This was after attending the European Career Fair, an event that I attended with utmost trepidation. I spent 45 minutes there before my only pair of nice black shoes, a pair of 2.5 inch heels with very slightly pointed toes, made it expedient for me to leave. I garnered no job offers, left no resumes, but successfully obtained the names of two places I could apply for grad school.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
the new year's resolutions have gone all to hell.
Today I sliced off the skin on the tip of my thumb. I then proceeded to swear profusely for twenty minutes because I was so angry at myself, as I was dripping blood into the sink, on the floor, et cetera. This moderately scared the other people making cucumber sandwiches in the kitchen.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
specific goals.
because I spent today screwing around on the internet instead of doing anything legitimate.
1. Rewrite my thesis proposal
2. Decide whether I need to submit a plan to the COUHES committee (these are reportedly the people that make sure my research doesn't give children cancer, but I am skeptical)
3. Return my damn library books
4. Stop reading blogs, even if they are extremely funny (see http://stuffblackpeoplehate.com/)
5. Review some Spanish, particularly verb conjugations, so I don't humiliate myself in Spanish III this term
6. Gondoliers audition poster
7. Trial by Jury quick poster
8. Little Shop ads
9. Portfolio
10. Email folks about getting recommendation letters
11. Write stuff
12. Exercise, dammit
13. All the other terrifying thesis stuff
14. Clean
15. Mail stuff home
Bedtime.
Resolutions
I am a bad one for making resolutions. By which I mean, I don't so much make "new year's" resolutions -- I am more in a constant state of resolution-making list-happiness year round.
But here are some I have been thinking about, of varying levels of specificity and do-ability.
1. Think more carefully.
This one covers a lot of ground, but for a good reason. I am not a careful person, and if I list out all the items in my life that require more of this sort of attention it would be very long and very intimidating.
But of things to consider more carefully, I could start with what goes into my system. I am a compulsive eater and drinker of fluids (none alcoholic, but many caffeinated). And even besides restricting the overall amount of such things (see resolution 2), I need to be more careful about eating things that I actually enjoy, that contain actual nutrients, such as fiber and vitamins, and that don't contain things I don't really need, such as 50% of my daily requirement of salt.
I need to think more carefully about what happens to my stuff. I recently was at a friend's house and had a chance to observe her laptop, her iPod, her camera, and her external hard drive, all things that we both own. Her laptop looks like it is new (she got it senior year of high school), her iPod has a nice plastic case to protect it from scratches, and her external hard drive has a little felt bag in which it resides, such that it positively glistens with newness. My laptop is coming up on a year and a half old. It has a crack in the plastic next to one speaker, part of the "Dell" logo is scratched off, and I cracked the plastic off the corner when it fell out of my backpack that one time last fall. My iPod and my external hard drive are nests of tiny scratches, and I have gone through three pairs of headphones in the last year (sorry parents if you are reading this.) My camera, which I bought new in Japan in August, has a a black divot in the corner of the LCD screen half the size of my pinky nail. I am not good about taking care of my stuff. We could go into things like deodorant stains, but let's not.
I would like to be more careful about what goes on my body. I am not exactly a pleasing shape (see resolution 2, again), and the easiest way to disguise this from myself and others is to not dress like a frump. It is an unpleasant reality that dressing better seems to make people take you more seriously, and a pleasant reality that dressing better seems to make me dislike the person I see in the mirror less. By this I mean choosing clothes that are flattering, interesting, and in good repair.
I need to be more careful about what I do in public. I am often guilty of doing weird things -- scratching my face, picking at my fingernails, and yes, occasionally picking my nose -- without thinking about who might be watching me. This is bad, both for "not disgusting passersby" and "not behaving in a compulsive manner" reasons.
I always need to be more careful about what I say. I am a bit of an idiot, and I talk as compulsively as I eat. Doubtless it would be nice not to nurse daily stupidities so much due to having less of them. To put it another way, I would like to worry less about who I might have offended, inadvertently hurt, or left with a less than stellar impression of my intelligence.
I need to be more careful about how I use my time. Facebook is a bad use of my time. If I'm going to procrastinate, I might as well read a book. I'm actually not so concerned about doing my work in a more timely fashion -- I generally get my work done. I'm more concerned with procrastinating more wisely and getting more sleep.
And. . . I need to be more careful when I occupy space. Also known as CLEANING! I am pretty good about kitchen stuff -- I remember to wash my dishes and put away my ingredients. But somehow that same mentality seems to be difficult to carry out in my own room, which is a haven of crap as far as the eye can see. I only sporadically remember to put away my books, my clothes, and other bits of junk, and I have issues with throwing things out in a timely fashion (both in terms of taking out the garbage and getting rid of stuff I don't use anymore.)
I can't deal with all of this every day, but I can deal with a little of one each day.
2. Lose weight.
Why is this necessary? Well, I weigh (x) lbs. (x is a lot.) I would prefer to weight about 40 lbs less, and so far as I know the insurance charts would prefer me to weigh about 40 lbs less too. Not to put too fine a point on it, I have pretty much always hated my body and how it looks. Why is a sort of a mystery to me -- a mishmash of cultural expectations, personal experiences, and a severely insecure personality come to mind. I have been intending to lose weight for most of my college career, but instead I have steadily packed it on -- I've gained about 25 lbs since the beginning of freshman year, which was on top of a high school weight with which I was never super happy.
I would like to feel more comfortable in my skin than I am. I would like to feel that I am physically attractive, which I do not. So. This means, among other things (also see resolution 1 about dressing better and resolution 3 about other things), weight loss.
This can be sub-divided into two other resolutions: a. control what I eat and b. exercise. I can do this. I've done it before. Last term I got so neurotic I was verging on binge eating (a whole box of cookies, anyone?) I'm not talking about starving myself, I'm talking about taking one cookie and putting the rest back. Or perhaps eating a real meal instead of eating a box of cookies in the first place. Or. . . correcting a host of other unhealthy eating habits, such as a habitual avoidance of fruit, vegetables, and other nice things that could fill me up without making me chubby.
As for (b) I actually love to exercise. Running or jogging is a cheap high, and my physical self-esteem goes up very quickly when I am doing so regularly. Everything I eat seems more pleasant, especially those bites which are less healthy. Time management (see resolution 1) plays in here. Somehow I can manage to exercise for about 4- to 5-month periods, and then I stop for a similar period (or longer), and then I start again. It would be nice to see if I could keep up exercising for a long-ish period of time -- say, a year or two years -- before a time management crisis causes me to give it up again.
I would also like, in this vein, to take up some form of exercise that works on my large muscle coordination/flexibility, such as some kind of dance or yoga, along with aerobic-type things and weight-training type things, with which I am more familiar.
3. Take better care of myself.
As a college student, I do a lot of dumb things along with my compatriots. I have never gotten drunk and barfed, but I do habitually neglect things that help my physical well-being. I forget to take out my contacts before bedtime, I forget to brush my teeth, I forget to wash my face, I forget to clip my toenails, I forget to put lotion on my dry hands and feet. (I've pretty much conquered the "showering/washing hair every day" beast of sophomore year.) These are little stupid things, but every additional one makes me feel just a little bit more like a homeless bum, which is not the goal.
4. Write more.
I have a specific goal for this one, i.e. I want to be able to enter every possible category in the Ilona Karmel Writing competitions in April. They are due April 2. This gives me 83 days in which to produce something like 100 (single-spaced) pages of writing. It could be done. I like to set my goals ridiculously high.
There are two reasons for this. One, I like to write, and I need to build up a writing portfolio of more recent work, in case I should ever get the urge either apply to grad school in writing or finally just drop everything and write books. Two, the Ilona Karmel awards give money, and I need money for my coming year's endeavors.
The awards are as follows:
The Enterprise Poets Prize for Imagining a Future
Essays, short stories or poems, that convincingly imagine a future human enterprise are eligible. (Probably not the place for a dystopian short story, but I have given some thought to how I would go about starting an organization that re-builds important buildings after disasters and builds schools and community centers in other areas. That sounds like an enterprise to me.)
The Robert A. Boit writing prize
Writing by undergraduates in the categories of essay, poetry and short story is eligible. (This one entails three things.)
The S. Klein Prizes
* for Science Writing
* for Technical Writing
Open to MIT undergraduate and graduate students. Entries should be intended for non-specialized but educated audiences and should show evidence of publishable quality. (For this one I would probably adapt -- and shorten -- the paper on daylighting and circadian rhythms I wrote last year, because hey, I know the subject pretty well.)
DeWitt Wallace Prize for Science Writing for the Public
Writing of any length addressed to lay audiences on issues and developments in science, medicine, and engineering. (So basically this sounds like a review paper on something I find interesting.)
The Boit Manuscript Prize
Works of substantial length by MIT undergraduates are eligible in the categories of fiction, poetry, essay, and drama. (Again, four entries. Drama would be hard. I might skip that one. Essay -- say hello to an extended rant on my Japan experience. Fiction -- oh laws, what story would I even pick? I have many.)
The Prize for Writing Science Fiction
Writing by undergraduate students in the category of science fiction short story. (Maybe I would write a story set in Sharon-dystopia-land, but focused on libraries.)
The Vera List Prize for Writing on the Visual Arts
Writing by undergraduate students should demonstrate unusual and thoughtful expression on some aspect of contemporary visual art. (Do church windows count?)
This, by the way, is in addition to writing my thesis. Fun times.
5. Finish my thesis on time.
Self-explanatory.
6. Study harder.
I am the crappiest student of Japanese ever. Also even if I decide not to stay an extra term for a biology major, it would be awfully nice if I could pull up my gpa a touch and not do so crappily in the bio classes I have chosen for this term.
7. Mail as much crap home and throw out as much other crap by the end of January as possible.
I have potential to be moving out of Boston soon, man. Maybe.
8. Be timely and dedicated about my extracurricular commitments.
Already kind of failing at this one, but perhaps tomorrow I will able to catch up? Yay Little Shop of Horrors posters design.
Also, need to spend more time in the pottery studio. Yup. The plan was originally to try to throw 40 pieces by the end of IAP, but that's kind of laughable now. Let's say 20.
9. Be more involved with my faith.
That's kind of a lame-o way to put it, but there it is. I have a weird feeling that my faith is sort of warping around me, and I would like to be a bit more informed about what it's doing. I think some of my beliefs have changed, but I'm not sure.
The fact that this one is last is doubtless indicative of a major problem in some way. I think I need to be seeking more information on my faith more frequently, and seeking to grow rather than to just keep from falling off the I-love-Christ wagon. I just don't put the effort into this area of my life that I put into every other part.
I know that at this point I feel profoundly uncomfortable with certain parts of my faith. I think this is largely my own fault -- see aforementioned lack of effort. I don't put the time into study that I could, and I actually enjoy reading the Bible and historical-type books that help interpret it. I don't put time into prayer; I've just never quite gotten the hang of the daily thing.
But there is also a weird flux in my heart that I can't quite pinpoint. Some of it is living in an extremely diverse, liberal, and often wacky house, which tends to pull me a lot of different ways due to my lack of fondness for confrontation. Another part is operating for a bit too long without guidance back to the straight and narrow, which has allowed my percolating mind to produce some odd theological possibilities (some random things about universality and salvation based partially on human love, not just emanating from Christ.)
Some of this is a profound hunger for knowledge about other religions and how they actually function in the lives of people who believe in them. I'm not looking for the "hey I'm Shinto/Catholic and I go to a shrine/church twice a year" modern explanation of religion, but knowledge about how people around the world turn upward and outward for explanation of events they otherwise can't deal with. I guess I just don't think the Bible can possibly tell the whole story, because the God I believe in is not encompass-able by one finite book. And I guess I also just don't believe in a God who would refuse to reveal himself in any way to most of the people in the world until some Western missionary showed up to clue them in.
And that highlights one of the largest faith-related that is squirming around in my heart. I don't know what to do with evangelism. It's not just that I'm uncomfortable with it -- I'm not even sure if it's ethical to evangelize. I believe in a (and the) God that offers redemption and unconditional love, and demands a sacrifice of one's life and morals code to His will in return. But I almost think that idea is outside religion entirely. God on earth, so far as I have seen Him, is found in the collective faith of human beings, which I guess you could call religion or Christianity. But I think there is a profound difference between God on earth and religion, although they might be both made up of a similar thing -- the actions and beliefs that a group of people hold -- faith. The first seems to be a faith in some kind of profound goodness that demands action, while the second is a faith in an institution. Pulling back, while I'm sure that a recognition of God on earth is something that is required for ultimate salvation -- whatever that means -- I'm not sure that it's something that's limited to Christianity. Or organized religion. Or even human beings. And this makes evangelism a very odd subject for me to deal with, particularly when one considers the horrific damage that perhaps well-intentioned missionaries have done in the past.
(And then, I have creeping doubt. I have never doubted the existence of hell, but sometimes Christ flickers on and off in my mind like a faulty street lamp.)
I'm sure my questions are answered somewhere, if I would get off my lazy butt and look.
Too much.
Good night.
Guinness bread
I decided to use my 21 years and 8-ish months for evil today, so I bought a bottle of Guinness and made a whole casserole dish full of Guinness bread. This turned out to be 1 bottle of Guinness of + 6 cups of white flours (ish) + 1 TBS baking soda + 1 TBS baking powder + 1.5 tsp salt + 1 cup sugar + 4 TBS butter.
Okay, but a touch bitter. Not sure it will ever be as good when I make it myself, as opposed to finding it ready-made upon my grandmother's counter.
Friday, January 8, 2010
pumpkin spice chai
Will it taste as it good as it smells? We shall see.
Note: I am one of those "loose-leaf tea people," but probably only because there is an awesome store in Boston that sells (cheap) loose-leaf tea out of wonderful tins stacked neatly on the wall behind the counter (and crumpets. oh my goodness.)
Thursday, January 7, 2010
First IAP pottery class last night
We, as "intermediates," are supposed to use only the BROWN CLAY. In the past two semesters of pottery, I have only used the WHITE CLAY. The brown has extra "grog" (sand) in it, which makes it a bit more difficult to push around. This should be interesting.
Monday, December 28, 2009
context shot
because I have a bit of extra time to kill while I procrastinate going out in the snow to take pictures of churches for my thesis.
This was our final project for the fourth (my LAST) studio, a community center of some sort. Mine was a center for religious understanding, reconciliation, and education. It's frankly a bit a jumbled, and in a few years I probably won't hate it anymore.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
stuff that interests me
for those of you are real people out there, I have a feeling you have no idea how much time your average dork college student spends surfing the web.
1. DID YOU KNOW there were three assassination attempts made on John Paul II's life? Once by a Turkish gunman who may have been backed by the Soviet Union, once by a right-wing Spanish Priest, and once by an al-Quaeda funded group in the Philippines. All failed, of course.
(with the obvious disclaimer that, I know, it's Wikipedia. It may not all be true but oh how I love surfing the information overload there.)
2. ALSO from wikipedia:
This U.S. map show, by county, what the largest ethnic background is of the people living there. It's quite fascinating, and in some ways a little surprising. (I don't believe it's a majority, just the largest group.)
3. Raw coconut has 350 calories per 100 g from sugar and fat. It also has B and C vitamins, as well as other nutrients.
So when Canadian Survivorman in the Costa Rica episode is complaining about not having enough food, and he's surrounded by coconuts and has a knife, he is full of crap.
4. I am trying to start a new habit: Googling "puppies" and "kittens" for pictures. This will replace my old habit of reading horror movie summaries on Wikipedia.
5. Do you find that you have hours of extra time on your hands? Balderdash! Kill them kill them kill them!
No kidding. There is a tourism niche for riding a horse around the world (or different horses in various places around the world).
I am personally scared of horses, but I saw this chipper lady on TV riding around Wales on a cobb looking at mountains and castles and stuff. WANT.
Friday, December 25, 2009
test!
I like pictures.
What does blogspot think about pictures?
Aha.
This is one-half of my final studio project this term, by the way, photographed in Killian Court.
blog post about various things. Christmas.
so it is snowing great garbage bags of snow outside.
We missed the Christmas Eve service and the traditional Gochenour family reunion, delayed the Christmas meal with Grandma until Sunday, and in general have holed up.
The good side of this is that there's no way I can do the field research necessary for my thesis. Predictably enough, the bad side of this is ALSO that there's no way I can do the field research necessary for my thesis.
And now, a blog entry talking about various things.
I. Family Stuff.
This looks to be the best Christmas my family has had in a couple years, for various reasons. My brother is snowed in up north with his new wife, Reanna, and her family. The pink Carhartt coat he bought her did not, tragically enough, fit, so he is now searching for another present (hopefully another coat, but we'll see) that is equally suitable for the new wife of Farmer John.
Last night the power went out on the east half of town. The Dr. Gochenour family sat warm and comfy with our power on and our new generator in the old clinic, peaceably secure, and my mom promptly invited all our extended non-DNA-sharing family to stay overnight in case of a continued night without power -- i.e. Joanna, Bob, Baby Bobby, Chris (Joanna and Chris are my beloved babysitters of old and probably the best employees we have ever had at Willow Park Veterinary Clinic; Bob is Joanna's husband and Baby Bobby is her much-awaited, much-adored 10-month-old son), and Connie (whose dog Keesha was my godchild. Connie is now getting a new Corgie puppy soon. If you have known someone who lost a beloved dog, you will appreciate the joyful, almost painful sigh of relief that I heaved upon learning this information; and if you have not -- back in your cold little closet of heartlessness, you non-pet-loving cur.) The mental image of Baby Bobby, perhaps attired in his small puffy Santa suit, shivering in a dark house, proved far too much for my mother to stomach.
We hurtled around the house at high speed, trying to redistribute our possessions in such a way that would result in the least amount of small objects being gummed and swallowed by the Bobster. Mom produced two pans of enchiladas (yuck) and the yellow Dutch oven (a pot big enough to give a 3-month-old a bath in) full of minestrone (yum) in record time.
After an hour, the power came back on, and no one had to stay over after all. Mom and I were pretty deflated.
II. Books
I haven't read crap this term, due to the evils of STUDIO (more on that later. Maybe. This entry is looking unpleasantly long for what I had in mind.)
I read Olive Kittredge, by somebody Strout, on the plane home. It is apparently a Pulitzer Prize winner. It's a book of thirteen stories, set in a small town in Maine (which, other than easy access to the ocean, was remarkably like a small town in Iowa.) Each story is built up of tiny disappointments stretched out over years, and the seemingly even tinier joys that keep the residents of this small town going through these things. It was quite readable, though the Pulitzer designation is a bit mystifying.
We missed the Christmas Eve service and the traditional Gochenour family reunion, delayed the Christmas meal with Grandma until Sunday, and in general have holed up.
The good side of this is that there's no way I can do the field research necessary for my thesis. Predictably enough, the bad side of this is ALSO that there's no way I can do the field research necessary for my thesis.
And now, a blog entry talking about various things.
I. Family Stuff.
This looks to be the best Christmas my family has had in a couple years, for various reasons. My brother is snowed in up north with his new wife, Reanna, and her family. The pink Carhartt coat he bought her did not, tragically enough, fit, so he is now searching for another present (hopefully another coat, but we'll see) that is equally suitable for the new wife of Farmer John.
Last night the power went out on the east half of town. The Dr. Gochenour family sat warm and comfy with our power on and our new generator in the old clinic, peaceably secure, and my mom promptly invited all our extended non-DNA-sharing family to stay overnight in case of a continued night without power -- i.e. Joanna, Bob, Baby Bobby, Chris (Joanna and Chris are my beloved babysitters of old and probably the best employees we have ever had at Willow Park Veterinary Clinic; Bob is Joanna's husband and Baby Bobby is her much-awaited, much-adored 10-month-old son), and Connie (whose dog Keesha was my godchild. Connie is now getting a new Corgie puppy soon. If you have known someone who lost a beloved dog, you will appreciate the joyful, almost painful sigh of relief that I heaved upon learning this information; and if you have not -- back in your cold little closet of heartlessness, you non-pet-loving cur.) The mental image of Baby Bobby, perhaps attired in his small puffy Santa suit, shivering in a dark house, proved far too much for my mother to stomach.
We hurtled around the house at high speed, trying to redistribute our possessions in such a way that would result in the least amount of small objects being gummed and swallowed by the Bobster. Mom produced two pans of enchiladas (yuck) and the yellow Dutch oven (a pot big enough to give a 3-month-old a bath in) full of minestrone (yum) in record time.
After an hour, the power came back on, and no one had to stay over after all. Mom and I were pretty deflated.
II. Books
I haven't read crap this term, due to the evils of STUDIO (more on that later. Maybe. This entry is looking unpleasantly long for what I had in mind.)
I read Olive Kittredge, by somebody Strout, on the plane home. It is apparently a Pulitzer Prize winner. It's a book of thirteen stories, set in a small town in Maine (which, other than easy access to the ocean, was remarkably like a small town in Iowa.) Each story is built up of tiny disappointments stretched out over years, and the seemingly even tinier joys that keep the residents of this small town going through these things. It was quite readable, though the Pulitzer designation is a bit mystifying.
Last night I stayed up late (ugh, mistake) to read Lullaby, by Chuck Palahniuk. He is certainly a talented writer with a gift for characterization, and that's about it for that book. It's doubtless deliberate that it is a mere 260 pages, because a lot more than that of trailing along behind a bunch of eminently hate-worthy characters who spout nauseating amounts of rhetoric formulated precisely to make the reader the optimum amount of irritated (uncomfortable through the entire book, but not quite enough to stop reading) would have resulted in an unfinished book landing in the Goodwill bag in Mom's trunk.
I just started The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini (I'm pretty far behind the reading curve.) 50 pages in, I'm looking forward to the rest of the book, and gritting my teeth in expectation of having my internal organs and emotions stewed about.
Books waiting for me (here at home -- there's a shelf of about 10 left at school): The Will of the Empress, a good old fantasy from Tamora Pierce, The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver, of which I hear many good things, My Life in France, by Julia Child -- it's about France, cooking, and Julia Child; what's not to like? -- Stardust, by Neil Gaiman, which I expect to be charming, A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway, which I expect will not be. I have high hopes of getting through three or four more before heading back to school. We'll see if I fritter my time on Facebook and the Internet or spend it more wisely.
III. Food
I haven't been baking lately, although I have been gaining weight. Baking has temporarily lost its charm for me -- i.e. it does not seem to have the power to produce a sufficient amount of joy in random recipients to merit the effort.
But things that are tasty:
1. Apple tarts. Pie crust in muffin tins with apples cooked with some butter and brown sugar in the center.
2. STUFFING. homemade. out of the kraft box. out of the freezer meal. I LOVE STUFFING.
3. Roast potatoes. Chop, roll in olive oil, spread on pan, sprinkle with thyme and sage: Easy college happiness.
4. Potato soup, from a dried mix that has large amounts of potatoes, a sweet potato, and an onion added to it.
5. Fried onion. With soy sauce. Sounds disgusting, but man, it's tasty.
6. Pasta sauce made with canned tomatoes from the parents' garden, hamburger, onion, olive oil, basil, and mixed Italian herbs.
Things that are not tasty:
1. Dried Korean seaweed that I don't know how to cook in a bag for 100 people.
2. Red bean mochi. I'm sorry, everyone.
IV. Design & Thesis
In short, studio sucked big time. I am not going to be an architect. Because if I'm going to slave that incessantly over something, I want it to be something I care about a whole hell of a lot more.
I only pray I'm not going to be fined for the red ink I spilled on my desk in the new mezzanine.
But design.
I am collecting a lot of design-y sites on the internets, and I have designed two theater production posters (well three, but the third was a dud for unmentionable reasons) so far this year. I am working on improving my wheelthrowing skills, but currently my technique is not good enough to worry much about the careful design of the form, and I don't know enough about glazing to have much control of that, either.
Thesis. My thesis is about a) how typical daylighting has changed in Harrison County Church sanctuaries over the last century b) why and c) how this affects the quantity of, quality of, and attitude toward the light in the church.
We'll see about that. . . .
V. Ideas
I am carefully plotting my Independent Activities Period during January to optimize my research done, my number of books read, my Spanish learned, and my pottery produced. My roommate and I have hopes for a couple trips.
For next year: I am not applying to grad school yet. I am not ready. By a long shot. I have currently applied to the MISTI Japan internship program, the MISTI Spain internship program, and the one-year LEX internship program in Tokyo. And I continue to rustle around. . .
The Christmas music is blaring, and my dear mother is shouting into the computer as she plays Scrabble through Skype with Auntie Barb. I'm off to either thaw the turkey or resume (with trepidation) The Kite Runner.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
someday.
I will post interesting things about my life, more things about Japan, who knows. But something.
Until then.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIDDka3X-LI
Adaptation of Emma.
http://conkrys.deviantart.com/art/Mariza-141415524
Adorable donkey.
enjoy, while I go procrastinate and sentaku-simasu (do the washing.)
Until then.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIDDka3X-LI
Adaptation of Emma.
http://conkrys.deviantart.com/art/Mariza-141415524
Adorable donkey.
enjoy, while I go procrastinate and sentaku-simasu (do the washing.)
Monday, August 17, 2009
Ugh.
Apparently coming in at 3 PM with a sunburn so bad my face swelled up is not enough to get my coworkers to spontaneously ask how my weekend was.
Now I need to update about my Thursday adventure (le Corbusier's National Museum of Western Art and Yanaka cemetery) and my weekend (first night of staying out until 5 AM at the ageha club, followed by Mt. Fuji.) More to follow. I swear.
Now I need to update about my Thursday adventure (le Corbusier's National Museum of Western Art and Yanaka cemetery) and my weekend (first night of staying out until 5 AM at the ageha club, followed by Mt. Fuji.) More to follow. I swear.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
ugh. another interim entry.
I left work early. All of my coworkers except Ana are taking the rest of the week off for Obon. It's a Buddhist holiday, I think, where you honor the dead and visit your family. Ana and I are probably going into the office tomorrow, and then maybe trying for something fun on Thursday and Friday (?). I don't know. I definitely don't want to go shopping again unless I can FINALLY find some more presents for the more difficult people on my list. (Or Japanese Muppet paraphernalia.)
ugh.
I'm really tired and crabby right now and unfortunately can't think of a thing to say that I won't regret later for either a) being too negative or b) eliciting sympathy that I really don't deserve.
ugh.
ugh.
I'm really tired and crabby right now and unfortunately can't think of a thing to say that I won't regret later for either a) being too negative or b) eliciting sympathy that I really don't deserve.
ugh.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Sunday, August 9, 2009
. . .
So maybe they're language partners. But who eats supper with your language partner at 11:30 PM?
Fun times in Tokyo: Interim entry
Experienced my first earthquake tremor tonight. I was so stunned I didn't move or anything. But yes, I was scared. It wasn't a major tremor; the gas for the stove didn't even flip off.
Walking out to get myself dinner and some more butter for baking, I saw a four-inch long cockroach wiggling out its last in the middle of the pavement. I felt like barfing on the street.
I am, as aforementioned, attempting to bake. It is intimidating. I have a toaster oven and two burners and nothing else. I am trying to bake bread in a pot on the stove, after having baked cookies three at a time in the toaster oven last week.
Finally, I would like to note that even the really weird French guy (who I can quite frequently smell from five to seven feet away, and who I once encountered "practicing magic tricks" in front of the communal mirror in the kitchen at 2 AM) in my guesthouse seems to have a Japanese girlfriend. I am a little bewildered by how easy it seems for white guys to get Japanese girls to date them. The Australian dude in the house also has already a Japanese girlfriend.
I swear I will post more entries soon.
Walking out to get myself dinner and some more butter for baking, I saw a four-inch long cockroach wiggling out its last in the middle of the pavement. I felt like barfing on the street.
I am, as aforementioned, attempting to bake. It is intimidating. I have a toaster oven and two burners and nothing else. I am trying to bake bread in a pot on the stove, after having baked cookies three at a time in the toaster oven last week.
Finally, I would like to note that even the really weird French guy (who I can quite frequently smell from five to seven feet away, and who I once encountered "practicing magic tricks" in front of the communal mirror in the kitchen at 2 AM) in my guesthouse seems to have a Japanese girlfriend. I am a little bewildered by how easy it seems for white guys to get Japanese girls to date them. The Australian dude in the house also has already a Japanese girlfriend.
I swear I will post more entries soon.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
. . .
Kenta-san is wearing striped pants today. He is also wearing pink-and-black striped boxers.
WHY MUST THE WORLD BE PRIVY TO THIS INFORMATION?
WHY MUST THE WORLD BE PRIVY TO THIS INFORMATION?
Monday, August 3, 2009
Things I should tell you about
So:
Things I should really tell you about at some point.
Chapter 5 (currently missing): My 4th of July Weekend (aka America Day) in Japan.
Chapter 6.5: My adventures with Eriko-san and Kiyoka-chan (I get to call her that because she is under two.)
Chapter 7-7.25-7.5-7.75-so on: My MASSIVE ADVENTURE in various locations throughout Japan.
Chapter 8: Day in Kamakura with Toshiko-san and Kyoka-chan (I get to call her that because she is six.)
Chapter 8.5: Awa Odori dancing festival. Perhaps with a retroactive entry about practicing.
And maybe another rant on her work. Who knows?
. . . Erk.
Things I should really tell you about at some point.
Chapter 5 (currently missing): My 4th of July Weekend (aka America Day) in Japan.
Chapter 6.5: My adventures with Eriko-san and Kiyoka-chan (I get to call her that because she is under two.)
Chapter 7-7.25-7.5-7.75-so on: My MASSIVE ADVENTURE in various locations throughout Japan.
Chapter 8: Day in Kamakura with Toshiko-san and Kyoka-chan (I get to call her that because she is six.)
Chapter 8.5: Awa Odori dancing festival. Perhaps with a retroactive entry about practicing.
And maybe another rant on her work. Who knows?
. . . Erk.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Interim note. . .
Uh.
A couple things.
I'm going to be gone traveling for a week (very excited!)
So no blog posts.
Also, there are still about 1.5 blog posts missing below. . . I was going to write one about the July 4th weekend, which is why it skips from Chapter 4 to Chapter 6. . . in case you were wondering.
Now, back to packing.
A couple things.
I'm going to be gone traveling for a week (very excited!)
So no blog posts.
Also, there are still about 1.5 blog posts missing below. . . I was going to write one about the July 4th weekend, which is why it skips from Chapter 4 to Chapter 6. . . in case you were wondering.
Now, back to packing.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Chapter the Fourth in "Sherry/Sharon's Big Adventure:" Kyoto, Nara, dance lessons, and Independence Day
Just got back from the grocery store, where I bought sushi for lunch, a box of "caramel-flavored" cookies (hey, they taste good, whatever flavor they are), deodorant (I could only find the spray kind), and corn flakes. They actually carry Kelloggs here, but it really small, really expensive boxes, so store brand it was for me.
Banal, yes. . . but I feel better every time I successfully locate something in a Japanese grocery/convenience/health store. It makes me feel less like a tourist and more like someone who actually lives here, albeit for a short time. I think one of the perks associated with being a tourist is the constant feeling of slight bewilderment and awkwardness because you're far away from how you know how to do things and nothing is quite like you expect it to be. It's an educational feeling, and I think by being kind of unbalanced you learn more than you ever possibly could while safe at home, but sometimes it's nice to feel a little stability. Knowing I can wake up in the morning and have corn flakes for breakfast is, I guess, one definition of stability.
It's a lovely Sunday afternoon, and I am not going out, even though I probably should. I'm kind of tired from previous adventures, and I know I will be traveling the next three weekends, so it's fairly easy to justify sitting around, updating my blog, and maybe studying Japanese a little.
Last week I made plans to meet with a "host family" through the MIT Japanese Wives Group, so I am having afternoon tea next Thursday. The lady, who I have not yet met in person, wrote me several emails in excellent English, but she claims her English is "not very good" so perhaps we will practice Japanese. (I hope she can deal with my Japanese, which is a little worse than "not very good.")
So. . . adventures.
Section 1: Enter Kyoto! (京都に行きましょう。。。)
Last weekend was the MISTI Japan intern trip to Kyoto, the historical capital of Japan from 794-1600 (from Wikipedia -- take with a grain of salt), when the capital then effectively became Edo, what is now Tokyo. Kyoto, as I may have previously mentioned, was largely spared from bombing in World War II (as compared to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, obviously, but also in comparison to Tokyo, which was completely leveled by traditional bombing) which means that many of its historical monuments, temples, and houses are relatively intact. (As intact as developers have left them, anyway.)
The plan was for us to take the night bus down at 10:30 on Friday night and sleep (ha!) on the bus until we arrived the next morning at 6:15 or so. I, being the scaredy pants that I am about traveling (and about Shinjuku, the station from which the bus left), arranged to meet with Bianca at Harajuku at 9:30 and then continue on to Shinjuku. Just for orientation's sake, Harajuku, Shinjuku, and Shibuya are all stations on the JR Yamanote Line (which I previously mentioned -- it goes around central Tokyo in a big circle.) Shibuya is in the southwest edge of the circle, and leading off it in a southwesterly direction is the Den-en-toshi line, which leads to where I live. Harajuku is one station north of Shibuya, and Shinjuku is another couple of stations north of that. Harajuku, as I have a probably previously mentioned, is a small-ish station, with only two exits; Shinjuku is bloody enormous.
This meeting up went successfully, and we got to the bus station early enough to get snacks at Starbucks and sit around and gossip. (SO GLAD I had Bianca with me. The bus station was on the other side of an enormous street past lots of construction and also sort of underground. I don't think Bianca understands why I was intimidated by the Port Authority bus station in NYC, so I suspect this is nothing special for her.)
There were some other MISTI interns on the bus, but my seat was in the front left corner, sandwiched in between sleeping people who got kind of annoyed when I reclined my seat too far. One of the other interns was literally five minutes late, and she missed the bus and had to buy another ticket. Oy.
I had foolishly brought my laptop, which I blame on a communication failure by my boss. What I got from him was that he wanted ALL TEN of the lighting simulations done by Monday; what he actually meant was that he wanted one lighting simulation done that I had already finished. Anyway, I tried (and failed) to do work on the bus; the rocking back and forth (I was on the top floor of a double-decker) made me quite nauseated. I also tried, and sort of failed, to sleep during the 7.5 hour bus ride from Tokyo to Kyoto; I woke up about every two hours falling out of my seat. Yuck.
As my boss put it, riding the night bus is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. . . every time after that you just take the train.
We arrived in Kyoto Station at about 6:15 AM. I had thought everyone would take the bus, but it turned out some interns had taken the Nozomi Shinkansen (super fast bullet train) and arrived several hours earlier, so they had been hanging out in the station for most of the night.
My first unpleasant "cultural experience" occurred when we trooped into the public restroom to use the toilet in the station. They had "Japanese-style" toilets only.
"Japanese-style" means a hole in the ground that flushes. You SQUAT. And there is no toilet paper.
Grandma Dyer, if you are reading this, you probably are shaking your head and asking, "Well, what's wrong with that?" I will tell you what's wrong with that. It's one thing when you are in the timber and ANY kind of building is a 30-minute hike away. It's a completely DIFFERENT thing when you ARE in a bathroom in one of the most hyper-modernized countries in the world and they expect you to SQUAT. WITHOUT TOILET PAPER.
How is this supposed to work? I have heard it is "more sanitary," but that is BULLCRAP. Sure, your butt doesn't touch anything, but your pants have to when you take them off, unless you want to get stuff on them (shudder, shudder.) Also, what genius thought it would be a good idea to invent a toilet that requires you to aim when the "you" in question is NOT MALE???
Anyway. I used one once. I am never using one again. Ever.
Also there wasn't any soap.
So we met up with our "tour guides," Michael and Mitsuko Barker, a couple in their 60s, outside the station (next to the blow-up Astroboy.) Michael went to MIT back in the day, and they've lived in the Kansai region for 10-ish years. They piled us on a tour bus and gave us onigiri, which were sort of an unpleasant surprise. I DO NOT understand the Japanese predilection for putting mayonnaise on EVERYTHING. I like mayonnaise. I DO NOT like mayonnaise on sushi, pasta, rice balls, stir-fry, pizza. . . the list goes on of things I personally consider to be inappropriate that I have seen mayonnaise slathered on here. Mary Beth would say this is cosmic vengeance for abusing mayonnaise in the U.S. Anyway.
We drove to another station for our NEXT traumatic cultural experience: THE PUBLIC BATH.
Let me say right here that I think it is pretty darn cruel to stick interns on a 7-hour bus ride where you know they're not to sleep worth a crap, and then pick them up and take to this second-most-hideous Japanese invention (after the squat toilet.)
So the public bath was located in the basement of this building, which I think was a train station or something similar. I, in my defense, didn't quite understand what this consisted of. I was pretty sure it involved being naked, but I wasn't sure how much naked, the timing of the naked, and how many people got to see me naked.
We put all of our stuff in lockers, and they handed out numbers to the interns. It was pretty crowded, so we had to wait a while. At this point the other interns started telling travel horror stories, primarily about Chinese bathrooms and the things that could possibly happen to you in them. (Note: At least in public park bathrooms that are just a big tank underneath the stool, I never seen MAGGOTS WRITHING AROUND IN THE SLOP, as one girl had when visiting relatives in China. That story was disgusting; I'm sort of hoping the one about the girl who went to the bathroom while eating out with parents in China and was found half an hour later with all her organs cut out wasn't true.)
Then they admitted us to the public path locker room. It was at this point that I suddenly understood three things:
a) There was no robe provided, as in many descriptions of huro/onsen (public bath/public bath in a hot spring) I had read.
b) There was no towel larger than 1' x 2' provided.
c) We were, in fact, supposed to get naked in front of each other and a bunch of strange Japanese women without benefit of a towel, waltz into the next room where the showers and big hot tub thingy were STILL NAKED, wash up, and sit in the big hot tuby thingy WHILE STILL NAKED, SUPPOSEDLY RELAXING AFTER A LONG BUS RIDE.
I took off my shirt and my skirt (I still had shorts on.) Then abruptly I said, "I can't do this."
I started getting dressed again, unfortunately realizing as I was doing this exactly how grimy I was. I had not envisioned this, so I hadn't changed out of my Friday work clothes -- I assumed I would be getting clean Saturday morning. Oh yeah right.
So this, combined with a desire to not be the lamest one, made me get undressed and, using my miniature freaking HAND TOWEL to cover up the most pertinent bits, rush into the bath room and claim a little stool facing the wall and a low showerhead. At least they had the decency to provide body wash and shampoo.
You're supposed to be completely clean and rinsed off before getting into the actual huro, the hot-tub thingy. It's supposedly more of a "relaxation" thing that a "clean" thing. Right. I am still skeptical. I would like to mention, in case this picture isn't vivid enough in your mind, that, as a moderately overweight American white woman, who has all the body-image issues that generally go along with that group of people, getting naked in front of a lot of tiny Japanese women is right up there on my list of greatest fears with being trapped in a hole with my arms immobilized (which happened later this trip) and getting stopped by the police and questioned (which happened later that week.)
I got clean. I sat in the tub in a modified fetal position. Luckily only one Japanese woman was in the bath at the same time as the interns, and she left after a few minutes (probably because of how loud, obnoxious, giggly, splashy and goofy we all were.) It was pretty awkward to start with, but after a while we started chatting (all while carefully not looking anywhere in particular.) There was a cold tub in the corner, for people coming out of the sauna, which several of the girls jumped in, causing a small tidal wave of cold water.
I'm guessing that whatever Japan's gender issues are, female body image is not one of the major ones. :P
Nothing else that day was quite as traumatic. We continued on to Kinkaku-ji, or the "Golden Pavilion," which was okay but kind of commercialized and crowded. It's a Buddhist temple with some nice gardens, which you can see pictures of on my Picasa account. I wish I had bought John one of the "safe traffic charms" they were selling though. Next was Daitoku-ji, also a Buddhist temple, which a little better, except that we couldn't take pictures of the inside of the temple buildings (lame!) They had us recite a life-affirming Buddhist tract, except they had us recite it in Japanese, which meant that I ended up saying mostly, "Mm blah blah mm mm watashi mm blah blah ki blah blah mm mm yes what?" We also looked at these rock gardens (also couldn't take pictures) which were basically fine gravel spread over a space with a porch-like wooden deck around them and large, bizarrely shaped rocks strategically placed throughout that we were supposed to interpret as mountains, waterfalls, ships, turtles, or cows (the last one was the biggest stretch.)
Next came the first truly awesome part of the trip, the visit to Geoffrey Moussas's house. Geoffrey is an architect who was trained at MIT who mainly works in Kyoto restoring old machiya-style houses.
Machiya (町屋 or 町家, miraculously both characters I know, meaning “town shop” or “town house” respectively) are traditional Japanese wooden houses that have been developing for the last couple hundred of years. Geoffrey's restored house is actually about the same era as the row house I live in in Boston (built in 1915, about 90 years old) and not a whole lot older than the central portion of our house in Iowa (although built by much wealthier, and arguably classier, people.) The layout, however, is dramatically different than either that of a wealthy or not-so-wealthy American house of the time. In Fenway House, built by a well-off (if not ridiculously rich) lawyer, you originally entered into small vestibule (snow-catcher), which linearly leads into a hall, with the dining room just beyond – you can see the other end of the dining room from the front door. The kitchen downstairs is downstairs, and the entertaining parlor upstairs. In my house (originally, anyway), you entered directly into the kitchen/living room/dining room.
In this machiya, the front door actually opens into a very small garden open to the sky, with stalks of bamboo growing in the corner and a basin of water, pink and gray rocks, and a few flowers on a stand. Here you make a sharp left turn and climb a few steps into the “entry hall,” where there was a bay window made of translucent paper, glass, and wood, a piece of calligraphy sitting in the corner, and a large vase of red flowers. Nothing else. We left our shoes on the steps between the front garden and the hall and turned sharply again, this time to the right; we could then look through a central room with a cabinet through a dining room with a low table to the back garden. In most machiya this front “hall” was actually a shop, but in this case the family who had built the house had also built the house next door, where their wood mill was located. Tucked in a sort of closet in the left portion of the center room were the stairs to the second floor, on which was Geoffrey's architectural office, one bedroom, and a balcony overlooking the garden. The front room and the back room were both floored in tatami mats, woven of some kind of fine grass with a smooth, slightly undulating texture that is very nice on your feet. The kitchen is tucked behind the front garden, actually a two-story space that is about a foot lower than the rest of the house, to allow heat from cooking (and smoke – the chimney was only added in 1950-something) to rise through a small glass window in the roof that opens by a pulley.
The back garden is perhaps the most beautiful part of the house. A narrow roofed porch (veranda?) wrapped around it in a backwards L, giving the impression that it was just another very green room in the house. Screens made of horizontally hanging split reeds sewn together down the edges blocked the sunlight on the porch somewhat, presumably so it would still be enjoyable to lounge about (in one very narrow lounge chair) without glare in your eyes. The upright of the L led past two small rooms, one containing the tub, the other the toilet. I can't imagine it's particular enjoyable to take a bath in the winter and dash back through the cold to get into the main house, but it's very elegant. The garden itself was very neatly trimmed, with flagstones, lots of ferns, a stone Japanese-style lantern, and a fountain consisting of a stone hollowed out at the top and large piece of bamboo constantly refilling it. On the flagstones sat a small rock wrapped around with rope; this is apparently the traditional symbol that a garden is only for looking at, not walking in.
It was pretty cool. We got to walk around and touch pretty much everything and wiggle our toes on the mats. There's something architecturally profound about layers of space and exit and entrance in stages tied up in that house, and maybe I'll figure out precisely what it is and how it works in a couple of months or years (or decades, sigh).
Then was lunch. I had sashimi and a variety of other things that were not as tasty. Sashimi, if you are not familiar with it, is sushi without the rice – i.e. slices of raw fish, in this case tuna. I love tuna. I in general love sashimi (no octopus, thank you very much.) I won't try to convince the collective readers of this blog, many of whom I believe do not tolerate fish in any form, of the merits of this food, but rest assured it is delicious. Other things on my plate included pickled purple something-or-others (most Japanese meals are served with some kind of pickle; this was probably some kind of beet), which were okay, and a cube of squishy gooshy nasty tofu, which was NOT. I have encountered very little tofu that I find delicious or even acceptable.
My lunchtime dose of awkwardness occurred when one of Michael Barker's Japanese students who was accompanying us on this trip, after being seated across from me and watching me eat my meal for a few minutes, commented, “Chopsticks are very difficult to use, aren't they?” I stopped, somewhat mortified. I suppose it is possible he wasn't commenting on my lack of finesse with the aforementioned utensils, but that conversation fizzled before it ever started.
After lunch we went to Heianjingu, the largest Shinto shrine in Japan. It was. . . very red. And very large. There were a lot of gardens with ponds and lilies behind the main temple complex, as well as some scary looking turtles (which another intern informed me later are supposed to be very tasty) that looked suspiciously like snapping turtles.
Then. . . Kiyomizudera, possibly the most awesome temple ever!
This temple is, unfortunately for those reading here, a temple made magnificent primarily by its spectacular scenery (i.e. beyond my linguistic and typing powers.) Try looking here for pictures. It occurs in approximately three levels that progressively move up the side of a mountain that looks over Kyoto. Apparently “taking a jump off Kiyomizu” is a phrase which means you are really committed to something – no kidding. The highest level of Kiyomizu looks out on a drop of about 100 feet; once you made the decision to jump, there would be a pretty low chance of survival. :\ In a more positive vein, you can see all of Kyoto from Kiyomizu; the whole city is surrounded by mountains. Extremely tall, slender trees (which doesn't seem remarkable until you're standing a half-mile away looking up at them) line whatever part of the mountainside the temple buildings don't occupy. There are a variety of shrines, presumably primarily Buddhist (tera or dera (寺) = Buddhist temple), including one of a black lacquered Buddha with red clothes and a bizarrely squished face (which falls neither in the category of “fat happy Buddhas” or “tall elegant Buddhas” – it was pretty squarely in another group known as “weird.”) I'm not really sure if shrines are a universal facet of Buddhism, or if the Japanese just adapted Buddhism to their already-present religious architecture of Shintoism. Ritual purification, with incense or water (this is the rinse right hand, rinse left hand, rinse mouth, let water slush down the handle of the dipper routine) seems to occur in both types of temples.
Also fascinating and weird, and as yet still unexplained to me, were the hundreds of tiny Buddhas lined up along the paths, all with little new(ish) red cloth aprons tied around their necks. Kinda creepy, to be honest. . . I have been accused of developing Buddhaphobia.
Look at the pictures. . . it's hard to describe, but it was beautiful.
Then. . . dinnertime, which was a disappointment. I had ordered something that I thought I recognized, and discovered that was indeed not the case at all. I ate my three small pieces of tempura and my rice and spent 20-ish minutes poking the various incarnations of tofu sitting on my plate. I Do Not Like tofu. During this time the Japanese students at our table taught us several rude words and phrases, the only one of which I remember is “ahou” or “idiot.” We reciprocated by trying, somewhat unsuccessfully, to explain what “flaming” meant colloquially. Other things that came up during the conversation included “chikan” (perverts who feel girls up on crowded trains) and the addition of warning noises to cell phone cameras in Japan to prevent upskirt photography.
Are we mature? No.
The girl next to me was eying my tofu, so I traded for the rest of her rice. Win!
We checked into a “Super Hotel” in Nara, which super nice. The weirdest thing about this hotel was that the bathroom was actually one continuous plastic piece – the tub was connected to the sink was connected to the toilet was connected to the walls. It also featured the far end of Japanese toilets from the squat toilet, i.e. a high-tech monster with a heated seat (yuck), a bidet, “flushing noises,” and a high-pressure jetstream of water (haven't had the nerve to use any of the last three options yet) installed in the toilet. Unfortunately, no iron was provided, so I ended up pretty wrinkly the next day.
The other guys and dolls headed out to do karaoke, play cards, and get soppingly drunk (in a couple cases). I was lame and went to bed at 10:30, after claiming I was going upstairs to do work (well, I thought work /might/ happen.)
Section 2: Attacked by deer! (Shika ga kamimasita. . .)
The next morning we were supposed to meet at eight and head out to see the attractions of Nara, the capital of Japan BEFORE Kyoto. This did not quite occur as planned, since a number of the other interns were still suffering from the choices they had made the night previous. However, this meant I had plenty of time to eat ridiculous quantities of the provided pastries for breakfast, which was one up on the previous day, day of mayonnaise and noodles on a bun for breakfast (yuck, sigh.)
We took the bus to Todaiji (東大寺 – all it means is “big east temple.”) Now, if not for Kiyomizudera, this would definitely be the Most Awesome Temple Ever. We were warned about its awesomeness, and we were still Astonished and Delighted.
Todaiji is famous for several things. One, it's the largest wooden building in the world (and it used to be larger; the two statistics they gave us was that there were over 1000 tons of tile on the roof and that the wood used in the house could build 30,000 Japanese houses.) Two, it's been around for a super long time; it was built in 794-ish. Three, it has one of the largest statues of Buddha in the world (and it's even higher up on the list, they told us with kind of grim humor, since the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas found in Afghanistan.) Four, THEY HAVE HOLY DEER!
These deer are a little smaller than your average Iowa white-tailed deer, golden-colored, and spotted. There are at least a hundred of them in the park directly in front of the temple. The Buddhist monks at the temple (of which there are only twenty now, decreased from several hundred in years (many years) past) feed them twice a day, so they're all pretty fat. There's no fence keeping them in the park – presumably the people in Nara just know they have to drive carefullly.
. . . and they are TAME. Well. . . In a manner of speaking.
You see, one of the delightful tourist traps invented by this temple is that there are about ten different little booths outside the temple selling DEER BISCUITS (or “bambi cookie,” as one lady called them. I just about cracked up and fell over.) The deer know about the deer biscuits. Mysteriously, they do not try to raid the stands. Instead, they act pleasantly friendly (if you're reasonably well-behaved they come up to you to be petted, and in the case of one girl who apparently smelled really good, rub their antlers on you) until you purchase said DEER BISCUITS. They are especially friendly during the purchase of the DEER BISCUITS. Keep in mind these are not hungry deer. They are fed TWICE A DAY like little cows.
When the DEER BISCUITS are purchased. . . they attack!
We were warned, but couldn't believe it until we saw it. . . the deer (particularly the larger, fatter male deer) will converge on any foolish tourist holding a package of deer biscuits and try to knock the biscuits out of their hand, jump up and grab the biscuits, eat the tourists' clothing and personal articles, and even knock the tourist down, as happened to one of the Japanese students with us when he was a kid.
This, of course, does not deter anyone from buying the deer biscuits and risking deer molestation.
Our guide, Michael, had to hurry us through the park, for (I hope) understandable reasons. We wanted to pet the deer, feed the deer, take silly pictures with the deer, make silly noises at the fawns. . .We went through a gate with perhaps the most remarkable statues I have seen yet in Japan, of two enormous guardians (enormous like two-three stories tall enormous) with ferocious faces, hair drawn up in high tails on top of their heads, robes draped around their waists, and hands held up in a “do not pass go” gesture. They looked kind of like terrifying genies from Arabian Nights. Presumably these are to intimidate the deer so they don't harass religious devotees.
They had arranged for a Buddhist monk to speak to us inside the temple, for which they had set up a bunch of chairs on the temple veranda to the left of the main temple. They unfortunately had one of the Japanese students do the translation for the talk. I say unfortunate because although his English was really good, he got embarrassed SO EASILY. As in, if he couldn't translate a single word, he would turn red and bury his face in his hands, even crouching down into a modified fetal position to hide his face. Some of the other interns has postulated that this is indicative of a Japanese attitude toward learning – if I can't do it perfectly, I don't want to do it at all – but I'm not sure. I think I would have been just as stressed if someone had asked me to translate from English to Japanese.
So. Buddhism. I know/knew almost nothing about Buddhism, so I'm going to guess most of the people reading this blog don't either. Buddhism is, from what I can tell, almost diametrically opposed to Christianity in a number of ways. First of all, it coexists with Shinto, the native Japanese believe in gods/spirits/animism, and in a lot of ways complements it. As the priest put it, Shinto is about reverence for things you can't change, like the sea, earthquakes, and storms, while Buddhism is about changing yourself to better deal with the circumstances around you. Buddhism, as they put, won't save you; it depends on you acquiring enough knowledge and self-discipline to implement its teachings.
He explained this, perhaps unfortunately, by using an extended metaphor about being lost at sea in a boat and knowing which way to row because you know which direction the sun is in. The sun doesn't save you, but knowledge of the sun will. I don't now; it was a nice talk, but it was probably asking a bit much to expect a bunch of interns, all of whom except me got ~5 or less hours of sleep, to sit through a discussion of (however simplified for our benefit) philosophical nature. In any case, I was struck by how much his description of Buddhism differed in fundamental ways from Christianity – every preacher I've ever listened to has emphasized intensely how we can't save ourselves, how we must depend on God for everything, and how our only achievements come through God himself, not any actions of our own.
I'll be honest and say that I don't know that this diametric opposition is a bad thing. It does seem weird to me, though, that the culture whose dominant religion has traditionally emphasized total reliance on God is the one which also emphasizes individuality and self-reliance, whereas the culture whose primary system of belief focuses on personal discipline and knowledge is the one that holds consensus and conformity in high regard. Go figure, I guess. :P
Anyhow.
We then went into the main building where the Daibutsu is housed. This used to be three times wider before it was burned down in some war or another (I think) in the 1600s, but they apparently couldn't raise sufficient funds to rebuild it in its full glory. It is, as mentioned before, still the largest wooden building in the world. The only pieces of the temple that are original to the 700s are an enormous, elaborately figured bronze lantern in the front (enormous = ten feet tall), and the Buddha from about the knees down.
The Buddha is pretty impressive, but pretty standard as far as Buddhas go. There are two gilt Buddhas that are nearly as large flanking the biggest one, as well as a large multi-rayed sun sitting behind it with lots of tiny Buddhas ornamenting it. Two scary-looking general statues that are respectively squishing silly-looking demons, nearly as tall as the Daibutsu (which is over 30 feet tall and weighs more than a 100 tons) stand behind it. We were allowed to go closer to the Buddha than most tourists; we got to take off our sneakers, don slippers, and go up to the platform where the Buddha actually sits, about ten feet off the actual floor of the temple. We walked around the enormous lotus flower on which the Buddha sits.
After taking our requisite picture with the Buddha, most people flashing the peace sign, we went back down to the floor of the temple to visit Buddha's nostril.
Buddha's nostril is a hole cut in the base of the one of the temple's 3.5 (?) foot diameter supporting pillars (which struck me as a poor choice when I actually thought about it) which is the same size as the Daibutsu's nostril. It's a square hole about 1.5' x 1.5' foot cut through the entire pillar. It is apparently traditional for Japanese children (and intrepid (read: stupid) tourists) to crawl through Buddha's nostril and receive “seven years of good luck.” Right. So of course all the MIT interns, many of whom are small Asian girls or at least skinny, lined up to crawl through this hole. This did not strike me as a bad idea until there were about two people in front of me in line. It was about then that it occurred to me that a hole that a 100-pound girl could fit through was not necessarily a hole I could fit through.
I was really panicking by the time it was my turn. It somehow slipped my mind that the guy who had gone before me is 6'2” and correspondingly broad. When I got into the nostril, I didn't go in the correct diagonal fashion and got stuck for a moment. My arms were basically completely immobilized. I panicked.
Then all the little Japanese children waiting to crawl through Buddha's nostril learned a very bad English word. I won't type it here, but the little boy in “A Christmas Story” gets his mouth washed out with soap for saying it.
I scooted backwards so fast I probably left burn marks on the interior. The next guy squirmed through, who if I recall correctly was also about 6'2”. At this point my logic kicked in, and I realized that if two guys with as wide of or wider shoulders than me could get through this hole, so could I. (And of course, there is the ever-present fear on a group trip of being the lamest one.)
Sooo. . . I went in again. I got stuck again. I wiggled with my torso and pushed with my feet, as instructed, and kept moving forward. As soon as my hands appeared on the other side, I was hastily pulled through, my fellow interns/tour guide no doubt fearing another panicked outburst.
It was kind of traumatizing, yet weirdly fun.
When we returned, I bought a package of deer biscuits and was, of course, set upon. I ended up throwing some of them away to avoid being eaten, as they attempted to graze upon my dress, my hands, my wallet, and my educational booklet.
One of students missed the entire experience – he had been QUITE under the weather and ended up sleeping through the entire thing on a park bench, waking up to a find a deer staring at him.
We ate okonomiyaki – a truly delicious yet bizarre invention that involves noodles mixed with flour, eggs, and cabbage to form a fried patty, which is then topped with sauce and meat of various types (shrimp, squid, and pork seem to be prevalent) – for lunch. We went shopping, and took Japanese taxis, which have automatically opening doors. I bought some souvenirs and spent more than I meant to.
We got on the shinkansen. We went home. It was fun.
at top: "Kyoto ni ikimashou," or "let's go to Kyoto."
Banal, yes. . . but I feel better every time I successfully locate something in a Japanese grocery/convenience/health store. It makes me feel less like a tourist and more like someone who actually lives here, albeit for a short time. I think one of the perks associated with being a tourist is the constant feeling of slight bewilderment and awkwardness because you're far away from how you know how to do things and nothing is quite like you expect it to be. It's an educational feeling, and I think by being kind of unbalanced you learn more than you ever possibly could while safe at home, but sometimes it's nice to feel a little stability. Knowing I can wake up in the morning and have corn flakes for breakfast is, I guess, one definition of stability.
It's a lovely Sunday afternoon, and I am not going out, even though I probably should. I'm kind of tired from previous adventures, and I know I will be traveling the next three weekends, so it's fairly easy to justify sitting around, updating my blog, and maybe studying Japanese a little.
Last week I made plans to meet with a "host family" through the MIT Japanese Wives Group, so I am having afternoon tea next Thursday. The lady, who I have not yet met in person, wrote me several emails in excellent English, but she claims her English is "not very good" so perhaps we will practice Japanese. (I hope she can deal with my Japanese, which is a little worse than "not very good.")
So. . . adventures.
Section 1: Enter Kyoto! (京都に行きましょう。。。)
Last weekend was the MISTI Japan intern trip to Kyoto, the historical capital of Japan from 794-1600 (from Wikipedia -- take with a grain of salt), when the capital then effectively became Edo, what is now Tokyo. Kyoto, as I may have previously mentioned, was largely spared from bombing in World War II (as compared to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, obviously, but also in comparison to Tokyo, which was completely leveled by traditional bombing) which means that many of its historical monuments, temples, and houses are relatively intact. (As intact as developers have left them, anyway.)
The plan was for us to take the night bus down at 10:30 on Friday night and sleep (ha!) on the bus until we arrived the next morning at 6:15 or so. I, being the scaredy pants that I am about traveling (and about Shinjuku, the station from which the bus left), arranged to meet with Bianca at Harajuku at 9:30 and then continue on to Shinjuku. Just for orientation's sake, Harajuku, Shinjuku, and Shibuya are all stations on the JR Yamanote Line (which I previously mentioned -- it goes around central Tokyo in a big circle.) Shibuya is in the southwest edge of the circle, and leading off it in a southwesterly direction is the Den-en-toshi line, which leads to where I live. Harajuku is one station north of Shibuya, and Shinjuku is another couple of stations north of that. Harajuku, as I have a probably previously mentioned, is a small-ish station, with only two exits; Shinjuku is bloody enormous.
This meeting up went successfully, and we got to the bus station early enough to get snacks at Starbucks and sit around and gossip. (SO GLAD I had Bianca with me. The bus station was on the other side of an enormous street past lots of construction and also sort of underground. I don't think Bianca understands why I was intimidated by the Port Authority bus station in NYC, so I suspect this is nothing special for her.)
There were some other MISTI interns on the bus, but my seat was in the front left corner, sandwiched in between sleeping people who got kind of annoyed when I reclined my seat too far. One of the other interns was literally five minutes late, and she missed the bus and had to buy another ticket. Oy.
I had foolishly brought my laptop, which I blame on a communication failure by my boss. What I got from him was that he wanted ALL TEN of the lighting simulations done by Monday; what he actually meant was that he wanted one lighting simulation done that I had already finished. Anyway, I tried (and failed) to do work on the bus; the rocking back and forth (I was on the top floor of a double-decker) made me quite nauseated. I also tried, and sort of failed, to sleep during the 7.5 hour bus ride from Tokyo to Kyoto; I woke up about every two hours falling out of my seat. Yuck.
As my boss put it, riding the night bus is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. . . every time after that you just take the train.
We arrived in Kyoto Station at about 6:15 AM. I had thought everyone would take the bus, but it turned out some interns had taken the Nozomi Shinkansen (super fast bullet train) and arrived several hours earlier, so they had been hanging out in the station for most of the night.
My first unpleasant "cultural experience" occurred when we trooped into the public restroom to use the toilet in the station. They had "Japanese-style" toilets only.
"Japanese-style" means a hole in the ground that flushes. You SQUAT. And there is no toilet paper.
Grandma Dyer, if you are reading this, you probably are shaking your head and asking, "Well, what's wrong with that?" I will tell you what's wrong with that. It's one thing when you are in the timber and ANY kind of building is a 30-minute hike away. It's a completely DIFFERENT thing when you ARE in a bathroom in one of the most hyper-modernized countries in the world and they expect you to SQUAT. WITHOUT TOILET PAPER.
How is this supposed to work? I have heard it is "more sanitary," but that is BULLCRAP. Sure, your butt doesn't touch anything, but your pants have to when you take them off, unless you want to get stuff on them (shudder, shudder.) Also, what genius thought it would be a good idea to invent a toilet that requires you to aim when the "you" in question is NOT MALE???
Anyway. I used one once. I am never using one again. Ever.
Also there wasn't any soap.
So we met up with our "tour guides," Michael and Mitsuko Barker, a couple in their 60s, outside the station (next to the blow-up Astroboy.) Michael went to MIT back in the day, and they've lived in the Kansai region for 10-ish years. They piled us on a tour bus and gave us onigiri, which were sort of an unpleasant surprise. I DO NOT understand the Japanese predilection for putting mayonnaise on EVERYTHING. I like mayonnaise. I DO NOT like mayonnaise on sushi, pasta, rice balls, stir-fry, pizza. . . the list goes on of things I personally consider to be inappropriate that I have seen mayonnaise slathered on here. Mary Beth would say this is cosmic vengeance for abusing mayonnaise in the U.S. Anyway.
We drove to another station for our NEXT traumatic cultural experience: THE PUBLIC BATH.
Let me say right here that I think it is pretty darn cruel to stick interns on a 7-hour bus ride where you know they're not to sleep worth a crap, and then pick them up and take to this second-most-hideous Japanese invention (after the squat toilet.)
So the public bath was located in the basement of this building, which I think was a train station or something similar. I, in my defense, didn't quite understand what this consisted of. I was pretty sure it involved being naked, but I wasn't sure how much naked, the timing of the naked, and how many people got to see me naked.
We put all of our stuff in lockers, and they handed out numbers to the interns. It was pretty crowded, so we had to wait a while. At this point the other interns started telling travel horror stories, primarily about Chinese bathrooms and the things that could possibly happen to you in them. (Note: At least in public park bathrooms that are just a big tank underneath the stool, I never seen MAGGOTS WRITHING AROUND IN THE SLOP, as one girl had when visiting relatives in China. That story was disgusting; I'm sort of hoping the one about the girl who went to the bathroom while eating out with parents in China and was found half an hour later with all her organs cut out wasn't true.)
Then they admitted us to the public path locker room. It was at this point that I suddenly understood three things:
a) There was no robe provided, as in many descriptions of huro/onsen (public bath/public bath in a hot spring) I had read.
b) There was no towel larger than 1' x 2' provided.
c) We were, in fact, supposed to get naked in front of each other and a bunch of strange Japanese women without benefit of a towel, waltz into the next room where the showers and big hot tub thingy were STILL NAKED, wash up, and sit in the big hot tuby thingy WHILE STILL NAKED, SUPPOSEDLY RELAXING AFTER A LONG BUS RIDE.
I took off my shirt and my skirt (I still had shorts on.) Then abruptly I said, "I can't do this."
I started getting dressed again, unfortunately realizing as I was doing this exactly how grimy I was. I had not envisioned this, so I hadn't changed out of my Friday work clothes -- I assumed I would be getting clean Saturday morning. Oh yeah right.
So this, combined with a desire to not be the lamest one, made me get undressed and, using my miniature freaking HAND TOWEL to cover up the most pertinent bits, rush into the bath room and claim a little stool facing the wall and a low showerhead. At least they had the decency to provide body wash and shampoo.
You're supposed to be completely clean and rinsed off before getting into the actual huro, the hot-tub thingy. It's supposedly more of a "relaxation" thing that a "clean" thing. Right. I am still skeptical. I would like to mention, in case this picture isn't vivid enough in your mind, that, as a moderately overweight American white woman, who has all the body-image issues that generally go along with that group of people, getting naked in front of a lot of tiny Japanese women is right up there on my list of greatest fears with being trapped in a hole with my arms immobilized (which happened later this trip) and getting stopped by the police and questioned (which happened later that week.)
I got clean. I sat in the tub in a modified fetal position. Luckily only one Japanese woman was in the bath at the same time as the interns, and she left after a few minutes (probably because of how loud, obnoxious, giggly, splashy and goofy we all were.) It was pretty awkward to start with, but after a while we started chatting (all while carefully not looking anywhere in particular.) There was a cold tub in the corner, for people coming out of the sauna, which several of the girls jumped in, causing a small tidal wave of cold water.
I'm guessing that whatever Japan's gender issues are, female body image is not one of the major ones. :P
Nothing else that day was quite as traumatic. We continued on to Kinkaku-ji, or the "Golden Pavilion," which was okay but kind of commercialized and crowded. It's a Buddhist temple with some nice gardens, which you can see pictures of on my Picasa account. I wish I had bought John one of the "safe traffic charms" they were selling though. Next was Daitoku-ji, also a Buddhist temple, which a little better, except that we couldn't take pictures of the inside of the temple buildings (lame!) They had us recite a life-affirming Buddhist tract, except they had us recite it in Japanese, which meant that I ended up saying mostly, "Mm blah blah mm mm watashi mm blah blah ki blah blah mm mm yes what?" We also looked at these rock gardens (also couldn't take pictures) which were basically fine gravel spread over a space with a porch-like wooden deck around them and large, bizarrely shaped rocks strategically placed throughout that we were supposed to interpret as mountains, waterfalls, ships, turtles, or cows (the last one was the biggest stretch.)
Next came the first truly awesome part of the trip, the visit to Geoffrey Moussas's house. Geoffrey is an architect who was trained at MIT who mainly works in Kyoto restoring old machiya-style houses.
Machiya (町屋 or 町家, miraculously both characters I know, meaning “town shop” or “town house” respectively) are traditional Japanese wooden houses that have been developing for the last couple hundred of years. Geoffrey's restored house is actually about the same era as the row house I live in in Boston (built in 1915, about 90 years old) and not a whole lot older than the central portion of our house in Iowa (although built by much wealthier, and arguably classier, people.) The layout, however, is dramatically different than either that of a wealthy or not-so-wealthy American house of the time. In Fenway House, built by a well-off (if not ridiculously rich) lawyer, you originally entered into small vestibule (snow-catcher), which linearly leads into a hall, with the dining room just beyond – you can see the other end of the dining room from the front door. The kitchen downstairs is downstairs, and the entertaining parlor upstairs. In my house (originally, anyway), you entered directly into the kitchen/living room/dining room.
In this machiya, the front door actually opens into a very small garden open to the sky, with stalks of bamboo growing in the corner and a basin of water, pink and gray rocks, and a few flowers on a stand. Here you make a sharp left turn and climb a few steps into the “entry hall,” where there was a bay window made of translucent paper, glass, and wood, a piece of calligraphy sitting in the corner, and a large vase of red flowers. Nothing else. We left our shoes on the steps between the front garden and the hall and turned sharply again, this time to the right; we could then look through a central room with a cabinet through a dining room with a low table to the back garden. In most machiya this front “hall” was actually a shop, but in this case the family who had built the house had also built the house next door, where their wood mill was located. Tucked in a sort of closet in the left portion of the center room were the stairs to the second floor, on which was Geoffrey's architectural office, one bedroom, and a balcony overlooking the garden. The front room and the back room were both floored in tatami mats, woven of some kind of fine grass with a smooth, slightly undulating texture that is very nice on your feet. The kitchen is tucked behind the front garden, actually a two-story space that is about a foot lower than the rest of the house, to allow heat from cooking (and smoke – the chimney was only added in 1950-something) to rise through a small glass window in the roof that opens by a pulley.
The back garden is perhaps the most beautiful part of the house. A narrow roofed porch (veranda?) wrapped around it in a backwards L, giving the impression that it was just another very green room in the house. Screens made of horizontally hanging split reeds sewn together down the edges blocked the sunlight on the porch somewhat, presumably so it would still be enjoyable to lounge about (in one very narrow lounge chair) without glare in your eyes. The upright of the L led past two small rooms, one containing the tub, the other the toilet. I can't imagine it's particular enjoyable to take a bath in the winter and dash back through the cold to get into the main house, but it's very elegant. The garden itself was very neatly trimmed, with flagstones, lots of ferns, a stone Japanese-style lantern, and a fountain consisting of a stone hollowed out at the top and large piece of bamboo constantly refilling it. On the flagstones sat a small rock wrapped around with rope; this is apparently the traditional symbol that a garden is only for looking at, not walking in.
It was pretty cool. We got to walk around and touch pretty much everything and wiggle our toes on the mats. There's something architecturally profound about layers of space and exit and entrance in stages tied up in that house, and maybe I'll figure out precisely what it is and how it works in a couple of months or years (or decades, sigh).
Then was lunch. I had sashimi and a variety of other things that were not as tasty. Sashimi, if you are not familiar with it, is sushi without the rice – i.e. slices of raw fish, in this case tuna. I love tuna. I in general love sashimi (no octopus, thank you very much.) I won't try to convince the collective readers of this blog, many of whom I believe do not tolerate fish in any form, of the merits of this food, but rest assured it is delicious. Other things on my plate included pickled purple something-or-others (most Japanese meals are served with some kind of pickle; this was probably some kind of beet), which were okay, and a cube of squishy gooshy nasty tofu, which was NOT. I have encountered very little tofu that I find delicious or even acceptable.
My lunchtime dose of awkwardness occurred when one of Michael Barker's Japanese students who was accompanying us on this trip, after being seated across from me and watching me eat my meal for a few minutes, commented, “Chopsticks are very difficult to use, aren't they?” I stopped, somewhat mortified. I suppose it is possible he wasn't commenting on my lack of finesse with the aforementioned utensils, but that conversation fizzled before it ever started.
After lunch we went to Heianjingu, the largest Shinto shrine in Japan. It was. . . very red. And very large. There were a lot of gardens with ponds and lilies behind the main temple complex, as well as some scary looking turtles (which another intern informed me later are supposed to be very tasty) that looked suspiciously like snapping turtles.
Then. . . Kiyomizudera, possibly the most awesome temple ever!
This temple is, unfortunately for those reading here, a temple made magnificent primarily by its spectacular scenery (i.e. beyond my linguistic and typing powers.) Try looking here for pictures. It occurs in approximately three levels that progressively move up the side of a mountain that looks over Kyoto. Apparently “taking a jump off Kiyomizu” is a phrase which means you are really committed to something – no kidding. The highest level of Kiyomizu looks out on a drop of about 100 feet; once you made the decision to jump, there would be a pretty low chance of survival. :\ In a more positive vein, you can see all of Kyoto from Kiyomizu; the whole city is surrounded by mountains. Extremely tall, slender trees (which doesn't seem remarkable until you're standing a half-mile away looking up at them) line whatever part of the mountainside the temple buildings don't occupy. There are a variety of shrines, presumably primarily Buddhist (tera or dera (寺) = Buddhist temple), including one of a black lacquered Buddha with red clothes and a bizarrely squished face (which falls neither in the category of “fat happy Buddhas” or “tall elegant Buddhas” – it was pretty squarely in another group known as “weird.”) I'm not really sure if shrines are a universal facet of Buddhism, or if the Japanese just adapted Buddhism to their already-present religious architecture of Shintoism. Ritual purification, with incense or water (this is the rinse right hand, rinse left hand, rinse mouth, let water slush down the handle of the dipper routine) seems to occur in both types of temples.
Also fascinating and weird, and as yet still unexplained to me, were the hundreds of tiny Buddhas lined up along the paths, all with little new(ish) red cloth aprons tied around their necks. Kinda creepy, to be honest. . . I have been accused of developing Buddhaphobia.
Look at the pictures. . . it's hard to describe, but it was beautiful.
Then. . . dinnertime, which was a disappointment. I had ordered something that I thought I recognized, and discovered that was indeed not the case at all. I ate my three small pieces of tempura and my rice and spent 20-ish minutes poking the various incarnations of tofu sitting on my plate. I Do Not Like tofu. During this time the Japanese students at our table taught us several rude words and phrases, the only one of which I remember is “ahou” or “idiot.” We reciprocated by trying, somewhat unsuccessfully, to explain what “flaming” meant colloquially. Other things that came up during the conversation included “chikan” (perverts who feel girls up on crowded trains) and the addition of warning noises to cell phone cameras in Japan to prevent upskirt photography.
Are we mature? No.
The girl next to me was eying my tofu, so I traded for the rest of her rice. Win!
We checked into a “Super Hotel” in Nara, which super nice. The weirdest thing about this hotel was that the bathroom was actually one continuous plastic piece – the tub was connected to the sink was connected to the toilet was connected to the walls. It also featured the far end of Japanese toilets from the squat toilet, i.e. a high-tech monster with a heated seat (yuck), a bidet, “flushing noises,” and a high-pressure jetstream of water (haven't had the nerve to use any of the last three options yet) installed in the toilet. Unfortunately, no iron was provided, so I ended up pretty wrinkly the next day.
The other guys and dolls headed out to do karaoke, play cards, and get soppingly drunk (in a couple cases). I was lame and went to bed at 10:30, after claiming I was going upstairs to do work (well, I thought work /might/ happen.)
Section 2: Attacked by deer! (Shika ga kamimasita. . .)
The next morning we were supposed to meet at eight and head out to see the attractions of Nara, the capital of Japan BEFORE Kyoto. This did not quite occur as planned, since a number of the other interns were still suffering from the choices they had made the night previous. However, this meant I had plenty of time to eat ridiculous quantities of the provided pastries for breakfast, which was one up on the previous day, day of mayonnaise and noodles on a bun for breakfast (yuck, sigh.)
We took the bus to Todaiji (東大寺 – all it means is “big east temple.”) Now, if not for Kiyomizudera, this would definitely be the Most Awesome Temple Ever. We were warned about its awesomeness, and we were still Astonished and Delighted.
Todaiji is famous for several things. One, it's the largest wooden building in the world (and it used to be larger; the two statistics they gave us was that there were over 1000 tons of tile on the roof and that the wood used in the house could build 30,000 Japanese houses.) Two, it's been around for a super long time; it was built in 794-ish. Three, it has one of the largest statues of Buddha in the world (and it's even higher up on the list, they told us with kind of grim humor, since the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas found in Afghanistan.) Four, THEY HAVE HOLY DEER!
These deer are a little smaller than your average Iowa white-tailed deer, golden-colored, and spotted. There are at least a hundred of them in the park directly in front of the temple. The Buddhist monks at the temple (of which there are only twenty now, decreased from several hundred in years (many years) past) feed them twice a day, so they're all pretty fat. There's no fence keeping them in the park – presumably the people in Nara just know they have to drive carefullly.
. . . and they are TAME. Well. . . In a manner of speaking.
You see, one of the delightful tourist traps invented by this temple is that there are about ten different little booths outside the temple selling DEER BISCUITS (or “bambi cookie,” as one lady called them. I just about cracked up and fell over.) The deer know about the deer biscuits. Mysteriously, they do not try to raid the stands. Instead, they act pleasantly friendly (if you're reasonably well-behaved they come up to you to be petted, and in the case of one girl who apparently smelled really good, rub their antlers on you) until you purchase said DEER BISCUITS. They are especially friendly during the purchase of the DEER BISCUITS. Keep in mind these are not hungry deer. They are fed TWICE A DAY like little cows.
When the DEER BISCUITS are purchased. . . they attack!
We were warned, but couldn't believe it until we saw it. . . the deer (particularly the larger, fatter male deer) will converge on any foolish tourist holding a package of deer biscuits and try to knock the biscuits out of their hand, jump up and grab the biscuits, eat the tourists' clothing and personal articles, and even knock the tourist down, as happened to one of the Japanese students with us when he was a kid.
This, of course, does not deter anyone from buying the deer biscuits and risking deer molestation.
Our guide, Michael, had to hurry us through the park, for (I hope) understandable reasons. We wanted to pet the deer, feed the deer, take silly pictures with the deer, make silly noises at the fawns. . .We went through a gate with perhaps the most remarkable statues I have seen yet in Japan, of two enormous guardians (enormous like two-three stories tall enormous) with ferocious faces, hair drawn up in high tails on top of their heads, robes draped around their waists, and hands held up in a “do not pass go” gesture. They looked kind of like terrifying genies from Arabian Nights. Presumably these are to intimidate the deer so they don't harass religious devotees.
They had arranged for a Buddhist monk to speak to us inside the temple, for which they had set up a bunch of chairs on the temple veranda to the left of the main temple. They unfortunately had one of the Japanese students do the translation for the talk. I say unfortunate because although his English was really good, he got embarrassed SO EASILY. As in, if he couldn't translate a single word, he would turn red and bury his face in his hands, even crouching down into a modified fetal position to hide his face. Some of the other interns has postulated that this is indicative of a Japanese attitude toward learning – if I can't do it perfectly, I don't want to do it at all – but I'm not sure. I think I would have been just as stressed if someone had asked me to translate from English to Japanese.
So. Buddhism. I know/knew almost nothing about Buddhism, so I'm going to guess most of the people reading this blog don't either. Buddhism is, from what I can tell, almost diametrically opposed to Christianity in a number of ways. First of all, it coexists with Shinto, the native Japanese believe in gods/spirits/animism, and in a lot of ways complements it. As the priest put it, Shinto is about reverence for things you can't change, like the sea, earthquakes, and storms, while Buddhism is about changing yourself to better deal with the circumstances around you. Buddhism, as they put, won't save you; it depends on you acquiring enough knowledge and self-discipline to implement its teachings.
He explained this, perhaps unfortunately, by using an extended metaphor about being lost at sea in a boat and knowing which way to row because you know which direction the sun is in. The sun doesn't save you, but knowledge of the sun will. I don't now; it was a nice talk, but it was probably asking a bit much to expect a bunch of interns, all of whom except me got ~5 or less hours of sleep, to sit through a discussion of (however simplified for our benefit) philosophical nature. In any case, I was struck by how much his description of Buddhism differed in fundamental ways from Christianity – every preacher I've ever listened to has emphasized intensely how we can't save ourselves, how we must depend on God for everything, and how our only achievements come through God himself, not any actions of our own.
I'll be honest and say that I don't know that this diametric opposition is a bad thing. It does seem weird to me, though, that the culture whose dominant religion has traditionally emphasized total reliance on God is the one which also emphasizes individuality and self-reliance, whereas the culture whose primary system of belief focuses on personal discipline and knowledge is the one that holds consensus and conformity in high regard. Go figure, I guess. :P
Anyhow.
We then went into the main building where the Daibutsu is housed. This used to be three times wider before it was burned down in some war or another (I think) in the 1600s, but they apparently couldn't raise sufficient funds to rebuild it in its full glory. It is, as mentioned before, still the largest wooden building in the world. The only pieces of the temple that are original to the 700s are an enormous, elaborately figured bronze lantern in the front (enormous = ten feet tall), and the Buddha from about the knees down.
The Buddha is pretty impressive, but pretty standard as far as Buddhas go. There are two gilt Buddhas that are nearly as large flanking the biggest one, as well as a large multi-rayed sun sitting behind it with lots of tiny Buddhas ornamenting it. Two scary-looking general statues that are respectively squishing silly-looking demons, nearly as tall as the Daibutsu (which is over 30 feet tall and weighs more than a 100 tons) stand behind it. We were allowed to go closer to the Buddha than most tourists; we got to take off our sneakers, don slippers, and go up to the platform where the Buddha actually sits, about ten feet off the actual floor of the temple. We walked around the enormous lotus flower on which the Buddha sits.
After taking our requisite picture with the Buddha, most people flashing the peace sign, we went back down to the floor of the temple to visit Buddha's nostril.
Buddha's nostril is a hole cut in the base of the one of the temple's 3.5 (?) foot diameter supporting pillars (which struck me as a poor choice when I actually thought about it) which is the same size as the Daibutsu's nostril. It's a square hole about 1.5' x 1.5' foot cut through the entire pillar. It is apparently traditional for Japanese children (and intrepid (read: stupid) tourists) to crawl through Buddha's nostril and receive “seven years of good luck.” Right. So of course all the MIT interns, many of whom are small Asian girls or at least skinny, lined up to crawl through this hole. This did not strike me as a bad idea until there were about two people in front of me in line. It was about then that it occurred to me that a hole that a 100-pound girl could fit through was not necessarily a hole I could fit through.
I was really panicking by the time it was my turn. It somehow slipped my mind that the guy who had gone before me is 6'2” and correspondingly broad. When I got into the nostril, I didn't go in the correct diagonal fashion and got stuck for a moment. My arms were basically completely immobilized. I panicked.
Then all the little Japanese children waiting to crawl through Buddha's nostril learned a very bad English word. I won't type it here, but the little boy in “A Christmas Story” gets his mouth washed out with soap for saying it.
I scooted backwards so fast I probably left burn marks on the interior. The next guy squirmed through, who if I recall correctly was also about 6'2”. At this point my logic kicked in, and I realized that if two guys with as wide of or wider shoulders than me could get through this hole, so could I. (And of course, there is the ever-present fear on a group trip of being the lamest one.)
Sooo. . . I went in again. I got stuck again. I wiggled with my torso and pushed with my feet, as instructed, and kept moving forward. As soon as my hands appeared on the other side, I was hastily pulled through, my fellow interns/tour guide no doubt fearing another panicked outburst.
It was kind of traumatizing, yet weirdly fun.
When we returned, I bought a package of deer biscuits and was, of course, set upon. I ended up throwing some of them away to avoid being eaten, as they attempted to graze upon my dress, my hands, my wallet, and my educational booklet.
One of students missed the entire experience – he had been QUITE under the weather and ended up sleeping through the entire thing on a park bench, waking up to a find a deer staring at him.
We ate okonomiyaki – a truly delicious yet bizarre invention that involves noodles mixed with flour, eggs, and cabbage to form a fried patty, which is then topped with sauce and meat of various types (shrimp, squid, and pork seem to be prevalent) – for lunch. We went shopping, and took Japanese taxis, which have automatically opening doors. I bought some souvenirs and spent more than I meant to.
We got on the shinkansen. We went home. It was fun.
at top: "Kyoto ni ikimashou," or "let's go to Kyoto."
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Back from Kyoto/Nara MISTI intern trip
Not blogging tonight, because I am tired.
However, the trip was amazing. Much awkwardness and cultural experiences ensued.
However, the trip was amazing. Much awkwardness and cultural experiences ensued.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Chapter the Third in Sharon/Sherry's Big Adventure: New Houses, Plum Wine, and Multicolored Grids
I'm nearing the end of my third week of work. This weekend I'm going to Kyoto with the other MISTI Japan interns to absorb as much traditional Japanese culture and history as we can in two days, after which I expect to have more than enough to blog about -- hence why I need to get this entry done before then. This entry is somewhat non-linear, since first I talk about last week's and this week's work, then the weekend in between.
Section 1: The boring stuff -- work & my mutterings about the future
So I generally have no idea what's going on in the life of the other five people working in the office. (More than five people work in the office, but usually on any given day three or so are somewhere else mysterious. Like at home. In bed. I actually don't know about this either.) I have been helping with one large project, the daylight simulation for an apartment complex, and a few other smaller and less rewarding things. I am somewhat amused in retrospect that I had hoped to finish the daylight simulations by the end of last week; it's Friday today and I still probably have another week of work ahead of me. The apartment complex has 26 units, each one at least two levels, with a courtyard in the middle and a patio attached to every apartment. Some of the units are partially on the basement floor, which is why my boss wanted to look at the daylight in these particular rooms. It looks approximately as if someone built a structure by fitting together three-dimensional Tetris blocks -- pretty cool, in my opinion, but currently the project is stalled, so it probably won't be built for a little while. Editing the model to produce decent presentation pictures takes more time than the actual simulations. This week I picked a very stupid method for my first attempt, i.e. screenshot in Ecotect --> Photoshop --> Illustrator. The axonometric of the apartment with the daylight autonomy grid ended up scruffy and hard to read; next I'm going to try correcting the model and re-drawing the daylight autonomy grid in Autocad and then taking it into Illustrator. I'll see if I can post some screenshots of what I'm doing later. Honestly, I spent most of the second week just adapting the previously existing 3DS Max model so that I could use it for daylight simulation. Exporting from 3DS produced lots of extra triangles that make the model look more complicated and harder to deal with. I also needed to separate each apartment into its own layer which could be turned on and off; if I tried to put the model as-is into Radiance, the daylighting software, it would most likely stop deader than a possum on the interstate. So now each apartment has a detailed version and a block version, each on its own layer.
If this sounds interesting -- that's because you didn't spend approximately 12 hours too long working on it. On Friday night I hurtled out of the office at perhaps an indecorously high speed. My coworkers, of course, worked late, even on Friday night. I am frankly appalled, but I am an intern, and as such, I have no opinions.
Yesterday I finally produced some results for one apartment, which my boss and Satomi-san (see below) looked at glumly and basically asked, "That's all?" I compared two schemes, theirs and another one proposed by the owner, I think, and while their scheme was a little better lit, it wasn't very dramatic. It was kind of strange; I've been working on research long enough that the results looked pretty noticeably different to me, but I guess not in a selling-a-design kind of way. I will admit I was a little disappointed; I thought they would actually use my results to maybe tweak their design some. Maybe later.
The other people in the office are either working on the smokers' space competition, as Ana (who is Portuguese and fluent in English) is, or construction documents for an unknown project, as I think Ichikawa-san and Shika-san are. I really don't know about the last two though -- they don't so much talk to me, since neither is particularly fluent in English, and I feel that the young-not-particularly-confident-woman vs. slightly-older-slightly-cockier-man subtext is one of the most awkward contexts in which to practice my not particularly great language skills. I also have no idea what the other partner in the firm, Jun Vera, is doing, other than occasionally offering advice on what everyone else is doing. Bris, who is French and who has been in Japan for four years already, usually comes in only for a couple hours at most a day, and often he doesn't come in at all, instead working from home using the office network. Two other guys have shown up, both Japanese, neither of whose names I know. One is very friendly and said he had done an exchange in Rock Rapids, Iowa, when in high school (small world :D) and gave me a tasty Japanese sweet cake. The other I just showed up this last Wednesday, has glasses and facial hair, and wore these truly awesome shoes: http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/. Satomi-san (whose last name I have learned twice and forgotten both times) is in charge of the project for which I am doing my simulations. She is also pretty young, and has been the most patient with my attempts in Japanese. Yesterday we had a brief conversation where I managed to say (I think) that I didn't have very many architectural projects, so I wanted to add lots of my artwork and posters to my portfolio. I will now also remember the distinction between "nugu" and "kesu," which my dictionary made sound similar -- "nugu" is to take off, as Satomi-san demonstrated patiently with her shawl, while "kesu" is to remove or erase, as with the extra lines in my model. Another guy from Okinawa (I think) whose name I have also stupidly forgotten has been very nice, partly because I think he really wants to practice his English and so is willing to help me practice my Japanese. Today I managed to ask him why some houses in Tokyo have a whole row of clear plastic water bottles lined up at the base of the exterior wall. He said that people want to deter cats from getting in their gardens and digging up things and crushing plants, and people think that the reflected light off the water bottles scares off cats. I am frankly skeptical about the method but delighted that he understood my question. I also discovered a new word -- "kamu," to bite. Taitei neko ga watasi o kamimasu. . . usually cats bite me. Otherwise the language practice has been going slowly. I can never quite decide if the non-English speakers I work with think I'm a total moron or just are too busy and shy to say anything to me.
I really love observing the clothes people wear to the office, for their total illogic (in my eyes) if not for their snazziness. Ichikawa-san has a spectacularly ripped pair of jeans that hang somewhere below his butt that he is particularly fond of, while Ana usually wears these sort of harem-pant-like things like sweats where the waist is at the natural waist, but the inseam (going for delicate terms here) hangs somewhere around the knees. She also has tall wrestling shoes and several sundresses. Satomi-san always wears a layered sort of thing with a t-shirt and a dress with stripes or flowers and boots -- today they're white cowboy boots. Okinawa man (? he is a bringer of delicious pineapple -- I will find out his name) -san generally wears purple shoes. I usually wear a skirt to work, not for formality, but because it's really freaking hot and humid every day, and my shorts are veeery casual and limited in number.
Some other things popped up -- I'm at some point going to continue working on the class syllabus, which includes compiling a list of links for extra information and explanations about the history of Tokyo. Be still, my heart (not sarcasm -- really looking forward to this).
On Wednesday or Thursday of last week I was officially introduced to a Korean filmmaker. She and my boss are co-producing (they hope, if they get funding) a documentary about "green entrepreneurs." She was. . . well. . . terrifying. Bleach-blonde hair, extended cat-eye eyeliner, and no real eyebrows -- they had been drawn on with pencil. In the first ten minutes of our acquaintance she managed to fit in the conversation that she had lived in Germany for several years (with this charming segue: "Oh. . . is your name German? I lived in Germany. . . "), she was very "cosmopolitan," and that she spoke seven languages ("so please forgive me if I forget an English word or two." paraphrase.) I have no idea how old she is, but her mode of dress is. . . sparkly. . . and her purse is very large and probably designer (or knock-off). She described the project to me very excitedly, saying they had dubbed the production team "greenQuest" and tentatively the film "One" ("because we are all one with the earth, you know?") and asked me to write an introduction for a company that might be interested in sponsoring it. The people they want to interview do sound kind of cool. My boss would be one of them; his idea is to replace gravestones (which usually costs at least $5000 USD in Japan -- for reference my grandma paid about $600 for my grandpa's gravestone in 2001) with and small stones and small windmills.
She asked if I was okay with helping her, which I cautiously said I was, given that my boss didn't need me for other things, and then asked if I was okay with working weekends if needed later in the summer, to which I stupidly said, sure. I did the introduction -- hey, I can write, that's okay -- and gave it to her on Friday afternoon. On Monday she called me and said she had gotten together with a friend and re-written the whole thing. I hope she has forgotten who I am and why she wanted my help by next week.
Oy.
I have been continuing my profligate ways, so I generally still go to bed shortly after I get home at eight. This has been making it difficult to pursue very many personal projects, but I have started researching graduate schools in the U.S. and abroad. Unfortunately, most other countries seem to use a different architect accreditation system than the U.S., making it seemingly a lot easier for foreigners to enter the U.S. system than for Americans to enter the British or European systems. I was really sure at the beginning of the year that I didn't want to be an architect after all, but now I'm less and less sure about what exactly I'd like to do. I know that I want to work before graduate school if it's at all possible (which, given the current economic climate, it might not be), and I know that I at least want to work with architects, because they're generally pretty cool people with interesting ideas and nice clothes.
I'd like to do another, longer MISTI internship before grad school in Japan, but it's hard to know what pitch the economy will be throwing this fall and next spring. I've started trying to re-vamp my portfolio, which I started in during a class last fall. Unfortunately my review for the class was disgustingly verging on catastrophically bad, so I'm not really willing to keep anything from that version of the layout. Lots of work to do. :P I also have a couple different ideas for trips I would like to take next year after graduating, meaning I have been rustling around with all of the following on the internet: a) language sites b) travel/accommodation sites c) writing sites, with hopes of actually being able to pay for such a trip independently. We'll see.
Most of my "adventures" during the week have occurred coming to or going from work, and many have involved trying to find Japanese equivalents of certain products, such as laundry detergent and contact solution. The latter item took me three tries before I could find a combination I could work with; I can read the katakana on the package ("sohuto kontakuto") but have a hard time figuring out which are supposed to be used by themselves and which should be used with saline solution, meaning that I ended up with burning eyes two days in a row (luckily I had saved a little of my old solution and could rectify this problem.) I finally rectified the problem by finding a bottle of "saarin sorusyan" and using the other stuff as cleaner last night. The other product for which I have had difficulty filling the proper specifications I will not mention here for the sake of my father's sensibilities, but rest assured that I located a where they live in the convenience store and am much more at peace with the world. Other Japanese product adventures have involved investigating the ingredients for cookies; luckily "flour" is written on the bag in both katakana and kanji; unluckily, it's about $3 for 2-lbs-ish. Butter prices are pretty stiff too, at about $3.50 for two sticks. Not sure if my coworkers will be getting any homemade baked goods out of me after all.
Another. . . adventure. . . occurred this Monday night when I met with Bianca to purchase our night bus tickets for tonight to go to Kyoto. We foolishly thought that we could meet right in Shinjuku Station next to the west exit, buy the tickets at the JR midori no madoguchi, eat some food, go home. Foolish, foolish mortals! I have since found out that Shinjuku is the busiest train station in the WORLD, with about 3 million people passing through every day. We meant to meet at 8; we finally found each other by way of heavenly mercy a 8:45, purchased the tickets, and ate at "Mos Burger," which is kind of like classy Japanese McDonalds.
Tokyo is incredibly dense with people, objects, animals, and buildings, so every time I walk the same route I find something new. The street my office is on is probably a half mile or three-quarters long, and I would bet there are fifty stores or more on it, none particularly big, selling a huge variety of clothes (including rain boots with heels and dresses for dogs), food (mainly Japanese, but there is a Mexican restaurant, an Italian cafe, and a bakery that specializes in sweet made of vegetables), health products, groceries, real estate, hair care, dry cleaning, antiques, fruit, and photography. The walk home is mainly through residential neighborhoods, but I walk by the most interesting things, like a shrine under construction and a Buddhist cemetery (which I wouldn't have noticed at all had I not peeked through the fence.) I blame my mother and aunt Barb for this, but I also keep noticing that the plants are similar but completely different from home. Sometimes it's obvious -- plenty of houses grow bamboo outside -- and sometimes it's not; for instance, hydrangeas are everywhere, but they're all the blue-purpley kind, not the lame white-green ones I'm used to at home. People hang their laundry outside and on their balconies; this morning I saw a woman airing her futon (which look an awful lot like comforters to me) on the bushes in front of her apartment building. I've tried to take as many pictures as possible, but I'm still kind of nervous to take pictures of people, so I've missed some really great pictures -- a little boy walking to school under his umbrella, an old man working on a construction project down the street, the guy walking four miniature dachshunds.
I will work on this.
Section 2: Return to TNM
Saturday morning got munched up in talking to my parents and friends at home, which was okay. Then, Saturday afternoon, I decided to go on my very own independent adventure, back to Ueno Park and Tokyo National Museum! Okay, I wasn't that inventive, but I really wanted to see the exhibits I had missed the weekend before. It was delightfully sunny. I took the Yamanote line around Tokyo, which to my surprise took over 30 minutes. I successfully found my way into the park and stopped at the pagoda which had been closed before; there was an elderly man there taking care of the counter with little charms and other things for sale. I think I was confused -- I thought the pagoda was a Buddhist (rather than Shinto, like the shrines) thing, so I wouldn't have to purify my hands before entering, but there was a basin and dipper next to the entryway, the same as a shrine. I think I may have come off an insensitive clod to the old man. We talked for a minute or two in Japanese -- I tried to ask if it was a Buddhist temple (otera), as opposed to a Shinto shrine (jinja), but I left out the second part, so I don't know if he said yes because it was Buddhist temple or because he thought I was a dumb foreigner who didn't know there was a difference. He told me the Japanese word for crow (karasu); the park is filled with enormous, scarily brave ones. My boss told me the word for Buddha, butsu, so now I can ask, sort of, what the statue inside is of.
I stopped to watch a bizarre street performance that consisted of a man inside a bouncy yellow balloon-ball that had been inflated and a woman in tall striped socks and a yellow windbreaker bouncing off of him. There was a large audience of deeply amused children for this.
The museum accepted my MIT student ID (wheee) so admission was only 400 yen (~$4). It was, if possible, even more awesome this time. The upper floor, which we had rushed through before, is basically the "highlights of Japanese art" -- so essentially Cliffs Notes on every awesome thing that Japan has produced in the last 1500 years. I looked at kimono, woodblock prints, and Jomon period clay figures, some of which are 3000 years old. They are. . . not very dignified looking. Actually they're kind of cute. I was delighted to find plushies of them in the museum shop; apparently I'm not the only one who finds them cuddly rather than awe-inspiring. I saw two prints that are part of the "Thirty-Six Views of Mt. Fuji" series, of which the print "The Great Wave Off Kanagawa" (here at wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-six_Views_of_Mount_Fuji, the first one) is probably the most famous picture to ever be produced by Japan. I saw two less famous ones, "Waterwheel at Onden" and "Nihonbashi Bridge in Edo." Then it was off to the archaeology museum next to the primary museum, which had only one floor but a lot of stuff. They had a special exhibit of three enormous maps of the world made in Japan in the 1500s, as well as lots more clay figures, swords that had been buried and worn away, and tack for horses. My favorite were the handsome ridge-end (i.e. end of the roof) tiles from different parts of Japan.
The museum shop was still fun but alas, still expensive. Silk scarves were $50, as were furoshiki (sp?), or Japanese wrapping cloths. I will find souvenirs, but I just haven't found them yet. I have also not yet sent my postcards. . . sigh. This blog makes somewhat redundant anything I might say.
I headed home a bit early, for I had a DATE with the other MISTI interns. I couldn't resist stopping in something called the "Tokyu Food Show" at Shibuya Station. . . Oh. My. Not a food court, as I had originally thought. It is a GOURMET FOOD EMPORIUM with something like 20 bakeries crammed in together. I bought a baguette, which I am still conflicted about, because it had asiago cheese on it and I don't like asiago cheese, except the baguette was tasty, and some sugar cookies, which I was not conflicted about at all (they were delicious).
Section 3: Night on the town (sorta)
The interns had all planned to meet at the Hachikou statue at Shibuya at 8 o'clock on Saturday night. Hachikou was an Akita belonging to a professor in Tokyo in the 1930s who accompanied his master every day to the train station when he went to work and met him every day when he came home, also at the train station. The professor died one day of a stroke a work and so didn't return, but Hachikou kept returning to the train station at the same time every night for many years. In any case, what we didn't realize is that Hachikou statue is the most popular meeting spot in Shibuya for young Tokyoites -- i.e. not as crowded as Shinjuku but still pretty impossible for a short person to locate a small group of MIT students in a sea of other young men and women. I finally found Bianca (of course), then the group, and we set out for Coins Bar, where we had a reservation. We stopped in 109 on the way, a ridiculous collection of designer, edge-of-reason clothes for women (the boys were not really happy or comfy). Coins Bar was delightful; it was small, with an enormous table in the middle that we each paid $25 to reserve, which reservation included a host of appetizers (all American) and as much as we cared to drink. Pirates of the Caribbean was playing in the background with Japanese subtitles and the music was too loud but fun. I ordered a glass of umeshuu mizu ari, or plum wine diluted with water. I HAVE FOUND MY ALCOHOL. It was delicious. So delicious that I didn't get another glass.
It was fun to hear how the other interns were doing. Jess, who is working at Rikken, actually ended up translating a lot for her boss, who has been in Japan for seven years without learning much of the language. Thu, who is working at an architecture firm too, is speaking entirely in Japanese every day and somehow got put on the model-making end of things even though she is a civil engineer and wanted to work in fluids. Jackie, who is working at Secom (sp?), a securities company, has to deal with incredibly strict rules: She had to re-dye her hair black (it had a streak of green), replace her green contacts with natural color ones, wear heels to work every day, wear no earrings larger than seed pearls, and wear no glasses that have other than gray or black frames. At least she's not a boy and does not have to live in her company dorms, which are far away, crowded, and have no internet. Bianca, who I talk with every couple days, keeps finishing all the work her boss gives her, so she spends a lot of time sitting at her computer, surfing.
Another intern apparently had drunk enough alcohol that freestyle rapping seemed like a good idea, so he got up and requested the DJ to play him a beat. He also remarkably enough had not had enough to make him unintelligible or uncoordinated; he actually did a really good job. It was bizarre.
The rest of them headed out to karaoke with the intention of staying out all night, and I headed home, with the intention of going to a church near Harajuku the next morning.
Section 4: Church stuff
When I woke up Sunday morning, it was pouring. This did not bode well. I meant to go to the 8:30 service at Tokyo Union Church, but I didn't manage to get out the door until 8:10 -- not good news for a journey that I knew would involve 5 minutes of walking + three stops on the subway + train change + one stop on Yamanote line + at least 10 more minutes of walking. It was indeed not good news for being there at 8:30; I got out at Harajuku Station at approximately 8:30 with a vague idea of which direction I was going in and shoes that were getting wetter by the minute. I had a raincoat but not my umbrella (running late) and had forgotten to eat breakfast (really, really late.) I found the church on a list of English-speaking religious institutions on the American embassy website. It's nondenominational, which I like, and had a reasonable-sounding statement of purpose. I've come across two local churches, one by my house and one on my walk to work, but I'm a little uncertain about how much I would get out of a service entirely in Japanese. Apparently only 1% of Tokyo is Christian, so thank goodness for the internet's search capabilities.
So I've been to Harajuku Station three times now, but that was the first time I had gotten out and walked around. I knew Harajuku meant shopping for the most part, but what I didn't know is it means HIGH-END INTERNATIONALLY KNOWN BRAND-NAME SHOPPING. As in, I passed by my second Chanel store in Tokyo, a Christian Loboutin boutique (I think), a Dior store, and maybe a Gucci on the way to the church. I had to stop at a police box with a cool map outside of it; it had potential locations listed at the bottom with buttons that you could push, which then made a dot and a helpful arrow light up on the map. It was still pouring, of course. The church building was between an Armani and a Louis Vuitton. Not kidding.
I walked in, thinking glumly about how it would look that I was twenty minutes late. The first guy I saw apologized and said that during the summer the only service was at 10:00 AM. I was super relieved and promptly switched to worrying about whether I would be able to meet my boss on time at noon to go to an architectural open house, a plan we had made on Friday.
The minister's wife spotted me instantly as new as I searched out the subway line that was closer than the Yamanote line on one of my Tokyo maps and rather forcefully but kindly introduced me to another girl who was supposed to give me more information about their Bible study groups. She ended up lending me her large, beautiful umbrella so I could run to a bakery down the street for breakfast.
The sermon was nice, mainly remarkable for the fact that the minister incorporated a reference to Field of Dreams. At this church, apparently newcomers get up every service and introduce themselves, because the English-speaking population of Tokyo changes so fast.
I headed out pretty quickly without stopping for coffee to the Ometosando stop, which connects to the Ginza and Hanzomon lines. I barely made it home by 12:05, but, as I keep forgetting, my boss was meeting me at noon (with three small children) and noon (with three small children) actually equals about 12:20.
Section 5: Awkward shakes hands with fun
My boss picked me up in his station wagon (which is disguised to not look like a station wagon), his three daughters, and his wife. I had met Reika and Tamao the previous weekend, but not Ayaka (who is three months old) or Mika (his wife). His wife is very pretty, very fine-boned, taller than me, and speaks a little but not a lot of English. I felt a wave of awkward come over me when I got in the car which never totally left; I sat in the front passenger seat while his wife sat in the seat behind us with Ayaka in a baby seat. I said the usual ("Hello, pleased to meet you, my name is Sharon, I'm so sorry but my Japanese is poor") and after talking with my boss for ten minutes, lapsed into silence for the rest of the 1.5 hour drive. We were going to Kamakura, south of Tokyo, famous for having a daibutsu, or big Buddha, that is 30 feet tall and weigh 93 tons (made out of bronze.) It was built in 1250 or so and has not been disturbed by much of anything; the temple around it was washed away in a tsunami in ~1450, and the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 that totally annihilated Tokyo moved it a foot or two, but it's still pretty much okay. We couldn't stop and see it, but I fully plan to go back. We were headed toward an architectural open house for a house designed by George Kunihiro, who, like my boss, went to Harvard's GSD (General School of Design).
The house was nice. It would have been nicer if hadn't been so foul outside, and if it wasn't a weekend house for a Swedish-American couple who spend maybe a couple days there a year. I roved the premises with Tamao and Reika, who I totally underimpressed with my language abilities. I did learn that "kutsu" is shoe, as Tamao required an explanation for the yellow marks my Birkenstocks left on my feet during the rain. I think I told her my other shoes drew on my feet. The awkwardness continued, as I somewhat unsuccessfully tried to have a conversation with Mika-san on the basis that a friend-of-family has a baby about Ayaka's age (hi, Joanna), and was mistaken by Kunihiro-san as my boss's wife (um wha?) My boss bought us all manjuu, or buns filled with red bean paste. I ate half and then discretely hid the rest in my bag. At least I hope it was discrete.
We then drove to an art gallery where Mika-san used to work. The art was. . . modern. It consisted mainly of splotches of paint and bent wires. The two women who worked there, however, were quite charming. Neither spoke English, so I got to say a couple things in Japanese (more awkwardness, when I confused the question of "where are you living?" for "what are you working on?" Also because my boss's wife was totally comfortable breast-feeding Ayaka in front of the rest of us.) One lady was somewhat elderly; she talked animatedly about, among other things, the characters used to spell Ayaka's name and a variety of people I obviously didn't know. They provided us with cookies and tea; I don't think anyone was counting besides me, but Tamao ate at least three pieces of candy and four cookies. At this point Reika started feeling sick again (they hadn't gone the day before because she had a fever), so she laid down on the couch.
We left there at about five. Tamao wanted to go the beach, so we drove around the harbor to the Hayama side ("much cleaner.") Final bit of awkwardness: We stayed ten minutes then meant to go home so they could drop me off and put Reika in bed, but Tamao threw an almighty tantrum. . .which led to another twenty minutes at the beach. When they came back, Tamao gave me some seashells she had found. I don't know if things would have gone differently if I hadn't been there.
I was quiet for the whole drive back.
It was fun. But awkward.
Section 1: The boring stuff -- work & my mutterings about the future
So I generally have no idea what's going on in the life of the other five people working in the office. (More than five people work in the office, but usually on any given day three or so are somewhere else mysterious. Like at home. In bed. I actually don't know about this either.) I have been helping with one large project, the daylight simulation for an apartment complex, and a few other smaller and less rewarding things. I am somewhat amused in retrospect that I had hoped to finish the daylight simulations by the end of last week; it's Friday today and I still probably have another week of work ahead of me. The apartment complex has 26 units, each one at least two levels, with a courtyard in the middle and a patio attached to every apartment. Some of the units are partially on the basement floor, which is why my boss wanted to look at the daylight in these particular rooms. It looks approximately as if someone built a structure by fitting together three-dimensional Tetris blocks -- pretty cool, in my opinion, but currently the project is stalled, so it probably won't be built for a little while. Editing the model to produce decent presentation pictures takes more time than the actual simulations. This week I picked a very stupid method for my first attempt, i.e. screenshot in Ecotect --> Photoshop --> Illustrator. The axonometric of the apartment with the daylight autonomy grid ended up scruffy and hard to read; next I'm going to try correcting the model and re-drawing the daylight autonomy grid in Autocad and then taking it into Illustrator. I'll see if I can post some screenshots of what I'm doing later. Honestly, I spent most of the second week just adapting the previously existing 3DS Max model so that I could use it for daylight simulation. Exporting from 3DS produced lots of extra triangles that make the model look more complicated and harder to deal with. I also needed to separate each apartment into its own layer which could be turned on and off; if I tried to put the model as-is into Radiance, the daylighting software, it would most likely stop deader than a possum on the interstate. So now each apartment has a detailed version and a block version, each on its own layer.
If this sounds interesting -- that's because you didn't spend approximately 12 hours too long working on it. On Friday night I hurtled out of the office at perhaps an indecorously high speed. My coworkers, of course, worked late, even on Friday night. I am frankly appalled, but I am an intern, and as such, I have no opinions.
Yesterday I finally produced some results for one apartment, which my boss and Satomi-san (see below) looked at glumly and basically asked, "That's all?" I compared two schemes, theirs and another one proposed by the owner, I think, and while their scheme was a little better lit, it wasn't very dramatic. It was kind of strange; I've been working on research long enough that the results looked pretty noticeably different to me, but I guess not in a selling-a-design kind of way. I will admit I was a little disappointed; I thought they would actually use my results to maybe tweak their design some. Maybe later.
The other people in the office are either working on the smokers' space competition, as Ana (who is Portuguese and fluent in English) is, or construction documents for an unknown project, as I think Ichikawa-san and Shika-san are. I really don't know about the last two though -- they don't so much talk to me, since neither is particularly fluent in English, and I feel that the young-not-particularly-confident-woman vs. slightly-older-slightly-cockier-man subtext is one of the most awkward contexts in which to practice my not particularly great language skills. I also have no idea what the other partner in the firm, Jun Vera, is doing, other than occasionally offering advice on what everyone else is doing. Bris, who is French and who has been in Japan for four years already, usually comes in only for a couple hours at most a day, and often he doesn't come in at all, instead working from home using the office network. Two other guys have shown up, both Japanese, neither of whose names I know. One is very friendly and said he had done an exchange in Rock Rapids, Iowa, when in high school (small world :D) and gave me a tasty Japanese sweet cake. The other I just showed up this last Wednesday, has glasses and facial hair, and wore these truly awesome shoes: http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/. Satomi-san (whose last name I have learned twice and forgotten both times) is in charge of the project for which I am doing my simulations. She is also pretty young, and has been the most patient with my attempts in Japanese. Yesterday we had a brief conversation where I managed to say (I think) that I didn't have very many architectural projects, so I wanted to add lots of my artwork and posters to my portfolio. I will now also remember the distinction between "nugu" and "kesu," which my dictionary made sound similar -- "nugu" is to take off, as Satomi-san demonstrated patiently with her shawl, while "kesu" is to remove or erase, as with the extra lines in my model. Another guy from Okinawa (I think) whose name I have also stupidly forgotten has been very nice, partly because I think he really wants to practice his English and so is willing to help me practice my Japanese. Today I managed to ask him why some houses in Tokyo have a whole row of clear plastic water bottles lined up at the base of the exterior wall. He said that people want to deter cats from getting in their gardens and digging up things and crushing plants, and people think that the reflected light off the water bottles scares off cats. I am frankly skeptical about the method but delighted that he understood my question. I also discovered a new word -- "kamu," to bite. Taitei neko ga watasi o kamimasu. . . usually cats bite me. Otherwise the language practice has been going slowly. I can never quite decide if the non-English speakers I work with think I'm a total moron or just are too busy and shy to say anything to me.
I really love observing the clothes people wear to the office, for their total illogic (in my eyes) if not for their snazziness. Ichikawa-san has a spectacularly ripped pair of jeans that hang somewhere below his butt that he is particularly fond of, while Ana usually wears these sort of harem-pant-like things like sweats where the waist is at the natural waist, but the inseam (going for delicate terms here) hangs somewhere around the knees. She also has tall wrestling shoes and several sundresses. Satomi-san always wears a layered sort of thing with a t-shirt and a dress with stripes or flowers and boots -- today they're white cowboy boots. Okinawa man (? he is a bringer of delicious pineapple -- I will find out his name) -san generally wears purple shoes. I usually wear a skirt to work, not for formality, but because it's really freaking hot and humid every day, and my shorts are veeery casual and limited in number.
Some other things popped up -- I'm at some point going to continue working on the class syllabus, which includes compiling a list of links for extra information and explanations about the history of Tokyo. Be still, my heart (not sarcasm -- really looking forward to this).
On Wednesday or Thursday of last week I was officially introduced to a Korean filmmaker. She and my boss are co-producing (they hope, if they get funding) a documentary about "green entrepreneurs." She was. . . well. . . terrifying. Bleach-blonde hair, extended cat-eye eyeliner, and no real eyebrows -- they had been drawn on with pencil. In the first ten minutes of our acquaintance she managed to fit in the conversation that she had lived in Germany for several years (with this charming segue: "Oh. . . is your name German? I lived in Germany. . . "), she was very "cosmopolitan," and that she spoke seven languages ("so please forgive me if I forget an English word or two." paraphrase.) I have no idea how old she is, but her mode of dress is. . . sparkly. . . and her purse is very large and probably designer (or knock-off). She described the project to me very excitedly, saying they had dubbed the production team "greenQuest" and tentatively the film "One" ("because we are all one with the earth, you know?") and asked me to write an introduction for a company that might be interested in sponsoring it. The people they want to interview do sound kind of cool. My boss would be one of them; his idea is to replace gravestones (which usually costs at least $5000 USD in Japan -- for reference my grandma paid about $600 for my grandpa's gravestone in 2001) with and small stones and small windmills.
She asked if I was okay with helping her, which I cautiously said I was, given that my boss didn't need me for other things, and then asked if I was okay with working weekends if needed later in the summer, to which I stupidly said, sure. I did the introduction -- hey, I can write, that's okay -- and gave it to her on Friday afternoon. On Monday she called me and said she had gotten together with a friend and re-written the whole thing. I hope she has forgotten who I am and why she wanted my help by next week.
Oy.
I have been continuing my profligate ways, so I generally still go to bed shortly after I get home at eight. This has been making it difficult to pursue very many personal projects, but I have started researching graduate schools in the U.S. and abroad. Unfortunately, most other countries seem to use a different architect accreditation system than the U.S., making it seemingly a lot easier for foreigners to enter the U.S. system than for Americans to enter the British or European systems. I was really sure at the beginning of the year that I didn't want to be an architect after all, but now I'm less and less sure about what exactly I'd like to do. I know that I want to work before graduate school if it's at all possible (which, given the current economic climate, it might not be), and I know that I at least want to work with architects, because they're generally pretty cool people with interesting ideas and nice clothes.
I'd like to do another, longer MISTI internship before grad school in Japan, but it's hard to know what pitch the economy will be throwing this fall and next spring. I've started trying to re-vamp my portfolio, which I started in during a class last fall. Unfortunately my review for the class was disgustingly verging on catastrophically bad, so I'm not really willing to keep anything from that version of the layout. Lots of work to do. :P I also have a couple different ideas for trips I would like to take next year after graduating, meaning I have been rustling around with all of the following on the internet: a) language sites b) travel/accommodation sites c) writing sites, with hopes of actually being able to pay for such a trip independently. We'll see.
Most of my "adventures" during the week have occurred coming to or going from work, and many have involved trying to find Japanese equivalents of certain products, such as laundry detergent and contact solution. The latter item took me three tries before I could find a combination I could work with; I can read the katakana on the package ("sohuto kontakuto") but have a hard time figuring out which are supposed to be used by themselves and which should be used with saline solution, meaning that I ended up with burning eyes two days in a row (luckily I had saved a little of my old solution and could rectify this problem.) I finally rectified the problem by finding a bottle of "saarin sorusyan" and using the other stuff as cleaner last night. The other product for which I have had difficulty filling the proper specifications I will not mention here for the sake of my father's sensibilities, but rest assured that I located a where they live in the convenience store and am much more at peace with the world. Other Japanese product adventures have involved investigating the ingredients for cookies; luckily "flour" is written on the bag in both katakana and kanji; unluckily, it's about $3 for 2-lbs-ish. Butter prices are pretty stiff too, at about $3.50 for two sticks. Not sure if my coworkers will be getting any homemade baked goods out of me after all.
Another. . . adventure. . . occurred this Monday night when I met with Bianca to purchase our night bus tickets for tonight to go to Kyoto. We foolishly thought that we could meet right in Shinjuku Station next to the west exit, buy the tickets at the JR midori no madoguchi, eat some food, go home. Foolish, foolish mortals! I have since found out that Shinjuku is the busiest train station in the WORLD, with about 3 million people passing through every day. We meant to meet at 8; we finally found each other by way of heavenly mercy a 8:45, purchased the tickets, and ate at "Mos Burger," which is kind of like classy Japanese McDonalds.
Tokyo is incredibly dense with people, objects, animals, and buildings, so every time I walk the same route I find something new. The street my office is on is probably a half mile or three-quarters long, and I would bet there are fifty stores or more on it, none particularly big, selling a huge variety of clothes (including rain boots with heels and dresses for dogs), food (mainly Japanese, but there is a Mexican restaurant, an Italian cafe, and a bakery that specializes in sweet made of vegetables), health products, groceries, real estate, hair care, dry cleaning, antiques, fruit, and photography. The walk home is mainly through residential neighborhoods, but I walk by the most interesting things, like a shrine under construction and a Buddhist cemetery (which I wouldn't have noticed at all had I not peeked through the fence.) I blame my mother and aunt Barb for this, but I also keep noticing that the plants are similar but completely different from home. Sometimes it's obvious -- plenty of houses grow bamboo outside -- and sometimes it's not; for instance, hydrangeas are everywhere, but they're all the blue-purpley kind, not the lame white-green ones I'm used to at home. People hang their laundry outside and on their balconies; this morning I saw a woman airing her futon (which look an awful lot like comforters to me) on the bushes in front of her apartment building. I've tried to take as many pictures as possible, but I'm still kind of nervous to take pictures of people, so I've missed some really great pictures -- a little boy walking to school under his umbrella, an old man working on a construction project down the street, the guy walking four miniature dachshunds.
I will work on this.
Section 2: Return to TNM
Saturday morning got munched up in talking to my parents and friends at home, which was okay. Then, Saturday afternoon, I decided to go on my very own independent adventure, back to Ueno Park and Tokyo National Museum! Okay, I wasn't that inventive, but I really wanted to see the exhibits I had missed the weekend before. It was delightfully sunny. I took the Yamanote line around Tokyo, which to my surprise took over 30 minutes. I successfully found my way into the park and stopped at the pagoda which had been closed before; there was an elderly man there taking care of the counter with little charms and other things for sale. I think I was confused -- I thought the pagoda was a Buddhist (rather than Shinto, like the shrines) thing, so I wouldn't have to purify my hands before entering, but there was a basin and dipper next to the entryway, the same as a shrine. I think I may have come off an insensitive clod to the old man. We talked for a minute or two in Japanese -- I tried to ask if it was a Buddhist temple (otera), as opposed to a Shinto shrine (jinja), but I left out the second part, so I don't know if he said yes because it was Buddhist temple or because he thought I was a dumb foreigner who didn't know there was a difference. He told me the Japanese word for crow (karasu); the park is filled with enormous, scarily brave ones. My boss told me the word for Buddha, butsu, so now I can ask, sort of, what the statue inside is of.
I stopped to watch a bizarre street performance that consisted of a man inside a bouncy yellow balloon-ball that had been inflated and a woman in tall striped socks and a yellow windbreaker bouncing off of him. There was a large audience of deeply amused children for this.
The museum accepted my MIT student ID (wheee) so admission was only 400 yen (~$4). It was, if possible, even more awesome this time. The upper floor, which we had rushed through before, is basically the "highlights of Japanese art" -- so essentially Cliffs Notes on every awesome thing that Japan has produced in the last 1500 years. I looked at kimono, woodblock prints, and Jomon period clay figures, some of which are 3000 years old. They are. . . not very dignified looking. Actually they're kind of cute. I was delighted to find plushies of them in the museum shop; apparently I'm not the only one who finds them cuddly rather than awe-inspiring. I saw two prints that are part of the "Thirty-Six Views of Mt. Fuji" series, of which the print "The Great Wave Off Kanagawa" (here at wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-six_Views_of_Mount_Fuji, the first one) is probably the most famous picture to ever be produced by Japan. I saw two less famous ones, "Waterwheel at Onden" and "Nihonbashi Bridge in Edo." Then it was off to the archaeology museum next to the primary museum, which had only one floor but a lot of stuff. They had a special exhibit of three enormous maps of the world made in Japan in the 1500s, as well as lots more clay figures, swords that had been buried and worn away, and tack for horses. My favorite were the handsome ridge-end (i.e. end of the roof) tiles from different parts of Japan.
The museum shop was still fun but alas, still expensive. Silk scarves were $50, as were furoshiki (sp?), or Japanese wrapping cloths. I will find souvenirs, but I just haven't found them yet. I have also not yet sent my postcards. . . sigh. This blog makes somewhat redundant anything I might say.
I headed home a bit early, for I had a DATE with the other MISTI interns. I couldn't resist stopping in something called the "Tokyu Food Show" at Shibuya Station. . . Oh. My. Not a food court, as I had originally thought. It is a GOURMET FOOD EMPORIUM with something like 20 bakeries crammed in together. I bought a baguette, which I am still conflicted about, because it had asiago cheese on it and I don't like asiago cheese, except the baguette was tasty, and some sugar cookies, which I was not conflicted about at all (they were delicious).
Section 3: Night on the town (sorta)
The interns had all planned to meet at the Hachikou statue at Shibuya at 8 o'clock on Saturday night. Hachikou was an Akita belonging to a professor in Tokyo in the 1930s who accompanied his master every day to the train station when he went to work and met him every day when he came home, also at the train station. The professor died one day of a stroke a work and so didn't return, but Hachikou kept returning to the train station at the same time every night for many years. In any case, what we didn't realize is that Hachikou statue is the most popular meeting spot in Shibuya for young Tokyoites -- i.e. not as crowded as Shinjuku but still pretty impossible for a short person to locate a small group of MIT students in a sea of other young men and women. I finally found Bianca (of course), then the group, and we set out for Coins Bar, where we had a reservation. We stopped in 109 on the way, a ridiculous collection of designer, edge-of-reason clothes for women (the boys were not really happy or comfy). Coins Bar was delightful; it was small, with an enormous table in the middle that we each paid $25 to reserve, which reservation included a host of appetizers (all American) and as much as we cared to drink. Pirates of the Caribbean was playing in the background with Japanese subtitles and the music was too loud but fun. I ordered a glass of umeshuu mizu ari, or plum wine diluted with water. I HAVE FOUND MY ALCOHOL. It was delicious. So delicious that I didn't get another glass.
It was fun to hear how the other interns were doing. Jess, who is working at Rikken, actually ended up translating a lot for her boss, who has been in Japan for seven years without learning much of the language. Thu, who is working at an architecture firm too, is speaking entirely in Japanese every day and somehow got put on the model-making end of things even though she is a civil engineer and wanted to work in fluids. Jackie, who is working at Secom (sp?), a securities company, has to deal with incredibly strict rules: She had to re-dye her hair black (it had a streak of green), replace her green contacts with natural color ones, wear heels to work every day, wear no earrings larger than seed pearls, and wear no glasses that have other than gray or black frames. At least she's not a boy and does not have to live in her company dorms, which are far away, crowded, and have no internet. Bianca, who I talk with every couple days, keeps finishing all the work her boss gives her, so she spends a lot of time sitting at her computer, surfing.
Another intern apparently had drunk enough alcohol that freestyle rapping seemed like a good idea, so he got up and requested the DJ to play him a beat. He also remarkably enough had not had enough to make him unintelligible or uncoordinated; he actually did a really good job. It was bizarre.
The rest of them headed out to karaoke with the intention of staying out all night, and I headed home, with the intention of going to a church near Harajuku the next morning.
Section 4: Church stuff
When I woke up Sunday morning, it was pouring. This did not bode well. I meant to go to the 8:30 service at Tokyo Union Church, but I didn't manage to get out the door until 8:10 -- not good news for a journey that I knew would involve 5 minutes of walking + three stops on the subway + train change + one stop on Yamanote line + at least 10 more minutes of walking. It was indeed not good news for being there at 8:30; I got out at Harajuku Station at approximately 8:30 with a vague idea of which direction I was going in and shoes that were getting wetter by the minute. I had a raincoat but not my umbrella (running late) and had forgotten to eat breakfast (really, really late.) I found the church on a list of English-speaking religious institutions on the American embassy website. It's nondenominational, which I like, and had a reasonable-sounding statement of purpose. I've come across two local churches, one by my house and one on my walk to work, but I'm a little uncertain about how much I would get out of a service entirely in Japanese. Apparently only 1% of Tokyo is Christian, so thank goodness for the internet's search capabilities.
So I've been to Harajuku Station three times now, but that was the first time I had gotten out and walked around. I knew Harajuku meant shopping for the most part, but what I didn't know is it means HIGH-END INTERNATIONALLY KNOWN BRAND-NAME SHOPPING. As in, I passed by my second Chanel store in Tokyo, a Christian Loboutin boutique (I think), a Dior store, and maybe a Gucci on the way to the church. I had to stop at a police box with a cool map outside of it; it had potential locations listed at the bottom with buttons that you could push, which then made a dot and a helpful arrow light up on the map. It was still pouring, of course. The church building was between an Armani and a Louis Vuitton. Not kidding.
I walked in, thinking glumly about how it would look that I was twenty minutes late. The first guy I saw apologized and said that during the summer the only service was at 10:00 AM. I was super relieved and promptly switched to worrying about whether I would be able to meet my boss on time at noon to go to an architectural open house, a plan we had made on Friday.
The minister's wife spotted me instantly as new as I searched out the subway line that was closer than the Yamanote line on one of my Tokyo maps and rather forcefully but kindly introduced me to another girl who was supposed to give me more information about their Bible study groups. She ended up lending me her large, beautiful umbrella so I could run to a bakery down the street for breakfast.
The sermon was nice, mainly remarkable for the fact that the minister incorporated a reference to Field of Dreams. At this church, apparently newcomers get up every service and introduce themselves, because the English-speaking population of Tokyo changes so fast.
I headed out pretty quickly without stopping for coffee to the Ometosando stop, which connects to the Ginza and Hanzomon lines. I barely made it home by 12:05, but, as I keep forgetting, my boss was meeting me at noon (with three small children) and noon (with three small children) actually equals about 12:20.
Section 5: Awkward shakes hands with fun
My boss picked me up in his station wagon (which is disguised to not look like a station wagon), his three daughters, and his wife. I had met Reika and Tamao the previous weekend, but not Ayaka (who is three months old) or Mika (his wife). His wife is very pretty, very fine-boned, taller than me, and speaks a little but not a lot of English. I felt a wave of awkward come over me when I got in the car which never totally left; I sat in the front passenger seat while his wife sat in the seat behind us with Ayaka in a baby seat. I said the usual ("Hello, pleased to meet you, my name is Sharon, I'm so sorry but my Japanese is poor") and after talking with my boss for ten minutes, lapsed into silence for the rest of the 1.5 hour drive. We were going to Kamakura, south of Tokyo, famous for having a daibutsu, or big Buddha, that is 30 feet tall and weigh 93 tons (made out of bronze.) It was built in 1250 or so and has not been disturbed by much of anything; the temple around it was washed away in a tsunami in ~1450, and the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 that totally annihilated Tokyo moved it a foot or two, but it's still pretty much okay. We couldn't stop and see it, but I fully plan to go back. We were headed toward an architectural open house for a house designed by George Kunihiro, who, like my boss, went to Harvard's GSD (General School of Design).
The house was nice. It would have been nicer if hadn't been so foul outside, and if it wasn't a weekend house for a Swedish-American couple who spend maybe a couple days there a year. I roved the premises with Tamao and Reika, who I totally underimpressed with my language abilities. I did learn that "kutsu" is shoe, as Tamao required an explanation for the yellow marks my Birkenstocks left on my feet during the rain. I think I told her my other shoes drew on my feet. The awkwardness continued, as I somewhat unsuccessfully tried to have a conversation with Mika-san on the basis that a friend-of-family has a baby about Ayaka's age (hi, Joanna), and was mistaken by Kunihiro-san as my boss's wife (um wha?) My boss bought us all manjuu, or buns filled with red bean paste. I ate half and then discretely hid the rest in my bag. At least I hope it was discrete.
We then drove to an art gallery where Mika-san used to work. The art was. . . modern. It consisted mainly of splotches of paint and bent wires. The two women who worked there, however, were quite charming. Neither spoke English, so I got to say a couple things in Japanese (more awkwardness, when I confused the question of "where are you living?" for "what are you working on?" Also because my boss's wife was totally comfortable breast-feeding Ayaka in front of the rest of us.) One lady was somewhat elderly; she talked animatedly about, among other things, the characters used to spell Ayaka's name and a variety of people I obviously didn't know. They provided us with cookies and tea; I don't think anyone was counting besides me, but Tamao ate at least three pieces of candy and four cookies. At this point Reika started feeling sick again (they hadn't gone the day before because she had a fever), so she laid down on the couch.
We left there at about five. Tamao wanted to go the beach, so we drove around the harbor to the Hayama side ("much cleaner.") Final bit of awkwardness: We stayed ten minutes then meant to go home so they could drop me off and put Reika in bed, but Tamao threw an almighty tantrum. . .which led to another twenty minutes at the beach. When they came back, Tamao gave me some seashells she had found. I don't know if things would have gone differently if I hadn't been there.
I was quiet for the whole drive back.
It was fun. But awkward.
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