Voyage Junkie

Several years ago we had the opportunity to take some good friends of ours, Bo and Liz, to Japan. I'm going to focus on the new things we did and then link to previous blog posts for reference to the things we repeated from our time living in Japan. The trip started out awesome and then kind of fell into a bad place for me and Matt, unfortunately. I chalk it up to our inability to tell Bo and Liz when we wanted to do something different from what they wanted to do, and Matt's desire to be a good guide in the country as he was the only fluent Japanese speaker. He felt a lot of responsibility and then got really tired and very stressed out, which in turn made me very stressed out. I say this not as a rebuke of our friends, who had no way to know how we were feeling since we didn't communicate, but as a gentle suggestion to anyone who travels with friends. Say how you feel and don't be passive aggressive about it. Own up to your limitations and ask for what you need. Your ...

One of the most vivid sights we encountered in Nagasaki was the Sofukuji , a Buddhist temple built in the Chinese style.  It was constructed in 1629 by Chinese residents of Nagasaki, and still functions as a place of worship for those of Chinese descent.  It is located adjacent to Chinatown, up a hill quite a ways and set back into the forest.  What separates it from Japanese-style temples is the color: the Chinese-style buildings are very bright, as you can see.  The reds, blues, and greens simply jumped off the structures.  As our posts of Japanese-style temples can show, the color template there is often muted and subdued.  Another difference deals with the statues of the Gods and Goddesses, as are shown in some pictures below. First, here's the second gate, up a steep flight of stairs from the main entrance shown above. Note the bright blue, green, and orange!  This was unlike anything I had seen on a temple before.  Matt and I enjoye...

Our main reason for visiting Nagasaki was to see the historic island of Dejima.  This is a place to which foreigners were relegated during the time Japan was closed.  Circa 1823 or so, the land mass was actually a man-made island stuck off the coast of Nagasaki, hanging into the bay by one bridge.  The shogun used the unusual circumstances of the island to decree it simultaneously not part of Japan yet under Japanese law; thus, foreigners could live there.  They could not leave except by ship, and only a few were allowed to visit the mainland, one of whom was the doctor and researcher at Dejima, Philipp Franz von Siebold.   Many of you may know Siebold from Matt's facebook photo.  To the left is the actual portrait of Siebold, age 30, painted on Dejima in 1823 by Kawahara Keiga.  We saw this, along with many other paintings depicting life on Dejima and Siebold's plant research in a museum dedicated to the doctor and his research.  In ...

We went to Nagasaki before leaving Japan, and it was a wonderful decision.  The city is lovely, populated by open and friendly people.  It is spread out but each part is easily accessible by foot or trolley.  On our first day, we visited the Peace Park to take in monuments commemorating the atomic blast of 8.9.1945.  The most famous one is pictured to the left, a towering blue giant pointing to the sky (the threat of nuclear power) and reaching to one side (the arm of peace).  Fun fact: every time we told people in Gifu we were going to Nagasaki, they confusedly attempted to reproduce the pose.    More striking than the blue man, however, was the monument marking the hypocenter of the blast.  Seen to the right, it is a tall pillar in the middle of a large, low-lying field.  Concentric circles spread from the pillar, creating an emotionally powerful visual.  Nearby is a small piece of the Urakami Cathedral that survived the blast, mov...

It has been some time since my last post.  Matt and I are frantically cleaning and packing, getting rid of things and making seemingly endless runs to the post office.  It hardly seems like it's been nearly two years since we first laid eyes on our temporary home, yet here we are, at the end of our run as ALTs.  I won't miss the job, but I will miss the friends we made here.  Japan affected me deeply and I am grateful for the opportunity to live, work, and travel in this incredible country.  There will be time for reflective essays later, when we have toured Europe and are again in the ranks of America's unemployed youth... for now we must continue packing and cleaning. To keep you busy as you wait for the thrilling conclusion of our world travels (did I mention we have quite the itinerary planned?), here are some shots from this year's plum blossom festival in Bairin Koen.  We visited on March 11, 2012, which you may know was the first anniversary of t...

Here is the latest rendition of "To Live in the Moment Without Fear," from December 18, 2011. I am more "visible" in this video than the one from June, because my hair is flying free in a half-ponytail. It's easy to tell the little white girl from the others when her golden tresses are everywhere. This video is of an extended performance featuring revised choreography on seven dancers instead of the original six, a duet with myself and Shio that I was instrumental in choreographing, and a charming finishing number featuring four young creative movement students. There are moments I dislike, like when the fabric gets caught on the back lights and I have to untangle it (very obviously), but overall it was a good experience and it felt nice in performance.

I had a love-and-friend-filled birthday this year!  I got flowers from a student whose father runs a flower shop, four of us with the same birthday exchanged gifts, and I went out to sing karaoke and eat delicious rice flour crepes!  I ate a green tea cheesecake crepe (amazing).  Below, the karaoke group picture.      L-R: of course us, Sachiko and Io-chan, Shio, Atsushi, and Kiri. My birthday present to myself?  A rice cooker cake!  Skeptics: yes, that's it, in the rice cooker just post.  Recipe: 200 grams gluten-free hotcake mix, 1 egg, 1/2 cup maple syrup, 1/2 cup canola oil, 1/2-1 cup plain yogurt.  I added 3 mashed bananas, 1 small package dark chocolate chips, and unsweetened dried coconut (topping).  You simply mix it all together, drop it in a slightly oiled rice cooker, and start the cycle!  My cooker has a cake setting on it, which runs for 45 minutes (in the winter it takes 2 cycles).  If you don't ha...

Matt here, to try and get some mileage out of my degree in Japanese literature.  So, welcome to 倚松庵 ( Ishouan  -- "The hermitage among the pines," or, more literally, "hermitage resting against the pines"), home to one of the most important writers of Japanese modernity, Jun'ichirou Tanizaki.  He had the house built for himself and his third wife, whose family was the basis for his most famous novel, The Makioka Sisters (you might also have seen the 1983 film).  The construction was based entirely on his strict aesthetic principles, which he lays out eloquently in his essay, In'ei raisan  ( In Praise of Shadows ).  The first third of the book is devoted to descriptions of his various successes and failures in trying to preserve the Japanese-ness (as he saw it) of his living space while still utilizing the modern conveniences coming to Japan from the West.  It's a worthwhile read, if you can ignore the slight xenophobia that peaks through at poi...

Since we were staying in Kobe, we ordered some cake from an allergy-friendly specialty shop in Akashi, a few train stops from the city.  We should have been able to hop off the train, find the store, and see the castle ruins in under 2 hours.  But Google couldn't tell where the address was, and every time we checked someone's iPhone it placed the store in a different place.  This lead us on a 2.5-3 hour hike, until a nice lady finally told us the map was wrong and the district we were looking for was... by the station.  How no one else we asked knew this, I don't know.  We luckily ran into a Max Value grocery store, where the baker picked us up and drove us back to the station.  On the way, she showed us where her store was - sure enough, it was around the corner from the station, beside the park - exactly the opposite way from where the maps sent us.  Oh well, we got the cake and it was delicious: mango raspberry, zebra, mont blanc, and strawberry ...