Osaka, Encore

So, this blog is in danger of becoming a "Log of Places I Went With Kori," given that that's basically what this post, the last post, and the Tokyo post are. And given that we're doing Kyoto again this weekend, that's probably what the next post will also be about. I do feel vaguely odd about this- as this particular installment of Diesel Sweeties points out, it is a little weird to blog about one's girlfriend on a regular basis. But, given that she's done the same thing to me, I think it's all good.
Also, I feel compelled to point out to ya'll that yes, I have a girlfriend, it's awesome, I'm in love, everything's nifty, and the world is full of awesome. Everything is kickass with Kori, and I might as well just go out and say it rather than being all coy about it.
Anyway...
We checked out Osaka last weekend, which was quite nice for me, since my only experience of the city was via a work trip that was colored by a drunked haze brought on by my superior. So, it was nice to go back and actually see the city.
In Osaka, we made our way to Amerika-Mura, or America Town. It's a nice area, full of various types of nifty shops, hip places, young people, graffiti, etc. Walking around Amerika-Mura is a nice reminder (at least for me, who lives in Okayama) that Japan does, indeed, have some really cool, hip, weird, people in it. For quite a while, Kori and I just sat in a public square people watching whilst eating tako-yaki, Osaka's regional specialty. There were groups of girls in matching wigs, kids dressed up in hip-hop regalia, punk and goth types, and various other wandering fashion plates. It was Sunday, and we wondered how all of these people looked during the work week. For instance, there's this one guy who works behind the counter at the Circle K by my apartment, who has this bizzare quasi-shaved head-it's shaved around most of it, but still long in the back with this sort of dyed crest-thing coming up in the back. But, I've only ever seen him in his orange and blue Circle K uniform, selling me onigiri and bad bento. I thought of that weird-haired guy, briefly, whilst we watched various other weird-haired people parade around us. We wandered around a bit and eventually found Osaka's Umeda Sky Tower, a rather impressive glass-and-metal structure that offered a nice panoramic view of the city- the pictures from the top of a skyscraper are from the Umeda Sky Tower. Tres nifty.
But, what I really want to talk about is Osaka Castle.
Osaka-Jo is sort of funny- it's been burnt and rebuilt a bunch of times, which is sort of admirable in a Pheonix-style way. It's also just sort of comical- the place seems cursed, almost, to get destroyed every so often. I wouldn't be surprised if a freak earthquake or metor took out parts of the main tower in the next couple of years.
Anyway, the place is pretty neat. From the outside, Osaka-Jo sort of resembles Okayama-Jo with its black-and-gold casement. A very nice and helpful tour guide on the approach mentioned to us that when Tokugawa rebuit the castle, he didn't really build it for war. He built it, as the guide put it, as "a symbol of his authority."
That's putting it mildly. With the black casing, the gold ornamentation, the gilt tigers rampant on the uppermost part of the tower, the gleaming fish on the roof, all say "I'm Tokugawa, bitches!" I imagine the shogun basking in SnoopDogg-ian splendor, surrounded by scantily-clad attendants and wearing enormous, gaudy, gold chains in some sort of sumtuously decadent chambers. Tokugawa- medieval gangster warlord, showing off his bling to his opponents and underlings.
Upon entrance the castle lost any appearnce of gold-clad history, and instead revealed itself to be an entirely modern museum style building. Sure there were lots of maps, dioramas, historical videos, timelines, etc. All sorts of educational, PBS style stuff. Stuff that probably was really, really edifying. But none of that stuff, no matter how wonderfully educational, was not nearly as cool as the displays of samurai armor.
Now, I'm 26 years old, and I like to think of myself as what is generally known as an "adult." I can do adult things like pay bills and use credit cards. I've got a job and wear a tie on a regular basis. I'm pretty freakin' grown up.
But damn are swords cool. I know, I know. War is bad, etc. But, whatever. There's still a part of me that's an adolescent who thinks swords and armor are awesome. In fact, I have this sneaking suspicion that I've actually become more adolescent in the last few years. Being secure in one's adulthood allows for a sort of revelling in kiddy stuff. It's sort of like guys who are secure enough in their masculinity and not hung up on macho bullshit that they're man enough to hold their girlfriend's purse. That kind of stuff- being assured enough of something that you don't have to prove it all the time. Am I making sense? No, probably not. But, anyway...
Swords!
And helmets and armor and spears and bows and cannons and gauntlets and more swords! It was pretty frikken' cool. (Regrettably, there was a prohibition on taking pictures inside. Sorry, guys.) The various suits of armor did look pretty outlandish, and a lot of it pretty impractical. I thought that such things as giant sets of antlers jutting from a helmet was purely the province of fantasy illustration, but apparently there really were people who were batshit insane enough to go into battle with deer parts on their head. There were also a remarkable number of masks on the helmets, all of which probably made the wearer look all the more frightening to his opponents.
I thought about this looking at the armor, and imagined that the average foot soldier was probably just some guy conscripted from rice fields and given a sharpened stick or something. But the samurai, the guys wearing this crazy armor, were trained, well-equipped, usually mounted dudes who, as Kori put it, "looked like gods." There were probably all kinds of guys who dropped their spear, ran in terror, and then got mowed down by a guy on a horse wearing scary animal parts as a hat.
The top of Osaka-Jo offered a nice view of the surrounding greenspace and the city, as well as a close up of some of the blinged-out fish things that are all over the castle's roof. We climbed down, and found a pleasant plum grove near the castle, and sat by the moat for a while.
Travelling is of course wonderful. I'm constantly intoxicated by the fact that there's a plethora of things and places here that I've never seen before. But travelling with someone is far better. I'm glad that now when I venture out into Japan, Kori's there and we can bounce our various opinions and ideas off of each other. We made our way back to Amerika-Mura, and found a fashionable Italian/Chinese (?!) restaurant.
Sitting there, I was reminded that Japan is indeed a rather hip country. Okayama isn't exactly the epicenter of coolness, so it was quite the breath of proverbial fresh air to eat in a place that had a small amount of coolness to it.
I had to say goodbye to Kori so we could catch our respective last trains to Okayama and Tokyo, but fortunately we're seeing each other again soon. I mean, this country isn't too huge. The prefectures are about the size of American counties, and the whole thing is filled with supertrains that zap you anywhere quite quickly.
So, it's back to Kyoto soon. It'll rock.

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Kyoto-Okayama-Kurashiki-Takamatsu-Miyajima-Onomichi-Innoshima: Trekking Through Kansai and the Inland Sea

We found the brontosaurus...
Admittedly, there's no such thing as a brotosaurus. It's a collasal mistake. But, it's become oh so iconic, and the statue was made with the same iconic incorrect sauropod back and tail posture. Oddly enough, the statue also looked weirdly albino and rather pissed off. But, we found the brontosaurus. It was like a prize, a treasure in the woods.
We won.
We totally won.

At the end of April and start of May there are a series of national holidays known as Golden Week. Along with the New Year's Holidays it's one of the major vacation periods in Japan. This past Golden Week Kori and I both had time off, and kriss-krossed Kansai and the Inland Sea area. There were deer, a brontosaurus, various temples, rain, cable cars, a lack of monkeys, telegrams, and rainy paths.
It rocked, and I do so like things that rock.

Kyoto: Oh My God! It's Full of History!
I felt a slight twinge of (eventually unwarrented) disappointment when I stepped into Kyoto.
Kyoto carries all sorts of expectations- it was spared the fires of WWII, and retains all manner stuff culturally important to Japan. It was the old capital prior to the Tokugawa Shogunate, houses the old Imperial Palace, and has more temples than you can swing a either a proverbial cat or stick at.
That being said, there is a certain rather silly part of the brain the expects to find some idyllic old-style city when one gets off the train. With all the hype about temples and shrines, one half-expects to see warriors in full samurai regalia walking wooden streets. One thinks of all manner of Japanese cultural signifiers/stereotypes- geta-wearing monks, silent, still geisha, Shinto priests in rather tall hats. One thinks of all those iconic/sterotypical images, and can't help but expect them, just a little, when one steps into the streets of Kyoto.
But kyoto has none of that.
Kyoto is a perfectly modern city. It has taxis, streetlamps, and everything. There are cars, convenience stores, and even pavement. All of the infrastructure and bustle one finds in the commercial/industrial cornocopia that is modern Japan.
And...
One cannot help but be, every so slightly, disappointed that there is not some katana-wielding samurai warrior patrolling the streets when one disembarks into the urban landscape. Even though I knew very well that modern Kyoto is, well, modern, some irrepressable part of my brain still expected to find something like that here. I was both right and wrong in this feeling.
Wrong because of Kyoto's obvious modernity, but absolutely correct in that there is no shortage of connections to the past in Kyoto. I have every intention of going back, for I do not think that we adequately took in very much of it.
Kori and disembarked, made our way to our hostel, and then proceeded to get lost on the (entirely modern) bus system. However, such a turn was not entirely disappointing. Having a vague idea of where we were, we got off and looked for this one hill that, according to Kori, had nifty stuff on it.
We didn't find it.
We didn't find it because we got distracted by some random shrine by the side of the road. I don't remember which one of us said "What's that?" but we eventually found ourselves exploring some random, dark Shinto shrine in the middle of a wooded area. We climbed about, poking around the various altars and monuments, maybe trespassing. In the dark the altars and the statues of the gods took on an invitingly ominous quality, and I saw that there was an altar to kitsune, Shinto fox spirits.
"Tricksters," I said, "shapeshifters."
"They bring you money," replied Kori.
I wondered for a moment how one could get in good with such financially beneficient animistic entities. But, I was soon distracted by more important matters. Important matters that I will not describe to you, and that you will have to use your twisted imagination to envision.
Anyway...
We eventually made our way down the hill and into Kyoto's nighttime downtown. The streets of Kyoto are a bustling, bright grid at night- checkerboard city blocks and straight streets, all lit up. It's oddly beautiful, all those various people walking about at night as if it were day. We found a basement restaurant, ate pork and shrimp, and made flexible plans for the next day.
The next day, we made our way to the Kiyomizu-dera, one of Kyoto's more well known wonders. One thing that was quite nifty about Kyoto, is that it seems to be a city of lots of little wonders rather than just a few big ones. As we made our way to the Kiyomizu-dera (quite the big wonder) we were distracted by a temple, a cemetary, steps up a hillside, and an old pagoda in the woods. Kyoto seems to have all sorts of little things to tempt you away from the path, socketed away within it.
We continued to make our way to the massive Buddhist temple through the greenspace surrounding it, eventually coming to a fountainlike stream where several people were engaged in the watery purification ritual that one does prior to entering a Japanese holy place. We made our way up the pathway, and approached the main entrance sideways. The towering orange/red and white buildings were suitably impressive against the sky.
The Kiyomizudera is a wood structure on the side of a cliff, and during the holidays it was packed with tourists. I briefly wondered how the old wood building was doing, if all of these people walking about on this old Buddhist temple would strain its timbers. One can't help but think stuff like that. I've included several pictures of the Kiyomizudera- I think they offer a better description that I can give right now.
After the Kiyomizudera we walked around several narrow streets, found several small temples and shrines, saw people in kimonos and makeup who may or may not have been real geisha, and I know that I must go back to Kyoto, because I didn't see nearly enough of it.

Okayama, Kurashiki and Takamatsu: "Perfectly Reconstructed"
So, a lot of Japanese castles were destroyed in WWII. And, a lot of them have been rebuilt. I think this is a good thing. Better to rebuild something beautiful than let it be forgotten. Okayama Castle, known as U-Jo, or "Crow Castle" was one of these. Now, the outside of U-Jo is actually quite cool looking. Like its avian namesake, the castle is black, starkly different from most white Japanese castles. The roofs are also set with these golden dragon-fish things, which are somewhere between tasteful and gaudy. Outside the main entrance there was a nice little blurb about the history of Okayama Castle, the end bit being about how it was destroyed in WWII and then "perfectly reconstructed" in the sixties.
Now, every single person who's been inside has told me that as badass looking as U-Jo is from the outside, the inside is quite boring. But, Kori and I decided to see for ourselves.
Guess what? It is boring. While every other Japanese castle might seem slightly wimpy after seeing the massive construct that is Himeji-Jo, Okayama-Jo disappoints a bit, what with having an elevator and souvenir shop inside. I suppose the elevator is helpful for elderly people and those with disabilities, but it does somewhat compromise the "perfectly reconstructed" feel.
In any case, the inside of Okayama castle is a little cheesy. Everyone whom I've talked to has said that it's not really worth it, and they are all absolutely right. The outside is still fairly cool looking, though.
I showed Kori around Kurashiki and we made a jaunt over to Takamatsu as well. In Takamatsu, we did nothing, simply walked around near the water, looking at boats on the shoreline. Doing nothing, though, was quite the good use of a day.

Hiroshima and Miyajima: "...And Then We Went On A Cable Car!"
When I was a kid, I was afraid of nukes.
I have this very clear memory of watching the news with my dad, and there was some stock image of an ICBM on the news. It was some Cold War report all about American-Russian relations, probably nothing too unique or special. But, I asked my dad what it was, and he told me all about it. He told me about nuclear weapons, he got out the atlas and showed me the Soviet Union, gave me a little history lesson about the Cold War, and then told me that a single warhead could probably destroy the entire city of Portland.
He scared the shit out of me.
I remember being filled with apocolyptic fear, and was convinced that there was a Soviet missile with the words "PORTLAND, OR" written on the side of it. I was also convinced that one of my sister's dolls came alive at night and killed people, but that's another more Chucky-flavored neurosis.
Anyway, when the Berlin Wall came down when I was in elementary school, the first thing that popped into my mind was relief. "Well," I thought, "that means they're going to get rid of all the nukes, right?" Hahahahaha! What a silly little-child mind I had!
I'm older now, and less paranoid, but still a little frightened of nuclear weapons. Granted, I'm frightened of them in a more abstract, adult way- for instance I'm worried that North Korea might sell nukes as an act of economic desperation. Or that some India and Pakistan could launch a nuclear exchange. Or that someone could get their hands on one of the old, unaccounted for, Soviet nukes. I'm not paralyzed with fear or anything, but the political scientist in me still thinks about it. And that political scientist in me, I know, was born while watching a news report and seeing stock footage of and ICBM and cringing in fear at a father's explanation.
Which brings me to Hiroshima.
Hiroshima is actually a wonderful city, and I was impressed with a fair amount of its urban planning and engineering. But, you can't really talk about it without talking about how it was destroyed over half a century ago. The Atomic Bomb Dome is the city's iconic image, and even the word "Hiroshima" has become a synonym for the potential horrors of modern war.
Now, this does need to be put in context- more people died in both the Tokyo firebombing and the battle of Okinowa than in the Hiroshima blast. And, the Japanese atrocities in Asia and the Pacific firmly put Japan in the "agressor" rather than "victim" category when it comes to WWII.
But...
To call the atomic bomb "unique" is a bit of an understatement. Obviously, the world changed then. It changed to the extent that forty odd years later, some random kid in Portland would be afraid of the exact same thing happening later. Moreover, the bombing is a symbol that war, in and of itself, is an evil thing. I'm hardly a pacifist, and I think that at times in history war has been a necessary evil. But, in the final analysis, it is simply humans killing humans writ large. Hiroshima is a reminder of that.
But I digress. A lot.
We got off one of Hirshima's many eminently pleasant streetcars and right there in front of us was the hollow shell of the Atomic Bomb Dome. The Dome itself sits on a river and is surrounded by various trees, which swayed in the wind that particular day. We snapped some pictures of the Dome, and also looked at the other people who were also snapping pictures of the dome. We walked around the Peace Park, seeing the various monuments and whatnot displayed about it.
Of course there was the Peace Arch, but I was also intrigued by two other memorials. One was a memorial to Sasaki Sadako, the world's most famous victim of the atomic bomb. Around the monument were variuos cases filled with folded paper cranes of various colors and sizes in glass cases that had been sent by children all over the world. I was struck by this because I remember reading the book Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes when I was in elementary school. I also remember that my school actually folded one thousand cranes as part of a history unit about nuclear weapons, and, as I went to a Catholic school, a gesture of peace. We made one thousand cranes, and put them up in a gigantic mobile in the school's main staircase. The cranes were arranged in colorful bands, green over blue over purple. At the top was a single gold crane that our pricipal, a nun, had folded herself. I wondered if the cranes that my school had folded were ever sent here to join the other children's folded gestures. Kori and I both took turns to ring the crane-shaped bell at Sadako's memorial, and I thought for a moment how many less famous children suffered the same fate as her.
Nearby was another memorial that I found less inspiring. Less inspiring because of its presentation, not its subject matter. It was a memorial to child laborers who had died in Hiroshima when the bomb exploded. I found it troubling because the recorded message that blared through the air at the monument talked about how they "gave their lives and their youths for their country," a hedging phrase that rankled me a bit. "So basically they were child slaves," said Kori. "Yeah," I said. Back in the States, I do get annoyed when people try to sanitize history- leaving out or moving too fast past the unpleasant bits, or the bits that shows our contries have blood on their hands, is merely an excercise in nationalistic dishonesty. When people say that the American Civil War wasn't about slavery, or try to apologize or rationalize stuff like Japanese-American internment, I cringe. And I cringe when it happens here in Japan, too, both at hedging, tentative monuments such as this, and whenever Abe Shinzo tries to pander to conservatives by denying atrocities in WWII.
I'm digressing again! My god there's lots of stuff about WWII in this post.
Fortunately, the inside of the actual museum didn't engage in such troublesome, hedging language. If anything, I was actually pleasantly surprised by the museum. I was surprised both by the fact that it didn't ignore Japanese militarism during the war, and was also very explicitly anti-nuclear. I suppose it makes sense that a museum in a city that's been nuked would take such an explcit stance, but given the apolitical stance that historical exhibits in the U.S. ususally take, I was surprised nonetheless.
There were all manner of war artifacts in the museum, but what I found most interesting was a wall of telegrams. Apparently, various mayors of Hiroshima have made it a tradition that every time there is a public nuclear test, the mayor sends a telegram of protest to that country's ambassador calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons. The wall was covered in messages written in Japanese and English addressed to various ambassadors of the U.S., Soviet Union, Britain, and France. I looked for, but couldn't find, the telegrams to the Indian and Pakistani ambassadors, and wondered what sort of tone the telegram to the North Korean ambassador took.
The next day, by train and then ferry, we were soon in Miyajima. I expected Miyajima to be a tourist trap, to have a few interesting sites, to maybe have a nice seaside path. And it did indeed have all of those things. But I was not expecting the deer.
Lots of deer. Tame deer. Deer for whome a guy with a cart sold stuff labeled "deer food." They were all over the place, right in the seaside walkways, when we got off the ferry. Chasing children, begging, lounging under trees.
Miyajima itself has that sort of stagey, tourist-friendly feel that many destinations in Japan seem to have. A friend of Kori's rather cynically described it as "having no soul." I don't really dislike this feeling per se- it didn't really detract from my enjoyment of taking the ferry, seeing the Otorii, or looking admiring the shrine. There is, however, this inescapable feeling that you're doing something prescribed, recommended, and safe. Perhaps it was the business of the Golden Week holiday that contributed to this feeling. In any case, it was neither a positive nor negative feeling, and I liked the sites just the same.
Walking about the Itsukushima Shrine, I sort of wondered about the place's particular status as both a religious place and a tourist attraction. Certainly most of the people there seemed to be tourists, out travelling during the holidays and seeing what famous sites Japan has to offer. But, the place was still recognizable as a religious area. There were still monks and such walking around.
I'm not a religious person- I like to call myself a "devout agnostic" and as much as the label "humanist" rankles me I think that it sometimes applies. Nevertheless, I can understand how people would find religion philosophically or psychologically useful, and, filthy non-believer that I am, I try to respect that. So, it was sort of a weird thinking about how this place (and also the Kiyomizu-dera before it) was a holy place, and I was wandering about it with a camera. Sure, there were also hordes of Japanese people wandering about with cameras, but I couldn't help but think about the weird juxtaposition at the time.
After the shrine we made our way up a hill to a cable car station which took us to the top of the island. Cable cars, I think, are much more like a carnival ride or something than a real means of conveyance. At least it seems that way. Getting on them you think "Woo-hoo! I'm on a cable car!" It was nifty. Anyway, got to near the top, hiked to the summit, and didn't see any monkeys. Which was a bit too bad, as Miyajima is known for having wild monkeys. But, it's not a zoo. They're animals that can come and go as they please, and if they don't feel like being out in full view of people, that's their own monkey perogative. Anyway, there were no monkeys. But there was an awesome view of the Inland Sea.
And we got to go on a cable car.

Innoshima: The Dinosaur at the End of the Journey
The second to last day before the end of Golden Week Kori and I headed out to a town called Onomichi, between Okayama and Hiroshima. Onomichi is notable in that there is a highway that extends out between it and Imabari, a town on Shikoku. This highway winds through several small islands in the middle of the Inland Sea, crossing all manner of bridges water.
There were no famous monuments here, no tourist attractions. There were almost no people as well. But, I loved being there still, for different reasons. It had been a long time since I'd wandered through rainy woods, and looking out from the top of the island and then descending the tree-covered slope in the rain with Kori reminded me of Oregon. My jeans and shoes were soaked, my hat and hoodie drenched, and I was covered in sweat from walking uphill. It was exhilarating. I didn't realize how much I missed hiking.
We made our way up to the top of the central mountain, found a curious shrine there. It was simply a stone tablet carved with some kind of image that I couldn't decipher. Standing on the rocks above everything else we saw boats and farmland, several greenhouses, and swathes of grey water dotted with boats. And islands. All around us in the grey mists were other islands, islands that looked so close we could have thrown stones at them. I wondered what this are would have been like years ago, the Inland Sea dotted with wooden fishing boats. We slid, jumped and walked down, going through dense trails and wet undergrowth. The final descent was a steep slope that let us out amidst a farm, curiously empty. Orange and lemon trees hung in rows in the greyness, and Kori pilfered some cumquats, which I'd never eaten before. We found the shoreline to be a still, sandy shore. Maybe it was the holidays, or maybe it was normal, but Innoshima seemed oddly bereft of other people. We saw the odd car and a single old man by the surf, but for the most part we were alone in the stillness.
We walked along the shore, hungry now, and suddenly from the foliage was the white neck of the dinosaur. Kori had mentioned that she'd heard about this dinosaur- that someone had told her that one of the islands in the Inland Sea had a giant statue of a brontosaurus on it. We'd mentioned this bit of trivia earlier in the morning, and had forgotten it as we hiked through the greenery. But there it was, neck rising upwards and glaring through the moist sky across the grey water.
"We found the dinosaur!" one of us said. It was quite rewarding finding this random bit on a random island that we'd talked about earlier. What were the chances that Innoshima would have had it? By complete dumb luck we found it.
Like I said, it was as if we'd won something.
We won.
We went back to Onomichi and ate yakinikku for dinner, the meat crackling inside a table-mounted fire. I was sad to see her go the next day, and it was odd returning to the work routine.
Now, I'm sitting here in my apartment typing and I can't wait to get out of Okayama again. We're meeting to Osaka this weekend. It'll rock- and I do so like things that rock.

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I'm off!

So, I'm off on a nine-day jaunt with Kori through Japan- Kyoto, Hiroshima, and maybe a few other places. We don't know yet- we're just going where our whims and the trains take us. So, no posts during that time (sadly) but when I get back there will be pics and words aplenty.
Huzzah! Adventure awaits!

I'm So Moved!

Wow. There was just an earthquake. Right now. While I was eating ramen. Sweet!
Nothing big, nothing fallen over- but I've finally experienced my first instance of Japan's geological shuffling. Woo!
Back to ramen now.

Tanuki on the Shore: Stumbling Drunk Through Takamatsu

Tanuki are mythical raccoon tricksters with giant magic balls. This sunday, there was a tanuki festival in Takamatsu, and by total chance I ended up in the middle of a big public square where everyone was wearing racoon hats. Also, I ended up completely drunk and wandering around a bunch of castle ruins. It was cool.
Sort of on a whim I ended up going to Takamatsu this weekend. No real reason- I just felt like I'd hop on a train to Shikoku and see what was there. Takamatsu is a decently sized city, and I thought I'd give it a look. Hip Hop asked me what I was doing this weekend, and asked if he could come along.
We got on an early train, and moved south through all manner of rural hills and ricefields. I'm continually surprised by how much "country" Japan seems to have. Sure, it's crowded country, with towns every ten minutes and rice fields clumped together, but it's rural nonetheless. We passed over the Honshu-Skikoku bridge, and I was quite taken with my first real view of the Inland Sea. I'd been to the Inland Sea before, of course, but only at night. Here, though, I was able to take in the full size of it, see it extending out in two directions and dotted with all manner of tiny islands. It was as if Honshu and Shikoku were dissolving, and little bits of them still floated in sea.
At the tanuki festival, of course, there were all manner of food vendors. Hip Hop looked at me rather sheepishly and asked "Do you wanna beer?" I felt a bit reticent- it was only about twelve thirty, and I didn't want to slide into some sort of reverie of daytime drunken degeneracy. But, I think that tanuki would have approved of my actions when I said "sure."
I still think it's weird to drink outside, but it's all legal here, so I guess it's not a problem.
We sat down and watched some kids doing taiko, which I'd never seen before- the closest I'd come was playing a taiko-themed arcade game (which I did quite enjoy, I might add).
Taiko is fairly neat to watch. Granted, we were watching kids, but the mixture of drumming, choreography, and shouting all makes it very much a performance, not just music. Really- if you were to listen to a recording of taiko drumming, you'd be losing about half of the experience of it. The kids had some decent chops, but I'd like to see a proper adult taiko performance sometime.
After that, a bunch of high school girls did a "raccoon dance." They were all dressed up in ears, tails, and makeup, and had I been a pedophile with a fur fetish I would have been pleased with it to no end.
We stumbled from the square, and made our way to the ruins of Takamatsu castle. The ruins (well, mainly just the base of the castle) were situated in a rather pleasant traditional garden with all manner of rocky steps, stone lanterns, and arching trees. It was nice. Hip Hop and I stumbled a few times as we drunkenly walked over the uneven stone steps, but managed to avoid falling like idiots.
Now, I don't want to sound like a total degenerate, but...
I'm quite glad that I'm now living the sort of life wherein if I find myself drunkenly stumbling about a bunch of castle ruins after watching a bunch of dancing girls dressed up as raccoons, I think that's more or less normal. I mean, it's not like I do that every day, but that's the sort of thing that being over here is all about- gallivanting around and doing random stuff like that.
We got some Udon (a Shikoku specialty) and looked at the Inland Sea for a while as we sobered up before catching a train home. I had a social engagement in Kurashiki later that night. There, I contented myself with oolong while everyone else got tipsy, and I splayed out in the wonderful sensation of knowing I'm somewhere else.

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Springtime Snowblood: In Which I Lose All Feeling In My Legs

In John Dower's Embracing Defeat, Dower describes how during WWII, the sakura was appropriated as a propaganda image. The Japanese government extolled their citizens to die like gracefully falling cherry blossoms, likening carnage to a gentle spring.
Riding around on sunday I couldn't help but think that this was a wholly ridiculous image. Cherry blossoms are about as threatening as marshmellow peeps. Damn pretty, though. The flurries and waves did sort of resemble a bloodstained snow, though- a storm of capillaries and veins.
Monday, a student invited me to a Japanese tea ceremony. I was actually sort of leery about this- I was worried about whether or not I'd commit some huge breach of etiquette at the tea ceremony. and also about the professionalism of consorting with students outside of class. My company doesn't care about this sort of thing, but while I want to be friendly, I don't want to be too friendly- I always want it to be a teacher/student relationship.
The particular student who invited me along was an older lady who's learning English because both of her kids speak it. I also suspect that she just sort of likes foreigners. She was very "buddy-buddy" with my predecessor and I think she wants to find something like that again. She also seemed to be trying to foist her daughter on me, but more on that in a bit.
I met my student, her friend, and her daughter on monday morning, and was initially surprised to see that they were all wearing kimonos. Then I thought- of course they're wearing kimonos. If you own a kimono, I think, then you probably crack that sucker out whenever you get a chance- such as going to a tea ceremony.
My student's friend spoke no English, however her daughter was very high level. I have to confess that when I meet new people, I unconciously start gauging their English abilities. She was quite good- I'd put her in a high level class if given the option.
Then she asked me my most hated question here in Japan-
"Do you have a girlfriend?"
"No, I don't."
"Really?"
"Really."
This was followed by second most hated question-
"Do you like Japanese girls?"
"Sometimes."
Oh how I loath this question. Loath it. Loath it on an HunterSThompsonian scale, in fact. I usually want to respond with something like "Do you like American boys? How about Chinese boys? What about boys from Portugal or Mozambique? How about them? How about Mongolian, Egptian, or Brazilian boys? How about them? Let's fetishize nationality more! Yeah, baby- that funny passport totally revs my engines! Oh yeah! Your cultural background is different from mine- HOT!" Such sarcasm would probably be lost on most Japanese people, and in the interest of politness I usually just say "sometimes."
But, I digress.
My old lady student and her friend were doing the whole "let's hang back several feet and let them talk to each other alone" thing, leaving me with the daughter. She kept asking me all about America, and I kept telling here stuff. I sort of got sick of the whole "Woooo! You're from America!" conversation, but tried my best to be pleasant.
When we got to the garden where the tea ceremony was to be held, I was surrounded by several very short old ladies in kimonos, sort of milling about and chatting with each other. So, picture this: A bunch of short old ladies in kimonos milling about in a pleasant little garden. Sticking out of the geriatric, silken-clad throng is a six foot tall white dude in a leather jacket with dark stubble. I was really, really intimidated and self concious. I asked my student if it was okay that I wasn't wearing a kimono or a suit or anything and she just laughed at me and told me it was fine. We milled about in the garden for a while, and evntually went into the tea house.
Now, try this-
Get on your knees. and make surt that your feet aren't crossed. Now, sit back so your ass is directly above your feet. Try to keep as upright as possible. Put your hands in your lap. Try to look all calm and whatnot. That is how one has to sit during a tea ceremony. It's called seisa, and it's quite painful over a long period of time.
So, I was sitting there with all sorts of interesting pain going back and forth in my legs, and I can say pretty confidently that the only thing that kept me from changing my posture was pride. Pure, stupid, pride. The Pride that Marcellus Wallace described as a "sting."
Surrounded by little old ladies who seemed quite comfortable sitting that way, there was no way I was going to change my position. If lots and lots of tiny grey women could endure that, then sure enough, I could, too.
So, I just let my skewed sense of pride do it's work while I sat there in a bamboo-matted house bowing a lot while various tea bowls were passed around. The tea itself was actually quite tasty. In fact, it was incredibly tasty. I want to learn how to make green tea like that, such was its niftyness.
The tea ceremony itself was neat, though I didn't know what was going on as it was all in Japanese. My student's daughter explained to me later that it was all about spring, and the wonderfulness thereof. The teahouse was a quite nice space- it used a lot of polished branches in its timbers rather than worked beams, which was nicely naturalistic. There was also a heavily stylized calligraphic banner that was written in such rapid-seeming brushwork that I couldn't pick out even the radicals (i.e., component parts) of the Kanji.
When the ceremony was over, my student' daughter asked me if my legs were in any pain. I said yes, I couldn't feel them at all. It was a weird mixture of pain and non-feeling. My student and her daughter laughed and, much to my surprise. Immediately started massaging my feet and calves. I was sort of taken aback by this- it's not every day that one gets a leg massage from a mother and daughter simultaneously whilst in a tiny, traditional Japanese tea house. It was sort of weird, but they seemed to think that it was the most hilarious thing ever. I struggled to get up with my non-feeling legs, and sort of wondered what all the old ladies in kimonos were making of the scene.
I had a Japanese lesson later, so my student and her daughter were sad to see me go. It was fun, definitely the sort of cultural experience that I wanted to have. Now I just need to find a good gree tea recipe...

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I Swear, I Only Listen to Bright Eyes Ironically. Really.

I really like Irony. I like it so much, I just capitalized it.
Back home in the Usa, sarcasm was basically a constant fixture of my speech- and working in a dysfuntional (but charming!) local bookstore with a bunch hipster/geek types was exactly the environment where this sort of thing flourished. I don't think I went a whole day without making fun of Nicholas Sparks, James Patterson, or Nora Roberts. No, I've never read any of them- but we mercilessly skewered them anyway, even as we sold half-priced copies of their paperbacks.
Here, though, things are different. Obviously they are, otherwise I wouldn't be writing about it.
Many people mentioned that most Japanese people don't have much a sense of sarcasm, culturally. I sort of thought that this was some sort of fatuous generalization- I mean, who couldn't have a sense of sarcasm and irony? It's innate, right? Right?
Well, no. It's not. Being perpetually sarcastic and ironic, it seems, is basically the province of snooty effete intellectual types and cantankerous old people. My old job had both, and I include myself in the first category.
Here, though, my sarcasm runs right into the face of my job- I mean, I'm dealing with people who need to be introduced to basic stuff like the passive voice. My most advanced students struggle with euphemisms. Sarcasm is so high up the communicative ladder (especially my own style of dry sarcasm that sometimes even confuses other native speakers) that I need to turn it almost completely off when I talk to students.
Broad stuff is okay. Really, really broad stuff- like claiming that it's a wonderfully sunny day when in fact it's raining outside. That works. However, subtlety doesn't really make it's way through the communicative wall.
I've resorted to (gasp!) having to say exactly what I mean without resorting to wit, euphemisms, guile, or intonation. My words have been forced to, as directly as possible, correlate precisely to what is going on in my head. While this may seem intuitive to some, I find such unshaded and direct communication to be exceedingly strange. Even though I've gotten much better at it, I'm still not used to speaking without my old friend Irony.
I'm sort of worried about this.
I mean, it's bad enough that I like Belle and Sebastian and U2, twin pillars of rock-'n-roll earnestness. It's worrisome to think that perhaps when I get back I'm going to be this overly earnest, utterly sappy, irony-free bag of sincerity. I imagine myself as going from this smiling, funny, occasionally witty guy to the worst sort of overly earnest "sensitive" guy. You know- the sort of person who listens to Bright Eyes. I think of myself soulfully, earnestly, and humorously pouring out my feelings without a white of self-awareness and I sort of cringe a little.
Though such a thing is not likely. If anything, this is probably a good thing. Perhaps, sometimes, I was too ironic, too sarcastic. Perhaps, sometimes, it was a crutch and now I'm learning to walk without it.
When I speak with native speakers I'm still the same old sarcastic person that I always was- mostly. I still love irony dearly- and I mean that sincerely.