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!

Ganbatte Mao-chan!

Ganbatte Mao-chan!! Let's go Mao!!

Today is the final skate of the ladies figure skating competition. The final showdown between rival skaters Mao Asada of Japan (woot! to the right) and Kim Yuna of Korea (to the left). Who gets that shiny golden disc.

I caught the short program on Wednesday. So much fun! Mao blew away the competition by 10 points when she got up. And then, her rival Kim from Korea got up right after her, and beat her score by 5 points! Kim skated to 007... so much fun, I must admit. =O I missed the programs yesterday :( but I'm watching the finals now! In a bit, I'm going to go over to Eiden, the electronics store nearby, to watch Mao with all the other poor people on the big screens ^_^ Let's go Mao-chan! Let's give Korea a silver medal!

These games are right fun, aren't they?

Pete and Repete were in a boat...

Japanese! Sometimes simple, sometimes almost incomprehensibly complicated.

Learning any foreign language can be slow and painful. But being able to communicate in a foreign country--even if it's just ordering coffee, is so rewarding. For one you get your coffee, right? And you now can understand and relate to the people around you a bit more.

Here is a tiny bit of Japanese that can enhance your trip to Japan (and/or your anime watching experiences!).

This channel has posted many videos of single short phrases. They're only about 5 seconds long, so you can just keep playing them over like a sound bite. Repeat and remember..



This girl teaches basic Japanese phrases, etc. by way of Youtube and her trusty sharpie. She's not the best speaker, but I think these videos are rather good.

Just listen and repeat and repeat!



This post is especially for my parents--who are coming to Japan this summer! :D I'm so excited to share everything in my life with them!

PHOTO: Don't you want to understand? ^_^ This is some wall art near the Sakura Hostel in Asakusa in Tokyo. It's a bunch of traditional Japanese ghosts and creatures ^_^ My favorite is the little kappa on the end.. the one that looks like a turtle? They are mischievous creatures that live in rivers ^_^

Ninja skills are better than experience

"Well, it's been my experience, that experience for the sake of experience, usually isn't a very good experience at all. Unless there's a reason for your experience, a purpose, or you learn something from it, then, well, there's not much point."

Bernard Walton. Adventures in Odyssey, Episode 274: First-hand Experience.

Ninjutsu is undoubtedly the most important something I have learned in Japan. Nay, it is the most important thing I have learned in life. I owe the success in my daily life to my deftness in Invisible.

Adventures in Odyssey is one of those haunts from childhood that never quite leaves you. This quote was playing in my mind the other day. I've since worked this into my short answer to the ubiquitous question, "So why did you come to Japan?" Er, the part about learning things I mean.. I've come to learn new things. It's true.

THE PHOTO: We visited the Iga Ninja House in Mie prefecture late last summer. We underwent an intense day of ninjutsu training--instruction in the shuriken/ninja star arts and advanced sneakiness techniques--as well as received professional advice in ninja tourist hachigane/forehead protectors. My hachigane, of course, hangs by my door, ready in a moment if there be a requirement of my ninja skills.

Fire cats (w/ video)

Winter is ending, and the cats come to play in the fires at Hazu.

We went to the Toba Hi Matsuri or Toba Fire Festival in Hazu again this year. We went by train and then met some friends down there.

Festivals are one of my favorite things. In America, festivals are great.. Irish Fest, Indianapolis Labor Day fireworks, Indiana State Fair, your hometown's random city festival ^_^). In Japan, they REALLY know how to make a festival, and they have had hundreds of years to perfect them.

Sum up of the basics of this festival: After walking around at the booths.. catching your fill of goldfish, eating your fill of chocolate-covered bananas, get your spot around the two giant bonfires-to-be. We have a secret spot in the trees behind the bonfires. Well, we thought it was secret but, this year there were about a hundred people there :(

At the starting time, you'll hear the chink, chink, chink of flint against stone: building a fire from the bottom up. A victory shout signals the successful spark, and then the bonfires are lit.



There is a sacred tree inside each of the fires--one for each team, the east and the west. Once the fires begin to roar, the two teams of local Hazu-ites--dressed in traditional festival wear--begin to race up ladders, into the bonfires! They are racing to pull out their team's sacred tree. If the east wins, then there will be a good harvest. If the west wins, there will be a bad harvest. But, our friend says, both teams try hard to win anyway. This is a video! Note the fire falling all over the guys and them jumping off as they catch on fire!




The festival wear is one of the best parts: they fashion the black and white banners of last year's festival into costumes that cover them from head to toe. The end result makes them look just like little calico cats! Meow! or since they're Japanese, nya~! ^_^

We made it around the bay!

Aroooound the bay and back again!

Minority and I and our little bicycles made it all the way to the tips of the Mikawa Bay peninsulas and back again to Nishio, safe and still friends, last weekend ^_^ (And also just in time to watch the recording of the Super Bowl with our friends... big disappointing end to the day >_<

It was about 130 kilometers, a challenge and the hills almost did me in... hills and a certain failure to turn, which led us over an extremely huge bridge with lots of wind that spanned the whole ocean I think... but we persevered... Minority let me use his bicycle sometimes ^_^ He looked so cool on my cute little schoolgirl bike :D ha ha. And we also encountered some lovely and/or amusing people along the way ^_^

Here's our start: outside Hananoki Elementary School, Nishio. With our trusty Super Mapple!--marked with huge assistance from our friend Al Capone (ありがとうね！arigato ne! thank you!）Our first day was about 50 kilometers. And we sort of took it easy.


We headed south, through Kira and then over the hills of Kota. Can you see how far UP we bicycled? That town at the bottom is Nishio / Kira. >_<




In just an hour we made it down to Gamagori. We stopped off at Takeshima, a tiny island shrine with a huge bridge stretching out to it. Minority hadn't been there. Beautiful as ever.


Oh! Well, I always look at the wishes at shrines now, ever since my friend (Roba) found one that was really funny ^_^ Today, someone hopes he can be a jockey some day ^_^ Awesome. And he/she mispelled jockey ^_^ ちょう　かわいい。　cho kawaii. so cute.



And then we biked for about 10 minutes and stopped at the fish market at Laguna. Yummy! They give you tons of free samples and stuff... but Minority doesn't really like fish. Right. Why did he come to Japan?? But I really enjoyed myself ^_^ It was really 懐かしい。natsukashii. took me back to when I first came to Nishio. ^_^ My student/friend took me there maybe my first month in Japan ^_^ This picture is of a big pile of seaweed.



Turns out that although Minority hates fish, he really likes raw fish. Weird guy. So we ate lunch here. And I also noticed the dialect this time! The fish vendors were saying "Maido!" along with the general "Irashai mase!" or "Welcome! Please come in!" "Maido" is what they say in the west, Kansai dialect. Like in Osaka, the big city in the west of Japan. But they use some Kansai dialect here in Mikawa area, too. I figure it's sort of mixed with the peculiar dialect here... Mikawa dialect. Apparently, Mikawa dialect sounds pretty country to people in the city ^_^ My friend's son is going to University near Nagoya, and she says he tries not to speak in Mikawa dialect because it makes him sound so country ^_^

After lunch we continued on our way... getting a liiittle lost.. adding another hour or so to our trip >_< but we finally made it to Tahara.

It was just getting dark and getting so cold when we made it to Tahara. Sooo lucky that Al Capone had looked up a internet cafe for us to stay at. We asked for directions at a Sugi Pharmacy (love Sugi!) and the pharmacist printed us out a map and everything ^_^ Tahara people are nice ^_^ Turns out we were a block away from it

It was the best internet cafe ever! The name is Aprecio and they have cafes all over Japan... I think I'll look them up next time I go somewhere. So.. in Japan, net cafes, or manga kissatens (mangakissa) are really common. You can pay per hour to sit and use the internet, read manga, drink free drinks--because ours was so awesome they have karaoke, place to do your laundry, massage chairs, other awesomeness. And they also have night packs so you can stay all night.. pretty cheap lodging.

We got 10-hour night packs for 2200 yen, about $22.00 (And thank God they had showers here for only an extra 100 yen. I was so happy.) And they had this amazing free breakfast in the morning! It was a really, really nice mangakissa. Quite comfortable. I had never stayed at one before... only used the internet at them, but Minority had. Lol the gappers are just too poor ^_^ (Our pads were side-by-side.. we have the door open in this picture.)


We were so cold and frustrated trying to find a place to eat in the dark, but by an error in kanji reading (which Minority was humiliated for the rest of the trip ^_^) we happened upon a lovely little restaurant with people so overly-accommodating in helping the gaijin-san navigate the menu (which we could read quite well enough and which was also highly saturated with photos to guide us if we couldn't..). "Gaijin-san wa tenpura ga suki deshou?" "Foreigners love tempura, right?" Yeah.. so I ended up with the tempura. Even though I almost never get tempura anymore. She gave us this stamp rally map though (if we eat at enough of the restaurants we get some free food or something..) and a survey to fill out. LOL. That was fun to figure out. They enjoyed having us I guess, and we had fun. And we got free dessert out of it, too ^_^.


The next morning, after our luxorious breakfast....



...we headed out to the tip of the Atsumi Peninsula. Our second day, we did 80 kilometers. We were supposed to catch the 9:50 ferry across the bay... but we sort of misjudged the distance and got there just in time for the 11:15 ferry :o The area after Tahara was beautiful. Mountains and farms. It really reminded me of Indiana heartland, except for the mountains ^_^ Then we hit the ocean, and it was really beautiful. The ocean is still quite captivating ^_^ I'm still not over how big it is yet ^_^


Irago, at the tip of the Atsumi peninsula, is famous for strawberries and melons. We stopped and got these 花火苺　hanabi ichigo fireworks strawberries ^_^ so delicious!


The ferry ride over was lovely. Nice to sit down in a comfy seat for awhile (and here awhile equals 40 minutes). Here, we are taking our bikes out from below. We, of course, sat up on the deck.



On the other side, on Chita Peninsula, we ate some ramen for lunch ^_^ The city name is Morozaki. It was Morozaki specialty ramen... which Minority got not realizing it was loaded with all his most-hated sea creatures.

We enjoyed riding by the sea for quite a ways. After awhile, we were just driving through towns, and they got to looking quite a bit like we were driving though Nishio for hours. But still interesting. And our road became impossible for bicyclists, so we had to find a new way around... Minority says, "Oh well, if you weren't with me, I would try it." Yeah Minority, and you'd be dead soon. Or someone else would be. :o >_< (Note the "no rickshaws" ^_^)
Then we rode and rode, until Handa, where we found the No Sumoking Bar :D


...then crossed through the Kinuura Tunnel under the bay between Handa and Hekinan, and came back to Nishio ^_^


We made it back to central Nishio about 5:30. Obviously, we made a lot better time day 2. Still, we didn't even push it that much.

I highly recommend this route... it wasn't too hilly. You can see even by the terrain view on Google maps that this area is relatively flat. The view wasn't stunning until we got down to the tips of the peninsulas, and then it sort of turned into hours and hours of Nishio again after we left them ^_^ But still interesting, and totally doable in 2 days. I think next time... I'd like to try taking the ferry to another city... We can go across the harbor to Ise and Ise Shrine! Maybe it'd be worth it... ^_^