Madly Capering Along

Page nine!

ALSO I am so thrilled to find out some people are still looking.

<3 YOU GUYS.

A Mad Caper Pg. 9 by *Chajiko on deviantART

Good Night Nurse!

I don't think anybody's bothering to read this anymore, but if you are--here is the latest artistic offering.

Night Nurse Kylee by *Chajiko on deviantART

A Mad Caper Pg. 8

A Mad Caper Pg 8 by *Chajiko on deviantART

A Mad Caper Pg. 7

New page!

A Mad Caper Pg. 7 by *Chajiko on deviantART

I generally update every week. :)

Valentine's Offering

Just a little doodle for Valentine's Day, featuring Lee and Shiro from my "Forest Caper" webcomic.

Forest Caper: Be Mine by *Chajiko on deviantART

May your day be full of lots of love and little paper hearts!

...And Eat it Too!

Apparently my buddy Sasaki decided she needed to make a cake with something cute on it.  She'd never done it before.

This is what happened next:

Keep in mind that this is her FIRST cake with art on it.

SHEESH.

If I had tried to do this, it would not look like that.  It wouldn't even look like a cake.

It's a good thing SOME of us have talent!

Geography--like, WHY?

OK.  I'm probably going to expose myself as a HUGE ignoramus here, but I really see no point in having a Geography department and major at a university.

Honestly.  You study geography up through 8th grade or whatever and you know where countries are and things--but like, that's not enough?  You have to MAJOR in knowing where countries are?

I work as a TA, and our lab shares space with the Geography TAs among others and I was sitting in my office hours today listening to some pompous young male person go on and on about the weather conditions in the British isles and how you don't get snow and ice there and how in the winter it just rains and doesn't get below 40 and blah blah blah.  So I stuck my head in.  "Actually, you do." I said, and then some other random bit of information and the male person gave me this glare and then said "That's why I said 'very often'," and proceeded to ignore me.  So I went back to my chair--humiliated.  A whole other group of people had heard the exchange--and you know what?  

I'M RIGHT.  

He's NOT.  

Why do I know I'm right?  Because I spent HOURS shivering in a tent in below freezing circumstances in JULY in SOUTHERN WALES, which is one of the vacation hot-spots of the British isles, and it wasn't just some freak weather pattern.  It was the norm.

So my opinion of Geography and its usefulness has taken yet another plunge.

The TA then continued to talk, spewing all sorts of stuff about different places, throwing out the words "Nation-state" and things like that the same way a athlete would flex his muscles.

Pardon my french, but what the Hell does a geography student know about nation-states?  Leave that to the political scientist, the historians and the anthropologists, hon, and go get a REAL major.

/end embittered rant

Why I Don't Listen to the Radio Anymore, or, Pink Fish are De Rigeour for Handbags This Season

I made the mistake of turning on the radio on my way home from the grocery store tonight.  I don't listen to the radio very often, and when I do it's usually talk radio (one way to tell you're getting old--political talk radio is actually INTERESTING), but tonight I was in the mood for music and I didn't have my iPod with me to plug in to the cassette deck.  Anyway, there was only No Doubt on my favourite station, which I happen to hate with a passion, and then really unremarkable things on the succeeding stations, even the oldies.  

Side note--have any of you noticed that 94.1 (which has previously been where I go for Beatles, Crosby Stills and Nash and the Monkees) has started playing 80's music?  Does anyone else find that a little...disturbing?

Anyway.  Radio.  I ended up on a "HOT NEW MUSIC" station which sometimes plays some fun stuff and settled in to listen--they'd just gotten in the "HOT NEW MUSIC" of the week and were talking about how great it was.  "It's called 'My Flow is so Tight'," the announcer said enthusiastically, which caused me to blink more than a little, but I listened on.  It started like approximately 85 billion other hip-hop/"R&B" "songs" with some beat that's all base.  The beat kept going, adding a little this and a little that--and then a distorted voice came in with the moving and memorable line:

"My flow is so tight, the beat is so sick, Chris Brown should get his butt* kicked."

Total mystification.  

There was no way I could turn it off at that point--I HAD to find out who this Chris Brown person was and why he needed this indignity perpetrated upon his hinder end.  Surely the song would explain it, right?  So I persevered and l kept listening.  

I discovered that it's apparently perfectly acceptable to repeat the same inane line over and over and over while just adding more looped bits to your "sick beat" and then call the resulting piece of musical detritus a "song".  I was getting nowhere with Chris Brown, so I changed the channel.  Still nothing--I listened for a little bit to someone who wanted to sell me a book of "Secret Remedies T-H-E-Y Don't Want You to Know About!" and a few other things, then began to scroll through the stations again.  Finally arriving again at the station with the "HOT NEW MUSIC", I discovered to my horror that it was still going.  And the singer--er, speaker, whatever--was still repeating the same line!  It had to have been at LEAST five minutes.

So I turned the radio off.

Pink fish are an absolute MUST this season.  Why?  Because I am weird enough to like to use different coloured pens to take notes in my classes.  That alone isn't so bad--it the combination of weird colours and my snobbish attachment to liquid ink pens which has proved my ultimate downfall.

Somehow my violet pen came open in the little purse I bought in Japan.  Honestly, the thing is falling apart and has already been through an encounter with a leaky Drano-bottle (and Maceys tried to make it right, bless their hearts, but I had to admit that the purse had only cost me eight dollars, when REALLY it was worth far, far more than that.  You can't put a price on a piece of Japan).  But there on the outside were several large and malignant purple stains, visible despite the fact that the fabric is dark green.  It's also got these adorable little quilted-look fish on it in light colours on the background--darling, just darling.  I'd buy bolts and bolts of the fabric if I could find it.  Anyway--I decided that it would probably not be too bad to wash the excess ink out and just deal with a few dark spots on my purse.

A word of warning: purple ink is extremely pervasive--kind of like a bad mother-in-law.  It gets in all the cracks, runs all over the place and changes whatever is around it to match itself.  I spent probably 20 minutes at the sink soaping and rinsing and scrubbing and rubbing and succeeded in making the water that I was rinsing down the sink a lovely electric pink colour--but that was an improvement from dark violet.    By the end I was getting rather satisfied with myself and how easily the ink was coming out--until I noticed, to my horror, that all the little pale fish are now a rather distressing shade of pink.

This could be worse.

But I don't WANT pink fish.  So I set the bag to soak in diluted colour-safe bleach (And how is THAT supposed to help, I ask you?  Colour is colour!) and only got a little more pink water for my troubles.

My purse has now been soaking in a bowl in the sink for a little over eight hours, and still my cheerful little Japanese fish look like they've had a run in with a bad 80's anime.  Tomorrow I will call my aunt, who is the guru of all things fabric and see if I can do something to preserve the dignity of me and my Japanese hand bag.

Post script--

ZOT

KHII: Backfired? by *Chajiko on deviantART

*I have inserted a relatively socially acceptable term here in lieu of the one used by the "artist".

But a Moment

It is remarkable to me how little effort it takes to love the people who came before us. The promise of Elijah—that our hearts will turn to our fathers—it is so close. So strangely close, and so captivating once grasped.

I do graveyard research. As an archaeologist it’s kind of a pet hobby of mine—something I wish I could turn into my thesis or dissertation, but there are very few people in the world to whom I could defend my research.

Anyway. Right now I am building a database of certain monuments found in a quiet sea-side churchyard in southern Wales. It’s tailored to the focus of my research, but when I’ve done with that I am going to add in all the detail I can to my tables of names and relationships, and then I am going to post it online for genealogists to use. It’s the least I can do.

There are far, far worse places to spend the quiet sleep of waiting.
It is startling, though, to realize how very alive these people were. And how the joy and sorrow and pain and hope they felt can come welling up from the past with so very little effort on our parts.



This stone isn’t much to look at. But if you read it carefully, you’ll see that the mother died at 34 after seeing first her 12 year old eldest son die at sea—and then losing her next son at 15, also into the depths of the ocean. This happened all the time. Ships went down, people were lost—children died of fevers and people had to move on—somehow.

It wasn’t until I read the final entry on the stone, cramped into the very bottom space as it was that the full import of this monument hit me. The husband—who called his wife “beloved” and who had buried two sons and that same wife had lived to be 80. Somehow, he had survived the travails of ocean and mortality to die at an old age, while the people he obviously loved so much were long, long gone.

I find myself weeping for this man—long since dust. Someone who may not even have spoken my language—but someone who shares the beautiful, blinding humanity that is our greatest blessing and our greatest handicap.

I don’t know if these people have any living relations or if their family died with those two loved sons. But they are as real and precious to me as my own blood, and I feel responsibility—reaching over a century of time and six thousand miles of ocean.

After all, he was someone’s father.

Jacques

I don’t have any pictures of Jacques.

I never thought to take any and now I wish I had.

Jacques is a shield bug--family Acanthosmatidae in the order Hemiptera, if I am not mistaken (thank you Wikipedia, no matter how much I mock thee...). He lived behind my door in my bedroom for two years. Why? I have no idea. Maybe he liked the company, maybe he had a wife and kids in the model Wright Brothers airplane box that has been back there for almost longer than I remember.

At any rate, he and I have been room mates for a long time. I have grown very fond of him, actually. Shield bugs are really amazing little guys—they belong to the same family as fire bugs and assassin bugs, but lack the ubiquity of the former and the nasty temperament of the the latter. I have never known a shield bug to bite, sting or stink places up--or to turn up in your bed, shower, shoes and clothing drawers.

Not my picture--copywrited to someone else, I am so very sorry. But—this looks almost exactly like my Jacques!

Anyway.

I was saying good night to mum and dad the other night and stopped in the hall to give my aussie (dog) a good scratching. You know how, sometimes, when you’re stepping on something and you can just barely feel that it doesn’t feel right? Well, I had that niggling sort of feeling but wasn’t paying attention. After a few seconds, though, it dawned on me that I was standing on something. Now, the scary thing in my house is that it could have been anything from a harmless insect to an extremely venomous spider.


Like, ew. Not my picture either. Unfortunately it's hard to tell whether or not this is the relatively harmless Giant House Spider who keeps your house FREE of Hobos, or if this is the Hobo itself, the sort that you really, REALLY don't want to find in your bed. They both spin the same webs, read the same trashy romances and go through guys like crazy.

This is not because we are unclean people, but rather because we live near a river and have insects roughly the size of tennis balls.

You do the math.

At any rate, I had instinctively not put my weight fully on that foot, AND it was under my disgustingly high arch, so whatever was under there was more covered than actually stepped on. I snatched my foot away and scooted my dog back--and saw to my horror that it was Jacques. He was lying on his back, his little legs curled up.

“JACQUES,” I shrieked, both alarming and confusing my parents. I got down and put my face to the floor. “JACQUES!” he had not been crushed, I was glad to see. In fact, he looked FINE aside from the fact that he had, so to speak, assumed the position. I gently prodded him and--he moved. In protest, it seemed, but he wasn’t dead yet! I flipped him over gently and he took a few steps--and flipped back over and curled his legs up. He wouldn’t get up, he wouldn’t crawl into my hand.

I was near tears by this point.

My mom had come onto the scene and had taken stock of things by this point and got down next to me in her pajamas. She somehow coaxed Jacques into her hands--don’t ask me, I think it’s a mom thing. Maybe I can figure it out someday--and he seemed to revive some. She handed him over to me, and he immediately took a nose-dive off my hands to the hard floor.

Cliff jumping, anyone?

Mom took him in hand again and kept him this time. I felt quite the louse, but was determined to know what was wrong. “Maybe he needs water!” I was frantic. But you know, little bugs DO need water. Watch the firebugs in your bathroom sometime--the drink from those tiny beaded droplets with their long probosci. Mom followed me into my room, where I dribbled some water on her hands. Jacques did NOT like that. He was not thirsty, thank you very much, and made no bones of letting us know as he scrambled to get away from the couple of drops that fell into mom’s palm.

Unfortunately, that’s the limit of my knowledge for insect first aid. Mom put him in my hands again, and this time he seemed inclined to hang on. I took him carefully into her room, where she and dad keep live plants year-round, to see if he’d rather be in there. He was really lively by this point, acting quite as if he hadn’t scared me half out of my skin by playing dead in an expanse of hard wood floor. After about five minutes I coaxed him onto a long thin leaf of a spider plant (named so NOT because it houses spiders, but because of the arachnid-shaped runners it puts out to make more of itself) where he actually seemed quite content.


Not my picture either. A running theme? Maaaaybe. This is almost exactly like our plant.

Exhausted by the excitement, we all went to bed.

I have not seen Jacques since. He may have transferred his affections to my mother, he may have made a bid for frozen freedom out the window, or he may still be happily clinging to the plant, out of sight. At any rate, at least I did NOT step on Jacques.

On a slightly more serious note:

To all of you who took the time to comment on my last blog entry--thank you. I am honoured to be the recipient of your thoughts and considerations. I’m hoping to respond to you all individually, and I am actually going to print the entry and all of the replies out and put them in my journal. I won’t risk losing such precious words of wisdom and love to the black-hole of the internet.

And on a slightly less serious note: Here’s the latest art. Some serious, some not so much, some simply bizarre. And if any of you have odd jobs that need to be done that might involve this mighty pen of mine--let me know, will you? I’m thinking I might have to resort to eating my notes and using my textbooks for warmth since my car took it into its head (engine?) to blow up.

I'll give anyone who's interested details on these--goodness knows I love to brag about my characters.


This Death Cannot Be by *Chajiko on deviantART


Kylee and Mace Gift by *Chajiko on deviantART

Proud of this one. Like, way.


The Mistress's Apprentice by *Chajiko on deviantART

<3

I'm An Adult, So...

I'm an adult, so...

I want you to fill in the blank. So many things can go there depending on your place in life.
Many of the young people I know who are teetering on the cusp of adulthood would finish with something to the effect of "I can do what I like." For other people it's things like "I shouldn't have to do that." or "it's my responsibility.".

For me? For me it's coming down to "I should be able to deal with this." or something to that effect.
I feel like I have no right to talk about these kinds of things because I only recently have become an adult (if I really am one. I have severe doubts sometimes). I have no children, I live with my parents, I have a job and an education and comparatively few things to think about that should keep me awake at night, staring into the darkness and wondering what on earth I'm going to do.

But—I feel like life is one giant game of dodgeball, and there's really not a lot of space between missiles, never mind the fact that there's usually at least seven or eight coming at you at once.

Work, school, callings, money, responsibility—

grief, confusion, worry, JOY—hunger, weakness—guilt, guilt guilt—gratitude, inadequacy, hope.

How many of these emotions did I feel in their infant stage in my childhood? I didn't know that growing up would cause them to flower so terribly.

So many things happen. So many things change and this Margaret weeps for things that will never be the same, things that seem like they have lost too many pieces to ever be whole again. We are so close to the Divine in moments of pure joy and grief and hope. I want to savour them, I want to grasp them in my fingers until I understand their shape and know their parts. But instead I set them aside to be considered later because I have to go to work or because my body realizes it's been 20 hours since I last slept. Or because the dishes need to be done or the dog needs out or my room is finally so ugly I cannot bear to walk into it.

Sometimes I set them aside because they are too blinding, too poignant and piquant. It is too much work to be the child of a God so perfect, so powerful, so loving in a life that leaves no time for stillness. I think I create my own chaos. I am not a peaceful person.

Where there is nothing to gnaw and worry, I will chew on myself—like an animal in a trap—until I have something ragged at which to and tear and over which to weep. Isn't there enough sorrow in the world without making my own? At least I can deal with my own sorrow. I can't fix India. I can't give parents back to orphaned children or restore the miscarried child of a grieving woman. All I can do is vacuum and try to be kind and do my best not to wound the people who love me best.

I'm an adult, so I should be able to deal with this.

Sayonara no Toki

As the sun sinks into the west over Tokyo and the land of the Rising Sun, I cannot help but think that leaving this place once again has cast a pall over my life, just as the darkness slowly spreads from the east. The ancient peoples of Japan were right to call it as they did: “Nippon” written with the kanji for “sun” and “origin.” This is a land beautiful and bright beyond measure, fairly overflowing with a rich history and tradition that cannot help but stamp the hearts of those who visit here, however briefly, with an indelible mark.









I envy the people who are lucky enough to call this place home—all the while aware also of how lucky I am to live also in the country I am privileged to call home. The world is a dark place and every land has its own dark underside, but I am starting to understand that things really can be seen from the old, over-tired cliche viewpoints of half-empty and half-full. Thus I can look at a place like this, or a place like my home, and love it dearly and see all the things that are wonderful about it without making myself blind to the darkness. It is a marvelous and powerful thing to love a place or a person wholly, knowing that they are as imperfect as anyone or anything else—especially myself.









And so as I bid farewell to Japan once again I cannot help but worry that that this will be the last time I see this glorious land of dream-like beauty—just like I did the last time I left. However, there always is a last time, despite the best laid plans of mice and men. A last visit to a Book Off, a last handful of Mochi, a last rough-and-tumble with the Endo boys, the last sight of the stately and unearthly lines of a pagoda high on a hill among the trees. A last view of the Sakura, now shedding their blossoms in a late snow-shower of fragrant pink petals, the last grove of secretive bamboo and tiny delicate maple leaves.









I just pray that this will not be “Sayonara no toki” for me.



Keep yourself well, Japan, as you have kept yourself for nearly two thousands years.



Mata, ne.

Zenbu ga Hakanai Desu

I went back to Uji today. It sounds funny, but I can’t even begin to explain the feeling of homecoming. I only lived there for a month, and yet the whole city has this feeling about it that is so powerfully in tune with my own heart.  Byoudoin especially.  Frankly, I didn’t take any pictures because there is no way for an image--digital or analog--to carry the strength of the kokoro there. It is very old and is one of the few ancient sites that has been spared the ravages of fire over the long years, and so it is still there in its pristine beauty, looking almost exactly as it did in 1049 when Yorimitsu (?) turned it from an inherited manor into a temple. And it wasn’t even new then. It’s modeled to be what the “Pure Land” or the Buhddist heaven is supposed to look like. And really? My vision of heaven isn’t much off. At any rate, trying to describe it here is as useless as it is trying to take a picture. The funny thing is, the feeling I have there is as powerful as the feeling I get at the temples of my own religion, but it’s different. This really is something more of an echo than the strong stuff I feel at someplace like the Salt Lake temple, but there are pure strains of HOME in it that make my heart yearn for something I don’t even know how to define.

We ran into these loud and cute old men at Byoudoin who were speaking gorgeously southern Japanese, known as Kansai-ben or Osaka-ben. In my opinion, such Japanese is much nicer and easier to understand than the standard Tokyo-ben or any of the northern accents or dialects, so I found myself rather indignant in class when I would have points deducted from my score when I would slip into a southern accent. At any rate, one of them spoke English fairly well and was all prepped to tell us ALL about Byoudoin--only to find out we (or at least I--this was Sasaki’s first visit) already knew it! The Japanese people I have met all seem delighted that I not only am familiar with things but can add my own comments to a discussion about something like Heian era architecture or the role of the Shinsengumi in the Bakamatsu. At any rate, he asked us where we were from and the minute I said “Utah” he was like “MORMONS!” and I was like “Yes!” and then he was like “Salt Lake City!” and I was like “Yes!!”
We also saw a group of Chinese monks touring Byoudoin, complete in their amazing dusky orange robes, prayer beads and shaved heads. It was amazing.
It was all very delightful.

Sasaki and I also went to the Tale of Genji museum today. Three rooms and a twenty minute movie using Bunraku puppets. Doesn’t sound like much, but it’s masterfully done and worth every out-of-the-way step it takes to get there and every yen of the entrance fee. I wonder if I can find a recording of “Ukifune” anywhere. I would love to force you all to sit down and watch it with me. My english recording that I had been given to listen to was sort of wonky, so I turned it off and listened to the story in Japanese. Luckily, because I happened to have read most of the Tale of Genji, I didn’t get TOO lost.

The used bookstore (furuhonya) I used to go to all the time in Uji was gone. The building was still there, but it seems to have gone out of business. I was very sad. But all in all only one sour note in a day is a good way to go! (Touch wood.) When I inquired at Kyoto station after a used bookstore, the guy seemed to think I was talking about a bookstore with books about old stuff, not like a used bookstore (furu=old hon=book ya=store) and so was really confused, which is really strange because “Furuhonya” MEANS used bookstore! It’s not something I made up or something weird. It’s something Japanese people say ALL THE TIME!

When they’re looking for used books, that is.

Our bus driver on the way back to the Ryokan was really, really cute. I blushed at him shyly and Sasaki winked.

Too bad we’ll likely never, ever see him again.

The Imperial palace is, sadly, something of a disappointment. It’s a giant shoving loud tour group that’s not allowed to go inside anything or see anything cool, and the palace itself isn’t really that old. It’s been moved and rebuilt, so...NOT the same place where Hikaru Genji would have walked.

Oh well. I suppose it would have been difficult for him to walk anywhere, fictional character that he is.

I wish we had time to go down to Miyajima and see the Besso (manor house, so to speak) of Heikei no Kiyomori, the infamous antagonist of the Heikei Monogatari. He may have been a nasty human being who died of a terrible fever that was brought about by karma for all the baaaaaad things he had done, and a nasty father who drove his son Shigemori (*ahem*hotness*cough*) to die because he was torn between loyalty to his family and loyalty to his friends and leaders of the Minamoto clan, the bunch with which Kiyomori was trying to start a war, BUT (longest sentence EVAR) his house is gorgeous.

BUT we do not have time. So instead I will go to Harajuku in Tokyo one last time and try to persuade myself that I do NOT need a lolita dress, which I will probably buy anyway because all of my good sense seems to have evaporated.

Oh well.

The sad thing is...the Japan I truly love is long gone, lost in the currents of time that draw us inexorably towards a future that is uncertain and more than a little frightening to one such as I. All I can do is grasp at the pieces—pulling them from the earth and preserving them with loving care, drawing from them all that I may of a bright, peaceful age that may never actually have been.

Chajiko wa Shinsengumi no Hito ni Naritai or Something Like That, or Chajiko and the Giant Butt Splorch

I fell down a mountain today. 

No kidding. Not very far down, but down nonetheless.

That’s what I get for climbing a mountain after a 24 hour rain storm in shoes that are nearly bald because I can’t bear to get rid of them. (Hey, when you’ve finally found that perfect pair of tennis shoes it’s HARD to trash them, no matter how worn out they become!)
At any rate, I slipped on the downwards path and ended up butt-down in the mud, completely humiliated. I like to think of myself as sure footed, but...or butt, shall we say?

It WAS a really cool mountain, despite the whole slipping part. A path ran up behind a buhddist temple that is right near our ryokan into the beautiful ancient trees. There is no place like it at home for me. Sasaki said that it reminded her a great deal of the eastern united states, but as I have never had the pleasure to see that part of my own beautiful country, I can make no comparison.

At one point along the path we passed a single stone torii that was standing at the entrance of a fenced in enclosure, only half visible between the trees. The thing was, there was no shrine within the enclosure, and I get the strong feeling that we had run across a very old Shinto burial--my fingers fairly itched to get down there and see, but I managed to control myself. The mud was horrendous already, and there’s few things worse in the world I can think of than corpse mud.

Our path up the mountain was conveniently marked by little cement markers painted yellow and helpfully incised with the kanji “yama,” which simply means “mountian.”
Just in case we didn’t know where we were.
I saw a buhddist begging monk at Kiyomizudera, also known as the pure water temple. It was really amazing--he was dressed as monks have dressed for something around 1200 years, holding a begging bowl as the Buhdda did before him, wearing a kasaboshi (one of those awesome umbrella-straw-hats) pulled low over his face and chanting sutras. I was captivated by it.

It is always a pleasant surprise to me to see and meet people who take their religions seriously. Too many people that I have met are either “sunday christians” or even “Christmas and Easter Christians” or the equivalent in other faiths. They claim a faith as their own and follow the rules on the holy days, but don’t really let it interfere with their daily lives. 

I, as someone to whom religion is as important as eating or drinking, find this very puzzling despite the fact that it is the attitude seemingly adopted by most of the world. Anyway, I’m wandering off my point. It is so very neat to see someone like that--someone to whom also religion is food and drink. It gives me hope in an obscure way, though he and I could share nothing by way of common doctrine.

We met Sasaki-kun’s other host family whilst we were here--yet another st of amazing people. As we sat at their house on sunday evening and played games I was amazed to find that once again—the bonds of familial love transcend the lines of culture and language and take existence into a higher, more joyful plane. The spirit in that home of love and tolerance was so moving and was something of a shot in the arm to someone like me, who gets homesick after three days away from home.

That’s what happens when you have an amazing family with whom you can be the best of friends.

At any rate, the Shibas (name changed for the sake of privacy...) took us all about Kyoto in a rented car and bought us food and Omiyage (souveniers) and spoke to us in easy Japanese and were generally amazingly kind to two people so many miles away from home.
Kyoto is freezing. Seriously, Sasaki-kun s about to die (she’s acclimated to Arizona) and I’m even feeling he cold through my frost-bitten Utah exterior. It seems that Kyoto is experiencing an unseasonably cold week--bad luck for us, we didn’t pack ANY cold weather clothes! In fact, I almost didn’t bring a coat at all! Ah well, I’m sure we’ll survive.

Or not.

No more moving food for us, thank goodness, just some really weird Okonomiyake that was a little heavy on the leeks and unlike any I had eaten before. I have high hopes of finding some NORMAL okonomiyake (something like a Japanese pancake stuffed with meats and vegetables. YUM.) before we leave.

Though I will be very sad to have to once gain leave this country behind me, It’s probably a good thing. Not only am I so exhausted I can hardly move, but I am starting to run out of all the money I’ve saved--which is not something I recommend.

Kyoto is an amazing series of beautiful temples and gardens one right after another, and it is also the home of some of my favorite events in Japanese history. Google “Shinsengumi” and “Bakamatsu” and you’ll see some of what I am talking about. Aside from those recent things, though, Kyoto has been the seat of Imperial power for pretty much the whole time Japan has been a country. 

The nobles of the Heian Jidai (“Peaceful era” roughly 600-1200 AD) wrote positively heart-breaking Tonka and Choka (types of Japanese poetry that were the predecessors of the modern Haiku as we know it) about the capitol city in the spring, and how their hearts yearned to be there (usually these were written by exiled nobles who then either died of wasting fevers or chucked themselves into rivers in the approved Heian fashion).   And frankly...though I didn’t know what they were going on about at the time I read them, sitting in a classroom six thousand miles and 800 years removed as I was, I now think I can begin to understand.

The barrier of the long years is very thin here, and seems as though it might fade away as the kagerou in the light spring rain beneath a rising moon. There is a timelessness in the shape of the sakura, and a whisper in the onion grass that calls a soul beyond the limits of mortal thought into a twilight that has been dead for a thousand years—and yet must and will continue to exist.

It is echoed in the mournful sound of the flute and the austere strains of the koto and the stone lanterns seem to flicker with it as the sun goes down, beckoning...

Naze BANANA?!

((Pictures will be added soon---ALL of mine from here seem to have vanished, which makes me EXTREMELY nervous. I'll put 'em on as soon as I find 'em!))

There’s this absurd little thing called Purikura that Japanese school girls seem to go bonkers over. I’m bonkers for it as well, but that’s beside the point. Anyway, what it is is this crazy photobooth that takes a bunch of pictures all with different backgrounds and fun poses and things, and then sends you around the back to a little touch screen booth where you can decorate your pictures with all sorts of random stuff. Then the pictures print out all on this sheet about the size of a post card, tiny and cute and actually ready to be peeled off of their back because they are STICKERS.

There is nothing about that whole process not to like.

Sasaki and I have done oodles of Purikura. We can’t help ourselves--I think it’s in the female brain chemistry.

We visited a lovely graveyard today. It was attached to Sounzen Temple in Hakone. Bhuddist graveyards are really very interesting, and I have this thing for graveyards. I know that makes me sound psycho and weird, but it’s a reflection of the fact that I am an archaeologist, and EVERYONE knows that the best artefacts are to be found in burials. Everytime we pass a graveyard my fingers start to twitch and my eyes go blank. Sasaki described it as “having a psychotic brain melt-down causing me to revert to my primal digging instincts.”

I think she’s right.

The cherry-blossoms (Sakura) were in full bloom and it was just gorgeous--AND the graveyard had the graves of the Hojo family, the feudal clan that ruled the area during the Sengoku Jidai (also known as the Warring States era--roughly 1350 to about 1600) and that was AMAZING to see. My fingers were twitching like MAD.

We went down into Odawara to the castle there, which had been the seat of power for the Hojos in said Sengoku Jidai. The Sakura were in full bloom and the castle loomed up in stately splendor—a magnificent echo of the Japan that had once been.
It is really an imposing structure and positioned very well for defense. It turned back army after army until the fifth Hojo Daimyo finally surrendered to the forces of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the new military leader who was in the process of uniting the war-torn Japan.

For those of you who have read the book which my mother and I wrote, the castle from which Chajiko escaped by tying all of her lovely kimono together into a rope was written with this one in mind.

At any rate, it was a relief to see it. I know that sounds funny, but I was feeling oddly smothered and homesick by the not-really-traditionalness of the ryokan and the fake “back to nature” of the Hakone tourist spots. To see the castle, reconstructed recently though it may have been, was a sort of balancing experience.

I think I discovered something very interesting about Japanese culture today. I mean, I was aware of it in the past, but only in a limited sense, and today made me realize that it seems to go deeper than I had realized.

In poetry if one wished to lend a sense of verisimilitude and legitimacy to ones poems, one would make an allusion to another work, usually a famous one, written by a great poet sometime in the past. By tying ones own words in with the words of a master by the use of such a reference, ones own poem became that much more “important,” for lack of a better term.

For example, the great poet Basho wrote something along these lines:

year-end reveling
Still in pilgrim’s cloak must I
walk my lonely road.

And I, in my desire to give my meagre efforts a sense of legitimacy, may pen something like this:
the sparrow’s sharp song
startles year’s-end revelers
it is early yet

The reference to the year-end reveling calls to mind the poem by basho, which is something most readers would have known in the time when making haiku was still something that was commonly done as a form of entertainment, as well as for the purposes of art or literary exercise. At any rate, then with the reference to the work of Basho and the images his words conjure up to strengthen my own, the poem gains an entirely new level of meaning.

Am I making any sense?

At any rate, something I noticed in both Sankei-en and Odawara-jyo sort of clicked into place in my mind today. In Sankei-en, a lot of the buildings had been made around a central thing that had come from another important or significant building. A lentil piece, or a central beam, or railing banisters from palaces or temples. In Odawara, there was a metal capping-piece that had both marked and protected a nail that had come from the second house of the imperial family. What it seemed to me to be was something like what was happening in the poetry--using the pieces of something older and established to build something new, as if taking a piece of that reputation and attaching it to the new thing. I don’t know if it’s the same thing at all, but it came up in my mind suddenly as an interesting and rather startling parallel.

Tomorrow we get on the bullet train (shinkansen) and head to Kyoto, which is my FAVOURITE place in Japan. No joke. I adore it.

My Food is Trying to Crawl Off My Plate, or, Chajiko to Ugokeru Wasyoku.

Did I mention that I bought an arrow? Sasaki-kun has declared me unfit for residence in Japan. Something to do with my brain having a meltdown or something and all my sense dribbling out of my ears.

But THIS is a SPECIAL arrow. See the five colours of silk? And the bell? And the paper wrapped around the shaft? This arrow is ready to do some serious demon-cleansing action.

...maybe Sasaki-kun is right.

Anyway, back to the food.

So...Sasaki-kun and I are, frankly, pretty darn experienced. We’ve lived with native families, had to solve complex problems of logistics in Japanese and have managed to make friends all over the country. We were NOT prepared, however, for the food that would be served to us here as part of our traditional and (high class) Japanese dinner. Granted, this is not the sort of food ANY everyday person would eat, indeed I doubt if even a small percentage of people ever really eat this stuff in their whole lives. Suffice it to say, however, that most of it had eyes.






And tentacles.




But the kicker--the kicker was the little roasting/steaming plates next to each of our dishes. The tops kept moving around oddly, and I thought it was the steam doing something strange, as both were lit and burning merrily.

So I lifted the lid and peered in.

Have you ever seen...no, I can’t think of a simile that will do it justice. It was grey/ and bulbous and slimy.

...and it was moving!!!

As I stared at it in horror, frozen, hoping beyond hope that what I was seeing was simply a trick of hot meat (whatever sort it may be) on a cooking plate, but...no. It was still alive, I realized.

“Cover it! Cover it back up!” Sasaki-kun shrieked, snapping me out of my paralysis. So I clapped the cover back down. It continued to move, back and forth...and eventually it stopped.

I don’t think I shall ever recover. The nice lady serving everything took it out of its shell and informed me very politely that it was a delicacy and everyone loved to eat it and said “Eat some and see!” So I had to. It was nasty. It didn’t taste like much but...but...OH THE SLIME!

So I couldn’t finish it. And Sasaki-kun ate a bite too because she felt bad for me.

Anyway, we sort of picked the edible parts out of dinner and ate the strawberries that were provided for dessert (to our intense relief) and ended up full. Then we both availed ourselves of the lovely hot mineral baths (my limit is about five minutes of soaking in hot water before I literally pass out) and are finally starting to feel a little relaxed. We are both travelstained, worn, paniced and BRUISED.

Now we are devouring Sakura manju--little pink buns filled with sweet red bean paste and a mild cherry flavour--and writing in our blog and journal respectively.

One last thing that I forgot to mention, and didn’t fit anywhere in the narrative above--never, ever try to take massive luggage on the bus up to Hakone. I ended up crammed into a seat with my knees tucked up to my ears, hanging on for dear life to two gigantic suitcases (one mine, one Sasaki’s) so that they didn’t go bouncing about the bus and killing people) with another bag under my feet and another about my neck which was slowly dragging me down, and seemed determined to make a pretzel out of me. All this with a demon-slaying arrow poking jauntily out of my pack.

My only solace is the fact that I am sure the rest of the bus was in near hysterics over the antics of the crazy gaijin. Even the other gaijin. Ah well, at least I gave someone a laugh, and at least they’re happier for it!

Sugo~ku Hen na Gaijin!

I am sitting in a Ryokan at the moment--of course, by the time any of you read this the moment will be long past, considering that there is no internet out here. And truthfully--I am grateful for that fact. Too much of my life is based around connectivity and the ability to talk to people and find out what I feel I need to know INSTANTLY. Here--surrounded by the sound of feathers and the quiet simplicity of Japanese lines, I suddenly realize how tired I am, and how little I actually hold still. I mean, I hold still quite a lot physically, but my mind is rarely quiet.

I perceive that I am wandering from the point of my narrative, however.

For those of you who are SO very uncultured as to be unaware of what Ryokan is, I will enlighten you. A Ryokan is a traditional Japanese inn. I mean, really traditional. They took our shoes away from us at the door and I have severe doubts about our ability to ever get them back. The attendants had sort of an air of finality as they directed us to the slippers--which were pink lined for the girls and set out specifically for “Sasaki-Sama” and her guest.
We were led to our room and shown the public baths--which Sasaki intends to force me into and which I intend to avoid at all costs, and then we sadly had to turn down a brief tea ceremony because we cannot drink green tea.



These rooms have tatami mats. And we’re sleeping on futon. And I’m wearing a kimono and tabi socks. Life doesn’t get any better. Well--I COULD be sitting here with an amazingly hot samurai and he could ALSO be in a kimono and some nice hakama, but...one can only ask SO much out of life. This ryokan, though, is posh. I mean, we’re scruffy little ragamuffins as far as finances are concerned compared to the normal clientele. However, none of the rich gaijin (foreigners) who stay here bother to get themselves up in kimono, I am sure.

Sasaki is gorgeous in an embroidered cream coloured formal kimono, green obi and under-kimono, and I am rather stately in a light green butterfly-pattern kimono (not formal--more like everyday use) and orange obi. No underkimono for me, sadly. They ran out of colours. She looks like a princess. I feel like a samurai-ko that mistakenly wandered into the wrong house after being knocked over the head in battle.



Of course, that brings me to the last couple of days which I have not blogged because A)time got away from me and B)Blogger has refused to upload my pictures. This blog is NOTHING without my pictures! Anyway.

Have you ever been hit on by a twenty-something (or was he thirty-something?) Japanese man in gym shorts who thought the thumbs up was the ultimate in pick-up moves?

...don’t, if you can help it.

We bought the kimono we are wearing at a used kimono shop in Futamatagawa in Yokohama, which is just one stop away from where I used to live back when I was here for the homestay. We met my host mom again and went shopping--and Sasaki-kun became a life-sized doll. Dressed up, taken apart, turned about, clucked over, dressed again. At first she wasn’t so hot about all the colours of all the things that had been chosen for her, but in the end we prevailed and she left with the most stunning kimono and obi and things for about a hundred and sixty dollars. A STEAL. I tried one on too, as it is time for me to own a real silk one, and got out with paying only 120.00 dollars. These would have cost us easily into the 600-700 range new, without all the other stuff. Mine is quite old, and I’m sure my mother will want to hack it into pieces for the silk when I get home.

Iyada, mama-chan!

We did a great deal of shopping in Yokohama, as there’s not much else to see there that is of any notable age.

Sasaki and I wandered into Harajuku, the infamous shopping district of Tokyo. It was AWESOME. We found this Gothic/Sweet/Light Lolita store and the two of us almost lost our minds. Luckily they didn’t have a way for people to try stuff on, or else we would have walked out of there with clothing straight out of something like Tokyo Babylon. At any rate, it was SO crowded we could hardly move.
And if we hadn’t been trying to get to an insane used manga store (that didn’t turn out to be THAT great *grumble grumble*) we would have stuck around and (I’m sure) bought all SORTS of silly stuff.



I am so bad. If something’s newer than abut 250 years ago, I usually lose interest (unless it’s something built for shopping). Also if it’s too old. Stone age is not what I’m wanting here, nor are dinosaurs. There’s just that nice middle that I like to study.

At any rate, as of this morning we’ve been to the Embassy three times (curse them and their inefficiency) and will have to return at least once more before things are straightened out. Prayers would be MOST welcome that Sasaki-kun can find her passport and things before next thursday?

Meiji Jingu, Sankei-en. The Meiji shrine was built by (guess what) Emperor Meiji sometime in the last 150 years. Sankei-en was built in the early twentieth century and is a ramshackle mix of new buildings in the old style, new buildings built out of or around old parts, or old buildings that were actually transplanted there. Very odd and very beautiful.






SAKURA.

Something which I have noticed coming back here that is really distressing to me is the amount of built-upness just EVERYWHERE in the Tokyo vicinity. In Sankein we climbed up next to the pagoda to the viewing platform and looked out--to an industrial nightmare. The bay, once wild and pristine, is lined with plants and factories all churning filth into the water and the air. Sasaki and I turned away, each saying that literally we were sick at heart over it.

Next, coming to Hakone, we had been promised an escape to nature and a giant change from the overcrowded subways of Tokyo etc etc...and what we got was a tourist hotspot, still with buildings all over the place. Instead of the beautiful remnants of the old Tokaido road, there are modern hotels and trains and busses and souvenier shops. Granted, the shops sell the local handicrafts (gorgeous wood inlays) but STILL. So, anyone who has ever seen a Miyazaki movie and picked up on the environmentalist overtones, this is what he is talking about. I have seen it, and it really is sickening. I can’t wait to get down to Kyoto where they have laws about how and where you can build something.

My heart yearns for the Japan that is long past--and the shreds of it can’t be found here, in the seat of modern progress.

I Don't Think I Can Be as Funny as I Was Yesterday

I was in top form.

This is sort of a placeholder entry, as blogger is refusing to upload my piiiiictures.  At least I got one.  Sasaki writing to her mama.

More coming soon--it's thundering and pouring buckets of rain outside.

<3

~Chahan

NIHON NI IRU NA~

So...I'm in Japan.

Really.

JAPAN.

I had forgotten how much I LOVE this place.

For those of you who live with me--I know that sounds absurd to say, but it is nonethless the truth.

Things have been a little hectic and strange since the airport shuttle picked me up at my front door at 4:30 in the morning on friday. S (who will hereafter be referred to as Sasaki) and I somehow managed to be bumped out of our sets next to each other and we suffered through the whole flight alone. We GOT there OK, though, and everything went smoothly until Sasaki somehow managed to leave one of her small carrybags on the train--and of course it wasn't her camera or anything like that. It was (why would it be anything else, I ask you?) her passport, railpass AND social security card. Disaster. Calamity. Taihen. Calamari.

Katamari?

Perhaps a bisaster sapoot system is in order. Or out of order. No one can tell.

At any rate, after trying to deal with all of that (THANK

HEAVENS we both speak Japanese!) We made it to our (tiny) hotel room! Seriously, we're staying at a posh place and I think we're sleeping in the broom closet. Have I mentioned that I love Japan? All that matters, though, is that the beds are sugo~~~~~ku comfortable and there's a western style toilet and something that resembles a shower--kind of.

I can't get far enough away to display how

small this place seriously is. TINY.

Sasaki-Kun modeling the loo facilities.

At any rate--we spent sunday at church and in the company of Sasaki's host family from four years ago. WONDERFUL people. Just so warm and kind and willing to help and genuinely friendly. Their two boys are a complete delight. One is seven and the other is five and the two made me laugh harder than any comedy team I have ever seen. Our new names are a gift from the youngest--that is why "S" is now Sasaki-kun and I have gone from Chazi to Chahan-kun.

Why? NO one knows.

Electric green soda for breakfast.
Why not? And I can't get this photo to

not be sideways. LAME, I SAY!

Today we went to the Embassy to get Sasaki's passport replaced. She had called them several times to be sure of the location and procedure so we thought we were ready to go! After being practically strip-searched by the very polite and very firm Japanese guards outside the Embassy (seriously, we ran into one a block away who stopped us and asked our business. We were like "WOW.") we got inside and I sat at a table and tried to play Sudoku whilst Sasaki filled out form after form. Then she was called up...and came back five minutes later, passportless. Turns out she can't get one until wednesday, and needs to make a police report first and stand on her head, and recite the Pledge of Allegiance in pig-latin whilst eating peeps. Of course, Sasaki CAN'T eat peeps, so this was an impossibility.

No, it was just a giant hassle and we wondered as we splashed back through the pouring rain WHY they couldn't have told Sasaki this ON THE PHONE during one of the THREE TIMES she CALLED THEM. So we wasted a whole morning going into Tokyo. But, that's life.

After we went back to Yokohama and made the police report and found some food and did Purikura, which is this amazing little photo-booth-on-steroids-and-a-sugar-high, the shopping demon that lives inside me reared its ugly head and I dragged Sasaki through the anime store and then the book shop.

NO I will not tell you how much money I spent! HOW RUDE.

Anyway, we're back at the hotel now waiting to meet MY host family for dinner, and I am SO excited to see them! I love them dearly!

EDIT:
We just got back from eating dinner with my host family. I love those guys--they are just amazing and sweet and funny. I pulled several "Chazis" as they are called in that family--I had forgotten I had an international reputation! People in America say "You just did a Chazi!" and my host family said this, after they were done laughing their heads off after I had managed to drop a piece of meat down underneath the yakiniku grill (which they'd never seen anyone manage to do before) "Chazi da kara!" Meaning, "because she's Chazi!" I recall now that they always used to say that when I lived with them for one silly thing or another I managed to get into, and it cracked me up that it came up again like that, right away!







Sasaki-kun has been labeled Chazi #2. :3 She deserves it. And now--bed. Thank heavens, the jetlag is murder!

<3>

Boot to the--er, Head.

"Hooch," my mother accused.

"I am NOT," I countered. "KIM!" Shouting to my boss. "My mother just called me a hooch!"

Laughter. No support there.

"Well," Indignance dripping from the phoneline. "if I'm a hooch, then that makes YOU a Hoochy-mama."

Astonished silence. More laughter from the boss.

"I am NOT. How could you say such a thing?!"

"Think about it." Smugness may not get me much, but it is at least satisfying. "If I'm a hooch, then you MUST be a hoochy-mama."

Finally, intelligent words among the laughter from my boss's office.

"It makes good sense!"

There really is nothing like starting off your day by stepping out the door right into a pile of half-frozen dog leavings, which one of your beloved animals has kindly left for you on the front porch. There are worse ways to start off one's day, but I can think of few that are so stupid.

I didn't realize my mistake until I was halfway to work--and it wouldn't even have been then if not for the rich aroma that permeated the air inside my car as the heater kicked in.

Luckily there is still a lot of snow on the ground near my office. However, snow is only useful for removing disgusting things from the bottom of your shoes if you actually sink into it. I scuffed and shuffled in the parking lot for a while, then tried to step into the snow proper for a real cleaning. The first step took me knee deep. The rest, though, had me mincing along an top of the snow like some kind of moronic fairy-princess, looking in dismay at all the other footprints, which actually managed to find the ground. I got hold of a stick, eventually, and tried to pry some of the deeper stuff out of the treads. No luck. More scuffling. Snow mixed with crap was flying everywhere.

I ended up standing in front of the sink in the bathroom armed with papertowels, soap, hot water and my fingernails--and spent another ten minutes trying to get the stuff out. I was a half hour late to work (to be fair, I was a little late to begin with), but now my boots are very, VERY clean.

Close scrutiny of my boots reminded me, though, that they are ancient and falling apart. So I went to the mall on my break, thinking that a nice pair of office boots would not be hard to find.

Apparently, my shoe requirements are unreasonable.

Low heels are unheard of, unless I would like a pair of (undeniably cool) lace-up goth-ish boots from Hot Topic, or an insanely expensive pair of pretty-girl motor-cycle boots that aren't designed to actually be WORN (heaven forbid).

Rounded toes are a faux-pas this year as well, but apperantly zippered stretch snake-skin stilletto boots are totally acceptable, and reasonably priced to boot! (Ha)!

I think I shall start wearing my five-inch thigh boots around town. If that doesn't convince shoe-sellers to start selling boots worth buying, I'm sure nothing will.