The sound of the ocean is not far away

Having Mondays off instead of Saturdays is usually so irritating. Not only do I work at night, I also work Saturdays, so I can hardly have proper relationships with people with normal schedules (blah Blah, typical afternoon-shift bellyache blah blah).

But, if you have a fellow Mondays-off friend, the two of you may discover there are a few blisses tucked inside the empty Monday world. Yesterday, the local beach became August (Nishio English teacher and hippie-esque, slightly insane piece of incarnate sunshine; also fellow Sunday-Monday weekend comrade) and I's private resort beach--yet there were also still a few people around to people watch and enjoy.


I've been craving the ocean. We've both been craving sunshine. So, we packed our backpacks and took our bicycles out there--it took us about an hour to get there, but only 40 minutes or so back because we found a way AROUND the small mountain, instead of having to scale it.

Thus we enjoyed a long afternoon playing in the water, listening to the piped in music on the loud speaker radio mixed with the waves.... I brought my little kite along.. it looked like a cute cicada doing colorful antics above the imported palm trees ^_^ Our bay area isn't so paradise-eque... they have imported the palm trees and the sand is actually not natural but brought in from the south of Japan.. and they renamed the beach Waikiki Beach so it feels more like paradise... it's still not quite the same as Hawaii I don't think ^_^, but it's warm ocean water and bright sunshine ^_^ So we are exponentially happy with it.

Unfortunately, the sunscreen we used wasn't waterproof....... lobster face. Yesterday night, I felt like I had a fever, and today at school was torture. And August is worse off than me. We're hoping all our skin doesn't peel off in sheets.. but I don't know if it can recover >_<

Next time, waterproof sunscreen.... and I have to practice swimming more... Mom made me and my brother and sister take swimming lessons when I was 8, but my sister and I failed, and I've never really been comfortable in water since... so August was trying to show me how there's actually a big bowl of cookie dough in the water, and if you scoop the sides, then breathe while eating it, and kick your legs like a frog, you can swim. Just makes me want to eat cookie dough really, but I'm trying.

World peace

Sitting on the side of the river in Hiroshima, chilling and looking at the beautiful tragic ruins of the Atomic Bomb Dome. Wishing I had a guitar so I could write another song about being nice to people. I'm sure tomorrow I'd think it was atrocious, but tonight it would be perfect.

It's dark and they are setting off fireworks behind the A-dome--real slowly, like one a minute maybe. Maybe they do this every night in the summer? No one seems overly excited except there's a few photographers out. The fireworks are shaped very distinctly like flowers. The sound is echoing down the river.

I like borrowing other people's towns for a couple of days.. Just hang out here instead of my own town. Of course there's more than just hanging out to do in Hiroshima, though. Today I stayed around here--the Peace park, museum, and Hiroshima castle. It's heavy stuff. After the museum and walking around thinking about it for most of the day, you really feel the human capacity to hurt other humans is ghastly huge.

The museum exhibits about Sadako and the thousand paper cranes, and then the memorial in the park in her honor remembering all the children who died because of the bomb were especially poignant: they remind me of what exactly made me want to come over here in the first place... In fourth grade, we studied World War 2 hard out. And sort of doubled with the war, we studied a lot of Japan. Funny how that happens, isn't it? At university, my world history teacher taught us through the perspective of the clash of civilizations as the driving factor in change. After the war, we all have been trying hard to understand each other. It was through studying this very disgust that made me want to know more way back then. And here I am... still trying my best to understand.

So give me a guitar and I'll write you a song really quick so we can make this feeling bigger and last longer.

Lala let's understand each other
Lala be nice to each other
Lala let's all be together
Lala respect and world peace world peace
Lala

(k, not a serious attempt at song writing)



PHOTO NOTE: The Second photo is the Children's Peace Memorial at night, just after they finished the fireworks and I left the riverside. It was put up especially in memory of Sadako. The little houses around it are full of paper cranes.

-- iPhoneから送信

場所:１丁目,広島市,日本

Vegetable donuts

Lately, I've gotten used to waking up in the morning--as opposed to statin up ungodly late and sleeping til the afternoon as my work schedule suggests. In return, I get to see the morning light, get a few extra hours in my day, and get morning donuts.

Mister donuts, the donut shop most popular in Japan and conveniently located 3 minutes from my house, has a new line of donuts. They're more like cake than donuts actually, and include fruit flavors like caramel apple, traditional flavors like cinnamon chocolate, and vegetable flavors like spinach and sweet potato. So far my favorite two flavors are spinach and sweet potato and milk!

Donut paired with Japanese study works out to be a very enjoyable morning. I'm glad I got up today

-- iPhoneから送信

場所:２丁目,西尾市,日本

Baths in December

Running through the cold December night air wearing nothing but a towel our heads.. then gingerly stepping down into the hot hot spring water... ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..... Elysian Fields. ^_^

Three of my students/friends and I took an onsen trip last weekend. ^_^ Onsens are hot springs, very popular for bathing in in Japan. They are perfect. People have been onsen-ing since before time in Japan I think ^_^ Baths are quite a Japanese tradition.. and definitely they've been bathing everyday loong before they were in the West. ^_^　Everyday, what a concept? ^_^ Onsens are my favorite part of Japan I think.

Sunday afternoon, we headed down to Toba city 鳥羽 in Mie prefecture 三重県. Toba is a seaport town, famous for pearls (and especially the women pearl-divers of back in the day), right beside the famous city of Ise 伊勢 and one of the most important shrines in Shinto, Ise Jingu　伊勢神宮. Our Onsen was called Todaya 戸田家.

We just enjoyed a couple of days of serious relaxing... eating good food... hot baths and more hot baths.... and just girl talk and getting to know each other ^_^ Dinner, then indoor baths... then we decided to explore the outdoor baths ^_^ ahhh... so wonderful, and overlooking the ocean. ^_^ then sleep. then an early morning for a perfect morning outdoor bath... then breakfast in our pajamas ^_^ (because they give you yukata, basically thin robes, to wear while you're there ^_^) and then it was time to check out. ^_^



After we left the onsen, we enjoyed wandering around Okage yokocho　おかげ横丁, the town right outside of Ise Jingu ^_^ Okage yokocho means lots of yummy food again! :D And I found a couple of Christmas presents while I was there ^_^ ah, lovely weekend. ^_^

Time for the annual apple

Every year I go apple picking in Nagano prefecture 長野県 to the north of us with ladies from one of my community center English classes. It's a wonderful tradition. This year was my third time now. Three autumns sounds like a long time, doesn't it.

In Indiana, we pick apples every year, too. So actually, I have been picking apples every fall for the last 10 years or so. Ironically, I actually don't like apples very much. But, a fresh-picked fuji apple straight off a tree is like candy. In an orchard is usually the only time I ever eat apples. In Indiana, Fuji was a favorite variety. Now I get to pick them straight off Japanese trees.

Japan is so beautiful. Everyday is beautiful. We also stopped by a town famous for the fall foliage on this day trip. It's called Korankei 香嵐渓。 We arrived quite early in the morning: hard early morning sunlight from a brilliant blue sky lit up the leaves. Brilliant colors. It was the end of the season so my students said not as amazing as at peak season. There, we ate a snack: gohei mochi and mushroom tea..

A lovely fall day.

Another America, Another Japan

Lately, I've been watching American leaders' speeches. Actually, only speeches from the 60's and then, only speeches from Martin Luther King, Jr. and the two Kennedy brothers.

What a different world that was. Was that America? America, where black people were seriously lower citizens than the white majority on a very public and open and acceptable level. And there were marches and riots for equal treatment.

On another front, an America where people who may or may not like socialism or communism lose their jobs and are blacklisted from being hired.

And this America where murders of important leaders maybe came to be not so much of a shock and it would be to me... John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy all in the same decade?

It all seems like some legend.

Today's America perhaps is equally strange. I grew up with the news dominated by huge scandal, resulting in only the second presidential impeachment since the beginning. Also terrorism on public buildings... Oklahoma City, September 11. The threat of religious fanaticism violence looming everyday. Maybe America is still insane, just with different symptoms.

We did just elect a black president. That's quite a switch from the 60's.

At the top is a speech by Robert F. Kennedy given in Indianapolis on the night King was assassinated. If you have 5 minutes, please give it a go. Robert Kennedy is credited for helping to calm the people and dissuade them from breaking out in the violence seen in other cities that night. It's short and not complicated, but impressing.

I first read this speech from the plaque on the monument in downtown Indianapolis at the location he gave the speech. I was so impressed.

I don't live in the U.S.A right now. Japan is insane, too. I wonder what it will be like in 50 years. I think Japan can fight through some of the insanities, also. There are tensions with the ethnic minorities living in Japan, though they're not at the level of some of the civil rights injustices in the U.S.A of the past. The presence of the foreigners here are part of the education process. I hope life will be less strained for temporary workers, permanent residents and Japanese citizens of non-Japanese or mixed decent in 50 years. Maybe Japan also must have a Cultural Revolution?

Johnny Depp's socks

The most gorgeous Mad Hatter ever and his almost-as-mad director brought Wonderland's fantastic red castle to Tokyo last Monday: the Japan premiere of the highly anticipated Alice in Wonderland.

My lucky student won tickets to the premiere. So jealous.

In class the week before, she was so excited ^_^ The preparations begin!

Checklist!

1 - What to wear! They asked all the winners to dress up as a character. And who does cosplay better than Japan? :D She ended up putting together the most awesome female Mad Hatter outfit.

2 - What to say!! Well, at least get him to shake your hand right? "Do I say, 'Please shake!!'?" she asks her English teacher. So I (green and writhing with jealousy) teach her that, "Please shake my hand!" should do the trick.

3 - Should I give him something??? OK cool! So what do you give Johnny Depp? Something awesome.. this is once-in-a-lifetime after all... But maybe she won't actually have a chance to meet him anyway.. probably she won't.... so she'll get something practical so she can use it just in case she doesn't get to meet him...

But, she does get to meet him. Not only meet him, but get about a hundred autographs and talk to him and.. yes.. give him her present. Which is socks. triple pack. black.

You gave Johnny Depp socks?!?!?!?! =O :D



Well! She says, I thought, just in case I couldn't meet him, my husband could use them! And I put a note inside, so not just socks....

:D And they were the toe socks.. really normal in Japan.. they give you good circulation or something? I love the idea of Johnny Depp wearing these Japanese toe socks from her. LOL. ^_^ I wish.

Ah, Japan loves Johnny Depp. What can I say, Japan has good taste ^_^ In the premiere press conference, Johnny Depp says Japan gives the warmest welcome ^_^ lol. About a million girls met him at the airport, and gathered around the premiere spot. ^_^ And he was just here last December for the premiere of Public Enemies!