Kimono Karen

A Long Overdue Goodbye to Japan

2010-12-08T06:20:00.002+09:00

As anyone who read this blog on a regular basis in the past, you have probably already figured out that the big, sad move day has long come and gone. I sit here now physically settled in to our new home back in the United States, but far from mentally settled. Even with almost six months behind me on this side of the Earth, it still feels like we should be getting on a plane and heading home to Japan any moment. Obviously, I know this isn't going to happen. I know we are here. For good. Or whatever that means when a job really maintains the control of your physical locale.

Why haven't I written sooner? What can I say. I guess I just can't find the right words to say goodbye. Not to Japan or to this blog. Even my mother has been insisting that I get on the computer and say a few words. A few or many. We'll see how this plays out. I've written this post a hundred times in my head. Let's see what I can do with a keyboard finally.

So Washington, DC it is! Our nation's capitol! And, oh, how I haven't missed it. I know my issues have a lot to do with culture shock. Everything here is... well... thoroughly different from where we spent the last four years of our lives. These years, mind you, are where we spent the majority of our time as a couple. Where we built our life. Where we had our first child. Practically our entire joint history is wrapped up in a country that we don't actually belong to. But then it also feels like we don't belong here either, even as true born and bred Americans. Again, culture shock. It took me ten months when I moved to Japan to accept where I was and to actually enjoy (and love) being there. I guess I can only assume that it will take just as long to fall back in love with DC. But who are we kidding. It is highly unlikely that there will be any love flowing to DC from me, but I am hoping for sincere acceptance. For now I am just going to hold out hope that we get our next assignment and I get to move again before I develop any relatively solid positive or negative feelings for the current locale. Is that wrong of me? Maybe. But as I have said since we found out it was going to be DC, it is what it is. Moving on.

This post isn't about how I feel about DC anyway. I honestly haven't even really had the time to think much about my new locale anyway. MUCH has been going on. Oh so very much. Between shuffling around hotels, a lot of remodeling in our condo, buying cars and phones, unpacking from three separate shipments, address changes, catching up with old friends, and we found out the biggest news that we are expecting baby number two, who has time to fret? Ultimately, it's a very good thing for that last reason that we are back here in DC, where the doctors are amazing and can get me through whatever might come. But it still doesn't stop me from missing our beloved Japan.

With all of this going on, I do surprisingly find plenty of time to mourn the many things I miss about living in Japan. And I miss oh-so-many things! The good and bad. Although, if I made a pros and cons list about living in Japan, the pros continue to outweigh the cons when it comes to what's in my heart, but not so much in my head any more. Gotta be practical, right? Much of my family and friends have found this little revelation of where my heart lies to be rather... mystifying, I guess. But they never lived in Japan and many of them have never even lived out of the country. They never had a chance to experience an opportunity like that... to embrace it for everything it was worth. A chance to fall head over heals with a country so very different from the one they call home.

My incessant reflecting and reminiscing makes my head spin sometimes. All those little memories will forever and lovingly stay in my mind, but they sometimes drive me crazy as they refuse to acquiesce to my new/old home. It's hard, pretty much impossible, not to compare our life now to what it was just a few short months ago. Therefore, it is hard, pretty much impossible, not to be frustrated at some of the changes we have endured, particularly financially. Again, it is what it is, but it doesn't make me any less frustrated or heartsick at times when I think of my lovely life in Japan.

But this post again is not totally or truly about lamenting. It is about celebrating. It is about reflecting. It is about the things I miss most about my past home. Things like how there are no more massive shower rooms with extra controls for every kind of temperature and functionality. There are no more heated toilet seats and bidet stream, found in every single bathroom (even the public ones). Speaking of those bathrooms, there are no more spray seat cleaners in every stall. It's back to hovering for me. Tricky as the belly grows ever bigger.

There is no more big, lovely house to live in. No more quiet and perfectly safe neighborhood outside our front door. Our first week in our new/old home found a murder/suicide right across the street. We have no more yard to play in, filled year round with flowering trees and bushes that I swooned over. No longer can we walk down the street to our favorite neighborhood restaurant where we always were treated to something extra special (and free!) with every meal. Kimono Peanut is no longer swept into their arms and hugged, loved and shown off to everyone on the block, while we sat at our table knowing he was perfectly safe out of our sight for a few minutes. No longer do I have a neighbor who cooked for me when I was sick, took me places I would never find on my own, taught me so much about culture, cooking and the Japanese way of life, and loved me and protected me like a second mother would do. The beach is no longer a fifteen minute walk from my front door where I made weekly combing trips for shells, sea glass and sea pottery after a friend turned me on to it.

No longer are there ever patient and overly polite drivers on the road. It's back to obscene gestures, yelling and honking. When I use a turn signal here, it is virtually ignored. I miss how that signal was an instant sign for people to politely move out of the current lane and let you safely into the highway.

I miss my Ikebana classes with my amazing sensei and seriously and impressively talented classmates. I miss that the winter temperatures there average 40 and that isn't until February, whereas here it is already hitting the 20s, forcing me into early hibernation. I will miss the gorgeous cherry blossom season where it seems the entire world turns pink for a month in Japan. This year, there will be no more hanami parties, which find massive crowds gathered everywhere you look on those giant blue tarps. No strangers will hand me a sakura chu-hi I pass by them, just so I can raise a glass with them and toast the glory of that pink world that surrounds us.

No longer will I be able to buy sake in juice boxes or individual glass jars at any corner conbini. There is no more easily accessible shochu with which one can make those glorious chu-hi's. No more chu-hi stands, where fun and trouble always waited. We can't wander down the street outside our front door and ponder over whether dinner should be yakitori, yakiniku, shabu-shabu, okonomiyaki, tonkatsu, corn/potato/mayo pizza, or one of the myriad of other Japanese dishes I don't know what I will do without. We order from a boring, English menu now as we no longer have to guess what the presented plastic food or the picture is supposed to be. The novelty of eating out all seems rather dulled in the light of past adventures, if you ask me. I rather liked pointing randomly at whatever writing looks like the most fun for a serving of the perfect mystery dinner. We can even wear our shoes to enter a restaurant now, or a home, for that matter which just seems so... unsanitary. And I really miss the plethora of corner crepe stands, where ingredients like a tuna salad, hot dog and corn mix were just as popular as the fruit and cream variety of ingredients. No longer can I take a short walk to any corner to raid the waiting vending machines that always had the widest selection either hot or cold beverages, depending on the season and your fingertip needs. Who will make my mochi cakes and rice sweets and where in the world will I find azuki bean sweets?

There are those things that I didn't think I would miss because I had deemed them bad when I lived in Japan, and yet now they don't seem to be even half as abominable as I once made them out to be. The 14-hour flight to see family and friends in the states seemed a pain at the time and yet it is not so daunting anymore. On winter mornings in our house, we could see our breath in the air as it took some time before the different ways of heating a house in Japan warmed even a square foot up. This week, I've already come to discover that our first floor seems almost as cold in the mornings until the sun does its job and streams in the windows to help the central heating. This summer, we didn't deal with massive summer spiders, cockroaches and tiny fruitfly-like things in our house. Instead it was stink bugs. I think I will take back, at least, the spiders and cockroaches which were much easier to play the catch and release game. Sure, we had daily earthquakes in Japan and often the subsequent tsunami warnings, but it really was something we grew so accustomed to that it didn't bother us nor did we seem to even notice towards the later years. We no longer have typhoons, but they are essentially the same thing as hurricanes so we haven't gained or lost a thing here, have we?

In all my reflecting, there is really only one thing that I don't miss at all. not even a little bit. My beautiful, but pain-inducing, all white kitchen. Sure, it was overly dazzling with it's white tile counters and white marble floors, but it was a royal pain in the ass to clean and even worse to cook in. The sinks were much too low for a taller American like myself. Sure they were built for Americans, but they need to add yet another inch or two for my own stature. I hear from my old neighbor and friend that the American living there now is much shorter than me, so I am sure she finds it perfectly fine. But if this little glitch is all I can come up with for what I don't miss and didn't like about Japan, I would say my last four years there were one huge success.

So how do you then say goodbye to a place that seemingly, or at least to me, had only one flaw? How do you move on with life in another city, another country, another hemisphere? How do I find the gumption to leave that beloved past in the past? I'm not sure. But I will find out.

For now, though, all I can commit to is a perfunctory, halfhearted goodbye to Japan and my time spent pouring out my heart and mind in an online discourse to that country which I won't soon, or perhaps ever, see again.

Thank you Japan for everything you have given me. I am truly honored to have spent time getting to know you and love you.

Thank you all for reading and the occasions where you wrote to me. I am truly honored for your support and for the thoughts you have shared.

All that is left to say is... sayounara. Mata jiki ni ome ni kakaritai to omoimasu.

One Night In Tokyo

2010-06-28T14:51:00.001+09:00

I like vampires. I like Alice in Wonderland. I like beer. So what could be a better to celebrate my time here in Japan than a night in Tokyo with some dear friends at a few bars which are highly accommodating to these personalized likes? When it's time for celebrating, there is nothing like a good theme bar to make it a fun night.

We had our sights set on two spots in the Ginza area of Tokyo, the Vampire Cafe and the Alice in Wonderland Cafe. I spent my day trying to reach someone at both locations who spoke English and could make my reservations. Of course, I had zero luck with this and only ended up annoying some people on the far end of the telephone line, but I was not to be deterred. I don't often beg for help from Japanese friends, but in this case I did. Of course, I only begged for help on one place, so that was all the help I got. But it did land us with a 9:00 pm reservation with the vamps.

Setting out at 6:00, we just hoped that the earlier hour would get our small group in with Lewis Carroll's funny friends. Armed with maps (in Japanese kanji), we got off at the Ginza stop and meandered the streets looking for our first destination. A few kind souls did stop and help us after I gave them my sad, pitifully lost face allowing us to finally take the elevator up to the tiny, well guarded entrance to the Wonderland Cafe. Sadly, all the effort was for nothing. A kind sir with his top hat, lapels and gold pocket watch could only share that they were completely full with reservations. Bah. Still, I was not to be turned away so quickly. Perhaps I wouldn't be dining and drinking down the rabbit hole that evening, but I was damn well sure that I would at least take a stroll in this strange world. Fortunately, our kind door rabbit was obliging, allowing us a quick peak around a room full of waitresses in blue and white pinafores, giant tea cups to sit in, and the many well-coiffed "Eat Me" treats that grace their strange menu. But this would have to be all we saw before we crawled back out of the rabbit hole. It's a shame too, because thanks to my English-to-Japanese translation book, I had learned to say "I take mushrooms occasionally." It's not that I do take mushrooms other than the garden variety kind (and even those I am squeamish about), but if the book provides the line, then it surely wants someone to say it, right? Ah well.

Back into the night air, we decided that in the available time prior to our later reservation, we would head back a block to the Sapporo Lion Beer Hall, which just so happens to be the oldest of such places in Japan, built in 1934. That means it survived the World War II bombings in Tokyo. This fact isn't so surprising once you step inside of this brick and mortar strong house and see the immense, Industrial-Gothic styled tiled columns strategically placed along the outskirts of the room. To the far end from the entrance is the most massive marble bar these eyes have ever seen with a glass tile mosiac showing the scantily clad harvesting crops and writhing in ecstasy. I read that in earlier, more modest days, these figures were covered with paper to preserve the patron's integrity. In these modernly promiscuous days, no one even blinks at the sight. I did take pictures of all this, but they are sadly trapped on my camera, which is refusing to communicate with the computer I am currently using. Alas. I will hopefully add them one day in the near future.

The food here. Ahh... so good. Beer and pub food in all its glory. Beef and potato croquettes and soft pretzels piled high on a stick are of my highest suggestion. There are a few German beers, but we mostly stuck with the namesake of the Ebisu Lion. Perhaps a beer hall was not the original theme plan of the night, but it proved to be more than satisfactory to our evening's activities.

As we did have one solid reservation, we paid our tab and headed back out into the ritzy streets of Ginza to find another bar surely hidden in some obscure corner of the neighborhood. We had a map. In Japanese. And we tried placing it into some sort of respect to the other two locations we had previously found, but it took us only moments to realize that with varying scales, we were just going to have to wing it from the single map provided by the destination. Once we figured out which tiny side street the map was showing, we just started walking. Only once did we stop and a man pointed us onward in the direction we had been heading. Either we were getting better at reading the maps or this place was easier to find, because it wasn't long before we were in the correct elevator.

When exiting the elevator, an evil laugh from the darkness made us all jump. Turns out those cheesy Halloween props can still support their original purpose of the quick thrill. Thick velvet drapes line all the walls, obscuring whatever was beyond the entryway and, later, whatever was occurring in those private booths. The floor glowed with red platelets until you pass into a main room where tables rest directly over coffins long coated in dripped red wax from the candelabras placed upon them. Skulls and spiderwebs graced corners here and there. Little Lolita waitresses in black and white french maid outfits scurried to the several hidden tables while Baroque music made the vibe a little more classic than cheesy Goth. (The one picture here is courtesy of dear friend and fellow vampire bar lover Davida, who, unlike myself, can make her camera and computer talk to each other.)

My purpose was solely to drink some blood. Not the real stuff, mind you, because EW. But that menu was sure to have something that looked enough like it to satisfy my sick curiousity. The care is mainly a ritzy eating establishment, but since we had already partaken in several courses prior, we stuck with ordering dessert. A chocolate creme cake with bat wings and red glazing spilled around it was perfectly adorable while the chocolate and berry dessert pizza was so-so good to me. The drinks were still where my mind was at.

First drink. Some creamy type juice, made lychee, mixed with a lot of I-don't-know and a shot of a thick red berry juice served on the side which you poured in. It was tasty. Especially for not knowing what we were drinking. For the steep cost, there was surely alcohol in it, but our taste buds must be withered from our years of adult beverages because we didn't taste or feel a thing. For the second shot, we went with a clearer red cocktail with lots of crushed ice and tiny rose petals on top. Again, we have no idea what we were drinking. I guess there was alcohol. Again, the price would make one assume. But the flavor was so beyond odd for a drink, that it took me a bit to finish it off. If I had to nail down a flavor, I would say it was like drinking your grandma's antique rose perfume water. I guess vampire are big on the luxe and the roses, but I'm doubting any self-respecting vampire would drink the red beauties. Of course, I made a further mistake by ordering the thick red-looking shot on the side... something that turned out to be like an intense bloody mary. Please do me a favor and never mix your roses and tomatoes together. It's just wrong. And your stomach will fault you for your stupidity at some point in the hours later.

While it wasn't one of the Tokyo theme bars I totally fell in love with, I'm always up for enjoying some strangeness. If this hadn't been a goodbye to Japan night, I would totally go back again. Perhaps many years in the future.

Neither me nor my friends relish the idea of sleeping in the train station for the night, so we made sure to catch the next-to-last train back to Zushi. You always plan for the next-to-last which gives you that tiny cushion in case you miss it. Many a business man has made the mistake of thinking they can make it from the bar to that last train and, after missing it, end up lying in wait for the 5:00 am train on the cold, dirty tile of some subway station using their briefcase as a makeshift pillow. I hated to think of my pretty Coach bag being put into such an incommodious position. Especially when my Serta Memory Foam pillow waited at home for me. Damn, I'm getting old.

Combing Hayama Beach

2010-06-25T17:32:00.000+09:00

By far one of my favorite goofing off activities in Japan has come to be beach combing on Hayama Beach. This is a pretty recent pastime too. It all started a few months ago when I finally got a chance to see some jewelry art that a friend here creates. She had told me years ago that she worked with sea pottery and I think I did a general head nodding as if I had a clue as to what she was referring. I didn't. Not until I saw her beautiful display. For someone that is fascinated with blue and white Japanese pottery (I have quite the collection) as well as by those perfectly rounded and buffed pieces of blue and green sea glass you are occasionally lucky enough to find on any foreign shore, the discovery of a sea pottery in the same earthy, rubbed state is enough of a combination to make my head perpetually swoon.

Add this love of mine with my child's love to constantly be out of doors and you have a natural winner of a day.

It's not that I taught him to pick out these pottery pieces in the midst of thousands of bits of shells and rocks, but he, in all his toddler eagerness to help, is all too happy to sort through the jumble under our feet. He uncannily knows what I am looking for. While he may not get me the prized blue and white pottery pieces that I look for, he does pick out quite a handful of gorgeous all-white pieces for me to sort through. I'm not saying my kid is a genius, but for someone that goes into a hourly state of near ecstasy when he finds a good rock, I'd say this is an impressive eye for sorting good shards from the rest of the litter for a wee one.

The legend of this pottery, found everywhere and everyday on Hayama Beach and parts of Kamakura beaches, is that sea vessels long ago ship wrecked in the area found their pottery sunken with them. The pieces have taken hundred of years rolling along the depths until they have washed up, perfectly weather, on today's sandy shores. It's a good story, but I'm not sure I am a believer. I'm thinking maybe the housewives who accidentally break a piece of china here or there, take it down to the cliffs and toss it over just so they don't have to do yet another sorted bag in that week's recyclables. I kid. Kind of. Whatever the reason for its appearance, I'm just so very glad it does. And so is Peanut.

Misty Mornings Spent at Kamakurayama's Rai Tei

2010-06-24T14:18:00.000+09:00

In the essence of our continuing goodbyes, our neighbor planned one more magnificent outing for us to share together. Hidden in the mountains around the city of Kamakura is a place called Rai Tei. On this misty, warm June morning, it was the perfect place for spending time reflecting on Japan and the many friendships we have made here.

A little history of this place with the majestic views of Kamakurayama begins with its establishment in 1928 as part of a Japanese resort cottage subdivision, but in 1969, the owner converted it into a soba (buckwheat noodle) and traditional cuisine restaurant. The main building was actually constructed during the Edo period and relocated to its current site as a residence for a wealthy farming family from nearby Yokohama city. The entrance gate, San-mon, was erected in 1642 formerly at the Juen-zan Koshou-ji Temple in the Kamakura area, but when the temple was relocated to a different prefecture in 1931, the gate was erected here at Rai Tei.

While the building and gate are extraordinary, it is the gardens here that I am in awe of. A circuit-style garden covering approximately 50,000 square meters has views of everything from Buddha sculptures to 5-storied pagodas to nature in all its incredible glory. On a clear day, Mt. Fuji will even make her surreal appearance over the mountains' treetops. Of course, our drizzly day would not allow for that kind of long-distance view, but I was contented enough by simply basking in the cool breezes of the bamboo groves.

Our friend held the hand of Kimono Peanut as he happily, despite it being somewhat laborious for his shorter legs, climbed up and down the moss-covered rock paths. He remained his usual cheerful self, that lives to be out-of-doors every moment he possibly can, and waved hello to every single passerby, even when one small group forced him so far off the narrow pathway that he slide down a steep, wet incline into the tall grasses and mud of forest around him. Not a tear did he shed, as he dusted off and continued dragging our friend onward.

Also eager to try the food after our little hike, we found a table next to the window where we could peer out into garden and beyond into the misty mountains. We took off our shoes and sat down on the tatami mat in front of the low table, a table which turned out to be several hundred years old. While it has surely stood the test of time, I was extra cautious to keep my wee boy, known for his awesome pounding skills, a bit further back from it than I normally would. Soba is generally one of KP's favorite meals, but sadly on this day, he couldn't sit still long enough to eat for the life of him. We each had a plate of soba and tempura, but I am sorry to report that I didn't spend much time tasting what I was eating and instead wolfed it down in my best effort possible to get KP out of there before the neighboring tables or the establishment threw him out. He was all too thrilled when we put his shoes back on him and left him run out the door and back into the gardens. If it hadn't been for a heavier rain coming down, we would have tried to spend more time meandering, but as it was, we decided to head back before we were all drenched.

As we headed home, all I could think about was how much I wish we could have visitors, particularly my mom, in Japan one more time. Because this is the kind of place that my Japanese dreams are made of.

Roving About Enoshima Island

2010-06-11T14:22:00.000+09:00

If there is one thing the guide books miss telling you about Enoshima Island, it is that it is one helluva hike. This is the exact sticking point that, even if I had known, I wouldn't have shared with Kimono Hubby. Since the arrival of the Peanut and his ever growing size, he tends to avoid all day long outings in Japan that require him to carry said heavy burden up and down numerous flights of stairs. He still likes to throw the Korean infiltration tunnel in my face whenever their is a discussion about hiking with KP at our sides. But I wanted to visit all of Enoshima Island instead of the glimpses along the edge that I had previously partaken.

So a-hiking we all went.

Starting off the stroller managed to go from the parking lot, up the tiny stretch of the main street and was sadly left behind at the foot of (God bless!) an escalator! It took us up the fist stretch where we strolled around a temple and watched people do figure eights in and out of a circle. I'm sure it has something to do with luck or health, but I didn't look it up. We took in the view and then headed for the next stretch of escalators. There were to be two more and we would be to the lighthouse on the top of the island.

Arriving at this level, we saw the botanical gardens' entrance in front of us, but being more interested in the lighthouse that looked as if it was somewhere in the distance behind the garden, we passed by it. Only then did we discover that the next stairwell went down, down, down. And then around. Great vistas surrounding us, but on this hot and humid June day, we didn't quite care to stop and look at this point except perhaps to take a moment and catch our breath. Our mission was solidly the lighthouse and the rest be damned.

After several more flights up and down, we realized that the lighthouse was either a figment of our imagination or just very far behind us. We could only assume that the entrance had to have been inside the botanical garden. Looking back at all those stairs up and down, up and down behind us though, there was no way we were going back. Onward, we went.

But just where were we going? We had consulted the map, but honestly not very closely. If we had, we might have seen that there really was no wrap-around pathway on the island. Those stairs up and down that we had been climbing, we would be climbing them again in our near future.

Where we did eventually end up was the very far end of the island. I know the island is only 4 kilometers long, but when it is up and down and all around, that adds a whole lot of clicks to the total calculation.

The sad part of the walk on this particular day is that the big draw for dragging your cookies the whole way over to this far side of the island is to get this majestic, uninhibited view of Mt. Fuji. Guess what? Like 80% of the other days in Japan, it was too hazy to see Fuji-san. For as large as the mountain is, she really does know how to hide herself away from the public eye.

As if all this tramping and climbing hadn't reminded KH enough about that tough day back in Korea, we came to the very end of the pathway which lead into two ancient caves. Two caves of which you needed to bend down very low and not burn your dangling hair or the babe in your arms with the only source of light you had, a tiny candle, which was handed to you on the way in. When it got to the hardcore ducking, KH and KP stayed behind while I continued deeper into the mountain. I will add here that the signs about earthquakes and subsequent tsunamis as you walk along the rocky outposts in this area did make me a little more nervous as I was deep inside of this cavernous mountain. A tip: If you take the hike in yourself, try not to think about this fact whilst meandering in the mountains deep, dark core.

Once out of the caves, we consulted with another map and began to come to grips with the fact that the reverse walk was going to be just as bad. Our footwear choice for the day, flip-flops, was also bemoaned as we began the trek back. And yet again, my breakfast of champions, my daily Diet Coke, was not enough to get me through this. We aimed to, at least, get ourselves past the entrance to the botanical gardens before pausing for lunch, but at the peaks of one of the stairwells, Kimono Peanut began to dilly dally his walking efforts and perform his tired stance (the one where he stands on his head), we realized we would have to stop sooner rather than later. The choices along this route were excellent had it been just the two adults. Lost of fresh seafood shown in the ever-present plastic displays, but this would not work for a ever-more-picky toddler. When we passed a soba and tempura place that overlooked the ocean, we jumped at the chance to get our kid some plain noodles. It also helped that the place was not yet crowded so if he did have a meltdown, there were a whole lot less witnesses to it. Meltdown, he did. Eat, he did not. The quickly eaten meal provided just enough energy for us to carry KP up and down and around those last stairwells. Remember the escalators coming up? How helpful they were in spurts? Well, there ain't nothing like that going down except for the volition in your own two legs. When we finally got back to the stroller, the sun, the heat and the sweat was quickly ending our day. We never did stop at the lighthouse on the way back. The first issue was that we still weren't sure how to get into it, but the second was that it looked like it was another 500 stairs to the top, and there wasn't a chance in hell I was going to convince either of the boys with me that we should climb to the top just to take in the view.

We had also read that one of the shrines on the island held one of the few naked sculptures in Japan. She apparently is a shrine for praying for success in entertainment and many actors and actresses visit her for help in their own fame and fortune. We visited each of the shrines, but I somehow missed her too. Oh well. I didn't plan on being in the entertainment industry anyway. I'm not sure that either KH or KP would agree, but just the vast island roving we had done was enough to satisfy me.

Shopping in the bottom, main street area looked like fun, but with only a few weeks left here, I am realizing that there is really nothing left in which I really want to buy. We snacked on what looked like some unassuming potato balls and rice cakes, only to realize that the island's specialty of those tiny white/silver fish with the big black eye on the end were the main ingredient. You couldn't taste them really, but just seeing that black eye floating in the middle of the creamy cheese substance in the middle of the ball was a bit too much for me. The flat cake-like thing was surprisingly even worse, more so because of the gummy texture than even teh black eyes staring up at you.

Also cooking in front of several locations were chefs hard at work on conch, clams, oysters and squid on the grill. Kimono Hubby had learned his lesson on the conch a few weeks ago at the Marine Park, but he felt that the clams might be a safe bet. He was wrong. Again, he bought two thinking I would be having one, again after I had already told him I was set on getting apple-mango ice cream, so he ended up eating both big, chewy clams. As I watched him, I swirled down an Enoshima beer, the perfect top off on this hot day. Insisting that he had to remove the clam taste from his mouth, KH backtracked to get himself an ice cream cone.

We meandered the outskirts of the island a bit more, gazing out at the sea to watch the myriad of boats on the horizon. A line of cars had snaked itself onto the island and now sat in the hot sun waiting for one of the limited parking spots to open up. They probably sat there with the typical serene Japanese patience, but I felt guilty watching the line never grow any shorter. On top of that, it was way past someone's naptime and he was showing signs of physical wear, so we headed back to our car and made our way off the island. Of course, driving down Route 134 on a summer day is a test in patience all by itself. It took us over an hour to get back, a second reminder of how glad we were that we headed to the island super early that morning.

And let me tell you, those guide books won't tell you about that traffic either.

Japanese Peculiarities #11

2010-06-10T13:20:00.000+09:00

If there is one thing I know about, it is junk mail. I truly say this in the most loving way. Prior to my charades in Japan, I spent many, many hours, days and years creating it. Of course, the much nicer name is 'direct mail'.

This isn't one of those careers that you choose. It chooses you. If you are lucky enough, like I was, you fall in love with it. No joke, but I used to look forward to checking my mailbox to see if there were any cool letters and ideas in there that I could replicate, or better, one-up, for my clients. As you can imagine, this made me extremely curious to see what would show up in my Japanese mailbox. Would I be able to use any of these new finds from my foreign box and translate them into something grand in that past/future career?

There answer has been a resounding no. I have spent four years checking through the stacks in my mailbox here and there ain't nothing half as cool as what we created at my old agency.

First of all, unless it is a bill or a statement, they rarely bother with envelopes. This makes perfect sense in a culture where sorting trash for its particular recycling day is a huge issue. Why give more to throw out when the goal is ultimately less to throw out. The problem is that one of the coolest parts was the envelope. There is so much that can be done with an envelope! I know I am sounding like a huge dork here, but I am dead serious. In direct mail, if the envelope isn't cool and appealing for the appointed audience, then you fail from the get go. They never open it and you never get your message across. In Japan, with no envelope and a writing of which the average American like myself can't read, you are left with nothing more than a chaotic-looking flier. On top of that, they are rarely even folded like a real letter is. Although, I won't complain on this note as I would just have to unfold them to put them into the tied recycling pile.

And that below is exactly what I pull out of my mailbox on a daily basis. A big old mess that I leaf through and then throw directly into the recycling bin. I dare one of my previous coworkers to make something out of this week's worth display. Please do let me know if you find something... and I promise to steal the idea from you too.

Last Ikebana Class

2010-06-09T14:42:00.000+09:00

I haven't talked much about any Ikebana that I have created lately mostly because I have only been creating it at home. Without proper sensei supervision, I don't want to call it Ikebana and show it to the world. Lately, the art form has been strictly something for me to enjoy, in my own, limited spare time, more than trying to master the craft.

However, Ikebana is one of the things in my life here in Japan that had to give a proper goodbye to. Last week, I emailed the best English speaker in the class and asked her if I could stop by for a visit. Not wanting to disturb the class and knowing that I would have to bring Kimono Peanut with me as class is on a Friday afternoon and all the other supervising grown-ups are working, I promised I would keep it short, all the while keeping up a quiet hope that they would ask me to stay. Of course, they did. The Japanese are overwhelming welcoming, if you ask me. The responding email was filled with friendly insistence that I stay for a final class with the Peanut and then join everyone for a farewell luncheon.

I was so excited about the day that I ended up being forty-five minutes early. Anyone who knows me, knows that early is not my thing. I was nervous about having my curious toddler in a room full of pretty flowers to rip apart, but he was amazingly well behaved after only one small meltdown, when I insisted we stop playing outside and come in for class. Sensei took his meltdown as an opportunity to take him out herself and downstairs to the flower shop below where she purchases the flowers and show him off a little. It warms my heart to see my friends here, these friends that I may not always be able to communicate properly to, but they always show how much loving kindness they have in their hearts for not only me, but my own. Once they were done their little stroll, KP was then perfectly content to play with his cars and a new toy one of my fellow students had brought for him. I was able to complete my arrangement in no time, even while keeping a keen eye on the whereabouts of my busy, little man.

Takenouchi-sensei just has that magic touch. She liked what I did, but with a few tiny adjustments and she seemed to bring the whole thing completely alive, as if you happened upon it on a walk by a quiet lake. This is exactly what the Kozan school is about and it is no wonder she is a master of it. She does this with everyone's work, even when I think they are so amazingly accomplished that they couldn't possibly be improved upon. I have learned so very much from her.

Once class wrapped up, we gathered our wrapped flowers to recreate our work at home and then headed over to Kamakura Pasta. I've been there only once before, long before there was a KP, and I do love it. What I didn't know was that it had a glass room on the far end filled with toys so that adults can eat and kids can play. Just another way that my friends and classmates are so thoughtful, to chose a restaurant like thoroughly with the two of us in mind.

Ahead of time, I had prepared a little speech in the best Japanese I could muster. It may not have been perfect, but I know that each and every one of my friends understood. The tears (mine, but they quickly joined in) came in only my second sentence, but I continued so that they would know how much I value what they have taught me, not just about flowers, but about bonding with those from an entirely different culture, who speak an entirely different language. It has been one of the most wonderful experiences in my time here. It wasn't just about the art form, as it was when I first started studying. In the end, it is much more about the value of true and treasured friendship. I am thoroughly grateful for every moment I spent with them.

The Goddess of Mercy

2010-06-08T16:11:00.000+09:00

The "Goddess of Mercy of the White Robe" stands prominently on a mountain in Ofuna. You can't miss her from anywhere in the area, whether you are on a train or on foot. And yet, if my favorite exploring friend had not been with me when KP and I went to seek her out, I'm not sure if I would have figured out how to get to her.

The path at the foot of the mountain stands hidden behind an unsuspecting neighborhood. At the entrance is merely a small wooden sign with some Japanese writing on it, of which I obviously cannot read. My friend said it took her and her mother several laps around the area to figure it out. And then the climb begins. Oh my, the climb. It is steep. Viciously steep. And pushing a 30 pound Peanut and his gear up it, well let's just say it wasn't easy. As we hiked and forced the stroller up the bumpy path, I was grateful that my friend had insisted we pause for lunch prior to the jaunt up. If we hadn't stuffed ourselves at Goemon (delicious Japanese pasta place, if you are interested), then I am pretty sure my breakfast of Diet Coke would not have been enough for the march. I surely would have collapsed halfway up and the Peanut would have rolled right over me and back on down the hill.

When we arrived at the top, I was thrilled to see this beautiful statue up close and in person. Kimono Peanut just liked running up, down and around the circular pathway that surrounds her.

Why is this place so important? A little history lesson: The Goddess at Ofuna Kannon-ji was instituted "in general defense of the Fatherland" by Kentaro Kaneko and traditional nationalist Mitsuru Touyama who had been a part in the drafting of the Imperial Constitution (according to info provided at the site). Building began in 1929, with the Goddess meant to be praying for world peace, but in 1934 when only the outline was completed, war broke out in the Pacific and the place was left to nature's devices for the next twenty years. In 1954, a newly created society took up the work on construction and completed the project in 1960.

The site contains stones from ground zero in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, commemorating the souls of those who died in the tragedy of those atomic attacks. Most visitors to the temple do so regularly for spiritual purposes, but it is said that foreigners seek her out for comfort during their strives with homesickness. She is meant to carry prayers for peace for those of her home country and those who only call Japan their home for a set amount of time.

I can understand this purpose. The mountain she sits on is serene, tranquil and offers refuge from the busy city that lies at her feet. I can see praying for personal peace, as well as peace for the world at large in this obsequious setting. But I can also hope that it doesn't take a statue to remind us to all to do the same no matter where we are standing.

Weekend Times, Family Times

2010-05-24T21:33:00.000+09:00

Weekends are all about family time. Which, if you knew me back in the day, is actually quite funny because you would never expect me to be married, let alone start breeding a family. And now... I wouldn't change it for the world. Many told me that my younger and crazier self didn't know what she was missing. I say to them, that you're right. I probably didn't, but going through those days has only made me appreciate these days even more. So now when the weekend rolls around, I'm no longer sitting at happy hour and trying to figure out what random fun I can compromise myself in. I am instead planning random fun for my boys, the loves of my life.

Two recent outings proved noteworthy in their odd, little Japanese way. Both of them seemed to be accessible by car, which has proved easier than hauling Kimono Peanut and his infinite gear up and down the numerous stairwells we find in the smaller train stations. Of course, it is never as simple as it seems.

Not knowing what foods and supplies would be available at Aburatsubo Marine Park, we stopped at the neighborhood 7-11 to get pre-cooked meals, pickled radishes and various snacks in preparation for a picnic lunch. Loaded up, we started off on the route that our handy dandy directions instructed. According to them, it looked like we basically passed Yokosuka Naval Base, made a total of three easy turns and we would arrive there at the tip of the Miura peninsula, where the park was to be perched on the rocky cliffs above the ocean. If this was true, the trip should have taken us no more than an hour with traffic. In all the time I have been here, I do not rely heavily on directions provided by the base because they are usually and sadly quite mistaken. This would be no exception.

Two hours into the trip, following our own good senses through the last hour and a half, we arrived at the park. Fortunately, we had left our house early and the park wasn't too full yet on what would surely be a busy day with the gorgeous weather we were having. After two trips back to the car because I seemed to have left my organizational skills at home for the day, we were finally past the main entrance.

The first thing to be done... play with sea cucumbers! A rocky pool had been built in front of the entrance to the main aquarium and held starfish and sea cucumbers so young and old hands alike to pick one up and play with it. And what do sea cucumbers feel like? Big, squishy boogers. I wished wholeheartedly that I had not had that experience. The boys didn't seem to mind. Boys and gross stuff. They go hand-in-hand, right?

Inside, the aquarium was quite well done! Not as large as Sea Paradise in Yokohama, but there was a nice size shark tank, plenty of sting rays, tanks that held fish who swam upside down or straight up and down, and even crabs that could surely rival my own weight with their massiveness. One of KP's favorite words and favorite things to see is 'fish'. We tried to expand the words to include the varietal names, but over his repeated 'FISH!' shrieks of joy, I doubt he heard a thing we were saying.

That surely could made his day all on its own, but this was a large park and there was much more to do. Apparently shows are the big thing in Japan. Seriously. Maybe I haven't been to enough parks, but it just feels like there are an awful lots of 'shows' at parks in Japan.

In the middle of the park stood a huge stage. An announcement when we were in the aquarium had sent most of the inside crowd running outside to the stage area, so we had followed. After standing there for ten minutes, without a seat in sight available, we decided to bag it and head over to a large circular tank nearby that a few were still peering into. Dolphins skimmed their way round and round in the tank. Of course, Kimono Peanut just saw more 'FISH!'.

As we stared in, something finally began to happen on stage! Lo, the show was starting! While I am not sure what we expected to see, I don't think it was the anime in life appearing before our eyes. I know they are hugely popular characters who now stood before us, but I honestly couldn't identify them. (Perhaps Heather can help me here?) Whoever they were... KP loved them and their big heads and big eyes topped with bright pink and blue hair. This is the story I got... the pink-haired is attacked by a man waving a fan at her. She falls down, goes boom. Fan man and his friend the Pirate laugh at her crumpled mass. But, lo, see yonder! It is the blue-haired girl arriving on the horizon! Blue and pink flying, they kick the butts of the Fan Man and Mr. Pirate! The end.

Honestly, it was well choreographed, but honestly not something I would chose to stand idly watching if it weren't for my wee one being so enthralled. We did drag him away as the numerous bows were beginning to go and get a good seat in the big arena for the marine animal show.

Front row! And praying we wouldn't get wet. We pried into KP whatever food he would pause to take in while he waited impatiently for the show to start. Perhaps the wonderful Sea Paradise show had me a bit spoiled, but this was a bit lacking. It didn't even get the Japanese audience laughing.

A sea lion began the show by playing some tunes on the piano. Impressive actually. Then a person dressed as a penguin priest came out, said some things, meandered away for the dolphins to do their thing in the big tank, which is always cool to see. They did the noses to balls, waving, 'talking', hoop jumping and the typical marine show stuff. Some real penguins made their appearance, but they really only waddled onto and right off the stage.

The lights changed behind the stage to show the image of a stained glass window behind what now appeared to be an altar. The penguin priest returns followed by sea lions and their escorts, who turn out to be their wedding attendants! The penguin priest marries the sea lions. They kiss. The end. But no! It's time for the reception! The sea lion comes back to play the piano and his friend joins him to be the DJ. He actually squeaks a record or two. THEN, the end. No, I am not making this stuff up.

Through most of the show, KP had been clapping and hopping up and down, but the excitement just overcame him. He was asleep even before the kiss, collapsed in the arms of his daddy. We took the opportunity to have a nice romantic picnic lunch on the cliff overlooking the ocean and Mount Fuji, without our darling angel fighting us to run off in whatever direction the fun lay in next.

A stand was selling fresh conch and calamari. So fresh, in fact, it felt like you might be enjoying the taste of a recent exhibit. Of course, we have eaten these things many times so KH was all for grabbing some to nibble on. Now, I will eat a lot of things. But that conch... as tasty as it looked... e-gad, it was horrible. Even more horrific was when you pulled the entire thing out of the shell, you really didn't know what the black stuff was that you were eating. I'll admit. I couldn't do it. KH tried a few more bites than I did, but in the end, even he could not endure. When no one was looking, we tossed those bad boys. I did remind my husband that all I asked for was ice cream and that next time, perhaps, he can listen. But that taste wouldn't go away, so the ice cream came sooner than anticipated. Thank the good Lord.

Crowds were bringing the noise level up so it wasn't long before KP was roused. We had already checked out the petting zoo while he was sleeping only to find a dog, gerbils, rabbits and some mice... all of which you had to pay 300 yen for. He can pet a dog at the neighbor's house for free. We passed by it long before he knew he had even missed it.

There were many coin-operated rides there, so we chose a Keikyu train to toss our first 100 yen into. Sitting behind the wheel, pushing buttons and levers, he loved every moment of his first ride, after he got over the shock of the movement happening underneath him. We put him on several more rides before we finally dragged him away, with much lighter pockets. There were also these totally cool large furry animals that you sat on and steered, but KP was more interested in watching others ride them than he was in trying it for himself.

Strangeness aside, we had a great day together. KP saw 'FISH'! So we rock as parents. That day anyway.

Our second outing didn't turn out so well, but it has only recently come to pass that it wasn't the place as much as KP had been sick and we didn't know it. A short, but scary hospital stay only days after our trip to Kurihama Flower World explained why he seemed to collapse in tears during every other step at the park.

Fortunately, getting there didn't seem to be as difficult as the trip before, with only a few surprises in the directions. We again got their earlier than the crowds, but hadn't stopped at the conbini as we had found at the marine park that there were some food stands. Of course, Kurihama Flower World didn't have as many as we would have thought for its size, but it didn't matter because we didn't stay that long due to the state of the Peanut baby.

One never knows what to expect when you come to these places. We were more than a little surprised that all that seemed to stretch out in front of us was a poppy garden. An impressive poppy garden, don't get me wrong. But a poppy garden. Now, I love flowers more than most, but even I was expecting... more? A road on the side of the garden seemed to tell us that there was more to be seen... farther than the eye could see from our vantage and perhaps as farther than our feet would take us up the steep hills beyond the garden. After a few meanderings around the front part of the poppy garden, a train started making its way down the hill. A line formed at the front, causing us to gravitate in that direction in the hopes it would get us to the big beyond.

When the train pulled up and we hopped on, this usually would be another experience that the Peanut would love, but no, not on this day. His screams, twists and kicks had all of the Japanese in front of us turning to view us from the corner of their eyes. The kids were a bit more obvious as they just turned around and stared at us. Yes, we were that American family. Gah. Thankfully, the train began its ascent. At the first stop, the train conductor must have asked who wanted to get off here and most with kids raised their hands. We just wanted to get away from the stares, so we got off too.

There we found ourselves facing a gigantic Godzilla! If you crawled up into his belly, you could slide down the big slide out of his tail. This stopped the tears for a bit as KP loves a good slide. If it had been a bit wider, we would have attempted too, but the last thing we wanted to do was get stuck in a slide and glean ourselves more looks from the locals.

Behind Godzilla was a wonderful creation of ropes, ladders and slides all situated on the perfect gradual hill. Only one unfortunate thing... it was a wee bit advanced for an 18-month old. We did a few slides at the foot of it that seemed a bit more his speed, but when KP came down on his face and landed into a mud puddle, tears running down his cheeks, we decided to just steer clear of the rest of it. So we tried the more age appropriate slides and structures off to one quiet side. One other toddler crawled in and out, up and down with the Peanut. But, alas, even this was not enough to stop the tears. We coaxed him with snacks and toys, but nothing seemed to be working. We made the choice to catch the next train down. I'm uncertain what was at the top of the mountain where the train next went. A short debate about going to see what was over the rising hill was quickly ended when KP just completely lost it. We didn't even wait for the train, but instead started the long walk back down the hill.

Halfway down, we came upon an ice cream shop that overlooked the poppy garden. Green tea ice cream quelled his frustrations for a few minutes, but it wasn't long before we again began our ~~escape~~ descent.

At the entrance of the park, a makeshift stage now had several cultural song and dance acts occurring on it. We watched a Hawaiian and traditional Japanese dance, but not wanting to press our luck much further, we made our way back to the car.

If we had time before our move back, I would love to try this place again. It had everything you could want for a sun and fun filled afternoon. As our time in Japan is now drawing quickly to an end, I don't foresee a second trip in our future. We shall see though! I remain optimistic about getting everything that I want to do squeezed in during these final days! If it were up to KP, he would chose an afternoon feeding the koi at the nearby stream and then playtime in the park nearby. Why are we adults to eager to plan these big elaborate days of fun when kids find the simple things in their everyday world almost more fun than those same big events?

We tried our first big outing since his hospitalization this past weekend. Close friends joined us for a trip to Yokohama for dinner at Garlic Jo's in Minato Mirai where we all ate delicious balls of broiled garlic called 'Vampire Killers' that surely kept everyone at a distance for the rest of the night. Then we took a ride on the world's third largest Ferris Wheel, Cosmo Clock 21, where KP has proved that he has no fear of heights. The girls left the boys behind for a quick spin on the Vanishing Roller Coaster. And then off to watch the live acts being performed in front of Queens Square over ice cream parfaits and coffee.

Our time here is indeed fading. Our weekends our dwindling. We love our family time, but the next weeks simply must be filled with lots of friend time too. I don't care what we do. I just want to show those that I love here just how much I will miss them.

Checking Off Another Dream: Time With a Geisha

2010-05-03T22:26:00.000+09:00

One thing I had desperately wanted to do when I first moved to Japan was to hang out with a geisha. Little did I know that this task would be more than a little difficult to accomplish. Literature told me that there weren't many left around, but what it didn't tell me is how hard it is to get yourself to an event with one of the few that do still work in their unique cultural field. When the Kamakura chapter of Ikebana International announced their April program would include a visit with a geisha, I told Kimono Hubby that come hell or high water, I would be going to the program that day. He's a good guy. He made it happen. Even in the midst of an extremely busy week at work, he took the entire day off so I could catch the early bus to Tokyo with the other ladies.

A little rain did not dampen a single spirit that climbed onto the chartered tour bus that morning. Little did I know at that early hour, but most Japanese women have never seen or been around a geisha either. We all chatted away as we passed around basket after basket of baked goods to satisfy our stomachs until we arrived in the Asakusa part of Tokyo where we would have lunch.

Gardens are the thing to do here in Japan. Particularly in Japan and during the spring when the cherry blossoms are in bloom and the hanami party is the thing to do. But this spring has been the rainiest and coldest I have known in my four years here. I have lamented over this many a day these past months as my kid stands with his face smashed into our glass doors wailing 'side, side,' his special way of telling me we need to go outside. We've spent most days standing side-by-side at the window and staring longingly at the rain-soaked blossoms and budding trees wondering when it will end. The ladies of I.I. have watched the rain come down with the same sadness in their hearts that the Peanut and I endure.

What made our collectively rain-drenched blade even sharper was the fact that the rain caused our travels to Tokyo to be slowed so much that we were late to arrive at our first spot, the Edo Period Hamarikyu Onshi Garden. This did not stop several brave gaijin women from taking a quick stroll around the very damp and yet still very beautiful garden, one of the largest traditional gardens in Tokyo which had originally been laid in the 17th century for the 4th Tokugawa Shogun (feudal lord) and later used by the Shogan as a hunting ground. The garden even served a spell as being a Detached Palace for the Imperial Family during the Meiji Restoration, but after World War II, the family gave the park to the City of Tokyo and opened it to the public. Inside the garden, we found a serenity completely unlike the bustling city area of Odaiba and the Shiodome that lie just across the moat of Tokyo Bay sea water surrounding the quiet garden. Strolling the grounds we found numerous cherry, plum and quince trees, a 300 year-old pine tree, and rock paths that led to the garden’s tidal pond with a teahouse perched at its center. If time had not been under such an extreme crunch, I would have loved to have stopped there for some matcha and sweets.

As it was, the Japanese ladies were already huddled up under the awning at the park's front where we caught a quick cruise on the Sumida River. The cruise took us under a dozen historic bridges, each one being unique and architecturally appealing in some way. The cruise is also generally a great way to see the old and new buildings of Tokyo and lines of cherry trees along the banks, but the rain was causing problems yet again as it darkened the windows of the boat with too many splatters to see clearly through. The cruise is famous for being the place to being during the Tokyo Bay Fireworks Festival held in August, but we will be long gone before then to catch that view. when the cruise ended, we were pulled up onto the banks, just across from one of the most eye catching buildings in Tokyo, the Asahi Beer Building. It is meant to resemble a glass of beer, but I can't help but to think it more resembles a big old sperm. Sorry, Japan friends for this observation. Moving on.

We now found ourselves in the heart of Asakusa, where we would be having lunch at the long-established Asakusa Tanbo Kusatsutei. It was here that the day really began to fulfill some of the dreams I long entertained of what my time in Japan would be like. We began with the first of our seasonal kaiseki lunch, an elegant wooden bento box that held various vegetables and fish cooked in traditional Japanese fashion. A second course brought my favorite, sashimi. A third, some type of crab in a ball placed in a clear broth. A thin slice of daikon disguised itself on top of the ball making the dish look like a jellyfish floated inside. A fourth course, the expected miso soup. And finally a fifth course of sweets and fruits. Each course fought hard to be more exquisite than the one that had come before it.

It was during this superb gluttony that our highlighted guest made her entrance. Norie is a local geisha, fourth generation in her family, and has long lived in Asakusa previously with her family and now at her established Okiya. She came to us well educated, speaking several languages, which thankfully included a perfect grasp of the tricky English language. She and her accompaniment, another traditional geisha, who specifically plays shamisen (a type of Japanese string instrument) and therefore does not wear the white make-up, started with a short introductory speech before proceeding into their first song and dance performance. Of course, the singing was not done in English, but whatever she said was certainly quite funny as several times there were titters and more amidst our Japanese ladies. Norie did a second short dance number and then sat down as well to play a taiko drum while singing, which sounds more like chanting to my untrained ear, along with the shamisen player.

After these performances, she paused a bit to stroll around the room and chat with several of us. Of course, we had about sixty women in our crowd so I wasn't counting on getting too much alone time with her... but I was hoping beyond hope I was wrong. Thank you God, I was! She actually sat with my two American friends and I for several minutes and let me barrage her with question after question. Just from this brief conversation, I would say she is quite sharp and surely is the life of the party she is supposed to be after a few drinks are in her evening customers.

After she moved on from us, I couldn't help but stare at her as she floated around the room. I simply loved when she would get lost in telling a story to a group. Without knowing it, every inch of her was completely animated and into the story and the ladies that swarmed around her leaned in even closer, hanging onto every witty word of whatever secret story she was sharing with them. It was simply marvelous to see! Damn. Now I sound like I am turning into some little old lady, but I swear I loved it that much.

Norie made her way back up to the stage for the next part of our afternoon. The fun was not over as she pulled out a low, traditional table on which she would be teaching us the traditional Japanese drinking games of goishi hiroi and konpira fune fune. When she asked for volunteers, in the usual way the Japanese women hesitated. Of course, they would never volunteer until they were overly encouraged to do so, even if they were surely dying to run up there in the first place as I know I was. My friend fortunately is like me and did not want to miss an opportunity as such. We jumped at the chance and pulled our other friend who was at her first I.I. program visiting along with us.

Somehow, the proper number of volunteers were acquired. Norie asked for five on each side as she placed us into teams. She told us the first and last person would have it the hardest. She had demonstrated what we were to be doing and it seemed easy enough, but that was until you tried it. When it was your turn, you rushed up and kneeled at the table in the proper Japanese sitting fashion, tie on a scarf around your neck, pick up the chopsticks and begin transferring these rounded, wooden 'coins' from the bowl they were in to the empty one beside it. If you dropped one in the process, the person standing in turn behind you was to rush over, pick it up and put it back in the bowl to try again. Shamisen music plays in the background which only adds to the intensity you feel as you try to rush your chips to the appropriate bowl. Gaijin stood at the front of the line on both teams and while we are all pretty confident in our chopstick eating skills, this was much harder than we anticipated. My friend managed to get through it without showing an ounce of the frustration she had to be feeling over being the first, the guinea pig, as we took in what she was doing and prepared ourselves to do the same, but faster. I was third and I don't like to brag, but I was damn good. Unfortunately our team lost, despite the two Japanese ringers we had at the end of our team who made up a world of time for our slow gaijin start. All in good spirits though as we laughed our way back to our table and to watch another group try their hand at it. I can imagine that playing this in the evening hours and with a lot of sake being pushed on the losers, that this game gets progressively harder and progressively funnier.

The second game, konpira fune fune, I desperately wanted to take part in, but I thought it would be greedy to volunteer so eagerly again when there were so many other people there to try their hand. Of course, my Japanese friends encouraged me, but I maintained my polite no-no-I-couldn't attitude. My friend did go and try for a second round at a game. She and I get along well as we both try to fully take advantage of every opportunity our lives have given us, so she didn't hesitate when encouraged to go again.

For this game, it's head-to-head as you do a tap and grab dance with a bowl in the middle of the table. When the bowl is not on the table (as you have 'stolen' it) and your opponent doesn't make a fist instead of a flat palm, you win. The ever present shamisen music plays faster and faster increasing the pace of the game. Again, drunk, this would be increasingly difficult to say the least. As it was, my friend won both rounds and won herself a tenugi (a decorative towel used for a variety of things) with little drunken businessmen playing games and drinking sake imprinted onto it. Darn. When I saw what she won, I wish I had pushed up there, but who is to say I wouldn't have sucked at the game. Laughter filled the air as everyone took a turn at besting their opponent with one of my fellow Ikebana students falling in a pile of laughter as she was bested twice by a friend.

When the games ended, Norie took more time moving around the room and talking to everyone she could get to. One of the older groups of ladies had bought several tokkuri (ceramic serving flasks) of sake and were doing their best to get Norie to down several choko (small drinking glasses that look like shot glasses). Watching them enjoy meeting her was probably the highlight of my experience with a geisha. They were just in hysterics from her stories and what could be better than watching friends have the time of their lives?

As that portion of the afternoon closed and we made our decent to reclaim our shoes (removed in traditional fashion as we had entered the restaurant and stepped onto the tatami mats), the laughter continued as members strolled out onto the street for a little sightseeing and shopping in the honored Senso-ji Temple area of Asakusa. I got a second opportunity to chat with Norie for a few more moments as we were leaving and made sure to tell her that she had made it a great afternoon... one my dreams were made of. She was so sweet to tell me that she then wishes she had spent even more time talking to me. Trust me, Norie, I am so happy with the time we spent.

We had an hour of free time before we had to meet back at the bus. On Nakamise-dori, I purchased some Chinese zodiac animal figurines that matched each of our birthdates. They have little bells in them and my friend gave me the idea to make them into Christmas ornaments. Considering I haven't really bought any in years (Japan is, as stated stated before, not so big on the holiday in the regular Christian way of celebrating), these will hold a lot of meaning to me and will be treasured for years to come.

We got some sweets and continued our aimless meandering for a bit more and then gathered back at the meeting point.

I can't believe I actually got to meet a geisha. I kind of figured that if anyone did, it would be KH at one of the many events he attends in the city. I feel like I finally one-upped him in this respect. If you know the circle he runs in, you know how difficult that is. I treasure of lot of days and memories of Japan, but this one will be one of the best. God bless these amazing opportunities.

Kimonos in Korea

2010-04-26T21:43:00.000+09:00

Our last big Asian hurrah has come and gone as we checked off own more country-we-hoped-to-visit while living on this side of the world, South Korea. I know, I know. Why South Korea? It really isn't your typical vacation destination. But ever since we found out that we were going to be living in Asia, I've had it in my head that I need to visit the same foreign lands that my father walked on many years ago. I'm not entirely sure why this inclination, but I think it has something to do with the fact that my dad is a bit hard to get to know. I feel like if I trail in his footsteps in whatever way I can, I might glean a more thorough picture of why he is the person he is today.

This isn't to say that my dad isn't the best. He really is. He's just... well... for those that know him, would you say... different? Intelligent. Knowledgeable. Tender, but he only shows that to little ones. Physically strong. Mentally sharp. But he is also opinionated. Stubborn. Reserved in many ways. Abrasive (and this amuses him). And quite prone to eventually removing himself entirely from society at large. The stories I do get out of him tend to come when we have had a few drinks.

My brother probably would not agree on all of these parts of him as they have a very different relationship than what I share with him. My brother is an awful lot like him in many ways. He's always been the smart, calculating one. I'm not saying I'm a brainless twit or not at all like my dad. My mother would say I am all him. I just think my brother is more how my dad is today and I'm a bit more like the wilder, younger side of my dad that had the intelligence to have reservations in his head, but (back then) very rarely let them dictate what he did in life. Which is why we went to Korea. Or at least why I went. Korea was part of those wilder, younger days and that meant I felt a need to take part in the experience. Minus perhaps all the booze and broads that my dad surely made part of his experience.

Besides all this, there was also the culture! Another culture to spend a few days interacting with. Try it on for size. That's the stuff my dreams are made of.

The trip was only a few days long. There wasn't much of a plan before we got there except a few pages in a tattered guide folded down for possible things to see and do. We cashed in some United vouchers that we had each received from our last flight home from the states... the one that leaked fuel all over the runway and threatened to blow us into smithereens if we had actually tried to go wheels-up. We used some of the insane number of credit card points we have amassed from previous travel to stay practically free at the Grand Ambassador Hotel Associated with Pullman (formerly a Sofitel so very cushy-cushy). Budgeting for just a couple of hundred pocket cash, we did the entire trip for under a $1000. For a place we had only dreamed of visiting, we managed to do it and do it in style.

Before we had left Japan, I had made several calls to hook us up on a Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) tour the day after we arrived, which looked to be the warmest and driest of days that we were planning on being there. After some difficulty finding an English-speaking person (many spoke English, but didn't really speak it, if you know what I mean), I managed to book a tour. When our guide picked us up that morning, we weren't really sure what the tour included, but after speaking with her for a few moments, it was quickly realized that we weren't doing exactly what we had hoped for. We wanted to go to Panmunjom. We wanted to stand in the room where the North and the South have had both epic and small talks to resolve military, economic and political problems. We wanted Kimono Peanut to give a friendly gesture to the North Koreans. We kid. We joked about it, but we know the seriousness of this area and would not have jeopardized ourselves or the sanctity of the area. We actually were more worried that he would simply wave in his typical uber propitious ways and unintentionally cause an international incident. I was prepared to hold his arms at his sides. Turns out we had nothing to worry about. We weren't going there. Nor was anyone else on our tour. We would have tried to do a different tour to get us to Panmunjom, but we found out at the same time that there was an age limit. Unless one of us was prepared to sit at the hotel and let the other go, neither of us were going to make it to that room. During this current trip at least.

Instead our guide, a slight woman, but who had a forceful way about her ushered us onto a small bus with rather Chinese-looking red and gold fringed curtains in the windows that would take us out of the city. As what seemed like an afterthought during a rather dull talk about how the area around the DMZ was very fertile ground for growing the Korean prized ginseng, our guide threw out the quite interesting fact that the barbed wire rings that separated the side-by-side river and highway were placed there to stop the North Koreans from coming near the shores and throwing mortar. Apparently, we were traveling the road that separated North and South by only the river. Sure, the DMZ was there too, but I guess in the past, this had not stopped the North from trying to start something on many occasions. If you follow the news on this side of the world, this would not entirely surprise you. In fact, just the other week, it looks like a South Korean ship was sunk by a North Korean torpedo. And then there was a few months ago, when the North was shooting missiles over Japan, landing them in the water just beyond my own home. I guess I should worry more, but coming from Washington, DC, it feels like I always seem to live somewhere that likes to keep a target painted squarely on its back.

We stopped and checked in just outside of the entrance to the DMZ. Here at Imjingak park, we were given a speech about following the rules. Don't go where you aren't supposed to. Don't take photos where she said not to. Don't dilly-dally. And many others. The last one, she wasn't kidding about, but more on that later. We wandered the grounds there for a bit where you could see the Freedom Bridge which spans the Imjin River. 12,773 prisoners of war crossed this bridge after the Korean War and today, it is as close as some Koreans will ever get to their relatives still living in the North. Today, a rusted train with over 1,000 bullet holes sits stranded on the DMZ line where it was forever halted from the gunfire it endured. The same winding strands of barbed wire stretch the entire area, ensuring that you get only limited photograph-able views of the bridge as it is yet the first of many things we saw but couldn't properly immortalize for our own records. Knowing our guides propensity to push for extreme timeliness, we figured we best get to the meeting point sooner rather than later. She was already eagerly awaiting us.

From here, we climbed onto a larger bus. Only certain buses are authorized to enter the DMZ. At the checkpoint, we relinquished our passports to be checked by the heavily armed guard that boarded the bus. Talk about squelching the fun in a tour. They take security very seriously. I kept my eyes down and my camera away as the rule was not to photograph on or from the bus.

Crossing into the DMZ, there really isn't much around. If the ground is so fertile, I certainly wasn't seeing it. It was of course April, which is still quite chilly in Korea. But you know how you see pictures of the North and it looks pretty barren? Well, so does the DMZ. Of course, now I wonder why I ever thought the terrain would automatically change as I crossed that magical line.

When the bus stopped, we were in front of the entrance to the 3rd Tunnel. I could go into a whole history lesson here about how the DMZ is the last front to the Cold War, but I will refrain. There are surely only a few that read this that are honestly interested in hearing a history lesson from me. I will have to say this - the North did have plans to invade the South through these tunnels that there were digging. The 3rd Tunnel was discovered in 1978. It is the largest one found to date (the 4th was found in 1990) and would have allowed an army of 30,000 fully armed North Koreans to pass through within an hour. It is believed that there are other tunnels undiscovered. Imagine if they had managed to invade through these tunnels. Shocking.

As we were stuffing backpacks into lockers at the entrance, our guide told us we could take cameras. Of course, when I tried to snap a picture as we were entering the tunnel, I was immediately stopped and shoved backwards with wild fluctuations being made toward my camera. Our guide was already throwing hats at her group to prepare us to enter the tunnel, so getting her attention was difficult. I was worried that I would be left behind before I even got started so I took it upon myself to yell for her. She came back, talking quickly in Korean, trying to convince them to let me take it but to no avail. I returned to my locker, under a close eye or I would have slipped it back into my pocket and had to rush over and throw a helmet on as the group was already beginning a near sprint down into the tunnel. Bitterness in my throat at being thwarted when everyone else in my group was carrying a camera, I honestly didn't have much time to think about it or even possibly use it as we headed down at a breakneck pace. We had befriended some Australians on our tour and we all four made jokes about how our guide would be getting a severe lesson if she expected us to haul our cookies back up out of the tunnel later at the same pace.

It was steep; it was deep. Kimono Hubby carried KP as my clumsiness would have probably caused me to roll downhill with the baby. When we got to the bottom and the actual tunnel, we had to bend over so our heads did not hit the very low ceiling. This wasn't so bad, except we were carrying a 30 pound kid in our arms. Bend over like that with a sack of potatoes in your arms and go for a mile long run and see just how much fun you can have. I already have back problems and this little jaunt wasn't helping. We constantly heard the knock of hats of the ceiling or felt it when we smacked our own. On the walls, the North had smeared coal in an effort to explain the reason for the tunnels being that they were mining coal. I give them a 90% for the effort of this little white lie. When we finally get to the end, I am given no more than seconds to glimpse what is there. More barbed wire spirals block the way into North Korea. I'm sure there was a guard or two there too, but I never got the time or close enough to actually see this. Sure, the guide pushed me forward to see, but pulled me back just as quickly. And yes, she did plan for us to go up at the same pace.

I can't even begin to explain how hard it was to get back up out of that tunnel. I think our only motivation was to get to the end and smack that woman upside the head. The Australians hung back and offered to help, but they were a little bit on the older side. The last thing we needed was for them to drop of a heart attack. Again the thought of sparking an international incident flashed in our minds. No, instead we trudged along and threw each other bitter glances every so often.

Red faced, out of breath and with near broken backs, we got back to the top entrance, where lo and behold there was group after group snapping a picture of the exact same thing I tried to photograph on the way in. I guess it is fine if you take a picture after (and probably in) as long as they don't see you go in with the camera. Or maybe you just can't have the name Karen. Gah. To spite them, I simply refused to take a picture. Take that, crazy rule people!

We were rushed back to the bus, drove for a moment, and rushed off the bus again, this time to take in the view of North Korea from the northernmost observatory, Dora. Telescopes line the wall that allow you to see Propaganda Village, the North Korea flag sailing high, and other small glimpses into North Korea like the second largest city Gaeseong and surrounding farmland for a few won. There is a line painted in yellow that tells you it is at that point that you can no longer take photographs. Of course, the line is so far back from the high wall that you could never possibly get a picture of North Korea from there. A new group of South Korean soldiers were doing some sort of introduction to their new mission and lined much of the wall, looking excitedly upon their futures. We were there only minutes to take everything in before we were rushed back to the bus.

Moving again, this time we stop at Dorasan Station. Please forgive me, but this station amused me. It has huge historical significance as being the possible railroad connection between South Korea and Pyongyang and potentially beyond. This ultra modern station lies completely empty, hopefully waiting for the time when the Korea's reunite. I know this is awful to think and even more to say, but I can't imagine that this station won't be a dinosaur when/if that time ever comes and worse, it would likely be under control of the North. I pray that I am wrong and I love its symbolic nature, but it just seems like a pretty unrealistic goal. South Korea also feels like this station could be the start of a trans Euro-Asian railroad. Seriously? Who wants to ride a train that freaking far? Take a plane already.

President George Bush previously visited this station. I don't love or hate what he did with his presidency, time has yet to tell if it was a good one or not, but I did love the slightly dumbfounded look on his face in the pictures from that epic visit. One has to wonder what his thoughts were as he walked off Marine One into the middle of nowhere to celebrate a station that will likely never be used for more than the tourist destination it is today.

Rushing. Back to the bus. Stopped. Again. Last minute DMZ tourist gifts. I grab South Korean candy, North Korean beer and a book on the Korean DMZ. Rush back to the bus. Cross back out of the DMZ. Get off bus. Get back on smaller, weird-curtained bus. Head back to city. Driver takes a wrong exit and instead of going forward, he kicks it into reverse and backs out onto the highway. More heart failure on our part. In the city, we stop again, this time at an amethyst museum. For those that have read my past travel blogs, you know that this means it is just a way to get tourists to buy jewelry they never intended to. This time, we refuse to get off the bus. So do the Australians. I know this perturbed them, but we all had had enough of the up and down crap for the day. When everyone else reboards, we finally make our way back to the hotel.

As for the tour, I'm glad I went. But I would never, ever do it again. The end.

We were starved, especially the Peanut. The concierge we got at this time of the day happened to be the only one who didn't speak very good English so getting a restaurant out of him that was kid friendly was more than a little difficult. We knew there was an Outback nearby, so I must admit that this is where we ended up. I know, I know. But when you are starved, you go to what is quick and what you know. It was delicious too, although way more Australian than American. Australian beef is so much more game-y than American. And the funny part, they served kimchi with it all. It was our first acknowledgment that they really do serve kimchi with every meal.

After dinner, we realized we were in a very busy part of the city, although which part we didn't know. We were still a bit turned around on directions yet. After some scouting, it came to pass that we were in Myeong-dong, an area full of trendy shops, bars and cafes and ripe with street vendors. When something looked tasty, we were sure to try it. Exhaustion took us before we tried too much however, so we headed back to the hotel to put KP to bed and to do our own little North versus South beer testing. I hate to say this, but the North won hands down. If Hite was the beer my dad drank all those years ago, I can't figure out for the life of me how he came to stomach them.

What else did we do during our time there? Well, we shopped a lot. We ate a lot. We walked the city a lot. We tried all of the main areas and all the most important restaurant and street foods. At what is supposed to be the more traditional area, Namdaemun, we found an open-air market with hundreds of vendors carrying ginseng tea, ginseng whiskey (that I swear looks like something out of a Harry Potter book), red pepper, fish byproducts, kitchen gear and then stands upon stands carrying the exact same upper label knock-offs. But the bad part... none of them were good knock-offs, nor were they anything I would actually want! I was so disappointed at this. I had heard such great things about shopping in Korea. People make day trips for this place! And yet, all we left with was some knock-off socks.

The food in this area was very authentic. Vendors like tiny alleys and sold various steaming dishes that they cooked outside, in front of the 'restaurant's' seating area. It was all delicious, even if we had no idea what we were ordering. I came to love these green or yellow things that looked like pancakes but actually had something like cinnamon jelly inside. I did not eat any squid on a stick, although it was everywhere and in every other person's hand. Squid is a popular dish in Korea as indicated by the abundance of it on the streets and pictured on every sign.

At the Dongdaemun shopping area, we walked in and out of all the famous shopping malls, stuffed full of vendors and people. It's not like a mall back home at all. It's more like a hundred tiny shops selling the same thing, but set in such a way that each floor is its own crowded maze for you to make it out of. There were no traditional goods, so we honestly bought nothing. Although, we made our most important find here - hot dogs that are dipped in batter like a corn dog, but then also dipped in french fries before being cooked all together. These things would be a hit at fairs back home. I'm thinking this may be a future career maker for me.

We did one other historical tour in the city, visiting first Jongmyo Royal Ancestral Shrine and then the palace area of Changgyeonggung. Jongmyo enshrines the spirit tablets of Joseon Dynasty kings and queens. It was largely empty, which gave us the chance to walk unhindered on the same stone paths that the royalty of Korean past had walked. Those some stone paths... they are killer on a kid in a stroller though. Jongmyo is connected by a footbridge to the palace area so you can visit both for about a $1. On the palace grounds we walked around the homes of previous kings, queens and concubines, originally built in 1418 but burned during the Japanese invasion in 1592 and rebuilt in 1616. Neither of these places was what I would expect when it comes to something being created for royalty, but I think other country's elaborate ways have irrevocably altered the image in my head of what a palace is. What I did find said is that the Japanese during their colonial rule of Korea, turned the palace and its grounds into a zoo. It took years of restoration in the 1980s for the Koreans to reclaim their palace's former state. Nonetheless, both of these places are listed on UNESCO's World Cultural Heritage list and that made them important for us to see.

After we left the palace grounds, we took a rough map and headed off in the direction of the Syngman Rhee Memorial Museum, his former residence Ihwajang. It is located in the off-Broadway area of Seoul. The map didn't make it looks as difficult as it turned out to be finding it. After a few stops and starts and a few kind strangers pausing to help us even as we asked in a language they didn't understand, we finally made it up a steep hill on a winding street. Only, the museum isn't open at one would consider museum hours. We managed only to get to the gates, ponder for a few minutes why the first president would keep his home in this crowded area, before we gave up and turned around to head back down the hill.

For our last night, we again chose Korean barbecue. But instead of the fancy joints we had previously gone to, we did the real deal - one of those restaurants we found everywhere that had clear plastic acting as an awning, red plastic stools that surrounded a metal table with a whole in the middle for where the hot coals would go. It was as delicious as all the fancy places and at half the price and double the kimchi. If we weren't considered kimchi addicts before, we could definitely be considered one now.

Korea was good. I'm glad for this last little adventure.

My dad was never in Seoul. His part in the war and his place in Korea was further south. Maybe I didn't do the same things he did. Maybe I didn't see the same things he did. But for the fact I went to the place where he lived and breathed and learned, I may not know him any better, but it somehow makes me feel closer to him. He'd probably only insert some smart ass comment here. Have at it, Dad. Have at it.

BB Comes to Japan

2010-04-16T15:11:00.000+09:00

It may have been a few weeks past now, but it has been no less on my mind. My friend BB made it to Japan. This is a huge deal to me considering as we have had very few friends make the trip. We still are surprised by the lack of guests we have had, but we accept it. Still, I was thrilled that she would come and see me.

We did the usual places and things that we love to do and show... starting with a trip to our favorite restaurant down the street the evening she arrived. The next day, we meandered around some local Zushi temples and then took the JR and Enoden train lines over to Kamakura to see the Daibutsu (Great Buddha) followed by Hase Dera. We paused here and there for snacking on things like mochi and osambe crackers. For the evening, I insisted on my favorite for dinner, okonomiyaki, at a make-it-yourself place in the mall. With each new food, I reminded her to trust me and I would not lead her astray. While it may look weird, she liked it just as much as I do in the end.

Sadly, the rain put a jinx into our middle-of-the-week plans. It didn't help that the Kimono Peanut had had enough of being drug to and fro for the past several days... weeks. It worked out well though as we stayed in, catching up on our lives and daydreaming together about the future. We spent one very rainy day watching Twilight followed by New Moon, both of which she had sadly missed out on previously. What kind of friend would I be if I didn't steer her towards 'Team Edward'? The baby napped most of his day away, a sure sign that he needed the down day, so we stuck in one more and finished up our little film fest with the classic Breafast at Tiffany's. I loved every minute of this quiet time together. Fortunately, for both of us, we had enough quiet time, so the rest of the trip wasn't as low key.

Managing to get a day off, KH took over the Peanut's care for the next day and we headed out early for a long day in Tokyo. We started with breathing in some smoke to aid our good health at Senso-ji Temple in Asakusa, followed with a little retail therapy in that area.

More meanderings through the temple grounds and gardens until we found ourselves on a random side street on a hunt for Japanese curry which she had yet to experience. Typically in Japan, the smell of curry reeks its way out of every other restaurant filling every street corner, except, of course, for the day you are actually looking for it. I finally found some plastic curry posing in a display case, so we pushed the curtain aside and went in to find a seat.

The place was relatively empty, save for two customers, two owners and a Siamese cat so we took a seat near the front window. They say curiosity killed the cat, but this one was alive and well as it hopped up onto the table beside us, staring sideways at us for a moment. When BB turned to gaze around the restaurant, the cat took his moment and leaped onto our table, whiffing her with his tail as if to tell her that the territory she sat had already been marked by someone or thing. I guess it should have phased me more that a cat was strolling across each of the table tops, but as he continued on his way until he was perched on the bar where he could watch us receive our curry lunches, I completely forget his presence. Once again, BB felt that she had not been led astray. In fact, she loved curry so much that we would hunt it down several more times before the end of her trip. I'm perfectly shocked that she didn't try to lick the plate here, but I guess she was leaving that for her feline friend.

Roaming back to the main parts of Asakusa towards the train, we decided it was time to get a nice refreshing beverage for the long ride back. Ahh... her first chu-hi. Peach, I think. A love was created. So much so that I made a quick call home to ensure that KH had not been driven crazy... yet... by KP so that we could indeed continue on our way past home and on to the first place of the night, a chu-hi stand in Yokosuka. He said he was fine. We didn't give him time to change his mind and quickly hung up.

This stand is a local Navy haunt. It is the perfect place to be reminded of the difference between Americans and Japanese when you are visiting this country. Everywhere you have gone previously and surrounded by the Japanese, it was quiet. Here, it was anything but. Sailors poured onto the streets, brightly colored lime and grape chu-his in hand, laughing ang guffawing at the two lone girls (besides us) who were obviously out for something very different than we were that night. Still, the drinks are cheap and it is nearly next door to the second place.

After one drink, my favorite yakitori stand would now be open. We left the sailors behind and made our way there to find our spot on the stools we would sit on for several hours after. I've talked about this place time and time before. I love it and so does everyone I have ever taken there. Even the pot of sauce that looks like it has been sitting out since the 70s, the tiny, grateless charcoal grill, the melted glass screen over the grill, nor the smoke that inevitably fills the room has deterred a soul. We ordered several rounds of yakitori... chicken/onion, bara (pork belly), gingko nuts, tomato wrapped in bacon, quail egg wrapped in bacon, okura (okra) wrapped in bacon, shrimp wrapped in bacon. We ordered even more chu-his than food... settling on peach first and then our favorite, the grape. By the time we left, the nice pictures we had been taking of her time here were going seriously downhill as we played with our food and our drinks. We're classy like that.

Feeling fine (read: nearing drunk), we decided to call it a night. Of course, it was a whole 15 minute train ride home, we we stopped for one more chu-hi for the way. I grabbed them thinking I grabbed peach, only for BB to realize that I had mistakenly grabbed the season's special, cherry. Still good, in my book. We passed a daiyaki stand on our stroll to the train. I never could pass up a good daiyaki. I think is was good. But I could hardly remember now.

I mistakenly caught us a train going the wrong direction - alcohol or stupidity - you be the guess, but it worked out well as we got away from a sailor who had followed us in past the ticketing area and was now asking us where we lived. Um. No thanks, dude. Going home to my hubby and my peanut, thank you very much. BB's hubby may have been far away, but she wasn't going to take you up on any offers either.

Of course, we couldn't pass the 7-11 on the way home, where I once again had to show my friend something new... soft porn on the display stand. It is amusing that this stuff is so readily available in such a conservative society. We ended the evening giggling away the day's antics with KH.

For her last day here, we had a going-away party to attend for some friends here who are off to a new live in Australia. The restaurant Watami is one of their favorites, so they had organized a large party there that seemed to consume much of the restaurant. For two hours, the dishes and drinks kept on coming. Everything from the usual Japanese cuisines of edamame, shabu shabu, fried fish, tempura, rice, Japanese thin pizza to the more unusual like jelly fish and even the delicacy of horse. The hosts attempted to get everyone at the table to try it before they said what it was and most complied. Sadly, BB had been warned by my husband who has been tricked (by me) in the past and refused to allow that to happen to her. Bah. Party poopers. Our large party did manage to drink the place out of apple sour chu-hi style drinks and we were working hard on finishing off the mango too when our time was up. A few in the group were headed out to a second, third and eventually fourth place, but we were so stuffed full and the Peanut was with us, that there would be no way we would even contemplate a late night like theirs would surely be.

Instead, we took one last evening stroll around Kamakura and the Hachiman Shrine.

I think BB enjoyed her visit. I know I loved every minute she was there. I begged her to stay for the next few months with me, but she seemed hell bent on returning home to her husband. Bah. But I'll see you soon, BB... and on your hemisphere!

Chasing A Festival That Never Was

2010-03-23T08:39:00.000+09:00

It would seem that not much has changed in the past four years. I still misunderstand what I am hearing.

Sunday. Gorgeous day in the mid 60s. Sunny. Only gripe was the crazy wind. Kimono Peanut and I are playing outside in the morning, attempting to blow bubbles into our nemesis wind. We keep hearing loudspeakers that sound like they are coming from the center of town. Since tomorrow is a holiday here, the first day of spring is observed, I figured there must be a festival somewhere close. I don't really know what they do to celebrate this holiday, but a festival or at least some sort of ritual at a temple or shrine seemed in order, right?

Tiring of stopping KP from playing in the mud, I decided to put him in his stroller and chase down this festival. We headed in the direction of the temple I was guessing would be the spot, but when we got to the main street, the sounds now seemed to be coming from both directions. Odd, but I continued in the way I was thinking. It was only a block and a half later that the sounds started to move towards me. From both directions. No, this was no parade. These were trucks. Spewing political messages, I'm guessing. In each sat someone sitting with a bullhorn and spouting all God knows what.

Even though I knew now there was no festival... foiled again by my lacking in the Japanese language... it was such a nice day that there was no reason to continue on to the temple. Lined at the gate were more people, with flags to compliment their bullhorns this time. Ignoring them, we moved on.

The temple was quite busy today and it was only until I got home and researched what they do on this holiday did I understand why... they visit graves. Oh. Crap. I didn't let KP go into the graveyard areas, but I do hope no one minded him running around and screaming outside of the temple.

We didn't stay too long, but with the day being nice, despite the treacherous wind knocking KP to the ground more than once, we continued on to the center of town. We passed many, many cars with their bullhorns trumpeting their arrival kilometers before we ever saw them.

In the very center of town, two of those cars had actually set up shop, placing people and flags on every corner as they stood in the middle bullhorning their message away. It holds little interest to me, so on we went to Ginza street to do some window shopping, passing with only a glance, a little room that the Democratic Party of Japan had set up a little shop-for-the-day to get their candidate's message out there. Amusing, but Ginza street is more interesting in other ways to me. I can hardly window shop on that street without getting something. We came home with an arm full of flowers for me to arrange, rice balls for the family for lunch and sweets shaped like cherry blossoms for my friend who arrives very soon. Oh, and I couldn't resist some sakura (cherry blossom) mochi.

No festival. But brilliant for a random kind of day.

Tokyo Disneyland: Take Two: The Peanut Addition

2010-03-21T13:02:00.000+09:00

When a friend offered her two extra seats to Kimono Peanut and I for a trip to Tokyo Disneyland, I hesitated only for a second before jumping on the offer. My only hesitation was because I had already been to Disneyland and it would be nice if Kimono Hubby could go too. Since this was a work day, though, he sadly couldn't join us. But as you can guess, these two things were not enough to stop me from saying yes to the trip.

It was a little rougher getting there by car than we we previously made the trip. This was all thanks to the new Disney construction that changed much of the layout in the park area. Once we parked and started the walk to the entrance, we got out first inkling of what the crowds were going to be like... and it wasn't good. Lines stretched back at ticketing and nothing seemed very fast moving. Turns out that it is right before school lets out here in Japan, so perhaps a few schools were out a little early or on school trips for the last few days. It definitely was going to be a squeezy-close kind of day.

We each paid our 5,800 yen to get in, except the Peanut who got a free pass. Mickey is always on the other side to greet in the morning hours. We planned on stopping by for a picture, but the line we saw made us stop in our tracks. It would take an hour just to get to him and we would much rather give that hour to rides. Or so we thought.

First ride - Space Mountain. A must, right? Now we arrived at the park at 10:15 and got in a little before 11:00. The park had only been open for an hour and yet the line at Space Mountain would have made you think that we had madly mistaken on that point. A sign told us the wait was three hours. We had two young boys visiting from the states in our little entourage and they had a whole list of rides they wanted to try. Three hours would have eaten up a good portion of the day. We went for fast passes, getting a return time of 5:30. What the hell?! Our plan was to be out of the park around that time, but we took them and just figured we would figure it out later.

On to the next ride... and exactly where our little group dissolved. StarJets apparently is a spinning ride. One of our adults was not a spinner. I had a Peanut and he would most assuredly be bumped from the line for his lack of height so I wasn't doing it. Leaving one adult left to do this ride. That line was an hour and a half. The non-spinner and the other boy decided to head off towards Big Thunder Mountain and brave whatever line they faced there. As I looked around, I knew that rides were not only going to be a difficult task for the two of us because of the toddler-to-wait-time ratio, but also it would just be him and I and all his gear. I figured I might as well head off and try the most logical place for a wee one, Toon Town, and see what there was to get into.

It turned out that we made one perfect decision! We spent time in Chip 'n Dale's Treehouse and Donald's Boat, with me carrying KP when we had to climb stairs or when the crowds got too thick. They also had cars sitting around the area. Nothing actually moved on them, but I am telling you this. KP would have been thrilled if we spent all day playing on his favorite blue one. Lines for various things surrounded us, which meant we got more 'kawai's' (cute!) than we could count. Several brave souls actually came over and asked if they could sit with him in the car or take their picture with him. Like he is some kind of freak with his fair skin-hair-eyes combo. But in a sea of dark, I guess he is a bit freaky. One girl really pushed the limit and after asking if she could take a photo with him, she jumped into the car, picked him up and placed him on her lap! Now I am fine with people being near him, but when they actually touch him, I do get a bit more wiggy. You can imagine that I step several steps closer just to keep a handle on things... my control issues mixed with mama overzealousness... not a good combination. Of course, nothing happened. I forgot. I was standing in a sea of ultra-polite, conforming Japanese. Or so I thought. As we moved on, I wouldn't say that people were really using their nurtured refinement on this particular day. Maneuvering KP in his stroller through the crowds was difficult enough, but he was stepped over, leaned over and bumped in the face with purses and Disney tags on more than one occasion. Thankfully, he is a pretty accepting kid, with only myself left stewing over it for any length of time.

In Fantasy Land, we finally found a ride with a marker showing a wait time under an hour. It's a Small World indicated a thirty minute wait, causing me to rush to park the stroller, grab the bag off the back and KP and rush to get a place before that could change. Turns out we only waited twenty minutes before we were climbing into a boat with the same two women that had spent the wait time entertaining my babe with smiles and high fives. It was on this ride that I figured something out. He didn't give a crap if he was on a ride. He only cared about the eye candy that surrounded him. That knowledge would save me from a day of fretting that he was missing out on something. For the entire ride, he sat, open-mouthed, pointing left, right, up and then back around again. It was mesmerizing to him. And that made me love it all the more. When we got off, I set out again with a real plan this time... find the shows. The action. We stopped to watch my favorite ride, Alice's Tea Party, as the cups spun around and around. KP loved this too.

Nearing hunger time, we set out to find a bathroom for a diaper change before settling down for some grub. Not shocking, when we found a restroom with a changing area, we also found a line for said activity. I hadn't been sure where to squeeze naptime in, as KP is not a stroller napper, but figured he would conk out at some point. I really wasn't expecting it in the bathroom line. Certainly I wasn't going to wake him as this might be the only nap he would take, so sadly I left the line and went in search of something for myself to eat while he snoozed.

Taking the round about way, I located another ride that had a shorter wait time as well as another place that could either be a ride or a show, I wasn't sure, and planned on coming back after the nap was over. Then I settled on getting a steamed pork bun shaped like Mickey, more because the line was shorter than anywhere else than that it sounded appetizing. Yeah. I should have taken note of the line. I was queasy for hours after that.

In my wanderings, I came across rows of people sitting and waiting for the parade to go by. I had forgotten that it was going to happen, so I thought it might be something fun for myself while KP slept (if he could sleep with the loudspeakers blaring music in this area) and that he too would definitely enjoy it if he awoke. He never did. I stayed from start to finish, one hand on the stroller, the other on my camera. I'm not one for parades, or even shows, but that parade was stinking awesome. Seriously! The costumes, the characters, the catchy little tunes! Well done, Disney!

Several hours had passed since I had talked to anyone in our entourage, so I called to locate them. They all had managed to get through the first lines and were now waiting in the line for Splash Mountain. Again, this wasn't a ride for a Peanut, so I kept doing what I was doing. If only we hadn't passed Adventureland at this point where the train started to blow its horn, I think I could have gotten a better nap out of the kid. As it was, he was awake in seconds. Bleary-eyed, but read for more. After giving up on changing him in any sort of bathroom, I found the only quiet spot in all of the park and changed him right there in his stroller.

Task accomplished, we headed straight back to the rides I had found. Lo and behold, the wait time had jumped from twenty-five minutes to fifty-five. Umm. Yeah. No. But the other thing that I wasn't sure what it was seemed an option. We parked the stroller again, grabbed kid and bag and just started walking in until a fence stopped us. Many people were sitting around as we moved through. Some announcer came on, starting a rush to the front of the waiting area of which we had so easily just passed up to. We were at the front of the line for... I just didn't know. Something to do with Stitchy... you know him as plain old Stitch of the Lilo movie variety.

When the doors eventually opened, the crowd pushed into a circular room. Two girls had taken up four seats. I was down being polite as so many others had already proven they were too, so I basically just pushed them down to make room for the two of us with only a nonchalant 'sumimasen' (excuse me). The lights in the room went out and then four lights above us came back on, illuminating four birds on the perchs. As they jibbered and sang away in the language we have yet to learn, KP giggled. I mean, the kind of giggle I have never heard before. A "huh-huh... huh-huh-huh." Apparently, these birds were wicked amusing. When Stitchy popped out of the drum, he was less amused. I'm pretty sure he wanted him to go the hell away and bring the birds back. The show was... odd. And it ended even more oddly as well as quite abruptly. The Japanese noted this too as there was definite hesitation by the whole crowd at the end. I say whatever... my kid liked the birds anyway.

We meandered for a bit, with KP noticing balloons everywhere we went. He would grunt and point to each and every one. I had planned on saving this for right before we left the park, but when we passed the man with a handful of them, I thought the Peanut might collapse in his exasperation if I didn't get him one. So I did. Is 'sucker' still written on my forehead? I spent the rest of my hours trying not to let it bop every person in their face as it whipped around in a wind that was growing fiercer by the minute.

I called again the other part of our entourage again and was so glad on my timing. They were just getting up to the front of the line at my favorite ride, back at Alice's Tea Party! Let me remind you that there was a non-spinner in their group, which left a perfect opening for... moi! Our non-spinner was perfectly content to pop KP on top of his shoulders and walk around. Little did he know the attention of the female sort he would get. I only hope his wife found it as funny as I did.

And so we spun. With two boys of the right age, we spun real good like. We spun so good that for the first time ever, I actually had to tell myself that I wasn't going to throw up. And I loved every stinking minute of being spun. The hardest part was getting off the ride and trying to walk in a straight line to reclaim my kid.

Now late afternoon, we started back in the direction of Space Mountain. We still had time so the non-spinner suggested he and the older boys head over to Roger Rabbit. This freed up his wife which gave her and I the first opportunity of the day to just leisurely walk and talk. And go to the bathroom. When you are all alone with your kid and his gear in the park, going to the bathroom just isn't going to happen, especially when the bathrooms are even smaller than back home. So I just... didn't. For hours. It was nice to. Bonus - the area where we stopped had animated characters above a Tomorrowland concessions' area, which mesmerized KP for long enough for us to both wait through the (really not surprising) long lines. Of course, this emptied space for that bucket of flavored popcorn I had been coveting all day. Now the big decision was flavor: soy-butter, curry, chocolate or caramel. I like the curry, but had some from the boys buckets when we waited for the tea cups. Who can pass on caramel popcorn? I also made sure to purchase it in a boys acceptable bucket featuring Monsters, Inc, which KP now uses to carry his tiny cars in!

Bringing finally to the last ride of the day. We made to Space Mountain at exactly 5:30 to step into the Fast Pass lane. This time it was the non-spinners wife who felt like sitting it out. I asked her several times if she was sure, because this truly is the coolest roller coaster, but she assured me that she would rather hang with KP. We left her and KP at the entrance where the strangest thing by far occurred. A crowd of boys, aged probably in the early 20s, crowded around the Peanut. I mean, swarmed. This happens with girls and women all the time, but boys? Men, I should say? I was told later that they played an 'ET phone home' game with KP for as long as he tolerated it. Surely a good fifteen minutes. They would put their finger up and say their little 'ET, yada, yada' and KP would in turn put his finger to theirs. Now surely a 1-year-old who gets laughs, smiles and claps from such a tremendous display of skill would indeed want to do this over and over again. The boys, well men, would just keep calling over other friends to get up close and personal with their own little ET. Am I the only one or does that sound odd to you too?

In the meantime, Space Mountain was cool. I like the dark and not knowing which way you will be whipped to next. And to do it with young boys, what a hoot!

Now dark and getting quite cold for our lighter day jackets, we stopped to purchase our last minute gifts. KP already had his balloon and a small stuffed Mickey of which he has spent the past few days dragging everywhere so we were set. Plus, the long day and lack of sleep was getting to him, so it was best to keep the Peanut moving in the direction of the car. Plus, plus, the younger of the boys traveling with us has a little problem with obsessing. We knew that if he caught a glimpse of the fireworks that were to start any minute, that there would be no leaving any time soon. The adults may have been the only one to admit it, but everyone was tired and ready to go.

We worried that traffic would be bad getting out of the parking lot, but no problems there. Anticipating a smooth and quick ride home, there was much dismay when we hit a major traffic jam. Three hours we spent sitting... most of it in a tunnel. I used to have no fears, but after a few years of earthquakes shaking my reserve, there is one thing I cannot stand... tunnels. Trying to think of anything but where we are and at the same time trying to keep my overly-tired and annoyed-with-his-car-seat toddler calm was enough to get me through it. Even that long trip home wasn't enough to change anything. Disneyland was magic for all.

A St. Patrick's Parade of Thoughts

2010-03-15T14:23:00.003+09:00

Many of you already know that we are coming to the end of our time here in Japan. After four years, we going to head back to the states this summer and see just how much life has changed while we were gone. I can't even begin imagine just how much we have to catch up on.

Recently, I've been spending a lot of time trying to get my head wrapped around the move. There has been a lot of wavering in my mind about whether or not I am happy about this. In some ways, I am. In others, I really am not. I'll be glad to be back closer to family and friends. That is a definite. But my hesitation goes so much more beyond that.

You see, I love my life here. It has been absolutely blessed in so many ways. I love my house (apart from the tiny kitchen I say daily swear words to). I love my neighborhood. I love my town. I love Japan. I love every thing about the past years we have spent here. It has made us a closer couple. It made us a family. It fulfilled so many dreams we have. It even gave me a moment to pause. A moment to breathe life in and not just rush through days of work, errands and whatever weekend fun was drummed up. I honestly know that I am a completely changed person because of our life here. So the big conundrum... will the person I am today still fit in with the life we lived in DC? And if so, how do I get her there?

There is no doubt that my closest friends are sick of hearing me debate this, but as they are my closest, they have no choice but to suffer through it. Thank you, friends! Mwah! They all seem to be of sound, collective mind that it will be no problem. I wish I had their confidence.

In the end, there is no answer until I do it.

For now, I cross my fingers and pray to God that all will turn out as it should.

And in the meantime, I find myself not only nostalgic for all that I love and will miss here in Japan, but also strangely nostalgic for many 'American', for lack of a better word, things. It's been pretty easy, since I got over the initial shock of Japan, to just embrace what each new day brought us here and forget about what we left behind. I think anyone that tries to hold onto what they left behind would only make themselves crazy in the process of trying to love their new life. I'm not one to dwell in the past anyway, so this wasn't something I ever gave any thought to. It just happened naturally. Which is why it surprises me so to experience this strange nostalgia. I can only guess that it has something to do with some deep, deep, deep and unconsciously seeded excitement to return stateside. Return for a spell anyway. So when I received an email from a friend about the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Tokyo this past weekend, I just couldn't get it out of my mind. Touted as the biggest Irish event in Japan since 1992 and one meant to introduce the Japanese to Irish culture, we simply had to go.

We drove over to the base and met up with our friends before setting off to catch the train. The little we knew about the parade was what we read about last years, and definitely a draw... there were strange costumes and Guiness. 'Nuf said. It only took a little over an hour, and with our first Japanese leprechaun sighting, we knew we were at the right stop to get off. The Harajuku station had a constant stream of people pouring out of it. This is usually a busy area, but with a group of adults and kids and one Peanut in a stroller, it was tough to keep us all moving together in any sort of order. We all just did our best to look around once in awhile and try to locate everyone. A map gave us the parade route, so we kept ourselves in the swarm and moved toward the starting area.

Harajuku is known for people in strange costumes, but what was odd was to not see that many on this day... a day when I thought the Japanese would take this easy opportunity to dress up in their bizarre get-ups. There was plenty of green to be had, but the real bizarre must have stayed inside for the day.

As we made our way, the adults began scoping for the ever important Guiness stands only to come up empty. When I passed two gaijin sitting and enjoying a cup of said brew, I backtracked a little to ask there where they found them. The answer was not exactly what I expected - the combini, Lawson's - but it obviously would have to do. The guys made their way back to the entrance while the rest of us held our post. When they returned, they looked distraught and, more importantly, empty-handed. They gave some story about how the guy in front of them bought the last ones only to share a lazy grin that it was one of them, while producing a bag from behind their back. Score!

It was getting closer to the starting time of the parade, so we wandered a little bit further, trying to get to a spot where we would see the parade at its start and its finish. As luck be with us on that fine day, we ended up passing a garage that was being closed as we passed, leaving the sidewalk empty in front of it. Using the stroller to push through the crowds, we copped a spot right along the street with plenty of room for our entire entourage to get a front row view. Beers were passed around only seconds before the parade started rolling by.

And it was... much as I imagined. People and their dogs dressed various stage of green costuming, trying with more than a little difficulty to mix their Japanese-ness with what they deemed Irish. The bag pipers were there - normal. The bands were there - normal. The dancers - normal. There was even a guy dressed in green and white stripes with a pregnant belly - not normal, but expected in this culture. But it was the crowd that didn't totally fit.

When we first heard 'Wild Rover', we thought it would be only moments before the crowd would join in. At least on the chorus. But nope. It was just our little band of misfits, singing off key and drinking some of, well really, the only, beers around. So it was that after the parade passed us first time and the beginning was just starting to lap the route back to us, we decided to call it a day. But the Irish just doesn't leave the blood that easily.

Halfway to the train station, we made the decision to move towards Roppongi rather than home, in the direction of Paddy Foley's instead, one of Tokyo's rare and truly Irish pubs. The fact that we left the parade so early ensured us that there would be no crowd when we got there, a necessity when a party of our size is looking for a table all together in the wee-sized bars of Japan. We even lucked out to get a table by the open door so that the warm, fresh air passed over Kimono Peanut rather than the stale, smoke air that filled the room behind us. After sufficiently filling up on fish and chips, burgers, Guiness and Kilkenny, we felt we had done our duty and gave a good nod to the St. Patrick's celebrations of our past. We mapped out a new route home and began the trip back.

Perhaps it was in bad taste, but when the train came to a strange halt only seconds out of the station, we did throw out a few jokes about how long it would take them to pick up the bits of whomever decided to off themselves on our train. You know... it is the number one way to commit suicide here in Japan, though how anyone comes to this drastic, and messy, conclusion to their life in such a lovely country, I will never understand. It was only hours after we got home and I decided to read some headline news before going to bed did I discover that we had yet another large earthquake. A 6.6 north of the city stalled most of the trains. Okay, so that is one thing that I am definitely not going to miss.

I may not totally know my own mind these days. But at least I know enough about my ability towards nostalgia to be looking forward to a good old-fashioned St. Patrick's Day... back in Old Town... next year.

Our One Date for the Year 2010

2010-03-11T13:30:00.001+09:00

For posterity's sake, I need to back track myself a little, going back to a recent date Kimono Hubby and I had. We don't actually get to do that much anymore. We've been here so long, past the tour lengths of most people, that those we were close to have since moved away. This makes the babysitting pool very small, as I have mentioned before. We do have one other couple we have known since we first arrived here that have stuck around with us. But they leave in just a few weeks. They encouraged us to take one last shot a a big day out, promising to hang with the Kimono Peanut for us. These offers don't come along often when your family lives on the other side of the world, so we took full advantage of it.

Back in DC, we loved going to the theater and concerts. While opportunities abound for these same experiences, they are a little bit harder to arrange and it has nothing to do with babysitting. One show we had missed previously seeing was Cirque de Soliel. Of course, we knew the hype so when we heard that there was a theater built here in Japan for the specific purpose of housing the Asia-only show ZED, we knew we had to try to get there. Buying the tickets is the trick. I'm sure there are services like Ticketmaster here, but I certainly wouldn't be able to use them as my Japanese speaking doesn't take me that far. Fortunately, I found that through the online Zed site, you could purchase tickets in English. It seemed easy enough. And in the end, it was. It was just odd an odd process getting there.

First, you choose the date and time you want tickets for. On the 'buy tickets' page of the website, there is one option to use a travel company that speaks English. You click on this to go to their site. Using the date and time, you bid on the date and time of the show you want tickets for, as well as what your seating preference is. Never having been before and knowing how expensive all options were, we figured we would go for the top-of-the-line premium seats. Then you submit the request. An email comes back telling you they received your request. In our case, twenty-four hours later another email arrived, this one telling us that our choice was not available. Of course, we have no idea if it was the seat preference that wasn't available or the time or the whole damn day. I started over, picking a new seat preference, the next step down. Wait 24 hours. No luck again. Another request with our third seat request. Wait 24 hours. Bah. We really want the best seats we can get if we are going to do this, so we pick a different time, the later show of the day. It isn't optimum as it means we will be keeping our friends at our house watching our kid for all hours, but they were very sweet and said it would be no problem. I submitted the new request and got my tickets - premium seats too! Now an email comes saying I have to go to this other link and print out a paper. I do what I am told, but the Engrish that is used on the paper is confusing. I finally end up making the call I should have made in the first place, hoping and praying that the person on the other end would speak enough English that I would know what is next. Thankfully, she did and all we would have to do is take the paper to the box office at the theater the day of and I would get the real tickets. Whew. After multiple days and 15,000 yen a ticket (a whooping $358.74 at the current crap exchange rate), we are all set.

Now you would think a date would be an easy thing to put together. Dinner, a show, some drinks and a lovely night had. Not so easy here in Japan. Remember, if you are going to have a drink... and I mean only ONE... it is against the law to drive. Knowing we would have at least one and likely several more, I had to turn towards the train. But we just can't go sauntering up to the train station, buy tickets and hop a train. No, no. You have to be much more planned out than that. The day before our date, I head to the handy dandy Hyperdia.com site which provides train schedules and directions for foreigners. Here I lucked out and found one route that would only require switching at one station and only cost 1,050 yen per person. Seemed easy enough. The only part that I wasn't fond of was the fact that it was a 92 minute trip there by train, and that doesn't include the ten minute walk to and from both the station here and there. But such is the life with travel in Japan. It's a great system in all. It is just the length of time you spend on a train can get tedious. The theater is only on the northern parts of Tokyo, say 45 minutes by car, but the train itself and the transfers will add a few to that time. We were all set though. I called the babysitter and arranged for her to be almost three hours before the start of the show, hopefully giving us plenty of time in case anything delayed us along the way.

The day of the show, we got ourselves gussied up, wrote out a few notes about dinner and bedtime, said our goodbyes and started the trek to the theater. Since all was planned so well, there were no quirks. Our only surprise was that at the transfer in Tokyo, there was a fifteen minute walk underground to get to the correct platform for the transfer. I have transferred in Tokyo before, I just must have had a much closer platform to switch at. We arrived at Ikspiari, a shopping mall and restaurant area that is attached to Disney, with plenty of time to make our way to the theater, pick up the tickets and even stop for a beer before we found our seats.

Inside, a ten draped from the ceiling to the floor, covering the stage where two clowns were starting off the show by hopping into the audience and playing tricks on the unsuspecting. I'm quite glad our seats were in the middle after seeing some of their antics. While I love to watch, I really don't like being a part of the show, especially as the clowns were really hamming it up messing with their participants. As we continued to watch them, their act seamlessly melded into the real show. They brought out a book, placed it on the stage, tried to unlock the cover in their goofy clown way and as it was opened ended up falling into it. And here is where my amazement with Cirque de Soliel started. The entire tent draping started flowing down from the ceiling, making an appearance like it was pouring into the hole left by the book and the clowns. I'm not doing this justice. It was beautiful and uncovered an even more amazing set behind it, with what looked like flames inside metal scaffolding cubbyholes in the wall. While I do not intend to go into detail about the entire show, I will tell you this. I loved it, but I totally didn't get it. And it wasn't just me being simple either. Kimono Hubby didn't get it either. And he's the smart one! We had read the story behind 'Zed' before going. From the website, the concept is this: "ZED is a living poem, a timeless evocation that draws on the Tarot and its Arcana, an imaginary world that conjures the vitality of the human condition and holds up a mirror to our true selves. Zed, the central larger-than-life character represents all of humanity in all its guises, from wisdom to folly, from discovery to adventure. Zed grows as he discovers the world on his journey of initiation. Through this undertaking, the people of the sky and the people of the earth are trying to connect with each other; through Zed, they come together." Yah. Whatevah. But is was damn cool. Now I only need to figure out how to get into the show and be one of those bungee jumper ladies! I totally missed my calling.

Show over, us a bit mystified but amused, but also very, very hungry. Ikspiari has tons of great restaurants, so we rushed ourselves ahead of the crowds in search of a place that wasn't too busy. I wanted full-on Japanese, the kind of place that taking a wee 1 1/2-year-old with a fidgeting problem is not a good idea. On the fourth floor, we found such a place and it didn't even have a line out the door that the Italian place just before it. We took our shoes off and the hostess stored them away for us as she directed us toward our table. We didn't really know what they served. There was no English menu. But we did our usual and looked at the pictures, attempted ordering a set and hoping for the best. Of course, we didn't understand the pricing, but we would worry about that after we ate. It turned out to be a bit of sukiyaki, but the kind where KH would still be hungry when we left. There were multiple course, of which I would not be able to identify much of what I ate. Not unusual in these places. I tried everything anyway and relished whatever odd flavor ended up stroking my palate. But we were indeed still hungry as the cleared the dessert dishes away. With the time having then gotten to near 9:00 pm, we couldn't much think about that as we really did need to be catching that train if we planned on getting ourselves back to relieve our babysitters before midnight. We climbed up from our seats on the floor. Might I add that it is very tricky to be ladylike in these types of Japanese tables. I'm pretty sure I ended up giving someone an up-the-skirt view as I managed to get back on my feet. We paid at the door. I'm pretty sure I managed not to gasp out loud when I saw the total bill of 11,550 yen ($129.43 in dollars). While the food was good and worth the money, I did realize that actually being full might have helped us stomach that cost.

As we made our way back home on the train, I added up the expenses - tickets for the show, train tickets, drinks at the theater, dinner - $558.17. And that would put a solid nail into the coffin for any further dates in the year 2010. Thank God the babysitter was free or I would have to think about selling off one of my bad kidneys.

When we got home, we thanked our friend profusely for helping us out. And gave them a little gift we had picked up (which was not even added into the above cost, I might add). We checked in on KP and then headed back downstairs to make ourselves some ramen.

Cost aside and forgotten, I then got to snuggle up on the couch, while filling the holes in my stomach with microwaved ramen, with the one person that made that day and every other day a dream come true. He is simply so amazing.

Japanese Peculiarities #10

2010-03-01T13:23:00.000+09:00

Apparently Kimono Peanut and I are not the only ones taking advantage of every warm and sunny day lately. While out walking today, we came across many carts filled with... babies. That's right, kids of all sizes, ranging probably in the age group of 1 to 5, peering out over the tops of these metal carts that they are being hauled around in.

While I am no expert in what these babies-in-carts are doing, I am guessing that the local daycares take the kids out for their daily dose of Vitamin D this way. And since pushing multiple strollers would be impossible (even those strollers that seat two kids side-by-side are utterly ridiculous to own here in Japan), they put them in these cart contraptions. But here is what I don't get - why not just fence in an area and let them run free for a bit? The answer there probably lies in the fact that there is such a small amount of spacing available for those kinds of daycare places to be squeezed into here in town. Then I thought, maybe it is a kid delivery service! But nah, they move way too slow. If I was babysitting that many wee ones, you can bet your booty that I would be hustling faster than that to get rid of them and call it a day. This brings me back to my only logical conclusion that it is a simple daily walk.

I just find it completely strange because of the places I have seen them. There has got to be better scenery to walk by than the busy car, bike, scooter and people filled streets.

Whatever they are doing, babies in carts amuses me greatly. These kids are checking out a gas station. Woot!

A Park and Play Kind of Day

2010-02-25T14:43:00.001+09:00

The weather has finally set its sights on spring! I can't tell you how happy this makes me. I can't tell you how tired I am of being cold inside my own house. I can't tell you how often I have thought that my heated toilet seat was the best seat in the house. I can't tell you how much I dislike the cold in general. But my homebody days are ending as the weather turns warmer. Trees are starting to show their earliest spring blooms presenting all their shades of pink, yellow and white. My God, I am happy.

In honor of the first very warm spring day, I threw a light jacket on Kimono Peanut, strapped him into the stroller and began the long walk to the park. Not once on the walk did my nose get cold or did my fingers freeze. Not once did KP sniffle in the cold breeze. My God, I am happy.

We caroused the antique train that sits off to one side of the park. We mounted each of the animals figures turned rides that spotted the landscape. We clambered all over the antique fire truck. We ran our fingers through the sand and mud beneath our feet and found ourselves camouflaged from the dirt and grit left behind in our clothes and skin. It was just grand. My God, we are happy.

The park was virtually empty save for an occasional runner passing through or a baseball player cutting across the playground to the field beyond. Only after we had been there near an hour and thoroughly shrouded from our fun did we have our first real company. There is a school nearby and for the first bright, sunny, warm day, they had brought all the kids out in their neon colored hats to soak up the sun. When they saw us there, the teacher instantly called out to KP with friendly waves and smiles. We watched the most orderly lines of kids, EVER, enter the park behind this woman and then line up quietly in front of her. As they stood patiently and silently, she explained the rules of the day. I caught some of it - things like playtime will be for one half hour, play nice with one another and play nice with the cute baby. How sweet that she told these quiet little angels in front of her not to be impolite with my rough and tumble, thoroughly dirtied Peanut. When she was done her speech, a loud 'go' caused shrieks and squeals and a fanning out of the kids in vividly bright hats, the likes of which you have probably never. Then I knew why she said play nice. They were wild! But... in such a good and sweet way.

The more bold of the group, apparently one of the older boys, came running directly to KP, helping him up when he fell down or wandered too far away. They surrounded us and quipped away in their Japanese, of which I sadly didn't understand much of. As we continued prattling around the park, all the kids took their turns waving and yelling out the only English word they were confident in using. "Hello! Hello" KP gave them what they wanted with his enthusiastic waves and giggles, delighting each one in turn.

When it was time to start our walk home for lunch, the park exploded with goodbyes and waves. It seems the spring spirit has caught us all. My God, we are all so very happy.

This Mom Finally Does A Night On The Town

2010-02-24T12:55:00.005+09:00

Since the Peanut came along, it isn't often that you will find me out of the house past 9:00 pm. Lame, yes. But I am a parent now and proud of taking on that responsibility. Being a parent, I get less invitations to party than I used to. I don't think is totally to do with being a parent though, and more to do with the fact that many of my closest friends here and the ones that liked to go out a lot have actually moved on from Japan and find themselves partying in other corners of the world these days. Either way, I'm happy with my early-to-bed, early-to-rise lifestyle. But don't get me wrong. When the invitation does come in, I rarely say no. This would be exactly how I found myself out and about in Tokyo on a weeknight.

One of our couple friends has actually been here for the entire stint of our time here. They are some of the few that still regularly head out for dinners with us and they are smitten over KP, which makes it all the more wonderful when he begins his evening meltdown in a public place. They just throw on the funny faces and help us keep him mellow until we can make our escape to the car and home beyond. These friends threw out an invitation to go see a friend of theirs that I had been introduced to years before and was quite taken with back then. Her name is Hanaeryka Akechi, a Japanese and Mexican woman with a magnificent voice that matches her inner and outer beauty in exquisite perfection. Hana has often performed in places around Tokyo, but I have missed many shows due to our travel schedule or simply having other plans in place when the invite came in. Fearing that this might be one of my last opportunities, I told KH that there would be no missing this performance. While KH is just as big on a night out as I am, he is not so big on it when it comes on a weeknight. Then there was also a small problem of finding a babysitter. For those that know KH, he is a bit... err... particular... about who is allowed to stay alone with our wee one. Rightfully so. His job has left him seeing some of the worst of society, so I have never fought him on this point. The two that he trusts the most were exactly the ones that had given us the invite. All this still didn't add up to me missing that show. In the end, Kimono Hubby made it easy enough and told me to enjoy myself and he would happily head to bed at his regular hour.

Which is how I found myself heading out only a few short minutes before the baby would be calling it a night. I caught the train and met up with the others in one of the middle cars around the Kamakura stop. After an hour and ten, we arrived at the Sanjengaya Station. Our map that was to take us to the bar, Grapefruit Moon, was all in Japanese of course, but thankfully we had one in our crowd who can read it and speak it. You have no idea how much this helps when you are meandering down narrow, no-named Japanese streets in the dark. After only a ten minute walk, we were surprised to find ourselves in front of the place.

Down the stairs, through a pitch black corridor, we came to a door. From the outside of the door, you could barely hear anything. When we opened the door, it was shocking to hear how loud the current performer truly was.

After being greeted and paying our 1,500 yen cover charge, which included the cost of one drink, I grabbed my mango sour and found my way back to a table in the back with the others. Although the smallness of places in Japan no longer surprises me, as this didn't either, I must say that the website made the place look much bigger than it ended up being. Towards the far wall, the current two performers were belting out some J-Pop tune while playing the piano and a guitar. Three rows of tightly packed in chairs faced them and the three tables at the very back of the room was where we found our vantage point.

As the singers crooned on, I realized that not a single person in the room besides ourselves was either talking or moving around. They weren't even smoking! And everyone in any bar I have ever seen has a constant lit cigarette dangling from their fingers or lips. It seems that while the singers were at it, we were to remain completely silent and still. This became a problem to me when I had downed my first sour and now the ice kept clinking around the glass. If I was allowed to speak, I would have told the damn ice to hush. Awkward. Seriously.

What concert or singing performance have you ever gone to that, even if you didn't dance and sing along, you probably mouthed the words? Or at the very least, you swayed along! Nothing like that here!

The performance came to an end and the room came alive with sound and movement. It was like they sat there dying for this moment to come. There was a rush to the bar. Lighters flashing in every corner. And people simply readjusting their butt positions as they had surely gone numb in their stillness. Since our little entourage had kind of already been talking and moving and certainly had caused a disturbance upon our confusion at the entrance fee and drink menu, it didn't much make a difference to us. For the next performances however, I reminded myself to be a little less American and a little more Japanese.

I was ready when the next woman took the stage. She sat in front of a keyboard, singing low and soft romantic melodies that melded her Japanese life with her time in New York. I liked her. She sang in English. Sometimes.

Then a break. The rush for the bar. Bathroom visits this time. General shifting on our bar stools to stop the pain that was inching its way up our backsides.

The next performance was apparently quite a famous lady. Our Japanese speaking friend translated what she was saying, informing us that one of the songs she was singing was the theme song to some popular Japanese show of which she wrote and performed. Her name I did happen to catch thanks to the CD she was selling at the bar. It was Megumi Mori. I liked her too.

Right before Megumi started her performance, Hana's husband popped his head in to the room. We called him over to say our hellos and tell him how excited we were to see Hana sing. He sat with us through this performance, but then headed off when it was Hana's turn to take some pictures of the event. Hana took the stage just after Megumi and she was everything I was hoping to hear. With her heritage, she is fluent in both Japanese, Spanish and English. She sang in a little of all three, bringing an international flair to her songs that none of the other previous singers had done. Perhaps I am biased as I am so in awe of Hana, but she was the best of the evening. While she sang, her accompanist played the guitar and sang background vocals. I never got the chance to tell him how great I thought it all was.

It was only moments after Hana ended her songs that we head to run out to catch the very last train home. That remains a complaint of mine about Japan. Why must the trains stop at midnight? I am just too darn old to stay out all night and catch the 5 am trains, but I also don't feel I will turn into a pumpkin at the stroke of 12. What choice did I have though to say a quick few words to Hana and her husband and then say my goodbyes before rushing off after my friends.

We all separated at our respective stations. When I jumped off in Zushi, I was just after midnight. I wasn't really tired, but I was hungry. I had told KH that I would call him before heading home to give him the ETA, but since a light buzz had made me forget that step and I knew he had long ago headed to bed, I figured the night was still mine.

My favorite fast food place is open 24 hours. I still couldn't tell you the name of it for the life of me and have only referred to it as the 'circle place' for the last four years. It's impossible to go there anymore with KP in tow as there is only a bar with stools for seating and no place to even squeeze a stroller in. Here was my perfect chance. I sauntered in with many others who had also just gotten off the train, made my way to the machine, put yen in, and placed my order. I scarfed down some sort of rice bowl and miso, topped with hot black tea. It still was only about 1am, and the food had yet to settle and make me tired. What's a girl to do, but then follow the crowd to the next stop on the nightly trudge home?

I made my way with the others to the 7-11 conbini down the street and walked right up to the magazines that lined the window. Just like the males I stood there with, I picked up a Japanese soft porn magazine and started leafing through it. It really is interesting the kinds of things that are so openly put into print here in the country and yet they pride themselves for being so reserved and conformed. Feeling I was getting the eye from more than a few people, I replaced the magazine and instead got myself a pastry and a Meiji chocolate bar, paid and then headed for the door. Nibbling on a strawberry chocolate bar, I arrived back at home just around 2am. Boy, did I pay for that all that dilly-dallying when the Peanut woke only a few short hours later. And here was the reminder why going out all night long ain't so grand after all. What an irresponsible parent.

Happy Trails to a Museum of Perfect Noodles

2010-02-11T15:25:00.004+09:00

One of the things that has left the greatest, and strangest, impression on me is the level to which a Japanese person takes their craft or occupation. It's not a matter of simply learning a craft here, but more a matter of spending a lifetime perfecting it. And you can only perfect it when your sensei or the person highest up in your craft's or occupation's obscure organization tells you that you have perfected it.

I used to think this was only something people here did with art forms. Like Ikebana for instance. The women I know have been studying their specific form of flower arrangement since they were young adults, mostly before they married. Many of them started studying the same form of Ikebana that their mother studied since she was a young girl and learned from her mother and so on and so on. Many do not think they have perfected it enough to be a teacher themselves and continually look to their sensei, even though what they have created looks damn near like perfection to me. After forty plus years of studying, wouldn't it have to be perfection? Or maybe you should find another hobby. I can't see many Americans accepting being told that they have never reached a level of proficiency especially if they have dedicated a lifetime to get there. Bonzai. A men's art form. Boys study what their fathers showed them. They, too, can only be perfect when someone tells them they are and yet they spent a lifetime doing it, so they have got to be pretty darn close if not well past it. Calligraphy - another art form passed down and passed down and perfected throughout a lifetime of study. Of course, I surround myself with the arts as much as possible, so this is probably why I had the impression that it was something about the Japanese art world and not something much larger about the culture itself.

Sadly, I must fess up and tell you where this impression was marred, allowing me to see that it perhaps was the way of Japanese life and not simply how they learn their art. Brittany Murphy (God rest her young soul) was in this surely straight-to-DVD movie, Ramen Girl. I think that girl was just the cutest little thing, dating the whole way back to her days in Clueless, so I grabbed the movie from our local video store. It's really a bad movie. But, what I got from it was that this die hard way of latching onto something is more prevalent in Japanese life than I originally thought. For her, it was ramen that she worked to perfect. Her ramen sensei, the man she worked for, told her over and over that she wasn't getting it. He tried to tell her that it was something that comes from the heart and soul. This makes perfect sense when you are thinking about being a great artist. You want to evoke an emotion from the viewer of your art form. But for ramen? Isn't it simply noodles, broth and whatever else you found leftover in your fridge at the end of the week that you toss in? Apparently not.

Our lovely heroine is also facing another challenge in the movie - no Japanese person wants to believe that a foreigner can perfect what is inherently only a Japanese ability or craft. I mean, no foreigner ever arranged flowers or made noodle in a bowl and made it turn out right, right?

The movie continues and it's the usual Hollywood freaking dream world. Girl gets boy. Sensei now loves girl he hated. Girl masters ramen. Ramen master from obscure organization signs off and says how darn tootin' good the gaijin's ramen is. Girl brings Japanese mastery of noodle to New York and sets up a successful shop of something that is no longer Japanese, but every American assumes it is because it has 'Japan' in the title. Okay, maybe this last part is simply my observation of the world and not really how things are. Whatever you want to believe about yourself. My point to this story... where was it... oh, yeah! Ramen Brittany visits the Yokohama Raumen Museum!

I have always wanted to go to this museum and then frankly forgot it even existed until this inane little movie came to find its way into my DVD player. So we packed up the stroller with KP and KH and I hauled all our cookies to Yokohama to find it!

We had a flier, thanks to a kind friend. What the flier didn't have was directions once you got off the train. And let me tell you, Shin-Yokohama ain't no little train stop. Signs inside the train station pointed to the right exit, but as soon as you crossed the threshold, you were on your own. A pedestrian bridge over a major highway gave us two major options to start with, but no direction whatsoever. So I did what I usually avoid doing and stepped out in front of the first person and offered up a 'sumimasen?' He tried to keep walking around me like he didn't hear, but he eventually stopped. I held out my pretty flier and he pointed a walkway off of the bridge. Once we got to the street level, we were again at a loss. I spent the next half hour thrusting my flier into any passerbys face until we finally stood in front of the building. We put our money in the machine, paid our admission and headed down to the basement.

The museum is built into the ground and not up. Two floors down, you are on the ground floor and the room in front of you looks like an old-fashioned Japanese city, modeled from the very image of a section of Tokyo from the year of the Showa 33, or 1958 as we Americans liked to call it. Why 1958? Well, they museum people find the period to embrace lots of nostalgia AND more important, instant ramen was invented that year. It's funny, I would think that the Japanese would consider this the downfall of perfecting the ramen art form... noodles in styrofoam... and yet they instead laud it as a great accomplishment. Kind of a mixed single, no?

The founder of the museum, Yoji Iwaoka, has spent a lifetime pursuing his passion of ramen. (Yes, this is in the flier, and exactly what I was talking with this crazy lifetime pursuit stuff.) The museum was established in 1994 and touted as the first food amusement park to be created anywhere in the world. I really would go with it being more of an amusement park, with ramen restaurants to try out instead of rides, because the 'museum' part is really a small section on the upper floor. It is all in Japanese so we didn't get much out of it, but we did see a replica of the first bowl of ramen ever made. I'm sorry, but it really wasn't as impressive as it probably sounds. It was just an old green bowl, beautiful, but a bowl, behind a glass case. Cool. Moving on. I wasn't really there for the museum anyway. I was there for the ramen. Bring on all the perfection, my Japanese friends!

There are nine ramen restuarants in the museum. These restaurants are chosen from all the regions of Japan and are to represent the very best of the art of ramen. I'm not sure how many reading this have had true Japanese ramen, but it is one damn big bowl. Thankfully, so the visitors can try more than one place, they have invented half sizes. These were still huge, but this is what we went for with a goal of three in mind. We got to two and a few beers and had to already call it a day. We now understand why they sell month long passes because it would take that long to eat everything offered.

We totally guessed on which ones to try. The flier helps a little with some description of the base, seasoning and ingredients, but once you get to the machines that stand in front of each one, everything is in Japanese so it is a total crapshoot. At both places, I stuck my money in and just started pushing buttons. Apparently the first place we tried, Taihoraumen from the Kurume area, is one of the best according to a Japanese friend of ours who travels all over Japan in his off weekends trying ramen from every nook and cranny of the country. This place was both KH and KP's favorites as observed with them slurping down noodles with the best of them. I actually liked the second place better, Komurasaki from the southern town of Kumamoto.

With sloshing stomachs, we headed upstairs and purchased some instant ramen to take home with us. Heading back to the train wasn't half as difficult, but staying awake for the trip with a stomach that full was. We made it just before baby's bedtime, but we were already looking ahead to our next trip back. Yum. Noodles. And they were damn near perfect... or so their leader says.

A Little New Years This and A Little New Years That

2010-02-04T14:35:00.013+09:00

We went home! The Kimono family went stateside for its first Christmas in three years. We were even blessed with a white Christmas! Not that I really wanted one. It ended up to be the biggest thorn of all, causing all sorts of travel delays and cancellations for us. If we had to do it again, I would say drop the snow and it would have been perfect. Now the family time… that was indeed perfect. I tried to travel to everyone else for once instead of pulling the excuse that “we just traveled 6,755 miles to see you, so you could at least drive the last stinking five .” We hit various cities and saw various friends and family. One would think that all of that family and friend reconnection time would make me nostalgic to head home in a few months and yet it probably would surprise many to say it had the opposite effect. Please don’t get me wrong. I miss my family and friends so very much. I miss the convenience of life in the states. And yet, I also get the opportunity to see just how very blessed I am for every single moment I have spent out of the country, doing the very things I dream of. Perhaps my head is just too lost in the clouds of my present reality/unreality, but can’t imagine having to move back to the states and be a ‘normal’ person again. But this is a whole other story of which I do not even know the end to yet. On with today’s story.

We came home just in time for New Years. Not that we are big temple visitors or mocha eaters for the big day, but after almost a month of being gone, I missed my home. I missed my daily routines. I missed Japan. You have no idea how much that one little statement weighs on me. I missed it and yet I’m so tired of it. And then I don’t want to go home to the states. But I don’t want to stay here. And I am right back talking about what I don’t want to talk about, because I just don’t know where my head is at or where my heart belongs anymore. It is such a long, boring story of circles in my own head that I would certainly won’t waste my time and your time with them now. I hope I won’t anyway.

It didn’t take long for us to get back to life here. Once we were past the jetlag, it was back to life as normal. We had brought gifts for our neighbor that we delivered right before New Years. She in return treated us to another great day of excursion. It is amazing that I can go to any place I have been to here in Japan a hundred times before and yet still see something entirely new each and every time I go there. And that we did.

We went to Kamakura, only one town over from us and a few short minutes in the car. We squeezed the car into one of the ridiculously tiny spots, tucked our rearview mirrors in with the push of a button and headed down the same Komachi Dori shopping street I go to every time I want osembe crackers. Halfway down the street, we turned off, heading deeper into the residential district of the area. After several blocks, my neighbor with her handy map seemed at a loss to find the museum that we had been headed towards. Of course, I wouldn’t be of much help since I can’t read a lick of kanji. Then she surprised me and did what I would do… she stepped in front of the first person that was coming our way and forced the name of the museum and the map under their nose, forcing them to stop and take a look. It’s not that Japanese people aren’t helpful, but then stick to themselves. Even with a sumimasen, they don’t always pause for you. I think they assume they can act like they don’t hear you. And they probably don’t if they are lost in their own worlds as much as it seems they are. But for my neighbor to do this act just for some reason surprised me. She didn’t do it once either. No, she stopped person after person as she started navigating down narrow streets that really are more like walkways since the only motor vehicle that could get down them would be the ever present mopeds. After a few twists and turns and a few turn backs, she located what she was looking for – Kaburaki Kiyokata Memorial Art Museum.

The painter, Kaburaki Kiyokata, had chosen to life his final years in this quiet residential neighborhood of Yukinoshita tucked into historic Kamakura and, upon his death at the age of 93 in 1972, his grieving family donated his artworks, materials and even his home to the city Kiyokata loved. The memorial museum was opened in 1998 and is filled with his many paintings exposing the daily life of the graceful women of Japan. He had great sympathy for the common people of the town too and painted many works in honor of their lives. Just wandering Kiyokata’s grounds, garden and his home, one could get a great sense of what this master’s life was like.

My neighbor had chosen this museum, knowing that I have an insatiable love affair for art and culture. She knew my child did not. Or at least I haven’t managed to drill it into him yet. The museum was perfectly peaceful and quiet until my little Kimono Peanut took hold of the place. The exhibit was had gone especially to see was one that had Kiyokata’s painting hanging on the wall and underneath them, another artist had perfectly recreated his vision in fabric sewn onto Japanese badminton rackets. These gorgeous rackets were obviously not meant to be used for traditional purposes, but they did have shuttlecocks to view towards the end of the exhibit. This was of great help to me to make sure all the pieces fit together in my mind, because I thought I understood my neighbor correctly when she explained the badminton part, but they of course didn’t look like anything I have ever used for the sport. I was more than a little confused until the shuttlecocks spread true light. But paintings, badminton rackets and shuttlecocks are no fun for a 15-month-old when they are hidden behind a protective glass shield. KP let out a few wails, moving us along a bit faster. Man, are toddlers ever self-centered. We headed back out of the museum, turning a different way this time allowing us to meander through some different streets along our path back towards the car

We had parked at the front of the entrance to the Hachiman Shrine. Again, one of those places I have been to countless times, but it just never gets old. We wandered onto the grounds and back towards the little pond off to the right of the path that leads up the shrine. There we found a little park where people could sit and feed the pigeons (if they were stupid enough) and I instead just fed the Peanut. While we relaxed in the sunshine, behind us the shrine’s ground’s workers were setting up some sort of woven grass structure that would be set fire to early the next morning. From what I understood, this was an important New Years ritual. If only it didn’t start at 7:00 am, I might have considered heading back there the next day.

The morning was getting late, but there still was some time to wander up closer to the shrine. I wasn’t about to hike the numerous stairs to the top with a 29 pound kid, so we contented ourselves to watch KP run around the legs of the many shrine visitors and snap a few pictures. With nap time looming and not wanting a public meltdown, we packed ourselves up to head home. Another perfect day spent in a place so familiar and yet will always be so foreign. I can’t thank my neighbor enough for all the consideration and kindness she shows myself and my family. For now, I will just go bake her yet another cake.

Yabusame: Round Two

2009-12-02T15:57:00.007+09:00

Let me be completely upfront and say that this post is going to be mostly pictoral. Every year, there is a yabusame parade and then event on the beach in Zushi. (Learn more about it in this older post.) We had gone our first year here, but had been busy for the past two. This year, we thought it might be something that the Peanut would enjoy seeing. I mean, there are big horses with colorful riders on top and they run really fast. I know he is still wee and doesn’t get most things, but I thought the visual would be fun for him. Alas, I was mistaken.

We got there early enough to get a parking spot directly across the street. It was cold, but we were (I thought) sufficiently bundled. Just like last time when I thought we had dressed warmly enough, alas, I was mistaken again. I was fine. KH was fine. But KP was like a popsicle fifteen minutes into our time there. We put him on top of his daddy’s shoulders for the best view, but all he would do was sit up there, looking surly and throwing out fantastic screeches every so often. We thought, maybe it will get better when the event begins. Alas, we were mistaken yet again.

We waited long enough to watch the only girl I have ever seen trained to do this make her first bolt down the beach. I thought she hit all three targets, but KH said she didn’t. Who knows. We had had enough of the screeching and KH was already on his way to the car with the baby, before the commentators could ever give out the score.

At least we saw it once, I thought as we were leaving. And at least there is hot chocolate at home. Alas…

A Day Spent With Norway

2009-12-02T15:35:00.009+09:00

Every November, the Kamakura Chapter of Ikebana International travels to one of the many embassies in Tokyo. Personally, these outings are a favorite of mine. Not only do I get to spend the day with my Japanese friends immersed in their culture, but I get join that with an introduction to a new culture. This year we visited with new Norwegian friends at their embassy and their personal residence.

As we got off from the final train stop in Tokyo, I realized that I should have doubled back to the house to get my umbrella as the drizzling was just beginning. I actually use the Japanese as a guide on whether to bring one or not and when I got to the train stop near my house and saw few to no people with one, I figured I was safe for the day. How very wrong. Fortunately, the walk from the station to the embassy was only about ten minutes so I wasn’t soaked to the bone before arriving.

The embassy itself is as nondescript as any other Japanese building in the neighborhood. Only a small plaque identifies what lies behind its solid gates. The first buildings on the grounds were built in 1977, but construction difficulties and earthquakes proved challenging. A new architect was chosen who built two buildings, one four-story part housing the chancery and apartments for embassy personnel and a separate one for the residence. Since those were built additional stories and extensions being added through recent years. The most recent architectural work happened to be the room where we began our day – a multifunction hall that glides up two stories with a second floor gallery to overlook the entire room. It’s a very good thing this was built or I’m not quite sure where they would have put the hundred plus members who came that day. Their coat check had never overflowed like that! In this room, we spent several hours hearing all the ins and outs of life in Norway.

While this is a country that had never entered my radar for possible vacations before, it has certainly been added high on that list now. Not that I am into adventure skiing, dog sledding or ice fishing, but the magnetic beauty and aurora lights are enough to get me there. Our speaker was none other than the Ambassador’s wife, Madam Anita Pratap, an award-winning author and journalist who has worked with the impressive likes of CNN and Time. As you can guess, she is not actually Norwegian, but met her husband when he was assigned to her native country of India. Her stories of things that she has seen in this world…ethnic war in Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Asian nuclear testing, conflict between India and Pakistan, just to name a few… are truly amazing and heart-wrenching. But what totally struck me is her love for her new home country in Norway. She wasn’t making it up! She felt deeply for the land and its people and it conveyed enough to make me want to see it for myself.

After her speech, she surprised the I.I. chapter with a little fashion show. Two models dressed in traditional Norwegian wear. One word to describe those outfits – warm. Most pieces were made of wool and layered one on top of another as if they were trying to rival the layers in a kimono. We bounced a few questions off of the models and as they exited, the next highlight arrived. Tae Sakai and Natsuho Taira, two pianists from the Japan-Norway Musician’s Society, both of which have studied at the Norwegian Academy in Norway, provided a piano duet concert full of music from the late great Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg. Not a head in the room didn’t end up swaying to the musical crescendos that echoed through the room.

As they completed, their program, we exited to regroup in the private residence where lunch was to be served. First, and much to my delight, cocktails were being offered in the main room. I snatched a glass of red wine and began to make my way around the large rooms to locate the Edvard Munch’s Madam Pratap had said we would find as well as some other original Norwegian pieces. I didn’t get too far, only scoping out one of the Munch’s before getting caught up in conversations and never beginning my search again.

Madam Pratap had discussed how salmon was a huge part of Norwegian cuisine, so we were prepared for a buffet of multiple styles of salmon. Surprisingly, I only recall two dishes with salmon and the rest covering every scope of the palate. A friend that I had traveled with and I had placed our purses on seats, just as the Japanese do, to hold them until we had full plates. In usual Japanese fashion, it would be rude for anyone to take these spots, which made us completely shocked to find our seats taken and two women sitting on our purses. While they did offer to move, we just politely took our purses and made our way out of the room to see where else we might find a seat. This was much more difficult than expected. As I said, this was a private residence, and one I don’t think has often seen so many visitors at once. In the end, my friend and I decided to place ourselves on the circular stairway that led to the inner parts of their home. Don’t think I didn’t think about peeking, but I didn’t. As it went, some other Japanese friends who had been balancing plates and drinks laughed as we sat on the stairs, but it only took second before we were squeezing in to make room for them. Just as we were finishing, dessert was being served. One of the cakes being served had also been talked about during the earlier speeches, so we had to go see what it was all about. We were expecting some monster of a cake with so many layers that it would be impossible to cut into without knocking it over. Nothing of the sort was displayed. Sure the layered cake was there, but I think our minds must have hyped it up a bit too much. Still, we filled our plate with various samplings and headed this time to the sun room that overlooked a Japanese garden behind the house.

While we were standing there chatting, a man came our way. It’s always unusual to see men at these things. It is a club of all women anyway. But this man was also definitely not Japanese. And he definitely wasn’t the kind of man that I typically get the chance to hang out and chew the fat with. We recognized him immediately from his picture in the program, the Norwegian Ambassador H.E. Arne Walther. As polite, charming and interesting as you would expect such a worldly man to be, Ambassador Walther totally fit the bill. He was open to all of our questions, including my nosiness when asking how he and his wife met. He had previously lived on the U.S. west coast many years before so we chatted about the differences in the places we all have lived. Only when the meeting was being called to a close with group pictures did we end our conversation. I could have gone on and on with him. I was only getting warmed up when it ended all too soon. We did have to laugh while we were on our way back when we thought of why he would single out the two most non-Japanese women in the room... he knew we would speak English and he likely wouldn't have to work so hard at his Japanese.

Sad for the ending of a great day, we made our way to our coats. This time, I really could have used that umbrella. It was pouring. At least I had been smart enough in the cold weather that morning to wrap a scarf around my neck, which now served as an impromptu rain bonnet. I’m sure it looked ridiculous to every umbrella covered person we passed on the street to see a white lady with her hair smooshed back from her forehead by a cashmere cap, but it was better to be laughed at than to be totally soaked. Next time, maybe I will dress myself appropriate for the weather at large.

What’s A Peanut To Do In Japan?

2009-11-28T11:20:00.010+09:00

As it has been noted, I am a bit of a homebody since the peanut arrived. Often I get slack for this, slack that I have learned to completely ignore. Frankly, my child is one of the happiest wee ones I have ever seen, so I must be doing something right.

Despite my propensity for my own quiet domestic quarters, I do like to get the Peanut out and about on a daily basis. We do a daily walk, either to the market or the park or sometimes even aimless wanderings around the narrow neighborhoods in the area. Sometimes we just sit in our tiny yard and play with the sticks, the leaves and whatever bugs we can find. And then there are the days where we venture much further out.

It is harder to find places to go with kids in Japan than you might think. Sure, there is Disneyland, DisneySea, Fujikyu, Sanrio Puroland, and many other big ticket parks filled to the brim with huge mechanical rides and funny characters. These amusement parks are aplenty and very easy to find. But if you are looking for something a little less formal and grand (read: less over-the-top and pricey), it can be a bit trickier. It isn’t like I can Google these smaller places and then expect to be able to read about anything I find. If it is smaller, it is probably in Japanese or lacks a website altogether. But besides all this, I just sometimes want a fun and different place to spend a nice afternoon at with my Peanut baby.

Recently, I kind of fell into a play group. While I despise the whole ‘play group’ idea (we didn’t schedule play when we were kids… we just did it… but don’t get me started…), the people I have met have been lovely. Through this group of about ten, there are always ideas being thrown out about what to do that doesn’t cost a fortune, but the kids’ will all have fun at. Plus, usually the one with the idea also knows how to get there and plays director for the day. Handy when you have your hands full with your own wiggling kid and therefore don’t really have time to consult the map at every turn.

The first place this group introduced me to was a farm in the southern part of the Miura peninsula called the Tsukuihama Tourist Farm. Throughout the different seasons of the year, they grow various fruits and vegetables which you can spend a day picking and then picnicking amongst. The drive to this farm was something else. It’s out there. We convoyed our way there and back or else you might never have seen or heard from me again. After parking the cars, we began a long walk up the mountainside where the grove was located. The seasonal pick while we were there was mikan, similar to a mandarin orange, but even sweeter. The trees were grown in lines, but over the years, they had squeezed themselves together making for narrow walkways. For a tall person like me, with a runt attached to my front side, we warily bumped and bounced our way into the grove until we found a good picnic spot to squeeze ten people and their infants into. Lunch was whatever you brought for yourself, plus as many mikans as you could eat. The Peanut and I ate quite a few! We thought we would be able to pick a few and take them home, as it was when the leader of the group who had been there before had done, but the rules had changed for some unknown reason. This didn’t stop a few of us from popping on or two into our diaper bags.

Now, most of the girls in this group have babies under five months old. Mine was by far the oldest. He had fun trying to crawl around the infants laying on the picnic blanket and trying to steal their rattles. He also tried to sneak off the blanket a few times, but I did have to stop this. While I had thought there might be a grassy knoll somewhere, there was no grass in sight. Just dirt and rocks. And do you know what a one-year-old does with dirt and rocks? He eats them. So letting him crawl his little heart out didn’t really work here, but I did let him pull all the mikans off the trees that he could. That Peanut is a strong one, I tell you!

Once again, my lovely neighbor has also been a wonderful friend to the Peanut and I, and a great source for places to go. She does have two grandsons who are in school now, but not so long ago, she would take them to these many wee-kid friendly places. So we started with the Kanazawa Zoo. It is only recently that Peanut has taken note that there is something at the zoo to look at. Previously, he couldn’t have cared less if a crocodile came up and licked him. Now, he actually is starting to note that what he is seeing is a critter and not just something fun to chew on. We were able to drive to the zoo and park there, making it easier for my older neighbor, than dragging the baby in a stroller with all his gear to and from our destinations and the train stations. At the parking lot, a little bus actually drives you up the winding mountain-side path to the zoo. Peanut sat with our friend in the front seat behind the bus driver with a big grin on his face the whole time. Before pulling away from the garage, the bus driver passed out whistles that he had made from a local nut, so it was a cacophony of shrills as we made our way to the zoo at the top. I whistled for the amusement of my own since he is a bit too wee for it yet.

Once arriving at the top, the ups and downs were only just beginning. The entire zoo consists of these walking paths that would challenge even those most fit. With every upward slope, I would take over the stroller pushing. Out of breath at the top of every hill, it was a very good workout. The zoo has all the usual sorts… elephants, birds, giraffes, koalas and even some American deer. It’s always funny to see stuff like that behind bars in a zoo, when I can see them standing in my parent’s backyard every time we are in Pennsylvania. The Peanut was enjoying himself, pointing to this and that, and listening to mama make all the different animal sounds in the hopes of a reaction. We paused for lunch at a picnic area and dined on seaweed-wrapped rice balls, broccoli with mayonnaise, boiled eggs, mikans, and cookies that our neighbor had prepared for the day. When we were full, we set off for the last half of the zoo.

Now, I do like spending time with my neighbor, but sometimes the language barrier is difficult and does limit the conversation at times. But humor translates into any language. As we paused to look at an Indian Rhinoceros, it immediately came to our attention that underneath this weather and gray animal was something long, thick and bright pink. We were at a bit of a distance, so we weren’t sure we were seeing this correctly. Not wanting to seem inappropriate, we both avoided one another’s eyes for a few seconds. But when we looked at one another, the laughter burst out. You see, the enormity of what was hanging down from this creature and seemed to be sniffing left and right then up and down was just too much. I have never seen anything like that in my many years. And I pray I never do again. God pity the poor female that has to endure that.

Speaking of her… as we rounded the corner of the same cage, we see her bathing in a large pool. Two little Japanese kids that were also gazing in couldn’t help but excitedly share with us that there was a baby in the corner too. Well, her man certainly had gotten to use what the good Lord gave him. We laughed all the way down and up the next hills.

As we were coming around one corner, we heard what we all thought to be kids screaming. It was a strange sound, starting off short and low and crescendo-ing into loud screeches. To all of our surprise, we came to discover a White-Handed Gibbon sitting at the front of his cage, giving the crowd in front of him this uproarious song. While my neighbor and I started yet another fit of hysterical laughter, the Peanut could only sit there with a very shocked, and slightly freaked out, look on his face. His face made us laugh even harder. Sides splitting, we had to call it a day before anything else could happen to make me possible pee in my pants from laughter.

And there is still more that a peanut can do here in Japan! Last week, again with our neighbor, the Peanut hoped into the car and headed off to the seaside in Yokosuka. All we knew as I drove was that we were going to a park. Sometimes trying to get a description is too difficult, so it is better to just be surprised when you get there. The place ended up being a French-themed kids land called Le Soleil. The place is really for both big kids and little kids. As you enter, you pass through the gardens where golden sunflowers were blooming beautifully on this sunny day. There is no entrance fee here, and each ride or activity has its own small cost. To start, there was a huge playground with perfectly sized slides for the Peanut. He happens to love them. My neighbor was shocked when I would put him at the top, give him a little shove and let him reach the bottom to her arms all on his own. He is a big boy in comparison to Japanese at the same age. Plus, I think Americans tend to let their littlest kids grow up a little faster than the Japanese do.

Next stop at the park was to pet and feed the many goats. Peanut didn’t help much with the feeding, even though I tried, but he did let the goats lick his legs and hands. Don’t worry, I cleaned him very well afterwards. And as far as I know, there is no such thing as goat flu… yet. There also was a little wooden structure that happened to be filled with school children, all with a guinea pig sitting in their lap to pet and hug for a spell. We continued our walk around the large, open park, passing several rides and things to do that are just a little too big for the Peanut yet. There was a fake grass hill that several kids would slide down on using sleds. There seemed to be no control of the sled, much to their delight, causing the kids to come down in every which direction. There are all sorts of bikes and go karts, motorized and some not to ride. A large pond to canoe in using these huge swan-shaped boats. An amphitheater overlooking the pond where huge groups of school kids with their brightly colored hats had taken up residence to have their packed lunches. A train made a loop around the entire park. The peanut almost passed out on us here and would have missed the rest of the excitement if it didn’t stop just before he was fully out. A restaurant in the middle of the park provided us with delicious curry for our lunch, after which we strolled in and out of several bakeries, grocers and toy shops located there. For things to do, especially for the toddler crowd, this place was one of the best we have been to yet. I think I can even drive us back there on my own!

So these are some of the things that a Peanut can do in Japan! I am always so appreciative when someone tells us about or shows us a new place to try. Thanks to friends and word-of-mouth, I do believe my kiddo isn’t missing out on a thing! So keep those suggestions coming! And we’ll keep a day free each week to check them out!

Kadou Honnoji School Comes To Kencho-ji Temple

2009-11-09T18:41:00.005+09:00

The new season for Ikebana International started in September, but my first program for the season was October's. Held at one of my favorite temples in Kamakura, it was a perfectly sunny and warm day as I rounded up my friends and drove us all to the Kencho-ji Temple. The meeting was to be held in the Hojo (main hall), where we had to remove our shoes before entering the sacred room. An image of the Shakyamuni Buddha looks out over the room from the alter area where Ikebana artist, Tenshin Nakano, was to arrange for us. Nakano-sensei is the son and grandson of famous flower masters of the Kadou Honnoji School of Ikebana, located in Kyoto. After college, he began to study flower arranging and now says of himself, "Ikebana is my life itself." His passion for Ikebana centers on arranging not to express his own ideas, but to do it for those that will be around his flower arrangements. He aims to inspire others, particularly the young, so they might understand how nice life is with flowers by creating arrangements of evolved, new styles from his family's school.

One of the things that always impresses me the most about younger Ikebana artists is their wish to pass along a love for flowers and arranging to the younger generations. In a world where technological advances easily infuse other cultures directly into our own homes, it is tremendously important that the most beautiful parts of our individual cultures not be lost in all this melding. Artists like Nakano truly want to pass along a love for Ikebana, an ancient and very important part of Japanese culture, to their fellow countrymen as well as to the world at large (he has demonstrated in such faraway places as Italy, India, Australia, China and the Ukraine). They see the importance of maintaining the past, but also realize that the past must be altered in some ways to accommodate for their ability to maintain a place in the future. While Nakano's background is in his father and grandfather's school, he shows a very wide range of the past, present and future in his arrangements.

While I am impressed with his vision for flowers and Ikebana of the future, what made the greatest impression on me was his actual demonstrating style. It was unlike anything I have ever encountered before.

The rules for the demonstration: no pictures during the demonstration and no talking or noise at all. This means no questions and no documenting his arrangement style except for my attempt to do it verbally. Nakano had two assistants, also students of his school. They took turns bringing out large scale plants and flowers for the arrangement, with each plant being displayed on its own. For example, one type of tree branch would be held up, all pieces together for Nakano to choose from, while the other varieties would be kept aside. Nakano would study each

branch and choose one. Very quickly, he would then begin to snip away, almost as if just snipping away whatever happened to be near his scissors, but in actuality, each move was very calculated. Usually when you arrange, you stand in front of the arrangement, the side of which the arrangement will be viewed. Nakano, however, has learned to arrange from the back of the arrangement. Somehow his mind's eye can adjust his vision to see the front and yet to create from the back... an impressive trait, if you ask me. He continued snipping away at his accelerated pace and quickly place each piece into its perfect positioning. His first arrangement was more traditional, with each subsequent arrangement becoming progressively futuristic. He created five in all, with one of those in the middle actually created by one of his students. I could see the progression of traditional to modern easily. Each arrangement was beautiful, but I must admit that it wasn't the arrangements that left their impression on me, but his style of creating and the message behind his work.

Once all the work was completed, we were allowed to ask questions. There were many... too many for me to recall. I was still wondering over his message and probably didn't have my mind altogether in those final moments. Sadly, my camera stopped working on this very day. A friend who had come with me had hers and did capture many shots from the day and those are what are presented here.

After all was said and done, we headed to the second floor for a bento box lunch and snack of mochi sweets. A silent auction was in progress, my favorite kind, so I did place a bid on a few items. One in particular really had my interest. I

do hate to keep bidding over others, but I was willing to do it anyway for this piece. I heard a comment as I stood off to the side that "Karen must really want this." I did. And it paid off. I came home with a beautiful, lacquered, wooden tray for only 1,200 yen. While I have no idea what I will do with it, I hope one day to have a bit more room that I can at least display it.

My friends and I took a short walk around the grounds of the

temple before we headed back to the car and home. It was the last time my one friend would join me at an I.I. program as she moves to her new home in Hawaii this very week. At least I have some place beautiful to visit, but going to these programs just won't be the same without her. For now, I will get ready for the next program in November. It should be a wonderful one, held in Tokyo at one of the embassies. More to come on that!

Tokyo Times

2009-11-01T10:21:00.008+09:00

Every once in awhile, KH and I just want a bit of American normalcy without dealing with the base. There is a haven for us. And we only have to go as far as Tokyo! It's the New Sanno Hotel. Stuffed full of normal sized bedrooms, normal styled meals, normal shopping and normal salon services. Okay, a bit of Japan seeps in, but overall the place perfectly fits the bill when we want a homestyle getaway without paying several thousand to actually go home.

We picked a random weekend and headed up on Sunday morning. This is an extremely important day at the New Sanno because of one very important event... BRUNCH! This is a brunch like you have never seen before. Ice sculptures grace the several buffet tables. A man sits at a baby grand. Others stand behind waffle stations, meat carving stations, pasta making stations, fresh sushi stations, and that doesn't even begin to tell you all this is on the menu here. I tend to eat very small meals, but when I go here, I always make it to a third or fourth plate. It's just that damn good.

To arrive on a Sunday is wise. Otherwise leaving on Sunday means you have to lug your bloated self into the car and try not to fall asleep from your severe food coma while crossing the Rainbow Bridge. We've made that mistake in the past three years more times than I care to admit before we finally figured out a better way.

So this long weekend began with a brunch. It was too early to check in, so we decided to go for a walk around the neighborhood or Hiro-o, checking out some shops and temples in the area. A motorcade of black and white vans and cars zoomed by us with speakers blaring some message and music. We would love to know what it was all about, but couldn't begin to tell you what the message from the speakers was. By the time we got back, our room was ready for us to collapse into. However, I had planned on treating myself to something else from back home... a massage. And while this seemed like a really good idea, it turned out to be one of those strange Japan experiences. I made my way down to the salon early and ready for those weary muscles to be soothed and pampered. It was only moments before they called me back. At first I stepped into the room, but my Japanese male masseuse called me back to remove my shoes at the entryway. How very Japanese and my first clue that this wasn't going to be exactly like I thought. First, I had never had a male masseuse before, but secondly and more importantly, I couldn't imagine a reserved Japanese person (a guy at that!) rubbing my defiled, tattooed body. For those long time readers, tattoos are a no-no here, despite the fact that most youngsters have them these days just like any American generally does. Another point on this - the New Sanno is a military hotel, running strictly for those associated with the military to use. How many people in the military DON'T have tattoos? We tend to like our ink. Back to the point. So this Japanese guy is getting ready to rub down my towel-wrapped body? Alright... if you say so!

I ask him where do I undress, but his English is rather limited so either he didn't understand the question or was too embarrassed to answer it if he did. He only says something about the sheets on the table and how I should lay under them, face down. It was very clear at this point that there would be no articles coming off. How do you massage if you can't dig in to those raw, naked muscles? I was going to find out.

Now I'm on the table, face down, sheet over my jeans and blouse. I expect he will at least lift the sheet off of the part he will be massaging, but no! Not so! The whole reservedness that is the Japanese way, they take it to extreme here. He massaged through the sheet, through my jeans, and while it felt good, it also felt... odd. It was as if he feared to touch any inch of my unclean skin! I took a shower! I swear I was clean! But he massaged up and down, always through the sheet and my clothes. When he got to my feet, he actually wrapped them in the towel so a tricky wouldn't dare slip out and touch his precious skin. As strange as all this was, I was pleasantly surprised that when I stood up (a bit rushed after a massage if you ask me), I actually did have that light headed and floating feeling in my body movement. I guess the massage did what it was supposed to, but I still miss stateside where they strip you down and dig deep into those tissues. Ahhh.

I headed back up to the room to rest for a bit with my boys. There wasn't much rest as it was getting close to dinner and we had big plans. We had made reservations at the front desk to go to Gonpachi. Have you seen Kill Bill? Do you know the fight scene with Uma Thurman where she kills the Crazy 88's? "Silly Caucasian girls likes to play with samurai swords." That Gonpachi! Well, the inspiration behind the scene anyway. Tarantino thought it would make a great place for a fight scene, but the movie was actually filmed in China. I like to think it was the same place anyway. Gonpachi is also famous because it is where our ex-President George Bush went when he visited Tokyo. It's located in Nishi-Azabu, just a tiny walk from Roppongi. Sure it's tourist-y, but some place that you should definitely visit when here. KH has actually been several times, but this was my first.

We started the meal off with drinks, mine a mikan-sho, basically an orange shochu drink that didn't taste like much, but sure snuck up on you. KH went with the lemon sour. Both were gone too fast so we ordered a large Kirin to share. On the dinner menu - tempura, tomato and tsukune yakitori, some type of clams, some type of beef and potato and orange chicken. I forget which dish it was, but I was asked if I wanted egg with that. "Sure! Why not?" is always my answer. So she brought a raw egg placed into a bowl with the dish. Only problem... I never figured out how to get whatever it was we were to eat it with into the tiny bowl of egg. So that untouched egg sat on the table the entire meal. Not one server would remove it when they cleared each course of dishes. We eventually left it on top of the signed credit card receipt.

I wouldn't say the food is much to write home about, but we have more often paid for ambiance in Japan than for food. In case you are wondering, Kimono Peanut was with us doing his usual charm act on everyone around him. He giggled and smiled and nibbled on bites of whatever we put in front of him. If one thing is for sure, we are definitely encouraging this kid to be open to all kinds of experiences! It was early, but that doesn't mean a thing when it comes to KP's bedtime, so we paid our bill and caught a cab back to the hotel. It never fails that no matter how many times we take a cab from Roppongi to the New Sanno, each driver has gone a completely different way. I have yet to ever figure out what roads we could take on our own to get there.

For Monday, we didn't have any exact plan. I had always wanted to go to the oldest Kabuki theater in Tokyo, so we decided to head in that direction. With KP in his stroller, we made our way down to the subway station that would take us to Higashi Ginza. What I didn't tell KH is that

there usually isn't an elevator at these smaller train stations, so we would have to carry the stroller down several flights of narrow stairs to get to the train platform. My usually very even-keel husband was really not so even-keel on this day. In fact, he was damn mad when I explained the situation at the top of the stairs. He let me know exactly how mad he was the entire shaky walk down the stairs with the stroller balanced between us. I tried to tell him that this was way better than when I have to do it on my own, but he really wasn't in the mood for that. What's worse is that to get to the platform we needed, we had to go back up another set of stairs and down again to get to the other side. KH didn't speak to me much while we rode the train, nor while we hiked back up the stairs once we arrived at the Ginza station. He only began to talk again when we arrived in front of the theater. It's just as amazing as I expected. The sad thing is that it is scheduled to be torn down. Like all Japanese structures, it is cheaper to tear down and rebuild than to fix up an old one. I personally don't get the need to tear down all these old beautiful buildings. I would preserve every aspect of this amazing culture! The new stuff is way too Western! I fear that some day, all these beautiful and ancient cities are going to look exactly the same as any other city in the world.

While I would have loved to have gone in to see one act of kabuki, we did have the peanut with us and I wasn't sure about his tolerance for the apparently long wait until the beginning of the next act nor his ability to be quiet during the performance. The last thing I ever want to be is that American who can't obey the rules of decency here and not make even a tiny peep, so we skipped going in. I have seen kabuki at least, just not in a theater such as this. We're debating a babysitter and heading back up to Tokyo to see one, but honestly I can think of way better shows to see if we are going through that kind of hassle. To be frank, kabuki is really boring. One small scene is stretched into an hours worth of acting. A man could seriously be taking his final breathe for a half an hour. I seemed to have found a patience reserve when it comes to being a mother, but just haven't found it for kabuki or many of the Japanese theatrical arts.

We'd never really looked around Higashi-Ginza, so we decided to do that instead. What we discovered? There ain't much there. It's essentially a business district from what we saw, so the restaurants are cramped and cater to the in-and-out crowd and close as soon as the lunch rush has passed. We found a fast food soba place that looked promising and stuff our two American sized bodies and a stroller up to a table in the back. It took us a few minutes to pick meals out of the electronic board, written (obviously) all in Japanese. We both kind of guessed in the end, punched a button and hoped for the best. Not bad. Nothing to write home about.

October is just gorgeous in Japan. Warm and not humid and this day was no exception. We decided to just begin walking in the direction of the famous Ginza district, where all the big shops all. It's like Rodeo Drive, but add in some ritzy Japanese department stores. I'm not the kind to splurge on designer clothes nor could I fit in anything there anyway, but the window shopping is always fun. And then we kept walking. We passed a flower shop dedicated to making only arrangements that look like Hello Kitty. If you live in Japan long enough, you can't help but fall in love with her. We walked and walked and walked some more. All the way to the Imperial Gardens, which we hadn't find impressive the first time, so we didn't feel the need to try again. What did amuse was a sign showing paths all through the Gardens and surrounding area and there in the middle of the park was a spot that said "Shelter for people who cannot go back home". Who are these people and why can't they go home? And why are they living on the grounds of the Imperial Gardens? It seemed like a pretty strange place for a homeless shelter, if you ask me. We walked some more, now in the direction of the hotel. We basically were following the path of the train below us that would take us back to the hotel. I suggested taking the train back, as I could see that KH and KP were both done with the walking. You can probably guess the response I got from KH in regards to carrying the stroller up and down the stairs at the train station again. It wasn't nice. Instead, he hails us another cab for us all to jump in. Hey! He makes the money in this household, so I guess he can spend it any way he wants to.

It being our last night in the hotel, we were all for staying in and getting more of that delicious American cuisine. I wanted wings to be exact. We pondered room service, but decided to drag ourselves downstairs to the restaurant instead. Surprise, surprise, it was another buffet! We went for it! And some wings. And then I died from all the food I had consumed in two days. Or maybe I just collapsed back into a food coma until morning, but I don't remember much of the rest of the night. It poured the rest of the night and as we were heading home the next day thanks to another tropical storm that was headed through. Fortunately all the fun was had long before that first drop was felt!

Now all that is left to do is plan for another long weekend up there!

To Neighboring Town Hayama With Our Neighbor!

2009-10-20T15:05:00.005+09:00

I've talked before about how the Japanese like to keep their lives so separate and private from everyone around then. Our house is the only one on our narrow, but long street that doesn't have a wall surrounding as if we were trying to live in some ancient samurai fortress. But that is only because it was built specifically for Americans, who have the big government bucks behind them and can easily afford a nice big, modern and entirely open house. (Thank you taxpayers!) The one side of our house is completely open, thanks to the likes of four large sliding glass doors. They can be covered with the large pull-down storm doors, which all Japanese dwellers would pull down at the inkling of evening darkness or the possibility that someone might peep inside their home for a second. For a major peeper like me, this was difficult to get used to. Even more difficult to get used to was the idea of pulling our own storm doors down every night. For the first two and a half years we lived here, I can honestly say we never closed the storm doors except if there was an actual storm coming. I know people thought we were nuts and quietly clucked their tongues and shook their heads behind our backs, but I simply refused to lock up the house so tight when, instead, we could have a nice breeze blowing through the house. It was only when the baby really started to become active and focal did we finally do it their way and shut the house up. I wouldn’t want the police to show up for noise disturbance simply because there was one Japanese rule that I lacked in following.

After all of our time here, though, I think our neighbor has become most accustomed to our way of life. We usually roll the doors up and fling open the curtains to let in the sunshine the minute we are up and downstairs… generally around 6:00 a.m. Our neighbor seems to now look for this cue, which means she is doing her own faux pas and is actively looking our way to see what we might be up to. We’re pretty darn lame when we are around the house, so the answer is generally nothing of interest. Most interesting in her embracement of our way of life is that she assumes that if the storm doors are up, we are open for business… no matter the time. Thankfully, I now make it a habit to change out of my jammies every morning before I get the baby from his crib so I am, by and large, dressed and presentable. This totally isn’t a complaint or a problem, because when she knocks, it is always for something good. Last week she brought freshly made pickled plums one day and another day it was an invite for a day out in Hayama.

We headed out late in the morning and began our excursion at the Hayama Shiosai Park and Museum. The gardens were actually a former part of the Imperial family’s Villa Gardens at their summer home in Hayama. They are kept as immaculately groomed as ever. The only difficulty we found is that the gardens were not stroller friendly. We had to skip some rocks at one point to cross a waterfall. I carried the stroller across while a few other strollers looked on and just prayed the whole way that I didn’t lose my footing, sending both baby and me into the stream of koi below.

In the middle of the garden is a tea house, where we did stop to enjoy traditional sweets and matcha tea, a thick green tea used in many Japanese ceremonies. I don’t know if I can say I like the taste, but I also don’t dislike it. Nonetheless, I keep drinking it in the hopes of finding out what I think of it some day.

After tea, we strolled through the small museum to see exhibitions of things that Emperor Showa extracted from the Hayama shoreline, as well as many exoskeletons of deep sea creatures I hope to never meet and which will probably keep me from ever diving in the waters of Japan. KP held little interest for all the tiny things behind glass which kept his tiny hands from checking them out up close, so we didn’t linger.

Instead, we headed down the street a bit further to a seaside park I had been to long ago, which sits next to the protected grounds of the Imperial Villa. With baby, baby bag, blankets and lunch tote, we hiked up some steps, down some steps, across many meters of soft sand, over a bridge, finally to rest on a grassy knoll overlooking Hayama and the ocean beyond. Despite the windy coolness of our chosen lunch locale, we all enjoyed the afternoon out of doors. My neighbor had made homemade Japanese sandwiches: egg salad, ham and cucumber. She had also made rice balls wrapped in seaweed and bought a baked muffin for KP as she wasn’t sure what he was eating these days. No lunch is complete without dessert, so she had also brought buttery cookies. All of which, there was not a morsel left when we were done.

We decided to make one more stop before heading home in the afternoon. I usually use the fish shop on the corner near the train station, but my neighbor explained that there was one with much better fish that she always shops at. Hidden in an area of Zushi I have never before been too, quite close to the marina, was a tiny shack where people seemed to be pouring in and out. The fish found inside are dredged from the local seas daily, cleaned up and sold, I swear, before they are truly even dead. I only have one major difficulty with the fish sold here. These are entirely full fish… scales, tails and all. I have absolutely no idea how to clean a fish. Of course, I could always cook it up all together, just as the Japanese do, but that is just not one of those things I would chose to do often. My neighbor noticed my worry over this and proceeded to do the most wonderful thing… she went to the lady at the counter and told her to pick out her best slice of sashimi tuna in the case at her side. The lady wrapped it in paper, placed it in a bag, and my neighbor handed it directly to me. The only instruction for cooking this? Don’t. Make rice on the side, a dipping sauce of soy sauce and wasabi and call it a dinner. Perfect if you ask me! However, KH does the raw stuff only on raw occasions… and sadly this night would not be one of them. He balked and I told him to make himself some dinner. Mean, maybe. But I was surely going to eat the tuna. If only I could have eaten the whole thing. But who wants to eat a few pounds of raw tuna all by their lonesome? I ate what I could, while it was fresh, and hoped with all my might that my neighbor wouldn’t notice a bit of it in the trash a few days later. So sad. I guess I could have cooked it the next day, but I got lazy and never got around to it. I am pretty sure she doesn’t read this blog, but if she does… please don’t hate me for the lacking taste buds of my darling husband! I really do feel very bad about it.

My neighbor… she is just one good lady. The other day we awoke and opened our glass doors to take in the morning sun and air. While she hung out her morning laundry, she could hear and see Kimono Peanut and myself playing in the living room by the open door. I hadn’t seen her, so it was quite a surprise to hear someone say ‘ohayo gozaimasu!’ (good morning!) from the side of our house, by the open door. I relaxed as I realized who it was and then got even more excited over her reason for calling.

She was inviting us away again... this week, it is to the zoo we go!

No Boundaries

2009-10-14T16:29:00.000+09:00

All sorts of people knock on our door every day. I can understand what about fifty percent of them want in my broken Japanese. KH tells me not to even bother answering the door since I can't understand half of them anyway. He prefers to turn the television and lights off and pretend he's not home. They do eventually go away. True. True. But where is the fun in that? It is much more fun to answer, if only to amuse myself for a few minutes. One of my favorite games starts with me saying 'I don't understand' and other bits in Japanese just to have them go into an extended conversation in Japanese, because they think if I can say that much, then surely I can understand more than I am letting on. I don't. But they don't know that. The second reason I like to answer the door is because I like all the bowing. It's great exercise! They bow to say hello and then bow to say thank you for your time even though you haven't understood a word the other has said. Then when you bow afterwards in thanks to their politeness, they bow again to thank you for your politeness... and you can see how this goes on and on for sometime. Saying goodbye to someone in Japan is just simply one of my favorite things to do here just because the repetitive bowing seriously amuses me.

I digress. So who creates all this foot traffic at the Kimono household? There's your common traveling vegetable vendor, not to be confused with the traveling fruit vendor. There's the Jehovah's Witnesses. There's the utilities people who knock just so they can ask if they can check your meter... which is on the outside of the house, so why bother to ask? There's often a person who will knock and ask if they can park in KH's empty parking spot. When your street is the size of an alley back home and the majority of the people who live on it have no parking spaces because they don't own a car (another 'why bother' with the amazing train networks in Japan), then that parking spot is highly coveted when you have someone that needs to do something on the street that will take more than a few minutes. Otherwise, they could do the usual Japanese thing and just park in the middle of the street, but that causes some hassles in these narrow neighborhoods. Overall, I get what these people want. But then there is the other fifty percent. Of which is where my point to all this drivel is.

Yesterday, my neighbor dropped by to see if some tests I had done recently had gone well. After she had left, another knock came only seconds later. I assumed is was my neighbor who might have forgotten something. Instead is was this little old lady, small in stature and wearing a pretty but quaint flowered dress and giant spectacles. She carried only a small bag with her so I couldn't begin to guess what she wanted. She only spoke Japanese and my language skills just couldn't fill in the blanks. So after our ongoing polite and confusing conversation, she began to say her goodbyes. It was at this time that Kimono Pipsqueak came tearing around the corner on all fours. The woman who had been standing outside of the door heard him so she popped her head in quickly. It took her only a second to see my smiling little devil baby. Before I knew what was happening, she had brushed me aside and was now inside of my house! She knelt at the step in our entryway where KP sat giggling away for a few seconds of stranger attention. It was only another second that she had now scooped my darling blue-eyed baby into her arms. Here is this strange lady... in my house... and grabbing a hold of my baby. Now in most cases, this situation would totally have me freaked out. But here was this little old lady, all alone, and I was pretty sure I could take her down if she tried to get past me and out of the door with my baby boy in her frail arms. I didn't really know how to respond to this, since no one who has ever knocked on our door crossed its threshold without explicit permission. Do I yank the baby from her arms and give her the boot? Or do I remain calm? Utter confusion about the situation led me to the latter. She gave him a few squeezes and kept telling me 'kawai', which is cute, and then she placed him back on the step she had plucked him from. As I put myself between her and the baby, she began her series of bows with mine in response. As she backed out of the door, I closed it as quickly, but politely, as I could. Another knock came only second later. The pamphlet she initially wanted to give me was in her hand. Printed on orange paper, all in Japanese. Only the date was I able to read. She thanked me for taking it and tried to explain what it was. Then she abruptly and seemingly gave up, turned around and was around the corner before I finished closing the door.

If she could move at that speed, maybe I should have been more concerned that she could have made off with KP. Thankfully, we will never know.

And we will never know what she wanted either. I trashed the pamphlet only minutes after she left. If I can't speak Japanese, then why would anyone begin to believe I could read it? I'll never understand.

Going Postal - A Comparison

2009-10-07T14:00:00.006+09:00

The other week, I had two boxes to ship out. One to my stateside nephew for his birthday and one to a friend here in Japan for her soon-to-be-here baby boy. Now I rarely use the Japanese postal system for more than sending a handful of New Years or thank you cards, so I had no prior knowledge of how that shipment would go. I figured it would be expensive, possibly even close to 5,000 yen (about $56 American dollars at today’s in-the-toilet exchange rate), like everything else here in Japan.

I bought two identical boxes and packed everything into their respective box. At the US Military Post office on base, I shipped the first stateside. It cost $56 dollars and took about a week to get to its destination. At the Japanese post office, I filled out a lengthy form of which I barely understood and braced myself for the shipping amount due. 1,200 yen. That’s about $13 bucks. At first I thought I had done something wrong, but since no one spoke English at the post office, I just had to have hope that it was indeed going to the right place and arriving sometime before next year. I chanced the language barrier and went ahead and asked the woman in English, “When will it get there? Next week? Two weeks?” She took a minute to punch in some things on her computer and comes back with a hesitant, but what seemed clear enough, “Tomorrow.”

Then I knew I had done something wrong.

Because how in the world can a simple post office deliver as fast (if not better) than Fedex can back home?

Turns out that a simple post office can indeed knock yours socks off in Japan. I emailed my friend to be on the lookout for the package over the next few days and, lo and behold, she said it arrived by 10:00 am the next morning. I had only been to the post office around 2:00 pm the prior day.

Gotta love these ultra-efficient Japanese.

I Eat, Therefore I Am

2009-10-02T11:19:00.008+09:00

Oh, man… has it been that long? I’ll tell you… I don’t know how mommy bloggers actually blog about their lives and still live those lives. Not that I am a mommy blogger, but a blogger who happens to be a mommy and just doesn’t see where to fit it in.

Our Kimono Peanut is nearing the year mark and is busier than ever! When awake, he is resolved to his daily search and destroy mission in between my attempts to entertain and educate him. When he sleeps, I run around trying to clean up the wake of his path. Also to be tended to, there are the mounting dishes (in a house that doesn’t have a dishwasher besides my own two cracked, little hands), the ever escalating laundry pile (in a house that has a godforsaken itty-bitty Japanese washer and dryer which takes at least five hours to do one load), and dinner preparation (in a house where someone is either wrapping himself around my legs as I try to chop and dice or attempting his first successful mounting to the top of stove). Seriously. Where do mommy bloggers find the time?

Don’t get me wrong! I love every single minute of it!

I used to love the challenges that awaited me at the office every day. I loved creating the spreadsheets that would determine and hopefully resolve each problem that arose. I loved the phone calls to clients and vendors. I loved coming up with new ideas or solutions or even just resorting to the tried and true resolution.

Now I look forward to the first sounds that come from the crib every day. The chatting to himself and friends. I believe there may be even ghosts of family passed he spends time with. I love sliding the door open and surprising him and getting hugs and smiles in return. I love spending all of my time with him, whether it’s quiet time at home or out and about. And that husband… he’s pretty darn awesome too. I love taking care of my family! I love knowing that whatever they need or wish for, I have it covered.

So why would I want to take a single moment away from that to write about it? I know, I know… everyone tells me that I should journalize this time of my life… whether it is Peanut time or Japan time I am writing about, I should just get it into words. I stick by my original words that I don’t intend to become a mommy blogger, so I keep the Peanut notes in a handy, dandy calendar of his first year which is much easier to write in since you don’t even have to write full sentences. And when I have the time, I write about Japan.

Now after all this digression, I shall move on to the topic of today. One of my favorites – FOOD! I just want to document our favorites so years later, I don’t forget where we spent so much of our time… and money.

When KH and I first moved to Japan, we thought the food was basically fish, sushi, sashimi and a little more fish on the side. We were so pleasantly surprised! One of our favorite things to do is still head out to our favorite restaurants as often as possible. So today, I want to talk about a few of the ones we frequent. Let me preface this by saying that I might not be able to use the name of the restaurant and may call it by describing the building or the food. I still haven’t learned to read kanji and I honestly never intended to.

First we have the Chinese place down the road. Well, we think it is Chinese, but it seems an awful lot like Japanese to us. I actually have learned the name of this place several times and have forgotten it each and every time I walk out the door. We go there at least once a week and the owners, a husband and wife team and a sister-in-law, may not yell out ‘NORM’ as we enter, but they certainly know who we are. On the menu: tonkatsu (breaded pork), ramen, gyoza, stir-fries, tempura, gingered pork and so much more. We’ve been going there for over three years now and they never fail to give us something extra special. Sometimes it’s an upgrade from the regular soup you get in a set to a special ramen. Sometimes it’s a special pickled vegetable. When I was pregnant, they always brought me more food than normal and when we first took the baby, they sent us home with a fruit basket as a gift. None of them speak English and my Japanese only goes as far as food, money and a few other conversational pieces, but that never stops this family from treating us warmly. They chat with the baby and squeeze his hands and cheeks and now that he is eating table food, they are trying to share all new things with him too. Fortunately, he is quite fond of the taste of Japanese foods… and well pretty much all food, if we are being open here. He gets it honestly!

Then also here in Zushi is our favorite soba place, which we call the wheel place because it has a big mill wheels spinning out front. Inside, you can choose traditional Japanese eating or Western table seating, but the floor tables are perfect for a wee peanut. On the menu: many, many kinds of soba (Japanese buckwheat noodle) served both hot and cold, tempura, and this appetizer that KP likes. It’s basically these gooey balls of soba-like matter in a clear broth. The kid digs these and can keep him busy chewing (and out of trouble) for the length of a good meal.

Last week, a friend asked us when the last time was that we went out for dinner without KP. Finding a babysitter is really not so simple here in Japan for obvious reasons and made especially hard with a husband who refuses to allow anyone that he has not done a background check on watch the baby. So the last time… was back in July when we were stateside and went to our friends wedding, staying overnight in a hotel while my parents watched him. She jumped at the chance to kick us out of our own house while she stayed with him so we could have a grown-up meal. We actually started out for our old favorite, Matchpoint curry restaurant and bar, but when cutting across a side street, we happened on a restaurant we have often talked of trying. El Barco, is a tapas restaurant on a second floor directly above a Japanese restaurant (of which we haven’t even begun to figure out what they serve). It’s been years since we had tapas, so we bagged our original plan and hiked up to the second floor. The menus were in Spanish and Japanese, but thankfully I can speak and read the first language. We started with some glasses of sangria, strong but potent, and then went to town ordering everything from squid to paella! It definitely did not have the ‘kick’ of some tapas places in the states (the Japanese aren’t big on spice), but it was heavenly nonetheless. Fresh, garlic-y, aromatic, and just truly delicious! We left a few hours later, stuffed and buzzing, just the way a good meal should end. As soon as our friends drops by again, we’re leaving her behind with KP and we’re off again!

If you are up for Indian and don’t feel like going the whole way to Roppongi for some of the best at Moti’s, then we highly recommend Appughar. Located along the beach and with a view of Fuji-san (well… when it cooperates anyway), we pulled together several new-in-town friends for a night out of tandoor-grill, curry, naan, chapati, puri, paratha, and basmati rice. This place never disappoints, although I somehow think I ordered mine at the hot-hot level. My gums hurt for two days. But it was worth it. We actually have a ‘frequent flier’ card from here and with only one more meal, will receive a nice sized coupon.

And then there is our favorite shabu, shabu place in Kamakura, Kura-Syabu-Tei. We first went to this place with a group of friends when KP was only a few months old. One friend reads and speaks Japanese so she was able to easily order off of the totally Japanese menu. Now we can’t do the same, but we know enough about the place and what they offer that we can struggle through with placing an order. Shabu-shabu is basically meat and vegetables cooked at your table by yourself in a flavorful broth. Kura-Syabu-Tei has the best broths I have ever tasted! We always go for the hot pepper and coconut based sauces. We may not be able to specify meats perfectly, and may end up with tongue or other random meat parts, but they all taste just as good when cooked in the broth and then dipped in either the soy or peanut-based sauces. At the end of the meal, we are always left with a surprise that the total wasn’t half as expensive as we expected… surprising when you have no idea what the hell you ordered off the menu. KP is always a hit here too. People will stop by to chat him up and someone always comes with a basket of toys for him to choose from and take home. He isn’t very fastidious in his choosing, so I try to pick out the most appropriate and put it on the top for him to easily grab. He generally more interested in chewing on the plastic bag than what is inside at this point anyway. But that is fast changing!

Now this may not be a frequent stop – actually it was a first for me – but while shopping with friends at Grandberry Mall last week, we did finally try Vietnam Alice for lunch. One the menu: lots of noodle soups. I didn’t really take the opportunity to study the menu, but the lunch specials were wonderful! I added a steamed spring roll to my spicy noodle dish and a glass of mango juice. The combination was enough to make me want to go back soon! Well... I guess I should admit that there also happens to be a Cold Stone Creamery at this mall that I just couldn't resist. An authentic taste from home is not to be passed by!

In the market for the best burger you can find in Japan? Head down to the truly gorgeous area of the Zushi Marina and stop at their snack shop. This burger seriously cannot be beat by any of the Japanese burger chains like Freshness Burger or Mos Burger for either cost or taste. They even had sliced fresh potatoes to make their fries, skin on... just the way I like 'em!

While we do have the navy base nearby which gives up some options for American food, sometimes you just want something else. This is exactly why we took the train to Yokohama to hit Hard Rock Café. Pulled pork sandwiches, nachos, fries and a pink lemonade. Man, do I miss those really unhealthy meals. We’re heading to Tokyo for a few days coming up and I may just have to make a trip to the one there too.

So as I said… I eat, therefore I am. Still on the planet that is. Still in Japan. Still enjoying it.

The Bullets of our Summer

2009-08-17T15:08:00.003+09:00

It has been the perfect summer so far. Busy… but not too busy. Hot… but not too hot. In honor of this perfect summer, I have been very lax about updating. The funny thing is that, for once, I don’t feel the slightest bit guilty about that.

There’s been a lot going on. Much of it was actually quite noteworthy and deserves more attention than I plan on giving it now. It’s a gorgeous day out. The baby is taking his afternoon nap. In the essence of continuing to enjoy my summer, this will be an update strictly by bullet point.

We spent the early weeks of the summer traveling back to the states. First Massachusetts to visit Kimono Hubby’s family and friends and then on Pennsylvania to visit mine. We spent roughly a month stateside, the longest we have been able to experience American normalcy in over three years now, and it still seemed like the usual one week trip. It just goes too fast. In MA, there was both the fun stuff: met our niece, went to her baptism, hung out with friends at old favorite restaurants, shopped (oh God, how I shopped.), visited Quincy Market and the North End with our friends Lisa and Kyle whom we met in Japan but had since moved to Germany, saw normal Fourth of July fireworks on the New England coastline, visited the Children’s Museum in Providence. Then the not so fun stuff: dentist appointments for KH and myself (it had been more years than I care to reveal) and an appointment for a missing immunization for KP at the Naval Clinic in Newport.

On to Pennsylvania, where the fun stuff began immediately with one of my very best friend’s wedding. The rehearsal dinner was at a local pub, brunch at the kind of diner I miss so much, the wedding at an old mill where the bride had chosen one of the most flattering bridesmaid’s dresses I have ever worn. (And I’ve been in nine weddings, ten if you count my own, so I have a good handle on bridesmaid fashion.) More fun stuff: a party where all of our closest friends came from miles around to converge on my parent’s house, more shopping (seriously… oh God, the shopping), more favorite locales visited with friends and family, and a long weekend trip with my immediate family to Ocean City, Maryland. We all used to go every year, but for obvious reasons it has been again over three years since we last made a trip. Three extra grandkids have been added to the mix since our last trip. Somehow we still managed to go to our past favorites like Brass Balls Salon, Mug and Mallet for crabs and beer and Seacrets for de Pain in de Ass. Not to mention, it was my baby’s first time in the Atlantic. He ate plenty of sand, washed down with loads of sea water. It’s really hard to teach a baby not to eat the freaking sand. Who knew? We also had some not so fun stuff there too: a vet appointment for our other baby, Bruiser, who seems to be living high on the hill. He’s gained a few pounds in my parent’s care and was even more fun than usual to drug and take to the veterinarians. Yes, you have to drug him or there would be another bloody, wet, furry scene like at his last appointment. No, I am not exaggerating. I can’t even go back to that vet out of absolute embarrassment. Sadly, my parent’s cockatiel Janice Joplin had gotten sick right before we came so we had to find a special bird vet and spent many hours driving there and back nursing her back to health. Sadly, JJ ended up passing away a few weeks after we returned home. But despite sick animals and our own medical quirks, everything was just too perfect and ended all too quickly.

Since we returned home, there is the fun but boring stuff that I wouldn’t bother writing about… lunches with friends and a pool date. Of which, there will be only one because with only two hours at the pool and most of it under an umbrella and wearing sunscreen, I still ended up getting sun poisoning complete with nausea and fever and itching that has been left ever since. Stupid sun. We now are content to wait for the afternoon, when the sun hits the other side of our house, where KP is content to spend forever playing in the baby pool and I can sit there with my feet cooling at the same time.

Then there was the big news (literally) for KH. While I am not at liberty to talk about his work on this forum, he was asked to be interviewed by Fox for a show called Backstage Pass. It’s the Entertainment Tonight of Japan. My dear husband is no stranger to the Japanese media, but this was quite an honor. It was a full day even that began early on the morning of Friendship Day on Yokosuka Base. On this day, the Navy opens up the gates to the Japanese public to visit designated ships and to enjoy many entertainment festivities and American food. They go wild for the pizza and it ain’t even the good kind. KP and I got up early to watch the man of the house in action. We had no idea how big the interview was going to be until the film crew and the hosts arrived. The Japanese certainly knew who these two gorgeous women were though. They flocked to be around them! KP and I only left because we had late lunch plans with some friends, who were in town for the week, followed directly by dinner and drink plans with other friends. The whole crew was just so wonderful and friendly. We were told repeatedly that we would be hooked up from here on out with invitations to the big movie premiers in Tokyo. Can’t wait! Most importantly… it just never ceases to amaze me how awesome my husband is not only at home, but at work where he is truly valued, appreciated and respected.

I also got to see my first retirement ceremony for a naval officer. One of my dear friends in Ikebana International has been enjoying their second tour in Japan and had come upon that revered day of his career when he gets to say his official farewells. His speech, the CO of the base’s speech, the passing and honoring of the flag, the Colors… all of it brought me to tears. This is the kind of event that KH gets to go to often, but I would never have had the opportunity without having become friends with this amazing woman. I’m so happy for both and them and so proud of their serve and sacrifice for our great country.

In the midst of all of this, I turned another year older and closer to dead. While I can’t seem to get KH to honor the whole concept of a “birthday week,” he and some Japanese friends made sure it was a perfect weekend. For Saturday, my friends took me to a bakery style restaurant where we feasted on multiple courses, made even more special by the next-to-last course of Kobe beef. They treated me to a unique Ikebana artful container made of wood and pottery, of which I can’t even begin to tell them how much I will truly treasure. For Sunday, I spent the day hanging out with my boys at home, made complete with gifts of an uncut peridot necklace from KP, a wooden and glass Japanese candle container from KH, and a divine strawberry and white cream Japanese cake. I was willing to make dinner, but at KH’s insistence, we ended up at my favorite Thai Erawan in Yokosuka where I ordered way too many dishes, but it didn’t stop either of us from near licking those plates clean.

Then there was the Bon Dance Festival at the Shinmei Shrine here in Zushi. We walked over, hiked the steps to the shrine where a ring of Japanese and even a few American dancers in kimono circled a high stage crowned with a man playing Japanese drums. We would later meet the first player, a grandfather who proudly told us that the next drummer up was his own grandson. We left the festival gifted with bags of snacks and more good (continuing really) impressions of our Japanese hosts. My only sadness on this night was that I had left the camera on the table at home and didn’t get a single picture of this hot summer night scene.

We do not live on base, but we are obviously associated with the Yokosuka Naval Base. Typically, my only visits there are when I need American goods from the Commissary or Navy Exchange, but on one particular night, the base didn’t something I haven’t seen in all my time here… they got one fantastic and currently relevant bands to come and put on a completely free concert for the sailors and their families. The All-American Rejects put on one fantastic show! I’m not sure that they knew what they were in for, however. Many people brought their young kids, making the scene way more family than fan-based. References to drinking and partying, along with the numerous swear words that flew from their mouths, was not entirely appreciated by all of the audience. I tend to be of the thought though that the parents should have known better and not that the rock stars should be something other than who they are. I believe that events like these are essentially for the sailors, and not as focused on their dependents. Unfortunately, most of the big ships happened to be out to sea and missed the concert. Nonetheless, it was wonderful to hear GOOD, live music again and get a little taste of stateside normalcy that is so often craved. I personally thought their comments were stinking hilarious.

The beach bars are back up and obviously have been for some time now. Last night, we waited for the late afternoon sun to come out before making our way down. It turned out to be yet another perfect night in a long summer of perfect nights. We dined on curry and ramen, washed down with chu-hi, while the sun filled the sky with the fiery colors of evening. In the distance, Mount Fuji made a glorious appearance for a full beach of revelers.

I felt like Fuji-san came out just to show us how quickly the summer was fading away from us. While the heat will remain here much longer than it would back home, the Japanese live by the calendar and not the outside temperature. Soon they will be again wrapping themselves in scarves, coats and hats. This is probably my last summer here in Japan. There is just so much to say about that. But for now, I’m going to get back to enjoying the day, leaving these many mixed feelings whirling in my heart for another day.

Where Monkeys and Irises Totally Go Together

2009-06-22T13:43:00.005+09:00

Living in a society where your neighbors are often so close that they can reach out of their own windows to touch your house, it is of the utmost importance to be considerate and polite. To do this, you have to live your daily life while trying hard not to let either sound or visual disturbances escape from your walls. If you are outside, you are outside quietly, with perhaps a slight boy and low greeting to the oft passerby which they will sometimes return in the same quiet fashion and other times walk on by as if they don’t even notice your existence. If you are inside, you are inside quietly with the radio or TV down, but better yet to just read a book quietly. And on days and nights like these where the weather has turned warmer, but not necessarily warm enough to close up the house and turn on the air conditioning, it is difficult to keep sound and lights from spewing out of your windows and assaulting your very-much-next-door neighbor, especially at night. Now add an infant into the picture.

This is pretty much the picture of our day-to-day lives.

When we first moved in, we did the traditional gift giving to our neighbors where we discovered that few speak English. Our neighbor to the left seemed to speak the best English and to this day they will often invite us somewhere or bring over some Japanese specialty made for us. It was rice balls last week with salmon, tuna and ume inside. These neighbors are separated by only our very small yard. When they hang clothing on their downstairs porch or upstairs terrace, they can look directly into our living room and dining room. Now if a Japanese person lived next to them, the curtains would never be open for them to see inside. But as an American, and specifically one from the open country, I can’t stand to have the large sliding glass doors closed and the curtain shut over top of them. I leave everything open as I was bred to do and they pretend not to notice our existence so close by as they were bred to do. And thank God they do because I often forget to bring clothes with me for when I get out of the shower and have to make a run for the stairs. In these cases, if they were looking… they certainly wouldn’t miss a freaky, pale white birthday suit in their peripheral. So I’m thankful for the relationship that has emerged between us.

I’m also very thankful for their frequent invites. Which brings me to last week. It is the rainy season here, so when my neighbor first suggested we go to the Iris Gardens, we both knew it would be best to wait until the following week to check the weather report before committing to any specific day. On Tuesday, my friend pops by with a bright yellow windmill she found in Kamakura for Kimono Pipsqueak. We settled on the following day which was to be the sunniest of the bunch. Now she speaks very good English and my Japanese is so-so when it comes to numbers so I thought we were clear on the time: 12:30. Both naptime and lunchtime would be past, hopefully quelling any potential crankiness. So when the doorbell rang at 11:30, finding me propped on the couch with a book and sandwich and enjoying a quiet moment, I was a bit shocked. Our doorbell is an intercom style with video, so I knew it was my neighbor arriving much earlier than I expected. I shoved everything I could grab into the sink or closet before rushing to get the door and hoping I wouldn’t be judged to harshly for my own appearance. It took us only moments to realize that we had both misunderstood the other. No matter though. I invited her in and told her we would go wake KP a bit early and get ready to go. She was all too excited to get a peak at him in his room and help with his lunch as I threw things into his diaper bag, readying us to go.

In our preparations, she noted that there were often monkey toys strewn about here or there. I don’t know why we have so many. We just do. She asked if KP liked monkeys and I said yes… or well… he at least seems to like his mother making ridiculous monkey noises while shaking some stupid toy in his face. She mentioned that there is a monkey park here in Zushi and wondered if we had ever been. Since I had never heard of such a place, nor even expected it in our small beachside town, the answer was an emphatic no. It took her only moments to decide that we would add this place to our plans for the day.

With me driving and her directing, we ended up in the small mountains that surround and cut through Zushi, driving narrow, winding roads until we reached the top of one such mountain. After a short walk, we come up to a series of cages with everything from doves, to rabbits, to guinea pigs, to some other strange birds of which I can’t translate (they looked like little fluffy white chickens) and finally a gorgeously plumed peacock While I was honestly enthralled, KP barely acknowledged their presence. It seems he is learning his Japanese traits young. We left the cages behind and walked over to the edge of the mountain, where a huge circular monkey cage sat overlooking the ocean far below. Tan monkeys with their bright pink bottoms hanging out played on the log rafters, climbed the metal side walls and frolicked on their floor far below, tossing cabbage leaves here or there as they went. Again, the reaction from KP was… less than animated… but at least I now know of a place that some day he just might show some excitement over. After enjoying the view for another moment, we headed back to the car.

The drive to the Iris Gardens took me down some roads I knew of and a few I didn’t, but allowed me to make some connections that will give me shortcuts I previously didn’t know about. We didn’t even make it past the ticket boxes before we were stopped by the first group to fawn over the little gaijin baby in our mix. I think it took my neighbor aback for a minute, but she recovered quickly and would spend the rest of our time there merrily pushing the stroller around the garden paths, eager to talk with those who stopped to offer a flattering comment or two to her and the baby. I got many bows at the same time, and the translations usually came a moment or two later, once my friend thought the baby had his fair share of compliments.

Often, I would find myself some distance from my friend and baby as they got swept up in chats and I got lost in the beauty of the gardens. Everywhere you looked, there were varying shades of purple and white lining the garden beds. Women in period dressing and galoshes stomped through the muck, plucking dead or dying blooms from the garden, ensuring that the picture was laid out immaculately for the garden guests. We guessed that there had to be at least 100 different varieties of irises in the two large gardens. After completing our walk through both gardens, my neighbor asked if I was tired. It is the very Japanese thing to do to get some sort of refreshment after any task… even if it was a task strictly for entertainment/enjoyment purposes. Not one to turn down ice cream, we wandered over and grabbed ourselves refreshments, then found one of the few empty benches where we could sit and gaze and enjoy.

We got home late in the afternoon and went our separate ways. It had been a wonderful day spent walking and talking with her. Later in the evening, as the dusk began to settle, KP and I would find her on her porch, removing the day’s now dry laundry. She wouldn’t look over and we wouldn’t either. It was back to our invisible wall of separation until we would get together… another day.

Japanese Peculiarities #9

2009-06-20T13:48:00.013+09:00

One of the things I remember about my childhood, that I always used to love, was how my mom hung our laundry out on a clothes line in those sunnier months. Our clothesline hung parallel to the side of our fenced-in yard separating the vast woods from our well-trimmed lawn. The metal fence and clothesline poles were always entwined in lilac that would scent the small stretch of land where my brother and I spent most of our time playing G.I. Joe and eating mud pies. Well, he ate them anyway… but only because his older sister made him. Mean, that little girl was. I digress.

I can still see my mom hanging up shirts by their tails, our skimpy unmentionables, and our long bed sheets while our dog Gizmo (Pinky as many of you know him) circled at her feet. With everything hung, it was a virtuoso fort in our young eyes. Looking back now, the scene was pretty idyllic of a very good childhood in the country, the same kind of childhood I hope KP will be blessed with.

But here we are in Japan, where the country is hard to find, with any patch found either covered in rice fields or

hills covered in thick foliage. Certainly KP is too young to know much of his surroundings at this point and we will probably move somewhere new before he is actually aware, but in the meantime, there is one thing I can give him… a clothesline.

Of course, this is nothing like the clothesline of my distant past, but it is a clothesline nonetheless. And I honestly admire the Japanese for their version, when they are so tightly packed in between neighbors and often lacking any sort of yard at all. A version where the Japanese women take whatever small space they can find out of doors, albeit a lanai, terrace, or just an open window where a small hanging device can be attached. And here hang not only their shirts, pants and unmentionables, but oft, their whole bed, which is now slung over a wall that functions more as a clothesline than its intended role as an architectural detail of their home. Remember the traditional Japanese bed is a futon, or thin mattress, rolled out onto their tatami floor every night. Tatami mats and the futons on top of them do get bed bugs just like those American king-size mattress babies do. So you clean them up and hang them out on your ‘clothesline’ to make them all nice and refreshed.

But Japanese take the clothesline process one step further and use it all year round. This is a great idea in the face of all of us who want to be a little bit more green in our daily lives. I hang out many of our items of clothing, just like every one of my neighbors does, although our queen mattress does stay where it always lies. Not only is all this Japanese green-ness wonderful, but it just plain makes sense when a Japanese drier takes about 4-6 hours to dry one load. I wish I was exaggerating. But it is indeed that painful. And, consequently, very energy wasteful.

While it may not be the beloved scene from my childhood, and it may seem a bit odd, I really do love the many makeshift clotheslines here in Japan.

Japanese Peculiarities #8

2009-06-19T13:24:00.003+09:00

So here’s something that after three years in Japan, I have never seen before, and yet KH tells me that it is pretty much an every day occurrence for many occupations in Japan… a line-up meeting every single morning that starts the work day. For this morning meeting, the staff apparently all line up, often in circular fashion if inside and office, and repeat a sort of mantra of polite formalities. Perhaps I was running errands earlier than I normally do on this particular morning to catch this act with my own two eyes, but this struck me as quite bizarre. It isn’t that the idea of a morning meeting was bizarre, but I just can’t imagine making everyone line up in such a particularly overly orderly fashion. It seems almost… militant… a rather old-fashioned part of Japan’s conformist ways.

Maybe they do this at every fire station in the states… but if they do… I’ve never seen it there either. I’m really thinking it doesn’t happen back home. And I really can’t imagine such a custom being accepted on American soil where we have gotten excessively lax on a great many of things.

I’m not trying to be rude or overly political here. Just a personal observation that struck me as odd between the differences of Americans and Japanese. And it was just darn funny to see them line up in a row like that, chins all raised to a precise height, chanting into the morning sun.

Bye, Bye ’08-’09 I.I., Goodbye

2009-06-18T10:56:00.004+09:00

The 2008-2009 Ikebana International year has come to a close. I must admit that I have a lot of mixed feelings about it. This was the close of my third year as a member and second year as a Board member and the year with by far the most ups and downs for me personally. I don’t want to get into the reasons for those ups and downs, especially in this format, and I think the best thing is to just shake it all off and move on. I will continue my membership next year and look forward to what is in store for the Kamakura chapter, but I will not be on the Board again next year. It is this point where I feel most of my mixed feelings. But no matter what caused those feelings, it will never lessen the friendships I have made with many people in the chapter and organization, particularly several of my fellow Board members, and even more particularly on the Japanese side. They have allowed me an amazing insight into not only their culture, but their everyday lives. I have learned the true nature behind many of these women and been allowed a glimpse into Japanese society which would have been difficult if not impossible to become so immersed in without all the time spent with them, not only as a fellow Board member, but mostly as a friend. These women took me under their wings as someone who not only wanted to learn and to share in their culture, but wanted to get to know what was in their hearts and have them wish for the same in return. When I was at my lowest, it was our chapter’s President who called me to tell me that we were not just Board members, but we were family. And she meant it. I can only hope that I was able to adequately demonstrate the depth of my feelings for her comment, but mostly for her presence in my life.

To end our year, our final Board meeting was held at our President’s home, kneeling in her familiar tatami room. Following this meeting, she had organized a seven course luncheon for us at a Chinese restaurant tucked into the side of a mountain in Kamakura. Myself and another Board member both had babies in the past I.I. year, so our President went above and beyond to make them (or really their mamas) feel included by having the restaurant create tiny baby beds, in traditional Japanese fashion, on the tatami floor of the narrow adjoining room where windows faced the ocean in the distance.

Our final program was only a week afterwards, which included a piano and opera singing duet from Shuko Kobayashi, a professor of music from Yokohama’s Ferris University, and Sachiko Mori, the internationally-trained daughter of one of our longtime chapter members. The performance reminded everyone that summer was here, another reminder that a busy year was now behind us. The new Board was installed only moments afterwards, pithily bringing an end to my role on the Board.

No matter.

I am looking forward to next year, with my newly adopted less hands-on part… back to being just a plain old member, looking to know all she can about Japanese culture in my short time left here.

Ah. Mah Hair Again.

2009-06-17T10:33:00.002+09:00

You have no idea how difficult it is to be a gaijin in Japan when it comes to having blond hair. I knew when I moved here that it would be a challenge and it has surely lived up to my expectations.

I talked about this almost three years ago… the difficulty of finding a hairdresser who can do blond highlights and low lights. Sure, there is the Navy base nearby of which they have a hair salon explicitly for foreigners working here, and yes I have tried them. Sadly, on the four occasions throughout the past three years that I have broken down and gone there, only when there was no other choice, they had botched my hair anywhere from mildly to absolutely terribly. Hot spots, bad haircuts, bimbo blonds looks, you name it… they’ve likely done it to my hair. So please excuse me if I have lost faith in that route.

For about a year and a half in the middle of it all, I get spoiled. A hairdresser from San Diego moved here with her husband. She was phenomenal! Exactly the quality I am used to from back in the metro DC area. She did the perfect light highlights in summer and darker ones in fall. And then she got pregnant and moved home. After she became not only my favorite hairdresser, but also a good friend, so it was a double edged sword to my heart when she left earlier this year. She left behind two recommendations, neither of which I was ever able to get on the phone or to return my messages. With nowhere else left to turn, I returned to the base hair dressers and let a girl not long out of high school and just out of beauty school do her thing. She wasn’t half bad. She got the color right and although it could have been blended in better, I was willing to return to her. And then she left there. After only a few months of being there. They told me she went to the new salon off base and provided me the number of which I called, but after a strange conversation, I still don’t know if she really works there or not, but they did have someone… a Japanese woman.

Now, years ago, one of the stylists at the base salon was Japanese and she did my hair. I can’t even talk about it, but it left me a bit scarred. So to hear that my only option was again a Japanese woman, it set me to quaking a bit. I know I shouldn’t blanket all Japanese hair stylists into one lump, but I do have good reason for this. Often when Japanese people say they can do highlights and low lights, they totally can… on Japanese women. Blond women’s hair takes color very differently than a Japanese woman. Besides that, the hair color that is used on dark Japanese locks is not going to work on blond hair. You need coloring products that lift way more than the 25ish percentile that the Japanese use. So to find a salon that carries the right product AND the right hairdresser, I was just very skeptical. But when you are left without a choice and a wedding only a short time away back in the states, you get desperate.

It had been three months since my last hair appointment. With the speed that my hair grows, I looked hideous. I got to the salon early and the stylist was quick to pull out a book of colors so we could discuss options. Now here is where I usually rely on their expertise to interpret what I am looking for, but to still make it look appropriate on my head. My Japanese hairstylist’s English skills were wonderful, but I think that the culture and language gap is always still there is small part. Often things are taken very literally, when I am hoping they will take what I want and make it work for my hair and skin tone. I’m used to this treatment, but then, my hairdresser was American.

She mixed up the colors I chose and then proceeded to spend two full hours putting foils into my hair. I know I have a lot of hair. It’s very thin, but there is an exorbitant amount of it. This new hairdresser said that ten of my hairs would equal one Japanese hair. But she meticulously and deftly put those foils in. The process was a bit different, as she didn’t skip a line like I was used to, but I figured all hairdressers must have those little quirks. Once they were all in, I sat. And sat. And sat. And sat. And just when I thought she had totally forgotten me and was consequently frying my hair, she came back and started the rinse and wash process. And this is where I fell in love with her.

After carefully laying a little thin towel across my face while she flattened the chair into a bed, she rinsed and washed my hair and scalp for what had to be at least twenty minutes. She rubbed her fingers over every inch of my head, pushed on certain pressure points as she went and then repeated the process again and again. At the beginning, she had asked if this was my first time in a Japanese salon. I said yes, but had no idea why this was important until this moment. Good Lord in Heaven, it was wonderful! Just writing about it now makes me woozy again with feeling. When she was done with this part, she gently lifted my head, working the pressure points again and eased a hot towel under my neck. Then another over my forehead. More pressure points and she slowly removed it all and eased me back into a seated position. When it was time to move back to the chair for the haircut, I wasn’t sure I could actually stand up.

The haircut ended up perfect. I talked her through what I was looking for step by step, just to make sure no where on my head would get too snipped. Lastly, she blew dry my hair with a flat brush into it was silky smooth.

The end product… perfectly golden blond, silky strands fell past my shoulders. I must say I did immediately love it, but there was something about it that I couldn’t quite put my finger on in the yellow lighting of the salon. I had also been there for over four hours and was sure that KH would be wondering what happened to me, so I didn’t take much more time to think about it. It was only when I got home, got through the baby’s nighttime routine and headed back down to my own bathroom for a closer inspection that it struck me… oh, I was blond alright. And yes, it was pretty. But no, it is not natural looking. My friend here assures me that it is pretty even though it definitely isn’t a natural shade, and I do believe she is telling the truth, but I do think that next time we made need to make some slight adjustments in color choice… like say no more warm tones from here on out. They just don’t match my face or naturally dark blond roots. But for now, it is looking pretty sharp. I pray it stays that way before my friend’s wedding. I would hate for her to have to oust me at the last moment.

But if you are ever in Japan, get your washed, cut and styled by a Japanese person! You’ll pay a pretty yen penny, but you will walk away feeling lighter than you have in years!

Oh, and yes, I will go back to this, my new favorite, hairdresser.

Wabi Sabi & The True Spirit of Tea Ceremony

2009-06-10T14:46:00.003+09:00

There have been several occasions in my time here in Japan that I have done tea ceremony. Some were abbreviated versions, other were definitely not. But in all of those times, I have never gotten much of its meaning beyond its sacred aspects to Japanese culture due to its antiquity. I think this consistently has something to do with my lack of knowledge of the Japanese language and the tea master’s lack of the English language. While they were able to get across the ritual facets of tea ceremony for me to learn, the meaning behind each part was left rather ambiguous.

I was, therefore, thrilled to hear about our special guest at the May Ikebana International program, Mr. Soshin Kimura, member of the Urasenke tea school and head master of the Hoshinkai tea school, who also recently appeared in a BBC documentary called “In Search of Wabi Sabi” which aired just a few months ago here in Japan. It has been said that Mr. Kimura is the spokesperson for the “tea ceremony world” here in Japan. He is also noted not only for his many oral locutions on the subject, but also many articles to the same. For the program, he planned a talk on Japanese “tea-ism” and how it ties in all aspects of Japanese culture… everything from flowers to ceramics, calligraphy, interior design, architecture, poetry, religion to philosophy. It is this last characteristic that is most important, as the philosophy of Japanese aesthetics was the title of his lecture as well as the name for the true spirit of tea ceremony – “wabi sabi.” While I need to be honest and admit that I cannot recall all the details of his speech, I do recall how impressively his homily introduced the subject and tied in each and every one of these aspects for a pretty complete reflection of wabi sabi. The biggest point that came across to me… and one that surprised me… was the fact that he believes Japanese tea ceremony shouldn’t be only about the very ritualized form of hospitality and the specific aesthetics of the art form. This was the very thing I learned in all my previous experiences with tea ceremony, so it seemed odd for the spokesperson to be so adamant about it not being all about the rituals. To illustrate his point, he provided slides of a tea house in Germany that he studied and taught in. First, let me state that the vision in my mind… and most minds… of a tea house is one that adheres strictly to ancient Japanese architectural aesthetics: low ceilings, small tatami rooms, corner cubby for Ikebana and calligraphy display, all wall structures in some type of wood. What Mr. Kimura showed us from Germany was a giant peanut. I’m not kidding. It was a large, white cloth covered structure, very light and airy inside, that was shaped exactly like a peanut laying on its side. Totally not what one would anticipate to be a tea house. Which is exactly Mr. Kimura’s point. In the word’s of our Programs writer: “In spite of all it’s physical trappings which are so famous, he believes that the philosophy of the tea ceremony is much more important than the form of the tea ceremony.” In his words, “To have no tea is OK, to use no cup is OK.” While I didn’t get a chance to speak to any of my Japanese friends before we left that day, I can only imagine that this way of thinking is a bit shocking to them. He also believes that many Japanese people do not understand the true essence of tea ceremony, which would also probably shock and, even, offend many.

What I took away from the program was… in all honesty… more questions in my mind about Japanese culture and its ability to maintain the sanctity of its art forms in this modern world. Perhaps I didn’t understand all of Mr. Kimura’s lecture post translation, because I am left to wonder, is he preserving the antiquity of wabi sabi, which I totally believe is his every intention, but it seems to me as if he is almost… unintentionally progressing Japanese culture to our modern times. Again, I do not believe that is the case. I do believe that he is trying to teach the spirit of wabi sabi and I am guessing it is probably a combination of the short time we had available for a lecture of such a broad topic and the translation of his comments that has left me a bit confused. I’m really hoping to come across his documentary to hear more on this subject.

After his lecture, he did take the time to perform a much abbreviated version of tea ceremony for some chapter members who had never tried it before. At the board meeting a week prior, I had thrown the name of my friend into the ring, and then quickly forgotten all about it. So I was thoroughly relieved when she was informed that she would be getting up on stage to do this in front of everyone and instead of being angry at my oversight in telling her about her volunteerism, she was thrilled at the chance to try it. She and two other international members of the chapter knelt down Japanese style for enough time to realize that a full tea ceremony sitting that way would be tricky to endure. I have never managed to stay in the proper position for an entire ceremony and have had to move my legs to the side on more than one of my tea ceremony attempts.

The rest of the event consisted of a delicious four course lunch of fancy foods I can’t recall, or spell even if I did, and then an Ikebana exhibition and auction of the flowers and containers. I rarely do the auction part because I always feel like Board members shouldn’t partake and win items away. I feel like I would be cheating, even though I absolutely wasn’t. But on this occasion, one of my fellow students in the Kozan school had exhibited and I really wanted her gorgeous black containers so I could practice more at home. The containers are quite expensive! So getting them as a steal through an auction is totally the best way to go. I bid way high. I won. I totally don’t know how to do this auction stuff the proper way, but… mweh… I got my containers and called it a day.

Kimonos Down Under: Day Four and the Final Hours on Day Five

2009-06-08T11:08:00.009+09:00

When we woke up on our final full day in Australia, the worst weather so far drenched everything outside of our open windows. We didn’t have any major plans for the day except to explore Cairns, which we had only seen snippets of when we left the marina there. A little rain never stops us though, so we were ready to head off bright and early again.

Our rental car was to arrive at 10:00 am, and they were surprisingly prompt. So far, many people were often a bit late to pick us up or drop us off in the land of “no worries, mate!” And I swear… every local person we talked to said this at least once in the course of conversation. I have since adopted it for my own use, much to KH’s chagrin. One little glitch with the rental, though…. it was a stick shift. Neither us can drive one. Years and years ago, I could have at least made it a little ways, but that training has long since eluded me. It never occurred to me to specify when we booked this. But the guy’s response… “no worries… I’ll be back in an hour with another car.” This actually worked out to our advantage as I got to head back to the room and finish watching some strange Australian program that had me previously engrossed and the rain had a chance to slow to a fine mist. The rental was indeed back in an hour, car seat installed, and we were off.

Even with guidebooks in hand, we honestly still had no real game plan for the day. Driving directions in Cairns weren’t that tricky and we knew how to get down to the center of the city without a map. You just keep going straight through the 800 roundabouts scattered down the highway, hang a left past the massive Captain Cook (whom I was certain was George Washington) and then follow the water line down to the main part of the marina.

We parked, and since it was so close to lunch, headed down the main street in search of the restaurant our tour bus driver had been so kind to share with us the day before. KH had chatted the guy up so friendly-like, that he even dropped us off right in front of the hotel instead of the designated location at the bus stop down the street.

His recommendation was Barnacle Bill’s. From the name of it, we honestly were not expecting anything fancy, which made us very surprised to see white linens and wine glasses on every table. But, no, this place would not disappoint. As adventurous as my husband and I are with our traveling, so are we with our food. There were several things we had heard about, but had yet to try. This place would prove to be the absolute perfect location for real Australian food. We ordered two platters and split them both. The first was your land lubbers’ grub… complete with a trio of Australia’s special fish barramundi, medium rare kangaroo and grilled crocodile. Good God in Heaven… kangaroo is damn delicious. Who would have known?? I had alligator before, which was chewy and salty, but Steve Irwin’s croc?... yummy would be the only word that sufficiently covers it. The second platter we ordered was your sea-faring platter full of natural oysters, cold cooked prawn and bug, beer battered fish, calamari and scallops. A fellow blogger who hails from Down Under had told me that I had to try the bug. I thought she meant real bugs were served. I cringed, but if that was what the locals eat, I was willing to go for it. So when the bug was delivered to our table and it looked like a giant crayfish (which it is), I was very pleasantly surprised and much less grossed out at the prospect. Although my brother would later tell me that crayfish were essentially bugs of the sea. Gag.

After our feast, we really needed to walk it off. Not really choosing a particular direction, we meandered street after street, letting glimpses of my shopping interests lead us in whatever particular direction. It continued to drizzle as we walked, but it didn’t slow our enthusiasm for the rather quiet day of doing something, but not necessarily anything spectacular. Once we thought we had seen all we wanted, and spent all I should, we headed back to the car.

Mid-afternoon at this point, it seemed way too early to head back to the room, especially since the rain would keep us off the beach. We threw ideas around as we headed out of Cairns and back to Trinity Beach. I think in the end it was only that our interest was peaked on what could be so dang wonderful that everyone we had talked to kept talking about Port Douglas, several miles north, that we decided to pass Trinity Beach and keep going. We pulled off the highway into the other area we had debated, Palm Cove, and it was nice… a bit larger and busier than Trinity… but nothing in the end that changed our minds about how much we loved the area we had chosen to stay in.

Back on the highway, we continued north, where there wasn’t much to see but trees, rocks and a few signs of particular interest. The first told us that this was a very high accident zone. The second showed insanely twisting roads, complete with lots of falling rock. It would only be a mile or two until we realized why it was a high accident zone. It is pouring outside now on this already dangerous road, and yet every car around us seemed that they insisted on going at least twenty kpm over the speed limit. There were several areas where slower cars could choose to pull over into a short slow lane and I insisted that we take advantage of each one. This didn’t stop the very next car to come barreling up on our ass as KH navigated as best as he could on wet roads that dangled precariously on steep cliffs overlooking the ocean. I sat in the back with KP and closed my eyes several times, trying not to think about the obvious insanity of these other drivers. At least there were a few overlooks where we could pull off, take in the view and mostly begin breathing normally again. That drive was 100 times worse than our drive along the narrow, cliff roads in Santorini. At least there, everyone moves at a reasonable snail pace! And the road went on forever!

We drove and drove, sure there had to be a ton ahead because of all of the cars coming towards us, and yet we weren’t certain we would ever arrive. No one ever explained just how remote this resort town was. Nor did they explain that since it was further into the rainforest, on an already rainy day, that it would be hammering down the rain in the resort. We finally found the main street, full of gorgeous little restaurants and boutiques, but neither of us could even imagine getting out of the car to enjoy them without a bucket on our head and galoshes on our feet. The thought of ice cream was tossed around for less than 30 seconds before it was tossed right out the window into the torrents. Instead, we both thought of our nice, dry, and overly large apartment back in Trinity Beach and decided to head straight for there.

We had yet to spend much time in our room, and we still had all that beer from our first drunken day chilled in the refrigerator, so dinner seemed an easy choice… head down and grab some gourmet pizzas and salads from one of our favorite restaurants down the street and chill on our balcony while we ate and watched the waves roll in and out.

Later, I would spend some time repacking and trying NOT to bring any of the thousand ants home with us that had invaded our room since we got there. Seriously… they sure do like baby formula! Yikes!

The next morning, I awoke before sunrise thanks to a tiny peanut enjoying his favorite pastime of kicking mommy in the stomach. Outside the window were glimpses of the day to come… and it was going to be gorgeously sunny. Of course it would. We were leaving.

At least we got our blue skies for a few hours before we headed to the airport. And back to Japan.

Kimonos Down Under: Day Three

2009-06-02T14:45:00.002+09:00

Flashback.

Mother’s Day. My first with the baby on the outside.

We wake up before the sun does in our gorgeous room in wonderful Australia. We rush through the morning ‘getting ready’ routine and we are out the door fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. Anyone who knows me knows that timeliness was never my thing. Usually a kid makes it worse and yet here I am arriving early of late! I rock. And I digress.

The shuttle bus that picks us up can probably fit about twenty and yet there is only one other couple on board as we head to the marina in Cairns. We are escorted out to the large sailing vessel that Ocean Spirit Cruises will be using to get us out to the Great Barrier Reef. That’s right, my first Mother’s Day, and I get to spend it on sailing gorgeous turquoise waters and snorkeling with the local wildlife of one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. As the boat heads out for its hour and a half ride to the reef, I ask KH what he is going to do to top this for next year’s Mother’s Day.

“I’m thinking brunch,” he quips.

Exuberantly, I respond, “In Brazil??”

His answering chortle will not stop me from at least trying next year.

As I mentioned, it had rained pretty much every day we were in Cairns. Despite that they thought otherwise, it really didn’t help that every damn local kept telling us how it never rains there. But this day happened to be the most clear so far. When we arrived on the reef, the only sincere shower cloud we saw that day was just starting to threaten us. We quickly took in the fish feeding frenzy the company had started on the side of the boat and then decided to look into the semi-submersible tour of the reef which was being offered. With the sky looking the way it did, this seemed the best option and hold off the snorkeling part until later. KH strapped KP into his Baby Bjron and down they both crawled into the sub, with me right behind. We had heard a few comments when we got onto the regular big boat about the rough seas… bringing a baby… and more blah, blah, blah. I could only imagine the looks we must now be getting. Just to prove the naysayers wrong, my little angel not only slept most of the cruising part of the boat trip… both ways even… but he even fell asleep on the sub. So please reserve your tsk-tsking, Scarlet, for someone who gives a damn.

The semi-submersible gave us some great views of the reef, despite the rain’s attempts at clouding up the reef and dimming the bright coral colors. The cruise line even gave little talks explaining what we were seeing – everything from sea turtles to giant clams weighing over 400 pounds each to the 400 species of different coral covering the ocean floor. This actually did make the snorkeling later way more interesting. I actually knew what I was looking at instead of just admiring all the pretty colors like some simpleton.

Arriving back on the boat, the real one, lunch was being served. While I really was ready for the snorkeling, who can pass up a good buffet lunch? KH filled me a plate. Twice. We downed our food, shoved some solids into the wee ones mouth while simultaneously hiding the bottle part of his meal from him, so we could make ourselves the first ones to catch yet another boat out to the cay. Don’t go swimming for thirty minutes after you have eaten? Bah. I live for the danger… and the cramps!

Again… we had an audience as we climbed onto the smaller vessel with our baby boy.

The cay. It’s essentially an island, but not an island, because it apparently moves. Cool. So the island in ‘Lost’ really does exist!

This smaller boat pulls you right up onto the cay so only your tootsies get wet if you want. I personally don’t see the point of paying the exorbitant price of the cruise if you aren’t even going to snorkel on the reef and instead plan on sitting on the cay and watching the water. I just can’t agree that that would be a true reef experience. One guy from the boat stays on the cay and acts as a lifeguard. Considering it was a really quiet day for the tour, only about 50% of their usual partakers, this guy’s job was kind of cake if you ask me.

Now, we really aren’t nuts. No, we would not be snorkeling WITH the baby. We took turns, KH going first to map out the reef for me. While he went out, one solitary soul had his liquid lunch on the cay, our little travelin’ man, as I sat with him and listened to the birds that swarmed in the off-limits sanctuary area directly behind me. When KH returned, it was my turn at the reef.

I’m not sure if I mentioned it on this blog, but I am DEATHLY afraid of water. Thanks to my dear cousin who, years ago, tried to drown me on a drunken vacation in Cancun. I’m not one to let my fears take over me though. I do everything I can to fight them. Water be damned. I was snorkeling. Okay, so I did put on a life vest to do it. And, yes, I did keep pulling my face out of the water because I was sure I was going to drown myself inside my snorkeling mask. But snorkel I did. According to Kimono Hubby, who kept his ever protective eyes on me, I went the whole way across the darkest parts of the reef. And then I… floundered… he said. All of a sudden there was a lot of kicking and splashing that he couldn’t seem to figure out. That would be exactly the moment that I almost crashed into the reef. You see, I can’t turn my head well to see what is to either side of me without causing the freak out in me to rear its ugly, little head. So I stare downward and peer out of the corners of my eyes. Only this got me a little too close for comfort to the many reef organisms that would surely suck me down into them and eat me alive. In my hasty retreat, I managed to swim myself directly over the most massive giant clam in the area as it opened and closed its gaping mouth, just trying to grab a toe that would allow him to get ahold of the rest of me. More freak out ensued. It was all I could do to get myself back to the shore as quickly as possible without peeing myself. I would hate to mar a natural wonder like that.

And so ended my afternoon of snorkeling. KH, who is much more calm about it than I am, did a second, longer round while Kimono Pip and I played in the water along the shoreline until daddy was ready to head back to the bigger vessel.

As stressed as I was upon return, KH calmed me down with a nice cold beer. On the cruise back, the tour company added a glass of champagne to ease my troubles while the prior lifeguard now became Jimmy Buffet and sang us some songs. The wind was perfect to sail the vessel back in to the marina instead of using the motors. We would have liked to sit on the top deck, but apparently that was pushing our peanut man a little too far. I don’t think he appreciated the wind up his nose much.

It had been a long day already, but it was Mother’s Day, and my dear husband would not let the occasion pass without a proper day long celebration. We got ourselves cleaned up and dressed and chose L’Unico to walk back down to for that proper dinner. Several courses of rich foods and strong drinks later, we finally called it a day and dragged ourselves back to the room and bed.