It snowed!
We woke up this morning to huge sloppy flakes coming down on Nishinomiya. Gorgeous! The snow was a surprise as we've been told again and again that it usually doesn't snow here. The snow fall was very pretty, but very wet and old. Kiomye and I went out to get her some gloves and the snow turned to snrain on our heads. She still loved it. I let her stay out and stomp around until her face turned red and it looked like her nose would fall off, but she still fought me body and soul to stay out longer.
sometimes you just gotta
Walking home from the video store, Kiomye kept jumping in puddles from this monring's rainstorm. I admonished her again and again until she was walking net to me in a huffy silence. We came up on a huge puddle and Kiomye just couldn't resist. She ran and jumped right in the middle, stomp stomp stomp!
"Kiomye"
"But, mo-oom, it was a really good puddle."
How could I argue with that?
This night before Christmas, Kiomye lays claim to all animal bearing presents.
Santa came!
Kiomye playing with her super cool new tree house dollhouse.
Kio opening her stocking.
Christmas carnage!
This is an overview of the cafe Matt made for me to go with all the cool mini-retro cafe toys I found. I was very impressed.
Here's a good shot of the cafe.
This is the entrance view to the cafe.
A new tradition
It was the emperor’s birthday today, so we celebrated as half the population of Japan did - we went shopping at Costco. We weren't actually aware of the fact that it was the emperor's birthday until we were on the way and Dan mentioned it. Ugh! Matt and I had been saving our trip for a weekday when the hoards would be a bit thinner. No such luck. We shopped for beef and giant cases of laundry detergent amidst a mad mad crowd. Ah, but to finish and sit at the plastic tables and eat an American hot dog makes the battle all the more worthwhile.
Matt and I are still in shock that Christmas Eve is tomorrow. In America, the biggest news in the week leading up to Christmas is that Christmas is less than a week away. Four more shopping days until Christmas, three more shopping days until Christmas, and so on. Here, the only sign is the Christmas Cakes for sale at the convenience stores and the random decorations. At the 100 Yen store (dollar store), they’ve already put the Christmas stuff away. After I gobble up some of the enchiladas we bought at Costco (with real cheddar – glorious!), I’m out on a late night shopping mission to get everything else we need. Matt and I don’t even have our stockings yet.
Kiomye and I did get a Christmas tree yesterday. Actually, it's more of a Christmas bush, but we put some lights and ordaments on it and it looks rather lovely. Kiomye and I were very pleased with the results.
Forget The Year (and everything that happens tonight)
I can’t get away with not mentioning my school’s bonenkai (forget the year party) on my blog, but I’ve been avoiding writing about it as the evening was rather surreal and hard to put together in a logical way in my mind. The school rented out a fancy Chinese restaurant and after the last official day of the term, all the teachers and staff met there in the evening. We were served huge amounts of excellent food and all the beer we could drink. There was also some kind of sweet Chinese liquor, but I still don’t know what it was called. We sat at round tables and chatted and ate happily for about 45 minutes.
Then, the atmosphere in the room changed suddenly. Everyone was drunk.
I didn’t understand how everyone could get drunk so quickly. I’d been drinking too, not fast or anything, but a beer or two. It’s hard to keep track of how much you drink because someone is always refilling your glass as soon as you’re just a couple inches from the rim. I was not drunk. I wasn’t even tipsy, but just about everyone else in the room seemed to be. The noise level tripled and various teachers and staff started wobbling their way around the tables pouring drinks for other people and making statements.
I imagine that as this was a “forget-the-year” party, for many, the goal is to get completely drunk. I had been told about bonenkai’s before I went to this one, and had read about the drinking and behavior I could expect, but it was still very strange for me to see these normally very serious and professional people totally lose it in front of their peers and superiors.
The lasted over three hours. MORE THAN THREE HOURS. There was a microphone and my boss was the MC. Some teachers gave speeches and others did comedy sketches that mainly consisted of cruelly mocking the receding hairlines of their peers. I sat in the corner with wide, bemused eyes and took in all that I could.
After the dinner, a bunch of us walked across the train tracks for some karaoke. This was even more surreal. Dan came along, as well as two other women staff. The rest of the group was made up of four middle-aged men, one of them my now obscenely drunk boss. They belted out emotional ballads and wiggled their hips to the rumba steps. My boss irritated me thoroughly with his drunken lurching that often ended with him draped over one of the women. I kept shoving things at him, like the song book, the microphone, to push him back a couple precious inches and make sure his hands were occupied. Beside that, the karaoke was very fun. My extreme shyness about singing in front of others has almost completely disappeared.
After karaoke, Dan and I were put in charge of getting Okamoto to a safe place. He ranted about being able to take care of himself as he stumbled along behind us. Dan spotted a taxi and we rode with him halfway home. Dan ran into him yesterday and asked what he thought of the party. My boss said that he can’t remember anything past the dinner. Rather convenient, I think.
That kooky Bush
Bush administration finalizes rules for national forest management
Managers of the nation's 155 national forests will have more discretion to approve logging and other commercial projects without lengthy environmental reviews under a new Bush administration initiative.
(because lengthy reports are just soooo boring)
The final plan gives regional forest managers more discretion to approve logging, drilling and mining operations without having to conduct formal scientific investigations known as environmental impact statements.
(because things like logging, drilling and mining are not known to have much impact on the environment)
I haven't posted anything visual for a while, so here's a random picture. Actually, it's not so random. This is "Flaming June" by Fredric Lord Leighton. The real canvas is taller than me and brighter and richer than the evening sun. A print of this has hung over each of my beds since New Orleans, but I couldn't bring my art with me to Japan. A shame. I miss my dear June.
A (borrowed) room of my own
I was terrified of the black door, terrified by the complete lack of clues that the plain wall and windowless front offered about the café-bar inside. A tiny sign on the door read:
D2-
Coffee Jazz
Coffee and jazz! I walked past three times. Would I be welcome? Was it too expensive? Would there be a place for a solitary woman to sit and write? Maybe later I’d check it out – I’m desperate for a scene, a nook, a late night place to sneak away to and scribble.
Later. Desperation drowns terror. Matt has granted me a couple hours of writing. “Get out of the house!” he said. I open the black door and step inside. A rush of warmth and the sound of piano jazz. The café is miniscule. I’ve had closets bigger than this place. There are only two intimate tables, plus three stools lined up at the short bar. A piano takes up half the room, lid closed. Stereo only tonight. A man approaching middle-age, with a hip, frizzed fro, smiles at me from behind the bar.
“Kohi, o’ kudasai.”
Coffee please.
I sit at the large table – chairs for three people. I'll move if more customers come. The bartender makes the coffee with a French press. He takes his time. The coffee is served to me with a tiny carafe of cream and a cube of cookie on a plate which look like they belong in a doll house. The coffee is dark. Excenllent. It’s so hard to find strong coffee in this country.
I scribble away and the bartender flips through the records on the shelf to find the next selection. Records! The static of the needle fills the room – then a woman’s voice swelling and soaring – “Don’t go changing for me.” Possibly Ella. Sweet tunes; no political bent, no anguished crooning. So it can’t be Carmen or Billie. Lovely though.
I think I’ve found my place. This beats the previous shop as it’s just a short walk over the train tracks from my place. They also serve wine and bread. Good vibes. Good tunes. “I love you just the way you are.” I was wrong about Ella – it’s Rosemary Clooney. Maybe that’s why I don’t hear the black woman’s angst in her songs of love and blue eyes. I wonder if the bartender would take requests. I’d truly be in love with this place if he’s got an old record of Miles Davis’s
Kind of Blue.
I should get back to my fictions. I’m having a hard time transitioning to lies. This place is so small. I worry that my written words are the most visible objects here. Please don’t read as I write.
I know I’ve been writing a lot about coffee shops lately, but I consider them a crucial element of my sanity. I have no room of my own, so now I must occasionally borrow corners of public cafes where my dear daughter cannot follow. When we first arrived in Japan, the only places resembling my beloved cafes in Washington were the Starbucks, and even those were crammed full of people and took a pronounced cafeteria/fast food vibe. Not conducive to creative flow. It’s taken me four months of vigilance to find the precious two coffee shops that I’ve written about and now claim as mine. Once these sanctuaries are established, I will be able to move on in my mind to write of things more interesting and pleasing to my imagined readers.
My imagined readers, how I love you so.
My big date
Abby (wonderful, fabulous, saintly Abby) watched Kiomye last night so that Matt and I could go out on a date. Glorious! Our second night out alone since we’ve moved to Japan. We fancied ourselves up and headed out to Kobe. Matt was so fiendishly handsome in his swank black suit that I had to wear my leather jacket and boots so that he wouldn’t outshine me by too much. We played around in Kobe for a bit, wandering around and pretending to be tourists. We didn’t get to stay long as the last trains run around midnight and we didn’t get out there until ten, but it was still a good time. We had a drink together at a hip little place near our house. It was wonderful to sit across from him and have the discussions that are so difficult in our day-to-day. We both have friends. We get out, but rarely with each other. One of my favorite things to do is sit across a table from a dear friend and talk for hours. That someone rarely gets to be my husband. I am so grateful when it is.
A rainy evening in Kobe.
I shimmy down an alley slick with rain and lit with bright red paper lanterns. Large drops of water slide off eves and smack against my forehead, but it would be of no use to open my umbrella here. There is no clearance. I’m tired. I’m cold. I’m looking for a place to rest my weary feet after a long afternoon of Christmas shopping.
I can’t read the kanji on the signs or menus posted outside the little restaurants. Every other shop has a plastic model of their specials displayed in the dimly lit windows. Sushi, sushi, noodles, sushi, java. Java! I push open the door and step inside.
Dark wood furniture, small low tables, and….. is it? Yes! Bing Crosby’s Christmas album sounds from the speakers. Comfort oozes from the exposed brick walls. There are only a few customers – including a solitary Japanese woman sitting in the back, bent over a thick book. She is the first single woman I’ve seen in a café since I moved here. Something leaps in my heart. I claim this place for mine.
I take a table by the wall and peel off all my extra layers f warmth. A middle-aged woman wearing a black dress and a loose ponytail appears at my side. I blink at her. I she going to give me a menu? She blinks back at me. Guess not. No problem.
“Kohi, o kudasai.” I say.
She nods and walks away. The Hankyu line runs overhead. The passing trains rumble like thunder. I can’t decide which is a more romantic cacophony – thunder or rolling trains.
The woman serves me coffee in bone china, accompanied by my very own sugar bowl and tiny silver carafe of cream.
“Thank You.”
“Arigato Gozimasu.”
The coffee is excellent, but the creamer is greasy and strange – like all the creamer I’ve tasted in Japan.
I take out my notebook and my black pen and scrawl cramped words across these narrow pages. Bing sings out, “Let it snow!” and the vibrations from the trains move from the floor to my feet to my legs and cause ripples in my coffee.
I look up from my writing and witness the woman who has served me coffee drizzling chocolate sauce over a plate of pie and fruit for another customer. It looks incredible. Suddenly, I desire it more than anything else in the world. The incredible sweets and deserts in Japan caught me unaware. I had no idea that the country known for raw fish and rice also excelled in cakes, breads and cookies. There were so many new treats to try when I first arrived. I got a little carried away. I’m trying to make up for it now, hoping my slow neighborhood jogs outpace my ever hungry spoon. It’s a close race. I decide to resist the temptation before me.
Five elderly Japanese men wearing exceptionally fine suits enter the café and sit two tables away from me. The waitress brightly and moves to their table.
“Kohi.” “Kohi.” “Kohi.” “Kohi.” “Kohi.”
The waitress smiles and bows low, then strides away. The men are speaking loud, but their voices do not bother me. They are enthusiastic and jovial. Their coffees arrive in moments. Much quicker than my single cup. The man nearest me unfolds a newspaper and settles back into his chair. I eye his paper. I long for an ocean of words in my own language, the names of cities I can pronounce printed in black and white. Bing is lovely, but his voice only dulls my ache for familiar letters.
There is a table at the front of the café where the waitress sits when she is not serving customers. Two other people sit at the table. One is an elderly man wearing a thick black cap. His chin rests on his chest, his eyes shut tight. The other man is younger, wearing a dress shirt with the sleeves pushed up. He is bent over papers, a pencil in his hand. I imagine this café is a family affair.
I finish my coffee, close my notebook and pay the waitress on my way out. It’s still raining. There are many months of winter ahead of me. I’ll be back to this sanctuary again.
Traipsing through Kyoto
I spent yesterday wandering through Kyoto with
Abby. We strolled through the food market, trying to identify the various squids and fish parts displayed. Then we took a cab up to Kiyomizu Dera Temple. Kiyomizu is gorgeous. The temple buildings are set against a hillside covered in maple trees with flaming red leaves. Abby showed me the love stones, where I made my love wish, and then walked with eyes closed from one to the other. At the Otowa-no-taki (sound of feathers) waterfall, we took the metal cups affixed to long poles to reach out and catch a splash of water from one of the three falling streams. A sip from one ensures love, another health, another prosperity. It’s a mystery which is which. If you want to drink from all three, you must cycle through three times amongst throngs of school girls. By rare luck, we caught glimpse of four geisha’s traipsing through the temple to get their pictures taken under the bright autumn leaves. There are only 1000 or so authentic geisha left in Japan. Abby says they’re having a hard time recruiting; it’s a difficult and disciplined life. They rarely go out in public, especially completely made-up as these were. To see them was a rare thrill.
Outside Kiyomizu temple is a long sloping street filled with shops bursting with trinkets and mementoes. The guide books call it teapot lane. Abby and I bought various things to send back to the states – postcards, fans, dolls, pipes, lucky gold droppings of poop.
We wore down the soles of shoes seeking out the next temple I wanted to visit – Sanju-Sangen-Do. This temple features 1001 life-size, gold-plated guardian Kannon (deity) statues flanking a much bigger than life-size Buddha statue. In front of all this, run 28 guardian deities that are frankly, very cool. There’s the Thunder God and the Wind God, there are gods of mercy, love and wealth and so on. They are very expressive and have crystals set into their eyes so that if their fierce some expressions don’t creep you out, their glittery eyes certainly will.
After all this cultural bettering of ourselves, Abby and I headed to the entertainment district to dine on all you can eat pizza, then rest our feet at an English pub. It was happy hour, so we decided to try out some of their half-priced cocktails. We couldn’t resist ordering their strongest drink, which turned out to be absinthe. Modern absinthe is really quite yummy – it tastes like black licorice and reminds me of the first time I tried it when Matt and I were living in the French Quarter in New Orleans. After plying ourselves with food and drink, we caught an English language showing of The Impossible’s at a new movie theatre. This was the first movie I’ve seen in a theatre since we’ve moved to Japan. I love watching movies. It felt so good to sit in the giant chair as the lights dimmed and the sound swelled from all around. I miss movies.
After the movie, Abby and I were pretty exhausted, so we caught the train home, stopping at a Lawson for bottled water to refresh our weary bodies. Great day. Highly satisfying.
One term down!
It’s been a week since I’ve last posted. A week! How fast it went…
Friday was my last day of teaching classes. No more until January. Yea! I have to give the final test on Monday, but I simply show up for that. Of course, the holiday vacation doesn’t actually start for two more weeks. What happens at school for two weeks without classes I have no idea. All I know is that I don’t have to prepare anything and we get to leave early almost every day. Those light weeks are followed by almost three weeks of vacation. Yea! Yea! Yea!
We finally found a good daycare for Kiomye that doesn’t cost a bazillion dollars. Well, actually it does, but it’s an “international” pre-school and they are in desperate need of an “international” kid, so they gave Kiomye a very generous scholarship. It is such a big relief to know we’ve found somewhere good to send her. She and Matt visited last week and she loved it so much that she cried when they left. That’s much better than crying when she gets there. We’re planning on sending her four days a week, even on Thursday, the weekday I get off. This means that Matt and I will finally have a block of time each week to spend together. This is hugely wonderful. We’ve had one evening alone since we moved to Japan and that was because it was our anniversary. We desperately need more time together.
It’s early on Sunday morning as I type this. Kiomye is still sleeping. Matt just left. He got a weekend gig hosting English seminars at the university. Huge storm clouds are gathering outside my window, but the wind is still. I’m going to try to make this a “No TV” day for Kio and I, but we’ll see how long we hold out if we’re cooped up inside all day. I think we’ll try to make our cardboard Christmas tree this afternoon…
