Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in japanshin's LiveJournal:

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Sunday, July 5th, 2009
11:55 pm	This order is the important secret which must never be emitted to the outside. Okay this should be the final post I wanted to make from last month that I didn't have time to do. Then I can catch up with new stuff like pictures and mountains. So next on the list was work! First I'd like to say.. I'm a leader at heart. I never really thought of myself that way before I started working for Nova because I don't really care about power or control over other people. So when someone else wants to dominate an event or situation or conversation, I hand over the reigns freely. I'm very content to sit back and let everyone else worry about everything that needs to be done. I'm very good at letting things go and doing only the bare minimum of what's required of me. However, if I enter a room with a bunch of unorganized slackers, I'll start ordering everyone around and getting things done. If I feel like the people in my boat are missing an advisor I'll take on that role. If something needs to get done and no one's doing that, I'll do it. That's how I felt about Itayado when I was transferred in February. Like there was no one around to make sure everyone was doing their job right, so I became that person. I make sure everything's getting done the way it should be. I make sure I know where everything is, so if someone needs something they can ask me. If something's amiss, I write a note about it and make sure something gets done about it. I try to keep the staff and teachers informed of what's going on on both sides of the door, so that we can limit miscommunication and mistranslation. When someone's having a bad day, I feel like it's my responsibility to make them feel better. Coupled with that, I've now been trained to teach every kind of lesson that Nova offers. The only thing I'm not allowed to do is teach other people how to do stuff. That kind of bothered me, so I brought it up with the staff.. which led to a very depressing conversation. "Kae, I don't want to teach kids every day. I have to teach all the normal kids classes and all the special kids classes. It's not fair!" "Well you're the best kids teacher, everyone wants your lessons!" "There's a new guy coming, why can't he teach kids?" "He hasn't been trained to teach kids." "Can I train him to teach kids?" "No, you have to be in upper management to do that." "But Chris F. taught people how to teach kids and he's not in upper management." "But he's a very good kids teacher." "So what you're saying is that I'm a bad kids teacher?" She got confused about that and dropped the conversation. Anyway, although I'm not allowed to teach other people to do things, I am allowed to write my own lesson plans! They've been giving me some time off to write, and then they send my lessons to all the schools so that every teacher in Nova can use them to teach with! It's a lot of fun. I really like making plans and sharing my techniques and stuff like that. I want to say that working as a teacher comes in many stages. First, there's the freaking-out-stage where you don't really know how to do anything and you hope to god nothing goes wrong and it's hard enough just to remember all the things you're supposed to do and get everything done in time. Then there's the stage when you figure out the system, you know what works and what doesn't, and it becomes just another job. Then after a year or two, it all comes naturally and you start finding YOUR way to do things. You feel like you know the best way to do some things and you want to share that with everyone else. My "Girl's Talk" lesson went really well. First, there were only two people who were in the right age group, but it was fun anyway. We went over some slang and tried using it to talk about boys, clothes, and bedrooms. They liked it so much they want more, so I'm having Part II in a couple weeks. We'll see how that goes.. I really like teaching slang because when people talk the way I'm used to hearing people talk, I feel a lot more comfortable opening up to them. Like if someone's speaking in Shakespear, even if it's done flawlessly and beautifully, I'm not really going to feel comfortable expressing my opinions to them. But if someone's using my own slang, I begin to feel more comfortable. That's something about language that I've learned since coming here. My friends feel the same way, too. If I can throw in a little kansai ben, they feel like I'm really speaking on their terms in Japanese, and they more easily open up to me. Speaking of language... I signed up for Japanese lessons! It all started when all my plans one day got incredibly cancelled. I found myself for the first time with nowhere to go and nothing to do. I was looking in one of Takiko's magazines and I found an add for an English school. I called them up curiously and they told me to come in. The next thing I knew, I was having a free trial lesson and forking over a bunch of money for some private lessons. Next month I'll start taking an actual class. I'm halfway excited about it, and halfway sorta dreading my lack of free time. We'll see how it all goes! It feels funny that a year ago at this time, I was in Finland kicking it with Sonya, Terhi, Paivi, Maija, Elina, and their families. Those were good times. Last year, summer was a lot hotter! This year the rainy season has lasted quite a long time. It's cloudy every day and I feel comfortable going outside without a hat or a parasol. It's still raining every other day and I have yet to use any air conditioning. Too bad Elina didn't come this year instead of last year! Finally, I want to say that I've fallen in love with Kanon Wakeshima. I feel a little awkward about this, being that she's a girl, and I've never met her, and I didn't go to her concerts, and I still don't really like Japanese pop music... But she plays the cello, she's an artist, she's Japanese, she's kankei with Mana, she's totally hot, she's everything I wish I could be, and translating all her songs is helping me with my kanji. Goals in life at the moment: Go to Yakushima. Go to Gunkanjima. Go to the Shutokengaikakuhosuiro. Meet Kanon Wakeshima. Meet C.S. Friedman Meet Tsutomu Nihei again. Publish a book someday. Publish a comic someday. Read Japanese magazines without a dictionary. Get married. How many of those do you think I can pull off before I die? - Jenshin P.S. For homework I have to think of customs that we have in the U.S. that we don't have in Japan. Honestly, the only one I can think of is saying hi to people when you're walking down the street.. is there anything else? I think my opinion has been jaded from living here for too long. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
9:48 am	"Loveliness of the ribbon of the dot" I have a friend named Elizabeth. I have a mortal enemy named elizabeth. There's a town in Colorado called Elizabeth. One of the Japanese exchange students that my family took care of went to school in Elizabeth. My awesome friend Alison is from Elizabeth. My friend from Elizabeth is the same friend I went to see the musical Elisabeth with. The musical Elisabeth that I saw was done by Takarazuka. But the original one is German. When my friend who's from Elizabeth talks to me about Elisabeth, I have to make sure about which one she's referring to. It doesn't help that Elizabeth and Alison know of eachother. Or that I saw them both in the same week. Or that I saw Elisabeth in the same week that I saw Elizabeth. Or that when I mentioned this to another friend, she asked why my mortal enemy was in Japan. Anyway. The Elisabeth I'm going to talk about now is this one: http://kageki.hankyu.co.jp/elisabeth/img/blog/21024768.jpg Takarazuka puts out this musical every two years. I know some of you on this list are lucky enough to have seen Mizu's extravagant performance. I saw it on DVD at my old friend Sarah's house, late one night. I had been slightly interested in Takarazuka back then. But I wasn't the fan I am now. I actually remember very little from the DVD, except that Der Todd was pretty hot. When Sarah bestowed her poster of it to me, I felt a little unworthy as I hadn't seen the real show. Now that I've seen it, I feel a lot more comfortable about owning the poster. Elisabeth is one of the biggest performances by Takarazuka. The first day the tickets were on sale, every seat on the weekends had been sold out before noon. Takiko and I tried calling the ticket counter every five minutes for an hour, to no avail, and I eventually I ran down to JR and got fairly good tickets for a weekday. The show was nothing short of amazing. I am saying this as someone who has seen it for the first time. I hadn't seen the German one, I didn't remember the Yukigumi one. So when I'm talking about this, it's all a new thing to me. I'm not comparing it to the other versions. The story is about the life of Elisabeth, strewn with her obsession with Death, and Death's love for her. It reminded me a bit of the Phantom of the Opera, where you have this tragic, dark character. Only in Phantom, the character was kind of just a stalker. Where as Death just waits for her.. He doesn't come looking for her, he just waits for those moments where she thinks of him. Alison pointed out that Death may not actually even be a character, but just a figment of her imagination. As a figment, he is steaming hot. Long fingers, icy hair, ebony clothes.. A tall figure in layers of velvet, commanding the darkest realms. He is the embodiment of someone to long for, as Elisabeth longs for death. And so he is beautiful by nature. I just can't get enough of that idea. When I go to see a musical, the most important thing for me is the music. The second most important thing is the costume design. The third is the dancing. The fourth is the story. If I want a good story, I can always go read a book. If I want sexy bodies and amazing costumes, I can look on the internet. Or in a fashion magazine. And so music is my main priority in a musical. I love live music, in all forms. And music that tells a story, music sung by beautiful women, that's just extra dressing. If the music isn't so good, well at least I can rely on the costumes and set design to impress me, the story to grab my attention, and perhaps some dancing here and there that's worth the watch. So going to Takarazuka will probably be somewhat worth the money no matter what show I see. Elisabeth, being an actual musical, that's been slaved over and perfected, that's been made not just to make Japanese housewives happy, but to appeal to people all over the world, had good music. And not only that, but Sena Jun is an amazing singer. I swear she never missed a note. Her voice is so clear, so powerful. Everytime she sang, she spoke, she whispered, I felt it. I left the theater with her voice still reverberating through my head: Eliiiisabeeeeth! Eliiiiisabeth! Pretty much everyone was really good at singing. Well of course, they have to be, it's their job. But there was something about it that really got to me.. I really noticed it. When I went to work the next day, I was still carrying their voices inside of me.. I couldn't stand it. It's like being in love, you have this huge powerful feeling inside of you, but no one around you seems to notice at all. At every blank moment, a few words from the musical would pop into my head and my heart would ache. It was too much to bear. I had to do something to fix it. So I went back. Not to see the musical, just back to the theater. I thought.. maybe buying tickets to the next show would satisfy me. Maybe being around people who I knew had seen Elizabeth recently would satisfy me. Maybe buying something at QR would satisfy me. But deep down I was dreading that nothing would.. that I would have to live with this longing until the CD or DVD came out. I went with my friend Caroline. We wandered around, ate lunch, did a bit of shopping, chatted.. And then at one point she had to go to the bathroom. We went to the theater and while she was doing her thing, I found a TV screen advertising the musical with clips from all the past productions.... And the music.. I could fill the words in to the songs in my head, I could add missing notes to the fragments of melodies I had remembered... And then suddenly I was satisfied. It was enough. I bought a huge poster at the gift shop. There was no place in my room to hang it, so it's in my closet now. Every time I put away my laundry, Death stares at me between her slender, pale fingers. I also bought a sumire keychain. It's a very subtle symbol of my obsession. If you don't know about Takarazuka, you aren't going to recognize that that's what it's from. Like my Final Fantasy meishi case, or my Shinra necklace, or my Advent Children ribbon... Subtly being a fan.. the people who don't know don't notice. After I bought these things, a terribly embarrassing thing happened. My poster was in a giant bag. I did a lot of looking around in the store before we finally left. Then we walked around some more, did a little more shopping, were pretty idle. There were people around, it definitely wasn't a quiet time of day. Finally, we were leaving one store and about to head back to the station when suddenly I noticed that a cell phone strap in a plastic bag had somehow gotten stuck onto my poster bag. The strap's bag had a little sticky seal and god knows how it managed to get stuck to my bag... I don't know how I didn't notice it before, it was just stuck right there! Hanging off of my bag! I was so embarrassed, I was a theif without even realizing it! We went alll the way back to the theater and I returned it as stealthily as I could. I'm so glad the store was still open and no one saw me return it because I honestly have no idea what I would have said in Japanese to try to explain myself. Eep! Well that's all about Elisabeth.. I still can't wait for the CD and DVD to come out, but I'm okay with waiting now. More stories to tell for next time: I went to two parties, saw Beeken-sensei, went up in the mountains, completed the Akashi Stamp Rally, and signed up for Japanese Classes. Some day I'll catch up with myself on all of these posts! See ya guys! - Jenshin (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, June 26th, 2009
8:29 am	Hina makes you Sweet. You can't help putting! Still trying to catch up with myself in terms of telling everyone stories! By the way, I think I've caught up with all my emails and stuff since last time.. if there's anyone who I didn't get back to, please poke me!! So here is part two of my tale... My parents came from June 1st through 12th. We did so many things.. It's all sort of a blur in my mind. I had pretty much every other day off of work, and was able to go sightseeing on all of them.. Just a long 12 day string of sightseeing, walking around, enjoying Japan. It was really wonderful. I learned a few things about myself.. First, I love making plans. Second, if my plans go wrong, I get incredibly moody. My coworker told me this is why I'm a leader.. lots of people can't be bothered to make plans, so they're the followers. But I sit there making up plans and making sure everyone follows them exactly.. Not just with sightseeing, but with other things to.. like lesson plans, or how I go about cooking something.. It's funny, time doesn't really mean much to me. I never use my alarm clock, I just go to bed way early so I know I'll be able to wake up naturally. I don't wear a watch, even to work. I don't care if I end up eating dinner at 5 pm or 10 pm, I don't have any strict schedule.. But damn, if I decide I'm gonna get 10 things done in one day, then those 10 things are gonna happen. And I've already prioritized them in case we have to skip one of them, and I've made up some alternatives if something goes wrong, and I've thought the entire thing out in less than 2 minutes. So I probably totally tired my parents out.. But I think I offered them a really excellent perspective of what Japan is about, and where Kobe fits into that sphere, and how my life fits into that. And I'm satisfied in that, and I think they feel pretty fullfilled on that level. And that's what I wanted. If anyone else ever comes to Kobe, I'll probably do all these things with you too. Here a giant picture of most of the stuff we did. I'll explain the pictures.. then you'll never have to come to Japan! http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000Parents.jpg From left to right on the top row.... First, the forest on Arashiyama. I love the wide variety of trees there... When you get deeper into the mountains, it's all cedar, but here on the outskirts we've got so many kinds of trees.. Second, the monkeys on the mountain! They're part of a research facility, but they're actually native to Japan and have been seen in all of the mountains on the island. Japanese people are shocked to hear that in other parts of the world there are no monkeys in the mountains. Third, some kind of bird at Himeji castle. Just thought it made a good picture. Fourth, Himeji castle itself, with some lovely flowers in the forground. Japanese castles are fun! Fifth, my parents on a boat in Kobe Harbor. You can see Kobe Port Tower in the background, as well as some of the mountains we went up. Sixth, a bonsai tree on display in Himeji. I love these trees.. it's like nature plus art equals totally awesome! Back to the left on the bottom row... First, my parents standing in front of the Sagano Bamboo Forest. It's a really peaceful, beautiful place. Second, mattcha and sweets. I love all the subtle flavors of Japanese tea time! Under that, my parents standing on Venus bridge. The bridge loops around twice, so my parents are on top of eachother, on the same bridge. Next to that, a lizard at the Osaka Aquarium. Kick ass!! Above that, a Bunraku doll. They're very expressive... You wouldn't think something as stiff as a doll would be able to express such an array of emotions. Next, the famous Kobe Night View. I'm pleased to finally have a camera that can handle night shots!!! Then, some hydrangea, or ajisai, which is the seasonal flower here. Fairly famous, but not as much as sakura, of course. Then, my mom's old classmate's wife giving a Koto performance for us in her home.. More on that next! Finally, we had dinner the last night with my friend Mai in a fancy Izakaya. I want to point out that my crab's shell came with my crab flavored spaghetti, and I'm holding it up because I'm really excited about it. However I accidently left it at the restaurant, which really bums me out.. We were just starting to get to be friends. Also, my shirt says, "Bitch Rabbit." Only in Japan do they 1. Make shirts that say Bitch Rabbit and 2. You can wear them around without offending anyone. Well I couldn't take my spaghetti crab shell home, but I did find a full crab body on the beach to make up for it.. He's about as big as my thumb nail and he's sitting peacefully next to my cactus collection now. The cactus count is now up to 6 and they have names now. All right, I said I'd mention my mom's classmate's friend.. This is a strange story of coincidences.. My mother didn't go to any of her JHS reunions, but she recieved all the emails about them and noticed that one of her classmates lived in Japan. She contacted him and he was willing to go out to dinner with us. I was a little nervous because I felt like I was responsible for setting up my own blind date with people even my parents didn't really know.. but it ended up being awesome! First, the couple was SO nice and accommodating. Just by looking at their outfits you could tell that they both had passion for traditional arts and that put me at ease.. this isn't the typical Gaijin and Japanese Girl couple. They really have things deeply in common. First, we went to their lovely home in downtown Osaka. Not only is it downtown, it's also huge.. It must cost them a fortune! They have two tatami rooms, one for the Koto, and one for Kimono. They also have a study, an expansive living room, an alcove in front of the genkan, and wonderful taste in interior decoration, incorporating modern and traditional elements. Phew! When I first laid eyes on the Koto, I was completely won over by them.. Koto is my second favorite instrument ever! (Do you guys know what the first is?? Heehee.) I love it because it's a stringed instrument that you can play multiple harmonies on.. Not like a violin where it's just one voice, but like a piano where you're doing more than one thing at once. I love it, it's just so beautiful to listen to! The woman even let me try it out! Then she showed me some of the dolls she makes.. Paivi should have been there!! It was great.. She doesn't take any shortcuts, she makes the clothes separately and puts them on the doll, and the clothes are all hemmed appropriately, minutures of the real thing. This includes traditional styled dolls with layers and layers of kimono. So impressive! Next, they drove us to a restaurant.. the drive included a detour into the Red Light District of Osaka. This was so interesting!! I guess because it's traditional in its own way. Prostitution isn't illegal in Japan the way it is in the U.S. There's a long history of it.. the way I see it, because of its tradition and everything, it's not this weird gross thing.. it's just something that is. If you want some, you can go buy it in a place where it's considered appropriate to do so. Nowadays, you can get a prostitute just about anywhere, but in the old days you'd come to the Soaplands or something specifically. That's why places like that are going out of business.. but it was neat to see what was left. Like most Japanese shops, these places are like normal houses with the living part upstairs and the shop part downstairs. Only instead of a door to the shop, there isn't even a wall there.. it's wide open so anyone can see the goods inside. So basically you're driving down the street, you see some light coming out of a normal looking building, and then as you pass by you realize that the whole thing is inside is colorful and well-lit, filled with soft curtains and things that are appealing to the eye. Behind some kind of counter is a young woman, looking like a model from a magazine, with her hair done up in the latest style. She looks completely out of place in the traditional-styled house, and therefore even more stunning. Sometimes there are mirros and things so she can be seen from all angles, and she waves and smiles at you as you go by. In front of the counter is her seller, usually an old, wrinkled woman running the business. I assume you'd do the business and bargaining with the older woman, and then take the young girl upstairs. Very interesting! My father was in the front seat of the car, so when we passed by they'd all wave and call to him, but then when they saw me and my mother in the back seat they stopped. It happened again and again.. Finally we went to an Okinawan restaurant.. did I ever tell you I CAN'T EVER HAVE ENOUGH CHAMPLOO!!! Well it's true.. And I'm so glad we went there. My parents learned a lot of Japanese while they were here, accented from some tapes they'd listened to at home. I guess it's really fun to use the language in a foreign country! I encourage everyone to do that! My dad got really good at differentiating kanji, and deciphering the meaning based on context - that's awesome! See, kanji isn't so bad, we should have it in English too! Haha! The day before my parents left, I went to Takarazuka. That deserves its own email. I'll get back to you guys later.. I gotta get ready to go to Ishikawa tomorrow. Apparently I'm going hiking in Nagano the next day. - Jenshin (Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 17th, 2009
8:55 pm	He pictured to herself the happy days of the past Once again, it's been a while. If you've written me an email in the last month, I've read it and am just now starting to reply to some of them. If you've sent me a book in the mail, I got it and loved it. If you've tried to have a conversation with me via Gmail, it probably got sent to my parent's computer on accident and I never got a chance to see it. From now on, that won't be happening. If you want to tell me anything important, try sending an email instead. I also had a chance to get to the post office finally last Monday. I had such a backlog of things to mail, it took all day to get everything organized.. And finally THANK YOU SO MUCH for all your suggestions for my Girl Talk Lesson. It went really well with your help!!! So basically four things happened. First, I went to Shiga again, and it was amazing. Second, my parents came to visit, and it was tons of fun. Third, I took on a whole ton of new responsibilities at work. Fourth, I saw Elisabeth done by Takarazuka. Let's take these one at a time.. One post at a time... Tonight I'm in a very reflective mood. Now that summer's rolling along, I'm turning nostalgic. I looked up randomly from some writing for work to ask Takiko for a generic male name and she told me she definitely wasn't the right person to ask. I realized then that I'm so used to living here, it's gone past that strong barrier between house and home. Takiko isn't Japanese anymore, she's just my friend. Takiko and I are very similar in that we're always doing something. We never sit still. She took up making her own bracelets last week and this week she's going to Okinawa. And I, for example, went to Shiga the weekend before my parents came to visit, came home for a nap, and then left for the airport. That's pretty much how life always is for Takiko and I. We rarely see eachother. And we enjoy life. My friend Elizabeth lives in Kimoto, which is on the northern edge of Lake Biwa. If you like lakes, definitely look up Lake Biwa. It's a huge landmark, like Lake Michigan or something. Standing on the shore, you can't see the other end of it. If you ask anyone about Lake Biwa, they'll tell you it's one big cess pool, completely polluted and disgusting. That's true, I guess, if you live at the south end. The big cities pollute it and also try using it for water. If you're into water purification methods, that's the place to get a job. Holy god the biggest rolly poly I've ever seen just walked across my art notebook! Outside, you! Anyway, Elizabeth lives near the north end of the lake, which is as pretty "away-from-it-all" as you can get. First we rented bikes. I got to practice riding for maybe 30 minutes or so last year when I was in Finland. That was enough that when I went riding with Elizabeth I wasn't like - Oh god it's a bike!! And was more like - Whee let's try this! I'm still quite wobbly, but I'm getting the hang of it. We biked to the base of a mountain where there was a lift so you could go up and see the view. The lift was pretty much enough bench space for your butt and almost no back, held to a wire by a thin pole. The insecurity of it all was countered by the fact that the ground was maybe one foot down below, less if you have longer legs. And the grass down there was nicely trimmed. Over some various loudspeakers they were playing tinny traditional Japanese songs. It was all very ridiculous and fun at the same time. At the top was an astounding view... But it also started to rain. I'll have to go back another time. http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000Kimoto.jpg After that, the wind picked up terribly and we went back down the mountain. After stopping to take pictures of an abandoned house, we took our bikes to the other side of the mountain where the lake was. The clouds parted, the wind died down, and maybe you can imagine how amazing it felt, riding my bike along the edge of a giant lake with beautiful greenery everywhere and patchy clouds overhead. We biked around a bend and back, then ate watermelon and whipped peanut butter cream sandwiches for lunch. It was just so beautiful... http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000Biwako.jpg After that we went to Nagahama, which is a little ways down the edge of the lake. We passed by the castle there, which is nothing to be proud of, but I can check it off of the castles I've seen now. Then we went through some gardens and to the lake again, where the sun was getting ready to set. I thought my sunset behind Akashi bridge was probably the most beautiful of the sunsets I've seen and taken pictures of, and my sunset through the Fuji Televi building was the coolest sunset I'd seen and photographed, but the pictures I took at Lake Biwa totally blow those away. http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000BiwaSunset.jpg It was just sorta one of those days where everything was perfect. And it ended with Curry and Karaoke and Shinkenger Roll Cake. That's all for now. Next, my parents, and Next, work and Elisabeth. - Jenshin (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 8th, 2009
7:41 am	"Breaking down the pins and get hot communication!" Hey I haven't said much in a while. My parents are visiting and I don't have much time for anything else right now. For all the people I owe an email to, be patient, all right? I'll get back to the internet next week... Next week I have a special lesson called, "Girl Talk." Basically they want me to do a lesson geared for teenagers and young women and teach them some slang and casual phrases, and also how to talk about love. Does anyone have any good ideas for new phrases they could learn, or any games we could play? Some things I should maybe teach them: I have a crush on _ _ is so hot. Wow that list is really lacking... Does anyone know any silly pick-up lines or are there any fun song lyrics about this kind of thing? This is totally not my area of expertise.... That's why I'm asking for some help!! - Jenshin (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009
10:35 am	Fall Out You! (Written on my pants) So the weekend I should have gone to Shiga I spent taking long walks by myself at home and generally bumming around and being a little lonely. The weekend I did go to Shiga, it rained for two days straight. I was gonna go to Shiga again next next week, to make up for it, but I also wanted to go to Ishikawa that week too, to make up for the last time I went when it was also rainy. I may just end up inviting my Ishikawa friends to Shiga, if Elizabeth doesn't mind, and then getting to see all of them all at once. Anyway, if ever anyone made good use of a rainy weekend, we certainly did! The first night we spent far, far too long figuring out how to play an old Japanese game called Hanafuda which uses cards. By the time we'd found out the rules and how it worked, it was about time for bed. The next day I was crossing my fingers that the rain would let up. Of course, it had no such intention. We got up early and went for a little local sightseeing.. Elizabeth's small town of Kinomoto has lots of really ancient-looking buildings and abandoned places. Up the hill is a fairly large temple with a pretty huge statue of Jizo. We didn't do much aside from look around, as the rain sorta made everything seem wet, cold, and miserable. On the way home, we stopped in every single souvenir shop and bought lots of cake and cookies, then we went back to her house to eat everything. Then we had to think up better plans, something fun that we could do that didn't involve having to see from long distances, putting away umbrellas, or trudging through mud. We ended up going to see Hikone Castle, which is one of the more famous ones in Japan. I'd have to say, this is probably my best time I ever had at a Japanese castle. Usually castles are either A. No longer there, B. rebuilt with some kind of hideous museum inside, C. just a castle, with very little information whatsoever, the point being that you go up the stairs to the top and back down again. At Hikone, the original castle is still standing, the museum is away from the castle, elsewhere grounds, and is pretty damn awesome.. Well worth the 400 yen. The hill that the castle is on is beautiful and there are some great gardens on the grounds. The castle itself is one of the go up and come back down types, without even a view at the top, but it's somewhat interesting and has a nifty bridge at the entrance to the inner gate. It also has a mascot, which is a cat called Hikonyan. It was cute enough that I bought a stuffed animal. Usually I don't like mascots.. The Hanshin Tigers mascot is hideous, in my opinion. And Itayado's mascot is a hermit crab with big lips and eyelashes.. whoever thought that was a good idea? But Hikonyan is really, really cute! And he has a girlfriend and a nemesis.. I also bought MAGNETS of some famous Japanese people.. that was fun, too. Can you tell who they are? http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000Magnets.jpg After that, it wasn't late enough to have dinner yet, so we Karaoke'd it out for a while until we were hungry. I'm getting better at this whole Karaoke thing.. the only problem is most of the music I know in Japanese I found while I was in high school. And most of it had infiltrated the internet after having already been popular in Japanese years ago.. therefore it's damn OLD music. I was wondering if anyone could reccommend some new songs to me! What's your favorite Japanese song made in the last five years? I prefer stuff that sounds a bit 80s. I was really excited because the place we went to happened to have Koori no Emperor, which I totally did not think I'd ever find at a Karaoke place. They also had Zettai Unmei Mokushiroku, with the really long ending, which I also thought would never appear in Karaoke. Who in their right mind would sing either of those songs!! For dinner, we had really, really, really good katsu, then went back home and watched 20 episodes of the abridged version of Yu-Gi-Oh, which is probably one of the most hilarious things I've ever seen. I wish all anime was like this, so I didn't have to actually watch full lengths of things, and could just laugh at all the stupid antics instead. Then we ended the night with a few rounds of Hanafuda. By pure luck, I ended up winning every time. Poor Elizabeth, it's her game and she never won once. In the morning, the rain had stopped and the weather was beyond beautiful. I enjoyed it by riding in a train home for three hours and then falling asleep for three hours.. Man, why must the weather taunt me like this... At least I got to enjoy the sun sparkling off the rice fields at the base of the poufy mountains under the clear blue sky.. while being pressed to the window by 100 highschoolers crammed into the same train car. Yay. http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000Shiga.jpg - Jenshin P.S. Because of this Swine Flu scare, no one is allowed in public places without a face mask. Most stores were out of masks, so my company ordered special masks to be worn during lessons. I wonder what people visiting Japan will think when they look around at everyone with masks over their face. (Keikei it's impossible for me to type a lower-case M when talking about masks now.. I have to do find/replace on all my emails.) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 13th, 2009
7:04 pm	Golden Week I just realized I wrote this a week ago but never posted it. I haven't felt like writing recently about anything truly adventuresome, but I feel the need to add a few tidbits.. I suppose this is a more personal update than usual. My awesome-friend Alison came over for a while. Alison understands me. I was going to go back with her to her house afterward, but I wore myself out being inspired. Some things we did... Food: Katsu, squishy pan, goma dango, cake, CAKE! Turkish food. Karaoke: I will never forget, or forgive, Takiko for thinking I was asking such a personal question when I just wanted to know if she wanted to do the male voice or the female voice.. and I will never, never forget her answer. And I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. When in doubt, Two-Mix is always the answer. Takarazuka: My favorite place in the world. Just being there gets me on a high. The show wasn't the best, but I still love singing and dancing and all that. I really don't mind so long as it inspires me. Somehow, I have procured a ticket to Elizabeth next month. It is on a Thursday, which is not a day I have off, but I have managed to make it work out. I can't wait. I wore myself out being excited for four days straight, and ended up spending a rainy wednesday sitting at home and redecorating my room. A small trip to Ikea and the hundred yen store ended with me sewing my own curtains and putting together the best window corner ever. In some previous entry I was talking about how my sense of aesthetics don't go with my sense of cool, but I tried to make them fit here, and I think it sorta worked out. http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000Jellyfish.jpg The curtains literally cost 400 yen to make.. I can't get over that! To think that people buy their own curtains... I now know when the Hosts come out, and where they hang. And oh god do I love me some mullet-y goodness. Some day I should try dressing up in uber-fancy clothes just to see if they'll ask me to join them... oh but then what would I do! I wouldn't be able to pay to actually go, I'd have to decline... Kae is my destiny. She's the new staff at my branch. She was born 2 days after my sister was born. Her mom was born 2 days and 8 years after my mom was born. She studied abroad at CSU the same semester I studied at KG. She hates every single food that I like. Every single one. She can sing in Russian, and she thinks cacti are beyond cute. Her favorite color is purple. She lives near Takarazuka. It's destiny. Random thoughts. Little things I hate: People who complain about not getting enough sex. People who complain about not having enough money (with the exception of college students!!). People who complain about how much they hate the system but won't lift a finger to change it. Little things I love: When someone has the same music tastes as me. When someone stays over at my house. Jellyfish. When a student laughs. Tell me a story, okay? - Jenshin (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, May 1st, 2009
9:05 am	"Travel bear going with friends" A slack in emails usually means I've been doing way too much. Let me sum up... I haven't been to an amusement park since before I can really remember clearly. Going to Universal Studios Japan was fun, but I have nothing to really compare it to, so I can't make any educated opinions on Japanese amusement parks or anything. All I can do is share some pictures. I am a little embarrassed, eating at the Pink Cafe was seriously the most girliest thing I've ever done in my life. http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000USJ.jpg I totally thought I'd be the kind of person to hate roller coasters.. or that they'd make me sick or something. But actually, I love it.. It's like flying. Or like piloting some kind of futuristic fast airship-car! In other news, my friend Kaj sent me a box of win and science: http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/2079KajPresents.jpg And finally, I went to an abandoned railroad track!! Words do this little justice... http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000VersionScenery.jpg - The green mountains and gorgeous riverbed http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000VersionTunnels.jpg - Train tunnels and flashlights http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000VersionRailway.jpg - Abandoned things Some highlights of interest... First, this is one of the first natural riverbeds I've seen in Japan. Most other rivers are cemented in. Seeing rocks bared by water and natural rapids was a big relief. Until we spotted a kyaker among them... I can't imagine how he got through it all until the end, it was a pretty rough river at parts. I don't think my photos really catch the magnitude of some of these rocks. Second, train tunnels!! If you turn off your flashlight, it's pitch black. You litterally cannot see anything at all in there. It was totally awesome. There were creepy things like hooks and wires and weird writing on the walls Third, train tracks! Because it was made for trains, it was pretty easy-going the whole way. The path was wide and any dangerous edges or falling-rock areas had walls of cement to keep the train safe. Sometimes these walls had iron handles for you to climb up or down them and we did a little exploring of these.. getting down into the river bed, or going up over some wall or something.. The worst was that I found this giant, sheer wall with the iron rungs and I felt really compelled to climb it.. And it ended up absolutely terrifying. Like I kept thinking about how old the wall was and how unstable it could be and how I was way over the tops of the trees.. And moths kept landing on my face and it was hard not to let go of the rungs to brush them off. I got some fun pictures, though.. Oh, and there was nothing interesting on the other side of the wall. Fourth, there was a big sign that said THIS IS NOT A HIKING TRAIL! We are not responsible for anything that happens to you here. If you get hurt, that's your own problem. And yet everyone was there with their kids. Fifth, I love Maki for her sense of adventure. Normally when I go out with people they're like - ooohh god don't step over the line, that part's not on the map. Maki's like - Ooh let's go over there! Oh it's too dangerous for me, how about you go over there Jen, and I'll just stand here and take pictures of you. Maki is my new favorite! One more thing, I got myself a new camera. I now know how to say things like "dpi" and such in Japanese. I am massively in love with my new camera, and have taken over 200 pictures in the last two days. I also got myself more cactus plants.. I need to stop this addiction. Well that's all for now. Going to Takarazuka on Sunday and possibly Shiga or Ishikawa next week. See you guys. - Jenshin (Comment on this)
Friday, April 24th, 2009
10:39 am	National DNA Day Happy National DNA Day 2009! I have worked very hard to put this together for you all. http://www.randomisgod.com/TwoMoons/Present/DNADay/DNA2009.html (Comment on this)
Thursday, April 16th, 2009
8:57 am	Daikichi! In Japanese culture, luck matters. Luck isn't just this flippant thing that people bank on at the slot machines.. Luck is something real, tangible.. an unseen element, force, present in the world around us that works its magic in mysterious ways. Luck is important, enough that people pay money for their fortunes to be randomly selected at temples. People will take long pilgrimages to touch a lucky stone or statue or tree. On the traditional Japanese calendar, every day is labeled with exactly how much luck one can expect. I went to a friends house. She complained about feeling bad at work all day, and her mother pointed to the calendar and told her it was because today was one of the unlucky ones so it was to be expected. Omikuji is popular in Japan. It's a little like picking straws. A long, thin canister holds some sticks upon which are written various types of luck. There is a small hole on top of the canister. You shake the thing a few times and turn it so that one of the sticks falls out. This stick tells your fortune. These things are usually found in temples and you have to pay various amounts of money to have your fortune told. I have a miniature version of one of these on a keychain that I got on Koyasan. Koyasan is one of the holiest places in Japan, so I figured if I'm going to buy a lucky item somewhere, Koyasan is the place to do it. Once a day I try the omikuji and it tells me how good my luck is. Todays luck came out - Daikichi - which is the highest I can get. Today has also shaved about two years off of my life. How do these two things relate? Well here's how it goes. I got ready for work a little bit early so I thought I'd lay down for 20 minutes before I had to leave. The only thing I hadn't done yet was putting on my shirt, which would be no big deal to do and then run out the door. So I laid down. When I lifted up my head again, it had been 40 minutes. I was 20 minutes late. Usually I get to work about 20 minutes early anyway, so part of my mind thought - I can still make it!! And the other part thought - Might as well just give it up, there's no way you can catch the next train in time. But at that point I was pretty much in disbelief. I didn't listen to either parts of my mind and I threw on my shirt and ran out the door without thinking twice. I was halfway to the station, running at full speed, when I realized I'd forgotten my wallet. In my wallet are three very important things. My two train passes that I need every day, and my atm card for if I need money at any time. Having no train passes, and no money, is a very, very bad situation when you're already 20 minutes late. Out of breath, at the stoplight, I reached in my bag and found 400 yen. It was enough to get me most of the way to work. I figured maybe I could borrow more from someone for the way home. Maybe I would have to walk part of the way. My mind was in complete panic mode at that point. I really should have gone back to get my wallet, but all I could think of was to FIRST GET ON THE TRAIN and then start the logical process of figuring out what to do. I'd have to call Itayado. I'd have to call the Head Office. Nova was gonna be pissed, my pay was gonna be cut, the students were going to suffer for this and probably complain. Maki (the staff at my branch) was going to be mad. There was no way to avoid it, really. I ran up every single step to the station and arrived, panting and sweating through my shirt, at the entrance to the train lines. . . . . . to find the station chock full of people waiting. There was a big sign in front of the crowd that I couldn't read from my angle. But looking up at the train schedule, where usually the information about which train is coming next is posted, was completely blank. Black. Nothing. What? Turns out, there was, what is so delicately called "a human accident" on the tracks. Trains in one direction were completely stopped. Trains in the other direction were 30 minutes late. Still on panic mode, I called my school and just said, "Hey Maki, there are no trains." I couldn't get out any words beyond that. In such a state of mind, I couldn't comprehend, hear, or speak any Japanese whatsoever, so she handed the phone to my coworker Ken who acted as an interpreter. There were a few problems.. First, it was so damn noisy with so many people waiting around that I couldn't hear my phone at all. School had just gotten out, so there were bored kids waiting for their train messing around, and old people trying to get home from work shouting about how angry they were, and clusters of ladies who just wanted to go shopping standing in circles chatting. Finally I found a quiet corner and Ken told me to first ask the station staff what was happening, then call back. The problem was that everyone and their mother was in a long line wanting to talk to the station staff to find out what was happening, or try to get their money back, or ask what to do, or just plain complain about what was going on. I thought it would be more worth my time to just find another way to get to my school, but I was also thinking about how I only had 400 yen in my pocket and not a real clear idea on exactly how to get to my school without using the JR train. So taking things one at a time, I waiting in line until I finally got to the front. It was then that I realized how completely my Japanese was failing me.. I couldn't even eek out an, "excuse me." I quickly dialed Maki and handed the guy my phone. He couldn't hear either, so he took my phone into some back room while I waited and waited. Eventually he gave me back my phone along with a slip of paper that was stamped with the date. I can only assume this was some kind of official document stating that inded the trains are not running and I'm late for work by no fault of my own. Ken got on the phone and told me that the staff had said JR would actually pay the fare of another train line so long as I had my train pass. Which I didn't have. Because it was back at home in my wallet. And of course I didn't have enough money to ride the trains anyway. But since I was going to be late anyway... I bolted home! Somehow the slight slope that leads up to my house feels like a mountain when you're running at full speed. My wallet was on the table. I grabbed that and downed some water before dashing over to the Rokko Liner. I sat down on the monorail train and tried to catch my breath. My mind was buzzing so to calm myself I pulled the first thing I found in my bag out, which happened to be a list of useful Japanese phrases, and read it over and over again. I was so concentrated in doing this that I very narrowly remembered to get off at the right station and had to ask some random people if this was indeed the place to transfer. By the time I got to my next train it was 5:00, which was when I was supposed to be arriving at work. I hopped on the first train that came, figuring that probably every train in the area was going to stop at Sannomiya one way or another. I thought I'd transfer to the subway at Sannomiya, because I couldn't think of any other way to get to Itayado, and wow was that going to make me late... The train I happened to jump on was some kind of limited express train, meaning that it only stops at a few stations and goes relatively faster than the other ones on the same line. While on the train, I really wanted to see the list of stations.. Just in case! I mean logically everything should stop at Sannomiya, but I wanted to see it with my own eyes and maybe judge exactly how much time it would take me to get there, and from there to Itayado. But the car was so full of the rush hour folk PLUS the people who hadn't been able to ride the JR that I couldn't get over to the sign that listed the stations. At first I didn't pay so much attention, but when it had been two stops and we still hadn't arrived at Sannomiya, I squeezed through some people, probably offending one or two, so I could get a clear view of the sign. And I found.. That not only was Sannomiya the next stop, that actually this train I was riding on was THE fastest was to get to Itayado. Wow. Daikichi at its best. I thought I might even get to the school in enough time to teach half of a lesson. At that point I started relaxing. After Sannomiya, the people thinned out and there were still seven more stops to go. I leaned against the wall and let my mind and body relax a bit. My stomach started rumbling and I realized that I hadn't eaten lunch yet and man was that going to suck when I finally got to work... I sent an email to Maki saying I was hungry and that I'd be there soon. When I arrived at Itayado, I ran for Nova. Sweaty and exhausted, I launched myself up the stairs of the building. It had been over an hour since I'd woken up from my inopportune nap. Who knew the day was going to turn out to be so hectic... Maki was so excited to see me when I came in. The first thing she said was that she'd already phoned Head Office so I didn't need to worry about reporting in late or anything. The second thing she said was, believe it or not, my first student had NOT SHOWN UP FOR HER LESSON! And there was only one student, so the lesson was completely free. I had twenty more minutes before I needed to get to work, and Maki encouraged me to have lunch with her. Wow. So basically, had my luck been even a fraction less, I could have been completely late and made a lot of people mad, but instead as it turned out, I hadn't needed to come early at all and everything worked out in my favor. That was damn amazing, if you ask me. After some sushi and tea with Maki, I felt completely refreshed and ready to start my shift. It was a nice day, the students were laid back and friendly, and in my last class the girl wanted to tell me about the wonders of hiking in the rainforest instead of doing a regular lesson. After work, I took a long walk in the cool night. Finally I got home at 10:30 pm and thought back on my luck. When I had first tried my omikuji that day, I thought certainly the thing had no real meaning whatsoever, whether I got it in Koyasan or not. But actually looking back at everything I think I was really, really lucky today. I'm glad. Now I'm going to take a shower and get enough sleep that I won't need to take a nap tomorrow. Talk to you guys later. - Jenshin (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, April 13th, 2009
9:11 pm	Happy Easter! I am writing this as I wait for my rice cooker to make me food. Rice cookers are smart that way. You can throw anything in there and hit a button and it cooks. Fantastic. National DNA Day is fast approaching, if you were interested. Contest details are on my DA site (SineSquared) and on my Two Moons site (http://www.randomisgod.com/TwoMoons). So far there are no submissions. So there's a high chance of winning so far. Last weekend I was telling my coworker Maki about how recently the nice weather makes me want to go hiking. And she said she felt the same way. So we got all excited that we both like hiking and immediately planned a trip for our next day off. It's was mindblowingly awesome. First there was the park full of cherry blossoms that overlooked the ocean. Then there was the mountain with all the beautiful views of Kobe. Then there was the mountain that was dark and forested. Next we ended up in a public park with a flower garden. The park led down a giant staircase and through a town. We went over a long bridge and then walked up 349 stairs in the direct sunlight up the side of the next mountain. The mountain after that involved rock climbing and holding on to chains so as not to fall and die, and moving quickly across narrow ledges without daring to look down. The final mountain had a million winding paths that finally all led to a temple at the bottom. The pictures do this adventure more justice than I can with words. And check out my awesome T-shirt. http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000SumaHiking.jpg The hike took 6 hours. Some day I am going to go on a 12 hour hike through a rainforest, so I was considering this as a test.. I think, what I lack in strength I make up for in endurance. And the 6 hour hike didn't make me sore and I still had energy after that to climb maybe one more of the small mountains. So I think with just a little more practice, I could manage the 12 hour one. Maki, I was surprised, did fine on the hike. (Although she was quite sore for the next 7 days.) Takiko always tells me that no Japanese women can go hiking like I do because they wear high heels too much. But Maki proves that stereotype wrong!! I'm glad to have finally found someone to go hiking with on my days off. My circle of friends has changed a lot in the past year. I'm going to make a little chart of everyone I know. http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000LifePeoples.jpg Labels are name, where they're from, and how I know them. At Nova we had an Easter Party! We all decorated eggs together and it was fun. I brought my roommate along and she ejnoyed herself. http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000Easter2009.jpg After that, I went to Sannomiya to meet up with my friends Elizabeth and Tessia. We had Turkish food. Have you had Turkish food? It was.... nothing short of amazing. The spices in it were supurb. I couldn't get over it. Then we went back to my place and spent the rest of the night ranting about random things and playing card games. Finally we went to bed, then got up in the morning to go to Takarazuka. It was excellent! They did The Mask of Zorro, based on the book. Pretty damn awesome. I'm definitely picking up the CD when it comes out. The characters were hot.. lots of cape swirling action and black leather. The only thing that kinda got to me were the costumes of the Indians. Like in the U.S., we would be SO careful to be completely historically accurate with such things in fear of offending someone. But in Japan, there's no one to take offense, so we have a line of girls doing the can-can and wearing cheezy feather hats and calling themselves "Indians" instead of "Native Americans" or whatever. It's.. interesting. Anyway, I'm a sucker for sad stories and black capes so I loved it. Plus outside the whole world was covered in flowers (which now my nose is suffering the after effects from but it was so worth it.). It was beautiful. Go enjoy spring! - Jenshin (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, April 4th, 2009
10:18 am	Taste Long!! (Xylish) I'm having another "where do I even start" moment.. Things that happened a week ago feel like a month ago. People who have come and gone feel like they're still waiting for me just around the corner. I guess I'll start with the weather, since that's got a lot to do with it. Spring came early. Early enough that plum blossoms AND Sakura blossoms are now blooming at the same time. By the time a lot of places were set up for Sakura, a lot of trees had already started to fade. During this mixture of spring, winter, and various blooming trees, Tim and I hit the monthly Kyoto flea market while it was snowing in the mountains and sunny and warm everywhere else. When I was a kid, I loved the idea of opening an old, dusty box in an attic to find wonderful, meaningless things. Of course I didn't have an attic, and my parents aren't the kind to keep around anything old and meaningless. But it was a sort of dream I had... like finding treasure. And sifting through things at the flea market was a lot like that.. Full of old, meaningless treasures and sifting through forgotten boxes. Boxes of keys, stones, shells.. The memorabilia left behind by grandfathers and great grandfathers.. Charms, bells, kimono, skulls, ancient artifacts... It was the experience of being there that I enjoyed more than buying anything.. If I bought a lot of this stuff, it would be useless to me.. It would sit in a box doing nothing for someone else to discover some day. But walking through the area was great. I was the discoverer and these were my boxes to look through. I bought a little bell, for no reason really, and that was all. But I saw some wonderful things there, and that was what made the trip worth it. Since then I've been trying to think of something to do with my garden.. I'm not one to manicure nature, and I'm not going to put a lot of time into taking particular care of plants.. But it would be nice if it was a little more organized, and maybe I could buy something to put in the garden that would make it more pleasant to look at. I thought about buying a big can that said hazardous waste or biohazard something on it, but then I realized that that wouldn't solve the problem really.. But I do have a thing for big dangerous-looking cans. Why does my sense of 'cool' always conflict with my sense of 'aesthetics.' Anyway, mostly I took pictures of temples, shrines, and flowers. Here's some of that: http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000KyotoMagic.jpg The next day, while I was at work, Sarah came over! Sarah, my old roommate from last year. I was excited and checking my mail all day waiting for her to come. Seeing her again was awesome. Like y'know when you haven't been around someone in a while and you forget all the little things that you liked about them, and then catching up with that person is so much fun. Of course I had to work the next few days, so while I was out, Sarah walked around Kobe remembering everything. These were the last few days of March.. Meaning the end of the fiscal year in Japan. Not only that, but the end of school, the beginning of the next level of school, the hiring of a bunch of people into companies, the time where transfers are given out, and all the kids in my classes are shifted around, and everyone has to do their taxes, and all that. Basically, everyone in the country is busy now. Takiko's favorite customer moved to Tokyo and she's been really upset. She told me that there's a saying in Japan, that springtime is the time of breaking away. Everything changes in the spring. Even for me, I signed a new contract and am working less hours. Takiko is being transferred to a neighboring bar. I suppose there's more breaking away now than there was in the past because of the economic crisis. On top of being busy and managing changes at work, I managed to have lots of fun having dinner and laughing about things with Sarah at night. Then on Saturday we went to Saitama, the prefecture above Tokyo. Sarah lives in Kumagaya, which might be called rural by Japanese people, although for me as an American it's pretty much as urban as anywhere else, only with shorter buildings. Anyway, the first thing we did off the train was go into a bar... which was actually made out of three train cars put together and modified. Pretty much exuding awesomeness out of every inch. The staff there were great and the people there seemed laid back. The whole place had style. We ended up staying there until 3 am. We spent most of the time at the bar drawing.. If I drew like I did there every day, I'd be so much better than I am now.. I've been thinking about that. Maybe I need to find a drawing bar in Kobe. The next day we went to Tokyo and did two amazing things that I have to talk about separately and in detail. The first was the Square-Enix showcase near Shinjuku. If you have no interest in video games, then the following paragraph probably won't make any sense. But anyway, basically I walked in the store and was immediately faced with a crate full of chocobo stuffies all pleading for me to take them home. Aside from those, the rest of the place was sorta like video games meet high society. Everything was horrifically expensive and either behind glass or displayed in such away that I wouldn't even dream of touching it. Like designer shirts and hats and action figures and stuff. The best thing, and the reason I went there to begin with, was to see Sephiroth laying peacefully in the floor, drinking in the lifeforce as he sleeps while fans walk on the glass over his body. Anyway, that was really sexy. Whoever thought to design the building to accommodate for that totally rocks my world. Upon being impressed, I felt it necessary to buy something. I thought I was buying a cardcase from FFVI but instead it was FFXI. Go me and my inability to read roman numerals. This is quite a dilemma as an FF fan... Anyway, I don't mind so much because the card case is awesome, and I've always wanted one anyway. And my money goes to support the store. And it's so damn fancy and expensive it makes me feel like being a video game is such a classy thing to do. I suppose that's what they wanted me to think though... The second was the Meguro Parasitological Museum. Probably no one else on earth got as excited about this as Sarah and I did that day. First of all, we got there within a half hour of it closing, which was a feat in itself given that we had no actual idea where it was beyond some crude map I sketched down based on an vague drawing I found on the internet. When we actually did walk through the front doors I was ready to start cheering and hugging just because we had actually managed to make it there. Anyway my first worry was that my limited Japanese would prevent me from understanding anything in the museum.. But it wasn't so bad. There's the parasite hanging out in its little jar, and then its name next to it and I could usually understand whether it was something that lived in humans or fish although details further than that were a little lost on me. Most of them were squiggly wormy things, which makes sense I guess.. The inside of our bodies are full of squiggles and wormy bits so it makes sense that the things which inhabit those places would have to be as such in order to fit in. Then there was a wall of information that included lots of pictures and a guidebook from way back in the day about how to avoid getting "snails." This included a talking snail and a cartoon picture of a man running into a latrine. It looked like it was from the forties or something.. There were also some nasty pictures best not remembered. There was also a wall showing where in the world you could find parasites. The U.S. and Canada were among the few places that had almost none. The worst of the bugs are in Africa, which I could have already guessed. The ones in Japan are the kind found in fish. How to avoid them? Don't eat raw fish. Well I honestly don't know anyone who takes that advice to heart. I wonder how many disgusting parasites I have in me from the things I eat.... Actually I take that back, I really don't want to know. The almost best part of all was the gift shop! There were T-shirts, keychains, cards, stickers, pamphlets.. Wow. It was pretty awesome. I got a keychain for myself and a bunch of stuff for my science friends. The best best part of all was.... There was one display of a parasite they found in a Coelacanth's body that had washed ashore in Japan. They think that the parasites in its body are similar to those of millions of years ago. . . AND THERE WERE T-SHIRTS OF IT!!!!! Yay yay I was so happy. http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000SarahDay.jpg After leaving the museum, we went to the nearest shrine to purify ourselves. The best part of the day, though, was sitting down to dinner that night and just being contented and comfortable. Eating good food, chatting as the sun goes down, enjoying the aftermath of a day well spent. I was pretty happy. Unfortunantly I had to work the next day, so I took a shinkansen back to Kobe..... .... Where my friend Rebexor was waiting for me. She came to my house to spend the night. Fun times! Bexor is awesome, and had brought a Pikachu fur suit to frolick around in the next day. When we arrived home, we found that Takiko had also invited some people over.. her friend and two kids!! I thought it was going to be hectic and annoying, but the kids were eerily well behaved and the friend was really curious about me. She kept asking me questions and waiting patiently for me to come up with the answer in Japanese. She was asking things like, "Do you have any close friends? How do you keep close friends while being so far away from them?" And, "What about Japan makes you want to stay and live here?" And, "Why do you think there are more male ALTs than female ones?" And, "What makes Takiko different from other Japanese people?" It's fun because usually no one ever asks my opinion about anything, and I never have to bother thinking up how to say things except for things I think up on my own to say. So her asking me questions was an extra challenge, as well as feeling like she really cared how I felt. Enough to be patient while I wracked my brain for words and stuff. Anyway, she stayed for two days with the kids. They gave me a ginormous cookie from Univeral Studios Japan since I had to work and couldn't go with them. When I went to work, I found that my utmost favorite Ichigo (strawberry) Daifuku stand had returned for their monthly sales. I bought enough for all my coworkers and ended up getting invited out to eat so we could share their deliciousness together. These things are seriously the best things any of us has ever tasted. I mean seriously, if you like daifuku, it doesn't get better than this. All of us agreed. The mini daifuku party was conducted entirely in Japanese, since I was the only foreigner. At the end, my friend Maki told me that when she first met me she thought, even though she had heard otherwise, that my Japanese was actually better than most of my student's English. That makes me feel great, more than all the silly "jooouzu"s that I hear from other people. It was a compliment that actually meant something. And it makes me feel like the time I've spent in Japan has not been wasted. The entire time, from when I went to Kyoto, until after the kids left, I'd only seen Takiko in passing. It wasn't until Tuesday night that I finally was able to really sit and talk with her again and we caught up on eachother. We ranted about friends and coworkers and daifuku and men who are gay. We made fun of people on TV, we translated stuff about coelacanths, and she asked me about how to use some dirty phrases she'd heard from TV. I ended up staying up until 5 am, which is amazing since I usually crash at 11. But it was a wonderful night. Since my trip to Saitama, I've been in a state of self reflection.. Thinking about how I interact with people, and how people interact with me, how I end up being friends with people, and stuff like that. I guess one of the biggest things is that I've decided to forgo elevators and escalators to help strengthen my knee muscles so that I don't die next year when I go to Yakushima on the 12 hour hike up a bunch of roots and stairs. I've been going to the station early to run up and down the stairs and stuff. This is my own personal problem I'm working on that has nothing to do with anyone else, and so I didn't think it would bother everyone.. but now every time I go out with friends they apologize all the time for not running up the stairs with me. I'm sorta caught between not wanting to make people feel bad, and wanting to do what I want. Oh well... I've also been dreaming a lot more, which is usually a sign of peace. Thanks to all of you who continue reading. - Jenshin (Comment on this)
Friday, March 20th, 2009
9:07 am	In each of the o'clock at even number Adventure!!!! On Wednesday, I went to Mt. Koya with my friend Tim and spent most of the day running around in a graveyard. That's the short version. I don't know where to begin for the long version.. I guess at the beginning. Koyasan (san means mountain, it just feels silly calling it Mt. Koya so I'm going with the san.) Anyway, it's probably THE most sacred mountain in Japan. At least that's what I hear from my students. I heard about it the first time in Japanese Religion class in college. Of course then I had no idea about the locations of things in Japan, I had no basis to formulate opinions about Japanese religions back then.. Now that I've experienced Japan, I can see things from a more internal perspective. It takes a couple of hours to get to Koyasan.. Involving a ride up the mountain on a cable car. There's a hiking route, which at first I really wanted to take, but Tim told me it was pretty uninteresting. Uninteresting?? But it's a mountain, I thought! I love mountains! However after spending a day on Koyasan, I have to say - yeah, first of all, it's winter and all the trees are sorta looking weather-weary and the new growth has yet to start. And there's like.. NO good view. It's almost frustrating, being on a mountain and not being able to see any good view anywhere. Plus, I really don't have a place in my heart for conifers.. I appreciate them, but I don't love them in the same way I love the deciduous variety. I guess I've had too many bad experiences in Colorado with pine trees. So we didn't go hiking, we went walking around for a long time. As with all other things in Japan, Koyasan is a tourist trap. Unlike other tourist traps, it is also ACTUALLY holy and functionally Buddhist. Whereas some places in Kyoto make me cringe at how the temple layouts might as well be amusement parks. But that's the way of things in Japan. We like our sightseeing spots. If we can't buy a souvenire that cutifies the amazing thing we just saw, then it's not worth going. On the other hand, Koyasan is a Buddhist holy place, which means, to most of the Japanese public, a place of death. Where there's a graveyard and souls are prayed for and Obon is a main event. The whole mountain smelled like inscence and all day I saw people carrying bags of greenery to set before graves. So we arrive on Koya. Without a pause, we left the cable car and headed off to the central temple. The first thing that struck me about it were the wood carvings (see details in my picture here http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000Kongobuji.jpg). Like most old Japanese places, everything is made completely out of wood. For the first time I got some really good shots of Japanese architecture. This was a really good example of it, and I could go everywhere and take photos without a lot of people around. (It's a week-day morning on top of a mountain, of course no one's around!) Basically when I think of Japanese architecture, I think of a structure built with a large room in the center. The room can be divided into smaller rooms using sliding doors. Around the perimiter is a hallway which sometimes is completely closed in, or something has sliding doors or windows. Then outside the hallway is the balcony. I guess instead of insulation, they just had concentric hallways or something like that. When I was in Yamaguchi, the houses were older, and I could see remnants of this style, where there was the balcony that could be opened up, and an inner hallway that was slid open to allow in the breeze, and then the bedrooms beyond, behind real walls. In a temple, there is also a wall around the whole thing, and some gardens and stuff like that. I saw my first real Zen garden, which was cool. And there was a room to drink tea in. There, Tim gave me my first religious experience. We were given some cookies to eat with our tea. I was trying to be quiet and have a nice tea moment, but when I bit into my cookie it sorta shattered and went everywhere.. argh! I felt like a dumb foreigner. Tim looked at me and quoted the ancient Buddhist proverb, "the one thing became two things, and the two things became the ten thousand things." I apologized for making my cookie become so many thousand things, thinking about how that must mean something bad, to be divided away from the one thing so much. But Tim then said that the real meaning of all that was that it's all the same no matter what, in the end nothing really exists. I was thinking about that for the rest of the day. How I'm taking pictures of holy things, and is that okay because in the end it's all nothing. I didn't want to take a picture of the monks because that seemed rude, but I wonder if they would really care. Some Japanese camera crew filmed us for who knows what when they thought we weren't looking, and I didn't really care. When does it go from "don't worry about it so much" to "encroaching on privacy." And does it matter really which it is... On one hand you can say, "It doesn't matter, take as many pictures as you like." And on the other hand you can say, "It doesn't matter, so refrain from pictures and focus on something meaningful." That kept coming to mind and I kept trying to ignore it. Anyway, we went to the main temple, then the main sutra, then a bunch of side temples and sutras. The whole place was eerily quiet and empty.. This must totally be the off season. In general, the architecture and art was all very impressive, and did well to invoke the feeling that this place was particularly special. I believe the founder considered this place to be the center of the world. All the things we looked and places we prayed at seemed to be calling out that they were special and significant. http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000ReligiousScraps.jpg This place impressed me the most: http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000Holy.jpg Then we went to the other side, where the long graveyard starts to climb up the mountain. The graveyard is absolutely massive. I didn't realize at first just how big it was. On the map it looks just like a line, but actually it extends way out into the woods. When you're surrounded by graves and can't see the road anymore, you start to appreciate the immensity of it all. One of my friends asked me if I was afraid of taking photos in a graveyard, because what if a ghost popped up or something and appeared in my photo. Honestly, I think dead people have better things to do than show up in my pictures. Probably half these graves are so long forgotten, the ghosts will be glad that they're getting some recognition finally, albeit by a foreign tourist. I mean if you were dead for a hundred years and your relatives forgot about you, and your grave gets old and moldy and broken.. And then suddenly one day someone finds it and thinks it's beautiful, how would you feel? Certainly, I hope, not spiteful. And there were some other people taking pictures to. I noticed that Japanese people bowed before they took pictures, though. I should have done more of that... Anyway, there are some very famous historical figures buried on Koyasan. Looking at my pamphlet I'll name a few... Taira no Atsumori, Tada Mitsunaka, Akechi Mitsuhide, Maedas of Kaga, Uesugi Kenshin, and Oda Nobunaga. Did you get that? ODA NOBUNAGA IS BURIED ON KOYASAN! That's sweet. And then Tim, as he is studying Japanese history, was able to tell me all about all the people who's graves we saw. That was really great. I couldn't have picked a better person to go there with. http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000Graveyard.jpg Tim is also awesome because we never had to second guess wether to take one trail over another. I never felt awkward running up some random flight of stairs off into the forest to see what was around the bend, and he never had to ask with any concern if we could stray for a bit to visit someone's grave. By the time we got to the end of the graveyard, nothing was open anymore. We ran by the lantern place really fast as they were closing the doors, then caught a bus back to the cable car. All the walking around makes me feel great. I can feel my blood moving faster than before and I've been feeling sincerely relaxed since the trip. I'm so glad we went. On a down note, I think our train hit someone on the way back to Osaka. They didn't announce anything, our train just stopped on the tracks for a while while they told us to wait patiently every few minutes. But there were policemen and a lot of activity outside of the train. It was too dark to see anything. There's some comfort in that, the way they didn't tell us what happened, and the darkness, as if nothing happened at all. And then the train started up again and left the area and no one said anything about it. Funny how we can be so close to death, and yet without seeing it, pretend it doesn't matter. Like how taking pictures of someone's grave doesn't matter. Or does it... Anyway, so like I said, I went to Koyasan and ran around in a graveyard. - Jenshin (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, March 16th, 2009
7:06 pm	"Let's what is done and play today.? Please show the toy" I thought I should write something before I go on any other adventures. Need to catch up with the ones I've already had. My friend Elizabeth came over to visit last week, which feels like years ago now somehow.. We went to Suma. Suma is famous for it's dirty beaches where everyone has drunken parties in the summer. It also has some good hiking places. But we went there for the Aquarium. In comparison to some other aquariums in Japan, it's really small.. but it also felt more friendly and less busy. It was geared more towards kids, but that was fine. So long as I'm not teaching the kids, I can find them quite cute. So we went to three shows. The first one was the Sanaka Live. Where they fed various fish, including Piranas and Electric Eels. I've always thought Piranahs were adorable.. They've got squishy, fat faces and their backs are covered in gold sparklies. And as a bonus, they've got incredibly shark teeth and some of the fish in the tank had battle scars. There were tons of them there.. It was fun! Next was the Otter show. Otters eat a lot of food!! Gah! I had no idea. But it makes sense since they never for one moment sat still.. They were always running around and playing with eachother. I think five years ago I would have looked at an otter eating a raw squid and thought - Wow animals eat weird things. But now I look at it and think - Oo Otters eat the same things we do! On a side note, there's one restaurant in Japan that serves raw squid with half of its brain still attatched so it's trying to crawl out of your mouth while you're chewing on it.. That's totally disgusting and inhumane. Grr. So then there was the dolphin show. We went in there and noticed that the first eight or nine rows of seats were colored blue. Also many of the people in these seats were holding up large squares of tarp. Oh dear it's the splash zone! Elizabeth, of course, wanted to sit right in the slash zone. Luckily we sat on the not-so-splashy side. They handed out sheets of plastic for the people in the first three rows. I think we were in the fifth row. But there were a lot of clueless kids there. Half of the fun was watching some poor kid get doused in water because he forgot to hold up the plastic. Anyway, dolphins are nifty! They look so friendly and they can swim really fast. Elizabeth got some great pictures of them jumping. What else happened... I really wanted to see the Piraruku, but by the time we got there I was pretty tired. But some things that were excicting were the manta rays, looking at fish skeletons, and there was a model of a coelacanth. Whee! http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000SumaAquarium.jpg After that, we went to the beach and got some seashells. I found a dead jellyfish with all its parts intact and a really big clam. But the whole day involved a lot of walking. Then we went to Sannomiya for some shopping, which involved more walking. By the time we finally sat down for dinner, we were exhausted. At the restaurant, this girl came up to me and was like, "Are you from Colorado?" I'm like, "Wuh?? How did you know?" She aparently studied abroad at CSU, except I don't remember her!! She gave me her email address, but I think she mispelled it because I couldn't get it to go through. Now I'm trying to find her again but I can't think of enough excuses to go to that restaurant.. What should I doo? Anyway, I got my hair cut. http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/1902Haircut.jpg I've been hanging out with Mai a lot recently. Her mother apparently loves me and has bought me my own house slippers, since I go to her house so often. We've been watching all the movies I brought back from the U.S. together. Right now we're in the middle of The Princess Bride, which is a totally excellent movie for teaching people English, because I have all the major lines memorized and can explain them before the movie starts, and then you don't need to listen to understand the plot, but it's fun when one of the lines comes up and Mai or whatever friend turns to me and goes, "He said it!!" I dunno, it just makes me beam. I got tickets to go to 3 museums from my students, but I only had time to go to one. I chose the one that the student must have gone way out of her way to get tickets to, but really I didn't want to go... The advertisement had a painted picture of Mt. Fuji, which looked like it was done with fingerpaints. I really don't give a crap about fingerpainted mountains.. I'd rather go to a real mountain. Plus, museums make me really tired.. just walk, and stand, and walk, and stand, and try not to get in anyone's way.. and it's so quiet there. But my dearest Takiko stayed up for 24 hours because she had nothing better to do, so at 8 thirty in the morning we both headed to the museum.. And OH. My. God. I'm so glad I went!! First of all, it wasn't JUST an art museum. It was the results of a fine arts competition. So each piece was selected by judges. Each piece was the best in its own way. And seeing that much talent all together in one building made my head reel. I look at this stuff and think - I'll never be an artist ever, if this is what it's really like. There were three or four rooms of huge canvas paintings. Each artist had their own technique. There were three or four rooms of Shodo which I don't know enough about to appreciate on the level it was intended for. And there was a huge room of other kinds of art.. pottery, glass, tile, fibers.. My favorite piece in the whole museum was a slab of glass that was so mathematically precise it just blew me away. Like the way it gradiated from black to grey, and how every cut was so perfect.. I wish I could have taken pictures. And then there was the human sculpture room.. Wow.. just wow. Takiko fell asleep in the middle, though. I saw most of the place by myself and then dragged her back home. Anyway, I'm 100 percent inspired to do art now. Wheeeee! Finally I should mention Caroline, who is my shopping-and-then-eating-dinner-together friend. And shopping doesn't mean clothes shopping, it means action figures, toothbrushes, stationary, and CDs. Any we always go to new places to eat! Back in the U.S. I could have cared less if I ate the same thing every day, but in Japan I've been swept away by the idea that the intake of food is an important, emotional, and cultural experience. I love trying new places. Yesterday on my way home from such an experience, I stopped by the bookstore and found my picture in an issue of Tokyo Graffiti. I'm smiling goofily and holding up a sign that says, "Hidden Sparkle." Unfortunantly, Bexor's face isn't in the magazine.. but I guess she got into Kera, so there's still more going in her favor. Anyway, the magazine is basically composed of people's stupid pictures, and of people holding up things. Looking at that was a great way to finish off a long day. Anyway, that's all for now. - Jenshin (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, March 6th, 2009
6:34 pm	Very Jam School How should I put this.... I GOT MY VISA EXTENDED FOR THREE YEARSSSS!! That makes me so relieved.. Like I don't have to worry about my life in Japan being tied to Nova. Three years!! I'm insanely curious about what I'll be thinking three years from now, looking back on this day.. I was just walking around Kobe in the sun, smiling to myself, smiling to all the people in their cars and the people at the station and the people walking around minding their own business. Three years! Maybe three years from now I'll be still living in this apartment with Takiko, having silly language exchange conversations, and writing you guys emails. Stuff... People who owe me monies - Corina, Maya, Rebexor (I absolutely cannot find the reciept so you could just give me 4000 and call it a deal.) Lately I can't get a hold of a lot of my friends because they've been at the gym. Go you guys, get stronger! And here's a random question I've been asking people, where is "home" for you and why are you proud of it? So my family said to me that it seems my lifestyle has been slowing down... That it's been a while since I went anywhere.. That's not true!! I've been doing tons of stuff, I just haven't been posting about it. So here's the stuff I've been doing... This was a coincidental adventure.. I went off in search of a giant tomb that I could see from the distance, but didn't know exactly how to get to... By the time I figured it out, I was already at the beach, and so I decided to go to the Akashi Bridge museum. Here are some pictures of that: http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000AkashiBridge.jpg Last week I was feeling sorta down about some stuff, but it was all fixed quite permanently by a trip to the wonderful fairytale land of Takarazuka. I went there with Yuka, the staff from Akashi. We'd promised to do something like that together because we missed working together. It was tons of fun. Yuka had never been before, which was half the reason it was so exciting. It was like seeing everything from a fresh, new angle. So first we met up in Nishikita, then went to Takarazuka. It was cloudy and dull, not the most flattering backdrop for the river and the massive theater, but at least it didn't rain much. We got off the train and went shopping a little near the station. Of course, I stopped in passport and got some cute postcards, if anyone wants one. Also they have stuffed animals that are.. crying!! Each one is looking up at you with a little glass tear in its eye.. How would you feel if you got one? You open up some gift from your friend and it's a stuffed animal... crying.. I'd just feel so bad! Like.. What did I do wrong? I'm so sorry!! It's a great marketing ploy, though.. it was all I could do not to just buy all of them to try to make them feel better. Also, Hannaridofu is back! In various new forms including curly haired tofu pillows and black sesame. Anyways. Then we wandered around, then went to the theater for some more shopping.. Yuka was dead set on getting something Hello Kitty related and we didn't rest until she'd found something. Then we had Pumpkin soup and cake for lunch. After that, we went to the Puchi Museum and took a couple of the pictures here: http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000FairytaleLand.jpg I have to say a few things about my outfit.. Shoes - bought for ONLY 2000 yen, with some sparkly butterfly stickers on them that were 300 yen. The stickers are the tough waterproof kind that are supposed to go on your cell phone so they look more like jewels than stickers. Everyone thinks I just bought the shoes that way. Socks - From the Mighty Soxor in Harajuku Skirt - 500 yen!!!!!!!!! Fake velvet, lace, built in slip, and everything. 500 yen. Shirt from Uniqlo, 1000 yen. Necklace from when I was a kid. Glasses.. you won't believe this.. 5000 yen in Kyobashi! This is like the cheapest outfit I own. I'm really proud of my cheap wonderful shopping ability! So about the rest of the picture.. First, the museum was featuring stuff from The Scarlet Pimpernel, which showed last year. It was by the same group that was playing that day, which is why I think it was on display. Plus the show we saw, My Dear New Orleans, was the last show for Aran Kei before she retired. So I'm really happy I went, plus the Scarlet Pimpernel was really good to.. which is why I decided to get my picture taken with the outfits from it. If you think the outfits look ridiculous, then that's just something you're going to have to get over before you go to Takarazuka. In the museum there were pictures of people hand sewing sequins onto fabric.. is that not amazing? I feel like it must take them years to make all these clothes.. and yet in each show they have all these new outfits.. Crazy! I would both love and hate to be a seamstress for Takarazuka. The thingies we're holding in the pictures are just what they seem to be - thingies to hold. While dancing right before the curtain closes. Those giant feathers are quite lightweight. It's too bad for the birds but at least I don't feel sorry for the dancers wearing humungous feathers. As we passed by Haruno Sumire's handprint, Yuka commented on her large thumb. I put my hand up to the plate and found that wow, my thumb is the exact same size as Haruno Sumire's thumb! (Although the rest of my fingers are much longer.) So I had Yuka take a picture. The picture on the bottom right I'll explain in a bit. Anyway, My Dear New Orleans was completely made of awesome. I mean of course, it was Takarazuka, so how else would it be! And Yuka was so excited to see it.. Yay yay! I have some things to comment on, though... First, the plot was about this guy who's meaning in life is the Jazz music he plays. Then they close the club he plays at because it's attracting too many black people to the area, and he has to make some big decisions. He's also in love with a black woman. So I thought.. I thought.. there would be jazz music in the musical. Well, there wasn't any. Sometimes there were hints of it, but basically the music was the same old Takarazuka dramatic emotional stuff. What?? I was a little disappointed. Also, it took me a bit before I realized who was supposed to be black or not. I guess they couldn't have /really/ dark skin, or people wouldn't want to come to see the show. It had to be fashionable, Japanese-style dark skin. And, usually I think of people as being black or not based on how they talk. Well that doesn't really come across when everyone's speaking Japanese.. So the show seemed kinda.. out of place, but it was still Takarazuka so of course I loved it. That, and I understood most of the plot. Win! After the show, we had hand made udon at the only restaurant that wasn't full of people. There, we ranted about things we didn't like about people in Nova, which was good for our souls, and we left the restaurant well-fed and refreshed. Finally, we made one last stop at Passport where I bought the BEST THING EVAR!! Cactus Cake: http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/CactusCake.jpg I really wish I could mail these to all of you guys.. Everyone needs their own cactus cake to take care of.. They come in chocolate, orange, maccha, and white like mine. Then, on the way home, I was lamenting about how there's no hankyuu station near my house. Yuka said I should just go to Sannomiya and then go back on the JR. After some thought, I agreed. But the second we hit Sannomiya, Yuka suddenly said - You wanna go to karaoke? So we did! Last picture in the collage is me staring at the funky decor.. the whole thing seriously looked like a spaceship in Xenosaga, or like Solaris from Xenogears or something. I'm serious. This was my third time doing Karaoke and I found - I really like it! Of course, I don't know many songs.. they don't have any german industrial or russian pop of course, (Although they do have Sonata Arctica and Stratovarious). So I did my best singing Japanese anime songs and X Japan. Finally at the end I dared a L'arc en Ciel song, which I managed to pull of and it really upped my Japanese confidence! Yuka got all excited and told me she's a L'arc fan too. Then we got excited together, and left the place on a great high. It was so much fun. Like I've done a lot of deeply amazing things in Japan, but when I think of that day with Yuka, it just exudes fun. Maybe the most fun day I've had in Japan. What else have I done recently... Chicken Fajitas with Elsa.. Movie nights with Mai.. The 9 year old who gave me a thank you card for teaching her English.. Psyching out over Takiko's fashion magazine.. The art museum.. Yah, I've been busy. But this month is going to be meccha insane.. Like I'm thinking of buying a new camera because I know there are going to be lots of amazing pictures involved. If I disappear and don't write for a while, it's because I'm somewhere out in the world doing something great. See you later. - Jenshin P.S. I love having a hostess for a roommate, her customer gave us yummy expensive sushi for breakfast! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, March 2nd, 2009
6:15 pm	"Copo" sells socks and tights No stories this time.. Just businessy stuff. First, does anyone want some of my stuff? http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/ForSale.jpg From left to right, "Macbeth Prototype Original" - Some kind of large sized manga. Origami paper. Random pamphlets and flyers for anime, visual kei, and other stuff. Demian Syndrome, volume one or whatever, A magazine called, "Grand Prix" with lots of hot boys doing silly things in it, Erementar Gerad - a fantasy manga series volumes 1-5, Kids book about dinosaurs, Hikaru no Go volume one, "D-Boys START" photobook, Plastic book cover based on some manga called Switch Girl that I've never heard of before. Not shown, a Japanese postcard from Pirates of the Carribean, with a picture of Jack Sparrow and it says something like - Great Strength - in Japanese on it. If you want any of these things, I'll charge you one dollar plus shipping. First come first serve. Pay via paypal, or in person if you live in Japan or want to come visit me. If no one wants any of these things, then I'm gonna at least sell at the books to the used bookstore next week. Unless you know someone who might want it. Also, I have a number of things in the U.S. that I'd like to sell.. I was thinking of doing this through Ebay, but I don't have the time and effort.. so if anyone wants to help me, we could split the rewards.. Finally, DNA Day is coming up, April 25th! Draw, paint, carve, stitch, compose, bake, or basically create something that has to do with one of my characters (http://www.randomisgod.com/comics) that has the theme of DNA. The deadline is April 23rd. Send submissions via email, or ask me for my mailing address and I'll give it to you. The prize is - some Two Moons art, any kind of commission, and a postcard or some stickers from Japan. Also you'll get featured on my website, so let me know where you want me to link to when you send the submission. - Jenshin (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, February 21st, 2009
11:53 pm	Photo is Image The best thing to ever happen to me was rice in white cheese sauce. If anyone had told me before that this was any good, I wouldn't have believed them. Upon mentioning this, Takiko gasped and said, "There's something I have to tell you!" Apparently the cheese that I've been eating for six months has a big warning on it that says it MUST by all means be cooked thoroughly before being eaten. No reason given. Usually I eat it raw with apples. I haven't died yet. I've never had a stomach ache. I wonder what the problem is... Takiko decided to go on a quest to find me better cheese to eat. In the meantime, I'm switching from cheese to walnuts. I was just wondering if anyone else would know why it would be necessary to cook cheese before eating it... I took a long time making some pictures for you. First, parking is one of the main reasons I never ever want to drive in Japan. I just don't think I'd be skilled or confident enough to do it. And I wouldn't be rich enough to have one of those mega camera systems that some cars have to make sure they don't run in to anything. Here are some examples of Japanese parking. http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000Parking.jpg Second, what kind of place do you think this is? http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/1841Copo.jpg Third, someone asked me where my subject titles come from. They come from things I see on signs, shirts, anywhere. Here is a collection of almost all the ones I've photographed: http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000Engrish.jpg And finally, here's a picture of where I went last weekend: http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/SparklingSea.jpg Where was this? Some sunny tropical island? A fancy resort? No, this is just one of the sights on the way to work every day. I also went to the art museum, watched movies with Mai, visited Caroline at work at the Foreign Buyer's Club, went to Yodobashi Camera two or three times, browsed AmeMura, ate lots of bread, went out for lunch with a hot guy, got delicious chocolate from some students, had some elaborate conversations with Takiko, spent a whole day reading about evolution... In all, life is just as amazing as usual. There is one thing in Japan that I don't like and I don't think I will ever be used to. That the customer is God. You'd think it wouldn't make such a difference... In the U.S. we have the phrase, "The Customer is Always Right." But do we really practice that? Not usually. There was a woman in my class who's hair dryer broke and she complained to the company for hours until they finally sent someone directly to her house to fix it. That would never have happened in the U.S. Either the customer would bring it into the store after being told to, or would sue the company. When you go into a store, everyone is insanely polite. It's pretty tense. Any small discretion is apologized for. For example, someone crossing over your intended walking path, or having to pick up your glass to fill it with water. I was walking in front of a store where someone was cleaning out a flower plant. She apologized to me for just being there in view of me. That's not the bad part though. You sorta get used to that and take it for granted. That's like a symptom of the disease. The disease is that the customer KNOWS they are always right. They can do anything they want to us. They've come to expect to be pampered. In the U.S., in the grocery store, we look at all the pre-chopped lettuce and pre-grated cheese and think - this is for lazy people. In Japan, the same items are viewed as having been kindly prepared for us as service to the customer. And people come to expect that. Like, I don't tell the clerk that I can carry the clothes out of the store myself without them following me because that would just be embarrassing for both of us.. Better to just follow the tradition of being served and deal with it. Takiko went to a store to buy a bead to match a kimono. They sat both of us down at a desk and gave us some water to drink and took every bead in the store TO Takiko for her to look at. She couldn't decide which one so they stood by silently while she considered and asked my opinion and called her coworker... And finally she chose one. I got up, thinking we had to go pay, but no they brought the bill to us and we got a choice in what color bag to put it in. The bead was 100 dollars and Takiko bought it for her boss. I could find the same thing for 10 bucks in Chinatown, but this had a brand name on the bag. If Takiko gave her boss something that didn't have a brand label, she might as well not giver her boss anything at all. That's when it starts getting to me. Like when I bring some home-made food to a friend's house, they wonder where the brand label is.. I don't feel comfortable getting Japanese people gifts. No one buys used clothing in Japan. Because it's used. Unless it's used high brand clothing, but in that case you'd never ever tell your friends you got it used. I've asked people if used books are okay, but usually they say no. People go to used bookstores to read, usually, not to buy. This includes textbooks. It doesn't matter if you pay 700 dollars a semester on books, so long as they're new. Subway generally failed as a fast food restaurant here because it involved too much do-it-yourself and not enough pre-packaged worry-free goodness. Donuts, on the other hand, are considered a brand-name delicacy. They're expensive. If a company can get into the Japanese market, then they can succeed all over the world. It's the undeniable truth. Japanese people demand 100 percent satisfaction from every facet of their public existance. This has also extended to education. If your child gets a bad grade, you have every right to call up the teacher and bitch her out. Teachers are afraid of parents. Parents make them incredibly nervous. I've had lots of my students tell me this. And so many children go unpunished and are generally allowed to do whatever they want in class, even if that involves bullying other kids and making fun of the teacher. The customer is always right, and in this situation it's the kid. So if the kid hates her male teacher, she can just tell her parents that he touched her and laugh as he loses his job. That actually happened to a Nova teacher. Luckily, the foreign staff knew that it really wasn't the guy's fault and were able to get the guy back on the job after talking to the company. Anyway... Every culture has its good and bad sides. For instance, I really wish Takiko would do her dishes SOMETIME at all, but if she was the kind of person who did dishes she probably wouldn't be the kind of person that I love so dearly. And so I put up with the things I don't like about Japan, because I love Japan more than anything. - Jenshin (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, February 14th, 2009
5:18 pm	No tout! Spring is around the corner. The plum blossoms are out this week, looking like someone sprinkled confetti over the dead trees. At least in Kobe, it's pretty warm here. 'Tis also the season for a million companies realizing their workers aren't going to be renewing their contracts, so if you want to come work in Japan, now's the time to look for a job. GEOS is even hiring in the country, which I was surprised by. Usually they only hire outside of Japan. Usually I announce this a month before, but this time I'll announce it two months in advance because a lot of people always complain about not having enough time.. National DNA Day is April 25th and I'll be holding the usual contest to create something related to DNA and my characters. More info on that next month, this is just a heads up. Tokyo happened a month ago, but I still want to talk about it because I had a good time there. On the way there, I saw Mt. Fuji out the window of the train. I met up with Rebecca, who used to live in my neighboorhood. We hadn't seen eachother for a year, and in the mean time she'd gone all out with the visual kei look, for which she is made entirely of awesome. I'm really good at remembering locations. I have this map in my head. Sometimes it doesn't always point north, but once I've been somewhere, I remember it. I haven't been to Harajuku in four years or so, and I wouldn't have been able to tell you anything about what it looked like, but once I stepped off the train I knew exactly where "the street" was.. the only street that matters. And I did not know there was a convenient store at the corner, but somehow I knew where to wait for Rebecca. When I looked down the street, I didn't recognize anything I saw, but I recognized the layout.. I knew that the sock and glasses store was going to be on the right, and the lolita stuff was on the left, and I knew where one of the small passages was that lead to benches to sit on was. Refreshing those memories was nice as the day wore on. Anyway, so Rebecca, or Rebexor as I like to call her, turned up with stark red hair with blonde highlights. Or blonde hair with red shadows? Not sure what you'd call it. Complete with extensions and the usual punky clothes. I'm so proud of Rebecca being my friend and I'm not really sure exactly why.. I guess because there are so many people who are like - I love VK style! And they buy something at Hot Topic and wear it as much as possible to impress this upon their friends. But Rebexor is hardcore.. She just IS VK style, without having to try to be.. She adopts the Japanese style quite naturally, and thinks about the whole thing in a very natural, Japanese way. She also knows her brands, and who on the street is cosplaying whom from which band, and she's even made her own clothing before. She also has her own limits, her own style. She's not just copying Japanese people, she's doing it her own way and it just happens to all fit in. She's so much of her own person and has this amazingly deep clique to fit in to. I really admire that. So we went shopping. I really hate shopping, actually. I hate shopping for clothes especially. For lots of reasons. First, it really sucks having to take clothes on and off to try things on. Second, everyone has a different style so you have to wait around in this store while you friend looks and stuff, when you really just want to go to some other store instead. And Third, when I go shopping, it's because I have one thing in mind that I want to buy. I don't dwadle, or browse, I just go in there and buy it and get on with my life. It bothers me to no end when some small trip to the grocery store ends up with everyone looking around at toys and candy for like two hours. So I was really excited to be with Rebexor, but very slightly dreading spending too long shopping for no reason. So I made up a plan. Since I didn't have anything particular to buy, I decided I'd find some cool scarf. Then after we were done shopping, we'd go to Odaiba to have fun. Of course, we'd have to shop quick, then, to leave enough time to get to Odaiba. With that plan in mind, we started browsing around Harajuku. And.... we never left until like 10 or so at night. It was just that good. Let me try and remember everything that happened... The Mighty Soxer, Closet Child, lightning necklace, 3 pairs of socks for 525 yen, the stand with all the bling, H.Anarchism, H.Naoto Blood, THE Coat, THE OTHER Coat, The crazy Laforet sale, oh and this... Maybe one, two, possible three people on my list will understand this picture in the least bit: http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000Naoto.jpg Yeah, so there was a stand where things were 70 percent off, and when I made my above purchase, I noticed the woman (I had to look close to make sure she was a woman) selling stuff had like.. perfect, flawless skin. Like I just wanted to reach out and make sure she was real. I'd never seen anyone with that perfect of a face in front of me before. Afterwards, Bexor told me she was one of the H.Naoto models, and Rebecca was so enthralled to have seen her there. I thought momentarily on asking her for a picture, but then reconsidered.. When someones physical BODY is ART owned by a company, then.... taking a picture feels a little bit like stealing and she'd probably give a flat no. Since Harajuku, I've been doodling a lot of costume design... the good ones are on DeviantArt. Bexor informed me that she made it into Kera one month, WITHOUT TELLING ME!! Tell me which backissue it is, and I'm so buying it right now. Man, Kera is what started it all for me.. when I was too poor to buy the Bible, and needed my bookstore fix for the week... and suddenly I realized that all this time I'd had some amazing passion for fashion design that had just sorta been sitting in a corner of denial in my head somewhere. In an attempt to get caught by such magazine photographers again, we walked around that street that's in the background of all those fashion magazines you see. We didn't get caught by them, but we did get caught by some irrelevant magazine called Grafitti. I'll have to check the issues to see if we actually got in. They had us write things about Tokyo. I was so gung ho about using Japanese, I got a little overconfident and totally messed the whole thing up. I wonder if it made any sense at all.. I can't imagine them putting crap like that in their magazine, but we'll see. After all that, we had an hour until Sarah arrived for dinner, so we dwadled, wandered, and sat in a coffee shop for a bit. I finally bought a scarf about two minutes before Sarah showed up. Rebexor bought a fuzzy hat, one of the really scary kind with puffballs and everything. We're so awesome. Then we waited around for an hour for a table at some family restaurant. Sarah gave me an unhappy pillow to go along with my happy pillow from last year. We took a lot of photos of eachother and did purikura afterwards. Somehow in all of that, I never ended up with any actaully pictures of Sarah so I'll have to go visit her again. Whee! http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000LuckyTokyo.jpg Rebexor lives in Ibaraki-ken, which is the same prefecture that has Shimotsuma (if you know what I mean.) There isn't much there, but it's close enough to Tokyo to be a good living area. Her room is really nice, and I took lots of photos of it for no real reason. The next day I woke up, had breakfast, and left for Tokyo again to meet up with my old Kansai Gaidai buddy, Tim. The problem was carrying all the stuff I'd bought the day before. I ended up wearing as much as I could in layers in order to get it the rest of it to fit in easily manageable bags. Unfortunately it was a warm day that didn't warrant so much clothing but.. Well there wasn't really much I could do. Tim showed me around his local area where he goes to grad school. On the campus, I found where the air in Japan comes from: http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/JapanGas.jpg My plan for being at Tim's place was just to walk around the local area, but since I hadn't been to Odaiba with Bexor, I suggested that Tim and I go there.. and I'm so glad we did. One of those many amazing memories I'll never forget. And it's now opened me up to many other things I want to do and see in Tokyo later on. Most of the things I saw were in the picture I sent in the last email. And I already told you guys my misadventures with trains on the way there. Someone requested more pictures of the Fuji TV building, so here's that: http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000FujiTerebi.jpg The building is pretty damn impressive. Of course we had to go to the top. First we bought tickets. Tim took one of those pamphlets where you can get a stamp on the back. Only for this one, you had to collect all the pieces of the stamp by going to various places, and you could get a prize at the end. I didn't care, since I sorta knew the prizes would probably suck, and I didn't want to stress over finding all the stamp parts. So I didn't take one. First we went to the top. There was about half an hour until it closed. The view was really good, and suddenly the sun started to set. It was beautiful. Tim got his stamp there. Then we went outside and frollicked around the terrace, taking pictures of the sunset and whatnot. The top part eventually closed and we made our way to the second level where there was a sort of museum. I don't know much about older TV programs, so I didn't have as much fun as all the Japanese people gasping at set replicas and people's autographs on the wall and stuff. You could also look down at live sets.. They weren't for any of the really popular TV shows or anything, but it was interesting being able to see things in action at least. Tim had all but one of the stamps as we left the place. The second to last stamp was at the very end of the museum, and then there was an escalator leading down. SOMEHOW Tim managed to lose his pamphlet while ON the escalator. Like it completely disappeared. We looked everywhere and it JUST WASN'T THERE. That's just amazing! Like.. how could it possibly have disappeared. We went back to the museum area but it was absolutely no where to be seen. I asked the clerk there if she'd seen it and she said no. She tried to offer me a new one, but of course it didn't have the stamp. And the top viewing point area was closed already, so there was no way to go back and get it. She asked us to show her our tickets, and then she could give us pre-stamped booklets. Wow! Unfortunantly, our ticket stubs had been IN the pamphlet for safekeeping... Great. But! She gave us booklets anyway. Not only that, she gave us two, even though I insisted we had only lost one. That was really nice of her. We were able to complete the stamp hunting and return to the front area for our prizes. I had the choice of recieving some tiny greeting cards, a tiny pen, or a tiny, tiny stick of glue. I went with the cards. And so our adventure ended sucessfully. By then it was dark. We went over to another viewing area where there was a miniture Statue of Liberty, called the Goddess of Freedom or something. She is actually borrowed from France, and may have to be sent back in a couple of years. It's just funny taking a picture of the Statue of Liberty with Tokyo Tower clearly in the background. Then we had dinner. Dessert was at a random Cinnabon we found!! Finally it was around 7:00 and I thought I should be getting home. I really didn't want to leave, though. It had been a great day of adventuring. I think I've finally found a side of Tokyo that I really like. Well that was my trip to Tokyo. Since then I've been doing a lot of staying at home and saving money. Maybe next time I can rant less about my own personal things and more about culture. See you guys later. Happy Valentine's Day. - Jenshin P.S. I am such a loser.. I couldn't sleep last night because I was musing over I book I don't even own yet and have not ever read. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, February 1st, 2009
5:22 am	Smork by Language Today I went to a new bakery and found something that I thought was a hamburger. But instead of meat inside, it had a croquette, which is like fried breaded mashed potatoes with something else inside like corn or beef or something. It's like taking Thanksgiving dinner and deep frying it into a patty shape, basically. Only this time it was inside of a hamburger bun with some lettuice and sauce. Huh? So, being adventurous, I bought it. I was curious to know what kind of croquette was inside! I took a big bite out of it and guess what was inside? Macaroni and cheese. What the..?? That's my Japan adventure for the day. So I wanted to talk about architecture. But first I want to talk about art. What is art? One part of me thinks it's stupid to make an opinion about the definition of a word, because language itself is just random sounds that WE put together. So why should we worry about the meaning of something that we made up in the first place. The best we can do is have our own opinions of things. For my students, I usually make a list of things like jewelry, toilets, baseball, figure skating, chairs, and I ask them - which ones of these things are art? It can get really complicated and fun. Anyway, for me, art is anything we do, that we didn't do for the necessity of existance, with the intent of beauty as we see it. I could go on for a couple more pages on this, but I won't. Anyway.. is architecture art? That's a more complicated question. We build houses to keep us warm, dry, and safe. That's not art. But sometimes there's some intriguing window or tower or something that didn't need to be there, that we put there as aesthetic appeal. Is that art? Maybe. I see a lot of things in modern architecture that I would call art. That is 25% of why I like architecture. Traditional architecture doesn't appeal to me so much, because a lot of it is out of necessity. And a lot of it is copied from other buildings. A lot of temples in Japan have almost the same architecture, so I find it kind of boring in respect to art. A lot of European buildings have really frivolous ornamentation.. like tacked-on art, and I find that annoying. But something that a lot of traditional buildings have is skill. Like if you have no nails, so you make a structurally sound temple using wooden joints. That's awesome. I respect skill. If there's a European building with amazingly intricate ornamentation, I respect that kind of skill. So whether or not I'd consider it art doesn't matter as much as skill. I'd say that skill is 30% of why I like architecture. But the biggest reason I like it is pride. Like when the flag goes up in the air, and it makes some guy start smiling for no reason and raise his hand to his chest.. That's how I feel about buildings. If you want to make an amazing building, you can't be modest. No one cares about the apartment down the road that's just a box with windows.. You gotta rise up above the rest, put a fucking tower on top, plant yourself in the ground like YOU're the one keeping the earth in place, and shout out visually to everyone - take a look at this, yo! Today a student asked me - what in Japan impressed you the most? It was definitely the Umeda Sky Building. But I didn't want to say that, because there's no way I could explain that without taking up a huge part of his lesson. It's not JUST the building that impressed me, it's that the architect had actually based it off of an idea he had for a space station that we probably won't have the technology to create in his lifetime. It's that it's more than just a building, it's the architect's dream coming true, in such a massive, visual way that you can experience yourself by walking around the ring or looking up at the walls looming over you, reflecting the sun and the sky. When I went to the U.S., I went to Hoover Dam. That place was just plain emanating pride. I mean every single thing you could buy in the gift shop was like - GO AMERICA WOOOT!! Take, for example, the inscription on the man-sized stone that holds flagpole: "It is fitting that the flag of our country should fly here in honor of those men who, inspired by a vision of lonely lands made fruitful, concieved this great work. And of those whose genuis and labor made that vision a reality." Art, skill, pride, and respect. . . If you ever get a chance to go here in your life, please, please do. The best I can offer are some inadequate photographs: http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000HooverDam.jpg When I went to Tokyo, I saw some other structures that made me think of art, skill, and pride. http://www.randomisgod.com/pictures/000TokyoBilu.jpg These are the kinds of experiences I live for. And I'm so glad I have a few friends and family here or there who put up with my idealistic way of thinking enough to accompany me, and don't mind being dragged up and down flights of stairs in my effort to fill my mind with beautiful things. - Jenshin (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009
7:12 pm	Tokyo Navigation Madness Walkthrough This is how to get to the Teleport Station in Tokyo brought to you by the bad luck of Tim mixed with the good luck of Jen. 1. Starting in Yotsuya, ask a station attendant for a map. He will tell you some instructions but they will be completely unintelligable. 2. The map will not say what train lines to take, but there will be station names. Find Shimbashi and go there. 3. Get off the train, but don't go anywhere. Get back on the train when it comes again. 4. The next station should be the one that connects to the red colored line on your map that goes to thr monorail. Follow the signs in the station to the monorail ticket machines. 5. There will be a lady looking at the map above the machines. If you wait there, she will come and tell you that she will help. She will then run off out of sight. Don't do anything, just wait until she comes back even if it takes a few minutes. She will then give you a warning about the perils of taking the monorail from this station. She will tell you to go back to Shimbashi, despite the fact that there is no connection listed there on your map. Trust her. 6. At Shimbashi, don't look for a connection. Just exit the station. Across the street is ANOTHER Shimbashi station. Go up the stairs and you will find the Monorail. 7. The monorail is mind-blowing after dark. 8. Get off at the stop that starts with the word Odaiba. If you walk West, you will see a tower in the distance to the South. If you get closer you will realize that this is part of a bridge. The bridge shakes, so move quickly. 9. You will see the Teleport Station on your right. Okay next time I'll email you about architecture, and then next next time I'll tell you more about my amazing Tokyo adventure. - Jenshin (2 Comments |Comment on this)