francisco!--where does the time go?).
we touched down in durango in darkness. i buttoned my coat up tighly while waiting to deplane and walked through the wild, cold wind to the airport door. i was feeling a touch poetic...the colorado night was affecting me...until i realized i had buttoned my coat askew and probably looked like a crazy person...or one of those "artist types." wink

the monster in muffins

today i finally told my favorite teacher, naoko, that i was going to stay in japan another year. much to my surprise, she got teary-eyed and hugged me twice like she just couldn't help herself. i felt the lightness of her joy and relief. she said "i feel like celebrating! i was so worried, but i was afraid to ask!" (for heaven's sake--every time i re-read this, i get choked up.)
it's true, coming back from a place where no one was startled by my foreign face was a bit difficult, and getting into school again hasn't been easy. but that's work, right? i'm happy to have a lighter semester...four fewer classes per week than i was teaching before. and i've had some more memorable firsts:
i got my first honk and wave from someone i actually know in a car--the lunch room man! he’s so nice, but i still can’t remember his name. he always wants to know how cold it gets in colorado. (mainasu nijuu)
i also stopped into a tiny little gift shop i’ve been wanting to see. intimidating? yes. it looks like you're walking right into someone's home, and often you kinda are. it's a stuffed, but organized space with luxurious foreign cigarette boxes and butter cookies, traditional japanese tableware, and other curiosities. the shop mistress was on the phone when i came in, so i just stood in the middle of the bursting room and turned and turned to get a look at everything. she got off the phone and apologized. we conducted a stunted, but relatively varied conversation entirely in japanese. mainly i nodded my head in assent or confusion depending on how much i understood. i think i held up decently well, and she even offered her blog address as a calling card! (times are changing) i asked her if they had calendars and bought a beautiful washcloth. she even poured me some sakura ocha and offered me a seat in the tiny place. she spoke exclusively in japanese until the very end when i couldn’t understand her parting words (repeated several times) and she finally said very clearly “see you.”

ha!

this week i got invited to a kimchi nabe party. nabe is an aesthetically delightful winter soup. the office girls at my school are starting to involve me in their social lives--YAAAY! so this is my first invitation to a friend's house that i don't technically work with and who doesn't technically speak english. or something. though i've already been out with said office girls once, this event wasn't orchestrated by me, so it feels, you know, like they like me. tonight i made blueberry muffins for the party tomorrow. my oven can't manage cookies, but the muffins turn out ok. and though they contain those japanese eggs to which i have a dreadful allergy, i ate three. even if i get all itchy and oozy, i think it was worth it.

steady as she goes

it's been obscenely long since i posted, but my lesson plans are set for tomorrow and (amazingly) it's only 7pm, so you have me for at least a few hours...i seem to have endured most of the depressive despair and giddy mania it requires to reacclimate to a foreign country. i've overcooked some pumpkin for dinner because, though i'm a decent cook, i'm absurdly forgetful of things in the oven.
where on earth do i begin this epic retelling? i struggle with being too linear...
i'll start with today.
sunday morning. i hold my breath when i wake up. the sky is bright outside, but i can't tell if the light outside is cool or warm, so i'm unsure of the weather. if it's raining, i will probably pace restlessly around my house and get nothing done all day. if it's sunny, i might have better luck. with my glasses still sitting on the bedside table (crap eyesight at the ready), i pull the curtains open in one swish: SUN!
thanks to the heater, my bedroom is a toasty 70-something degrees, but like every morning, i have to open the sliding doors to the rest of the house. a wall of cold air crashes over my sleep-warmed body. the thermometer says 48 degrees. i know i'll be lucky if this is the coldest it gets in my house, but it makes me want to cry when my hands go numb in the glacial water. the tea water is already hot and there's a swath of sunlight shining into my laundry room, so i situate a chair in its center and nibble on some shell-shaped almond tea cakes i bought as omiage. they're surprisingly good, and i can scarcely stop myself from eating the whole package.
i get some laundry on the pole to dry before the sun moves away from it. here's my laundry pole with the biggest clothes clamps you've ever seen keeping my duvet from blowing away.


i have a few errands to run in town, so i steer my bike into the glorious cold day. the light in my house is dingy and inadequate, though i've tried to remedy it with extra cords and bulbs in the bathroom and kitchen. that helped some, but i was still bummed to come back to my dim house after two weeks in my mom's home: the Land of Light. her bathroom is especially cozy and inviting, and i enjoyed many languid baths during the holidays, but i wouldn't be similarly inspired in my own house.
until today.
while mulling over the lighting options in my local grocery, i decided to scrap fluorescent and go back to my incandescent roots. at the very least they give off some heat which might make my bathroom a spot warmer. i installed the bulbs with low expectations. after all, the fluorescents were 100W bulbs, just like these. i flicked the switch, and HALLELUJAH; is the sun shining from my washroom!? i've harnessed a supernova--and hey, look how dirty my bathroom is! i've never seen grime with a such glee! it was such an incredible change that i rode straight back to the store and replaced the rest of my screw-in bulbs with incandescent ones. my blue mood doesn't have a chance.

yesterday was a perfect day. it was the remedy for two days of incredible stress and boredom, one day of "the world wants you in the gutter", and several days of "where the hell am i, again?" that's a brief summary of my time since i hopped over the pacific pond. but yesterday was full of wonderment. miss hess and i struck out to see what we could see in the fine nagoya metropolis. we emerged on a corner in the heart of the shopping district, sakae. as we waited for the light to change, we spotted two magnificent (for lack of a better term) goth girls. these were not the grim, morbid, bondage-fascinated kids clad in glossy plastic pants. they were tall, stunningly and confidently wearing all black frocks and, yes, some dramatic eye makeup. these exquisite dark flowers started across the intersection towards our corner as we struck out for theirs. i don't like staring, so i was looking straight ahead. however, just before we crossed paths i looked toward the tallest one and it dawned on me that she wasn't japanese. in the briefest of moments, she looked right into my eyes and nodded. it felt like the acknowledgment of some thrilling secret.
later, in the Loft, we meandered over to a workshop of people making paper out of recycled banana fibers. young, attrative, artistic-looking japanese people looked at us hopefully. did we want to participate? marina and i stood there under all those windows, caught in time for a moment. we hesitated and they waited. finally marina broke the silence and asked how much it cost. kindly, it cost nothing. gently they gathered around, a whole table of helpers and, ever-so-gently and patiently they took turns volunteering a word or gesture to explain how to fabricate our recycled paper. the moments were beautiful and flawless, and afterward, we floated off.


before we hit the tracks for tsu, we stepped from the mad rush-hour foot-traffic into a little sushi restaurant in nagoya station, and it was stunningly peaceful. we sat back (surrounded by fresh orchids), took deep breaths, and enjoyed our mugs of tea.


parting shot: this darling, dressed from tips to toes, waiting alone in the nighttime station. photo courtesy of marina.

"the primroses were over..."

SO. i'm going home for christmas. i'm leaving the land of mini-streets, fist-sized spiders, and relentless moisture for that high, dry place where i was born. i'll shiver with the thrill of seeing orange sweet potatoes, salsa, organic milk, and wheat bread in the store; understanding what the checker is saying to me, and watching as they bag my groceries for me. wheeeeeeeee! nothing like absence to make my least favorite chore as fun as a carnival ride. and i'm going to use a DRYER again.
see you on the flip side...
*lc*

tastes like your mom, or: getting naked with the office

there's this candy here--Milky. well, there are many candies here. each of them is a new world to me because the japanese are not stuck in the same old cherry-grape-orange-lemon-lime flavor rut. one teacher gave me a morsel last week that had the word "throat" in japanese on it. um. that was the only word on the package that i could read. i had NO idea what to expect. but i guess it's supposed to make your throat feel better by coating it with sugar. the old candy/cough drop trick. yuck. but they have candy that tastes like salty plums, green tea, black tea with cream and sugar, mango citrus, black currant, banana, and milk. not milk caramel, not milk chocolate--just milk. this is a weird, weird candy. when i first tried it, i scrunched up my nose because it reminded me of drinking milk that's been warming on the counter for too long because you poured it, got distracted, and then felt like you had to drink it because you didn't want it to go to waste. i like milk just fine, but a candy that tastes like it...eew. my tactic for ridding myself of this weirdness was to distribute the rest of the candies to my coworkers so i didn't have to eat them. one of my favorite people, a cute, hip "office girl" about my age said in simple, straightforward english, "mommy taste." i was like, huh? she held up the Milky candy and said, "commercial says 'tastes like mommy.'" double EEW. this is breastmilk candy!? remind me to forget i ever tried it.
a few weekends ago, i had the opportunity to take part in one of japan's oldest traditions--seeing your coworkers naked, that is: going to the onsen (hot springs bath). this idea wasn't hugely daunting to me since women and men are normally separated, but i did expect it to be a Little strange. perfect strangers and friends are one thing, but people you see every day that you Kinda know is something else. i've read stories about frank verbal assesments of a foreigner's body right then and there. i know you're supposed to bathe before you get into the hot water, but i didn't really know if that was a quick rinse or what. is everyone going to be watching while you wash? THAT doesn't sound fun. in order to limit the awkwardness, i convinced a few of my friends who are onsen-savvy to take me for a test run the night before my big sleepover christmas party (bonenkai) with the entire staff of the high school. on a road worthy of mr. toad's wild ride, we wound deeper into the mountains for a car sickish thirty minutes. i crawled thankfully from the shoe-sized vehicle and we headed for the womens' dressing room. then you take a deep breath, strip down, put your clothes in a locker with a basket, slide open the door to the pools, and face the eyes of anyone who's there. no one was there. my first thought was, this place is beautiful! it was comfortably and warmly lit, and it seemed very clean. to the right were about eight shower stations, each with two low walls and its own little stool, bowl, and array of lathering and washing products. there was also a low wall separating the pool from the little showers, so no one could see your back while you were bathing. you sit facing the showerhead, which is at eye level when you're sitting on the stool. you can push a button on the faucet to fill your bowl for rinsing. what i began to realize is that the onsen is largely about bathing, not soaking, so people spend a long time at the shower buffing and lathering their skin or whatever. it did feel marvelous. then we submerged in the clear water and i was struck with just how normal it felt to be there. ahhhh. there's also a tiny cold pool where you can cool off before getting hot again. i put my legs in, and it was like a refreshing drink of water for my body. the outside pool was even nicer. there are smooth river stones in the bottom that feel good on your feet and legs. a sauna made the experience perfect and complete. i felt prepared for the following night.
the next day my favorite teacher drove us to hongu, about an hour from kumano. the traffic was thick, so we had to stop on the bridge stretching from mie to wakayama. i didn't mind. dusk falls over the river:

our room was down a hallway that looked almost like any other hotel, but you take your shoes off at the door and step into this:

murakami-sensei grabbed me by the hand and dragged me to the window where naked men and women were soaking below our window in the mixed-sex outdoor pool. she asked if i was going to join her there later and i said no way. we went downstairs for dinner.
this was my place setting:

this tasty bite came later. looks appealing, huh?


after many refills of my tiny beer glass and a chance to try the many mysterious things in front of me, i pulled out the camera. here are the office girls, etsuko and harue.

yes, i did sing karaoke for the first time in front of everyone (with the help of arata, another of my favorite people), and yes i did bathe with my teachers, but it was all very comfortable and fun. we even stayed up talking about boys till early in the morning, just like a real sleepover. i got a chance to feel closer to some people i didn't know at all before, and i felt like even more a part of my school. i didn't want it to end so soon.