whatever happened, happened

and this is what happened:

-I left my homestay
-I went to Hokkaido
-I worked on an organic farm
-I went to Sapporo
-I traveled in Thailand and Cambodia with my brother
-I went to Tokyo
-I returned to Kyoto, my present location

When I was in SEAsia I really missed Japan, a lot. Inexplicably. I have been really enjoying my time in Tokyo and Kyoto, and I cannot even begin to think about what it will be like to go back to the bay on Monday.

Taiwan: touch your heart

Taiwan was excellent. Taiwan was utterly random and marvelous and hot and goofy and languages, and delicious. Taiwan is all about not being part of mainland China. Taiwan is also all about bubble tea, moto scooters, and night markets. Taiwan is also all about superb fresh fruit, some of the friendliest and most generous East Asians I have ever met, and not really speaking English at all. Hannah and I arrived in Taipei on Sunday the 26th and departed on Thursday the 7th. In between then:

Taipei was two great Mexicans, 5 night markets, being surprised at everything, Taipei 101 - the (second) tallest building in the world - being able to read but not speak, new piercings, a visit to the city of Jiufen, and welcoming Jason B. to the country.

The view from the top of the mountain next to Jiufen


Tainan was two great Frenchies, a Peruvian, a super goofy Taiwanese girl, all put in a blender creating a multi-lingual dinner in English, French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin, and probably some Taiwanese. Tainan was also hookah smoking, the happiest and most generous man in all of Taiwan, the second most delicious pineapple I have ever eaten (arguably the first, actually), lots of cool old temples, amazing dumplings and noodles.


Then - Kaosiung and Kenting - saying goodbye to Jason, a silly but delicious lunch, the experience of being in Cancun in East Asia but also in Southeast Asia, a Catholic hostel, lots of hilarious Taiwanese schoolchildren, the beach, getting sunburned, reading, swimming, saying hello to Jason and his parents, a delicious meal of Chinese food, and "sleeping" on the beach.

When we woke up on the beach Hannah and I saw our first of three sunrises in four days. Leaving Kenting involved a nap in a hotel lobby, the most terrible of terrible bus rides, deciding to go to Alishan National Forest, a train ride, and getting hassled by some taxi drivers.

Going to and being in Alishan involved an amazing Taiwanese couple that spoke great English, a really beautiful bus ride, looking for the hotel, finding the hotel, delicious vegetables, an amazing Taiwanese man giving us tea, going to bed early, waking up at 3am, a train ride up the mountain to view the sunrise over Yushan (the tallest mountain in East Asia) (and our second sunrise our of three in four days), and a beautiful hike through the forest back to the town. The sunrise was for sure a highlight of the trip.

From there we returned to Taipei, but not before hanging out for a few hours in Taichung, the most boring city in Taiwan, drinking bubble tea and seeing a huge Buddha. Our return to Taipei was met by the Mexicans again, followed by a well-deserved night's sleep, sleeping in, meeting up with Jason K. and his friend Eli, a silly lunch, more bubble tea, the most amazing museum in the world filled with all of China's treasures, probably the best dumplings of my life, another delicious meal with Jason B. and his parents (this time in Shanghai), wandering around the river, things coming full circle, attempting to stay up all night and almost succeeding, problematically going to the airport and getting to the gate (damn swine flu), and returning to Japan.

When we got back to the country we decided to keep the travel going and went to Kobe on our way back to Kyoto. This trip was one of my favorite travel experiences maybe ever. There were some bad points but nearly every day had only great points. Now I have little more than 2 days to completely pack my life in Japan and move to my friend's house before going to the farm. This will probably be my last entry until after my adventures for the next month - working on an organic farm in Hokkaido, hanging out with my brother in 3 SE Asian nations, and three days alone in Tokyo.

Also - if you are reading this and know anything at all about Taiwan's economy, please comment! I wondered a lot about it the whole time I was there.

the end has no end

This week was the last week of AKP. It was also the longest week of the year. My dreams all week long were at least a week in length, but usually one or two months. So much happened day to day, but it was all taking place in my mind. This wasn't helped by me getting sick on Thursday (the very last day) so I slept all day, but it felt more like sleeping for a decade.

Last night was the Farewell Party. It was the first time I had been to the Kyoto Tower Hotel since orientation, and more specificially, the Welcome Party. It was a very strange experience, and simultaneously not as sad as I thought it would be and also considerably sadder than I thought it would be. I had my last taiko practice on Wednesday, which was truly sad, but I played taiko with 8 of my group members at the party, which was pretty great. After the party at least half of AKP went to Kyoto station and sat on the steps and got really drunk. The best part was when we all gave mini speeches to each other. Mine went something like,

"this is where we started and this is where we ended; we've been gone a long time but have been here for a short time; the weather is significantly more pleasant now than it was when we got here."

Saying goodbye at the end of the station part of the night was the saddest part, because so many things need to happen before I see most of those people again. SO many things.

Tomorrow I head out to Taiwan. Hannah and I are going together and will have our own adventures before meeting up with Jason B. and his parents, and Jason K. and his brother and his friend. The AKP journey ended yesterday, today it is raining, and tomorrow is something entirely different.

Run Into Flowers

Spring has finally arrived! The season I have been waiting for all along, and now it is nearly over. I have been doing lots of "hanami", literally "flower viewing." This is a huge tradition in Japan during the cherry blossom season - to go and look at the flowers. Usually people bring a picnic and make a whole day out of it, which I have done a few times, but usually we just bring some drinks and a frisbee and we're good to go. There is a saying: "hana yori sake" which translates to be, "flowers are not as important as sake."

FLOWERS:









This is the last week of class. Finally. But also a little sad. The cherry blossoms have already passed their peak, and now there is "sakura yuki" or cherry blossom petal snow everywhere. Ah! the fleetingness of the seasons!

some themes from the year so far

i would say more about these if I was in the presence of mind to write anything beyond the list...but writing the list is itself important

portals vs. monsters
TIME
-past, present, future
-the clock and the calendar
-series of events in a causal chain
-moments and memories
PLACE
-the scope of a city
-riding a bike vs. taking the train
-how scenery changes
time+place
-weather
-seasons
-trees
-photographs
The Island
-sitting on rocks and under trees
-mountains emerging from water
-continents are islands, too
Having hobbies and being skillful
Many Lives
tangling and untangling
Bumbling
Bodies
-faces
-hands
-feet
-eyes
-ears
-mouths
-stomachs
-Open up your throat!

Everything Is
-crazy
-the same
-different
-layers
-patterns
-rhythms
-flowers
-the ocean

South Korea's got Seoul, South Korea likes to rock n roll

I just got back from a lovely little jaunt to South Korea. Korea Sparkling! I went to Seoul and stayed with my cousin Michael, who has been teaching English there for about three years. I didn't do too much sightseeing, mostly I wandered all around Seoul and ate incredibly delicious and cheap things. The best (and wildest, perhaps) was live octopus.

(just watch it squirm for a little bit)

We also ate raw beef, a few different kinds of Korean bbq, a delicious fried meat thing in a huge rectangle, lots and lots of kimchi, and a ton of really good street food. The best street food came in a tent with lots of old Korean people (who started a fight with each other).

Michael and me and a crazy Korean man. I'll let you figure out who is who.

Aside from eating, I was mostly just in shock the whole time at how Korea is totally not Japan. Compared to Japan, Koreans are real people! They are not robots or ants like Kyoto residents, they look around on the subway and talk on their cell phones on the bus and are loud and gregarious and SO friendly. Also I was in a pretty big shock at the sprawl and magnitude of the city of Seoul.

The north-west expanse of the city from the top of the 63 Building


Seoul is really the city from Blade Runner, the city of the future

One friend asked me, what will I expect from Japan after being in Korea? I realized a few important things. One is, my thoughts are almost completely in Japanese, which I hadn't really realized until being in a place where both the language's sounds and written alphabet are utterly unlike either of the two languages I can speak. Yeah, languages are SO crazy. I also realized, it is really nice to be with your family. I also realized, for the next month, I need to enjoy Japan as much as possible. Spring has pretty much arrived, and springtime is the season! The good things don't last, and there is no use complaining when I have it so easy.

spring field trip

Well, the spring field trip turned out to be more fun than I thought it would. I knew the things we would be doing would be fun, such as:
-a castle
-a cool old shrine
-a great forest
-the Ocean
-some onsen
-a river boat ride
-an amazing waterfall
-a cooler but more anticlimactic old shrine
-some rocks

But the missing thread was the bus. My friends and I (Jason, Jason, Richard, Hannah, Kendall, and Ben) discovered that the back of the bus we were on could turn from normal back of the bus into a really sweet limousine-like circle. So there were 6 of us (Kendall would come and go) in a circle of 12 seats. We had tons of room, we spread out, we allowed each other naps and music listening time, but it was mostly a lot of good conversation and a lot of alcohol. We wanted curtains to really make it a room, even though we referred to it as a room. We spent an obscene amount of time on the bus throughout the three days, so being in such a comfortable arrangement was highly satisfying.

Here are some photos.

it's the same ocean....


I built a rock pile.


These rocks are married.










The next big adventure: Korea.

recently I was asking, What does the rest of February have in store? And the 28th turned out to be one of my favorite days of the month. The weather was sunny and beautiful after a week of rain and depression. I biked to Kyoto, met my friend Danielle for lunch, ate delicious thai food, met our friend Machiko, went to the river, took off my shoes and socks, sat in the sun for a bit, met our friend Jason, formed a bike gang, went to Daimonji, climbed the mountain, talked about meaningful and meaningless things, looked at the view, got our shoes muddy, came down the mountain. Then the dynamic totally shifted.

I rode my bike to the middle of the city and met my friend Allie, a great friend from high school who is studying abroad about 30 minutes away from Kyoto. She and I met up with Seanacey, Kojiro, and Mamu, my friends from tea ceremony. The 5 of us went to a concert at a curry udon restaurant. The restuarant is owned by a guy who goes by Master and the concert was 3 Australians playing "experimental music" that I had met the week before with Seanacey and Kojiro. This story is really tangled and I don't really want to get into it right now. But the show was amazing. Before the Australians played, two Japanese guys played. The second one also played "experimental music" but the first one was ridiculous. he was playing a Swiss instrument called a hang. It is sort of like a cross between a steel drum and a tabla, but sounds like water. Watching this guy play his hang was one of the most beautiful things I had seen in a while. After the show, we chatted with the musicians and with Master for a while, and then I biked home.

Yesterday, Sunday March 1 was a high school day. Today was Monday, tomorrow is Tuesday, Wednesday is Taiko, and Thursday is the start of the three day all AKP spring field trip. We are going to Wakayma and to Ise. I am pretty excited to do everything we are doing, and I am excited to observe all AKP interacting together, but I am not excited to participate with all AKP interacting together.

some interesting and important observations

-Japanese people think Japanese is a really hard language
-life is considerably better when it is not raining
-life is considerably better when you are in the bay area
-old japanese people blame white people for the bomb (no matter what)
-one of the main reasons why living in my host family's house is difficult is because of the physical arrangement of communal space
-the world is so pretty and so full of possibilities
-sometimes you find friends in unexpected corners
-property laws are incredibly important, but also incredibly stupid
-opposable thumbs are what make us human
-sometimes your horoscope is completely accurate
-sometimes all you need is to listen to Bob Dylan

February is already halfway over

February Break was a really nice trip. Kendall and I traveled really well together, and it was really great to be away from Kyoto for a little bit. Some highlights:
-SNOWBOARDING. It had been since March 2006, but it only took about 3 minutes for me to remember completely how to snowboard. The snow conditions were perfect for both days, the views of the Japanese Alps were amazing, snowboarding in Japan is way cheaper than anywhere else in the world (perhaps the only thing that is cheaper here), I had the easiest snowboard rental experience ever, and since we were at the mountain on a Monday and Tuesday, we were more or less the only people there (aside from people at ski schools and people training for races).
-36 hours in Tokyo. What a weird and wild city. We went to a Kampo (chinese medicine) seminar, and when Kendall and her friend Masako went to a seminar on Chinese fortune-telling, I explored a street filled with cool old bookstores.
-Staying with Masako--Masako did a homestay with Kendall's family when Kendall was 4 and 5, and I fell apart when she pulled out early 90s photos of little kid Kendall.
-Staying with Kendall's old host family--I can't really describe the Tadama family. They were really great and showed us a wonderful time in Ueda. But they also gave me a lot of perspective on my own family experience.
-When I returned to Kyoto I still had one more day before I had to go back to school. I went on a bike ride to this crazy park/forest near my house and I brought my drum, and for a while I sat in this lookout tower in the middle of some woods near a playground and played drum.

I just got back from a really fun excursion to Osaka. I can't believe I have been in Kansai for five and a half months and am only now discovering that Osaka is actually the best city in Japan. It is so close and it is so cheap to get there and the people are so fun and nice and hip and the food is really delicious and the colors POP. I actually knew this in early October when I went to Osaka for the Radiohead show but did not internalize this, and therefore did not actually learn it. I am remembering other times I have learned something but did not internalize it and therefore did not learn it:
-flossing after Vision Quest
-getting up when you wake up after Alaska
-knife after Alaska
-etc.
I think I need to make more of an effort at remembering the things I learn, and learning the things I remember.

february 5

I have Monday-Wednesday next week off, and thus tomorrow begins the long-awaited February Break. Originally I had wanted to go to the Snow Festival in Hokkaido (northern Japan), featuring giant sculptures made out of snow. But fall break taught me to be careful about traveling, and going to Kobe for the Luminaria taught me just how much Japanese people love both being a tourist, and seasonal activities. So I put the snow festival plan to rest.

Kendall and I wanted to do something together, and the plan that emerged is basically me accompanying her on her research trip. We are first going to Tokyo, where we will go to some seminars on kampo, a traditional medicine practice that originated in China (like a lot of things about Japan). Then we will head to Ueda in Nagano, where we will stay with her old host family from when she came to Japan two years ago. We will go snowboarding on Monday and Tuesday, and then I am returning to Kyoto on the night bus Tuesday night.

Not much else to say. The winter is a test of endurance. But spring is approaching sooner than I think.

another list of things i would write about if i was in the presence of mind to write:

time
trees
old friends
outsiders who want to be on the inside
outsiders who like being on the outside
insiders who don't realize what it means to be in
insiders who want to get out
human beings as a species
the scope of history
enduring through the winter
how birds are dinosaurs
how dogs are wolves
forests
how forests are different in different parts of the world
everything is layers
things that are quintessential
the way small things in the present have big ripples on the future
taking responsibility for your actions
CHOOSE
today is tomorrow's yesterday
reasons why i wake up in the morning
things i used to do
things i do now
things i want to do
when dreams cross and multiply
compromise
on being isolated
on having a community
if there could ever be a community of isolated people?
things that help me see clearly
things that obscure my vision
gentleness

TIME

Is time a clock and a calendar? Or is it something less linear? My time in Japan is bounded on one end by 2008 September 2 and on the other by 2009 June 15. Each day, my activities mostly revolve around the train schedule. I must leave my house by 945 three days a week, or else I will not get to school before class begins. Going home from Kyoto each day is also dependent on which train I catch. Being held back five minutes after a 430 class can sometimes mean 25 minutes added to my commute home, simply because of the patterns of the trains. My host parents have at least 5 calendars in public spaces around the house, and I have two more in my room, because we are always thinking and talking about events on upcoming days. 

One such event was the AKP new year's party, or the "budding talents" party, or as I have been referring to it since mid-November, the "juu-hachi nichi party" (１８日パーティー, literally, party on the 18th). It was yesterday, 2009 January 18 (go figure), and I have been looking forward to it for so long because I played taiko in front of all of AKP and all their host families and a bunch of other people. Six women from my group came and brought drums and we played 3 songs. My host dad videoed it on my camera and I am working on getting them up on youtube, and when I figure that out I will post them here. It was SO fun. Playing taiko is really the best thing I am doing with my time (there's that word again) this year, in this place. 

(thanks to my friend Mia for the photo)

Also I displayed my epic art project, which was very strange. The first part of the day I was too busy stressing about how to display it to be stressed about taiko. But the women from Uzu came pretty much one minute after I got it all hung up, so I immediately had to start preparing for taiko stuff. The art project (called "Cosmos") was really well received, which I didn't really expect. 

Side note: my elective classes this semester. They have only met twice each but already I think they are going to be WAY better than last semester. I am taking Japanese Religion and Japanese Ecology. The Religion prof is from Canada and has been living in Japan for 12 years. She is as weird as you can imagine, but seems really knowledgeable about Shinto and Buddhism, and the New Religions. And we are going on some cool field trips. My ecology prof is a REAL biology professor, not an "asian studies scholar," and has done a ton of research on Japanese ecology before. His specialty is ornithology, and he has gotten everyone in the class so excited to learn about the three dozen or so bird species that live in the Kyoto area in the winter and spring. We already went on a field trip, to a marsh in the north of the city, and looked at some duck species and some not duck species that are living there right now. 

Birds--birds are dinosaurs. Think about it. And the next bird you see, really look at it, and see how it walks, how it moves, how it flies. 

back to the life

The end of winter break passed without much going on. Hannah and I went to Nara one day and we walked around and went to the big Buddha and went to a beautiful shrine (all the things there are to do in Nara). Another day I was sick and didn't do anything. Over the course of 5 or so days I read the entirety of White Teeth by Zadie Smith. Which reminds me, some folks have been asking me about what I have been reading, so here are the books I have read since coming to Japan: 

The Elephant Vanishes (short stories) by Murakami Haruki

The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan

A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander and a bunch of other architects

The Silent Cry by Oe Kenzaburo

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson

Life is Elsewhere by Milan Kundera

The Old Capital by Kawabata Yasunari

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell

White Teeth by Zadie Smith

One of my new year's resolutions is to keep reading, a lot. I bought The Dragons of Blueland, the third in the My Father's Dragon series, in Japanese, except in Japanese it is called Elmer and the 16 Dragons. I started reading that but it is pretty slow going. 

Another New Year's resolution is to bike a lot more. I bought a bike, which should help. It is only an hour and a half from my house to school, so especially when the weather starts to get better, I will definitely be biking all over the Kyoto outskirts. 

I have only had Japanese class the past 2 days of class, but I am pretty excited for it. My teacher this semester, Kuwahira-sensei, I thought would be cool and aloof, but I was wrong. She is totally off the wall bonkers! So far she has gotten very excited about: having us conjugate verbs into the passive form, my presentation on being hung over during my new years shrine visits with my host family, and a vocab quiz we have next week. Her handwriting is a little sloppy but only because she is writing so quickly, because she is so excited about writing stuff on the board. 

I also bought bachi (taiko drumsticks) of my own so I can actually practice taiko at home. I think I am also going to buy a drum. 

Yesterday I went with Hannah and Richard to see K-20, a Japanese movie that had an amazing poster. The poster was so wild, even, that we based the decision to see the movie entirely on the strength of the poster. Bad idea. We really didn't understand very much of the movie, not because we didn't understand the dialogue, but because the movie just didn't make very much sense. 

Happy New Year!!!

明けましておめでとうございます！

Winter break has been going really well. My mom came to visit, and I thoroughly enjoyed showing her lots of cool places in Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Kyoto. Some of my favorite moments:

-Shibuya crossing 

-Tokyo Tower on its 50th anniversary

-Sushi at the Tsukiji fish market

-the day spent with my host parents

-hiking Fushimi Inari in very cold weather, and discovering snow halfway up the mountain

-turning 21 at Itsukushima Shrine, and a ridiculous Japanese dinner at a Japanese style inn

-realizing that I am actually very adept at Japanese

I had been most of the places we went already, but it was really fun seeing my mom see them for the first (only?) time. We had lots of great conversations about all sorts of things, especially how strange Japan is, what it means to have a hobby, what it means to be skillful at something, how different people travel different paths, being a tourist vs. being a resident, the nature of cities, the bomb... It occurred to me today how strange it is that I have been to Hiroshima, the peace park and peace museum, three times, but I have been to Washington DC only once. 

She left on New Year's Eve day, and I came home and unpacked and relaxed for a bit before going out for the night. New Year's Eve is a different holiday in Japan than it is in America--the important part of the holiday is January 1-3, when you relax at home with your family and eat a very traditional meal (it's the same meal for breakfast and dinner for all three days). So I spent New Year's Eve with Seanacey, my tea ceremony friend, and Kojiro. Kojiro's friend Mamu (an accomplished Japanese fashion designer) moved from Tokyo down the street from Kojiro and Seanacey a few weeks ago, and for New Year's about 10 more of their friends from Tokyo came. Also with us were Joann and Zac, two Whitman seniors last year that I had one class each with and never expected to see or talk to again. So it was a strange but wonderful and very fun group. For reasons I can't explain, I started the night with like 45 minutes alone with the Tokyo friends only, which was a lot of fun. We started drinking and ate some snacks and watched Japanese wrestling (not sumo, like legit wrestling) on TV. Then Kojiro, Mamu, Seanacey, Zac and Joann arrived, we hung out for a while longer, and then went to dinner. We got pretty drunk at dinner and then walked to Yasaka Shrine in the middle of Kyoto's downtown. We were there with thousands of people when midnight rolled around, and it was so cold but we were having a great time taking silly pictures and waiting to enter the shrine. At about 1205 I saw about 10 of my AKP peers who were tired of waiting, and about 1210 we got tired of waiting, and left. I wanted to hang out with those folks some more, but I came home and passed out...

...because I had to wake up at 545 to do a real hatsumode--the first shrine visit of the year, on New Year's Day--with my host parents. We left the house at 615 and went to three shrines. The first one, Iwashimizu Hachimanguu, was on the top of a mountain and we had to ride a cable car to get there. We received a Shinto blessing by a woman dancing around with some bells. For musical accompaniment, there was also a woman with a huge drum, a guy playing a flute, and a woman with small cymbals. The second shrine was called Jounangu. They gave us a little bit of sake and a keychain with a girl sitting inside a soup bowl. Finally we came home and then went to Iseda Jinja, which is a shrine only 5 minutes walk from my house, that I never knew existed because it is hidden inside a tiny alley that I never noticed before. They gave me a sweet soup called oshiruko and a LOT of sake and by the time we left I was drunk. And it was only 830am! We came home and had traditional Japanese New Year's breakfast (including, among other things, white miso soup with mochi, lotus root, egg, sweet black beans, some vegetables, fish, and many inedible-seeming other foods) and then I passed out. 

Today was the first day of Japanese department stores' Bargain week. I went to Uniqlo, sort of the Japanese Gap, and got lots of great stuff for a huge bargain. It was a great deal and it was so funny to see how many Japanese people will turn out for a huge annual sale. I will probably go back to Uniqlo before the week is out.

I hope everyone reading this had a lovely New Year/Christmas/Hanukah holiday season and is enjoying the first moments of 2009!