Voyage Junkie

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 ...

Our third day in Kobe took us to the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art located near the waterfront in the HAT district.  It was an interesting building designed by architect Ando Tadao , who we later discovered also designed Gifu's convention center.  He had no formal architectural training, although he traveled and took in famous buildings.  His style is sleek and spacious, and his designs often take the environment into account rather than making the environment bend to the design.  He uses natural light to a great extent, as with a church he designed, where the cross is made from cutouts in the building's wall so sunlight shines through.  This museum didn't work so much with light, but the design played impeccably between lines and circles . The permanent collection was probably the best laid-out of any museum I've seen.  The first floor began with self-portraits, showcasing primarily Japanese artists with a few Westerners thrown in.  This slowly t...

The second day we hopped a train to the district of Nada, where we started off with a tour of a sake brewery.  When we lived in CO we took tours of local mead and beer breweries, so it was something I wanted to do before leaving Japan.  There are a plethora of sake breweries in Nada, and they each have a slightly different history and way of making sake.  We chose Kiku-Masamune  because it was easily accessible from the train station and advertised a museum component.  It was a wonderful experience and quite educational for me.  It was free to enter and we also got a sake tasting.  We bought a few bottles as presents and one for ourselves, and the nice cashier deftly threw in some commemorative sake cups on the sly. The pictures above come from the museum.  The process this brewery utilizes is called kimoto zukuri , a traditional method of making moto , or sake seed mash.  It starts by mixing malted rice with steamed rice and well wate...

Since our winter vacation is incredibly long, a week after our trip to Nagano it was time for another mini-vacation, this time to Kobe.  We loved Kobe when we visited over the summer , and so were eager to get to know the city a bit better.  The day we arrived was a true winter day, cold but clear.  We met up with Matt's Japanese teacher (whom we met on our last trip to the city), and after a lunch of negitoro   donburi  (raw tuna and scallions over rice with miso), we went for a long stroll around the canals of Kobe.  It took us a long time to find the canal promenade as we wandered around the industrial ports, but eventually we came upon a scenic park and walkway that followed the canals.  There were even canal cats wandering around, chasing seagulls. On the way to the canal district we passed many shrines and temples.  The area seemed particularly dedicated to Inari , the fox god whose main shrine is in Kyoto .  Matt's teacher pointed o...

The resplendent view from the window of our train, as we headed back to Gifu on 12/28.

Above: the view from our hotel room.  We overlooked the train station and some night life. This is an actual double-decker bus we found as we wandered around Nagano city one night.  I personally love the posters on the front for "Phantom" and "Les Mis."  It pretends to be a British pub restaurant, although I think most British people would cringe to see how their food and drink has been Japanified.  Corn and mayo on everything! Although, on second thought, maybe that improves British food? This building to the right is a post office/bank, denoted by the bright orange flags and T-shaped symbols on the signage.  I was drawn to the design of the building.  It reminds me of America's old-fashioned public office buildings that hold so much charm and history.  This building hearkens back to traditional Japanese aesthetics and architecture in much the same way. We stayed two nights in Nagano city, and we found a great Vietnamese restaurant ...

If you're keeping up with the blog, you know that I was recently in a dance performance in Gifu, on a day that was also my Artistic Director's birthday (December 18th, 2011).  A few days later I went to the last class before winter vacation.  It was a crazy class in that we were all tired, one of my friends spilled tea in her bag and had to skip out of most of class, and another girl was there to run through a solo she's performing in a few weeks.  After the warm-up, I spent most of the time doing yoga and Pilates.  When the solo dancer needed a break, Yuko sensei called me over and spent some time teaching me  noh -inspired classical Japanese dance.  She put on music and improvised, and I followed along, fascinated by the subtle movements.  I decided, then and there, to make her a birthday dance honoring our times of cultural exchange.  I set the piece to an Okinawan song, and for movement I improvised much like Yuko sensei, attempting to stay w...

Once again, amid tales of forthcoming apocalypse, we've rung in the next year!  Last year was incredibly cold and a bit snowy, so we watched fireworks from our balcony and didn't do much.  This year was mild, and our chiropractor lent us a bike for Matt to ride (I already had one given to me by a good friend who returned to America over the summer), so we had no excuse to stay in like the homebodies we are.  We rode around the mountain to Inaba Jinja, a prominent Gifu shrine.  I was amazed by the beauty of the place as well as the liveliness of the street lined with vendors.  I'm used to visiting Kyoto, Tokyo, Osaka, and other such cities, where there are tons of historical sites that draw huge numbers of visitors each year, but even counting the Nobunaga Festival I've never seen this sort of gathering in Gifu before.  To the left is the view from the first shrine torii  down through the street of vendors.  We arrived about 11:25 and took a ...